The Daily Heretic

What's wrong with Alexander Cockburn

2007-03-29T11:32:00.000-07:00

Damn him. Counterpunch publishes a lot of good stuff, but Cockburn earns his pay as a left-gatekeeper by strictly blocking any questioning of the absurd official 911 story.

Case in point is an excellent review by Paul Craig Roberts of David Ray Griffin's new 911 book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking. Cockburn usually publishes every essay Roberts writes, one a week, but not this one. Roberts needed Information Clearing House to do it.

One highlight from the review regarding the Popular Mechanics hatchet job:

Perhaps it is merely a coincidence that just prior to 9/11 Cathleen P. Black, who has family connections to the CIA and Pentagon and is president of Hearst Magazines, the owner of Popular Mechanics, fired the magazine’s editor-in-chief and several senior veteran staff members and installed James B. Meigs and Benjamin Chertoff, a cousin of Bush administration factotum Michael Chertoff. It was Meigs and Benjamin Chertoff who produced the Popular Mechanics report that Griffin has eviscerated.

What a day!

2007-02-27T13:57:00.000-08:00

Wow, first there is a CIA/Taliban assassination attempt on Cheney (Don't think the CIA or Pentagon weren't helping them out on this one! Think of that strange incident with Cheney's plane in Asia last week), then a global stock market crash, then the Bush administration invited
Iran and Syria to negotiations over Iraq.

What's next?

Laura Knight-Jadczyk Interview on BBC

2007-02-17T06:02:00.000-08:00

Excellent interview with Laura Knight-Jadczyk on BBC Wales last week:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/radiowales/Click on "listen again" on the right hand side, then in the new window that pops up under "A-Z OF ALL SHOWS" click the "MON" edition of the "Adam and Mal" show, the interview is about five minutes in (after Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky". The link should be good until next Monday.

Transcript here on her blog.

Here is an excerpt where Laura discusses the core thesis of her book, The Secret History of the World:

LKJ: Well, the fundamental thesis of the book is that our reality is projected from, or embedded in, a higher or hyper-dimensional reality, and that what we perceive with our senses, you know, the, - the three dimensions of space and the four dimensions of space and time - are not all there is. And that, you know, even when we try to measure things that come from these other realities with our limited three-dimensional instrumentation, they fall short; you know, you can’t even go there. So, that’s the fundamental thesis, so taking history, taking the data that we have about human history, some of which is extremely mysterious; some of which is baffling, some of it’s very shocking; putting it together, you begin to see a pattern, a flow, of something that enters and exits our reality in a way that, uhm; if you’re familiar with the story ‘Flatland’ where, where the plane being, where the fingertips are put on the plane and what you see on the plane are round circles. And, if the hand were to be put through a membrane, you would just see, you know, circles going through, until the hand actually coalesced into a larger object, but to the beings of the membrane, it would never be anything other a circle that appeared and disappeared in time.
So, our reality is something like that and that there are denizens of this other reality that are perceivable to some people through history, and, they’ve - down through history - they’ve referred to them as gods or goddesses, or, uhm, you know, forces, beings, whatever; and they ascribe to them powers, appearances, you know, based upon how they read them. I don’t think they necessarily are amorphous either, and that’s, that’s where the new age community has completely gone astray, by thinking that anything outside this reality must be amorphous, must be a spirit. It doesn’t have to be a spirit at all. Just a slight shift in the dimensional reality and you have a completely other reality that is as physical as our own.
...AW: And, obviously, people have vested interests in preserving their own version of the facts, which is incredible. Now you mentioned multiple realities, why is it important for us as humans to try to question or determine a reality that is beyond our own? In other words, we can’t actually change the other reality, or change our own reality, is there any point in you making the voyage you have, as it were?
LKJ: Well, there is nothing that says that we can’t change it if we know about it and understand it. What you don’t know can definitely hurt you, especially in this respect. Uh, one of the things that really got me going many years ago was that I would, you know, I would read these so called conspiracy theories, and I would follow each theory as far as I could follow it - you know following a paper trail - and I always came up against a dead end. I mean, it was like, you would take it as far as you could go and then it was a dead end. It was like, ok, beyond this, there is a mystery. And, yet at the same time, you could look at the vast pattern of history and you could see that, you know, that there was a strong indication that something was maneuvering things toward a particularly directed end. And yet there was no possibility in my mind, after following all these many trails, that this could be a human conspiracy, because human beings simply, simply can’t conspire over thousands of years; they can’t keep something going that long. They, they work on immediate, uh, immediate reward, they want, you know, cause and effect, if I am going to do something, I want my reward in this lifetime.
And, uhm, so, there is no possibility that any of these conspiracies could be human originated and that was, uh, that was where I was for a long time. And then I began to think about manipulations from other realities. And then, of course, it was when I got into my channeling experiment, because I was very frustrated at that point, because I could go no further. I mean, I had, I had, I had pretty much exhausted everything; I had exhausted the normal avenues of, of information and I had exhausted the so-called paranormal avenues of information and I kept coming up against that funny thing that Charles Fort said, you know, he says, “I think we’re property”. And it struck me, uh, that is exactly how it appears, when you look at this vast sweep of history, it’s as though we’re one big experiment.
AW: Well, and, and who is, you know, perpetrating the experiment?
LKJ: Who perpetrates it? Well, I would suggest that it is denizens of this other reality that are referred to by the ancients as gods, and nowadays, of course they, they may refer to them as aliens. I don’t think they’re aliens. I don’t think they come from other planets. I think they are hyperdimensional beings and I think that they’ve been here for many thousands of years, if not for all of human history. There are records of lights in the sky and strange beings that are similar to, you know, what are called aliens down through history. Jacques Vallee referred to it as a control system. Control system, hyperdimensional reality; it’s pretty much the same thing.
AW: Hmm, I’m just wondering why, you know, why they would appear to be so fascinated with us, especially over such a long protracted amount of time. Clearly, I don’t know what their intentions are, so it’s difficult to try to gauge that, or even if they do have intentions like human beings have intentions. But what do you hypothesize is the reason that people might want to manipulate us in this way, or, I’m sorry, beings, might want to manipulate us in this way?
LKJ: Well, the evidence strongly indicates that we are food for them.
(long silent pause)
AW: Uhm, what evidence suggests that?
LKJ: Well, the evidence of, say for example, wars, and plagues and famines, and, uh, the… and I’m not saying that we are physical food necessarily, I’m saying that, you know, energy, energetic food, emotional; that pain and suffering is something they uh, they feed on, that gives energy to them. Just as the movie ‘The Matrix’, you know, said that people were in pods and their emotional energy produced energy for the system, for the machine, that they were batteries, it’s very similar, that we are, in essence, a, uh, a power supply.
AW: Well, if we, the, the, the human way of maybe responding to something like that, to maybe analyze it scientifically, typically, is to try to look for, perhaps, an example within our universe. So to look at maybe, you know, a microcosm within, I don’t know, the flora or the fauna that we research and I, I can’t think of anything, you know, and I’m sure you’ll correct me. Or at least an example within our universe of an ecosystem that behaves in that way, where you put things kind of under stress rather than just eating them or devouring them, it seems a…
LKJ: Think of the cat and the mouse. What does the cat do with the mouse?
AW: He plays with the mouse.
LKJ: I mean, is it necessary for the cat to play with the mouse before it eats it?
AW: No, it’s not (laughs) that was a very, yeah, that’s a very obvious example isn’t it? A very good example. So, is the point then that they need to kind of maintain us, and keep us here, keep us going as a food source in the same way we try to sustain our own food sources?
LKJ: More or less, and I think that in many respects, they cut us some slack, you know, they make sure we know enough to create a civilization, to feed that civilization, to build that civilization up, to increase the numbers of people in that civilization; and then, to put people into conflict with one another so that they fight and kill one another so that there is massive pain and suffering.

Still More Reasons not to Join the Military

2007-02-07T11:08:00.000-08:00

This is from a Vietnam vet, Tony Swindell:

[T]he march to a nuclear war against Iran has begun, and YOU will the ones carrying it out. There is no way to effectively "confront" Iran except with tactical nuclear weapons. Tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children will die outright or suffer lingering deaths from horrible radiation sicknesses. It will be murder, pure and simple. Look at the suffering around you and multiply it by hundreds.
No doubt you know that back home, 80 per cent of the American people voted in the last election to end the Iraq debacle, but no one in Washington listened. Our two-faced media watchdogs are a gaggle of neocon propaganda peddlers, corporate whores and New World Order shills who helped orchestrate and cheerlead the slaughter, and they sneer at your patriotism behind your backs.
Everything you've been told about Iraq is a pack of lies, and the powers that be seem to think we're all stupid enough to be conned again. We can't trust our elected representatives to carry out the will of the people. They're been bought and sold, and have just proven it. For all practical purposes, a coup d'etat has taken place.
Meanwhile, soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have problems of their own just staying alive. After four years, why doesn't everyone have the equipment and armored vehicles needed? The most cynical thing our government can do is to send its soldiers into combat with defective weapons or lacking critical equipment. To me, actions speak a lot louder than words. Just ask the folks who lost everything to Hurricane Katrina down along the Gulf Coast.
Keep in mind that defense contractors like Halliburton are raking in billions, and the 100-grand-per-year hired guns and their employers certainly aren't lacking anything they need. Take a close look at their equipment. Whether you realize it or not, these hired guns are making your job a lot harder by terrorizing and humiliating the Iraqi population, accountable to no one. I've seen it all before, only with more humidity and less sand.

Another Civil War Fueled by U.S.

2007-02-03T05:54:00.000-08:00

Has anyone noticed the U.S. has started ANOTHER civil war in the Arab world? In Palestine. The U.S. is actively arming the Fatah faction in Palestine against Hamas. In other words, the U.S. is arming a country’s President to fight its Prime Minister.

U.S. to support up to 10,000 extra Abbas troops

By Adam Entous

Sat Feb 3, 5:36 AM ET

The United States will expand assistance to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to include about 8,500 members of his national security forces and possibly 1,000 Fatah fighters based in Jordan, U.S. documents show.

Providing non-lethal equipment and training to units of Abbas's National Security Forces, and possibly the Jordan-based Badr Brigade could increase Washington's role in the power struggle between Abbas's Fatah faction and the governing Hamas movement.

U.S. assistance has largely been limited until now to around 4,000 members of Abbas's presidential guard.

But documents obtained by Reuters on Saturday showed that the U.S. government's $86.4 million security assistance program could cover at least 13,500 troops loyal to Abbas.

The National Security Forces (NSF) is the largest security force under Abbas's control and is viewed by many Palestinians to be the equivalent of an army, though it is poorly trained and equipped compared to the smaller presidential guard.

…Some analysts have warned that fighting between Hamas and Fatah could turn into a proxy war, with the United States supporting Abbas and Iran backing Hamas.

More bloodshed and total destruction of infrastructure and wasting of U.S. taxpayer’s money. All for Israel, whose lobby doesn’t exist!

One last look before they destroy it

2007-01-28T17:43:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Kurt Nimmo for finding this.

It's a slide show of Iran with Yusuf Islam's (Cat Steven's) Peace Train as soundtrack.

Israel, the U.S. and the Money-Making Killing Machine

2007-01-26T11:39:00.000-08:00

Israel, the U.S. and the money-making killing machine

Yesterday a donor conference announced pledges from 36 countries to donate money to help rebuild Lebanon’s infrastructure after Israel destroyed much of it. Leading the list was the United States and France.

One country was missing from the list. The one that caused the damage: Israel.

So let me get this straight. U.S. tax dollars gave Israel all the weapons to destroy a weak country’s infrastructure and kill thousands of people. Now our tax dollars will be spent to help clean up their mess. Nice racket for Israel.

Of course all these aid pledges represent a time-honored imperial strategy where the donor countries’ money is earmarked to be spent with those countries’ corporations. So U.S. corporations get to make money making the weapons Israel uses to kill Muslims and, yes, Christians in Lebanon and Palestine and then they get to make money reconstructing the destroyed countries.

We TOLD You So!!!

2007-01-18T10:19:00.000-08:00

From Rod Dreher, Gen X Right-Winger:

My All Things Considered commentary
... As someone who came of political age under Reagan, I've been a conservative for most of my life... I disdained the Vietnam-era "hippie" mentality with regard to national security. I took it for granted that those people were hung up on Vietnam, and ought not be listened to because they were blame-America-first liberals... I formed my political views on national security in the confident glow of Reaganism. For me, it was a fact of life that Republicans were strong, capable and confident, and Democrats were weak, vacillating and incompetent (Carter's failed hostage rescue mission was the template).
When Bush led us into the Iraq War, I thought the liberals who predicted doom -- and, crucially, the conservatives (like Buchanan) who did as well -- were either fools, cowards or unpatriotic. But now I see that I was the fool. In the NPR piece, I wrote about how I sat there watching Bush's speech and thought that when they get old enough to understand these things, I have got to teach my children never, ever to take the word of presidents or generals at face value. To question authority, because the government will send you off to kill and die for noble-sounding rot (e.g., crusading for democracy in the Middle East). And it hit me that this is precisely the message that so many of those who lived through the Vietnam experience tried to tell my generation -- in my case, and in the case of so many other Gen X Reagan Youth, in vain.
I wonder if my kids will take me seriously in the future when I tell them what happened in this war, and how the Republican administration that their father believed in and voted for twice brought this country to this terrible place, through its mendacity and incompetence. Or will they think me a crank? Will they have to learn for themselves?

I am torn between complimenting the guy for being man enough to admit he was wrong or scolding him for being such a moron to buy into the "confident glow of Reaganism" crap. I guess I'll choose the latter, because Gen X was set up for Reaganism by forces beyond their control.

Learning by experience is hard, though. For those of us who can remember Vietnam it's Deja Vu All Over Again:

Deja Vu (All Over Again)

Did you hear 'em talkin' 'bout it on the radio?
Did you try to read the writing on the wall?
Did that voice inside you say I've heard it all before?
It's like Deja Vu all over again

Day by day I hear the voices rising
Started with a whisper like it did before
Day by day we count the dead and dying
Ship the bodies home while the networks all keep score

Did you hear 'em talkin' 'bout it on the radio?
Could your eyes believe the writing on the wall?
Did that voice inside you say I've heard it all before?
It's like Deja Vu all over again

One by one I see the old ghosts rising
Stumblin' 'cross Big Muddy
Where the light gets dim
Day after day another Momma's crying
She's lost her precious child
To a war that has no end

Did you hear 'em talkin' 'bout it on the radio?
Did you stop to read the writing at The Wall?
Did that voice inside you say
I've seen this all before?
It's like Deja Vu all over again
It's like Deja Vu all over again

John Fogerty
C2004 Cody River Music / ASCAP

"The wintertime is coming, the windows are filled with frost..."

2007-01-14T10:09:00.000-08:00

Now the wintertime is coming,
The windows are filled with frost.
I went to tell everybody,
But I could not get across.

Bob Dylan, “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry.”
Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

Check out Laura Knight-Jadczyk’s essay on climate change. The short version is that an ice age is coming, it could come FAST, and evidence of this is being supressed or downplayed. Don’t be fooled by the warm weather. The warming trend we’ve been seeing in recent decades is just the prelude for a catastrophic cooling. Has to do with higher precipitation, fresh water melting into the North Atlantic, disturbance of the Gulf Stream, and much more.

The Israel Lobby: Stifling Debate to Refute that they Stifle Debate

2007-01-12T20:33:00.000-08:00

James Wolcott has a great post on the attempts by the Israel Lobby (the one that doesn't exist) to silence Jimmy Carter:

I also refuse to divest myself of admiration, respect, and support for Jimmy Carter in his embattled hour following the rabbinical flakeout over Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. What's particularly craven and crass in the mass resignation letter is the following handwringing passage:
According to Web site monitoring by the Anti-Defamation League, U.S. white supremacists have enthusiastically embraced your suggestion that the Israel lobby stifles debate in this country, saying it confirms Jewish control of government and foreign policy as well as and the inherently "evil" nature of Jews. If you doubt the support you are giving and receiving, please refer to: ADL
From there you can get to the postings of four different White Supremacist organizations that both support and make use of the contents of your book and what you have said in public.
Anyone can link to anything on the web, and anyone who thinks that Jimmy Carter shares sympathies with White Supremacist groups is a liar, a fool, or a tool.
Let me see if I understand this irony: To counter Carter's claim that the Israeli lobby stifles debate in this country, the Anti-Defamation League is going to stifle debate and slime the former president with guilty by association to prove how wrong he is.
The New York Observer's Philip Weiss, who's been a standup guy for Carter (one of the few) throughout this mudslide, writes at MondoWeiss:
The campaign by the U.S. Jewish leadership to smear Jimmy Carter will one day be taught in history books, as an effort by a privileged elite to suppress the truth. Slavery and segregation also had powerful defenders who misrepresented those conditions. Despite all their well-connected efforts, these people will lose for two simple reasons: the facts are against them, and a movement has begun to discover those facts.
Hasten the day.

Charley Reese is one of the rare syndicated columnists who is not afraid to take on the lobby:

Israel's Bad Influence
Scott Ritter, a former U.N. arms inspector in Iraq, has written a book, "Target Iran," in which he accuses the Israeli government and its American lobby of pushing the U.S. into attacking Iran.
Ritter writes, "Let there be no doubt: If there is an American war with Iran, it is a war that was made in Israel." He accuses some members of the lobby of dual loyalty and urges that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee be required to register as a foreign agent.
He also blasts the Israeli lobby for its use of the Holocaust and for crying anti-Semite every time Israel is criticized. "This is a sickening trend that must be ended," he writes.
By coincidence, an Israeli general has verified everything Ritter says. According to an article published in Today.AZ on Jan. 2, Israeli Brig. Gen. Oded Tira published a statement urging an all-out effort by Israel and its lobby to push a U.S. attack on Iran.
"President Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran," the general is quoted as saying. "As an American strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help him pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly) and U.S. newspaper editors. We need to do this in order to turn the Iran issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure."
The general urges the Israeli lobby to turn to Hillary Clinton and other potential presidential candidates in the Democratic Party so that they support immediate action by Bush against Iran. The lobby must also approach the Europeans, he adds, so Bush won't find himself isolated, and he calls for Israel to "clandestinely cooperate with Saudi Arabia so that it also persuades the U.S. to strike Iran."
As Ritter says, a U.S. war in Iran will be a war made in Israel.
Of course, Israel's American supporters, most of whom are ignorant of nuclear energy, ignorant of the history of Israel and ignorant of the people in the Middle East, will trot out their usual specious arguments.
But let's lay out the undeniable facts. Israel considers Iran its main threat. Israel wants a U.S. attack against Iran. The Israeli lobby does what the Israeli government tells it to do. Anybody who claims the Israeli lobby is just another lobby is either ignorant or lying. The Israeli lobby is the second most, if not the most, powerful lobby in America.
So, sit back and watch the Israeli amen corner start the propaganda to push America to war with Iran just as it did in the case of Iraq. It will try to have you believe that Iran can make nuclear weapons as easily as baking cakes. The truth is that even if Iran decided to seek nuclear weapons, the Iranians are a good 10 years away from having any. The truth is that Iran, even if it had nuclear weapons, is no threat to the U.S.
All of which reminds me of my favorite undiplomatic comment by a diplomat. Some time ago at a private party in London, the French ambassador said of Israel, "Why does the world put up with such a (expletive) little country causing so much trouble?" Outraged British Zionists demanded his recall, but the French government ignored them.
Sooner or later, Americans are going to wake up to the fact that Israel's influence on the American government is detrimental. If Israel wants a war with Iran, let the Israelis fight it. Of course, seeing how poorly they did against Hezbollah, I suspect that the Israelis, despite their public threats, would not choose to fight the Iranians.
In my opinion, Americans who want American youth to die and bleed for the benefit of a foreign country are guilty of more than dual loyalty.

“There is no right way to do the wrong thing.”

2007-01-11T10:28:00.000-08:00

I heard a someone in the Navy call into the NPR show On Point today about the escalation plan in Iraq. After all the “experts” weighed in, he was able to cut through all the nonsense by saying, ““There is no right way to do the wrong thing.”

The example he used was what if, since Bush is unpopular and the United States is struggling, China decided to “liberate” Americans. Because of the language and cultural differences, of course things wouldn’t go well. Then, in Beijing, the conclusions would be, “we didn’t send in enough troops in the beginning.” The caller concluded, “Yes, it would be bad for the U.S. to leave, we would lose face, etc., but sometimes you have to take your medicine.”

But even Bush isn't stupid enough to think an extra 20,000 troops rotated in over the course of months will change much. But, it will do two things, both important to Bush. It will kill a lot of people. He likes that. It will also protect the Green Zone when the war moves to Iran and the supply lines get broken by furious Shiites in southern Iraq, according to Robert Parry:

Indeed, one source familiar with high-level thinking in Washington and Tel Aviv said an unstated reason for Bush's troop "surge" is to bolster the defenses of Baghdad's Green Zone if a possible Israeli attack on Iran prompts an uprising among Iraqi Shiites.

How bad will this get?

2007-01-06T20:22:00.000-08:00

Paul Craig Roberts , the former Reagan official, writes that Bush turned his back on the U.S. establishment and has thrown his lot in with the Israeli Neocons. He has crossed the Rubicon. This means that the U.S. will now attack the Shiites in Iraq and/or Iran. This will lead to a slaughter of U.S. forces that will spark calls for revenge by the U.S. public. Revenge on whom, though? Will the U.S. public blame Iran or Israel? This explains the defensiveness of the Israel lobby with respect to Jimmy Carter's book. According to Roberts, the plan by the neocons is to commit genocide against the Arabs, having the U.S. do the dirty work for Israel.

...When word leaked that Bush was inclined toward the "surge option" of committing more troops by keeping existing troops deployed in Iraq after their replacements had arrived, NBC News reported that an administration official "admitted to us today that this surge option is more of a political decision than a military one." It is a clear sign of exasperation with Bush when an administration official admits that Bush is willing to sacrifice American troops and Iraqi civilians in order to protect his own delusions.
The American establishment, concerned by Bush's egregious mismanagement, moved to take control of Iraq policy away from him. However, recent news reports and analysis suggest that Bush has turned his back to the American establishment and his military advisers and is throwing in his lot with the neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby. This will further isolate Bush and make him more vulnerable to impeachment.
...Raed Jarrar (CounterPunch, January 4) suggests that the Shi'ite militias, such as the one led by Al-Sadr, are the intended targets of the "surge option." There seems no surer way to escalate the conflict in Iraq than to attack the Shi'ite militias. For longer than the US fought Germany in WW II, 150,000 US troops in Iraq have been thwarted by a small insurgency drawn from Iraq's minority population of Sunnis. It hardly seems feasible that 30,000 additional US troops, demoralized by extended deployment, can succeed in a surge against the Shi'ite militias when 150,000 US troops cannot succeed against the minority Sunnis.
The reason the US has not been driven out of Iraq is that the majority Shi'ites have not been part of the insurgency. The Shi'ites are attacking the Sunnis, who are forced to fight a two-front war against US troops and Shi'ite militias and death squads.The US owes its presence in Iraq, just as the colonial powers always owed their presence in the Middle East, to the disunity of Arabs. Western domination of the Muslim world succeeded by not picking a fight with all of the disunited Arabs at the same time.
Attacking the Shi'ite militias while fighting a Sunni insurgency would violate this rule. If Bush ignores US military commanders and expert opinion and accepts the surge option advanced by the delusional neocon allies of Israel's right-wing Likud Party, US troops will be engulfed in general insurgency. This is why General John Abizaid resigned on January 5. He wants no part of the Republican Party's sacrifice of US soldiers to sectarian conflict.
...Bush is like Hitler. He blames defeats on his military commanders, not on his own insane policy. Like Hitler, he protects himself from reality with delusion. In his last hours, Hitler was ordering non-existent German armies to drive the Russians from Berlin.
By manipulating Bush and provoking a military crisis in which the US stands to lose its army in Iraq, the neoconservatives hope to revive the implementation of their plan for US conquest of the Middle East. They believe they can use fear, "honor," and the aversion of macho Americans to ignoble defeat to expand the conflict in response to military disaster. The neocons believe that the loss of an American army would be met with the electorate's demand for revenge. The barriers to the draft would fall, as would the barriers to the use of nuclear weapons.
Neocon godfather Norman Podhoretz set out the plan for Middle East conquest several years ago in Commentary Magazine. It is a plan for Muslim genocide. In place of physical extermination of Muslims, Podhoretz advocates their cultural destruction by deracination. Islam is to be torn out by the roots and reduced to a purely formal shell devoid of any real beliefs.
Podhoretz disguises the neoconservative attack against diversity with contrived arguments, but its real purpose is to use the US military to subdue Arabs and to create space for Israel to expand.
Not enough Americans are aware that this is what the "war on terror" is all about.

This is unprecedented. White House sources leaked that Bush insisted on the escalation option against the unanimous opposition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff! Then General Abizaid resigns.

Here is Xymphora:

If the full Baker plan is followed, it is the death of Israeli colonialism, and the end of Wurmser’s Zionist Plan for the Middle East. The surge – a completely ridiculous, completely Vietnam-esque, plan of doing more of the same thing which has caused all the problems in the first place – is intended to slow up American withdrawal until it has been ensured that Iraq will have to break up (if American troops withdraw now, the danger is that Iraq will stay intact under Iraqi control, or – shudder – under radical Iranian control). The surge is presented as a workable alternative to the Baker plan, and is intended to replace the other dangerous Baker ideas, including settling the Palestinian problem and making nice with Syria and Iran, all in a last-ditch effort to protect the interests of the American Establishment in the Middle East. The stakes are thus extremely high – the death of the American Empire versus the death of the dream of an Israeli Empire. If Bush opts for a surge, it will prove that the American Establishment is so weak and decadent that it no longer deserves its empire.

Two powers, the United States and Israel with deadly weapons and ruthless spies, in a fight to the death. This does not bode well.

Mutinies in the field, coups in the capitol, detention of top administration officials, even civil war. It doesn't sound so far-fetched any more.

Gerald Ford's Burial: A Modest Proposal

2006-12-28T08:10:00.000-08:00

Since Gerald Ford was one of the most modest presidents, he deserves a grand funeral. We should bury him like the pharaohs, in a huge pyramid and everything.

Since the Egyptians would also bury the dead pharaoh's servants alive with him, we should bury Cheney and Rumsfeld alive with Ford in the pyramid. Gerald Ford will need a Chief of Staff and a Defense Secretary in the Afterlife.

What will Cheney do? What does the House of Saud want him to do?

2006-11-30T19:18:00.000-08:00

Is there any relation between Cheney being summoned to Saudi Arabia this week and a potential desperation attack on Iran by Cheney before the realists consolidate power? Where does the House of Saud stand on an attack on Iran by US/Israel? They were one of the ones pushing Bush to invade Iraq to take care of their enemy, Saddam Hussein. Prince Bandar reportedly told Bush, “either you get him or he’ll get you.”

Here is an essay by Mike Whitney who reminds us not to count Cheney out; Cheney is capable of ANYTHING:

Cheney's Revenge

By Mike Whitney
When Dick Cheney woke up on Wednesday morning, his entire world had changed. The House and Senate was in control of the Democrats, Bush Senior's buddy Robert Gates had taken over at the Pentagon, and his most-trusted ally, Don Rumsfeld, had been thrown overboard.

Cheney knows that the story about a "Democratic sweep" is utter nonsense. He knows who operates the voting machines and how get the results he wants. The normal procedures for rigging the election were simply put on hold.

He also knows that the Justice Dept had sent out over 80 attorneys to various parts of the country where the Republicans anticipated legal challenges after the elections, but there were no legal challenges. Someone decided that there would be no fight at all, even in the close senatorial races where recounts might have made a difference.

Why?

Is anyone gullible enough to believe that Republican big-wigs have given up cheating as a vital part of their strategy for winning elections?

I doubt it.

Cheney knows why there were no challenges; just like he knows why Rumsfeld was thrown to the wolves AFTER the elections rather than before when it might've hurt the Democrat's chances for victory.

Cheney was betrayed and his plans for one-party rule have been intentionally subverted. Even his seat next to the throne has been jettisoned to make room for Papa Bush's friend and CIA-alum, Robert Gates.

So, what does it all mean?

Well, as many of the political wags are finally admitting, the adults are stepping in and taking back their government. The establishment "old school" Republicans and country club plutocrats put-together a plan to sabotage the Cheney administration and put an end to the Iraq debacle. The scheme first became apparent when Bob Woodward, the establishment's number one scribe, released his book "State of Denial". That was followed by the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Lancet's Iraqi casualty report, the Mark Foley page fiasco, and a steady barrage of ethics and corruption scandals.

The Democrats had nothing to do with the ferocious media-blitzkrieg which pummeled the Bush team day-in and day-out. It was all the handiwork of big-money Republicans who lost their place at the policy-table when Cheney and Rummy decided they would run the whole shebang by themselves.

The only way they could be certain of undermining the Sec-Def and the Veep's powers was by attacking their political base and destroying the "rubber stamp" congress. And, that is precisely what they did. It's a classic case of the parent killing its own offspring or, as Dostoyevsky said, "One reptile devouring the other."

The election simply proves that one should not expect to take the country away from the people who really own it.

It's theirs, and the political parties are merely the temporary security guards who are paid to watch over their prized possession.

Betrayal

What's interesting in this case, is that Cheney was betrayed by Bush. It was Bush who fed Rummy to the crocodiles and replaced him with Gates, and it was Bush who broke his oath of loyalty to people who put him in office.

Cheney doesn't like to be betrayed, in fact, Cheney hates to be betrayed. Loyalty is the only virtue among thieves, and Bush has violated that basic bond. That probably means big trouble for George W. Bush in the future.

Understandably, the country is breathing a sigh of relief after the midterm elections, but it may be a bit premature. Cheney may be down, but he's not out. And, unfortunately, nothing has really changed. Cheney hasn't abandoned his plan for global domination and he still has plenty of agents lurking in the shadows who will carry out his agenda. His problem now is how to get back "in the game" and settle scores with the people who screwed him over.

Ironically, his biggest obstacle is George Bush, the man who knifed him in the back and put the brakes on the global crusade. Bush is now under the influence his father's chief-advisors who are determined to get the troops out of Iraq, forestall any attack on Iran, and (probably) undermine the powers of the unitary executive.

So, how far will Cheney go to remove the obstacles for realizing his dark vision? Would he be willing to incite a war with Iran to restore himself to power?
William S. Lind, Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation, assures us in his latest article "Iraq Disaster Warning" that "something big'" will happen "between Nov 7 congressional election and Christmas. That could be the long-planned attack on Iran".

Dr. Elias Akleh supports this theory in his article "War on Iran" providing the worrisome details of the military build-up currently taking place in the Gulf beyond the knowledge of the American people.

Akleh states:
"The US and NATO countries had amassed the largest military armada in the Middle East. The US armada consists of carrier Strike Group 12 led by nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, Eisenhower Strike Group-another nuclear powered aircraft carrier with accompanied military vessels and submarines, Expeditionary Strike Group 5 with multiple attack vessels led by aircraft carrier USS Boxer, the Iowa Jima Expeditionary Strike Group, and the US Coast Guard. Canada has sent its anti-submarine HMCS Ottawa frigate to join the American Armada in the Persian Gulf. On October 1the USS Enterprise Striking Group has crossed the Suez Canal to join NATO armada at the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

“The NATO force is composed of troops and naval vessels from several countries and is lead by Germany. It includes German command naval forces, Italian navy, 2 Spanish warships, 3 Danish warships, 10 Greek warships, 2 Netherlands warships, and French, Belgium, Turkish, and Bulgarian troops in South Lebanon."

Akleh adds ominously,
"This is the largest massing of military power in the region, and it is gathering for a reason."

Indeed.

So, Iran is still very much on the table just as America is still in danger of deteriorating into a militarized police state. Cheney's dream of global hegemony and absolute rule continues to move forward regardless of the elections' results. He remains committed to his original plan whatever the cost to the country in terms of blood and treasure.

Do not underestimate Dick Cheney. He is a dogged "bare-knuckled" street-fighter with a will of tempered steel. He will stop at nothing.

All he needs is a means of getting back into the seat of power.

Do we need to remind ourselves that he is only a "heartbeat" away from the most powerful position in the world?

That's something that should concern us all.

Those False Flag Boys Just Won't Quit

2006-11-22T13:52:00.000-08:00

This would be a joke if real lives weren't affected. From Wayne Madsen:

What played out yesterday on a Beirut street demonstrates just how irritated the Cheney wing and its neo-con allies in Jerusalem were with the diplomatic moves between the Iraq Study Group and Iran and Syria that led to the restoration of diplomatic relations between Damascus and Baghdad and an invitation by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to Syrian President Bashar Assad and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to attend a summit conference in Tehran.
Just as with other "false flag" assassinations of top Lebanese politicians that were designed to destabilize Lebanon and foment a U.S. (and Israeli) military showdown with Syria and Iran, another anti-Syrian Christian Lebanese politician was assassinated -- this time it was Pierre Gemayel, Lebanon's Industry Minister and the son of Phalangist leader Amine Gemayel, a former President. Gemayel's car was blocked by another vehicle gangland style and he was shot in the head by a professional hit man.
...However, as previously reported by WMR, the real perpetrators of the Lebanese assassinations, according to knowledgeable intelligence sources, are the international criminal syndicates that use false flag team of professional assassins, including freelance Syrians, Lebanese, Russian, and Israeli hit men, and weapons smugglers to carry out acts of terrorism. WMR's sources report these teams are associated with the Russian-Israeli Mafia network of notorious weapons smuggler, airline owner, and US defense contractor Viktor Bout.
The real perpetrators of Gemayel's assassination and other Lebanese politicians, as well as Lebanese journalists, are the neocon parallel intelligence operatives who operate out of Vice President Cheney's office and its satellite offices in Jerusalem and Herzliya. They are assisted by the US ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman, who has become a virtual American viceroy lording over the weak Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, which had recently come under attack as too weak by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The neocons, worried that the Baker Group was succeeding in bringing Syria (and, by default, Hezbollah) and Iran into the Iraq peace process and that their Lebanese allies were buckling under pressure from Hezbollah, has to act. Therefore a target was needed that would bolster the resolve of Saad Hariri, Walid Jumblatt, Amine Gemayel, and Phalangist leader Samir Geagea. In fact, Geagea eerily seemed to have predicted Gemayel's assassination on Nov. 18 when he told Reuters, "the government now has 17 ministers, if 3 of these ministers were eliminated then the government will automatically fall." Geagea would not say who might assassinate the ministers, but suggested it would be Syria. Geagea was correct about the assassination of a cabinet minister but studiously avoided mentioning the country to the south of Lebanon rather than the country to its east.

Must-read essay by Henry See on Meteors

2006-11-15T11:33:00.000-08:00

Radical Rethink in Meteorite Impact Timing
For years the mainstream scientific community has fed us the line that there is nothing to worry about down on on Earth from meteor impacts because the really big ones only happen once every 500,000 to 1,000,000 years. Now, a small group of scientists are challenging that view:
Scientists in the working group say the evidence for such impacts during the past 10,000 years, known as the Holocene epoch, is strong enough to overturn current estimates of how often the Earth suffers a violent impact on the order of a 10-megaton explosion. Instead of once in 500,000 to 1 million years, as astronomers now calculate, catastrophic impacts could happen every few thousand years.
Using Google Earth, they are identifying numerous impact craters that have gone undiscovered. The scientists, who call themselves the Holocene Impact Working Group, have found numerous impact craters they say were created within the last 10,000 years. You can read the full article on today's page.
...We have been warning our readers of the possibility of a cosmic bombardment for many, many years. We can't give you a date because we aren't prophets. However, our research indicates that there are cycles of bombardment. One of these is approximately 3600 years. There are also other cycles that would include the 2800 B.C. impact cited in the article above, the 540 A.D. impact that wasted a large portion of Europe and brought on the Dark Ages. See Mike Baillie's book Exodus to Arthur for more on that impact.
The mechanisms of these cycles are outlined in Laura Knight-Jadczyk's article Independence Day. In brief, our sun is part of a double star system. The sun's companion star is a brown dwarf with an orbit of 27 million years. When the dark star is moving towards its closest point to the sun, it passes through the Oort Cloud, a band of debris circling the solar system far beyond the orbit of Pluto. The effect of this close passage is a dampening of solar activity on the one hand, and the kicking off of a new cycle of cometary impacts in the solar system as it kicks out a large cloud of rock and debris towards the inner solar system.
Twenty five years ago, Jupiter had 13 identified moons, Saturn had 10. Today, Jupiter has 63 and Saturn 56! Many of these are pieces of rock that are no more than two or three kilometres across.
One explanation is that telescopes have so improved that we are capable of seeing ever more tiny satellites around the planets. The second possibility is that these new "moons" are pieces of the cosmic cloud that have been caught in the gravity of these two large planets as the cloud makes its way into the inner solar system.
From 1645 until 1715, the Earth underwent a strong cold spell. The solar activity of the sun spent the period in an extended minimum, known as the Maunder Minimum. This extended minimum has flummoxed researchers, who have been unable to explain how and why it occurred. The close passage of the dark companion would explain such a dampening.
Admittedly, this evidence does not constitute proof that there is a devastating collection of space rock headed on a collision course for Earth. Nor does it confirm in any way the 3600 cycle hypothesis. However, it is strong enough evidence to support the current working hypothesis. Given that this hypothesis suggests that the last event in the 3600 year cycle occurred in around 1628 [BCE] with the eruption of Mt Thera on the island of Santorini, the event that has been tied to the fall of the Bronze Age, there is good reason to think that a new cataclysm is in the offing. If the hypothesis of the dark star and its close approach in the last three hundred years is correct, the Thera event would have been the last of the old cycle while the catastrophe that awaits us is the first of a new cycle, that is, the devastation will be much greater.
Seen in this context, the current political scene takes on a different colour. The shocking lack of care for the planet and the environment on the part of our leaders, both elected and non-elected, might well be tied to a special knowledge they have of things to come. If society as we know it, not to mention the physical landscape itself, is to be subject to radical upheaval, then why worry about global warming, the ozone layer, or the depletion of resources? What would be important to the pathocrats is to set themselves up as the survivors of such a great tragedy, so that it is their children who would inherit the Earth.
The massive underground complexes built by the military to protect governments and business, financial, and other "leaders" take on a new, and even more sinister air under such a scenario. The war on terror is a sideshow meant to keep us occupied, our attention diverted from the ultimate enemy, while justifying the repressive measures that will be necessary when the people of the planet awaken to the real threat and demand why their leaders have done nothing to protect them. Unlike the recent disaster movies that showed a worried government sending Hollywood heroes into orbit to nuke the incoming comets and meteors, our real-life leaders couldn't care less what happens to the rest of us. Their future, they believe, is secure. We are to be left to suffer the consequences of massive mega-tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, and the subsequent "nuclear winter" that will block sunlight and put the planet into a long-term deep-freeze.
Such is our future if the myths handed down to us by our ancestors are understood as warnings, if the hypothesis that we have formed based upon data collected and collated from researchers is confirmed, and if the horrifying events justified by the so-called "war on terror" are seen in context.
The possibility exists, therefore, that the majority of the inhabitants of this planet will be dead, perhaps in only a few years. The survivors would be reduced to dwelling in caves, while the pathocrats would continue to rule from their 'underground cities', living in the luxury to which they are accustomed, and setting out for another round of "civilisation".
What would be the consequences if this knowledge were to become generally known? How would the planet's people react if they knew they were facing their own mortality? Their children's mortality? The end of everything they know?
Clearly, such knowledge can never be allowed to become widespread. It is a threat to the existence of the established powers, to the pathological figures who lead us. They would be forced to put into place repressive measures to keep "the people" in their place. They would strive to foment conflicts and wars between as many different groups as possible in order to keep the people from unifying against their common enemy, the pathocracy. In short, they would be doing exactly what is being done today.
As to what any of us can do in the face of such a hypothesised scenario, we can only suggest that our readers watch for new data, for an increase in fireballs and unexplained 'sonic booms', for increased volcanic and seismic activity, possibly due to the increased gravitational stress on the planet from the approaching cloud. It is possible that one or two impacts of minor importance could occur. These events would be followed by assurances that the danger is past, that we should forget about it for the moment, that 'lightning doesn't strike the same place twice'.
But if our hypothesis is correct, this will only be the lull before the storm. See our Signs Supplement on Meteors, Asteroids, Comets, and NEOs.

I would also recomment Laura Knight-Jadczyk's Secret History of the World for more on cyclical catastrophes and some hopeful possibilities for what's in store.

Now Here's a Resume!

2006-10-16T13:47:00.000-07:00

Now here’s a resume!

October 16, 2006 -- The House Page Board, which oversees the page program, has some interesting members. The first is the House Sergeant at Arms, Wilson Livingood. He got his start as a Special Agent for the Secret Service's Dallas Field Office, where he was posted from 1961 to 1969. Of course, the Secret Service, including the Dallas Field Office, miserably failed in the protection of President John F. Kennedy from assassination on November 22, 1963. Nevertheless, Livingood was promoted and transferred to the Presidential Protective Division of the Secret Service in Washington from 1969 to 1982, and was in Washington when President Ronald Reagan was hit by a bullet from John Hinckley, a friend of the Bush family. From 1982 to 1986, Livingood was Special Agent in Charge of the Secret Service Field Office in Houston, the home of then-Vice President George H. W. Bush, during a time when the elder Bush was purportedly involved in sexual encounters with underage males in the Franklin, Nebraska/Boys' Town child prostitution ring uncovered by Nebraska Republican State Senator John DeCamp.

It’s funny how big failures seem to get you promoted when you associate with the Bush family. Makes you wonder if the “failures” are really failures.

Bush must be feeling a little nervous...

2006-10-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

When the snake Bob Woodward of ONI/Washington Post turns on you, you have problems. Just ask Nixon in your next seance. Not to mention who has continued to leak bad news for congressional Republicans like the current sex scandal that most think is just the tip of the iceberg.

Here's Mike Whitney on Woodward:

Court Stenographer Finally Comes Clean
Woodward's 60 Minutes Bloodbath
By MIKE WHITNEY
Veteran journalist Bob Woodward can always be counted on to tell the truth-- after all the other options have been exhausted. His new book, State of Denial, doesn't veer too far from the pattern he's followed his entire career; one minute he's the "kingmaker" dishing up hearty-helpings of literary tripe like "Bush at War" and "Plan of Attack" and the next minute he's ramming a scimitar into the lower lumbar region of his prey.
That's Bob, the consummate insider and part-time assassin whose real job is not to maintain an "informed public" or preserve the free flow of information, but to use the privately-owned media in a way that serves the exclusive interests of the ruling elite.
Most of what Woodward said on 60 Minutes was accurate and interesting. Bush has deceived the American people about the slow-rolling catastrophe in Iraq. He's obfuscated the truth about the 800 to 900 attacks on American troops per week and, yes, Rumsfeld is the greatest bungler in the history of the Republic. But why has Woodward decided to spill the beans now? And, how long has he been withholding this information from the public? (some of the crucial details date back to 2003!?!) And why would Woodward organize a book tour that is clearly designed to obliterate Bush's credibility just 6 weeks before the election?
Woodward speaks for establishment elites who have stood on the sidelines cheering on the war-effort regardless of the rivers of blood coursing down the streets of Baghdad. He doesn't care that people are blown apart in their homes as long as it serves the overall interests of a small cadre of white plutocrats. What affects Woodward's delicate sensibilities is the inefficiency of the slaughter which has yet to produce the desired results. That's why the gloves have come off. That's why he's been employed to mug the muggers and kill the killers.
Woodward's appearance on 60 Minutes was the moral equivalent of a Mafia Hit-man performing the one task for which he is singularly well-suited; snuffing out a rival with a quick jab to the rib-cage.
Et tu, Bobby?
Woodward is on a mission to dethrone the Bushies and send them packing. The solidarity among American powerbrokers has dissolved into a bitter dispute over incompetence. Disenchanted elites want a place at the policy-table again and Woodward is leading the charge. His appearance is just the first of many salvos which will be aimed in the direction of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Woodward was the perfect choice to perform the execution; calculating and cold-blooded. His work in the Watergate investigation still endears him to liberals while right-wingers admire him as the editor of the nations' premier war-mongering rag. He has the credibility to wreak havoc on the administration while escaping the inevitable "Swift boating" that a less prominent journalist would have to endure.
If Bush gets his come-uppence, then that's great, but let's not forget that the Washington Post has supported the war from the get-go. Woodward and his ilk (Tom Friedman and William Crystal) do not object to the war, just the CONDUCT of the war. If the "right" people die, then "no problem", the American overlords can get on with the critical task of extracting valuable resources without interruption.
This is the real "State of Denial"; the belief that it's okay to slaughter people and destroy their civilization to enhance the wealth and power of a handful of western elites. It's a crime for which Woodward is just as guilty as Bush.

Whitney is right. After Woodward got rid of Nixon for his overlords, the Bush faction and the Neocons took over in earnest.

Be vary ware of whatever "savior" comes in on a white horse after Bush is pushed out.

Is Bush Gay, Part 2

2006-09-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

Wayne Madsen adds some more fuel to this fun fire. Disclaimer: Not that there's anything wrong with it, just that he's a bloody hypocrite and it would be amusing to see the right wing deal with this:

Sep. 26, 2006 -- According to individuals who investigated George W. Bush's stint in the 147th Fighter Group of the Texas Air National Guard (TANG), the GOP's top dirty tricksters, notably Karl Rove and Roger Stone, interceded to derail the investigation and, instead, have CBS focus on Bush's faxed, scanned, and Xeroxed original TANG records -- which were later hyped by the right-wing media as fakes.
The reason for the GOP's concern was that the investigation was getting dangerously close to exposing Bush's suspected homosexual activity with other members of his TANG unit. Given the times and culture of the early 1970s, investigators were surprised to discover Bush's frequent association with an abundant number of gays in the unit, which was nicknamed the "Champagne Unit." Bush's homosexuality is the bête noire of Bush's past for GOP political operatives, precisely because of the anti-gay stance of the Republican right and its Christian fundamentalist base.
In 1976, the Bush family sent George W. Bush to El Paso's Worthy Creations, a Christian gay conversion center. From that time on, Bush became a tool of the Christian right and a self-hating homosexual. The investigation of Bush's gay activities in the TANG unit would have unraveled Bush's new "straight" persona. The GOP went to battle stations to prevent Bush's past from being resurrected.
Bush's alleged homosexuality in college was hinted at in Kitty Kelley's massive biography of the Bush family, The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, which was released at about the same time as CBS 60 Minutes was investigating Bush's National Guard stint. In the case of Kelley's book and the gay charge, the criticism came not from the GOP operatives but from their allies in the corporate media, including the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, who is married to a GOP operative. While Bush attended all-boys Andover prep school (nicknamed "bend over"), Bush, not able to make it as an athlete, instead became a male cheerleader. At Yale, Bush, according to Kelley, had a "special relationship" (i.e., gay relationship) with Victor Ashe, his room mate and fellow cheerleader. Ashe, a former Mayor of Knoxville, is now Bush's ambassador to Poland. At the Delta Kappa Epsilon frat house, Bush became known as "a jock sniffer."

New 911 Movie - The Underlying Politics of 911

2006-09-26T18:29:00.000-07:00

Kurt Nimmo just made a movie of a speech by Ralph Schoenman on how 911 was a false flag operation perpetrated by elements of U.S. intelligence and Mossad. Well worth a watch and a listen. The speech uses mainstream sources like Newsweek and interviews with other foreign intelligence types. It makes an excellent addition to other works that focus more on forensic evidence.

Happy False Flag Day!

2006-09-11T14:50:00.000-07:00

Here is a good 9/11 timeline

The Circumstantial Evidence
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing resulted in intelligence that indicated that Al Qaeda had planned the attack and was planning further attacks on bridges and tunnels in New York City.
1993: An expert panel commissioned by the Pentagon raises the possibility that an airplane could be used to bomb national landmarks. [Washington Post 10/2/01]
In 1995, an Al Qaeda group headed by one Ramzi Youssef, was planning to seize and blow up 12 commercial aircraft over the Pacific. One Abdul Hakim Murad, a co-conspirator of Youssef, admitted to U.S. authorities that he had been trained at American flight schools and had been involved in a plot to crash a commercial aircraft into the CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia.
1998: U.S. investigators discover that Al Qaeda personnel involved in the Embassy bombings in Africa are part of a larger plan involving the training of terrorist members at American flight schools for attacks on American targets.
1998: The CIA ignore warnings from Case Officer Robert Baer, that Saudi Arabia is harboring an Al Qaeda cell led by two known terrorists. A more detailed list of known terrorists is offered to Saudi intelligence in August 2001 and refused. [Financial Times, January 12, 2001]
1998: An Oklahoma City FBI agent sends a memo warning that "large numbers of Middle Eastern males" are getting flight training and could be planning terrorist attacks. [CBS, 5/30/02] A separate CIA intelligence report asserts that Arab terrorists are planning to fly a bomb-laden aircraft into the WTC. [New York Times, 9/19/02; Senate Intelligence Committee, Witness Hill, 9/18/02]
December 1998: A Time magazine cover story entitled "The Hunt for Osama," reports that bin Laden may be planning his boldest move yet -- a strike on Washington or possibly New York City. [Time magazine, 12/21/98]
1999: It is learned that Al Qaeda personnel were plotting to blow up the Los Angeles International airport and selected targets in Jordan. Following the trial of an Al Qaeda man, Ahmen Ressam who was caught smuggling explosives into the United States, the FAA issues an official warning that Al Qaeda is expected to conduct explosive outrages against commercial aircraft or American airports.
Following this emerged a number of actual Al Qaeda threats against targets in the United States, often involving aircraft and aircraft facilities.
In the period just prior to the September 11 aircraft attack on American targets, numerous specific reports were delivered from what can only be termed entirely reliable foreign sources (as distinct from domestic intelligence reporting).
September 1999: A U.S. intelligence report states bin Laden and Al Qaeda terrorists could crash an aircraft into the Pentagon. The Bush administration claims not to have heard of this report until May 2002, although it was widely shared within the government. [CNN, 5/18/02, Associated Press, 5/18/01; Guardian, 5/19/02]
1999: MI6, the British foreign intelligence agency delivers a secret report to the London U.S. Embassy stating that Al Qaeda plans to use commercial aircraft "possibly as flying bombs." [Sunday Times, 6/9/02]
October 24-26, 2000: Pentagon officials carry out a "detailed" emergency drill based upon the crashing of a hijacked airliner into the Pentagon. [Source Military District of Washington News Service, 11/3/00] The White House later asserts that no one in government had envisioned a suicide hijacking. [Associated Press report, May 18, 2002]
January, 2001: The Bush Administration orders the FBI and intelligence agencies to "back off" investigations involving the bin Laden family, including two of Osama bin Laden's relatives (Abdullah and Omar) who were living in Falls Church, VA -- right next to CIA headquarters. This followed previous orders dating back to 1996, frustrating efforts to investigate the bin Laden family. [BBC “Newsnight,” Correspondent Gregg Palast, Nov 7, 2001]
Feb 13, 2001: UPI Terrorism Correspondent Richard Sale -- while covering a trial of bin Laden's al Qaeda followers -- reports that the National Security Agency has broken bin Laden's encrypted communications. Even if this indicates that bin Laden changed systems in February, it does not mesh with the fact that the government insists that the attacks had been planned for years.
May 2001: The U.S. introduces the "Visa Express" program allowing any Saudi Arabian to obtain visas through their travel agent instead of appearing at a consulate in person. Three to five hijackers use Visa Express over the next month to enter the U.S. [US News & World Report, 12/12/01, Congressional Intelligence Committee, 9/20/02, Witness Hill]
June 2001: German intelligence, the BND, warns the CIA and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists are "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture." [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 14, 2001]
June 13, 2001: Egyptian President Mubarak, through his intelligence services, warns the U.S. that bin Laden's Islamic terrorist network is threatening to kill Bush and other G8 leaders at their July economic summit meeting in Italy. The terrorists plan to use a plane stuffed with explosives. [New York Times, 9/26/01]
Summer 2001: An Iranian man phones U.S. law enforcement to warn of an imminent attack on the World Trade Center in the week of September 9. German police confirm the calls but state the U.S. Secret Service would not reveal any further information. [German news agency online.de, September 14, 2001]
June 2001: German intelligence warns the CIA, Britain's MI6, and Israel's Mossad that Middle Eastern terrorists are training for hijackings and targeting U.S. and Israeli symbols. [“Fox News,” 5/17/02]
June 26, 2001: The CIA informs the White House that they had intercepted foreign intelligence traffic concerning possible Al Qaeda strikes in America on July 4.
Summer 2001: Russian intelligence notifies the CIA that 25 terrorist pilots have been specifically training for suicide missions.
June 22, 2001: The military's Central and European Commands impose "Force Protection Condition Delta," the highest anti-terrorist alert.
June 28, 2001: National security advisor Condoleeza Rice states: "It is highly likely that a significant Al Qaeda, attack is in the near future, within several weeks."
July 1, 2001: Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee states that her staff had advised her of a “major probability of a terrorist incident within the next three months.” [Emphasis added]
July 2, 2001: The FBI reports to the White House that Al Qaeda terrorist attacks outside the United States are very possible and that domestic attacks could not be discounted.
July 5, 2001: The CIA informs President Bush that Al Qaeda attacks against American targets are entirely possible during the summer of that year.
July 5, 2001: The government's top counter-terrorism official, Richard Clarke states to a group gathered at the White House: "Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon." The group included the FAA, the Coast Guard, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the INS. Clarke directs every counter-terrorist office to cancel vacations, defer non-vital travel, put off scheduled exercises and place domestic rapid response teams on much shorter alert.
July 10, 2001: A Phoenix FBI agent sends a memorandum warning about Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons. He suspects bin Laden's followers and recommends a national program to check visas of suspicious flight-school students. The memo is sent to two FBI counter-terrorism offices, but no action is taken. [New York Times, 5/21/02] Vice President Cheney says in May 2002 that he opposes releasing the memo to congressional leaders or to the media and public. [CNN, 5/20/02]
July 26, 2001: Attorney General Ashcroft stops flying commercial airlines due to a threat assessment. [CBS, 7/26/01] He later walks out of his office rather than answer questions about this. [Associated Press, 5/16/02]
July 31, 2001: The FAA urges U.S. airlines to maintain a "high degree of alertness."
Late July 2001: The U.S. and UN ignore warnings from the Taliban foreign minister that bin Laden is planning an imminent huge attack on US soil. The FBI and CIA also fail to take seriously, warnings that Islamic fundamentalists have enrolled in flight schools across the U.S. [Independent, 9/7/02]
August 2001: Russian President Vladimir Putin orders Russian intelligence to warn the U.S. government "in the strongest possible terms" of imminent attacks by suicide pilots on airports and government buildings. [MS-NBC interview with Putin, September 15, 2001, Fox, September 17, 2001]
August 2001: The FBI arrests an Islamic militant linked to bin Laden in Boston. French intelligence sources confirm that the man is a key member of bin Laden's network and the FBI learns he has been taking flying lessons. At the time of his arrest the man is in possession of technical information on Boeing aircraft and flight manuals. [Reuters, September 13 2001]
Late summer 2001: Jordanian intelligence agents go to Washington to warn that a major attack is planned inside the U.S. and that aircraft will be used. Christian Science Monitor calls the story "confidently authenticated" even though Jordan later backs away from it. [Christian Science Monitor, 5/23/02]
August 6, 2001: The CIA also presents a warning to the President, explicitly concerned with terrorism inside the United States, indicating that bin Laden might be planning to hijack commercial airliners. Actual content of this message has been the subject of considerable debate, with White House officials understandably downplaying its significance. [Time magazine, May 16, 2002; New York Times, May 16, 2002]
August 15, 2001: An alert civilian instructor at a Minnesota flight school calls the FBI: "Do you realize that a 747 loaded with fuel can be a bomb?" The next day, Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested. After investigating Zacarias Moussaoui's past, the FBI (with the help of French Intelligence) learns that he had Islamic extremist connections. They also knew he was interested in flight patterns around New York City, and that he had a strong desire to fly big jets, even though at the time he didn't have a license for flying even a Cessna.
August 20, 2001: The French government strongly informs high level American authorities about pending attacks on American targets, using commercial aircraft a
August 8-23, 2001: Two high ranking Israeli Mossad agents come to Washington to warn the FBI and CIA that up to 200 terrorists have slipped into the U.S. and are planning an imminent major assault in the U.S. Indications point to a highly visible target. [Telegraph, 9/16/01; Los Angeles Times, 9/16/01; “Fox News,” 5/17/02] The Mossad gives the CIA a list of terrorists. A major Israeli spy ring was hard on the heels of at least four members of the 9/11 hijackers, including lead hijacker Mohammed Atta. [BBC, 10/2/01]
August 24, 2001: The head of the Mossad reports the imminence of an Arab attack against American targets; a similar report was made by the Mossad on September 7, 2001.
August 24, 2001: Frustrated with lack of response from FBI headquarters about detained suspect Moussaoui, the Minnesota FBI begins working with the CIA. The CIA sends alerts calling him a "suspect 747 airline suicide hijacker." Three days later an FBI Minnesota supervisor says he is trying keep Moussaoui from “taking control of a plane and fly it into the WTC." [Senate Intelligence (Hill #2), 10/17/02] FBI headquarters chastises Minnesota FBI for notifying the CIA. [Time magazine, 5/21/02]
August 2001: Britain gives the U.S. another warning about an Al Qaeda attack. The previous warning was vague. This one specifies imminent multiple airplane hijackings by Al Qaeda. [Sunday Herald, May 19, 2002]
Late August, 2001: The CIA asks the INS to put (these two of the hijackers) Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhazmi on a watch list because of their ties to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. On August 23, 2001, the INS informed the CIA that both Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhazmi had already slipped into the country. Immediately thereafter, the CIA asked the FBI to find al-Midhar and Alhazmi. This should not have been difficult, since one of them was listed in the San Diego phone book, and the other took out a bank account in his own name; also, an FBI informant happened to be their roommate.
September 10, 2001: NSA intercepts two messages in Arabic. One message read: “Tomorrow is zero hour,” and the second: “The match begins tomorrow.” [New York Times, August 10, 2002; Reuters, June 19, 2002] On June 19, 2002, CNN reported the contents of these two National Security Agency intercepts. Other news outlets, including the Washington Post, also reported on the intercepts. [New York Times, August 10, 2002]
A particularly urgent warning was received the night before the attacks, causing some top Pentagon brass to suddenly cancel travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of “sudden security concerns.” [Newsweek, 9/12/2001] “Why that same information was not available to the 266 people who died aboard the four hijacked commercial aircraft may become a hot topic on the Hill." [Newsweek, 9/13/2001]
September 11, 2001: For 35 minutes, from 8:15 AM until 9:05 AM, although widely known within the FAA and the military that four planes have been simultaneously hijacked and taken off course, no one notifies the President of the United States. It is not until 9:30 AM that any Air Force planes are scrambled to intercept, but by then it is too late. This means the National Command Authority waited for 75 minutes before scrambling aircraft, even though it was known that four simultaneous hijackings had occurred -- an event that has never happened in history. [CNN; ABC; MS-NBC; Los Angeles Times; New York Times]
Department of Defense (6/1/01) and FAA (7/12/01) procedure: In the event of a hijacking, the FAA hijack coordinator on duty at Washington headquarters requests the military to provide escort aircraft. Normally, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) escort aircraft take the required action. The FAA notifies the National Military Command Center by the most expeditious means. [DoD, 6/1/01; FAA, 7/12/01; FAA, 7/12/01] If NORAD hears of any difficulties in the skies, they begin the work to scramble jet fighters [take off and intercept aircraft that are off course]. Between September 2000 and June 2001 fighters were scrambled 67 times. [AP, 8/12/02] When the Lear jet of golfer Payne Stewart didn’t respond in 1999, F-16 interceptors were quickly dispatched. According to an Air Force timeline, a series of military planes provided an emergency escort to Payne’s stricken Lear about 20 minutes after ground controllers lost contact with his plane.[Dallas Morning News, 10/26/99]
September 11, 2001:
8:20 AM (approx.): Air traffic controllers suspect Flight 11 has been hijacked. [New York Times, 9/15/01]
8:40 AM: NORAD is notified of hijacking. [New York Times, 10/16/01; Washington Post, 9/15/01]
8:46 AM: Flight 11 crashes into the World Trade Center north tower (approximately 26 minutes after controllers lost contact). [New York Times, 9/12/01]
8:46 AM: Bush later states, "I was sitting outside the classroom and I saw an airplane hit the tower. The TV was on.” [CNN 12/4/01] “When we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building.” [White House, 1/5/02]
8:52 AM: Two F-15s take off from Otis Air Force Base. [Washington Post, 9/15/01] They go after Flight 175. Major General Paul Weaver, director of the Air National Guard, states "the pilots flew like a scalded ape, topping 500 mph but were unable to catch up to the airliner. We had a nine-minute window, and in excess of 100 miles to intercept 175. There was just literally no way.'' [Dallas Morning News, 9/15/01] F-15's fly at up to 2.5 times the speed of sound (1875 mph or 30+ miles a minute or 270+ miles in nine minutes) and are designed for low-altitude, high-speed, precision attacks. [BBC]
8:56 AM: By this time, it is evident that Flight 77 is lost. The FAA, already in contact with the Pentagon about the two hijackings out of Boston, reportedly doesn’t notify NORAD of this until 9:24, 28 minutes later. [New York Times, 10/16/01]
9:03 AM: Flight 175 crashes into the south WTC tower (23 minutes after NORAD notified, 43 minutes after air traffic control lost contact with pilots). [New York Times, 9/12/01, CNN, 9/12/01]
9:10 AM: Major General Paul Weaver states Flight 77 came back on the (radar) scope at 9:10 in West Virginia. [Dallas Morning News, 9/15/01] Another report states the military was notified of Flight 77 several minutes after 9:03. [Washington Post, 9/1/01]
9:24 AM [? – see above]: The FAA, who 28 minutes earlier had discovered Flight 77 off course and heading east over West Virginia, reportedly notifies NORAD. A Pentagon spokesman says, "The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way." [Newsday, 9/23/01; New York Times, 9/23/01] Yet since the first crash, military officials in a Pentagon command center were urgently talking to law enforcement and air traffic control officials about what to do. [New York Times, 9/1/01]
9:28 AM: Air traffic control learns that Flight 93 has been hijacked. [MSNBC, 7/30/02]
9:38 AM: Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon (42 minutes or more after contact was lost, one hour after NORAD notification of first hijacking). [New York Times, 10/16/01; CNN, 9/12/01]
10:10 AM: Flight 93 crashes in Pennsylvania (42 minutes after contact was lost). [CNN, 9/12/02]
September 12, 2001: Senator Orrin Hatch says the US was monitoring bin Laden supporters and overheard them discussing the attack. [ABC, 9/1/01; Associated Press, 9/12/01]
September 13-19, 2001: Members of bin Laden's family are driven or flown under FBI supervision to a secret assembly point in Texas and then to Washington, where they leave the country on a private charter plane when airports reopen three days after the attacks. [New York Times, September 30, 2001]

"So, how's the New American Century going, anyway?"

2006-09-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

"So, how's the New American Century going, anyway?" That was how Stephen Colbert began his interview with Neocon prince, William Kristol.

A good answer to that can be found in this lucid analysis of the Iraq War by UPI's Martin Sieff:

Eye on Iraq: Adrift in a complex war
By MARTIN SIEFF, UPI Senior News Analyst
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. policymakers and forces in Iraq are now adrift in a complex, many-sided war and the democratic political system that was the centerpiece of U.S. strategy is collapsing before Washington's eyes.
Mahmoud al-Mashadani, the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, warned deputies Wednesday morning they might only have three or four months to prevent the irreversible collapse of their country and its splintering into mutually hostile religious and ethnic enclaves. 'We have three to four months to reconcile," he said. "If the country doesn't survive, it goes under."
Mashadani's warning came the day after the parliament voted to continue the emergency powers of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for another month and as violence and terror continued to erupt on all sides.
Applying a relatively rational analysis, several overlapping conflicts are currently raging simultaneously in Iraq.
First, the long-running, three-and-a-half-year-old Sunni insurgency against U.S, forces and the new Iraqi government continues unabated in two western provinces and in the capital Baghdad. As our companion "Iraq Benchmarks" has confirmed, despite other conflicts erupting one very side the Sunni insurgents have been able to keep up their level of attrition attacks and rates of inflicting casualties on U.S, forces through this year.
Second, since the bombing of the al-Askariya, or Golden Mosque, in Samara in Feb, 22, Shiite militia forces have reacted with much greater force against the general Sunni community, launching campaigns of random killings. The focus of this conflict has been also in and around Baghdad, and in central provinces with mixed Sunni and Shiite populations.
Third, at the prompting of U.S, leaders and military commanders, the shaky new Iraqi army -- intended to eventually function at a full strength of 10 divisions -- has launched a series of campaigns against some of the Shiite militias, especially Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army, to try and get them under control.
However, the performance of regular Iraqi forces, who are generally Shiite commanded and dominated by Shiites, has so far been very disappointing and in some recent clashes they have had to rely on the Badr Brigades, another Shiite irregular militia force, for support.
Therefore, far from asserting the control and credibility of the regular Iraqi army over the Shiite militias as U.S. commanders intended, the recent campaigns have weakened its standing still further and made it appear a mere cats-paw in a fourth struggle, that between the Mahdi Army, and the Badr Brigade, with other quasi-independent Shiite militias either allied to them or watching closely to see which of them comes out on top.
Nor do these four conflicts -- the Sunni insurgency against U.S. and allied forces, the Sunni-Shiite conflict, the Iraqi army battle with the Shiite militias and the internal struggles between the Shiite militias -- exhaust the number of potential conflicts in Iraq.
The Kurds look likely to try and fully secede from the central government in Baghdad and that could open up a new conflict between them and the Shiite dominated Maliki government. In addition, anti-American Shiite militias led by the Mahdi Army could erupt in revolt at any time against U.S. forces as well as the Maliki government and threaten to cut the crucial overland supply route from Kuwait to Central Iraq that is essential to provision the 140,000 U.S. troops in the country.

Bush's solution? Hang on until the mid-term elections then attack more countries.

Amen, Brother Wayne!

2006-08-13T17:45:00.000-07:00

From Wayne Madsen:

Aug. 12/13, 2006 -- The neo-con, corporate "news" media is referring to the present travel restrictions as the "New Normal." We've seen this revolting term used before. Other neo-cons continue to refer to some nebulous enemy in typical baby talk code, e.g., "bad guys", and with loaded terms like "Islamo-fascists." In fact, the right-wing is attempting to adopt the "fascist" term for their own use in order to cover their own fascist acts and policies.
Here's our proposed "new normal":
1. A nationalized U.S. energy industry required by law to develop alternative non-fossil fuel energy sources. Federal compensation to oil industry shareholders not to exceed 25 percent of their holdings.
2. British Prime Minister George Galloway and British Foreign Secretary Ken Livingston. A King Charles III who is committed to stemming and reversing global warming.
3. An International Criminal Court trial in The Hague with indicted George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and all their neo-con advisers and facilitators in the docket.
4. A new Middle East map with a free Republic of Lebanon devoid of foreign troops, an independent Syria (including the Golan Heights), the independent Republic of Palestine with the right of free transit between Gaza and the West Bank, the Confederation of Iraq devoid of foreign troops, an independent Republic of Kurdistan in northern Iraq internationally prohibited from expanding its borders, a denuclearized and wall-less State of Israel with international security guarantees, the International Territory of Jerusalem (Old City) governed by the United Nations in association with Jewish, Muslim, and Christian local authorities, the Republic of Hejaz and Nejd replacing the corrupt and Bush-connected Saudi Arabia, and a nuclear weapons-free Iran with a fully-functioning U.S. embassy in Tehran.
5. A Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and a Canadian Prime Minister Jack Layton re-negotiating NAFTA that favors labor, small business, and farmers. Dissolution of NATO and the US Northern Command. Cuban membership in the new NAFTA without pre-conditions regarding its government and leadership.
6. Universal health care for all Americans. Nationalization of certain sectors of the pharmaceutical industry. Legalization of marijuana.
7. Universal and improved public education for all Americans. Dissolution through nationalization and carefully-vetted resale of the media empires of Rupert Murdoch, Silvio Berlusconi, and other media barons. Restoration of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine for radio and TV. Federal regulations requiring corporations that own news organizations to spin them off to private journalistic cooperatives. No corporate or government control of the Internet. A total ban on dual nationality for U.S. citizens.
8. Federal taxation of all religious-connected businesses and mega-properties. Retroactive repeal of tax exempt status for all foundations and institutes connected with the Bush administration's war policies. Requirement that all organizations that represent foreign countries and interests register as foreign agents with the Department of Justice.
9. Repeal of all Bush administration anti-constitutional laws and administrative orders.
10. Progressive Executive and Legislative Branches in the United States that will begin the process of impeachment of Bush-appointed federal judges, cut the bloated defense budget (replacing the Department of Defense with the Department of Peace and the Department of Homeland Security with the Department of Civil Defense), repeal tax cuts for billionaires, and restore America's image in the world. Dissolution of the Directorate of National Intelligence. Place the Central Intelligence Agency under the Department of State.
[Additions to this global manifesto welcome]

The Real Reason for the Foiled Terrorist Attack

2006-08-11T08:10:00.000-07:00

From this:

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted this week found President Bush's approval rating has dropped to 33%, matching his all time low. "His handling of nearly every issue, from the Iraq war to foreign policy, contributed to the president's decline around the nation, even in the Republican-friendly South."
In the generic congressional poll, Democrats lead Republicans by a whopping 55% to 37%, a result similar to the Fox News poll released yesterday.
Key statistic: 19% of those who voted for Bush in 2004 now plan to back Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections.

False Flag? Of course it is!

2006-08-10T06:45:00.000-07:00

Just heard about the latest false flag terrorist plot. We knew something had to happen soon. Elections are coming up and the neocons are worried. The Crusade is not popular but Syria and Iran need to be attacked so something had to be done. This won’t stop until the public in the United States and Great Britain hate Muslims as much as the Israelis do.

I’m glad it was a foiled plot and not one they let happen, but that may be because of interference by British intelligence. They seem to be the ones that foiled it.

I would guess that this was done by Mossad masterminds with Muslim patsies. Remember what we said last week: Don’t blame the people your television tells you to blame.

2006-08-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

George Galloway Gives TV Newsperson a History Lesson!

Check out this TV news bot get a history lesson.

New Video

2006-08-07T16:12:00.000-07:00

Check out this new video from the person who made Pentagon Strike.

Then, to flesh it out a bit, read these words from Henry See:

All the evidence points to the fact that war, violence, and the killing of innocents is part of who we are as a species.
But what if the initial assumptions are wrong?
How many of you reading these words would be able to do such a thing as kill a baby or small child? How many of you could put a bullet, or several, into the head of a ten-year-old on her way to school, or empty your pistol's clip into the body of a child wounded at your feet? How many of you could order the bombing of an appartment block knowing that the dead will be civilians, families, people who have never raised a gun against an enemy in their lives?
We ask again. What if our initial assumptions are wrong? What if this violence we see all around us does not come from within us, from within people of conscience, but comes from another source?
What if the evil we see around us in the world is not born from human nature?
Our studies on psychopathy, and the work of Polish psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski on the dynamics of psychopathic political systems, suggests very strongly that everything we "know" about the dark side of human nature is wrong, that the primary source of the violence and active harming of other beings on our planet comes not from mankind, but from an almost human species in our midst, a species that looks human, but that is missing that which we would say is the defining characteristic of humanity: conscience.
Could it really be that these horrors that we live with on the nightly news, that we read about in history books, that have always been with us and which seem such an integral part of human life, are not a necessary component of life? That they are injected into our lives through a parasite/predator in our midst? One that moves invisibly within society?
If you have done no research into psychopthy, such a hypothesis may well seem far-fetched, an idealist fantasy. It seems outrageous. It goes against everything you have been taught. It goes against everything you think you "know". However, once you have studied the issue, have read the research into psychopathic behaviour, have studied a psychopath's methods and means of manipulation, once you have understood the individual psychopath and have traced its predation as the most successful ones move into positions of power in the law, politics, business, the police and the military, and as these individuals join together with others of their ilk to form cohesive structures that can take over social movements and political parties, once all of this is understood, and the horror of what we are facing hits home, then, in the face of this horror, a small spark of hope is lit.
An in-depth understanding of psychopathy and ponerology brings the realization that the violence around us is not an instrinic part of who we are. It is an intrinsic part of who they are.

Does Israel Really Act to Defend Jews?

2006-08-03T20:49:00.000-07:00

Michael Hawkins, in the excellent blog Spontaneous Arising, quotes the distinguished historian Immanuel Wallerstein on the Israeli aggression against Lebanon:

What the Israeli governments do not realize is that neither Hamas nor Hizbullah need Israel. It is Israel that needs them, and needs them desperately. If Israel wants not to become a Crusader state that is in the end extinguished, it is only Hamas and Hizbullah that can guarantee the survival of Israel. It is only when Israel is able to come to terms with them, as the deeply-rooted spokespersons of Palestinian and Arab nationalism, that Israel can live in peace.

Israel and the United States's actions now are preventing that very outcome: Israel living in peace.

We are left with only two possible conclusions: that the neocon Zionists in control of Israel and the United States are stupid-- continually pursuing policies that don't work for their stated goals (protecting Israel) or that they are shrewdly pursuing what amount to an anti-semitic policy (anti- both semitic Arabs and semitic Jews). Is this a tragic accident or a sinister plot?

Has Zionism all along been a trap for the Jews?

Here is the great essayist and saxophonist, Gilad Atzmon (born an Israeli Jew):

Following Sholem’s prophecy, it is rather clear that the almighty Israelis indeed endorsed the role of a cruel God. Flying American F-16’s, the Israelis ‘brimstone and fire’ Lebanese cities and villages out of existence. Last night, the IAF angels dropped 23 tons of explosives on a one single bunker in Beirut. They really want to kill so it seems.
However, within the Biblical tale, even God is willing to bargain, “just present me with 50, 40, 30, 20 righteous people,” he tells Abraham. Seemingly, Israel, the almighty regional God, is far less willing to bargain. Till this point in time, it has rejected any ceasefire initiatives. The Israelis want to ‘finish the job’ so they say.
One may wonder what exactly is that job which they want to finish. Indeed they spread collateral damage all over Lebanon but seemingly they do not touch the Hezbollah.
Instead, rather murderously, they punish the entire Lebanese people. They flatten Beirut’s southern neighbourhoods, they destroy the Lebanese civil infrastructures, they destroy the state’s economy, half a million Lebanese are now displaced, hundreds are dead. And guess what, they don’t win. Ostensibly, the Hezbollah is gaining power. In fact, from this point onwards, the Hezbollah can only win. In other words, the Hezbollah has won the battle already.
More than anything, it is the Hezbollah that made Israel reveal its very devastating notion of blood arithmetic i.e., 2 = 500,000. For those who fail to understand, people who believe in ‘two equals half a million’ can easily nuke whoever they consider to be their enemies with out the slight hesitation. 2 = 500,000 is there to suggest that Israel isn’t just a regional danger, it is the biggest threat to world peace. This is something I’ve known for a while but now thanks to the Hezbollah this will become common knowledge.
While in the history of the conflict, no Arab army has yet to defeat the Israeli military might, the Hezbollah, a tiny paramilitary group of patriotic warriors has managed to transform northern Israeli cities into ghost towns. They did it without a navy, without an air force, without tanks.
For those who don’t know, Israel is all about ‘good life’. It is all about trading in the stock exchange. Having a BBQ party on the beach. Big imported pop acts in open-air concerts. Rather than Peace Israelis are after ‘Shalom’ which really means: one-sided security for the Jews only. The Hezbollah (as well as the Hamas) made it clear to the Israelis, you will never live in Shalom unless you dig into the notion of Peace.
It is important to mention that Israel could never win this war, it could only lose and in fact it lost already. Israel’s power of deterrence is minced to pieces by a lightly armed paramilitary organisation. Considering the emerging humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, the world public attention from now on will be dedicated to the growing devastation the ‘God-like’ Israelis have left behind. Israel on its side is going to be left with a war of attrition. It took the Hezbollah 20 years to get the IDF out of Lebanon. The Israelis know very well that if the IDF failed miserably in defeating the Hezbollah, no army in the world can do the job any better. Hezbollah is there to stay. Israel is now left with a very hostile neighbour and a very strong Hezbollah on its very vulnerable northern border.
The Old Testament’s almighty God is indeed merciless at times, he acts with fury and vengeance but he isn’t vulnerable. In Genesis 18 the people of Sodom do not fight back, they just pass away. The one who looks back with awe is transformed into a salty statue. But the ‘God-like’ Israelites are rather vulnerable. One billion Arabs are waiting for them behind the corner. One billion Arabs who are humiliated daily by an Anglo-American Zionised west that backs ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’.
One billion Arabs that are looking at stolen Palestine, smashed Gaza and torn apart Lebanon. Those Arabs have a good reason to be cheered by the Hezbollah. It is the Hezbollah that gives them a very good reason to look forward with pride. But the Hezbollah is not the only winner. Clearly, the Israeli attack leads towards a huge humanitarian crisis. While the Americans and British are concerned mainly with rescuing their citizens in Beirut (many of them indeed Lebanese by origin), Syria is there to offer safe shelter to a growing flood of thousands of Lebanese refugees. While Blair and Bush engage in giving the green light to Israeli brutality, it is Syria that gives a hand to the real victims. It is about time we shake off our views and admit that from a purely ethical point of view. It is Syria and Iran who support the oppressed people in this battered region. i.e.. the Palestinians and now the Lebanese. For me this is more than enough to suggest that at least ethically, Iran and Syria are the most progressive powers around.
And just one final word about the God-like Israelites; indeed, it is very clear that they do not love their neighbours. But how to say it, people who inflict so much pain on others probably do not like themselves either. Even murderers don’t like themselves being murderers.

Don't Blame Those Your TV Tells You to Blame

2006-08-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

Now that feelings of impending "big events" have reached those who some months ago never would have had them, one thing to keep in mind is to NEVER blame the people your television will tell you to blame.

What "big events," you ask? What else could save Bush, Israel and the Neocons now.

A 9/11 Truth-Seeker Responds to a Skeptic

2006-08-02T06:47:00.000-07:00

From an email from Alex James quoted on this thread on the Signs of the Times forum:

The Skeptic's questions to the 9/11 Truth Seeker are in "quotes"
"It is like a religious cult for you"
I find that hilarious. Did you know that the latest nationwide Zogby poll, conducted on May 22nd, shows that 42% of adults in America believe that the US government and its 9/11 Commission concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks, saying there has been a cover-up? This amounts to 70 million people! Sir, please...can you, with a serious face, call 70 million people a "cult"? And the tens of million Europeans who believe there's a cover-up? All "cultists", too?
"You keep talking about your people visiting Mahathir and Chavez. Don't you think that it is a little odd that the foreign leaders that are signing on to the 9/11 conspiracy theory bandwagon are all America haters?"
Wrong. Mahathir and Chavez are just two of scores of members of foreign governments who have been exposed to the FACTS about 9/11. Members of parliament in Germany, Sweden, UK, France, Belgium, Denmark, and Holland are some of the EUROPEANS who have watched the various 9/11 movies and expressed VERY serious concerns about the US government's "official" story. I'm sure it will shock you to know that The Hon. Andreas Von Bulow, the former German Minister of Defense, is a member of Scholars For 9/11 Truth. Von Bulow, a 25-year parliamentarian and member of Helmut Schmidt's cabinet, was also head of the German secret service at one time. He states unequivocally that 9/11 was an inside job, and that the command center for the operation was Mayor Giuliani's fortified bunker in Building 7, which is one of the reasons why that structure had to be demolished. [The other reason, of course, was to ensure the destruction of mountains of evidence contained in NSA, CIA, DEA, and ATF files relating to corporate fraud, money laundering, and drug trafficking. What's not commonly known is that all of these agencies, among others, were all occupants of Building 7.]
The 9/11 panel that toured various American and European cities was organized, funded, and led by millionaire philanthropist Jimmy Walter - who, by the way, has invested over $6M of his personal funds in the movement. Walter also produced the excellent DVD, "Confronting The Evidence", over 600,000 copies of which have been distributed FREE worldwide. Of course, the 9/11 Truth movement has since grown into a spectrum of independent organizations.
If it would make you feel any better, Walter's group moved on to South America and Asia only once they had completed their tour Europe. Insofar as the "cultists" to whom you refer, some of the noteworthy individuals in the greater 9/11 Truth movement (including those on various panels at international symposia) include:
* Former Chief Economist under George W. Bush, and professor at Texas A&M, Morgan Reynolds
* Former Director of Advanced Space Programs Development for the U.S. Air Force, under President Reagan, and combat fighter pilot Col. Robert Bowman (Caltech Phd in aeronautics and nuclear engineering)
* Former CIA Intelligence Advisor to Reagan and George HW Bush and founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Ray McGovern
* Former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Research Fellow at Stanford's Independent Institute, and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, Paul Craig Roberts
* Former Chief of Staff of the Russian armed forces, and chief of the department for General affairs in the Soviet Union 's ministry of Defense, General Leonid Ivashov
* Former MI6 British Counter Intelligence Officer, David Shayler
* Historian, international terrorism expert, and author, Webster G. Tarpley
* Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, former Marine Corps officer, author or editor of more than 20 books, and co-chair of Scholars For 9/11 Truth, James Fetzer
* Professor of Physics, Brigham Young University, and co-chair of Scholars For 9/11 Truth, Steven Jones
* Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Religion & Theology, Claremont Graduate University, and author or editor of some 30 books, including "The New Pearl Harbor" and "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions" David Ray Griffin
* Professor of mathematics, University of Western Ontario, and founder of the Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven (SPINE), A.K Dewdney
* Aircraft crash investigation authority, USAF Col. (Ret) George Nelson
* Former chief Pentagon arms negotiator for the Middle East, USAF Col. (Ret) Don de Grand-Pre
* Numerous research scientists and academics from major universities around the world, hundreds of experts with PhDs, current and retired airline and military pilots...
If you would deem the above-mentioned individuals to be "cultists", then I shall unreservedly declare my pride of membership in their cult.
Sir, the reason the 9/11 movement is sweeping around the world is not to round up "enemies of America". The movement is spreading abroad because HUNDREDS of petitions to the US Congress have been IGNORED. If we cannot get the attention we demand in this country, we fully intend to hoist our case on to the international stage. After all, polls show that over SEVENTY PERCENT of Europeans believe 9/11 was an inside job.
"How do you get your cultists to believe that when five years after the fact the Oil in Iraq still belongs to Iraq?"
The illegal invasion of Iraq was about the oil, but not for the oil. We didn't go in to grab the oil. Just the opposite.
We went in to control Iraq's oil and make sure we didn't get it. Note that the price of oil went for $15 to $75 quintupling the $ purchase requirements, i.e. from over $600 million daily to over $3 billion daily.
To get the whole picture, you need to go back to 1920, when the major oil companies sat in a hotel room in Brussels and drew a red line around Iraq and said, "There'll be no oil coming out of that nation." Why? If they don't suppress oil coming out of Iraq, the price of oil will collapse. Saddam was a serious thorn in their side because he refused to play ball.
There is a 323-page plan, written by Big Oil, which is the secret but official plan of the United States for Iraq's oil. It was written out of the James Baker Institute in coordination with a secret committee of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). It's all about a plan to control Iraq's oil and make sure that Iraq has a system which "enhances its relationship with OPEC."
In other words, the whole idea is to maintain the power of the US$ as a world currency that is printed because OPEC demands US$ for its oil which it promptly recycles back to the Federal Reserve thus allowing the US military-industrial feudal complex to get something for nothing. And this is one of the reasons "we" absolutely hate Hugo Chavez - and why Venezuela could well end up being the next nation (after Iran) on the Neocon's list to be accused of possessing hidden caches of "WMD".
As you'll see in the recent issue of Harper's, Chavez has asked OPEC to officially recognize that he has more oil than Saudi Arabia. This is a geopolitical earthquake. And the inside documents from the U.S. Department of Energy, which is also in Harper's, say, yes, Chavez has got more oil than Saudi Arabia.
We're paying $3 a gallon. ExxonMobil is collecting $3 a gallon. When Bush came into power, oil cost $15-$18 a barrel. Bush has successfully built up the price of oil to over $70. That's the "mission accomplished" he announced. He didn't make a mistake here. That was the "mission accomplished" in Iraq.
ExxonMobil, after Enron, is the biggest lifetime donor to the Bush campaigns. The value of its reserves, because of the Bush wars and Bush actions, has gone up by almost $1 trillion in value. Just one company. A trillion-dollar windfall to a single company!
Harper's actually got their hands on two different plans for Iraq's oil, a 101-page plan and a 323-page plan, which is all about, in great detail, what we are going do with Iraq's oil. And guess what? The number of Iraqis involved in writing this crucial document is exactly ZERO. So much for bringing "freedom and democracy" to the Iraqis.
It is now generally known what occurred in the secret discussions between the oil companies, Ken Lay and Dick Cheney. The verdict is about to come down. Why was Cheney in the meeting with oil companies, looking over the maps of Iraq? He was on this committee drafting up the program for what to do about Iraq. And for their plan to work, they absolutely had to get rid of Saddam because he was totally destabilizing the oil markets by jerking prices to low levels.
Sir, wake up! As numerous administration whistleblowers have revealed, the plan for the invasion of Iraq was on the drawing boards LONG before 9/11. 9/11 was the trigger event to set that plan in motion by rallying the necessary support of the American populace.
Do you see all those flag-festooned Hummers and pickups on the streets piloted by seething armchair-Rambo-like lunatics? This could never have happened if the nation didn't suffer another "Pearl Harbor" -- aka Nine-Eleven. The Neocons used 9/11 to terrify the American public, galvanize combative emotions, and win their support for the invasions of two sovereign nations.
You know what's a real tragedy? A full one-third of the US population actually believes that Iraq was behind 9/11 and that Bush found the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Clearly, a large percentage of us believes Iran has nuclear weapons and that America is in danger of being attacked by Iran.
No democracy can work when people take their responsibility as citizen so lightly as to be so totally and utterly ignorant.
"Claiming that the President is responsible for the mass murders is ludicrous"
I've repeated this to you before, but you continue to ignore it: 9/11 is beyond Republicans. It is beyond Democrats. It is beyond "politics" as we know it. It rises FAR higher. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be shocked if even Bush didn't know about all the details in advance. However, it is a fact the man has racked up $2 trillion in extra debt, and someone's got to pay for that. That said, I refuse to get drawn into a "political" debate on 9/11, because that would be a simplistic and ignorant approach to understanding the forces behind this diabolically treasonous event.
"I wonder if you were 'converted' to your way of thinking about 9/11"
Absolutely -- but not in the way you insinuate it, i.e., naively joining some rah-rah crusade of conspiracy crackpots. As a matter of fact, I did not give the subject a second thought until October 2004, when I was directed me to a website that showed a brief clip re the attack on the Pentagon (http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/). As a pilot and aeronautical engineer, I was quite shocked by the claims, and initially thought it was nonsense. I actually set about fully expecting to DISPROVE what these "conspiracy nuts" were claiming. So I put on my engineer/pilot's cap and started to dig. The more I dug, the more foul-smelling things began to get. And then someone directed me to a website (http://911research.com/talks/b7/videos.html ) on the mysterious collapse of WTC Building 7, a building that was not struck by an aircraft, yet fell like a pillar of sand in 6.5 seconds into its own footprint. As I watched the video in utter disbelief, the whole "official conspiracy theory" began to fall apart right before my eyes.
"Are you one of the originators of the theory?"
Sir, you give me far too much credit. Minds far brighter than mine saw through this farce the moment it occurred. I'm a real "late bloomer". The closed-minded fool I was, it took me three years after 9/11 to catch on. I, like everyone else, believed what I was told. I vividly recall the day someone asked me whether I knew about the "9/11 cover-up". I truly thought what the chap meant was some financial scandal concerning compensation to widows or some such! No, I'm by no means one of the "originators" of the "theory". I am simply one little blade of grass in a huge, expansive, ever-growing meadow...there are literally TENS OF MILLIONS of people out there demanding that the 9/11 investigation be re-opened.
"Suppose, for example, we would rebuild WTC 1, and demolish it with explosives just to study how it would fall"
Sir, if an engineer or physicist needs to determine how long it would take for an apple to fall a certain distance from a tree, he doesn't need to grow an apple tree and wait for it to bear fruit in order to figure it out.
Employing very simple mathematical formulae based upon the law of gravity and the principles of aerodynamics, s/he can determine the time, to within 1/1000th of a second, on a blank sheet of paper. You either don't understand the most rudimentary explanation I presented you in my earlier email, or you refuse to do so because you know it will open up a can of worms that you'd much rather avoid altogether.
Let me repeat: It is IMPOSSIBLE (there is no other word) for the roofs of the towers to have struck the ground in exactly the same time as a ball dropped from the same height. Why? The roof would have to crush, tear and plow through 110 levels of steel columns, walls, floor slabs, office equipment, etc. before it could reach the ground. The ball would simply drop through AIR.
How could the roof and the ball both hit the ground in exactly the same time? The ONLY way the roof could have hit the ground in 9.4 seconds would have been if nothing existed beneath it but AIR. And that's what explosives do: blow everything out of the way so that there is nothing to resist the fall.
Forget the math. Look again at that photo I sent you, very carefully. Or, watch the video again - this time with a stopwatch in your hand. The explosives were triggered in a precise vertical sequence so that the floors and supports were getting blown out of the way just as the mass above them was falling. All you have to do is LOOK. And think.
"You say that you know how fast a building built like the towers should fall. I say there is no way you can know that because there has never been a building, built like that, fall before"
Yes, of course there is a way to know. Determining the LONGEST time it would take for a building to fall under these circumstances could be quite complex given the myriad variables, but calculating the FASTEST POSSIBLE time if nothing impeded its fall is a piece of cake.
You see, when it comes to "freefall", apples and buildings fall the same way. They both obey the same LAW -- the Law of Gravity. Every falling object is ruled by this fundamental law. Bricks and feathers fall at the same rate in a vacuum (one of the first thing a kid learns in science class, remember?).
A scientist does not have to grow a tree or reconstruct a building to arrive at a determination of FREEFALL time. He calculates it, like he does everything else. For instance, how does an engineer design a parachute? Does he strap a piece of cloth onto some hapless twit and toss him out of an airplane? Of course not. He calculates the forces involved on paper before cutting and sewing an appropriately DESIGNED piece of fabric. Entire airplanes are designed on paper before they ever leave the ground. ANY engineer worth his salt knows the MAXIMUM speed at which a building can fall: It is the same as that for an apple - except, unlike a building, the falling apple is not resisted by any structure beneath it. Therefore, it should, and will, fall a lot faster than a building - unless the bottom of the building was being "blown out" as it fell!
This isn't magic we're talking about, it's simple science. No, we certainly do not need to re-construct the towers to figure this one out.
"A ten-year-old child can see the difference when shown the videos"
I don't know about the kids in your neck of the woods, but when he was 13 (two years ago), my son figured it out all by himself. (I'm sure being a straight-A student in an all-Honors curriculum -- and a chess champion to boot -- helped, but that's beside the point).
Now, here's a challenge that might interest you: the aforementioned philanthropist, Jimmy Walter, announced THREE YEARS AGO that he will pay $1 million to the first person to prove, through a detailed mathematical analysis, that explosives were NOT used to destroy the World Trade Center. This offer has even been distributed to the engineering faculties of major universities around the world. Guess what -- NOT ONE SINGLE TAKER. Why? Because it is IMPOSSIBLE for the towers to have collapsed the way they did WITHOUT explosives, and anyone who analyzes it for any length of time will figure this out very quickly.
Here's a challenge to YOU: Why don't you commission an engineering whiz to respond to Mr. Walter's challenge, win the million bucks and split the purse? After all, the money is going begging. And remember, Walter is not asking anyone to construct another tower! He's only asking for a detailed mathematical analysis.
"I cannot tolerate your conspiracy theory..."
The only "conspiracy theory" is the "official" version of 9/11 - that 19 amateur Arabs armed with boxcutters, led by a man on a dialysis machine in a cave in Afghanistan, outwitted the multi-trillion-dollar defense apparatus of the most technologically advanced superpower in our solar system by flying FOUR jumbo jets around the country for TWO HOURS without triggering ONE single fighter intercept. Never mind that these nineteen brigands boarded the four aircraft without reservations, without issued tickets, without boarding passes, without ID checks, and without their names appearing on a single passenger manifest. (Let's overlook the little fact that seven of the nineteen are proven to be alive and well in the Middle East today.) You see, there's simply too much material to cover in an email. Besides -- and not meaning to appear condescending -- I will say this: I have spent FAR more time with YOU on this subject than I have with ANY other person.
May I suggest, first and foremost, you forget about the "who, why and how" of 9/11, and stick to science, logic, and common sense regarding the actual events. That's the ONLY intelligent way to begin to approach this subject. The moment you think about the "plot", you quickly lose sight of the FACTS. Stay focused, and let the NEW investigation we seek determine the "who, why, and how".
For now, all you need to realize is this: not only is the "official" story, point for point, an outright, demonstrable lie, it is impossible.
As a primer to continued discussion, I must request that you read "The New Pearl Harbor", and "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions", both by Prof. David Ray Griffin.
If you do NOT read these two books - generally considered the definitive treatment of the subject -- I respectfully ask that we conclude this dialog forthwith.
Our exchanges would be futile if the foundation is not first properly set. Indeed, it would be a complete waste of our time.
But for the moment, may I suggest we forget about the Twin Towers altogether. Let's forget about freefall times. Let's even forget about the lakes of MOLTEN METAL in the basements [even a hundred million gallons of kerosene couldn't have done that.]
Instead, do me a favor and visit http://911research.com/talks/b7/videos.html and watch the collapse of Building 7, a 47-storey steel-framed skyscraper, from THREE DIFFERENT camera angles. Perfect, demolition style symmetrical collapse at the speed of gravity.
I'll even send you PBS footage of the building's owner, Larry Silverstein, ADMITTING ON CAMERA that he gave the order to "pull it".
Then, tell me with a straight face that what you see is NOT a controlled demolition. Now, planning and configuring a building of this type and size for a pull would literally take MONTHS. It absolutely could not have been set up for a pull on the day of 9/11. It was done before. The structure was pre-configured for a pull months in advance, likely during its construction phase. Look at all of the skyscraper fires in history, including the very recent ones. None of the buildings collapsed due to fires which burned for much longer periods and more intensely than WTC 7.
WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?
Sir, this is why 42 percent of Americans polled by Zogby last month - 70 MILLION of our compatriots -- want the 9/11 investigation re-opened.
If you agree Building 7 was brought down by controlled demolition, your journey of discovery is ready to begin. If you don't, I'm afraid your state of denial and cognitive dissonance is incurable.

The Final Push of the Pathocracy

2006-07-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

I can’t say it better than Joe Quinn, so here is most of his latest essay:

Is It Really About Defence?

As an explanation for the murder of 300 Lebanese civilians over the past 7 days and the murder of over 3,000 Palestinian civilians and 800 Israeli civilians over the past five years, Bush and Olmert repeatedly state that "Israel has a right to defend itself". When the facts are analysed, this claim is nonsensical and an outright lie. The Israeli military has been occupying Palestinian, Lebanese (the Chebaa Farms area) and Syrian (Golan heights) for almost 40 years. In the Palestinian land that it occupies, the Israeli government had reduced the Palestinian population therein to little more than slaves. Israel holds these lands in defiance of international law. This is the major source of Palestinian and Hezbollah resentment towards and attacks on Israel. The continuation of an enforced occupation of the sovereign territory of another people and nation simply cannot be described as "defence". If a person comes and throws you out of your home and occupies it by force of arms, he may claim that he is "defending" it, but it is a defence of something acquired through illegal means and is therefore an unlawful and aggressive act. It is not defence.

The history of Israeli tactics in the occupied Palestinian territories over the past 50 years make it very clear that the ultimate goal of the Israeli power brokers has always been the removal, in one way or another, of all Palestinians from their land.

…The Israeli government began building the illegal settlements in 1967, they same year that it annexed Lebanese and Syrian land. Today, Israeli settlers live in plush comfortable houses with all amenities on 40% of Palestinian land in the West Bank, while Palestinians regularly have their meager houses destroyed by Israeli bulldozers. All crossings out of Gaza and the West Bank are strictly controlled by Israeli troops, with most Palestinians being denied the right to leave. Poverty in Gaza and the West Bank is rife with 65% of the population living below the poverty line i.e. on less than $2 per day.

What is very clear to Palestinians, and has been for a very long time, is that the Israeli government never intended to allow the Palestinians to have a state of their own. Palestinians are painfully aware of the fact that, since 1967, the Israeli government has been preparing what was left of Palestinian land for a final annexation into Israel, with the only impediment to the fulfillment of this plan being the Palestinians living there. With the recent staged crisis, Israel hopes to find the opportunity to deal with this last 'obstacle' to Greater Israel, once and for all. Clearly then, it is the Palestinians, and now the Lebanese, who are, and have always been engaged in defence against a long-term and ongoing Israeli plot to dispossess them of their land and homes forever.

How do you feel about this?

When you look at the bodies of Lebanese babies, their little bodies lying mangled, scattered around the ground beside the burnt-out van they were travelling in only minutes before, what do you feel? Is this a just end to this child's life?! Did he deserve it?!
When you realise that these children were ordered to leave their homes by the Israeli military in a deliberate ploy to "flush them out" in order to blow them to pieces with their bombs, what do you feel?

When you see the once beautiful brown curls of a 5 year old Lebanese girl, now matted with her own blood, her clothes torn, her head hanging lifeless, what do you feel?
When you look at the image below of another Lebanese "terrorist" girl 'taken out' by Israeli war planes, do you think of your own children? Do you imagine how you would feel if this were your child?
Imagine for a moment that you are the President of America, or a member of his administration, or the Israeli Prime Minister, or a member of his administration. Having seen these pictures, would you, as "Commander in Chief", continue to order more air strikes on civilian targets? If you retained even an ounce of your own humanity - your ability to empathise with the suffering of another - you most definitely would not. You could not. Bush and Olmert see these pictures and they remained unmoved, supremely detached from any emotion at the sight of a dead child, and they give the order to continue the bombing.
Apparently, they want to see more dead children.

Am I being inflammatory when I say this? Am I exaggerating? Can it really be possible that our leaders are so inhuman, so different from you and I?

No one wants to consider such a concept, but what else are we to conclude when the bombing continues? When 270 of 300 Lebanese killed in the past week were innocent civilians, are you going to tell me that Israeli (and therefore American) war technology is so crude that it repeatedly hits the wrong target? In which case, why do they keep using such devices? Are you trying to tell me that missiles that hit the fleeing civilians were not deliberate? How far can your credibility be stretched?

The Real Enemy Of Mankind

The 'crisis' in Palestine and Lebanon comes at a bad time for the alternative media. Up until a few weeks ago, we could still entertain the idea that we were making a difference. The dogged blogging and posting of articles and editorials on web sites seemed to be having an effect. We felt we had a voice and that it was being listened to by an ever increasing number of people. We thought the pressure we were bringing to bear would surely stay the hand of the war mongers, that they would 'see the light', that we could 'bring them to their senses'. But we were wrong it seems.

If there is one glaring problem with the alternative media today it is that they do not know the true nature of the enemy. In fact, no one seems to realise that we are fighting an enemy at all. Most still believe that we are dealing with a few misguided political leaders who just seem to have a really hard time realising that their actions are causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. If they could only be made aware of this, the world would turn the corner towards peace and prosperity for all, right?

Unfortunately, there is a serious problem with this assumption.

If we, the information-deprived masses, are able to get a glimpse of the carnage that our political leaders are causing, is it not a certainty that these same political leaders are significantly more aware of the results of their actions? After all, they are in possession of detailed intelligence reports on demographics, details of targets selected and the nature and destructive power of the weapons they employ against those targets. When we hear of an Israeli or American bomb scoring a direct hit on a residential house that kills dozens of innocent men women and children, our lack of knowledge of military affairs and planning allows us to believe that maybe it was a mistake, that they didn't really mean to kill civilians. Indeed, we need to believe this, because to believe otherwise is to face ourselves into a very frightening scenario indeed - that our political leaders, the men and women who sit in almost absolute power over us, are fully conscious of their actions and therefore lack the one characteristic that defines a person as truly human: empathy for the suffering of another human being.

So we force ourselves to believe that the men and women with the power to kill millions would never take delight in exercising that power. We think that because we recoil in horror and grief at the sight of the lifeless body of a small child lying beside the burnt out shell of the car she was travelling in before it was hit by an Israeli or American missile, that the men who fired the missile, or those who ordered them to fire it, are also deeply moved by such a tragic scene. Yet we run into a problem the very moment that a second missile, then a third and then a fourth, extinguishes more innocent lives. How many more bodies of dead children, how many more weeks of Israeli military bombing campaigns on civilian targets are needed before we come to the conclusion that the members of the Israeli, American and British governments who, in full knowledge of their actions continue to sanction or order such attacks, simply do not, cannot, feel the same way about the massacring of innocent children as you and I?

Understandably, this is a hard one for many people to accept. To accept it heralds the end of our cozy world-view where basically good and decent leaders, people just like you and I, are at least striving to do what is best for the world and its people. In its place, we find ourselves in a world where the global power brokers, the people who control every aspect of our material lives, appear not to care about human life at all, save their own.

How long might an impala on the serengeti expect to survive if, despite all evidence to contrary, it continues to believe in the innate benevolence of a lion towards its species?

This is an appropriate analogy. Scientific studies have shown that when normal human beings are presented with a disturbing image of human suffering, an area of the brain associated with emotion and empathy "lights up". Similar studies carried out on known psychopaths show that they appear to lack the normal range of human emotion. When a psychopath is shown a picture of a car, followed by a picture of a dead child and a grieving mother, there is no difference in brain response. There is no feeling it seems.

Psychopathy

Dr Hervey Cleckly spent years studying psychopaths up close and personal. His book, The Mask of Sanity, shows that, outwardly, the average intelligent psychopath bears no resemblance, neither in appearance nor actions, to Hannibal Lecter or Ted Bundy. Neither is he in jail. On the contrary, the average psychopath appears to be conscious of the fact that he lacks the basic human ability to feel deep emotion and empathy for another. Early on in his life, the psychopath learns that displays of complete indifference to the suffering of others are reacted to with concern and sometimes anger by his family and peers. So he learns to conceal it. At the same time, he recognises and gravitates towards others who share his deficiency.

It is not hard to imagine that psychopaths do very well in business and politics where the promotion of self-interest and the accrual of personal and group power is the name of the game. Where you or I, in possession of a conscience, would surely balk at, for example deliberately getting a work colleague fired for no reason other than facilitate our own ascent of the corporate ladder, no such impediment to success exists for the psychopath who simply cannot put himself in the place of another human being and therefore feel empathy. While it has been estimated that approximately 6% of the global population falls into the category of psychopath (about 360 million people), their extreme self-interest and the fact that such "ambition" is a key ingredient of success in the world of politics and business, we assume much more than 6% of top level corporate, government and military positions are held by people who possess no ability to empathise with the needs or suffering of another human being.

A perusal of the last few thousand years of the history of our world quickly reveals to us that, more than anything else, war has defined our 'evolution' (if it can be called that). Equally obvious is the fact that, in war, soldiers and civilians die while the men and women responsible for waging war (on both sides) generally neither fight in the war nor are punished for their part in it encouraging it.

Does that tell you anything?

Throughout history, small groups of people have risen to power over the masses, and by the promotion of religious, ethnic or political divisions, they have set large groups of ordinary human beings against each other in order to further their personal goals. More often that not, ideologies such as 'freedom' are used to rally the masses to fight. But history testifies that the only real net result of war is the consolidation of power into the hands of an 'elite' few. After the allies were victorious in WWII, Stalin went on to murder 50 million Russians. World War II led to the creation of the state of Israel and the ongoing persecution of Middle Eastern Arabs. World War II also facilitated the USA's rise to a position of global preeminence, a situation which has caused more death and suffering over the past 60 years than at any other time in our recent history.

Now more than ever, there is an opportunity for each of us to recognise who the true enemy is. Why should we or our sons and daughers continue to fight and kill each other on the command of a small group of people whose only contribution has been to enrich themselves at our expense, at the expense of our very lives?

Are we stupid? Or are we just misinformed? The reality of our world has always been a very clear case of Us and Them, yet we have failed to see it. We fail to see the predatory, unfeeling nature of these people because we ourselves lack such a nature. We project on to them our own human values of empathy and conscience when, time and again, they have proven that they possess no such qualities. We have allowed them to divide us, and set us at each others throats in the name of freedom, a value that we hold dear, not they (save for their usefulness in manipulating us).

Now more than ever, the very real yet hidden phenomenon of psychopathy needs desperately to be uncovered. We need to avail ourselves of the evidence that suggests that many of our political leaders are clinical, yet very smart and careful psychopaths. There is no other plausible explanation for their smug brutality, their deadly lies, their utter indifference to the pitiful sight of the lifeless body of small child for whose death they are responsible.

Lest anyone begin the process of rationalising what I have said, realise that to do so is evidence that your own humanity is being robbed from you by the propagation of our 'leaders' psychopathic values and ideologies. "War is peace", "Black is White" "Muslims are Terrorists" "Our government is protecting us". Before you fall for such paramoralisms, know this; psychopaths feel no empathy for any other human being.
Race or creed does not figure into the equation. There is significant evidence that the psychopaths in power in the US and Israel knowingly murdered 3,000 American citizens on September 11th 2001, few were Muslim. At present the Israeli government is placing the lives of Israeli Jews in clear danger precisely because they simply cannot care about the life of any other human being, Christian, Muslim, Jew they are concerned for none but themselves.

'Armgaeddon' Approaches

As a conclusion, I would like here to present a theory for your consideration, and while you may immediately reject it as implausible, I suggest you watch events in the Middle East and notice the direction they take. My suggestion is that the ultimate goal of the plan that is being currently implemented in Lebanon and Palestine is the destruction of a majority of the population of the modern-day Middle East.

Far from attempting to rid the world of a previously more or less non-existent anti-Semitism, the policies pursued by successive Israeli governments have gone a long way to increasing ill-feeling towards Jews and Israel. By repeatedly condemning anyone who speaks out against the increasingly brutal actions of the Israeli government as anti-Semitic, Israeli leaders and lobbyists are coming close to making the word anti-Semitism respectable. When that happens, the demise of Israel, the Jews and the Arabs of the Middle East will be all but assured. That day is closer than any of us realise.

We have but one hope to prevent what appears to be an approaching major war in the Middle East that will not be limited to that region and which will result in the deaths of millions of innocents: we must understand the truth about the men and women that call themselves our 'leaders', yet who offer nothing but war, suffering and death. We must realise the that they are not like you and I, they do not feel as you and I feel, they do not love as you and I love. They are psychopaths, and under their stewardship death and destruction is 100% assured.

The Horrible Crimes that Started World War III

2006-07-15T20:51:00.000-07:00

Wow. Stop blogging for a few weeks and it’s hard to get started again. Blogging on current events lately is like trying to drink from a firehose. A series of extremely fake terrorism scares followed by a series of suspicious deaths and suicides by people involved with Enron and the wholesale theft of billions in Iraq facilitated by Bush, and now Israel being given the green light to start World War III.

The brutal attacks on Gaza and Lebanon have to rank as some of the worst crimes against humanity in recent history. Israel is revealing its true nature to the world, but most of the world is saying nothing, having been intimidated by Zionist threats or by thousands of years of Yahwehistic propaganda. Here is Wayne Madsen:

Our U.S. intelligence sources in Lebanon have exclusively reported to us the extent of Israel's Blitzkrieg attack on Lebanon, which has destroyed most of the country's critical infrastructures. Beirut International Airport's newly-restored terminal, where many passengers, including Americans, were stranded after the Israelis carpet bombed the runway during flight operations, was bombed in the latest Israeli attack. Israel has turned Lebanon into another Iraq -- there is no electricity and airports, roads, and bridges have been knocked out across the country. Israel has even bombed small ports preventing civilians from escaping to Cyprus. CNN and other Israeli lobby-influenced broadcasters are understating the number of civilian casualties in the repeated Israeli attacks. CNN's Washington bureau is editorially controlled by Wolf Blitzer, a one time employee of the Jerusalem Post and American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). According to our U.S. intelligence sources, the numbers of dead are in the hundreds. In south Lebanon, Israeli planes bombed three vans carrying families after they were turned away from a UN outpost while seeking protection. A total of 23 people were killed, including nine small children. The Israeli attacks have been described by various sources in Lebanon as "sub-human," "monstrous," and "animalistic." Our intelligence sources phoned us before what they believe will be the targets of the next wave of Israeli attacks against the nation's telecommunications networks, including cell phone towers and exchanges.

The Israel regime is acting with the full approval of the Bush administration, both regimes that are totally beholden to neo-con interests intent on throwing the entire Middle East into a firestorm of destruction and death.

No one should be surprised. Here’s the World Socialist Web Site:

The Israeli onslaught on Lebanon, with bombings and missile strikes and the imposition of an air and sea blockade, has brought the Middle East to the brink of all-out war. The attack on Lebanon, fully endorsed by the Bush administration, coincides with Israel’s ongoing assault on the Palestinian population of Gaza, 1.5 million people who are enduring the fourth week of a siege, with electricity cut off and food supplies running low.

…There is a long history of Israel using such events as the excuse for carrying out military actions that have a far broader strategic purpose—going back to 1978, when a full-scale invasion of Lebanon was launched using the shooting of the Israeli ambassador to Britain by Palestinian militants as a pretext. Only much later did it emerge that the invasion had been long planned, awaiting only the proper incident to provide a suitable official justification.

The same pattern is repeated in Gaza and Lebanon today. The Israeli regime has made no secret of its desire to smash up the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. The economic blockade imposed in January, after Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections, has been escalated into a full-scale military blockade of Gaza, where Hamas has its main political support.

In Lebanon, the goal of Israel is, at a minimum, the physical destruction of Hezbollah, the Shiite Islamic movement which dominates the southern third of the country. A full-scale invasion of southern Lebanon by Israeli ground forces is more than likely. Israeli Defense Minister Peretz said, “If the government of Lebanon fails to deploy its forces, as is expected of a sovereign government, we shall not allow Hezbollah forces to remain any further on the borders of the state of Israel.” In other words, if the Lebanese army does not suppress Hezbollah—and no one expects it too—then the Israeli army will do so.

US military intervention in Lebanon is also likely. US media reports Friday suggested that the initial planning for such an intervention was well advanced, with 2,200 Marines to be deployed as a helicopter-borne force that would land near Beirut on the pretext of protecting the 25,000 American citizens now trapped in Lebanon by the Israeli blockade.

Separate or joint US and Israeli air strikes against Syria and Iran, and even a ground invasion of Syria, are also possible. Certainly the main focus of the Bush administration, the congressional Democrats and Republicans, and the American media has been to blame Syria and Iran for the crisis, claiming that those regimes were pulling the strings in Hezbollah

The United States is already losing two wars; its military is severely overstretched as are its finances. How can it possibly see widening the regional war into a global war as being in its interest? WSWS continues,

The Bush administration will not retreat from Iraq and cannot maintain the status quo, as the country slides deeper into civil war and popular opposition to the war mounts among the American people. A sizeable section of the US ruling elite, frustrated by the quagmire in Iraq, believes that the only hope of military success lies in “expanding the problem,” as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has put it. They believe that Iran is using its growing influence on the Iraqi Shiite parties and militias to undermine US control of the puppet regime established in Baghdad, and that a military confrontation with Tehran is inevitable.

The neocons have been stopped in their drive to bomb Iran by opposition from Russia, China and U.S. generals. So now Israel is going to set a match to the kerosene in an attempt to draw Syria, then Iran in. As Jeff Wells of Rigorous Intuition put it:

America's Countdown: Tehran has been stuck at 20 minutes and holding for a couple of months now, derailed by Iran's rational posture regarding its nuclear ambitions and the ongoing thwarting of anything approaching even the Bush administration's benchmark for a casus belli. Israel's hawks, by smashing in the back door, are baiting Iran to action, which would goad the US to crash through the front. Israeli military claims, trumpeted by FoxNews, that the Haifa rockets were fired by Iranian Guard units, and the absurd suggestion that Hezbollah intends to transport their captured soldiers to Iran, say forcefully that this isn't about Lebanon, though for now it will be mostly the Lebanese who perish.

…This is a war crime of opportunity, calculated to at last draw out Iran and draw in American arms to finish what they began in Iraq. Madness is the method, and Death was never going to take a holiday this summer.

Can anyone doubt that the neocons are both insane and evil? When I told people this week that Israel and the United States just started World War III and that the war could easily turn nuclear, they ask: why?

It’s not easy to explain the reasonings of the criminally insane, but here goes. The neocons have argued since at least the Reagan administration that it is a mistake to think that no one can win a nuclear war. Saying that no one can win a nuclear war meant, to them, saying that the U.S. (or Israel) would never use them. They thought it was dumb for the United States to take their main advantage off the table. They think they can sit in their underground cities for a while then come back up and rule the world.

Back to the situation at hand, Israel invading Gaza is like beating a sick man in a hospital with a baseball bat. What they are doing to Lebanon is like beating a man within an inch of his life, letting him go to the hospital, get cared for and rehabilitated, sent home to do years of recovery and then, the moment when the victim has just regained health, beaten him again. Here’s Kurt Nimmo:

In fact, Israel has messed with Lebanon for decades. “Without the elixir of history, it is impossible to fully digest the story of Israel’s ongoing interest in Lebanon and the reasons why Israeli governments have repeatedly both interfered with this country’s internal politics and provoked ‘incidents’ at its border since the 1940’s,” writes Edward R. Miller. “The intimate details of Israel’s manipulations in Lebanon are detailed in the diary of Moshe Sharett, who shared the Prime Ministership of Israel with Ben Gurion only to be forced out of the cabinet because Sharett would not tolerate what he considered Ben-Gurion’s immoral and clandestine methods.” As the late Livia Rokach, daughter of Israel Rokach, Minister of the Interior in the government of Moshe Sharett, notes in Israel’s Sacred Terrorism: A Study Based on Moshe Sharett’s Personal Diary and Other Documents, “Sharett’s diary provides the entire documentation of how in 1954 Ben Gurion developed the diabolic plans to ‘Christianize’ Lebanon, i.e., to invent and create from scratch the inter-Lebanese conflict, and of how a detailed blueprint for the partition and subordination of that country was elaborated by Israel more than fifteen years before the Palestinian presence became a political factor.”

As far back as 1918, Zionist leaders meeting in Europe with a committee of the British Palestinian Mandate discussed stealing Lebanese territory up to the Litani River, emphasizing the “vital importance of controlling all water resources up to their sources.” From the early 1950s onward, Israel threatened to invade Lebanon and take control of the Litani, denying the Lebanese use of the river, and in 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon (Operation Peace for Galilee, or maybe Operation Steal Water), the entire length of the river came under Israeli control.

“In May 1955 Sharett in his dairy described Israel’s plans to destabilize Lebanon’s government, a diabolic enterprise that eventually produced the 1978 Lebanese War,” writes Miller. Ben Gurion’s defense minister, Moshe Dayan, suggested finding a malleable Lebanese military officer and “either win his heart or buy time with money, to make him agree to declare himself the savior of the Marionite [Christian] population. Then the Israel army will enter Lebanon, will occupy the necessary territory, and will create a Christian regime which will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel and everything will be alright,” Dayan is quoted as declaring in Sharett’s diary. Years later, in 1979, Major Sa’d Haddad declared a Maronite State in Lebanon and civil war became inevitable.

In essence, the current rape of Lebanon is a repeat of Israel’s Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996. “With President Clinton safely in Japan, Israel, obviously with a green light from the U.S. administration, felt free to carry out ‘Grapes of Wrath,’ her fifth major terrorist attack on her old killing fields in southern Lebanon. Using as an excuse a few Katyusha rockets aimed at her military (who have been illegally occupying and threatening the southern Lebanese people since 1978), Israel’s army on the anniversary of the Holocaust, bent on murder and mayhem, is presently destroying millions of dollars in property, killing civilians and creating chaos as she stampedes populations as far north as Beirut. On the morning of the 18th, Israeli shells plunged directly into a UN refugee camp south of Tye where thousands fleeing Israeli fire sought shelter and food. The latest figures reported over 60 deaths and hundreds wounded. Most victims were women and children. This is Israel’s fifth major terrorist assault on her northern neighbor.”

This last bit is a reference to the shelling of civilians in Qana, Lebanon, a village located southeast of Tyre. Israel bombarded a Fijian UNIFIL compound in the village with M-109A2 155 mm guns, killing 106 civilians. According to Amnesty International, “the IDF intentionally attacked the UN compound, although the motives for doing so remain unclear. The IDF have failed to substantiate their claim that the attack was a mistake. Even if they were to do so they would still bear responsibility for killing so many civilians by taking the risk to launch an attack so close to the UN compound.”

Of course, the reasons do not “remain unclear,” as Israel has consistently attacked Arab civilians and has a long and sordid history of massacres and atrocities, from Dair Yasin, the Semiramis Hotel, at Baldat al-Shaikh, in Yehiday, Khisas, Qazaza, Beit Daras, at the Dawayma mosque, in Houla in southern Lebanon, at Qibya, at Kafr Qasem, Khan Yunis, al-Sammou, Aitharoun, Kawnin, Hanin, Bint Jbeil, Abbasieh, Adloun, Saida, Fakhani, Beirut, at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, at Jibsheet, Sohmor, Seer al-Garbiah, Maaraka, Zrariah, Homeen al-Tahta, Jibaa, Yohmor, Tiri, al-Naher al-Bared, Ain al-Hillwee, up to Qana and beyond, terminating in the latest outrage.

Naturally, the sordid and criminal record of wanton murder of civilians—tens of thousands of them—is never mentioned by the pro-Israel corporate media in this country. Instead, we endure hours of televised babble about Qassam rockets (a technology invented by Russia in the late 1930s) inaccurately falling on Safed and Nahariya in northern Israel. Meanwhile, we hear little of the residential buildings in southern Beirut blasted with the latest state-of-the-art murder technology (courtesy of you and me, complicit U.S. taxpayers). “The overnight death toll brought to 61 the number of people killed since Wednesday when Israel began retaliating for the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas in a raid across the southern Lebanese border. One of the fatalities was a Hezbollah guerrilla, according to the militant group,” reports the Hindu. In short, in order to bag one Hezbollah “guerrilla” (an absurd appellation), the Israelis kill a few dozen civilians.

In the wake of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Tom Segev of Ha’aretz toured the killing ground. John Rose writes:
[Segev] saw “refugees wandering amidst swarms of flies, dressed in rags, their faces expressing terror and their eyes bewilderment … the women wailing and the children sobbing”. Here and there people were walking “as in a nightmare”. “A terrible smell filled the air”—of decomposing bodies, he learned … “This is what the cities of Germany looked like at the end of the Second World War.” He saw “mounds of ruins”, tens of thousands of people at the shore where they remained for days, women driven away by soldiers when they attempted to flee….

[Chris Giannou, a Canadian surgeon working in Lebanon] reported that “he was witness to four prisoners who were beaten to death.” That he witnessed “the total devastation of residential areas and the blind, savage, indiscriminate destruction of refugee camps by simultaneous shelling and carpet bombing from aircraft, gunboats, tanks and artillery,” leaving only “large blackened craters filled with rubble and debris, broken concrete slabs and twisted iron bars and corpses”; “hospitals being shelled”, one shell killing 40-50 people … He saw “the entire male staff” of the hospital being taken into custody, leaving patients unattended, and “savage and indiscriminate beatings” of prisoners with fists, sticks, ropes with nuts and bolts tied to them. He saw a Palestinian doctor hung by his hands from a tree and beaten and an Iraqi surgeon “beaten by several guards viciously, and left to lie in the sun with his face buried in the sand” – all in the presence of an Israeli Colonel who did nothing about it. He watched prisoners “being rehearsed by an Israeli officer to shout ‘Long Live Begin’”….

As the battering of Beirut reached new heights of savagery, the popularity of Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin soared to record heights. A mid- August poll showed that 80 per cent of Israelis supported the invasion of Lebanon (it was supported by the Labour opposition in the Israeli parliament) and 64 per cent approved the decision to go beyond the 25-mile zone – at which the early propaganda had said the Israelis would stop.

Now why would the popularity of a political leader climb to new highs after that leader committed the most horrible of crimes? Gilad Atzmon, the Israeli-born jazz musician and writer explains:

Israel is a racially orientated democracy. Its leaders are engaged in one thing only, i.e. maintenance of the their political power. As far as the Israeli political game is concerned, the rule is very simple, the more Arab blood you have on your hands the more you are suited to get on with your governing job. This rule obviously was in favour of Rabin, Sharon, Barak and Netanyahu. Olmert and Peretz are still quite far behind. Both the prime minister and his defence minister lack some real experience in military and security matters. Hence they have a lot of catching up to do.

In other words, Peretz and Olmert have to provide the Israeli people with a glorious spectacle of merciless retaliation. They have to prove to their keen voters that they have internalised the real biblical meaning of 'an eye for an eye'. Looking at the carnage in Beirut today it somehow seems as if they even try to give the old Hebraic say a new meaning. As devastating as it may sound, this is exactly what the Israelis want them to do. Within democratic Israel the biblical call "pour out your fury upon the goyim" is translated into a Jewish secular pragmatic political practice. This isn't sad. This is a real tragedy. And I wonder whether there is anyone out there who is still overwhelmed with the Israeli unilateral peace agenda?

Kurt Nimmo again:

If things go off as planned, thousands of Lebanese—and Syrians, Iranians—will need die horrible deaths and hospitals, food warehouses, sanitation plants, water treatment plants, the entire civilian infrastructure will need be inoperable, reduced to flaming ruins.

… It appears World War Three, otherwise known as World War Four (neocons count differently than most people), is on schedule.

…“The next Middle East war—Israel against genocidal Islamism—has begun,” writes Yossi Klein Halevi, described as a foreign correspondent for the neocon New Republic and senior fellow of the Shalem Centre in Jerusalem. “The first stage of the war started two weeks ago with the Israeli incursion into Gaza in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and the ongoing shelling of Israeli towns and kibbutzim. Now, with Hezbollah’s latest attack, the war has spread to southern Lebanon…. Ultimately, though, Israel’s antagonists won’t be Hamas and Hezbollah but their patrons, Iran and Syria. The war will go on for months, perhaps several years. There may be lulls in the fighting, perhaps even temporary agreements and prisoner exchanges. But those periods of calm will be mere respites.”

In other words, we are experiencing the opening salvo of World War Four, according to the Israelis and their neocon acolytes. No doubt they are jumping for joy.

The goals of the war should be the destruction of the Hamas regime and the dismantling of the Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. Israel cannot coexist with Iranian proxies pressing in on its borders. In particular, allowing Hamas to remain in power—and to run the Palestinian educational system—will mean the end of hopes for Arab-Israeli reconciliation not only in this generation but in the next one, too….

The ultimate threat, though, isn’t Hezbollah or Hamas, but Iran. And as Iran draws closer to nuclear capability, an Israeli-Iranian showdown becomes increasingly likely.

According to a very senior military source, Israel is still hoping that an international effort will stop a nuclear Iran. If that fails, then Israel is hoping for a US attack. But if the Bush administration is too weakened to take on Iran, then, as a last resort, Israel will have to act unilaterally.

For Israelis, that is the worst scenario of all. Except, of course, the scenario of nuclear weapons in the hands of the patron state of Hezbollah and Hamas.

In effect, regardless of the platitudes of Zionists such as Mr. Halevi, the “ultimate threat” to Israel is a unified Muslim world and Arab nationalism.

It should not be surprising this war will “go on for months, perhaps several years” (the neocons envision it as a multi-generational “long war”) as it will take some time to kill the millions of Muslims opposed to Israel’s long-standing plan to balkanize the Middle East, or short of mass murder subject them to groveling subservience, as many Israelis consider Arabs and Muslim little more than “hewers of wood and drawers of water,” as the ancient Israelites reduced their Hittite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivite, and Jebusite neighbors.

The sick part is, the neocon, Jabotinsky-zionist leadership of Israel is also endagering the lives of the Jews. With each atrocity carried out by Israel, the security of the Israeli people and of Jews across the world is lessened. Here is Joe Quinn:

Zionist Israel - The True Enemy Of The Jewish People

A recent Time magazine report on the effects of the current Gaza crisis on the many Palestinians whose family members are being held in Israeli prisons, many on no charge, quite clearly shows (as if we needed any confirmation), that the Israeli government, in refusing to end the crisis, cares nothing for the suffering of the Palestinian population.

From the report:
Ghalia Baroud's every emotion is on display when she speaks of her son, Ibrahim. Sitting in her tidy home in Gaza's Jabaliya refugee camp, surrounded by pictures of Ibrahim - jailed since 1986, at the age of 21, for taking part in attacks on Israeli troops - she is by turns furious and woeful. She doesn't deny her son's actions; what almost all Israelis see as terrorism, she sees as justified resistance. But when asked about the parents of Corporal Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held captive by Palestinian militants since June 25, she is instantly empathetic. "We know Israelis love their children just as we do," she says softly.

Very importantly however, the Time magazine report also deals with the effects of the crisis on the family of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, the alleged reason for the current crisis, and in doing so shows just as clearly, that the Israeli government is in no way concerned for the suffering, or the will, of the Israeli population either.

The Shalit family's love for Gilad is indeed palpable in the northern Israeli town of Hila, where his parents, Noam and Aviva, live and where a banner hangs reading gilad: we are waiting for you at home. Noam, a compact man with close-cropped white hair and blue eyes, has no sympathy for the actions of the militants of Hamas or the Popular Resistance Committee, but he is keenly aware that the current military operation in Gaza - launched with the stated intent of freeing his son, but since greatly expanded to counter Palestinian rocket fire into Israel, and to make a political point - is imposing extraordinary hardships on noncombatants there. "Thousands of ordinary Palestinians are suffering for this issue," he said last week.

Olmert continually claims that his goal is to stop the firing of rockets into Israel by Palestinian militants, yet, at every turn, Olmert, like Sharon before him, has sought to exacerbate the conflict with the Palestinians.
Consider the fact that, when elected to power in Palestine in January this year, Hamas had been holding to a year-long unilateral ceasefire with Israel i.e. while Israel continued to attack and kill militants and civilians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, Hamas did not respond. Despite this, on their election, Olmert immediately sought to isolate Hamas internationally and he successfully convinced most Western governments into agreeing to cut off all international aid, effectively crippling the fledgling Hamas government. To add insult to injury, Olmert announced that newly and democratically-elected Hamas officials would be subject to assassination attempts by Israeli forces. Olmert also began a policy of preventing essential supplies from entering Gaza, including food and medicine - a clear attempt at collectively punishing the entire Gaza population for electing, from Israel's point of view, the 'wrong' leaders. In the midst of this complete control that Israel wielded over the lives of the 1.3M people of Gaza, Olmert has the gall to claim that, following the withdrawal of Israeli settlers last year from Gaza, Gazans were now a free people in their own land!
While Israel (and Condi Rice) have attempted to lay the blame for the current crisis at the door of Hamas, important facts about recent events in Israel and Palestine have been conspicuously absent from the mainstream press.
The first of these is the already-mentioned fact that, up until the current impasse, Hamas had been holding to a 16 month unilateral ceasefire with Israel.
The second is the report that a large-scale Israeli army incursion into Gaza had been in the planning many months prior to the capture of Gilad, an event which appears to have been seized upon at justification for the incursion to begin.
The third is that the day before the Hamas-led attack on the Israeli army post that led to the capture of Israeli soldier Shalit, Israeli agents had infiltrated Gaza and abducted and imprisoned two Hamas politicians, while Hamas was still holding to its ceasefire.
The fourth is that, in the two weeks prior to the Hamas attack, Israeli forces had murdered 23 Palestinian civilians.
Hamas captured one Israeli soldier. 10,000 Palestinians are languishing in Israeli prisons, many of them women and children. Hamas has asked that the women and children be released in exchange for the release of Shalit. Olmert has refused, point blank.
What we conclude from all of this is that the Israeli government, under the leadership of PM Ehud Olmert, abides by its own version of law and justice and it expects the international community to turn a blind eye to Israeli brutality, while at the same time expecting to be treated as "the only democracy in the Middle East". Olmert is following his own agenda, or rather, he is continuing the 100+ year-old Zionist agenda that was responsible for the creation of the state of Israel on stolen Palestinian land. It is an agenda that not only spurns all consideration for the welfare or lives of Palestinian civilians, but shows a similar contempt for the safety and well-being of the Israeli Jewish population.

Olmert's agenda, conscious or not, seems destined to push the Israeli-Palestinian conflict past boiling point, and in doing so, ignite a major conflict in the wider Middle East. Out of such a war, no group of people will emerge unscathed (if at all), regardless of their religious affiliation or what their "God" promised them 2,000 years ago.

Operation to Re-Elect Republicans

2006-06-23T18:21:00.000-07:00

Operation Reelect Republicans in 2006 is proceeding with the arrest of some more patsy “terrorist plotters” in Florida. Yawn.

Miami men accused of discussing attacks
By Michael Christie
Seven people arrested in Miami discussed attacks on the landmark Sears Tower in Chicago, the FBI building in Miami and other government buildings in a mission "just as good or greater" than September 11, U.S. officials said on Friday.

But Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a news conference in Washington that the plotting of the seven, who were called part of a "a home-grown terrorism cell," never went beyond the earliest planning stages.

"There was no immediate threat," Gonzales said, acknowledging the defendants never had any contact with al Qaeda and did not have any weapons. "They didn't have the materials required."

An indictment handed up against the men by a grand jury in south Florida said they pledged loyalty to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda in order to "wage war" against the U.S. government and build an Islamic army.

It said at least one of them plotted to blow up the 110-story Sears Tower, the tallest building in the United States.

But Deputy FBI Director John Pistole said at the Justice Department news conference that the discussions to attack the Sears Tower were "aspirational rather than operational."

Gonzales emphasized there was no immediate threat to the Sears Tower or the five government buildings in the Miami area.

The men, named as Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin, Lyglenson Lemorin and Rotschild Augustine, were due to appear in a Miami magistrate's court later on Friday.
Justice Department officials said five were Americans and two were from Haiti, and that one of the two Haitians was in the country illegally.

'WE ARE NOT TERRORISTS'
The defendants thought they were discussing the attacks with a member of al Qaeda, but in reality the person was an informant cooperating with the FBI, the officials said.

They were arrested on Thursday after heavily armed FBI agents and other law enforcement agencies swooped on a warehouse in one of Miami's poorest neighborhoods, Liberty City, a predominantly black area that has witnessed some of Miami's worst race riots.

A man identified as a member of the "Seas of David" religious group told CNN on Thursday that five of his fellow members were among those arrested and that they had no connection to terrorists.

"We are not terrorists. We are members of David, Seas of David," said the man, identified as Brother Corey. He said the group had "soldiers" in Chicago, but reiterated it was peaceful movement. Miami media said the group of men sold hair grease and shampoo in the streets. Some worked on construction crews.
The indictment said all of the defendants also referred to themselves as "Brothers."

It said one of the men, Batiste, told an FBI informant he believed to be an al Qaeda representative that he wanted to attend a training camp with some of his "soldiers" and wage a "full ground war" against the United States.

Their aim was to "'kill all the devils we can' in a mission that would 'be just as good or greater than 9/11,' beginning with the destruction of the Sears Tower," according to the indictment.

A parade through Miami to celebrate the victory by the Miami Heat team in the National Basketball Association championship, expected to attract about 200,000 people, was still due to go ahead on Friday and the authorities stressed that citizens were never at risk.

It was unclear what impact if any the arrests might have on public opinion ahead of mid-term congressional elections in November, and amid a deep slump in President George W. Bush's popularity and in public support for the Iraq war.

These poor patsies, probably mind control victims (see the interesting quotes in some wire service reports from neighbors who described the young men as “brainwashed”), were clearly set up by the FBI informant in an operation reminiscent of the recent arrests in Canada which, after the initial fear-mongering headlines, ended up being a laughingstock.

Once you read the details, you realize how flimsy the so-called “plot” was. No doubt the plot would not have existed at all without the informant. But that doesn’t matter when you are running a psychological operation on the U.S. public. All that matters is the headline, repeated endlessly over the last day.

There is also the leak of selected parts of the Pentagon’s chemical weapons report, widely trumpeted by buffoonish Senator Rick Santorum:

New intel report reignites Iraq arms fight
By Katherine Shrader, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jun 23, 3:33 AM ET
Hundreds of chemical weapons found in Iraq were produced before the 1991 Gulf War and probably are so old they couldn't be used as designed, intelligence officials said Thursday.

Two lawmakers — Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., and House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich. — on Wednesday circulated a one-page summary of a military intelligence report that says coalition forces have recovered about 500 munitions with mustard or sarin agents, and more could be discovered around Iraq. "We now have found stockpiles," Santorum asserted.

But intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitive nature, said the weapons were produced before the 1991 Gulf War and there is no evidence to date of chemical munitions manufactured since then. They said an assessment of the weapons concluded they are so degraded that they couldn't now be used as designed.

They probably would have been intended for chemical attacks during the Iran-Iraq War, said David Kay, who headed the U.S. weapons-hunting team in Iraq from 2003 until early 2004.

He said experts on Iraq's chemical weapons are in "almost 100 percent agreement" that sarin nerve agent produced from the 1980s would no longer be dangerous.

"It is less toxic than most things that Americans have under their kitchen sink at this point," Kay said.

And any of Iraq's 1980s-era mustard would produce burns, but it is unlikely to be lethal, Kay said.

Asked about the potential danger to U.S. troops, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said: "They are weapons of mass destruction. They are harmful to human beings. And they have been found."

The newly declassified military intelligence report was released Wednesday by National Intelligence Director John Negroponte. Santorum and Hoekstra had urged him to release the report this week during congressional debates on Iraq.

The senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee questioned the timing of the report's release. "What worries me is that the intelligence community — Ambassador Negroponte in particular — may be playing a partisan role in the 2006 election," California Rep. Jane Harman (news, bio, voting record) said.

Hoekstra said the document is not a "smoking gun." But he hinted that the chemical agents could be significant because they may have been added to the discovered artillery shells after the first Gulf War. He noted that one of the declassified findings says the munitions could be lethal.

"David Kay says anything produced prior to 1991 is not lethal anymore, so what is the discrepancy here?" Hoekstra said. "I am 100 percent sure if David Kay had the opportunity to look at the reports that describe these things, he would agree with the finding that ... these things are lethal and deadly."

Intelligence officials said the munitions were found in ones, twos and maybe slightly larger collections over the past couple of years. One official conceded that these pre-Gulf War weapons did not pose a threat to the U.S. military before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. They were not maintained or part of any organized program run by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

There is no evidence that insurgents have found the chemical munitions. But one official said that insurgents have improvised conventional weapons, so they could apply similar creativity with the vintage weapons.

The funny thing is the article keeps referencing "1980s-era chemical weapons" without mentioning that they were sold to Saddam Hussein by none other than Donald Rumsfeld himself! See the following by Wayne Madsen:

June 23, 2006 -- The "swift boating" of Army counterintelligence personnel who blew the whistle on Rumsfeld's/Carlyle's Iraqi WMDs and prisoner torture in Iraq. In 2003, Frank Greg Ford, a 32-year veteran of military and counter-intelligence assignments, served in Samara with the 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion of the California National Guard during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Samara is the ancient capital of Mesopotamia, Ford and Dave DeBatto. a former US Army Counterintelligence Special Agent who was assigned in 2003 to Iraq, took part in thousands of interrogations in Iraq. Ford revealed details of U.S. torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, a tactic that resulted in an aggravation of the Iraqi insurgency. DeBatto found evidence of an even greater crime, the provision of deadly nerve agents to Saddam Hussein by Ronald Reagan, his envoy Donald Rumsfeld, and George H. W. Bush.
DeBatto and Ford also stumbled across evidence that the only WMDs, nerve agents that had deteriorated over the years, had been supplied to Iraq by the Reagan and Bush I administrations for their war against Iran. Reagan's Special Envoy to Saddam Hussein, Donald Rumsfeld, worked out the deal to supply the WMDs to Iraq. It is these components, known to various UN weapons inspection teams and counter-intelligence teams like those of DeBatto and Ford, that are the subject of Sen. Rick Santorum's and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra's proclamation, ballyhooed by Sean Hannity, that the weapons of mass destruction have been discovered in Iraq. These weapons are made in America, supplied by Carlyle, and were known to Rumsfeld as well as senior members of the Bush I and II administrations, including Dick Cheney.
In December 2004, a right-wing organization based in McLean, Virginia, "Veriseal.org," which is tied to other "swift boating" type organizations went on the attack against Ford and DeBatto. They claim that Ford, a former Navy corpsman, never served with the Navy SEALS and had manufactured his record. The site also castigated DeBatto for writing a fictional book on Army counter-intelligence. The swift boating of veterans by a group of mysteriously-funded cranks operating from a P.O. Box near CIA headquarters in Langley is part of a general policy by the right-wing to debase any veteran who questions the illegal war in Iraq and the other outrages of the neo-cons.

And we can add to campaign to re-elect Republicans and keep Bush out of jail the fear campaign and war games targeting North Korea. It looks like the entire political establishment is calling for an attack on North Korea to destroy the missile that can supposedly hit the United States. Here is Walter Mondale, former Vice President and former Ambassador to Japan:

Mondale backs pre-emptive missile strike

Former Vice President Walter Mondale said Friday he supports a pre-emptive U.S. strike against a North Korean missile, saying the U.S. should tell North Korea to dismantle the missile or "we are going to take it out."

"I think it would end the nuclear long-range dreams of this dangerous country," said Mondale, who was the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee and a former U.S. ambassador to Japan.

The tensions are over North Korea's apparent preparations to test-fire a Taepodong-2 missile, which is believed to have a range of up to 9,300 miles. That would make it capable of hitting much of the U.S. mainland.

Mondale, 78, said North Korea already has nuclear weapons and its ambition to develop a long-range missile is "one of the most dangerous developments in recent history." It's so dangerous, he said, because of the nation's isolation from the international community and its unpredictable leader, Kim Jong Il.

"Here's this bizarre, hermit kingdom over there with a paranoid leader getting ready to test a missile system that can hit us," Mondale said.

Former President Clinton's defense secretary, William Perry, also advocated a pre-emptive strike in The Washington Post, but National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley brushed aside Perry's suggestion. Mondale spoke about a pre-emptive strike during an appearance on WCCO-AM in Minneapolis.

Mondale and President Jimmy Carter took office in 1976 and were defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980. Mondale lost as the Democratic presidential nominee in 1984. He was appointed ambassador to Japan in 1993 and is now practicing law in Minneapolis.

Thanks, Mondale, for cooperating with Karl Rove’s psyop campaign! Idiot.

Maybe They Won’t Bomb Iran

2006-06-15T18:07:00.000-07:00

More evidence to support the thesis that Iran’s natural allies are Israel and the United States. The find announced today by professional liars at the Pentagon of fake evidence on a laptop supposedly containing the plans of the fake “al-Qaeda” contains a startling announcement.

First, the find is clearly as fake as “Al-Zarqawi.” Whenever the U.S. “find” an insurgent or al-Qaeda laptop, you know it’s fake. The importance, though, is that the contents indicate the new direction of U.S. propaganda and psyops. You can tell this by the revelation that the fake “insurgents” to whom the laptop supposedly belonged think the situation of the insurgency is “gloomy.” Now that is surely a projection, since if anyone should feel gloomy it should be the U.S. the U.K. and their local collaborators in Iraq. In fact, the seized laptop’s documents seem to parallel Bush’s talking points on Iraq:

The al-Qaida document said its insurgency was being hurt by an increase in U.S.-trained Iraqi forces, by widespread arrests and seizures of weapons, and by a crackdown on financial outlets.

However, the laptop also detailed a supposed strategy of the fake “al-Qaeda” to foment a war between Iran and the United States!

That, to me, is good news, since it means the United States is backing away from confrontation with Iran and taking steps towards a covert alliance with Iran. Iran will get under the table security guarantees from the U.S., and strong influence in Iran through their connections with Iraqi Shiite leadership, who in turn will get a firmer grip on Iraq. This will help the United States to hold onto Iraq (one main objective) and to keep it mired in civil war (the other main objective). The Iranians can pledge that the Shiites will not start attacking U.S. forces in Iraq.

The oil interests who put Bush in power will get high oil prices without having to suffer the complete collapse of the U.S. empire that would have followed an attack on Iran. It must be a hard pill for George Jr. and the Israeli neocons to swallow, but, so far, the interests of oil producers and the Anglo-American oil companies trumps neocon ideology. Even Iran has an interest in supressing Iraqi oil production, so they benefit as well.

The United States military and political leadership may finally be coming to grips with the fact that they are close to military defeat in Iraq.

More Coincidence Theory

2006-06-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

Found this in Juan Cole’s blog:

Al-Hayat reports on the political atmosphere in Iran. It says that the circle of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not expect an escalation to war with the US. One official said that the crisis could pass if the US specified a "reasonable level of enrichment" that Iran could carry out on uranium for its peaceful nuclear energy program. Another joked that there was not need for the US to invade Iran. He said that the US had invaded Afghanistan and established an Islamic republic there. Then it had done the same thing in Iraq. Since Iran has had an Islamic republic for 27 years, he said, there really isn't a point in a US invasion. [It is a joke but there is much truth to it. The Northern Alliance that the US installed in Afghanistan is a coalition of the Sunni Jami'at-i Islami and the Hazara Shiite Hizb-i Vahdat. And in Iraq, you now have the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Da'wa Party, not to mention the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front, as the leading parties, and the new constitution forbids legislation contradicting Islamic law.] The Iranian officials also said that the US is depending on Iranian cooperation in its hopes for a troop draw-down in Iraq.

Now why, if the U.S. claims to be fighting “Islamic extremism” is it busy spending billions of our money and millions of lives setting up radical Islamicist regimes? Think about that for a while.

Not only that, but the U.S. has been toppling secular Arab regimes. Now pay no attention to the fact that all this has been a long-term strategy of Israel. That’s just a coincidence.

False Flag Week

2006-06-10T07:05:00.000-07:00

Some weeks the false-flag psyops lies get too much to take. Last week was one of those weeks.

First there was an “al-Qaeda” (or “al-CIAduh” as Kurt Nimmo puts it) terror plot broken up in Canada, conveniently timed to reinforce police state plans by the new Neocon Prime Minister. The whole thing is so ridiculous. I recommend Xymphora’s analysis. See this and this and this and this. He or she is Canadian and so knows a lot more than I do about the various agencies, etc.

Here are some highlights:

It will be entertaining to watch the case against the 17 ‘terrorist’ suspects arrested by police in Toronto slowly unravel. We’ve been down this same road before, with the post-September 11 arrest of 19 suspected terrorists in Toronto, a case which fell apart. There is already a page of doubts on the latest arrests at YayaCanada.com. The main crux of the official case, the fact that the ‘terrorists’ ordered a large quantity of fertilizer, has been revealed to be a police sting operation, something the police didn’t bother to mention when they crowed about the arrests. Isn’t it just a bit odd that, in this day and age, ‘terrorists’ living in downtown Toronto would think they could get away with ordering tons of ammonium nitrate without attracting any official attention? All the alleged terrorist equipment they had will have innocent explanations (cell phones?; soldering irons?; walkie-talkies?), with the exception of the handgun, which will probably end up leaving a net result of one minor firearms charge.

And,

The Official Story on the 17 arrested ‘terrorists’ in Toronto shifted from no mention of a police sting operation, to a report by the Toronto Star, which seems to have all the sources on this matter, that the supply of the tons of fertilizer was a RCMP sting, to a denial that it was a sting. The Official Story is now the heroic one that the RCMP intercepted the shipment and replaced the dangerous fertilizer with an non-dangerous substance. Obviously, some bigwig at the RCMP realized that the sting story would be used by lawyers for the defendants, and ordered that a safer story be spread. Rapid changes in the Official Story is a sure sign of official shenanigans.

CSIS has an unfortunate history of using informants. In the late 80’s, the terrorist threat du jour was extreme right-wing terrorism. CSIS hired a man named Grant Bristow to infiltrate right-wing groups. He did such a good job that he almost ended up as the leader, and how far he went in fitting in with his extremist pals is till the subject of controversy. Unfortunately for CSIS, there were no right-wing extremist groups to speak of in Canada prior to Bristow. There were a few loud-mouths with no money and essentially no followers. Some of the money supplied by CSIS was used to fund the main group, the Heritage Front. CSIS was therefore the founder of right-wing extremism in Canada!

…You can see how this operation works. The government finds a particularly loud hot head, and puts an informant in close to him. The informant steers him to more and more radical positions, at least rhetorically. He forms a group, which becomes the ‘terrorist cell’. The end game is to suggest that the informant can obtain some contraband, like fertilizer, and the shipment of the fertilizer is the end of the sting. The hot head may in fact not even be aware of the fertilizer (in this case, a younger member of the group is alleged to have purchased it), or have no bad plans for it, but he, and by extension his group, and suddenly in jail as ‘terrorists’. Everything they own is depicted as part of a terrorist attack, and everything they have done is a ‘training exercise’.

And,

Every summer, young Canadian men head for the woods to drink beer and shoot guns at things. Except (perhaps) for the beer, young Muslim Canadian men do the same thing. Once you are labeled a ‘terrorist’, all the innocent stupidities turn into something sinister. There is a history in this area of rushing to judgment based on the wild imaginations of police and the media.

It is becoming obvious that CSIS found a hot-headed leader, and took its time to cultivate the leader and his ‘cell’, probably through guidance from an insider informant who carefully developed all most the radical ideas, up to and including the RCMP-supplied fertilizer. The reason CSIS didn’t act more quickly is that it needed to build up the group to the extent where it could use it to form the basis for requests for more money and power. It is completely ridiculous to believe that the group wasn’t aware that it was being watched, since the Muslim community was completely aware. What kind of group carries on its activities knowing it is being watched by the police? The kind of group that knows it is doing nothing wrong.

Then there was the fake killing of the already dead fake “Al-Zarqawi.” See Joe Quinn’s piece in the Signs of the Times for some interesting observations on how the story doesn’t add up.

Bush has the gall to "hail" the killing of Zarqawi while simultaneously asserting that nothing will change in Iraq. We are repeatedly told that Zarqawi was the "mastermind of sectarian attacks in Iraq", but now that he is dead, absolutely nothing will change, the attacks will continue.
Bush states all of this with the surety of a man that knows exactly who is carrying out the attacks in Iraq and that he can count on them to continue.
Do not, even for one second, be foolish enough to think that the timing of Zarqawi's death was anything but a carefully planned operation designed to force the American people to find new faith in the righteousness of the war on non-existent Islamic terror, and thereby prop up the failed state that is America under the Bush administration.
The official file on Zarqawi, whose real name was Ahmad Fadil al-Khalayleh, tells us that he was born in Jordan. Barely literate, he became a petty criminal until the call to arms came with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After his time in the terror training camps of Afghanistan Zarqawi returned to his home with a radical Islamist agenda. The intersting part of his file, the part that is generally omitted from such reports, is that the training camps in Afghanistan before and during the soviet invasion of that country that Zarqawi attended, were funded and run by the CIA, making Zarqawi and others like him, assets of the US government.
… Zarqawi was on the CIA's books for over twenty years and when the Neocons came to power in 2000, they immediately went about the task of gathering together a group of likely fundamentlist Islamic patsies to take the rap for the Neocon's planned war on fake Islamic terrorism.
On Wednesday morning at 6am, a U.S. airforce F-16 dropped two 500lb bombs on a single isolated safehouse outside the city of Baqubah, 30 miles northwest of Baghdad, where, we are told, Zarqawi was staying with 5 comrades. In doing so, the NeoCons sacrificed a valuable 'Islamic terrorist' bogeyman. That is not to say, however, that Zarqawi was actually in that "safe house".
As Craig Unger reported in his Vanity Fair article yesterday, during the 70's and 80's, Neocons like Michael Ledeen made something of an artform out of inventing stories of Communist threats to America. In our 'New American Century', these skills of the Neocons are being put to use in inventing equally bogus stories about Islamic terrorism. In Zarqawi, we had a creation of people like Michael Ledeen. As such, there is no reason to believe that Zarqawi was actually in that "safe house", or that he has been in Iraq in recent years.
Have you ever seen the effects of a 500lb bomb? Have you ever seen the effects of two? Generally, such bombs will obliterate everything in the immediate vicinity leaving a large crater at the site of the bombing and cause extensive damage over a wide area. Take the opportunity to watch the video on CNN of the bombing. Notice the extent of the massive explosion.
… Now look at the … image of Zarqawi who, we are told, was in the house at the time these two massive pieces of ordenance were dropped, essentially on his head.

An abrasion on his cheek and a cut on his forehead and above his left eye. All of which leads us to conclude that either 'al-Zarqawi' really was a super human Islamic terrorist or someone in the US government thinks we are all very, very stupid.

Someone in the Signs of the Times Forum suggested that the fake “Al-Zarqawi” had to be eliminated in order to make room for a new bogey-man, one who will no doubt be Iranian:

Well, Zarqawi is Jordanian and was formenting sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites. This is inconvenient because we have no immediate plans to invade Jordan. It would be much better if sectarian violence came from Iran, not Jordan. To do this we need to kill off Zarqawi.

…Sure enough, in the second half hour [of the Today Show], Matt Lauer was interviewing the NBC "terrorism expert" Roger Cressey (he is one of the talking heads that NBC trots out whenever they need a talking head to wax on about the war of terror), and sure enough, near the end, Matt mentions the possibility that Iran may step in to continue activism in the sectarian violence. Cressey says "maybe" and the subject is dropped. However, the seed is planted!
How convenient. The new story line is only hours old and already the MSM is falling in line.
So the new story is:
Zarqawi is dead.
Sectarian violence continues.
Gee, whiz, we discover that it seems like Iran is supporting the Shiites.
This undermines the impact of their cooperation on the Nuclear Enrichment issue.
We (i.e. the USA) get to say to the world and Russia and China in particular "see we told you so!"
Sanctions are imposed, with terms and conditions that are impossible to meet.
Iran does not meet the conditions because of that impossibility.
We bomb them.
Iran sends missles into Haifa.
We nuke them.

That is the plan, anyway.

Jeff Rense Exposed

2006-06-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

The whole Jeff Rense thing (not just his wig) has always seemed a little weird. When a supposed dissident alternative news source clearly has big-time funding, there should always be suspicion of some kind of fake opposition psy-op. His site even got mentioned by the U.S. State Department disclaimer about “conspiracy theory.” Then there’s the constant vectoring towards nativism and away from the Pentagon and 911.

Now Lisa Guiliani has exposed Rense as a fraud for extensive lying on his resume. Thanks to Lisa for giving the truth to lies.

Here is an excerpt:

Patsy Smullin has run KOBI-TV for the last 30 years, and her father founded it. If anybody would have known Jeff Rense and the supposed 5,000 newscasts he claims to have made, it would be Patsy.
As it happens, Patsy Smullin does remember Jeff Rense, and in two different telephone conversations I had with her over the past few days, she confirmed that he did have a position at her television station for a brief time as a reporter and news anchor. Smullin stressed that Jeff Rense, or “a guy calling himself Jeff Rense” (her words), was employed at KOBI (an NBC affiliate) from June 1983 to May 1984, and she is not aware of him working at any other station in the state of Oregon either prior to his employment at KOBI-TV or afterward. [I would think if he'd worked at other stations previous to his KOBI position, these would be listed on his job application or resume when given to KOBI-TV.]
Patsy had more to say. She revealed that in her experience as Jeff Rense’s employer (and this is a direct quote), “He was not known for his honesty.” Think about it. Patsy Smullin was Rense’s employer some twenty-odd years ago. After all this tiime, the characteristic that has remained clearly in her memory is that “he was not known for his honesty”. What does that say to you? According to Ms. Smullin, at that time Jeff was also involved in several court battles with other people. One wonders if it has anything to do with him not being known for his honesty?
When asked if she could elaborate on the comment she'd made regarding Rense not being known for his honesty, her response was: "Sure. He was a compulsive liar." Also, when questioned as to the claim that Jeff anchored and produced “5000 newscasts,” Patsy Smullin laughed heartily and stated, “This is absolutely false. He never did that here.” Okay, if not at KOBI-TV, then where? Perhaps Jeff Rense will reveal this to us all at some point so we can check it out.
But on his own website, Jeff Rense claims to have been an award winning news director and TV news anchor for 10-12 years (accounts vary). If not at KOBI, then where?

Haditha Massacre Getting Lots of Coverage in U.S. Media

2006-05-31T20:27:00.000-07:00

There's something strange about the way the news about the Haditha massacre got out.

Read the following article from the Sunday Times of London looking for things that seem strange (besides the name of the British Chief of Defence Staff, Sir Jock Stirrup):

Revealed: how US marines massacred 24
Sarah Baxter, Washington
Hala Jaber and Ali Rifat, Baghdad
The Sunday Times, May 28, 2006
PHOTOGRAPHS taken by American military intelligence have provided crucial evidence that up to 24 Iraqis were massacred by marines in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold on the banks of the Euphrates.
One portrays an Iraqi mother and young child, kneeling on the floor, as if in prayer. They have been shot dead at close range.
The pictures show other victims, shot execution-style in the head and chest in their homes. An American government official said they revealed that the marines involved had “suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership”.
The killings are emerging as the worst known American atrocity of the Iraq war. At least seven women and three children were among those killed. Witness accounts obtained by The Sunday Times suggest the toll of children may be as high as six. “This one is ugly,” a US military official said.
In Britain, the chief of the defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, said yesterday that the “appalling” reports of the massacre could undermine British support for the war. “This sort of accusation does make that harder to achieve,” he said.
The pictures of the dead, which are being closely guarded by the US naval criminal investigation service, were taken by a military photographer who is believed to have arrived on the scene moments after the shootings.
Many American forces are accompanied by photographers to gather intelligence and to shield soldiers from false accusations of torture, intimidation and violence. In this case, the evidence points fatefully to a murder spree by marines.
The stain on the American military could prove harder to erase than the photographs of sadistic prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Comparisons are being made to the My Lai massacre in 1968 in Vietnam, in which American soldiers slaughtered up to 500 villagers.
Up to a dozen marines may face criminal charges including murder, which carries the death penalty, dereliction of duty and filing a false report. Three marine commanders were suspended last month.
The naval inquiry is focusing on the actions of a sergeant who may have been the leader of a four-man “fire team”.
Miguel Terrazas, 20, a lance-corporal from El Paso, Texas, was travelling in a convoy of four Humvees in Haditha just after 7am on November 19 last year when a roadside bomb struck his vehicle, killing him and wounding two others.
The events that followed are the subject of two military inquiries due to report soon: one into the facts, the other into a cover-up.
One witness, Aws Fahmi, heard his neighbour, Yunis Salim Khafif, plead for his life in English, shouting: “I am a friend, I am good.”
“But they killed him, his wife and daughters,” Fahmi said.
It is clear the marines lied by blaming the deaths of 15 civilians on the roadside bomb and alleging that a further eight Iraqis were insurgents who died in a gun battle.
Asked last week how many Iraqis were killed by the roadside bomb, a Pentagon official said: “Zero.” The marines never came under hostile fire, a spokesman added.
Investigators have established that the killings unfolded over three to five hours. “This was not a burst of fire, but a sustained operation,” a Pentagon official said.
The Sunday Times has reconstructed the events with the help of Abdul Rahman al-Mashandani, of the Hammourabi human rights group in Iraq. It appears the first killings took place when a taxi carrying four students pulled up at a checkpoint set up by the marines.
Abu Makram, 50, had been awakened by the roadside bomb and watched from his window as the terror unfolded. The car’s occupants were all ordered out and shot.
The marines then stormed three nearby houses. “They blew open the front door of the first house,” Makram recalled, “Once they were inside, we heard another explosion followed by a hail of gunfire.”
It was the home of 76-year-old Abdul Hameed Ali Hassan, whose leg had been amputated because of diabetes. “He was a blind old man in a wheelchair,” Makram said.
Hassan’s granddaughter, Iman Waleed, 10, was in her nightclothes. “About 10 marines entered the house,” she said. “They threw hand grenades and began firing in all directions. Grandpa was sitting close to the hall and they shot him dead.”
In a nearby room, her father was reading the Koran. “The American soldiers went into the room and killed him too,” Iman said. “They gathered all of us into one room — my grandma, my mama, my brothers and my uncles. They threw in two handgrenades and started shooting at us.”
The adults tried to protect the children with their bodies, but were slain. When Iman dared to look, she saw that “everyone was dead around me except for my brother and my uncle”.
Both were injured and Iman was hurt in the leg. The rest of the family, including her brother, Abdullah, 4, died.
Iman fled next-door, where her other grandfather Yunis lived, only to find everybody there appeared to have been killed too. There was in fact one survivor, Safa Yunis Salim, 12.
“My daddy tried to open the door to let the Americans in, but he was immediately shot in the head and body,” Safa said.
“I managed to hide under the body of my brother Mohammed. His blood covered me and protected me as I pretended to be dead.” They also killed her four sisters including Aysha, 4, and Zainab, 2.
Five hours passed before Safa managed to escape. “I was the only one who survived. I watched them kill my entire family. I am all alone now,” she said, crying.
When the marines stormed the third house they changed tactics. The men were separated from the women and stuffed into a large cupboard, according to Yussef Ayed Ahmad, the brother of the dead men, who lived next-door.
“They placed my four brothers into the wardrobe and proceeded to shoot them as they were inside,” he said. “My mother and sister told me later how they died.”
The marines found an AK 47 in the house — the only gun found in all three homes — but there is no evidence it was fired.
The marines’ cover story quickly began to unravel. In March, Time magazine revealed the existence of a video shot the day after the attack by an Iraqi student journalist. It showed the victims still in their nightclothes, a trail of blood and shrapnel and bullet marks on the walls.
At the local morgue Waleed al Obeidi, who received the corpses 24 hours after the killings, also disputed the marines’ account. “Two bodies were completely charred,” he said. “The others, including women and children, had all been shot at close range.”
According to some reports, American warplanes dropped 500lb bombs on the houses.
The marines paid $2,500 (£1,350) in compensation for each of the 15 victims who were shot in their homes. They refused to pay for the four brothers and five occupants of the taxi, claiming they were insurgents. Officials now say those men were innocent.
General Michael Hagee, the US Marine Corps commander, flew to Baghdad last week to prepare his troops for the grim findings of the investigation. Many marines had witnessed the deaths of friends, he said. “The effects of these events can be numbing. There is the risk of becoming indifferent to the loss of a human life, as well as bringing dishonour upon ourselves.”
The conclusions are likely to provoke widespread revulsion.
President George W Bush said last week that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was one of his greatest regrets about the Iraq war. If the photographs from Haditha surface, they could provide a set of images that would be every bit as shocking.

How about the first sentence: "Photographs taken by American military intelligence have provided crucial evidence that up to 24 Iraqis were massacred by marines in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold on the banks of the Euphrates." Or this: "The pictures of the dead, which are being closely guarded by the US naval criminal investigation service, were taken by a military photographer who is believed to have arrived on the scene moments after the shootings. "

So the evidence was provided by U.S. Military Intelligence. And it was released now. And pushed in elite media circles by Time magazine and Congressman Murtha, one who speaks for the military leadership, says what they can't say. Hmm...

Here is what Murtha said:

Murtha: Scandal may undermine Iraq effort
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer
The fallout from the killing of as many as two dozen Iraqi civilians by Marines could undermine U.S. efforts in Iraq more than the Abu Ghraib prison scandal did, a lawmaker who is a prominent war critic said Sunday.
The shootings last November at Haditha, a city in the Anbar province of western Iraq that has been plagued by insurgents, were covered up, said Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa.
"Who covered it up, why did they cover it up, why did they wait so long?" Murtha said on "This Week" on ABC. "We don't know how far it goes. It goes right up the chain of command."
A bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine. Marines then shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot other people, according to Murtha, who has been briefed by officials.
Murtha said high-level reports he received indicated that no one fired upon the Marines or that there was any military action against the U.S. forces after the initial explosion. Yet the deaths were not seriously investigated until March because an early probe was stifled within days of the incident, he said.
"I will not excuse murder, and this is what happened," Murtha said. "This investigation should have been over two or three weeks afterward and it should have been made public and people should have been held responsible for it."
...A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, told The Associated Press on Friday that evidence gathered so far strongly indicated that the Haditha killings were unjustified.

This is how it's playing in the U.S. media. This is new. No doubt incidents like this have been happening continually, but to have such damaging information come out due to the efforts of the military itself says a lot about how desperate some in the military are to oust the Neocons. It seems to be designed to push the revulsion for the war of the U.S. citizenry over the top just as Bush wants to attack Iran.

Add to all this the events in Afghanistan, with the anti-U.S. riots in reaction to more senseless civilian deaths (brake failure!) things must be even worse than they appear for the U.S. military. There is no attempt to hide the complete and total failure of the Bush wars from the U.S. public. Interesting...

Something to Keep in Mind When the Next War Starts

2006-05-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

Continuing the long Bush family tradition of fearing peace initiatives from targeted "enemies," apparently Iran offered the Bush administration recognition of Israel, the cutting off of all support to Palestinian opposition groups, and tighter controls by the International Atomic Energy Agency in exchange for basically a non-agression agreement:

Iran Proposal to U.S. Offered Peace with Israel
Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON, May 24 (IPS) - Iran offered in 2003 to accept peace with Israel and cut off material assistance to Palestinian armed groups and to pressure them to halt terrorist attacks within Israel's 1967 borders, according to the secret Iranian proposal to the United States.
The two-page proposal for a broad Iran-U.S. agreement covering all the issues separating the two countries, a copy of which was obtained by IPS, was conveyed to the United States in late April or early May 2003. Trita Parsi, a specialist on Iranian foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies who provided the document to IPS, says he got it from an Iranian official earlier this year but is not at liberty to reveal the source.
The two-page document contradicts the official line of the George W. Bush administration that Iran is committed to the destruction of Israel and the sponsorship of terrorism in the region.
Parsi says the document is a summary of an even more detailed Iranian negotiating proposal which he learned about in 2003 from the U.S. intermediary who carried it to the State Department on behalf of the Swiss Embassy in late April or early May 2003. The intermediary has not yet agreed to be identified, according to Parsi.
The Iranian negotiating proposal indicated clearly that Iran was prepared to give up its role as a supporter of armed groups in the region in return for a larger bargain with the United States. What the Iranians wanted in return, as suggested by the document itself as well as expert observers of Iranian policy, was an end to U.S. hostility and recognition of Iran as a legitimate power in the region.

I say a Bush family tradition because it has been documented in inner-circle memoirs that the only thing Bush I feared about Saddam Hussain was the latter's frantic efforts before the Gulf War (but after the Kuwait invasion) to cut a deal with the United States.

Here's How it's Done, Part 246

2006-05-24T15:56:00.000-07:00

Remember how Valerie Plame may have been outed by Cheney because she may have been about to prevent shipment of nuclear material to Iran by Pakistanis? That the Cheney administration wants Iran to have these weapons so that war can be justified after some kind of false-flag attack?

Well, now we find out, courtesy of the Daily Telegraph, that the U.S. want to buy massive amounts of ammunition from Russia to dump into Afghanistan (which can then fan out all over the Middle East). Yes, you read that right. Every now and then we get a glimpse into how things are really done:

US sets up £215m deal for Afghan arms - from Russia
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 22/05/2006)
American defence officials have secretly requested a "prodigious quantity" of ammunition from Russia to supply the Afghan army in case a Democrat president takes over in Washington and pulls out US troops.
The Daily Telegraph can disclose that Pentagon chiefs have asked arms suppliers for a quote on a vast amount of ordnance, including more than 78 million rounds of AK47 ammunition, 100,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 12,000 tank shells - equivalent to about 15 times the British Army's annual requirements.
The Bush administration is said to want the deal because of worries that the next president could be a Democrat, possibly Hillary Clinton, who may abandon Afghanistan.
White House insiders fear that Afghanistan could "drift" and consequently, they want heavily to arm President Hamid Kharzai's government before the 2008 US presidential election.
Diplomatic sources also believe that the US may be offering the estimated $400 million (£215 million) deal, including transport costs, to the Russians as an inducement to embargo its arms and nuclear technology exports to Iran.
Defence specialists said Russian arms chiefs at first "fell about laughing" because they thought the order was a joke when it arrived this month.
But with the Americans said to be pressing for a price and earliest delivery date, the request is being rapidly processed and exports could begin before the end of this year.
The "decade's worth" of ammunition will give the Afghan National Army a vast arsenal to deal with Taliban or drug warlords if Washington withdraws its troops.
It would allow Kabul to defend its borders against outside interference but could also be used for offensive operations against neighbours such as the old enemy, Pakistan.
"This is a request for a price indication from the Pentagon to the Russians," said an arms source connected to Russia. "After that comes back they will look at their budget and turn it into an order - and it will be an order of huge magnitude.
"The operations and planning staff at the Pentagon came up with numbers for their wish list.
"The final order may be more or may be less but the broad aim is to spend the budget while they can. They want to stack the country up with ammunition.
"It's the equivalent of buying yourself a plane to fly to Le Touquet for lunch and you get yourself a 747 jumbo instead of a light aircraft."
All of the material will come from Rosoboron Exports, the sole state intermediary agency for Russia's military exports.
Most Afghan weaponry is either Soviet era or compatible with Russian munitions, making shipments from Western countries unnecessary. Rosoboron is one of a few companies that could handle such a big order and should give favourable prices.
The Afghan army is 35,000 strong but is expected to grow to 70,000 trained soldiers by 2009.
Its troops are already beginning to receive advanced infantry training - the American order includes 50 million blank rounds - with soldiers specialising in artillery and special forces work.
The order also suggests the Afghan army will be equipped with T62 tanks, Mi24 Hind attack helicopters and Spandrel anti-tank missiles.
If fully trained it will provide a formidable force against insurgents and potential foreign aggressors, including Pakistan where tensions are high on the southern border.
"This is completely refitting the Afghan army for the long term and it should stop a resurgence of the Taliban in its tracks," a British arms expert said. "The order will take a year to make and deliver but the Russians are used to large quantities."
A senior British officer said: "The point of getting Afghanistan up and running is so they can take on their own operations.
"This deal makes sense if we are going to hand over military control to them."
Some observers pointed to the irony of the deal, because when the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan the Americans sold Stinger surface-to- air missiles to the Mujahideen to enable them to shoot down Moscow's aircraft.

The word 'irony' hardly does justice to this. Here is Cryptogon’s commentary:

Sustainable war, endless death.The part about the Bush regime being concerned about a Democrat shutting down the carnage is laughable.
But it's good to laugh. Laughing is healthy! Oh, yeah, and maybe this massive arms order from Russia will vanish too. HA HA HA. Get it? Some conspiracy theorists might wonder where "the terrorists" were getting their brand new AK-47s from!? HAHA. Stupid conspiracy theorists. One more, one more: The arms will be used to fight the Afghan drug lords!!! HAHAHA! Get it? Get it? HAHAHA!
Why aren't you laughing?

Here's What the Pentagon Video Should Have Looked Like

2006-05-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this.

Think about it.

Then, if you want, read this from Joe Quinn:

New Doctored Video of Pentagon Attack Release - Confirms Boeing Was Not Involved
Joe Quinn Signs of the Times
17/05/2006
It only took four and a half years, but finally the U.S. government has seen fit to confirm what so many of us have been saying all along - Pentagon security cameras recorded no evidence of a Boeing 757 hitting the Pentagon.
The videos comprise the footage from each of the two security cameras stationed close to each other at one end of the Pentagon. The first video contains nothing new given that it is simply the footage from which 5 stills were taken and released in early 2002 by the Pentagon, the extra footage merely being the scene after the impact. The second video comprises previously unseen footage from the security camera that is slightly closer to the impact point. The Pentagon alleges that in this video the "nose cone" of a plane can be seen in one frame. It should be noted that the security cameras appear to be the standard type installed in train stations and airports around the world. Most people will have seen footage from such cameras showing people walking in "jumps", which is due to the fact that the camera records a still image every 2 seconds or so.
Basically then, while the mainstream press is trumpeting the line that "the Defence Department has released "the video of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon", nothing could be further from the truth because there is still no evidence of a Boeing 757 in the security camera footage. If mainstream press reporters were to be honest (for once in their lives) the most they could state would be that: "the DOD has released a video of the attack on the Pentagon in which something appears in one frame of the footage and the U.S. government claims that this 'something' is the nose cone of Flight 77."
...The attack on the Pentagon is the real Achilles heel of the official 9/11 story.
Let me explain:
Even in the event that evidence for the obvious controlled demolition of the WTC towers were to be publicly revealed and accepted, the U.S government could plausibly claim that 'al-Qaeda' somehow managed to plant explosives in the buildings, that this evidence had somehow been overlooked due to "incompetence" in the 9/11 investigation. The incompetence angle could be used, as it has been already, as a plausible explanation for many other areas that would ordinarily point to government complicity. The Pentagon attack, however, is a very different matter. If it were ever to be publicly revealed that it was not Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon, there is simply no way that the U.S government continue to claim that "al-Qaeda did it" or lie its way out of it, because they would have to explain what happened to Flight 77 and its passengers. It is for this reason that the "no Boeing at the Pentagon" theory has been thoroughly attacked and maligned by government shills and many alleged 9/11 investigators.
The Pentagon attack holds the key to the entire 9/11 mystery, it presents the best opportunity to blow the lid completely off the entire sordid deal and reveal the very, very disturbing reality of the nature of the U.S. government and that other Middle Eastern agency and the roles they both played in wantonly murdering almost 3,000 American citizens on September 11th 2001.

Ahmadinajad's Letter to Bush

2006-05-11T10:22:00.000-07:00

Finally, thanks to Le Monde, not to our own pathetic press, you can read the text of Ahmadinajad's letter to Bush. He raises a lot of good questions. The guy should get a blog:

Mr George Bush,
President of the United States of America
For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena - which are being constantly debated, especially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hopes that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them.
Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ,
the great Messenger of God,
Feel obliged to respect human rights,
Present liberalism as a civilization model,
Announce one's opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs,
Make "War and Terror" his slogan,
And finally, work towards the establishment of a unified international community - a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern,
While at the same time:
Have countries attacked,
The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of there being criminals in a village or city, or convoy for example, have the entire village, city or convey set ablaze.
Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, the sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps fifty years.
At what price? Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries and tens of thousands of young men and women - as occupation troops - put in harms way, taken away from family and love ones, their hands stained with the blood of others, subjected to so much psychological pressure that everyday some commit suicide and those returning home suffer depression, become sickly and grapple with all sorts of aliments
On the pretext of the existence of WMDs, this great tragedy came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Later it was revealed that no WMDs existed to begin with.
Of course Saddam was a murderous dictator. But the war was not waged to topple him, the announced goal of the war was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction. He was toppled along the way towards another goal, nevertheless the people of the region are happy about it. I point out that throughout the many years of the war on Iran, Saddam was supported by the West.
Mr President,
You might know that I am a teacher. My students ask me how can theses actions be reconciled with the values outlined at the beginning of this letter and duty to the tradition of Jesus Christ, the Messenger of peace and forgiveness.
There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have not been tried, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously kept in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their conditions and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals.
European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe too. I could not correlate the abduction of a person, and him or her being kept in secret prisons, with the provisions of any judicial system. For that matter, I fail to understand how such actions correspond to the values outlined in the beginning of this letter, i.e. the teachings of Jesus Christ, human rights and liberal values.
Young people, university students and ordinary people have many questions about the phenomenon of Israel. I am sure you are familiar with some of them.
Throughout history many countries have been occupied, but I think the establishment of a new country with a new people, is a new phenomenon that is exclusive to our times.
Students are saying that sixty years ago such a country did not exist. The show old documents and globes and say try as we have, we have not been able to find a country named Israel.
I tell them to study the history of WWI and II. One of my students told me that during WWII, which more than tens of millions of people perished in, news about the war, was quickly disseminated by the warring parties. Each touted their victories and the most recent battlefront defeat of the other party. After the war, they claimed that six million Jews had been killed. Six million people that were surely related to at least two million families.
Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenon be rationalised or explained?
Mr President, I am sure you know how - and at what cost - Israel was established:
- Many thousands were killed in the process.
- Millions of indigenous people were made refugees.
- Hundred of thousands of hectares of farmland, olive plantations, towns and villages were destroyed.
This tragedy is not exclusive to the time of establishment of Israel; unfortunately it has been ongoing for sixty years now.
A regime has been established which does not show mercy even to kids, destroys houses while the occupants are still in them, announces beforehand its list and plans to assassinate Palestinian figures and keeps thousands of Palestinians in prison. Such a phenomenon is unique - or at the very least extremely rare - in recent memory.
Another big question asked by people is why is this regime being supported? Is support for this regime in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ or Moses or liberal values?
Or are we to understand that allowing the original inhabitants of these lands - inside and outside Palestine - whether they are Christian, Muslim or Jew, to determine their fate, runs contrary to principles of democracy, human rights and the teachings of prophets? If not, why is there so much opposition to a referendum?
The newly elected Palestinian administration recently took office. All independent observes have confirmed that this government represents the electorate. Unbelievingly, they have put the elected government under pressure and have advised it to recognise the Israeli regime, abandon the struggle and follow the programs of the previous government.
If the current Palestinian government had run on the above platform, would the Palestinian people have voted for it? Again, can such position taken in opposition to the Palestinian government be reconciled with the values outlined earlier? The people are also saying "why are all UNSC resolutions in condemnation of Israel vetoed?"
Mr President,
As you are well aware, I live amongst the people and am in constant contact with them -- many people from around the Middle East manage to contact me as well. They do not have faith in these dubious policies either. There is evidence that the people of the region are becoming increasingly angry with such policies.
It is not my intention to pose too many questions, but I need to refer to other points as well. Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East regions is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime? Is not scientific R&D one of the basic rights of nations.
You are familiar with history. Aside from the Middle Ages, in what other point in history has scientific and technical progress been a crime? Can the possibility of scientific achievements being utilised for military purposes be reason enough to oppose science and technology altogether? If such a supposition is true, then all scientific disciplines, including physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, engineering, etc. must be opposed.
Lies were told in the Iraqi matter. What was the result? I have no doubt that telling lies is reprehensible in any culture, and you do not like to be lied to.
Mr President, don't Latin Americans have the right to ask, why their elected governments are being opposed and coup leaders supported? Or, why must they constantly be threatened and live in fear?
The people of Africa are hardworking, creative and talented. They can play an important and valuable role in providing for the needs of humanity and contribute to its material and spiritual progress. Poverty and hardship in large parts of Africa are preventing this from happening. Don't they have the right to ask why their enormous wealth - including minerals - is being looted, despite the fact that they need it more than others?
Again, do such actions correspond to the teachings of Christ and the tenets of human rights?
The brave and faithful people of Iran too have many questions and grievances, including: the coup d'etat of 1953 and the subsequent toppling of the legal government of the day, opposition to the Islamic revolution, transformation of an Embassy into a headquarters supporting, the activities of those opposing the Islamic Republic (many thousands of pages of documents corroborates this claim), support for Saddam in the war waged against Iran, the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane, freezing the assets of the Iranian nation, increasing threats, anger and displeasure vis-à-vis the scientific and nuclear progress of the Iranian nation (just when all Iranians are jubilant and collaborating their country's progress), and many other grievances that I will not refer to in this letter.
Mr President,
September Eleven was a horrendous incident. The killing of innocents is deplorable and appalling in any part of the world. Our government immediately declared its disgust with the perpetrators and offered its condolences to the bereaved and expressed its sympathies.
All governments have a duty to protect the lives, property and good standing of their citizens. Reportedly your government employs extensive security, protection and intelligence systems - and even hunts its opponents abroad. September eleven was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services - or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren't those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?
All governments have a duty to provide security and peace of mind for their citizens. For some years now, the people of your country and neighbours of world trouble spots do not have peace of mind. After 9/11, instead of healing and tending to the emotional wounds of the survivors and the American people - who had been immensely traumatised by the attacks - some Western media only intensified the climates of fear and insecurity - some constantly talked about the possibility of new terror attacks and kept the people in fear. Is that service to the American people? Is it possible to calculate the damages incurred from fear and panic?
American citizens lived in constant fear of fresh attacks that could come at any moment and in any place. They felt insecure in the streets, in their place of work and at home. Who would be happy with this situation? Why was the media, instead of conveying a feeling of security and providing peace of mind, giving rise to a feeling of insecurity?
Some believe that the hype paved the way - and was the justification - for an attack on Afghanistan. Again I need to refer to the role of media.
In media charters, correct dissemination of information and honest reporting of a story are established tenets. I express my deep regret about the disregard shown by certain Western media for these principles. The main pretext for an attack on Iraq was the existence of WMDs. This was repeated incessantly - for the public to, finally, believe - and the ground set for an attack on Iraq.
Will the truth not be lost in a contrived and deceptive climate?
Again, if the truth is allowed to be lost, how can that be reconciled with the earlier mentioned values?
Is the truth known to the Almighty lost as well?
Mr President,
In countries around the world, citizens provide for the expenses of governments so that their governments in turn are able to serve them.
The question here is "what has the hundreds of billions of dollars, spent every year to pay for the Iraqi campaign, produced for the citizens?"
As your Excellency is aware, in some states of your country, people are living in poverty. Many thousands are homeless and unemployment is a huge problem. Of course these problems exist - to a larger or lesser extent - in other countries as well. With these conditions in mind, can the gargantuan expenses of the campaign - paid from the public treasury - be explained and be consistent with the aforementioned principles?
What has been said, are some of the grievances of the people around the world, in our region and in your country. But my main contention - which I am hoping you will agree to some of - is:
Those in power have specific time in office, and do not rule indefinitely, but their names will be recorded in history and will be constantly judged in the immediate and distant futures. The people will scrutinize our presidencies.
Did we manage to bring peace, security and prosperity for the people or insecurity and unemployment?
Did we intend to establish justice, or just supported especial interest groups, and by forcing many people to live in poverty and hardship, made a few people rich and powerful - thus trading the approval of the people and the Almighty with theirs'?
Did we defend the rights of the underprivileged or ignore them?
Did we defend the rights of all people around the world or imposed wars on them, interfered illegally in their affairs, established hellish prisons and incarcerated some of them?
Did we bring the world peace and security or raised the specter of intimidation and threats?
Did we tell the truth to our nation and others around the world or presented an inverted version of it?
Were we on the side of people or the occupiers and oppressors?
Did our administration set out to promote rational behaviour, logic, ethics, peace, fulfilling obligations, justice, service to the people, prosperity, progress and respect for human dignity or the force of guns.
Intimidation, insecurity, disregard for the people, delaying the progress and excellence of other nations, and trample on people's rights?
And finally, they will judge us on whether we remained true to our oath of office - to serve the people, which is our main task, and the traditions of the prophets - or not?
Mr President,
How much longer can the world tolerate this situation? Where will this trend lead the world to? How long must the people of the world pay for the incorrect decisions of some rulers? How much longer will the specter of insecurity - raised from the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction - hunt the people of the world? How much longer will the blood of the innocent men, women and children be spilled on the streets, and people's houses destroyed over their heads?
Are you pleased with the current condition of the world?
Do you think present policies can continue?
If billions of dollars spent on security, military campaigns and troop movement were instead spent on investment and assistance for poor countries, promotion of health, combating different diseases, education and improvement of mental and physical fitness, assistance to the victims of natural disasters, creation of employment opportunities and production, development projects and poverty alleviation, establishment of peace, mediation between disputing states and distinguishing the flames of racial, ethnic and other conflicts were would the world be today? Would not your government, and people be justifiably proud? Would not your administration's political and economic standing have been stronger? And I am most sorry to say, would there have been an ever increasing global hatred of the American governments?
Mr President, it is not my intention to distress anyone.
If prophet Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, Joseph or Jesus Christ were with us today, how would they have judged such behaviour? Will we be given a role to play in the promised world, where justice will become universal and Jesus Christ will be present? Will they even accept us?
My basic question is this: Is there no better way to interact with the rest of the world? Today there are hundreds of millions of Christians, hundreds of millions of Moslems and millions of people who follow the teachings of Moses. All divine religions share and respect one word and that is "monotheism" or belief in a single God and no other in the world.
The holy Koran stresses this common word and calls on an followers of divine religions and says: [3.64] Say: O followers of the Book! Come to an equitable proposition between us and you that we shall not serve any but Allah and (that) we shall not associate aught. With Him and (that) some of us shall not take others for lords besides Allah, but if they turn back, then say: Bear witness that we are Muslims. (The Family of Imran).
Mr President,
According to divine verses, we have all been called upon to worship one God and follow the teachings of divine prophets.
"To worship a God which is above all powers in the world and can do all He pleases." "The Lord which knows that which is hidden and visible, the past and the future, knows what goes on in the Hearts of His servants and records their deeds."
"The Lord who is the possessor of the heavens and the earth and all universe is His court" "planning for the universe is done by His hands, and gives His servants the glad tidings of mercy and forgiveness of sins". "He is the companion of the oppressed and the enemy of oppressors". "He is the Compassionate, the Merciful". "He is the recourse of the faithful and guides them towards the light from darkness". "He is witness to the actions of His servants", "He calls on servants to be faithful and do good deeds, and asks them to stay on the path of righteousness and remain steadfast". "Calls on servants to heed His prophets and He is a witness to their deeds." "A bad ending belongs only to those who have chosen the life of this world and disobey Him and oppress His servants". And "A good and eternal paradise belong to those servants who fear His majesty and do not follow their lascivious selves."
We believe a return to the teachings of the divine prophets is the only road leading to salvations. I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus, and believes in the divine promise of the rule of the righteous on Earth.
We also believe that Jesus Christ was one of the great prophets of the Almighty. He has been repeatedly praised in the Koran. Jesus has been quoted in Koran as well; [19,36] And surely Allah is my Lord and your Lord, therefore serves Him; this is the right path, Marium.
Service to and obedience of the Almighty is the credo of all divine messengers. The God of all people in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the Pacific and the rest of the world is one. He is the Almighty who wants to guide and give dignity to all His servants. He has given greatness to Humans.
We again read in the Holy Book: "The Almighty God sent His prophets with miracles and clear signs to guide the people and show them divine signs and purity them from sins and pollutions. And He sent the Book and the balance so that the people display justice and avoid the rebellious."
All of the above verses can be seen, one way or the other, in the Good Book as well. Divine prophets have promised:
The day will come when all humans will congregate before the court of the Almighty, so that their deeds are examined. The good will be directed towards Haven and evildoers will meet divine retribution. I trust both of us believe in such a day, but it will not be easy to calculate the actions of rulers, because we must be answerable to our nations and all others whose lives have been directly or indirectly effected by our actions.
All prophets, speak of peace and tranquillity for man - based on monotheism, justice and respect for human dignity.
Do you not think that if all of us come to believe in and abide by these principles, that is, monotheism, worship of God, justice, respect for the dignity of man, belief in the Last Day, we can overcome the present problems of the world - that are the result of disobedience to the Almighty and the teachings of prophets - and improve our performance?
Do you not think that belief in these principles promotes and guarantees peace, friendship and justice?
Do you not think that the aforementioned written or unwritten principles are universally respected?
Will you not accept this invitation? That is, a genuine return to the teachings of prophets, to monotheism and justice, to preserve human dignity and obedience to the Almighty and His prophets?
Mr President,
History tells us that repressive and cruel governments do not survive. God has entrusted The fate of man to them. The Almighty has not left the universe and humanity to their own devices. Many things have happened contrary to the wishes and plans of governments. These tell us that there is a higher power at work and all events are determined by Him.
Can one deny the signs of change in the world today?
Is this situation of the world today comparable to that of ten years ago? Changes happen fast and come at a furious pace.
The people of the world are not happy with the status quo and pay little heed to the promises and comments made by a number of influential world leaders. Many people around the wolrd feel insecure and oppose the spreading of insecurity and war and do not approve of and accept dubious policies. T
he people are protesting the increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots and the rich and poor countries.
The people are disgusted with increasing corruption.
The people of many countries are angry about the attacks on their cultural foundations and the disintegration of families. They are equally dismayed with the fading of care and compassion. The people of the world have no faith in international organisations, because their rights are not advocated by these organisations.
Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems.
We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking towards a main focal point - that is the Almighty God. Undoubtedly through faith in God and the teachings of the prophets, the people will conquer their problems. My question for you is: "Do you not want to join them?"
Mr President,
Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things.
Vasalam Ala Man Ataba'al hoda
Mahmood Ahmadi-Najad
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

The Goss "Resignation" is Very Interesting...

2006-05-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

The sudden “resignation” of CIA Director, Porter Goss is very interesting in light of what Wayne Madsen has been writing about the NEW Watergate scandal:

April 29, 2006 -- The cresting wave of major scandals in Washington. At week's end, there is every indication that the Bush White House is bracing for additional scandals. A sex scandal involving the rented suites at the Watergate Hotel (the GOP just can't stay away from that place), female and male prostitutes and male GOP members of Congress and top CIA officials, including Director Porter Goss, and GOP-
connected contractors is simmering but is expected to blow wide open in the next few weeks. Goss's warnings about ex-CIA officers speaking to the media have more to do with curtailing information about the growing sex and bribery scandal than in tracking down leaks about pre-Iraq war intelligence.

Now this is especially interesting given the fact that there was a prostitution ring run by the CIA out of the Watergate building back before the first Watergate scandal, and some suggest Bush I allies were running that and the break-in may have had something to do with it, either from Nixon wanting dirt on Democrats or wanting to know how much the Democrats knew about Republican dirt. That ring also provided prostitutes for visiting foreign dignitaries, both currying their favor and providing material for blackmail, especially if their tastes run to illegal practices. This is how it has always been done at those levels. Here is Webster Tarpley on Bush the Elder's relationship with the earlier Watergate prostitution ring:

One of the major sub-plots of Watergate, and one that will eventually lead us back to the documented public record of George Bush, is the relation of the various activities of the Plumbers to the wiretapping of a group of prostitutes who operated out of a brothel in the Columbia Plaza Apartments, located in the immediate vicinity of the Watergate buildings. Among the customers of the prostitutes there appear to have been a US Senator, an astronaut, A Saudi prince (the Embassy of Saudi Arabia is nearby), US and South Korean intelligence officials, and above all numerous Democratic Party leaders whose presence can be partially explained by the propinquity of the Democratic National Committe offices in the Watergate. The Columbia Plaza Apartments brothel was under intense CIA surveillance by the Office of Security/Security Research Staff through one of their assets, an aging private detective out of the pages of Damon Runyon who went by the name of Louis James Russell. Russell was, according to Hougan, especially interested in bugging a hot line phone that linked the DNC with the nearby brothel. During the Watergate break-ins, James McCord's recruit to the Plumbers, Alfred C. Baldwin, would appear to have been bugging the telephones of the Columbia Plaza brothel.
Lou Russell, in the period between June 20 and July 2, 1973, was working for a detective agency that was helping George Bush prepare for an upcoming press conference. In this sense, Russell was working for Bush.

Is Bush I again running an operation designed to break the Neocon grip on his son? Remember, Bush I really disliked Israel and they disliked him. He also disliked Rumsfeld and Cheney. And Goss made a lot of enemies at the CIA, many of which HAD to be Bush I allies.

Also, the media is acting completely surprised and puzzled about the firing.

They (NPR, anyway) haven't yet made the decision to break to a wide audience this prostitution scandal.

Now I just saw this by Walter Shapiro (big time journalist who worked for Time, Newsweek, USA Today and the Washington Post) in Salon. He's still dancing around what Wayne Madsen says everyone knows, but he's getting closer, so maybe it will break open soon:

For those practiced in connecting the dots, little artistic training is needed to speculatively link Goss' here's-your-hat-what's-your- hurry departure with the bribery scandal surrounding jailed former GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

NBC News reported Thursday night that the CIA is investigating whether a top agency official, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, improperly steered a $2.4 million contract to his close college friend Brent Wilkes, a defense contractor implicated in the Cunningham case. Wilkes reportedly supplied prostitutes to Cunningham at poker parties that Foggo also attended, though the CIA official denies seeing the female entertainment.

There is no obvious connection between Goss and Cunningham, aside from their having served together in the House for 13 years. But the real mystery is how Foggo became the CIA's executive director, the official in charge of day-to-day operations at the entire agency: He was a midlevel field officer with a procurement background when Goss appointed him in 2004. A CIA spokeswoman, who did not want her name used, said Thursday that the two men met when Foggo testified before the House Intelligence Committee, which Goss chaired from 1997 until 2004, when Bush made him the CIA director. No date was provided for Foggo's testimony before Goss' committee.

So the question remains, who is protecting Patrick Fitzgerald as he prepares to indict Karl Rove? Who is protecting the retired generals who have ripped Rumsfeld? Why has the FBI felt secure enough to pursue the AIPAC Spy investigation? Who, for that matter, felt secure enough to invite Stephen Colbert to do the White House Press Dinner?

On the old Watergate prostitution scandal of the 1970s, see the excellent, The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon, by Anthony Summers, pp. 416-23, as well as this on Rigorous Intuition.

Now "Zarqawi" Releses a Blooper Tape!

2006-05-05T06:22:00.000-07:00

The whole fake terrorist thing has been getting funnier and funnier. First, we have new tape releases by the big three-- two of which, at least, have been dead for years: Bin Laden, Al-Zarqawi and this new guy, Al-Zawahiri. Now, we hear about “outtakes” from “Al-Zarqawi,” outtakes which actually contain a blooper!

This blooper collection along with strategy papers by “Al-Zarqawi” were convienently “found” by U.S. troops in a raid. The blooper in question was “Al-Zarqawi” fumbling with his rifle. Now this is clearly a U.S. psyops. What could be less manly for an Arab warrior than “fumbling” with his rifle?

First the U.S. releases the tape to scare people. Many commentators were asking why all three released tapes at the same time. Maybe because Bush’s approval ratings had sunk to new lows of around 32%? I happened to be somewhere that week where I was forced to hear CNN throughout the day (the break room of a branch office I was visiting of the company I work for—see this) and it was amazing how everyone played along with the farce, pretending to believe these people are actually alive and releasing videos and leaving strategy docs in laptops lying around.

Then, after the fear sunk in (psyops against the U.S. public) they release the blooper tape (psyops against Arabs). Here is how the blooper was described by the military spokesman:

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, spokesman for the U.S. command, mocked al-Zarqawi as the previously unseen footage showed a smiling al-Qaida leader first firing single shots from a U.S.-made M-249 light machine gun. A frown creeps across al-Zarqawi's face as the weapon jams. He looks at it, confused, then summons another fighter.

"It's supposed to be automatic fire. He's shooting single shots," Lynch said. "Something is wrong with his machine gun. He looks down, can't figure out, calls his friend to come unblock the stoppage and get the weapon firing again."

By contrast, the edited version which the militants posted on the Web showed what happened only after the fighter fixed the weapon — a fierce-looking al-Zarqawi confidently blasting away with bursts of automatic gunfire.

More Reasons Not to Join the Military

2006-05-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

Here's what Charley Reese has to say. Keep in mind that he is a southern conservative:

Epitaph For The War Dead
A long time ago, Ezra Pound wrote an epitaph for the war dead of the 20th century, and now it applies equally well to the war dead of the 21st.
They "walked eye-deep in hell believing in old men's lies, then unbelieving came home, home to a lie, home to many deceits, home to old lies and new infamy, usury age-old and age-thick and liars in public places. ... There died a myriad, and of the best, among them, for an old bitch gone in the teeth, for a botched civilization."
That's what all the young men and now women are dying for - lies and a botched civilization. They are not dying for freedom or to defend their homes and loved ones. They are dying so corporations can make big profits, so evil old men who presume to re-arrange the world to suit their notions can test their theories. They are dying for money, oil and ego, and none of it is worth the life of single boy or girl.
Ernest Hemingway said it best when he said, "War itself is a crime against humanity." The people who deserve to be tried as war criminals are the politicians on both sides who start the wars. To think of the millions of young people, all the joys of life still ahead of them, who have died for scabrous ideologies, political stupidity and the greed of people far from the sound of the guns should turn everyone into an isolationist.
But lies are powerful, and people are easy to manipulate. One of the Nazis said all you have to do is have an enemy at the gate and then suggest that anyone who opposes you is unpatriotic. That is precisely the game plan the Bush administration has employed.
What's actually unpatriotic is to support wars started by crooks and liars for reasons they hide from the public. What's unpatriotic is for old men who won't be within 7,000 miles of the sight of blood to be cheerleaders for the war du jour. What's unpatriotic is for the press to act as a conduit for propaganda rather than independently developing information the people need to know.
It's painful to acknowledge that these young people, so idealistic, were and are being lied to so that they die not for their ideals, but for the sordid schemes of lying politicians, corporations and special-interest groups. No wonder the Bush administration doesn't want photographs of the coffins and tries to blame the press for bad news even though, God knows, the American media rub every story with Clorox and censor the photographs like they were some Puritan in pursuit of sin. No wonder the Bush administration has a murderous hatred for Al-Jazeera, the Arab television station that shows the reality of the war with all its stink, filth and blood.
American society today is a house of lies. People are continuously being lied to for commercial, political and ideological reasons. They are lied to about the environment, the war, foreign policy, the economy, agriculture and public health. You name it, and the Establishment has a set of lies all ready to dupe the public into supporting its selfish aims.
I advise every parent to actively discourage his or her children from joining the military until we have cleaned up the political mess in Washington. Idealistic young men and women should not be sent to do the work of mercenaries.
For the kind of murder Mr. Bush wants to commit, he should form an American version of the French Foreign Legion and pay the market price for mercenaries. There are enough heartless psychopaths in the world to do that kind of work without killing, maiming and scarring the souls of America's best young people.
If you want to support the troops, put pressure on the spineless, lying politicians to bring them home. Don't worry about Iraq going to hell. It's already there.

What if they had a war and no one showed up? Maybe stuff like the following wouldn't happen so much:

Message from a Vet of My Lai Time
"Our Descent Into Hell Has Begun"
May 4, 2006
By Tony Swindell
A few weeks ago we got a friendly letter from Tony Swindell, a newspaper editor in Sherman, Texas. "Begin paying attention," Swindell urged, ''to stories from Iraq like the very recent one about U.S. Marines killing a group of civilians near Baghdad. This is the next step in the Iraq war as frustration among our soldiers grows -- especially with multiple tours.
''I served with the 11th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division, and My Lai was not an isolated incident. We came to be known as the Butcher's Brigade, and we also were the birthplace of the Phoenix Program. The brigade commander and a battalion commander were charged with murdering civilians (shooting them from helicopters, recorded in some of my photos), although both skated. If you recall from his autobiography, Colin Powell served briefly with the 11th in Duc Pho before going to division HQ in Chu Lai.
''The atrocities against Iraqi civilians are slipping under the media radar screen, but they're going to explode in America's face not too long from now and dwarf the Abu Ghraib (sic) incident. That was a fraternity beer bust by comparison. The Ft. Sill episode [described in JoAnn Wypijewski's piece in our last issue] is another one of the same storm clouds on the horizon. I sincerely fear for our country.''
We asked Swindell to expand these thoughts. Here's his powerful response. AC/JSC
In Iraq, our descent into hell, our "Apocalypse Now" moment, has begun. First there was Gitmo, then the global rendition program, then Abu Ghraib, then the pulverizing of Fallujah, and now trigger-happy raids that are filling multitudes of sandy graves with men, women and children. Has "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" become the mission in Babylon? Can't anyone remember Vietnam, where we left behind more than a million dead civilians? In Iraq, we've way past the half-million mark, probably the million mark, if you count the 1990s sanctions. Are the American people as blind and deaf as they seem? Don't we see ourselves walking through the gates of hell and can't we hear the doors clanging shut on our country?
Who am I to say all this, you might ask. Fair enough, I reply. So let me tell you a story about monstrous crimes and tragedies from my generation about to be repeated in Iraq in front of the whole world. First, understand that a single soldier can't be expected to grasp the total criminality of war because his whole universe is a tiny place right in front of his nose. So he can stay alive. If he knew everything that was going on, he would be heartbroken, and if he also knew why, he would go insane.
The narrowness of his vision is exactly how even the best and most humane soldier unwillingly becomes a monster, and the people who create war know this. Out of grief and rage, with the stench of his buddy's shredded flesh in his nostrils, the soldier stops asking questions and then begins making up his own rules with a rifle. He has touched the heart of darkness and there's no going back ever. Embracing the whore called war destroys morality, and doing all this in a dishonorable cause compounds the damage.
That's why we who have been there must speak out forcefully. If it requires a stiff punch in the mouth to jump-start some addled neocon brains, so be it. And for anyone who gets their political truth from self-inflating whoopee cushions like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, it will come none too soon. To remain silent this time risks the loss of everything that our country stands for.
The story I want to tell you begins on a miserably hot day in February, 1969, as I watched U.S. Army Col. John W. Donaldson put a cup of rice wine mixed with blood to his lips and drink deeply. No matter that the concoction was alive with heartworms, Donaldson never flinched. At the time, I was serving as an army combat correspondent attached to the 11th Light Infantry Brigade and my job that day was to follow Donaldson around, snapping picture after picture of the macabre festivities unfolding in front of my eyes. He was the brigade commander at a bloody punching bag called LZ Bronco next to the village of Duc Pho. The brigade base camp was part of the Americal Division, headquartered to the north in Chu Lai.
The colonel and a large contingent of other brigade and division officers were guests of honor at a Tet festival in the Montagnard village of Ba To in the central highlands southwest of Chu Lai. Nearby was a Special Forces A Team camp, an ominous triangular fortress bristling with 105 mm cannon at each corner firing flechette rounds. A snake couldn't have crawled through the maze of sharp barbed and razor tape wire surrounding the compound, and dozens of claymore mines were set in the walls. A claymore at close range will instantly render you into your constituent molecules.
The Montagnard village and A Team camp had been hit hard by concentrated North Vietnamese forces earlier in the week, and Donaldson's presence was in part a thumb in the eye to enemy commanders licking their wounds in nearby triple canopy jungle. The landscape gave me chills, because the beautiful, green-dappled hills all around the village were pockmarked with hundreds of fresh artillery and bomb craters exposing the bright red soil. I couldn't get the image of the Jolly Green Giant with a bad case of acne out of my mind. While topless Montagnard women spruced up the area with totems and bright banners to cover attack damage, a sacrificial water buffalo calf was slowly being prodded to death with a spear by the local village chief. It took about half an hour before the calf sagged to its knees in exhaustion, at that point too weak to even cry out. The chief then cut the calf's throat above a large earthen jug to catch the pulsing blood while another villager poured rice wine and stirred.
Unknown to the visitors, the Montagnards had earlier tortured to death three North Vietnamese captives and partook of their blood in the company of Special Forces A Team troopers. These unfortunate had been impaled through their anuses with bamboo poles and given the same spear prodding. Later, their bodies were staked out along enemy infiltration trails as a mortal warning to the enemy.
This day became my own personal "Apocalypse Now" moment, a full decade before the Francis Ford Coppola's movie was released. Not long before, we became personally aware that soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, had rampaged in My Lai when military police ransacked our hooch looking for evidence and then hauled Rusty Calley off in handcuffs. Meanwhile, Tiger Teams were creating ruthless, bloody havoc across the Batangan Peninsula against suspected enemy cadre. Brutality against civilians was standard operating procedure. Because of the Pacification Program mass relocations, entire swathes of the countryside began to resemble the Missouri Burnt District during the Civil War.
The Phoenix Program was in full swing, and it was the horror to end all horrors. I had earlier tagged along on a Phoenix mission directed by the ARVN National Police, and will spare you the details. Trust me, you do not want to know what was being done. Standing there and watching Donaldson drink from the cup, the profound symbolism of all that was wrong in this place hit me like a blow in the face. Ironically, an anti-war rag called the Overseas Weekly or Overseas latched onto one of my pictures and captioned it, "Army Brass Drinks Blood In Pagan Ceremonies".
By February 1969, morale in the brigade had hit rock bottom because of horrific casualties caused primarily from booby traps, and an entire battalion had been stood down as non-functional. The North Vietnamese were endlessly blasting our firebases with 122 mm rocket artillery, and LZ Bronco was soon to be hit more than 200 times during a famous assault that came to be called "Duc Pho Burning". Mutinies, insubordination and fragging of officers became commonplace. Soldiers cracked and a few committed suicide. One grunt over the edge opened fire into the POW compound, killing a number of captured enemy. Col. Donaldson and a battalion commander, two of the highest-ranking officers in the brigade, were charged with murdering civilians from helicopters while the My Lai investigation was still underway. A young Major Colin Powell assigned to the 11th Brigade who was well acquainted with Donaldson wrote in his autobiography about being stunned by what he saw going on in the 11th. Perhaps, he had experienced his own "Apocalypse Now" moment.
There's a numbness in my guts as I see the same nightmares becoming reality again in Iraq, and I wonder what's happened to America's soul. Is this what we want, another generation suckled on the poison of another renegade leadership? Gooks have become ragheads, every adult male is an insurgent eligible for torture, and every Iraqi home filled with men, women and children is a free-fire zone. Even places of worship get flattened. Once again, we've been marched into another lunatic asylum in the Twilight Zone.
How did it happen? Why did we sit on our hands and let our leaders initiate an unprovoked proxy war? A mushroom cloud over Cleveland delivered by a pipsqueak Iraq that couldn't even get an airplane in the air or a dilapidated tank outside its own borders without throwing a track? Gimme a break. How could the average John Doe let himself be deceived into believing that Saddam Hussein was really a threat?
With Iran now in the crosshairs, I pray that our national amnesia is wearing off. I know that from coast to coast a growing number of people especially many combat veterans like myself feel helpless, confused, frightened, and completely out of the loop. Three years into Iraq, why do we still keep hearing the same refrain, pre-emptive war into the next generation? On and on and on it goes, but unfortunately our emperors in Washington treat middle Americans asking hard questions like bill collectors at a funeral or, publicly skewer them as extremists and traitors. And don't even think about asking about Israeli involvement in the disaster that Dubya calls a Middle Eastern policy.
I listen in vain to hear the voices of young Americans who will be directly and immediately affected. Current events in the Middle East should be a paramount issue, but, inexplicably, the kids are completely nonchalant. Raised on the Internet and X-Boxes, maybe Iraq is just another Hollywood-style media production to them. But, I'm going to make a prediction. Our salvation will come when Selective Service notices begin arriving in mailboxes, and make no mistake, they are coming. I predict that young voices will soon become the loudest against empire as the hip-hoppers, the teeny boppers and the slackers rudely discover that involuntary combat means no video games or boom boxes, no marathon beer busts, and certainly no teenaged girls in thong bikinis.
We in the older generation can help things along. First, turn off the televisions and study a little American history, like the parts repeatedly warning us about foreign entanglements and passionate attachments. Really think about what kind of America we're handing to our children. Organize geezer squads to buttonhole politicians, and enlist a slacker cavalry to rain e-mail on every bureaucrat in sight. Let them all know we don't care about the new world order and its Manifest Corporate Destiny. Tell Washington that unprovoked, pre-emptive wars go against the grain of everything that's American, and we're no longer going to give it the Good Homicidal Seal of Approval.
While we're at it, let's make a sincere effort to tell elected representatives, loud and clear at every opportunity, that we want our government back from the political and corporate lobbies. Give the entire bureaucratic structure the message that we want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth on anything that affects our lives fast, before another bullet is fired or bomb dropped in anger. The U.S. State Department especially needs this message drummed into their heads until they all have tinnitus.
Don't leave out the Billy Grahams, Jerry Falwells, and Pat Robertsons, (comma) and their legions of religious robots. Ask these Bible thumpers a simple question: brother, who would GEE-zus bomb, torture, rape and murder? While they choke on their own hypocrisy, direct them to the Book of John in the New Testament for a theology refresher. Christ wasn't called the Prince of Peace for nothing.
Constantly remind anyone who'll listen to you that the American Revolution blossomed with a ferocious commitment to keep a new continent free from two thousand years of empires, monarchies, feudal dictatorships, and armed religious institutions held in power by brute force and the doctrine of might makes right. People like Washington, Jefferson and Franklin instead shouted no, RIGHT makes might. That timeless concept was an invincible weapon against King George's Redcoats and it is just as powerful against nuclear weapons and carrier battle groups.
Yes, it will take guts, but what's our alternative? Either we start living up to our own ideals or the world will very soon compel us to do it. If, that is, they even think we're worth saving...

The usually calm Juan Cole has this to say about the Neocons and the next war planned in Iran:

Americans are not fighting any more wars in the Middle East against toothless third rate powers. So sit down and shut up.
One, two, three, four! We don't want your stinking war!
We are not going to see any more US troops come home in body bags at Dover for the sake of some Cheney affiliate grabbing the petroleum in Iran's Ahvaz fields.
We are not going to have another 15,000 wounded vets flood onto our streets with spine damage and brain damage.
We are not going to put Yazd behind barbed wire to liberate it, as a millenarian Christian general did to Habbaniyah in Iraq.
We are not going to imprison and torture thousands of Iranians at Evin Penitentiary in Tehran, as worthy successors to the bloodthirsty Shah and Khomeini.
We are not going to kill 200,000 Iranians with aerial bombardments of Tabriz, Isfahan, Qom, Kerman, Shiraz and Mashahd.
We are not going to let dozens of US corporations loot the American people and the Iranian people alike with no-bid "contracts", embezzlement, corruption, and graft.
We are not going to let you have a war against Iran.
So sit down and shut up, American Enterprise Institute, and Hudson Institute, and Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and American Heritage Institute, and this institute and that institute, and cable "news", and government "spokesmen", and all the pundit-ferrets you pay millions to make business for the American military-industrial complex and Big Oil.
We don't give a rat's ass what Ahmadinejad thinks about European history or what pissant speech the little shit gives.
I call on university students across America to begin holding antiwar rallies. The only way you can have a war on Iran is to draft the young people. It is you who are on the line. Demonstrate! Demonstrate against the very hint of war! Demonstrate in front of the warmongering "institutes" in Washington, DC! Demonstrate to end the one we've already got! (See Speaker's Forum on Iraq Here is what the real Iran experts think about the prospect of an Iran war.)
Because Hitchens's dirty tricks and lies against me are only the beginning. Whoever stands against the Perpetual War machine will be attacked, slimed, marginalized, and destroyed if the warmongers get their way. I don't care. Thus far and no farther.
One, two, three, four. We don't want your stinking war!

Evidence Clean-Up on the Bush Link to the Kennedy Assassination?

2006-04-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

Wayne Madsen today claims that the reason the FBI searched the papers of the late investigative reporter, Jack Anderson, was not to find what he had on the AIPAC spy case but rather evidence Anderson had linking George H.W. Bush to the John Kennedy assassination.

According to individuals close to the FBI fishing expedition, the actual documents the FBI wanted to seize were files Anderson collected in the 1960s that linked George H. W. Bush's activities in Texas in 1963 to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22 of that year. Bush was a friend of George DeMohrenschildt, Lee Harvey Oswald's Belarusian-born contact officer. DeMohrenschildt befriended Oswald and arranged for him to settle in Dallas after leaving the Soviet Union. DeMohrenshildt "committed suicide" shortly before he was due to testify before the 1978 House Assassinations Committee. The elder Bush's name, address, and phone number in Midland, Texas was found in DeMohrenshildt's address book under the heading "Poppy."

In addition, the FBI wanted to remove from future public circulation Anderson documents that point to George H. W. Bush conspiring with the government of the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran to keep U.S. hostages imprisoned in Iran until after the 1980 presidential election and avoid an "October Surprise" for Carter. The agreement between the Iranians and Bush (who was working with William Casey) sank the chances for Jimmy Carter's re-election and George H. W. Bush's entry into the White House as Vice President. The hostages were released at the very time Ronald Reagan took the oath of office in 1981. That operation would lay the ground for future Bush-Tehran collusion in the Iran-Contra scandal. Another set of files involve the links between the Bush family and that of Ronald Reagan's would-be assassin John W. Hinckley. Had Hinckley succeeded in killing Reagan, the Bush political agenda would have commenced in earnest in 1981 rather than 1989.

The Bush family has been known to use retired FBI agents as their political heavies and clean up men in the past -- most notably to erase the Bush links to Dallas. George W. Bush's departing Press Secretary Scott McClellan has a close relative who continued to muddy the waters about the JFK assassination. McClellan's father, Barr McClellan, wrote a book claiming it was Lyndon Johnson, not George H. W. Bush, who conspired to kill the president.

In another post today, Madsen writes that the next couple of weeks will see indictments of Karl Rove and a widening sex/prostitution scandal involving senior Republican leaders and, amazingly enough, the Watergate Hotel.

The cresting wave of major scandals in Washington. At week's end, there is every indication that the Bush White House is bracing for additional scandals. A sex scandal involving the rented suites at the Watergate Hotel (the GOP just can't stay away from that place), female and male prostitutes and male GOP members of Congress and top CIA officials, including Director Porter Goss, and GOP-connected contractors is simmering but is expected to blow wide open in the next few weeks. Goss's warnings about ex-CIA officers speaking to the media have more to do with curtailing information about the growing sex and bribery scandal than in tracking down leaks about pre-Iraq war intelligence. Also, George W. Bush's top assistant Karl Rove appears to be facing at least two criminal charges that could be brought by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the next few weeks.

Funny that Jeff Rense’s site pushes the LBJ-Kennedy link and deflects away from the Bush family link. Is Jeff Rense COINTELPRO?

Is the 911 Truth Movement Being Undermined from Within?

2006-04-21T07:29:00.000-07:00

Laura Knight-Jadczyk posted an important essay this week on the undermining of the 911 truth movement. It’s long but well worth the time to read. She describes the “ponerization” process, using a term from Lobaczewski’s just published Political Ponerology, probably the most important book in social psychology of the last hundred years. Ponerization refers to the process whereby social, political and religious movements are gradually taken over by psychopathic opportunists who make use for their own purposes of the idealistic capital accumulated in the early days of such groups.

Looks like it is happening now with 911 Truth. The good news is there are easy ways to counter ponerization if you know how it works. As a very astute poster on the Signs of the Times Forum put it:

What matters here, however, is that Ponerization for once is not allowed to proceed unaddressed or without a precedence in prior knowledge. Ponerization is an obvious transition state of an ideal from truth affirming self-organization to Pathocratic entropy. And it is also an opportunity, because until it completes its intended purpose the poneric transition is still a transition, and hence an unstable state, with the potential for greater self-organization if enough energy and the right kind of energy is adequately pumped into the system during its unstable period. Usually ponerization occurs so smoothly that it is practically imperceptable to normal people.
It goes smoothly when it is allowed to do so and when it is left unobserved and unaddressed. This smoothness has generated the illusion that ponerization is a powerful process. The thing is, there was really never any organized and coherent interference with the process in past historic examples to my knowledge, so we really don't know how powerful the process really is. It has never been consistently challenged until it was too late.

And now we have Lobaczewski, a nonagenarian Polish psychologist who survived Nazism and Bolshevism to describe the process for us. His warning to this generation must be heeded.

Drums of Iran War Dying Down?

2006-04-20T08:52:00.000-07:00

The drums of war in Iran seemed to have died down a bit in the last few days. Interesting. The visit of Chinese president Hu to the United States (he may be bringing a threat to sink the U.S. economy if the U.S. bombs Iran), the shocking rise of gold and oil and drop in the dollar (a warning from other central banks?), the near mutiny of top military brass may have slowed down the neocons plans. Now, Wayne Madsen reports that a secret delegation from Iran visited Washington:

April 20, 2006 -- According to U.S. government insiders and foreign intelligence sources, a high-level Iranian government delegation arrived in the United States last week for negotiations on Iran's nuclear program and other matters of mutual interest. The delegation included Iranian nuclear program officials and leaders close to President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamanei. The presence of the Iranian delegation was confirmed by the presence in Washington of Mohammed Nahavandian, a senior aide to chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani. The sighting of Nahavandian in Washington was a clear embarrassment for the Bush administration since the Iranian visit has been held in great secrecy amid saber rattling over the Iranian nuclear issue from both the neo-cons in the Bush administration and the hardliners in the Iranian government. Informed sources speculate that the U.S.-Iranian talks may have taken place at the Aspen Institute's Wye River Conference Center on Maryland's Eastern Shore, where access is limited and security is tight. Since Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld maintain residences near the Wye River Center, there is a continued federal security presence in the area. Nahavandian likely entered the United States as secretly as his colleagues until his presence in Washington was noticed. Former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani tipped his hand when he revealed that Nahavandian, who is the president of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce and an Iranian international policy think tank, was in the United States to attend a "conference." On April 12, a large motorcade consisting of federal law enforcement vehicles and a bus with blacked out windows was seen traveling at a high rate of speed on US Route 50 towards the Wye River Center from Washington DC. The Wye River center was the site of October 1998 talks between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Chairman Yassir Arafat.

It could also be that all the war talk was done just to raise oil prices. See Xymphora on this and on the related issue that the Neocons/Israelis and the Iranians go way back (Iran-Contra) and have a lot of common interests, believe it or not.

Can You Connect the Dots?

2006-04-12T15:19:00.000-07:00

I came across a few interesting items on the internet this past week.

First this from Seymour Hersh:

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

… One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

… “This is much more than a nuclear issue,” one high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna. “That’s just a rallying point, and there is still time to fix it. But the Administration believes it cannot be fixed unless they control the hearts and minds of Iran. The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years.”

A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view. “This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,” he said.

… One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.

… The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,” the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.”
He went on, “Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out”—remove the nuclear option—“they’re shouted down.”

The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”

Here is Kurt Nimmo, with a more realistic take on Hersh’s somewhat bloodless article:

It is now obvious the criminal globalist elite plan to use nukes and believe they can contain this once unimaginable usage to the “third world” where “rogue regimes” with or without nukes or weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with in severe fashion—that is to say they must be irradiated and suffer horrible deaths.

“In addition to the immediate effects of blast, air shock, and thermal radiation, shallow nuclear explosions produce especially intense local radioactive fallout,” explains Nelson of FAS. “The fireball breaks through the surface of the earth, carrying into the air large amounts of dirt and debris. This material has been exposed to the intense neutron flux from the nuclear detonation, which adds to the radioactivity from the fission products. The cloud typically consists of a narrow column and a broad base surge of air filled with radioactive dust which expands to a radius of over a mile for a 5 kiloton explosion.”

Imagine such “intense local radioactive fallout” in Tehran, population approximately 12 million.

Obviously, if Bush indeed nukes Iran, as we are now told, we are dealing with a war criminal of Hitlerian proportions. Since it appears Bush and the neocon maniacs will be allowed to proceed and nuke Iran (and other countries on the neocon hit list), we can only hope in the catastrophic wake they will be rounded up and prosecuted. Fat chance of this happening before Bush and crew begin slinging nukes around.

Can anyone stop Bush? TBR (I have no idea how reliable his rumors are) passes on some anonymous leaks from the White House:

The Voice of the White House

March 9, 2006: “Bush's approval polls are tanking. Republicans are terrified lest, as they now believe, they will lose both the House and Senate in November. (Really major felonious activities would certainly be revealed by Democrats in control of either, or both, houses.)

There certainly have been prepared, at the Pentagon, plans to attack Iran. They were only plans for possible future actions. There are also current plans, on file, to attack Lebanon, Syria, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba (again!), and Mexico. Not to forget Dubai and Saudi Arabia in the event that Muslim fundamentalists gain power in those states. These plans are kept in the Big Safe over at the Pentagon in the event they are needed.

Now, the evil Karl Rove, terrified that he might be indicted and have to go to jail … has been pushing Bush to make a new war. Rove points out, one learns here from those who have read reams of notes and memos, that these slimy shits believe that Bush can regain his lost popularity in a wave of wonderful American patriotism, the military will be enhanced by a public-demanded general draft, we can at once, (when the new military is in place), invade the evil leftist Chavez (and guarantee his oil production for the United States and not the PRC) and put an end to the Castro government, not to mention all kinds of things designed to flatter the idiot Bush who does not want to seem weak (he is) or a failure (which he certainly is.)

Believe me, Bush wants to do this and Karl, with his connivance, has "leaked" this to a number of “friendly” media people.

…A personal friend in the Pentagon (War Plans Division) tells me that we simply cannot maintain any further military activities in that region. Bottomed-out morale, suicides, desertions, self-mutilations to get a discharge and such like would make any more expanded activity a disaster of the first magnitude. Also, a report tells us that many West Pointers, considered to be the elite of the Army’s officer corps, are leaving the service in droves when their enlistment period (5 years) is up. Also, the Pentagon is now taking young men with criminal records who have never gone to high school or who, if they have, have not graduated. This is the real bottom of the barrel, believe me, and we are scraping it even as I speak.

Many senior military personages are beginning to say that Bush should be physically removed from office lest he utterly destroy the United States., and similar sentiments are being expressed in different influential quarters.

Let's hope they are successful!"

Why just hope for “senior military personages” to come to our rescue. How many countries have really been rescued by generals? Here is an excerpt from the latest newsletter of the incomparable David McGowan (do read it in full):

…So there you have it, folks: concentration camps, forced labor, martial law, global surveillance, sadistic forms of crowd control, genocidal biological weapons – all this and more is looming in the not-too-distant future. And our trusty servants in Washington will have no trouble finding some handy justification for fully activating and expanding these programs. A seemingly natural disaster, such as an earthquake or hurricane, could serve as the trigger. So too could another ‘terrorist’ attack, and the Homeland Defense report promises us that more are coming: “Terrorists will seek and potentially gain surreptitious entry into the United States to conduct mass casualty attacks against Americans on US soil … Terrorists and/or rogue states will attempt multiple, simultaneous mass casualty attacks against the US homeland.”These triggering events could themselves be triggered by any sudden increase in the anger level of average Americans. Because the truth is, you see, that beneath all the bluster and arrogance, the Washington gang is terrified of you. It’s hard to believe, I know, but it is true nonetheless. Even though you have sit idly by while your beloved Constitution and Bill of Rights have been thoroughly trampled over, the powers-that-be view you as a sleeping giant that, if fully awakened, is capable of laying waste to their cherished plans.Although they have convinced you that you are utterly powerless, they know that that is not the case. They know that they would not be able to contain the seething anger of the masses should it ever fully surface. They know the fury that will be unleashed should the dormant beast awaken to the fact it has been deliberately and systematically lied to. And they fear that some day soon one of their provocations will awaken you.They will never let you see that fear, of course, for to do so would shatter the illusion that they are omnipotent and you are powerless to resist. But the fear is there, lurking just beneath the arrogant façade. In Washington, in the halls of academia, and in the newsrooms of Fox and CNN and ABC and NBC and CBS, the fear is palpable. It can be found in all the institutions of society that are complicit in serving you up your daily portion of lies.Their greatest fear is facing the beast at full strength, for they know that if that day of reckoning ever comes, there will be hell to pay for their transgressions against the American people. And so they try to weaken the beast while it lies dormant – by demoralizing it, and by breaking it up into smaller, more manageable pieces, preferably pieces that can be played against each other. And as long as the American people continue to play along, by allowing Washington to dictate the rules of this game, the beast will remain too weak to fight back against the considerable oppressive powers of the state.The rest of the world has a better understanding of how this game must be played. Turn on your television set and you might catch a glimpse of a few million French citizens taking to the streets to express their anger at their government’s labor policies. Turn to another channel and you might see half-a-million Latino immigrants marching through the streets of Los Angeles to protest proposed immigration reforms. And yet the American people, as a whole, cannot summon the energy to take to the streets even as your sons and daughters are being fed into the meat grinder in Iraq.Make no mistake about it: those images from Paris and Los Angeles scare the shit out of the criminals in Washington, as can be discerned from the tone of the news coverage provided by the Western media. They look at those masses of humanity and begin picturing such scenes in every big city across this nation. And then they imagine public anger becoming so widespread that they begin to lose control of the militarized law enforcement agencies all across the country that they rely upon to keep the masses at bay.So what's it going to be, people? Are you going to continue to sit passively in the bleachers, or are you going to take to the streets in numbers previously unseen on these shores? Are you going to initiate a general strike and shut corporate America down? Are you going to storm the offices of all the major media outlets and let the opinion-shapers know that aiding and abetting the criminals in Washington is itself a crime, and one that has severe consequences?Is it not your responsibility to act to protect your children if they are in danger? And can we not agree that virtually all of the key figures in the media are not merely messengers, as we are to believe, but rather highly-paid propagandists for the State? And can we not also agree that the propaganda being sold poses a direct threat to our children's futures? If a 'common criminal,' so to speak, were posing a direct and very serious threat to your children's safety, would you sit idly by doing nothing?Is it not perfectly obvious that we would not be in our current predicament if we had anything resembling a free and independent press? Washington would still harbor a desire to implement an overtly fascist agenda, to be sure, but without a compliant media machine to obscure the truth and shape public opinion, those plans would remain but a dream. Without a compliant media, we would not be living in a post-911 world, because no 'terrorist' attacks would have occurred on September 11, 2001. Why? Because without a propaganda machine masquerading as a free press, such an audacious and patently fraudulent story could have never been sold to the American people, just as the lie-based wars in Central Asia and the Middle East could have never been marketed.When your children come to you ten or twenty years in the future (and they will – assuming, of course, that they survive that long, given the unfolding plans to wipe out 90% of humanity, likely justified on the basis of the junk science known as 'Peak Oil' theory: http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2006-04-07/feature1p/index.html) to ask why you were asleep at the wheel while the country was evolving into an overtly fascist police state, what will you tell them? That there was nothing you could do? And when they then ask if you were truly powerless or if you just allowed yourself to be convinced that you were, what will you tell them then?

The Pentagon's Homeland Defense report concludes as follows: “The Department of Defense must change its conceptual approach to homeland defense. The Department can no longer think in terms of the ‘home’ game and the ‘away’ game. There is only one game. The Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support is a significant step toward this strategic transformation. Defending the US homeland – our people, property, and freedom – is our most fundamental duty. Failure is not an option.”

As has been demonstrated repeatedly in various foreign adventures, the US Department of Defense has little interest in defending freedom or people. Its primary function is the acquisition and defense of property – property ‘owned’ by US and multinational corporations. In the ‘Homeland’ as elsewhere, the role of the military will be to protect corporate property and corporate profits, at the expense of the rights and the freedoms of the people – and quite likely at the expense of the very lives of the people.

The responsibility of defending the rights and freedoms of the American people falls squarely on your shoulders. Nobody else is going to do it for you. It is your most fundamental duty. And failure is definitely not an option.

Who's Got Their Hands on the Pendulum?

2006-04-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

Laura Knight-Jadczyk has posted an essay today that explains a lot of puzzling facts about recent history. She starts with some astute observations about the work of historians, both of ancient and recent history. She then discusses theories of generational historical cycles, criticizing them for not taking into account differences between human beings.

Here’s an example I’ve been thinking over for the past decade or so. People have long noticed generational political swings in U.S. history. Generally the cycles can last about 25 years, long enough for one side, the left wing or right wing, to grow in opposition, take power, implement policies, create their own reactions and problems which in turn generates an increasingly powerful opposition which then takes over, etc. There is also concurrently a kind of cultural exhaustion with the right or left at the transition points of the cycle.

It was completely clear, for example, that in 1980, U.S. liberalism was completely exhausted. The things liberalism did well, they already did, and people longed for right wing policies. You could feel it. Watching this happen at the time, it was clear that although the right-wing policies would be disastrous for the United States if they were ever implemented, there was no way to convince most people of that before the fact; they would just have to experience it. The right-wing ideas seemed fresher, even to those who knew they were bad. Then came Reagan, of course, and the rest was history. By the nineteen nineties, the right wing seemed exhausted and spent. Polls consistently have shown majority support for liberal policies. Yet, due to skillful organization, control of the media, and criminal vote stealing, the grip of the right wing increased at the time it should have been in decline according to the theories of pendulum swings.

Where does that leave us? It leaves us to rethink our views of human nature. Here’s Knight-Jadczyk:

This idea leads to the primary reason for the failure of such systems of analysis: when considering a human population, what is left out of the equation is the fact that, in every society on earth, there is a certain percentage of individuals, that are extremely deviant from the masses of normal people, and this small group is generally very active in ways that can affect hundreds, thousands, even millions of other human beings in negative ways. The analogy of a disease pathogen in a body serves very well to convey the proper perspective.

Deviant personalities, being in a minority and knowing that they are a minority, feel driven to take power over their environment in order to alleviate the stress of this feeling of being abnormal. This drive enables them to easily "rise to the top," and then to interpenetrate the entire social structure with a ramified network of mutual and multiple pathological conspiracies in a way similar to how a disease takes over a body.

…Just as a disease organism seeks its own survival and to propagate, pathologically deviant persons want power over others and they are not inhibited by considerations of conscience or feeling for others. An analogy of this is that the disease pathogen is totally uncaring of the damage it may do to the organ systems it invades. It only wants to survive and propagate. The bacteria or virus has evolved many unique characteristics that enable it to take over a body when that body is weak. Thus, when societies are weakened for any of a number of reasons, deviant personalities are able to utilize their specifically evolved methods and means to achieve that power that normal people with normal morals simply cannot comprehend because it is not part of their reality and all human beings tend to assume that everyone else is like themselves.

And so, networks of pathological deviants rise to power again and again, imposing their distortions on the masses of normal people like a disease until the masses wake up and get rid of the deviants, (bring in the therapies), normalize human relations, and begin to take care of the body of society, thus restoring health.

The problem of deviants coming to power again and again is due to the same factor mentioned above: that human beings tend to believe that others that look like them, talk like them, walk like them, are, in fact, like them even inside. They are not. There are vast differences between human beings. All people are not created equal in ability, though they certainly ought to be equal in terms of opportunity and legal rights.

…It is this problem we are facing today. The United States has been infected for a very long time by a particular species of pathogen that, due to its long-term presence and gradual weakening of the organ systems, has finally generated a cancer that has gone metastatic: George W. Bush and the Neocons.

911, Cointelpro and Cults, Part 3

2006-03-22T14:59:00.000-08:00

The saga of the psyops site, Above Top Secret continues. Exposed for what they are, well-connected secret government disinformation and Cointelpro operatives, they have stuck back against Signs of the Times for publishing the results of research on ATS's activities.

They are trying to shut down Signs of the Times using a high-powered intellectual property law firm located near the CIA headquarters to threaten server hosts. The SOTT site has been taken down repeatedly today.

See Laura Knight-Jadczyk's blog for more details.

Charlie Sheen joins the 911 Truth Movement

2006-03-22T11:24:00.000-08:00

Charlie Sheen joins the 911 Truth Movement, but the media won't let him. This should be big news, but there appears to be a MSM news blackout on this. Prison Planet published this interview with the famous actor.

This comes on the heels of a long article in New York Magazine on the 911 Truth Movement, which only indulges in a little mockery.

And, unlike a year or two ago, you can find David Ray Griffin's books in your neighborhood Barnes & Noble store.

Not sure what to make of this. If "they" are planning a bombshell disclosure on 911, it's hard to imagine the enormity of what they would be distracting us from. There aren't too many things bigger than the real story of 911.

U.S. Tax Dollars at Work-- Building Democracy, One Dead Baby at a Time

2006-03-20T11:46:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Jeff Wells at Rigorous Intuition for finding this in a Knight-Ridder newspaper, quoting an Iraqi police (they're on "our" side) report:

Iraqi police report details civilians' deaths at hands of U.S. troops
BY MATTHEW SCHOFIELD
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi police have accused American troops of executing 11 people, including a 75-year-old woman and a 6-month-old infant, in the aftermath of a raid last Wednesday on a house about 60 miles north of Baghdad.
The villagers were killed after American troops herded them into a single room of the house, according to a police document obtained by Knight Ridder Newspapers. The soldiers also burned three vehicles, killed the villagers' animals and blew up the house, the document said.
A U.S. military spokesman, Major Tim Keefe, said that the U.S. military has no information to support the allegations and that he had not heard of them before a reporter brought them to his attention Sunday...
[Police report] At 230 of 15/3/2006, according to the telegram (report) of the Ishaqi police directorate, American forces used helicopters to drop troops on the house of Faiz Harat Khalaf situated in the Abu Sifa village of the Ishaqi district. The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people, including 5 children, 4 women and 2 men, then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals (map coordinates 098702).
They were:
Turkiya Muhammed Ali, 75 years
Faiza Harat Khalaf, 30 years
Faiz Harat Khalaf, 28 years
Um Ahmad, 23 years
Sumaya Abdulrazak, 22 years
Aziz Khalil Jarmoot, 22 years
Hawra Harat Khalaf, 5 years
Asma Yousef Maruf, 5 years
Osama Yousef Maruf, 3 years
Aisha Harat Khalaf, 3 years
Husam Harat Khalaf, 6 months
(Signed)
Staff Colonel
Fadhil Muhammed Khalaf
Assistant Chief of the Joint Coordination Center
3/16/2006
Three Knight Ridder Newspapers special correspondents contributed to this report. Their identities are being withheld for security reasons.

Some Things Never Change

2006-03-17T09:49:00.000-08:00

Some things never change, they only intensify. Death squads operating out of U.S. embassies and bombing raids, for example. Killing women and children (men too!) using taxpayers’ money. Destroying the psyches of the cannon fodder soldiers in the process. Poisoning them and their families (and eventually the rest of us) with depleted uranium.

Vietnam, El Salvador, Iraq, Palestine: soon the whole world will be like those places if we don’t stop the pathocrats.

Bush I in Dallas

2006-03-17T07:15:00.000-08:00

Check out Wayne Madsen today for a photo of (possibly) George H.W. Bush standing in front of the Texas School Book Depository on that fateful day.

Here's what Madsen wrote:

The tall, lanky man who spawned George W. Bush may have been standing in front of the Texas School Book Depository on Nov. 22, 1963. George H. W. Bush is one of very few Americans who does not precisely remember where he was and what he was doing on the fateful Friday in November 1963. Of course, he would have had a foggy memory if he was an accessory to the crime. The Bush family are modern Borgias -- cruel "human locusts" who devour and ruin everything in their path.

Who is the Enemy?

2006-03-09T10:47:00.000-08:00

Since billions of dollars worth of propaganda and mind control techniques are trying to convince people in the west that muslims are the enemy, I am excerpting passages from an important piece by Kurt Nimmo today in the hope that people, especially in the United States will do some clear thinking about the question, Who is the enemy?

It should now be obvious the Straussian neocon plan not only includes an effort to destroy Arab, Persian, and Muslim culture, but American culture as well. “The real question is not whether the American military can topple Hussein’s regime, but whether the American public has the stomach for imperial involvement of a kind we have not known since the United States occupied Germany and Japan,” Lawrence F. Kaplan, the neocon sidekick of William Kristol, remarked as the invasion of Iraq unfolded. “The theory behind this, developed by Michael Doyle, professor of international affairs at Princeton University, is that democratic governments are reluctant to go to war because they must answer to their citizens. And the history of liberal democracies, though comparatively short in the grand scheme of history, tends to buttress his point,” explains Bruce Murphy, writing for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Leo Strauss, the grand daddy of today’s Straussian neocons, was opposed to classical liberalism, as defined as the sovereignty of the individual, the very foundation of the philosophy of John Locke and Adam Smith. As Michael Doliner writes in a review of Shadia B. Drury’s Leo Strauss and the American Right, Strauss’ “vision was of a hierarchical society based on natural inequalities and welded together with the fanatical devotion state religion engenders,” an idea planted in his head in part by the Nazi Jurist Carl Schmitt, a doctrine mixed together into a dismal hodgepodge with heaping portions of bellum omnium contra omnes—war of all against all—cynicism extracted from the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. “Strauss’s hatred of liberalism is so virulent that he sees the struggle against it as a war, and in war all is fair. For this reason Straussians will use every dirty trick they can think of in the democratic arena in order to defeat liberalism. While doing so they will corrupt democracy itself. But since democracy is only a tool with which to defeat liberalism in order to institute the true Straussian hierarchical society, this is of little import. In the end they will jettison democracy if to do so is expedient.”
In fact, Bush, the useful idiot sock puppet, unelected, court-appointed president of the Straussian neocons, is in the process of jettisoning democracy—or rather, the principles of our once proud constitutional republic—as the NSA “scandal” and repeated attacks against the Bill of Rights make painfully obvious. For the Straussian neocons, those of us alarmed and moved to action by the in-your-face onslaught against the Bill of Rights are considered the enemy. “Opponents of the ruling cabal, whatever their stripe, are ‘them.’ Indeed, since the cabal of philosophers is deceiving everyone else, even those who have joined the cause out of religious zeal are, in a real sense, ‘them.’ A small circle of initiates who repel the advances of everyone else is a feature of the Straussian State. These initiates are philosophers who rely on reason, and nihilistic reason tells them there are no rules, none, in this domestic battle,” Doliner continues.
In order to construct the Straussian hierarchical society required to wage total, unrelenting, generational war, those opposed to the plan must be systematically eliminated, a process well under way with the illegal use of the NSA’s massive high-tech snoop apparatus. Of course, this apparatus is not employed, as we are assured by a complicit corporate media, to ferret out “al-Qaeda” telephone calls and email messages, but rather to locate and compile electronic dossiers on critics of the Straussians, who will be dealt with in coordinated manner after the next “Pearl Harbor” event occurs—and no doubt the Iranians will endeavor to provide this event after their country is brutally invaded, as Javad Vaeedi promises.
It is foolish to consider all of this a “mistake,” an unintended result of the over-zealousness on the part of a few “neoconservatives” who are in fact neo-Jacobins, murderous radicals, as Professor Claes Ryn and Paul Craig Roberts note. “More dangerous an enemy of the US and its traditional values than Muslims, neo-Jacobins have seized control of the Bush presidency and US foreign policy. They will stop at nothing to achieve their goal of World War IV in the Middle East,” Roberts warns. “The neo-Jacobins are rushing to get America involved in a general Middle Eastern war before Americans have time to think. The terrorist scare which worked the first time is being employed again. Once we have attacked other sovereign Islamic countries, we will have to bring back the draft in order to raise the necessary armies or resort to nuclear weapons…. If the American public falls for the second round of neo-Jacobin propaganda [in the current context, against Iran], neither do they deserve, nor will they have, liberty and democracy.”
In fact, we are well on our way to a Straussian hierarchical dictatorship in America. Once the opponents are dealt with, either rounded up and forced into Halliburton constructed concentration camps or slaughtered outright, the Straussians will construct their nihilistic paradise of pseudo-masculinity based on a chicken hawk war ethos, i.e., the bamboozled masses will be used as cannon fodder.
Not unlike Orwell’s dystopian world, the New America of Straussian fascism and total war will be unrecognizable to those of us who dream of resurrecting a constitutional republic based on a classical liberalism so reviled by the Straussian neocons, who we are told simply made “mistakes” and now wish to repent, or at least explain themselves. Of course, this fake and criminal contriteness is simply more deception, as one of the primary tenets of Straussian fascism is deception, a tactic used to great effect by Hitler and Nazis. Unfortunately, if we don’t get our act together and soon, America will suffer the same consequences of Nazi Germany, or more likely a consequence far worse.

Can They be Stopped?

2006-03-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

Now that the fascist neocons are uniformly unpopular yet still in control of the levers of power, can they be defeated?

Not at the ballot box, if the continued certification of Diebold voting machines in the United States is any indication. But voting never challenged the Powers That Be anyway, even if counted fairly. Sophisticated propaganda and vetting of opposition candidates has always taken care of that.

Someone at the Sign of the Times Forum posted a thought-provoking suggestion as to why the final implementation of The Plan will not be as easy as the steps up until now:

Indeed, the plans… seemed to go smoothly over a period when subtlety was the main means of implementation. This subtlety was not only working because Normal People (i.e. non-psychopaths) were not aware of what was going on, but because there is a large constituency in humanity that craves for security at all costs, even if such is an illusion. These will tolerate any injustice as long as it does not threaten the illusion too much…
The final stage of implementation, however, is far more complex. It entails pathocratic domination that shatters even the illusions of the complacent. Their methods work, and even their limited warfare, until the attempt to make the critical move of reality substitution for everyone.
In that sense the scales would have tipped because the very raison d'etre of the complacency in individuals will have disappeared. Thus, we notice a transition, upon which the pathocrats are not clear at all. On the one hand they control all institution and maintain an illusion to keep people asleep. On the other they shatter the illusion themselves and shock Normal People into paralysis to take over through constant force.
Yet, even Machiavelli stated that it is very difficult to keep people down by force alone. The problem for the pathocrats is that the longer they delay their "shock" the more people are preparing for it. In fact, the pathocrats are a bit confused if we really examine their methods.
On the one hand they try to discredit anyone alerting the public of their plans, and on the other they are spreading information about those very plans. Even if this is mostly disinformation about the way these plans are being implemented it leaves no doubt that something underhanded is going on. They believe that some part of the population will buy into their lies, while another part will be paralyzed by their intimidating hints.
The fact is that if they did strike earlier shock could just as easily have paralyzed the Normal People so the pathocrats could waltz in. Instead they are poking and prodding because their think tanks cannot come up with a guaranteed outcome for any of their game plans…
They also realize that one they make the critical move there is no turning back. Playing individual groups and countries against each other is all well and good, but if they end up trying to grasp the whole of the world in their clenched fists they end up revealing themselves as a common enemy to all. War is a nice game when you are safe in your underground bunker with your simulations. Its fun to watch fools pound each other to the ground at your behest. But when they end up entering the inevitable arena where they become the undeniable THEM against the obvious US, they tread upon a different path…
The situation, however, changes when they must inevitably reveal themselves and enter the equation for all to see. The cowards conceal themselves, and have become addicted to concealing themselves. They crave to come out in the open and stomp normalcy under their cruel boot. Yet, that wishful thinking and boisterous bragging does not take away from the fact that they are and always will be cowards.
They claim on the one hand that they control all the institutions, economies and ideologies, and on the other they threaten to shatter everything. At the first movement of shattering, however, they will also release normal people from dependency upon their social construct by sheer force of necessity. Psychotics confuse these institutions, and especially the particular forms they have concocted, with reality. They cannot understand that for a healthy person reality is a far deeper and more vibrant concept.

A perceptive astrologer, Bill Herbst, has come to a similar conclusion:

In balance, however, I do not currently believe that we will see the dark descent of Orwellian-style fascism, for the simple reason that events are likely to spiral out of control. All our complex systems—from the military through the political to the corporate—are already showing signs of stress and disintegration,
much to the chagrin of those who wish to maintain the status quo. Few outright institutional collapses have yet occurred, but those will accelerate after 2008, reaching full-bore in 2012-2015. By the time the powers-that-be feel the urgent need to play their hand through outright repression, they may no longer possess sufficient means to do so. Even if such attempts are made, by then it might be too late to muzzle an alarmed population whose misplaced faith in the corporate state will have been shattered where it counts—in their wallets.

Who Leaked the Katrina Videoconference?

2006-03-02T08:18:00.000-08:00

Is the release of the Katrina Video the Associated Press -- retaliation by Cheney for Bush releasing Cheney's emails on Plame? Wouldn't it be nice if they each took the other down?

Probably wishful thinking, but the question remains who leaked it?

If we are to believe Sidney Blumenthal ,

While Bush is constantly and lavishly complimented as supreme leader, Cheney runs the show. Through his chief of staff, David Addington, he controls most of the flow of information, especially on national security, that reaches the incurious president. Bush seeks no contrary information or independent sources... Cheney and his team oversee the writing of key decision memos before Bush finally gets to check the box indicating approval. Addington also dominates much of the bureaucracy through a network of conservative lawyers placed in key departments and agencies.

If Cheney didn't OK the leak who did? Any ideas?

Is Bush Cutting Cheney Loose?

2006-02-25T06:59:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's finally happening:

White House 'Discovers' 250 Emails Related to Plame Leak
By Jason Leopold
Friday 24 February 2006
The White House turned over last week 250 pages of emails from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. Senior aides had sent the emails in the spring of 2003 related to the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald revealed during a federal court hearing Friday.
The emails are said to be explosive, and may prove that Cheney played an active role in the effort to discredit Plame Wilson’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s prewar Iraq intelligence, sources close to the investigation said.
Sources close to the probe said the White House “discovered” the emails two weeks ago and turned them over to Fitzgerald last week. The sources added that the emails could prove that Cheney lied to FBI investigators when he was interviewed about the leak in early 2004. Cheney said that he was unaware of any effort to discredit Wilson or unmask his wife’s undercover status to reporters.

What is Going on with Europe?

2006-02-16T07:32:00.000-08:00

France is accusing Iran of pursuing military nuclear technology.

In Germany, the former Foreign Minister and leader of the formerly pacifist Green Party, Joshka Fischer, is advocating that Europe intervene militarily for generations in the Middle East. Fischer’s statement in Suddeutsche Zeitung, quoted in this article by Peter Schwartz:

“The Middle East will go through a deep crisis of transformation lasting perhaps two to three decades, which bring great risks and dangers,” writes Fischer. Europe will not be able to “stand aloof from the dislocation, crises and conflicts of this region, which is so central to its own security.” The crisis will force “Europe to grow up very fast in security policy terms .” It must begin to “think about a second line, beside the elements of partnership, dialogue, cooperation and the aid given to transform [the region], to include security guarantees and elements of an effective and simultaneously convincing defence [policy].”

In plain language, this means that in future Europe should increasingly pursue its interests in the Middle East using military means. Apart from diplomatic and economic activities (“partnership, dialogue, cooperation”), military activities (“security guarantees and defence”), will increasingly come to the fore.

What this means is that the Powers in Europe are behind the “Long War” in general and the bombing of Iran in particular.

What is becoming clear, with the ascension of Merkel in spite of the rejection of right-wing policies by German voters and the seemingly inevitable rise of the neocon Sarkozy in France is that, just as in the United States, there is no ‘politics’ when it comes to important matters. We in the United States, therefore, cannot wait for elections (which can easily be rigged and even if fair both choices have been vetted by the Powers that Be); we need to impeach Bush and Cheney now, put them on trial for war crimes and treason along with leading neocons and their collaborators.

More Evidence that Neocons Helped SUPPLY Iran with Weapons

2006-02-15T08:42:00.000-08:00

More evidence that the Bush necocons were actively involved in supplying Iran with nuclear material in order to justify an invasion. Raw Story published this:

Outed CIA officer was working on Iran, intelligence sources say
02/13/2006
Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna
The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY has learned.
Acording to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.
Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.
While many have speculated that Plame was involved in monitoring the nuclear proliferation black market, specifically the proliferation activities of Pakistan's nuclear "father," A.Q. Khan, intelligence sources say that her team provided only minimal support in that area, focusing almost entirely on Iran…
The damages
Intelligence sources would not identify the specifics of Plame's work. They did, however, tell RAW STORY that her outing resulted in "severe" damage to her team and significantly hampered the CIA's ability to monitor nuclear proliferation.
Plame's team, they added, would have come in contact with A.Q. Khan's network in the course of her work on Iran.

The only way what they did makes sense, is if they didn't want the A.Q. Khan group to be prevented from supplying weapon material to Iran. They want an excuse to invade Iran. That's why they did all they could to ensure the election of Ahmedinejad to be able to demonize him.

Time for a Conscience Network

2006-02-10T09:35:00.000-08:00

It’s time for a Conscience Network. An effective network of people who have consciences and who have awareness.

It has become even more clear lately that, in fascist times like these, politics is dead.

There can be no politics when the polis is dead. There is power and power plays but no politics in the traditional sense. In the United States, the Democratic party is rolling on their back and exposing their belly to the Republicans like submissive dogs. The Patriot Act will be renewed, Alito was confirmed and a nuclear attack on Iran has complete support in the upper levels of both parties.

What, in such times, can be done?

Here is one suggestion by Signs of the Times:

Think about it: Bush and the Neocons have been spying illegally for over a year now, and he has the gall to brag about it and shove it in our faces, and to declare that he's going to continue. In the midst of this uproar, he even gets his court pick accepted ensuring that no legal action will ever be taken against him. And while we are on the subject, just WHO have the Neocons been spying on that were such sensitive targets that they couldn't even be bothered with getting a rubber stamp approval?

The object of the illegal spying wasn't really to target innocent Americans as the Neocons would like us all to think.

…The whole thing stinks of a smokescreen. So, what are they trying to hide? What are they trying to distract attention away from? As Paul Craig Roberts has written:
We have reached a point where the Bush administration is determined to totally eclipse the people. Bewitched by neoconservatives and lustful for power, the Bush administration and the Republican Party are aligning themselves firmly against the American people. Their first victims, of course, were the true conservatives. Having eliminated internal opposition, the Bush administration is now using blackmail obtained through illegal spying on American citizens to silence the media and the opposition party.

Before flinching at my assertion of blackmail, ask yourself why President Bush refuses to obey the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The purpose of the FISA court is to ensure that administrations do not spy for partisan political reasons. The warrant requirement is to ensure that a panel of independent federal judges hears a legitimate reason for the spying, thus protecting a president from the temptation to abuse the powers of government. The only reason for the Bush administration to evade the court is that the Bush administration had no legitimate reasons for its spying. This should be obvious even to a naif.[...]

The years of illegal spying have given the Bush administration power over the media and the opposition. Journalists and Democratic politicians don't want to have their adulterous affairs broadcast over television or to see their favorite online porn sites revealed in headlines in the local press with their names attached. Only people willing to risk such disclosures can stand up for the country.
…And that means that all those hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars even, that are flowing into the coffers of various “Political Action” groups are all going to waste. It's all for nothing. Nothing will change. They will spend your money, make a big show, make a good living off of it, and nothing, NOTHING, will change.

…Yes, it is true that everywhere, on all the issues, the people are rejecting the Bush/Neocon agenda from Iraq to Social Security to budget cuts, to funding the war machine, to drilling in the Arctic. But none of it makes one bit of difference to an administration that owns the media, the Intelligence agencies, the military, the Congress and now, the Supreme Court. While the pundits tell us Bush is in trouble, he continues to get his victories on the ground.

Nothing that the political activists have done or said or advertised about has made one whit of difference. Nothing. The same game is being played with Iran that was played with Iraq, and if something doesn't change in a very fundamental way very, very soon, America IS going to be embroiled in a global war that may, indeed, be the end of America.

…As long as the Neocons own the media, the intelligence agencies, the military, the courts, congress AND the voting machines, NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE.

…No amount of money that you give to any political organization is going to make any difference whatsoever.

That's the bad news. Activism based on the old model simply doesn't work against fascism.

Is there any good news? What does work? Can anything work? What can we DO?
We think there IS something that can be done, but it is going to require something that we talk about a lot on this website: Networking, colinearity and nonlinear dynamics. To just briefly explain, colinearity is when a lot of people are networked together, all going in the same direction. Nonlinear dynamics are the laws of physics that tell us that constantly applied pressure can keep building and building until it reaches a “popping” point when EVERYTHING shifts, and no one can know beforehand exactly when, where or how that critical mass will be reached.

We think that the solution to the problems facing America today can't yet be seen because there aren't enough people going in the same direction, all applying the pressure to the same goal/point.

That has got to change. And that can only change by a mass change of thinking. Americans needs to stop wasting energy on the wrong things and start spending it on the right things in the right way at the right time. We think that those who are sincerely working for change need to network together, to support each other not only in word and deed, but financially.

You can donate here.

More Pressure on Bush: Why?

2006-02-10T06:13:00.000-08:00

The pressure is increasing on Bush in the last couple of days, probably to make sure he attacks Iran and doesn’t get cold feet.

Libby is fingering higher-ups, which can only mean Cheney, Bush and Rove.

Abramoff is mad that everyone is pretending they don't know him, and is detailing all the friendly meetings he had with Bush.

Michael Brown is putting pressure on Bush by implying that he asked for help for Katrina that was not given. The Bush administration is refusing to release emails which are said to show that they knew well in advance how bad the effects of the hurricane would be on New Orleans and that they knew well before they have admitted that the levee broke.

The Larry Franklin Israeli Spy trial is proceeding.

Reports are that Fitzpatrick is zeroing in on Rove.

An column calling into question the 911 Commission report was published in the Miami Herald last week.

Either the payment of hush money and promises of pardons are not functioning properly or someone who can offer more protection than Bush/Cheney are putting some not so subtle pressure on them to invade Iran. Doesn’t look good.

Knowledge Protects

2006-02-08T08:10:00.000-08:00

Many people, especially people in the Heretic’s family, what good is there in focussing on all this scary depressing stuff. Good question. Actually, there are three parts to this question. The three parts, often articulated by Mrs. Heretic, goes something like, “if all these bad things are going to happen and there is nothing we can do about it, why dwell on it? Why not just enjoy the time we have before the collapse?

Let’s take the first part, “if all these bad things are going to happen.” We don’t know with 100% certainty that rough patch we are anticipating (descent into economic collapse, fascism and world war) will take place. It looks likely, though, but we don’t know until it does happen.

Secondly, “and there is nothing we can do about it:” this, I think is wrong. In a linear analysis, we may be nobodies with no power, but in a non-linear sense “nobody is a nobody.” No one knows what action will tip the scales in a different direction. At the very least we want to be able to say we did everything we could to avoid the bad outcome.

As for “why not enjoy every moment?” I do believe we should do that, that we should proceed with joy. Depression will not help anything as it leads to hopelessness and fatalism.

By coincidence, as I was writing this, I took a break to read George Ure’s site and he posted this in response to a question by someone on a radio show,

who asked something to the effect "So if you see this collapse coming, why are
you so chipper?" Simple: I'm an optimistic kind of person by nature - and I'm
well prepared for whatever comes along.

When you see the "handwriting on
the wall" about the economy, come face-to-face with your own mortality once or
twice, and take serious lifestyle changing deliberate actions to increase your
odds of survival, your stress levels drop dramatically, and you can get on with
what humans are supposed to be - namely be happy, self actualizing, smart/clever
quite social animals.

In Laura Knight-Jadczyk’s Cassiopean material, which is where I got “nobody is a nobody,” (there and in Tolkien), there is a phrase, “Knowledge Protects.” In Martha Stout’s, The Myth of Sanity, pp. 53-54, this is addressed in terms of avoiding trauma creation. Discussing how the same event might cause trauma in one person and not in another, Stout writes:

Meaning is the important thing. It determines whether or not the mental corridor to helplessness and death will open up, or remain shut and disregarded by us, as that channel usually does. And the meaning we ascribe to a threatening event is determined in part by 'our ability to anticipate, protect, and know ourselves,' as McFarlane and Girolamo have put it. The more we can anticipate what is likely to happen next, the more we feel that we can protect ourselves, the more we know ourselves in general, the more inoculated we are against being traumatized by the frightening or the painful.

Finally, we have Matthew 24 where Jesus warns that the knowledge that protects is not just positive knowledge but knowledge that helps the knower avoid being deceived:

1: Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2: But he answered them, "You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down." 3: As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?" 4: And Jesus answered them, "Take heed that no one leads you astray. 5: For many will come in my name, saying, `I am the Christ,' and they will lead many astray. 6: And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7: For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: 8: all this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs. 9: "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. 10: And then many will fall away, and betray one another, and hate one another. 11: And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12: And because wickedness is multiplied, most men's love will grow cold. 13: But he who endures to the end will be saved.

Mossad and the Danish Cartoon Flap

2006-02-03T06:06:00.000-08:00

The hand of the Mossad seems clear in this whole Danish Cartoon flap. First they publish cartoons profoundly insulting and offensive to Muslims, a large minority throughout Europe where support for Israel and the Amerisraeli “war on terror” is weak. Then, when Muslims expressed offence, the newspaper apologized and it looked like the whole thing might die down. Then the newspaper reprinted the cartoons and loudly insisted that it was their free-speech right to do so.

If they are so courageous, why don’t they run cartoons showing the Pope as a child molester or insulting Jesus or something? Why insult someone else’s religion and that pretend it is due to lofty principle. This is different than the Salman Rushdie affair, because Rushdie grew up a Muslim.

Someone clearly wants religious conflict to break out again in Europe, now that the French riots have died down. Now whose interests would that serve?

Activists and Ponerology

2006-01-31T21:19:00.000-08:00

What is the weakest point of most social activists? What hinders their success in various reform efforts?

It may be their lack of understanding of evil. Their idea that, basically, everyone, at least at some point in their life, was good and wanted to do good. That reason and good will would triumph if people could just be made to see that goodness and compassion are in their own and everyone’s best interest. They tend to blame the fact that some people perversely causing harm even against their own interests on fear and ignorance. Liberal humanism recoils at any conclusion that some people are irredeemable bad. But recent studies of psychopathy or sociopathy call that into question.

If it is true that 4-6% of the population have no conscience whatsoever, then their actions cannot result from error or fear alone, since someone like this may well enjoy causing harm to others. Robert Canup, a man who has spent years studying “why things don’t work,” describes what we’re up against. According to Canup, those who planned large scale horrific disasters like the Vietnam War might actually feel that the fiasco actually achieved their goals, their goals being causing pain and suffering on a mass scale. Making a distinction between evil people of below average, average, above average, and high intelligence, he writes:

Next up the ladder is the evil person of above average intelligence. These people have a similar goal to evil people of average intelligence; the production of human misery. However these people see the opportunity to do something that evil people of normal intelligence don't see how to do; murder someone and get away with it. They understand that the way to murder someone and get away with it is to not care who they kill, how they kill them, or when they kill them. Such people set up conditions where someone will be 'accidentally' killed and wait for the circumstances to occur.

…That leaves us those who are evil and of high intelligence. Most good people are also familiar with these kind of people; we call them leaders - both of industry and of government. It is the goal of such people to get away with mass murder. An example will show how they work their agenda.

If you look at the Viet Nam War none of it makes much sense; not from a political standpoint, not from an economic standpoint, and certainly not from a military standpoint. Let us examine the well known case of 'Hamburger Hill'; a battle location in the Viet Nam war. In this engagement US forces fought their way up a hill against fierce opposition. Once the US forces had taken the hill they were ordered to MARCH BACK DOWN giving the hill back to the opposition. The action was repeated several times. The argument given was that the US forces were exhausting the enemy by forcing them to fight repeatedly. Of course the conventional military strategy is to exhaust the opposition forces by making them attempt to re-take the hill by force of arms - rather than by giving it back to them uncontested. The 'Hamburger Hill' strategy makes no sense whatsoever - unless you assume that very high up in the US government was an evil person of high intelligence whose goal was to murder ten's of thousands of people and get away with it. When thought of this way, the entire War in Viet Nam snaps into focus and makes sense - as far as I know, that is the ONLY explanation of the war that allows it to be understandable.

A frightening topic, to be sure, but one that must be confronted. For those of us trying to oppose what the evil people of high intelligence are doing, wouldn’t our efforts have a greater chance of success the more we know about the tactics that will be used to frustrate those efforts? This is the conclusion Laura Knight-Jadczyk comes to after tying together the work of, Canup, Martha Stout, Andew Lobaczewski and others. In The Cult of the Plausible Lie, for example, she quotes Lobaczewski:

We clearly need to study this problem of macro-social evil in our world in a systematic and scientific way. And we need to get over the idea that thinking only good thoughts, thinking about happy and "nice" things is the way to good psychological health.
If physicians behaved like ethicists and failed to study diseases because they were only interested in studying questions of health, there would be no such thing as modern medicine. […] Physicians were correct in their emphasis on studying disease above all in order to discover the causes and biological properties of illnesses, and then to understand the pathodynamics of their courses. A comprehension of the nature of a disease, and the course it runs, after all, enables the proper curative means to be elaborated and employed.[…]

The question thus arises: could some analogous modus operandi not be used to study the causes and genesis of other kinds of evil scourging human individuals, families, societies? Experience has taught the author that evil is similar to disease in nature, although possibly more complex and elusive to our understanding. [...]

Considerable moral, intellectual, and practical advantages can be gleaned from an understanding of the genesis of Evil thanks to the objectivity required to study it dispassionately. The human heritage of ethics is not destroyed by taking such an approach: it is actually strengthened because the scientific method can be utilized to confirm the basic values of moral teachings.

Understanding the nature of macro-social pathology helps us to find a healthy attitude and thus protects our minds from being controlled or poisoned by the diseased contents and influence of their propaganda.
We can only conquer this huge, contagious social cancer if we comprehend its essence and its etiological causes.

Such an understanding of the nature of the phenomena leads to the logical conclusion that the measures for healing and reordering the world today should be completely different from the ones heretofore used for solving international conflicts. It is also true that, merely having the knowledge and awareness of the phenomena of the genesis of macro-social Evil can begin healing individual humans and help their minds regain harmony. [Andrew Lobaczewski, Ph.D. Political Ponerology: The Science of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes]

Not only are the efforts of the reformer/activist-type frustrated by the consciously evil people in the outside world, but also by those within the groups they work in. COINTELPRO and psyops, in other words. In Bridge Over Troubled Waters Knight-Jadczyk writes,

You can't go into battle without studying the opposition, knowing their strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and so on. Lobaczewski and those other activists and resistance fighters have already been through this. They studied it and mapped it. And the fact is, if you don't study what you are up against, you will make stupid mistakes, you will think you are winning when you are losing, and conversely, you will think you are losing when the opponent is just bluffing.

This information is crucial. A good activist can NOT ignore it. He or she does so only at his or her own peril. Yeah, sure, it seems like a huge burden to have to deal with accusations and counter-accusations in the COINTELPRO world, but if we don't, we are toast.

…Just now, activists are the physicians of society. We can't do a thing if we don't know the nature of the disease and that is what Lobaczewski lays out for us in all its horrible detail. We don't want to give up in despair thinking we have incurable cancer when it is just the measles or something that must run its course and can lead to full recovery if proper nursing is applied.

The questions about COINTELPRO backed groups and individuals MUST be asked, but it must be asked in the proper context. The question is: Are such groups and individuals just "victims" of the social disease, or are they a vectors? Are they innocently manipulated by the special psychological knowledge of those with serious psychological pathologies, or are they carriers?

Either way, COINTELPRO is deliberate and planned at some level, whether the individual or group is privy to that planning or merely it's dupe. The REAL "enemies" are those individuals pulling his strings. The bottom line is, if the individual cannot be cured, if their egos are so big they cannot admit that they have been or are being manipulated, then those who seek "health" need to contain them like Typhoid Mary.

Modern COINTELPRO has been developed to an all new level of complexity and sophistication even if they still use many of the old tried and true methods of defamation and slander. After all, they have had access to some excellent talent to figure out how the human mind works and to know how to get to people and even to "trigger" them at a distance. I'm not talking about mysterious "mind control" experiments here, but simple psychological knowledge, though I won't discount the direct experimentation. After all, if you have some control over what kind of psychological "diet" is being fed to a society, you can pretty well set them up to do what you want right there in front of God and everybody. Education, religion, television, video games, control of the media for "ideological vectoring," etc. It's a pretty formidable array.

But again, most of it is "terror tactics." We need to study it and find the curative means and employ them.

How can this work? In How to Spot COINTELPRO Agents, Laura Knight-Jadczyk reworks an old pamphlet from the 1960s on How to Spot a Spy:

This booklet lists tactics agents use to slow things down, foul things up, destroy the movement and keep tabs on activists.

…In some situations, to get control, the agent will tell the activist: "You're dividing the movement."

[Here, I have added the psychological reasons as to WHY this maneuver works to control people]

This invites guilty feelings. Many people can be controlled by guilt. The agents begin relationships with activists behind a well-developed mask of "dedication to the cause." Because of their often declared dedication, (and actions designed to prove this), when they criticize the activist, he or she - being truly dedicated to the movement - becomes convinced that somehow, any issues are THEIR fault. This is because a truly dedicated person tends to believe that everyone has a conscience and that nobody would dissimulate and lie like that "on purpose." It's amazing how far agents can go in manipulating an activist because the activist will constantly make excuses for the agent who regularly declares their dedication to the cause. Even if they do, occasionally, suspect the agent, they will pull the wool over their own eyes by rationalizing: "they did that unconsciously... they didn't really mean it... I can help them by being forgiving and accepting " and so on and so forth.

The agent will tell the activist:

"You're a leader!"

This is designed to enhance the activist's self-esteem. His or her narcissistic admiration of his/her own activist/altruistic intentions increase as he or she identifies with and consciously admires the altruistic declarations of the agent which are deliberately set up to mirror those of the activist.

This is "malignant pseudoidentification." It is the process by which the agent consciously imitates or simulates a certain behavior to foster the activist's identification with him/her, thus increasing the activist's vulnerability to exploitation. The agent will simulate the more subtle self-concepts of the activist.

Activists and those who have altruistic self-concepts are most vulnerable to malignant pseudoidentification especially during work with the agent when the interaction includes matter relating to their competency, autonomy, or knowledge. The goal of the agent is to increase the activist's general empathy for the agent through pseudo-identification with the activist's self-concepts.

The most common example of this is the agent who will compliment the activist for his competency or knowledge or value to the movement. On a more subtle level, the agent will simulate affects and mannerisms of the activist which promotes identification via mirroring and feelings of "twinship". It is not unheard of for activists, enamored by the perceived helpfulness and competence of a good agent, to find themselves considering ethical violations and perhaps, even illegal behavior, in the service of their agent/handler.

The activist's "felt quality of perfection" [self-concept] is enhanced, and a strong empathic bond is developed with the agent through his/her imitation and simulation of the victim's own narcissistic investments. [self-concepts] That is, if the activist knows, deep inside, their own dedication to the cause, they will project that onto the agent who is "mirroring" them.

The activist will be deluded into thinking that the agent shares this feeling of identification and bonding. In an activist/social movement setting, the adversarial roles that activists naturally play vis a vis the establishment/government, fosters ongoing processes of intrapsychic splitting so that "twinship alliances" between activist and agent may render whole sectors or reality testing unavailable to the activist. They literally "lose touch with reality."

Activists who deny their own narcissistic investments [do not have a good idea of their own self-concepts and that they ARE concepts] and consciously perceive themselves (accurately, as it were) to be "helpers" endowed with a special amount of altruism are exceedingly vulnerable to the affective (emotional) simulation of the accomplished agent.

Empathy is fostered in the activist through the expression of quite visible affects. The presentation of tearfulness, sadness, longing, fear, remorse, and guilt, may induce in the helper-oriented activist a strong sense of compassion, while unconsciously enhancing the activist's narcissistic investment in self as the embodiment of goodness.

The agent's expresssion of such simulated affects may be quite compelling to the observer and difficult to distinguish from deep emotion.

It can usually be identified by two events, however:

First, the activist who has analyzed his/her own narcissistic roots and is aware of his/her own potential for being "emotionally hooked," will be able to remain cool and unaffected by such emotional outpourings by the agent.

As a result of this unaffected, cool, attitude, the Second event will occur: The agent will recompensate much too quickly following such an affective expression leaving the activist with the impression that "the play has ended, the curtain has fallen," and the imposture, for the moment, has finished. The agent will then move quickly to another activist/victim.

The Sides are being Picked for World War III

2006-01-31T08:27:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month, Jacques Chirac threatened any “terrorists” with a nuclear response by France if they attack France.

BREST, France (Reuters) - France said on Thursday it would be ready to use nuclear weapons against any state that carried out a terrorist attack against it, reaffirming the need for its nuclear deterrent.
Deflecting criticism of France's costly nuclear arms program, President Jacques Chirac said security came at a price and France must be able to hit back hard at a hostile state's centers of power and its "capacity to act."

Some have speculated that Chirac’s threat was really directed at the United States.

Now we read that Putin has not only boasted of Russia’s missiles being able to penetrate any missile defense system (and how many countries have a missile defense system besides the United States?) but also that he showed it to Chirac when giving the French president a tour:

President Vladimir Putin boasted Tuesday that Russia has missiles capable of penetrating any missile defense system, Russian news reports said.

"Russia ... has tested missile systems that no one in the world has," the ITAR-Tass, Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies quoted him as saying at a news conference. "These missile systems don't represent a response to a missile defense system, but they are immune to that. They are hypersonic and capable of changing their flight path."

Putin said the new missiles were capable of carrying nuclear warheads. He wouldn't say whether the Russian military already had commissioned any such missiles.

He said he had shown the working principles of the missile systems to French President Jacques Chirac during a visit to a Russian military facility.

"He knows what I'm talking about," news agencies quoted Putin as telling reporters after state-run news channels had cut their live broadcast of the news conference.

In April 2004, Chirac became the first Western leader to visit Russia's top-secret Titov space control center, which is also involved in launches of its intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Putin said that the new missiles were capable of changing both the altitude and the direction of their flight, making it impossible for an enemy to intercept them.

"A missile defense system is designed to counter missiles moving along a ballistic trajectory," Putin was quoted as saying.

Putin and other Russian officials have boasted of the new missiles in similar comments in recent years, but they haven't identified them or given any further details other than about their ability to change their flight path on approach to a target.

Most analysts viewed the earlier announcements about "hypersonic" missile systems as Moscow's response to U.S. missile defense plans.

Things are definitely lining up for World War III. This time Germany will be played by the United States.

Let’s see, who will be Japan? Israel? Maybe the United Kingdom will play Italy. They already have their “little Hitler” counterpart with Tony Blair as “little Bush.” Canada can be Austria—get ready for the Anschluss.

All jokes aside, this is very scary. Once the fascist cancer has progressed too far, the only way to get rid of it is by the complete destruction of the host country by the rest of the world, and it looks like the rest of the world is realizing it in the run-up to the attack on Iran.

Bush and Cheney need to be impeached immediately and the Neocons need to be arrested and tried.

One Way Iraq is not Like Vietnam

2006-01-27T08:03:00.000-08:00

In the Vietnam era in the United States you used to hear arguments between passionate supporters of the war and opponents of the war. Now I can't recall a single "water-cooler" or family discussion where anyone defended the Iraq War. There is zero real, passionate support for it among the public.

Why, then, do BOTH parties still support it? Why isn't there even a pretense of responding to the public will? Is it that the Diebold voting machines have completely insulated any politician from public backlash? It's really the strangest disconnect.

Television Screens are Multiplying

2006-01-25T18:55:00.000-08:00

Have you noticed that television screens are multiplying. At least in the United States they are everywhere now. I was in a branch office of the company where I work and the office building had a large television in the lobby blaring Fox News. Then, in the office itself, the kitchen/break room had a television blaring CNN. Another branch office had a television going all the time in an open waiting room area, near workers’ cubicles.

In airports it takes quite a bit of effort to avoid them. Larger bars and restaurants often have more than a dozen televisions going at all times.

Cars now have one or two screens going, either showing DVD’s or satellite navigation.

Why is this?

It seems like much more than just propaganda, although that’s a big part of it, especially since it’s the news channels that usually are on these screens. Orwell probably should have called his novel 2004.

Could there be more to it? Some sort of trance induction or alpha wave opening or something? Any thoughts?

Neocons Rockin' All Over the World

2006-01-20T06:52:00.000-08:00

I am finding it strange that the only place where the will of the public is reflected in their leaders is in Latin America. In Europe and North America, while Bush and the Neocon wars are incredibly unpopular, Bush steals the election, the Neocons are poised to take over Canada, Blair universally hated in Britain is still in office and the Neocons are about to take over France, even, with Sarkozy.

What is going on? Anyone have any ideas?

Here’s the Canadian Jeff Wells’s take:

Last night in an interview on CBC, Stephen Harper said he couldn't promise that a Conservative government wouldn't take Canada into deficit because "we might have a war." Does that sound familiar to American ears? Meanwhile, the Liberals' star candidate and putative leadership hopeful, Harvard's Michael Ignatieff, is an apologist for torture and the Iraq War.
I know it's only politics. And thanks to the education I've given myself since first watching Florida flip to the Bush column, I know that can mean only so much and no more. But I'm not one of those who can say they're all the same. And even if they were, I don't think I could say it.
I expect in politics, virtually everywhere, it takes something like a dissociative act of will to Keep Hope Alive. Especially in the clapped-out, qlipphotic shells of the old democracies. Elections become Logan's Run-like lotteries that never pay off, but that keep the citizenry mollified because there's always next time. (And no matter the tyranny that descends upon America, there will always be a next time. So long as the ceremony of the vote is observed, enough people will mistake it for representative rule.)

"Peak Oil" and Africa

2006-01-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

David McGowan has an interesting take on the whole “Peak Oil” thing. He thinks that the scare mongers are right about how the disaster of not enough energy will unfold but he thinks that we are nowhere near a peak in oil production, that oil is abiotic (not made from dead dinosaurs) and that there is more than enough oil. The reason he thinks that the disaster will unfold as the Peak Oil proponents predict, is that the Powers That Be are seizing control of all oil fields and production facilities in order to deliberately keep production low enough to support the illusion of a peak oil disaster.

Here is McGowan:

The fact that 'Peak Oil' is an entirely manufactured construct does not mean that the doomsday scenarios painted by the 'Peak' crowd will therefore not become our new reality. This is not just another scam to further pad the pockets of the oil industry and other financial elites. The stakes are much higher than that. Much higher.

In order to clarify my position on 'Peak Oil,' it would be instructive to briefly review the areas of agreement, and the areas of disagreement, that I have with those who are selling the scam.The Peakers claim that 'Peak Oil' is the single most important issue that we are facing today. I agree with that assessment (but not because 'Peak Oil' is a valid concept).
The Peakers claim that much of America's military might has been directed in recent years at conquering the key oil and gas producing regions of the world. And that is obviously quite true. Central Asia and Iraq have been seized, Venezuela has suffered through constant meddling by the CIA, the Sudan has been targeted for a future assault, and Saudi Arabia and Iran have been subjected to saber rattling.
But the Peakers also claim that these military ventures have been motivated by America's desire to seize what will soon be the last drops of the world's precious reserves of oil -- and that is entirely untrue.
The Peakers claim that we will very soon be facing a world where chaos reigns supreme -- a world of war, famine and death on a scale unknown in recorded human history. And that does, in fact, appear to be the case. And we're not talking about the distant future here, folks; we're talking about the very near future.
But the Peakers also claim that this global "die off" will be a regrettable, but quite natural, and entirely unavoidable, consequence of the world's oil taps running dry. And that is the really big lie. That is the lie that will very soon be used to rationalize the killing off of hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of the world's people. There are, you see, simply too many people in the world who, by merely being alive, are standing in the way of the aspirations of the global elite.
The people that the 'Peak Oil' pitchmen are fronting for are deadly serious about selling 'Peak Oil' to the masses -- and not just in theoretical terms, as a cynical ploy to raise prices and increase profits. No, it has become clear that the real goal is to actually cut off most of the world's oil supplies under the ruse that the oil simply no longer exists. The desired result is massive social unrest, widespread famine, and endless war. The majority of the world's people will not survive. Those that do will find themselves living under the overtly authoritarian form of rule that will quickly be deemed necessary to restore order. And if you think that we here in America are exempt, you are sadly mistaken.
In order to pull off this stunt, all the world's major oil producing regions must be solidly under the control of the U.S. and it's co-conspirators, otherwise known as 'allies.' In other words, the puppet-masters have to control all the major oil taps, so that they have complete control over the flow of oil -- or lack of it. And that, in a nutshell, is the real reason for America's recent military ventures. The goal, you see, is not to steal Iraq's oil, or the oil in the 'Stans, or in the Sudan, or in Venezuela, or anywhere else. We don't want to take their oil, because the truth is that we don't really need it. What we want to do is sit on the taps so no one else can get to the oil.

Remember the run up in gasoline prices in the United States last year. It was due to a lack of refining capacity, and there is much evidence to show that the oil companies deliberately did not build enough refineries so that they could jack up prices and take massive profits.

Keep this in mind when reading recent news out of oil-producing regions of Africa, where in Nigeria, rebels (supported by whom, I wonder) have sabotaged oil pipelines, leading to new increases in the price of oil. Note that in the last five years or so, the United States has taken a much greater strategic interest in Africa than it had before. Of course they talk about “terrorism” in that context but we know what that means.

Impeach Bush and Cheney before Alito Gets Confirmed

2006-01-17T06:15:00.000-08:00

Good news and bad news.

The good news is that a majority of the U.S. public now want Bush impeached! See this poll done by Zogby, the most accurate mainstream polling organization.

Also, more and more politicians are using the I-word. Yesterday even Arlen Specter did. In this AP news article about Senator Specter, the Republican Chairman of the Senate Judciary Committee, AP wrote, "Specter, speaking in general terms, noted that impeachment and criminal prosecution are possibilities in the event a president acted unconstitutionally."

The bad news is that there will very soon be a fascist majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, once Alito is confirmed. By fascist I mean simply an executive leader above the law and corporations ruling all aspects of citizens' private lives. See this on the Fuehrerprinzip from Signs of the Times.