Revelations

9/11: The Ultimate Triumph of the Strategy of Tension

2011-09-12T22:22:00.000-07:00

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Part I: 9/11: Unanswered Questions

by Wayne Madsen

President Bush's chief counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke has revealed that the CIA under George Tenet attempted to recruit some of the 9/11 "Al Qaeda" terrorists prior to the attack of September 11, 2001, but that after the attempt failed, Tenet and his senior CIA staff covered up the botched recruitment effort.

The revelation is yet one more nail in the coffin of what has become the most discredited U.S. government report since the infamous Warren Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. In fact, the Warren Report received another blow after it was revealed that First Lady Jacqueline revealed in 1964 to historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. that she believed that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was behind the assassination of her husband in Dallas. The revelations by Mrs. Kennedy and Clarke show that the United States government cannot be trusted to investigate misdeeds carried out with the full knowledge and support of senior officials of the CIA and the White House. The 9/11 attack represents one such high-level government cover-up.

Clarke's recent revelations about CIA knowledge of Al Qaeda 9/11 cells prior to the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington merely takes one to the shallowest of depths of the rabbit hole of the intelligence world, highly-compartmented cells of which carefully planned the attacks and how the mass media would cover the unfolding events.

The one individual who stands tall among those intelligence and law enforcement officers who was aggressively pursuing the criminal network that would carry out 9/11 was FBI counter-terrorism top man John O’Neill. Ever since the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, O’Neill’s pursuit of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda had been dogged. After further terrorist attacks at the Khobar Towers barracks in Dharan, Saudi Arabia; the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; and the USS Cole in Aden harbor, O’Neill’s biggest problem was not Al Qaeda, it was resistance from top officials inside the U.S. government.

The biggest conspiracy theory of them all, the official 9/11 Commission Reportthat concluded that nineteen, mostly Saudi, hijackers, armed with box cutters, were able to defeat a multi-trillion dollar U.S. defense and intelligence system in a matter if mere hours one Tuesday morning in September 2001, has even been partly debunked by the two co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission, former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean and former Indiana Democratic Representative Lee Hamilton. Both have said that their committee was lied to by government officials and that important information was covered up and not released to committee investigators…

Kean's and Hamilton's ire would be best suited at being vented against Philip Zelikow, the one-time aide to Bush National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who stated under oath that no one ever expected that passenger planes would be used as weapons. Zelikow was appointed as the executive director of the 9/11 Commission and he had the task of avoiding any investigations that would look at the roles of the CIA, Mossad, the Saudis, and Wall Street interests in crafting the ingredients that permitted the 9/11 attacks to be be carried out without a hitch. Zelikow has a storied career at debunking any theory that does not comport with government doctrine, including his many years of attacking anyone who disbelieves the Warren Commission's myths about the assassination of President Kennedy.

Unfortunately, the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center was not the first time the U.S. government engaged in a massive cover-up of an attack on the buildings. According to U.S. intelligence sources, the FBI and Justice Department sat on volumes of translations of Arabic telephone intercepts gathered before the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center from U.S.- and Sudan-based Muslim militants who once worked for U.S. intelligence in the mujaheddin war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The critical intelligence, which demonstrated a link between the CIA and "Afghan Arab" muhajeddin forces, including those loyal to Osama bin Laden, was never introduced into the trial of the Brooklyn- and Jersey City-based cell that included the blind Egyptian cleric Shaikh Omar Abdul Rahman, Ramzi Yousef, and Eyad Ismail. The New York and New Jersey cell also included Ali Mohammed, a graduate of the U.S. Army's Special Forces School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, who, while an active duty member of the Special Forces, secretly traveled to Afghanistan to train Bin Laden's forces and provided him with special intelligence on U.S. "soft targets" for terrorist attacks, and Wadih el-Hage, Osama bin Laden's personal secretary, who was also a resident of the United States.

Ironically, the two men responsible for the failure to present the surveillance intelligence on the 1993 World Trade Center bombers to the juries and grand juries hearing the charges -- the main federal prosecutors for New York City and New Jersey in the bombing case -- were Patrick J. Fitzgerald and Michael Chertoff, respectively. Fitzgerald went on to become the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and cut his teeth indicting and having convicted two successive Illinois governors for corruption, Republican George Ryan and Democrat Rod Blagojevich. Both cases were politically-tainted show trials.

Adding to the outrages committed by the U.S. government was the fact that, according to an FBI source, the chief FBI investigator against Al Qaeda in the 1990s, the late John O'Neill, was upset that the much of the telephone surveillance of the 1993 bombers was never introduced as evidence and remained un-translated and classified.

Other CIA connections to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda that are too numerous to describe. However, one jumps out because it involves a key player in the Donald Rumsfeld Pentagon during the 9/11 attacks. A CIA source involved with the Bosnia Defense Fund, used to collect donations from Arab and Muslim countries for the Bosnian war against Serbia and Croatia, revealed that the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) was concerned that money transferred by Riggs Bank to the Bosnian Defense Fund's account at the Central Bank in Sarajevo, was "bleeding" to terrorist elements believed to be linked to Osama bin Laden and "Al Qaeda." Riggs was the major bank serving Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar and his wife Princess Haifa and it was a bank with family ties to George H.W. and George W. Bush.

When the CIA source complained about Bosnia Defense Fund cash falling into the hands of Islamic terrorists, including people linked to bin Laden, he was told by one of the major Bosnia Defense Fund principals to "just make it f*****g happen!"

The Bosnia link to "Al Qaeda" was important. In fact, bin Laden had reportedly not only visited Bosnia, but carried at least one Bosnian diplomatic passport and had interfaced with Bosnian diplomats in Vienna, Austria.

And Mossad's link to 9/11 cannot be ignored. Two internal U.S. government documents revealed that among the 120 Israeli “art students” who attempted to penetrate the security of dozens of Federal office buildings and who visited the homes of scores of U.S. law enforcement personnel during 2000 and 2001 were some who used addresses and mail drops in southern Florida and Texas near those used by a number of the 9/11 hijackers. The information came from a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Report drafted in June 2001 on the activities of the art students and a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) list of the hijackers and other terrorist suspects, including a known Mossad agent, Dominick Suter, who ran an Israeli moving company in Weehawken, New Jersey. The FBI list was accidentally released in early October 2001 on a Finnish government web site.

Five Israelis working for Suter's Urban Moving Systems were arrested by police and FBI agents during the later afternoon of 9/11, driving a suspicious van near Giant Stadium in Secaucus, New Jersey. The five Israelis were the only suspects arrested on September 11, 2001 on suspicion of involvement in the 9/11 attacks. All five were deported to Israel without ever having been formally charged. The DEA memo specifically stated that the Israelis casing federal offices and employees' homes may have had ties to an “Islamic fundamentalist group.”

Even ten years later, the U.S. government and the governments of New York and New York City are dismissing those 9/11 attack veterans who, unlike O'Neill, were fortunate enough to survive the catastrophic attack. Survivors or the World Trade Center collapse and first responders with the New York Police Department, New York-New Jersey Port Authority Police, New York Fire Department, and others were not invited to the tenth anniversary ceremonies at "Ground Zero" on September 11, 2011.

For ten years, the 9/11 attacks, along with those in London, Madrid, Bali, and other locations, have been used by the corporate media to hype government-directed campaigns against civil liberties, human rights, privacy protection, wars of liberation by aspirant ethnic groups and political parties, freedom of expression, and freedom of information. Americans of all ages and backgrounds are now subjected to intrusive body searches at airports that would have been seen as outrageous abuses of government authority fifteen years ago.

As we now reflect back on 9/11, we are told that Bin Laden was killed in a Special Operations assault in Abbotabad, Pakistan. There was little forensic evidence to prove Bin Laden was killed. In any case, most of the members of US Navy SEAL Team 6, which carried out the attack on Bin Laden, were killed recently in an attack on their helicopter in Afghanistan.

As with the assassination of President Kennedy and the Iran-Contra scandal twenty years later, 9/11 will be relegated to the history books as an event shrouded in mystery and short on actual evidence, most of it destroyed or remaining highly-classified, to identify the actual perpetrators.

Part II: 9/11 The Ultimate Triumph of the Strategy of Tension

After years of employing the fascistic “strategy of tension” in Western Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, the neo-conservatives who dominated the Bush administration on the eve of September 11, 2001, were confident that the ultimate act of destroying the World Trade Center in New York and bombing the Pentagon, in addition to destroying a yet unknown target by United flight 93 – shot down by U.S. Air Force fighter-interceptors over Pennsylvania – would bring about the sea change foreseen by the neo-conservatives.

What the neo-conservative cabal, through their propaganda outlets like Fox News and The Washington Post, brought forth after their long-awaited “New Pearl Harbor,” was their reference to America’s “new normal,” the de facto imposition of a crypto-fascist dictatorship that overturned the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, and onset of the “clash of civilizations,” the final showdown between Islam and Judeo-Christianity. The geo-social-political “Armageddon” hoped for by such neo-fascist philosophers as Professors Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis would be a final battle that would see the downfall of Islamic governments and regimes from Morocco to Indonesia and the triumph of “western civilization.” In fact, “western civilization” is code for the twin pillars of capitalist-backed militarism and Zionism.

The “strategy of tension” employed by NATO stay-behind networks in Europe from the 1960s to the present day is defined by Swiss professor of contemporary history Daniele Glaser as the method by which “world powers divide, manipulate, and control public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs, and false flag terrorist actions” to achieve their ultimate goals. The September 11, 2001, false flag attacks in New York and Virginia succeeded in laying the groundwork for a concerted disinformation, psychological warfare, and propaganda campaign that, ten years following 9/11, are being cited by the corporate media as having” changed the world.” Even the date, 9/11, was chosen as a psychological warfare tool, 911 being the emergency phone number used by Americans to call for assistance from law enforcement and other emergency responders.

George Orwell’s “tele-screen,” the means by which Big Brother largely maintained control over public opinion by hyping non-existent threats to public safety, became real in the minutes following the 9/11 attacks when the corporate new channels, all seemingly pre-programmed for the terror event, began instilling fear in the minds of Americans and people around the world. In the months after 9/11, anyone who questioned the official version of events was painted as a disloyal “conspiracy theorist.” However, there were thousands of more facts presented by those who contradicted the official version of 9/11 than any dubious explanations presented in the official 9/11 Commission report and other government documents, including those from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The corporate news channels, led by Fox News, concocted unbelievable threats following 9/11, including exploding bombs being placed inside cows, terrorist frogmen coming ashore on America’s beaches, Al Qaeda attacking shopping malls in the United States, and Arab terrorists infiltrating Latin American human smuggling routes from Mexico. All of the fear stories were rank nonsense and not based on any facts.

After the anthrax postal system attacks on Congress and the media, which ensured the quick passage by Congress of the unconstitutional USA-PARIOT Act, the failed attempt by a shoe bomber to bring down a plane flying from Paris to Miami, and a later attempt by a Nigerian flying from Amsterdam to Detroit to set off explosive material in his underpants, the public was conditioned to accept anything as a potential threat to security and safety. Nothing was mentioned about Israel’s role in the anthrax attacks and the two failed airplane bombings. The only individuals arrested on 9/11 for suspicion that they were involved in the 9/11 attacks were five employees of Weehawken, New Jersey-based Urban Moving Systems. FBI agents who visited the firm’s warehouse in Weehawken not only found bomb-making materials but traces of anthrax. The owner of the firm, Dominick Suter, was later discovered in a joint CIA-FBI counter-intelligence database to be a Mossad agent. Some of the Israeli “movers” arrested were also found to be in the database.

The five Israeli “movers” were witnessed celebrating and videotaping the aerial attacks on the World Trade Center, minutes after the first plane struck, from their vantage point at Liberty State Park, across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan. It was an Israeli aviation security company, ICTS International, replete with ex-Mossad and ex-Shin Bet officers in its management, that handled airport security at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport and Amsterdam’s Schipol International Airport, where Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the “underwear bomber,” attempted their amateurish bombing attempts on American Airlines flight 63 and Northwest Airlines flight 253, respectively. ICTS also shared security responsibilities at Boston’s Logan Airport on September 11, 2001, the airport where American Airlines flight 11 was allegedly hijacked by Mohammed Atta and flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

In pushing the neo-conservative notion of the “clash of civilizations,” there was no mention made by the Israeli-influenced corporate media about the numerous connections of Israel to the 9/11 attacks. Nineteen Arab hijackers, 16 of whom hailed from Saudi Arabia, was the official story and there would be no deviation from the official line. Even statements by Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak on American television that 9/11 was beneficial to Israel were ignored by the media. Those who were brave enough to point out Israeli connections to 9/11 were intimidated by the old canard that they were “anti-Semitic.”

Some corporate news stations that reported on suspicious Israeli intelligence activities in the months prior to 9/11 saw their stories “tombstoned” on the Internet. A four-part series on the Israeli activity aired by Fox News quickly disappeared from its website. Similar stories, such as the following, also quickly evaporated into the ether:

“10/02/2001 - Fifteen People Arrested in March in Dallas, Suspected of Casing Federal Buildings. 11 News reported how people claiming to be ‘Israeli art students’ might be trying to sneak into federal buildings and defense sites, and even doing surveillance. In Dallas, the so-called students hit early this year at the city’s FBI building, the Drug Enforcement Administration and at the Earle Cabell Federal building, where guards found one student wandering the halls with a floor plan of the building.”

Osama bin Laden, the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was a character directly out of Hollywood central casting. Bin Laden initially denied he had anything to do with the attacks. In an interview carried by the September 28, 2001 edition of the Pakistani newspaper Ummat Karachi Bin Laden stated, "I have already said that I am not involved in the September 11 attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act." Even FBI director Robert Mueller stated, the “FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”

Few media outlets reported on Bin Laden’s longstanding ties to the U.S. intelligence community, links that were maintained after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. According to classified documents from French intelligence, Al Qaeda and Bin Laden had still been under the operational control of U.S. and British “security services” until 1995, fully two years after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. As of 1996, the U.S. State Department continued to refuse to list Al Qaeda as a terrorist organization. Bin Laden’s past ties to the CIA may have sealed his fate. Just as with others who worked for the CIA and were then discarded like garbage, including Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Qaddafi, Osama Bin Laden may have been used as a convenient decoy by the actual perpetrators of 9/11, those who wanted to blame Arabs and Muslims as part of their grand schemes” the Project for the New American Century that hoped for a “new Pearl Harbor,” those who wanted a “clash of civilizations” between Judeo-Christianity and Islam, and those who saw a continued strategy of tensions to bring about their agenda. The strategy of tension would not end with 9/11 and would be repeated in the following years in Madrid, London, Bali, Beslan, Jakarta, Istanbul, Casablanca, Mumbai, and Oslo…

The real architects of 9/11 are still at-large and continue their strategy of tension campaign. On September 11, 2011, many of the key perpetrators will gather at the “Ground Zero” site in New York to publicly honor those who were killed in the attacks, but privately celebrate their accomplishments over the last ten years. The corporate media will continue to propagate the myth of 9/11 and the public, they hope, will continue to accept the official version of the events.

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150 Smoking Guns (From Main Stream Media)

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9/11: The Luckiest Man Alive!

Stunning new video about Lucky Larry Silverstein on Sept.11

This video provides a chronology of World Trade Center owner, Larry Silverstein's day on September 11th, 2001. The only question that remains unanswered about Larry's day, is why he was so lucky. Firstly, he managed to avoid being killed in the attacks due to a fortunate appointment with a dermatologist. The events of 9/11 also provided an easy solution to the costly and cumbersome problem of how to deal with the illegal asbestos that covered every steel beam in the twin towers. 9/11 also solved Silverstein's problem of finding new tenants to occupy the trade center buildings. And on top of that, Silverstein gained a multi-billion dollar payout from an insurance policy he took out just 6 weeks before 9/11. Considering all of these fortunate coincidences, it is strange that Silverstein has not even been questioned by the police.

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CIA's 9/11 Major Mistakes

2011-09-08T17:04:00.000-07:00

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by CIA John Rizzo

John Rizzo is the CIA's chief legal officer from 2001-2009. He reflects on what we did wrong—and on the lessons we've learned.

I was the CIA’s chief legal officer for six-and-a-half of the first eight years following the 9/11 attacks. I am writing this on the cusp of the tenth anniversary of those attacks, now retired from the Agency for nearly two years after a total of 34 years of service as a CIA lawyer. In the decade that has passed since that ghastly sunny September morning, our country—and the CIA—has become a much different place. Having reflected on all the counterterrorist operations that the Agency has conducted in those years, and on all the controversies and frequent opprobrium it has weathered for some of those actions, I believe there are a number of lessons that we in CIA learned in the course of that unprecedented period of our history.

Regrettably, the lessons are mostly painful, as valuable lessons usually are. Certainly, some are personally painful to me, since they were mistakes and misjudgments CIA made in which I played a role. Nonetheless, I summarize a few of them here in a necessarily brief (and incomplete) list to offer an assessment of what the post-9/11 years taught at least one grizzled Agency lifer.

ONE: KEEP CONGRESS INFORMED. EIGHT WAS NOT ENOUGH.

A few days after the attacks, President Bush signed a top-secret directive to CIA authorizing an unprecedented array of covert actions against Al Qaeda and its leadership. Like almost every such authorization issued by presidents over the previous quarter-century, this one was provided to the intelligence committees of the House and Senate as well as the defense subcommittees of the House and Senate appropriations committees. However, the White House directed that details about the most ambitious, sensitive and potentially explosive new program authorized by the President—the capture, incommunicado detention and aggressive interrogation of senior Al Qaeda operatives—could only be shared with the leaders of the House and Senate, plus the chair and ranking member of the two intelligence committees.

As always, CIA dutifully followed White House orders, so for the next five years we only told those select members—euphemistically dubbed the "Gang of 8"—about the program as it developed and expanded. Only they were briefed on CIA’s secret detention facilities overseas and the employment of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" (EITs), including the waterboarding of high-value detainees like Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheik Mohammad.

While used only rarely in the past, the "Gang of 8" notification process is explicitly authorized in the congressional oversight provisions of the National Security Act for covert actions of "extraordinary" sensitivity. It was an entirely lawful way to proceed to notify Congress about the EIT program. Yet I am convinced it proved to have disastrous consequences for CIA.

These lessons are personally painful to me. There were mistakes and misjudgments CIA made in which I played a role.

For one thing, such notifications are only really suitable for surgical, discrete, "one-off" actions; the May 2011 raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound is a perfect example. The detention and interrogation program, by contrast, was complex, costly, and open-ended in duration, evolving into an ever more treacherous legal and political terrain for the Agency to navigate. From its beginning, what CIA needed above all from Congress was stalwart, bipartisan cover—for their understanding and acquiescence that the continuing Al Qaeda threat required unprecedented measures. We needed it for the time down the road from 9/11 when, absent a second catastrophic attack, the political winds inevitably would change once the initial shock, horror, and outrage about what happened that day abated.

We were naïve in believing that the "Gang of 8" would play that role. There is no way to expect that from a handful of politicians being made to listen some very dicey and chilling information in sporadic, off-the-record sessions. Sure enough, as time went by and controversy over leaked details about the program grew, the only cover they provided was for themselves. In the earliest days of his Administration, President Obama rescinded and publicly repudiated the Agency’s detention and interrogation program, and for good measure declassified virtually every detail of the program.

Shortly thereafter, almost seven years after CIA first informed her about its employment of waterboarding and the other EITs, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, stood before the cameras and claimed that all CIA ever told her was that waterboarding was being "considered" as an interrogation tactic, not that it would be ever employed. Confronted with evidence to the contrary, the Speaker subsequently conceded that she had been informed about EITs from the outset but insisted she was always opposed to them but powerless to do anything to stop them. None of which was true, but in hindsight the Speaker’s moonwalk was hardly unforeseeable.

Meanwhile, other than the chair and ranking member, the two intelligence committees would be kept in the dark for the first five years of the program, as was every other member of Congress. In effect, they were given a pass on any oversight and responsibility for the program, as the attacks about what the Agency was doing escalated in the media. And to what end, all this extraordinary secrecy? Over those five years, many of the details about the program were leaking out, drip by drip, from elsewhere in the Government.

Things falling through the cracks: something I saw happen far too often in my long Agency career.

Restricting Congress’ knowledge about the detention and interrogation program was foolish and feckless. It was a White House decision, but we in the senior ranks of the Agency—the ones who bore the brunt of that decision—should have pushed back earlier and harder than we did. We should have insisted from the outset that, as a minimum, all the members of the intelligence committees (and senior staffers too) be apprised of all the details all along the way, on the record and with a transcriber present. To allow the committees—compel them, really—to take a stand on the merits to either endorse the program or stop it in its tracks.

Instead, we let Congress off the hook.

TWO: WHEN A SENSITIVE OPERATION GOES AWRY, CONFESS ERROR RIGHT AWAY. BETTER TO BE ACCUSED OF A SCREW-UP THAN A COVER-UP

In 2002, CIA videotaped the interrogation of the first captured Al Qaeda terrorist to be water-boarded. It was lawfully conducted, but the tapes were graphic and hard to watch. Almost immediately, those in CIA who made the tapes wanted to destroy them, fearing the faces of the interrogators on the tapes would put them in danger if and when they were ever made public. I, and two successive CIA directors, rejected the idea for three years until November 2005, when the head of CIA’s clandestine service, defying orders, went behind my back and destroyed them. That was bad enough, but what the Agency failed to do next made things infinitely worse.

While we had informed the intelligence committee leadership in early 2003 of the tapes’ existence, we did not tell them on a timely basis about their unauthorized destruction. It was not our intent to hide that fact; it was simply a communications breakdown inside CIA in which then-Director Porter Goss neglected to inform the leadership as we agreed he would do the day he and I learned about the destruction. To this day I am convinced it was an unintentional oversight on his part, and I blame myself for not following up to make sure he had informed the Hill. The whole thing had just fallen through the cracks, something I saw happen far too often in my long Agency career.

Flash forward two years later, to December 2007. Nothing stays secret in CIA forever, and certainly nothing so explosive as the unauthorized destruction of videotapes of CIA waterboarding somebody. The New York Times unearthed the entire mess and ran a series of breathless page 1 stories. The intelligence committees predictably went ballistic, as they always do when they first find out about an intelligence fiasco via the media. In the ensuing pandemonium, I was hauled before Congress for a four-hour grilling. Far worse, a three-year Federal criminal investigation was launched, sapping CIA resources and morale.

Confessing to error may sting, but being accused of hiding your mistakes is far more painful and damaging.

Ultimately, the various investigations would find no evidence of a cover-up, but rather that the whole thing was one monumental screw-up. But the damage to the Agency was done, and it was all self-inflicted. We should have made damn sure that the intelligence committees’ leadership—if not the full committees—were told about the destruction as soon as it happened. To take whatever lumps we deserved (and we clearly deserved some) then and there. We should have done the same thing with judges presiding over then-pending court cases potentially implicating the tapes, even if we weren’t obligated to do so as a technical legal matter. In short, we should have told everyone in all three branches in the Government who had even an arguable need to know.

In the intelligence world, confessing to error may sting, but being accused of hiding your mistakes is far more painful and lasting.

THREE: CIA PLACED TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON THE ENHANCED INTERROGATION PROGRAM

On its face, this lesson would appear counterintuitive. The EITs, with their introduction of the term "waterboarding" into the national lexicon, furnished much of the oxygen firing the controversies of the post 9/11 years. And yet, to the extent that CIA personnel were involved in unsanctioned treatment of prisoners in those years—and those cases were few and far between—almost none of them involved prisoners who were subjected to EITs. Looking back, I have concluded that was because we devoted so much attention to that program and were so scrupulous about using our most highly trained and experienced officers in that effort. What’s more, there were always medical personnel, and frequently CIA lawyers, on the scene monitoring the EITs to ensure they stayed within carefully prescribed standards approved in writing by the Justice Department.

But at the same time, and particularly in the first few years after 9/11, CIA officers took part in numerous other interrogations of Al Qaeda captives, none significant enough to meet the criteria for EITs. These relatively low-level captures tended to be ad hoc, unforeseen and generally under the radar of those of us in CIA headquarters. Our officers in the field, many of whom were newly arrived on the scene and thrust into the breach with little counterterrorist experience, were frequently left to their own devices in dealing with their captives. Under tremendous stress and in often isolated, dangerous areas, most performed professionally and valiantly.

But every once in a while, there were apparent excesses in their treatment of their prisoners. Back at Langley, consumed by our focus on capturing the biggest Al Qaeda quarry and on overseeing the EIT program, our attentions were largely turned elsewhere. That, I have come to believe, was a mistake. An understandable, inevitable mistake perhaps, but a mistake nonetheless.

We should have recognized that all CIA counterterrorist prisoners carry risks, as well as rewards, and approached all of them accordingly.

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As I indicated at the beginning of this piece, my list here is necessarily truncated. There are plenty of other lessons I learned, and with more space I could talk about them. For instance, stalking and killing a big-name terrorist evidently is less legally risky, and is viewed in many quarters as far less morally objectionable than capturing and aggressively interrogating one. Or that trying to create from scratch a new framework of military tribunals to prosecute accused terrorists has proven to be a well-intentioned but utterly failed exercise. It is a travesty and disgrace that, 10 years after 9/11, there has yet to be a trial, much less a conviction, of any Al Qaeda figure in custody with 9/11 blood on his hands.

But I will end on a different note. A decade after 9/11, there has not been another successful Al Qaeda attack on the homeland. And Osama Bin Laden has met his just desserts. All in all, not a bad bottom-line for CIA and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community.

John Rizzo was a lawyer at the Central Intelligence Agency from 1976 through 2009. He was its chief legal officer from 2001 through 2002 and 2004 through 2009. Currently he is a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a Senior Counsel at the Steptoe & Johnson law firm. He is also writing a memoir of his CIA career.

Source: http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/91992

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Osama bin Laden : The real story?

2011-09-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

NB: The editor of this website does not believe in 'HearSay stories' from any source. The following obviously applies to this rule and is presented here for "new revelations" that may add to the understanding or just add more confusion to the already saturated myth of Osama, the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of L'Arabia of modern times. What is certain is that this new Osama Recipe from the Jewish- American mythmakers Cookbook, has brought destruction to many nations and millions of people unconnected to this myth and also made some crooked cooks and their evil employers immensely rich and powerful.

By Sic Semper Tyrannis
(A Committee of Correspondence)

The killing of bin Laden in a US Special Forces raid on a house in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad unleashed a torrent of stories about the event. The accounts by various US officials (given in bits and pieces immediately after the raid) gave little information on the details of the operation, and none on the ‘back story’. This left the field open to a lot of speculative accounts about how the raid took place and the events leading up to it. A rash of conspiracy theories also sprang up, many of which flatly denied bin Laden was even present in the house, while others put forward various versions of the Pakistani role in these events.

Recently, two accounts have been published that claim to be based on information from sources ‘in the know’ or ones who actually participated in the planning (though perhaps not the execution) of the raid. The first was a detailed account by Nicholas Schmidle in The New Yorker, based on interviews with and information provided by senior White House staff and some of the planners of the raid. This was obviously the “official” version, what the US administration would like people to believe.

The second is a post on her blog by RJ Hillhouse, in which she quotes her intelligence sources on certain aspects of the raid, especially the events leading up to it.

By studying these two accounts, separating the grain from the chaff, and judiciously filling in some of the blanks, it is possible to come up with what is likely to be fairly close to the real story.

It begins with the CIA station chief in one of the Gulf states receiving an unexpected visitor with a fascinating tale. He was a recently retired senior officer of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, and he wanted to talk about Osama bin Laden. Some years ago, he said, the Saudi intelligence chief approached the ISI with the request to provide sanctuary to bin Laden within Pakistan. The Saudis said that bin Laden was prepared to come down from the hills where he was hiding, provided sufficient assurances were available about his security. In return, he would ensure that al Qaeda would not target Pakistan, and he would also limit his own involvement in its operations.

The Saudi motive behind this request presumably had to do with their internal imperatives. The bin Ladens are a very rich and influential family in Saudi Arabia. Osama and al Qaeda, and their goals, are supported by a large number of religious Saudis (even though the royal family considers them enemies). If bin Laden were to be hunted down and killed by the Americans in the tribal badlands of Pakistan, it would give the regime a black eye in the view of many of its people as well as being a serious blow to the bin Laden clan. It made sense to the Saudis to get Osama bin Laden into a safe hideout while at the same time neutralizing him as a functioning jihadi.

Whatever the Saudi motivation, their request placed the Pakistanis in a severe dilemma. The Saudis were their helpers and supporters, in fact the kingdom was their backer of last resort; they could not afford to alienate them. On the other side, bin Laden was the principal enemy and target of their current backer and ally, the United States; they could not take the risk of being caught harbouring him. The matter went right up to President Musharraf, and was the subject of much anxious debate. Finally, it was decided that the affair would be handled through one of the client jihadi outfits of the ISI, with no official involvement, thus ensuring plausible deniability in case something went wrong.

This, said the former ISI official, was how bin Laden was moved into Pakistan some years ago, and was safely harboured there. He was prepared to divulge his current location to the CIA provided he was given the reward on offer, and he and his family (accompanying him on this holiday) were securely relocated to the USA. The CIA station chief set up another meeting with the informant, and promptly relayed the information to Washington. The background check on the ISI officer having proved satisfactory, at this second meeting the station chief accepted his offer on the condition that the reward would only be paid if his information proved accurate.

When the location of bin Laden reached Langley, the CIA commenced a sophisticated, but secret, operation to verify that bin Laden did indeed live in the house in Abbottabad that their ISI informant had betrayed to them. Even before the results of this activity became available, the top security officials in the US administration began to consider actions that could be taken if his presence there was confirmed. This process quickly narrowed down the options to essentially two: a drone strike on the house, or a Special Forces raid (of the type being regularly carried out in Afghanistan against suspected insurgent leaders). When the CIA established that there was a high probability that Osama bin Laden did indeed live in the Abbottabad house, detailed planning began for both options. Their pros and cons differed so radically, however, that choosing between them was not easy.

A drone strike would involve no risk to US personnel while also reducing the loss of face for the Pakistanis and, hence, their reaction after the event. An SF raid, on the other hand, would be a risky affair. Apart from the danger of various mishaps there was a possibility of Pakistani interference, both in the air and on the ground, which would endanger not only the success of the operation but also the US personnel involved. Such an intrusion of American ‘boots on the ground’ would likely cause serious problems in relations between the two countries. The biggest difference, however, lay in the degree to which the success of the operation could be established by the administration, and generally accepted by the world when announced. A successful drone strike would show that the house was destroyed, but not whether bin Laden had been killed (the Pakistanis would never admit that he had even been there). A successful SF raid, on the other hand, would provide definitive proof.

The two options were presented to President Obama for a decision. His military advisers generally favoured the drone option, though the JSOC command was quite happy to do the raid. The ‘political’ advisers did not want to pass up this great opportunity to claim a notable success for the administration, but that would only be possible with an SF raid. Obama mulled over the choice for a few days and decided to carry out the raid ─ but with its risks minimized by getting the Pakistan military to cooperate. This set off another hectic debate among the advisers; it was finally decided that a very hard line be taken with the Pakistanis, giving them, in effect, neither the option to refuse nor any wiggle room in compliance. Leon Panetta was chosen to deliver the ultimatum: in essence, to do another ‘Armitage’ on them.

Panetta enjoyed playing the heavy with the Pakistanis (especially after their successful false emissary caper and their exploitation of the Raymond Davis affair). He told the ISI chief how the US had found out, and then confirmed, that bin Laden was being sheltered by them. The US was going to take him out; Pakistan could either help, or it would be considered an enemy of the US and treated accordingly. Backed into a corner, with their ‘plausible deniability’ in shreds, the Pakistani generals folded: they were prepared to help, but they needed a good cover story, especially for the Saudis. The US agreed to work with them on this, but demanded that knowledge of the raid be confined to a very few people at the top of the command chain, no more than necessary to ensure that any attempt by someone in the security forces to interfere with the operation would be immediately detected and quashed.

The cover story finally agreed upon was that the US had carried out a drone strike on the house (though none would in fact take place). This would account for the night-time explosions at the house, and, more importantly, provide an explanation to give to the Saudis for bin Laden’s sudden and unfortunate demise (his body having been almost obliterated by the bombs!). The US’s agreement was simply a ruse, however, in order to keep the Pakistanis cooperating; having rejected the drone option because it did not allow a definitive claim of the operation’s success, the US administration had no intention of going through with this cover story. Instead, it intended to announce the carrying out of the raid, and its momentous result, as soon as it was completed, though it is likely they planned to shift its venue to some undefined place under insurgent control so as to allow the Pakistani military some face-saving, and thus limit their adverse reaction. In the event, the helicopter crash put paid to this.

With the Pakistani military on board, the raid was launched on May 1^st. Two Black Hawk helicopters with the Navy SEALs team on board took off from Jalalabad late evening and landed at the Ghazi airbase, Tarbela. This base is used by Pakistani SF (the Special Services Group), and has a US SF helicopter-training contingent stationed there. Helicopter flights into the US base area from Afghanistan are routine, and the flight of these two helicopters was cleared on the same basis. The attack on the Abbottabad target was launched from here later that night. The flying distance from Ghazi to the target is approximately 60 km (40 miles).

Even though the Pakistan army chief had agreed to allow the raid to go through without any interference, the US was not taking any chances. Schmidle describes a backup force of four Chinook helicopters, two with a backup SEALs team (which remained on the Afghan side of the border), and two as helicopter backups for the assault Black Hawks. He says that these latter two “landed at a predetermined point on a dry riverbed in a wide, unpopulated valley”. This is probably correct since, in case of a Pakistani double-cross, they would be grounded if they were to wait at the Ghazi airbase instead. One of these Chinooks was later used as the replacement for the Black Hawk that crashed at the Abbottabad house.

Schmidle’s account (and critiques of it published afterwards) dwell mostly on the details of the action inside the bin Laden compound. It doesn’t really matter how that action unfolded, though controversy over it does shift attention away from those aspects of the operation that are being kept concealed by both the US and Pakistan. The important point of these actions is that they resulted in Osama bin Laden being killed. Many conspiracy theorists refuse to accept this, but al Qaeda does, and so do the Pakistanis, who have in their custody bin Laden’s wives who witnessed the event. It may be worth commenting on a couple of the items of controversy. It doesn’t matter whether bin Laden had a weapon or not; the orders were for him to be killed. The reason why Amal al-Fatah, bin Laden’s wife who tried to protect him, was shot in the leg (DEVGRU normally just kills) was probably because the plan was to bring the wives and surviving sons back as prisoners (the loss of one of the Black Hawks forced a change there).

As for the fallout from the operation, it was, as expected, mainly on US-Pakistan relations. If the US had the intention of making it easier for the Pakistanis by fudging the site of the raid, the crashed helicopter’s tail sticking up from bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound ended that option. This stark evidence of the US incursion left the US with no option but to (in Hillhouse’s apt phrase) throw the Pakistanis under the bus. Panetta couldn’t let the opportunity pass without adding an extra kick of his own (“ they were either complicit or incompetent”). The Pakistan military lost a lot of ‘face’ internally, but had a tolerable alibi for the Saudis. Most importantly, the raid and its aftermath ended all chances of them working as allies with the US in the future; the relationship became once again purely transactional, with no trust on either side.

The United States certainly got their man but, in the process, lost Pakistan. Time will tell whether that was a good deal.

It's a TOTAL war, monsieur

2011-09-04T16:20:00.000-07:00

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By Pepe Escobar, atimes

The winners of that "kinetic" thing in northern Africa (the Barack Obama administration swears it's not a war) - collectively described as Friends of Libya (FOL) - were all in a jolly mood as they gathered in Paris on Thursday, with no air-conditioning but potent odors of runny Brie and Roquefort, to gloat about their United Nations-sanctioned, North Atlantic Treaty Organization-implemented "operation" for regime change in Libya.

Call it the FOL war; the R2P war (as in "responsibility to protect" Western plunder); the Air France war; the Total war; anyway, the FOL had a blast spinning their win.

The Great Arab Liberator, neo-Napoleonic President Nicolas Sarkozy, gloated, "We have aligned with the Arab people in their aspiration for freedom." Bahrainis, Saudis, Yemenis, not to mention Tunisians and Egyptians, have every right to be puzzled.

Sarko added, "Dozens of thousands of lives were spared thanks to the intervention." Even the "rebels" are spinning there are at least 50,000 dead, with NATO still hooked on a wild bombing spree.

The emir of Qatar at least admitted that on-the-run Muammar Gaddafi could not have been toppled without NATO. But he added that the Arab League could have done more; in fact it did - by providing a bogus vote that opened the way for the Anglo-French-American redacted UN Resolution 1973.

Transitional National Council (TNC) interim prime minister Mahmoud Jibril asserted, "The world bet on the Libyans and the Libyans showed their courage and made their dream real." "World" now means NATO and a bunch of regressive Persian Gulf monarchies. As for the rest, shut up.

Yet the most sinister, true to character, must have been NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen; "We have no plans whatsoever to intervene in conflicts in the region." Then came the inevitable "but". Rasmussen added, "But more generally speaking, I think this could set a template. We have demonstrated an ability to act in support of the United Nations and we have demonstrated an ability to include partners outside NATO in such operations".

Africa and the Middle East, not to mention most of the global South, you have been warned; Humanitarian imperialism, under the cloak of R2P, is the new law of the land.

Securing the loot

Hours before the Paris bash, French daily Liberation published on its website a letter written only 17 days after UN Resolution 1973. In the letter, the TNC ratifies an agreement ceding no less than 35% of Libya's total crude oil production to France in exchange of Sarko's "humanitarian" support.

The letter is addressed to the office of the emir of Qatar (the go-between for the TNC and France from the beginning) - with a copy to then-Arab League secretary general, Amr Moussa. The letterhead is supplied by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Libya.

The promise totally matches what an official from an oil company in Cyrenaica said last week - that the "winners" in the oil bonanza would be the nations that supported the TNC from the start.

As expected, denials piled up. The Quai d'Orsay - the French Foreign Ministry - said it had never heard of such a document. Same for Mansur Said al-Nasr, a TNC special envoy to the Paris conference. The TNC's man in Britain, Guma al-Gamaty, added that all future oil contracts would be awarded "on the basis of merit". And even energy giant Total had to muscle in; its chief executive officer, Christophe de Margerie, swore he had never discussed oil deals with the TNC.

As if Sarko and Total were altruistic, Rousseau-style humanitarians who would never spare a thought for 44 billion barrels of oil. Total was in Benghazi discussing business with the TNC already last June. A bitter intra-European "oil war" between Total and Italy's ENI is already in effect.

ENI - active in Libya since 1959 - has already signed an agreement with the TNC to be back in business and immediately supply fuel to Libya - in exchange for future payment in oil. Total's push is to secure a much larger piece of the Libya energy pie than it already had - as in future contracts.

Slouching towards Arabia

It's quasi-official. Libya is not in Africa anymore. It has been relocated (upgraded?) to Arabia. Maybe Saudi King Abdullah ordered it by decree and no one noticed. The FOL do not include Africans. The African Union (AU) has refused to recognize the TNC; it will only do so when a legitimate government is in place.

While NATO went the Air France way - liberation from above, in business class - the AU from the start pleaded for a ceasefire and negotiations. The FOL imperially ignored it.

Perhaps Africans have noticed that NATO's mission "to protect civilians" now includes bombing Sirte - where smart projectiles carefully target only "evil" Gaddafi supporters disguised as civilians, while the good guys escape unharmed.

Perhaps Africans have been the only ones to listen to the Vietnam-era threat by TNC member Ali Tarhouni - very cozy with Qatar - who said, about the few towns and regions still loyal to Gaddafi, "Sometimes to avoid bloodshed you must shed blood - and the faster we do this the less blood will be shed."

Perhaps Africans were the only ones to notice the sustained and increasingly reported (not by corporate media) ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the "rebels"; as if no one knew that people in Cyrenaica have historically been extremely prejudiced against sub-Saharan Africans.

Or perhaps Africans see right through the FOL's agenda; the new Libyan status as a barely disguised Western colony; and the neo-Orwellian fable of humanitarian imperialism.

***

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

LESSONS FROM NATO'S ATTACK ON LIBYA

2011-09-03T15:52:00.000-07:00

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by Imran Nazar Hosein

وَلَقَدْ ذَرَأْنَا لِجَهَنَّمَ كَثِيرًا مِنَ الْجِنِّ وَالْإِنْسِ ۖ لَهُمْ قُلُوبٌ لَا يَفْقَهُونَ بِهَا وَلَهُمْ أَعْيُنٌ لَا يُبْصِرُونَ بِهَا وَلَهُمْ آذَانٌ لَا يَسْمَعُونَ بِهَا ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ كَالْأَنْعَامِ بَلْ هُمْ أَضَلُّ ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْغَافِلُونَ

". . . . they have hearts and yet do not understand, they have eyes and yet do not see, they have ears and yet do not hear; Such people are just like cattle.

Those who see with two eyes, the internal as well as the external, would recognize 'Zionism' and 'Zionist Imperialism' written all over the well-armed and long-planned insurrection which toppled the Libyan government. This was no spontaneous popular uprising of a people against their dictatorial ruler as the Zionist-controlled news media around the world would have us believe. Nor was the regime toppled because the people responded with rage to the regime's alleged slaughter of innocent protestors. That is the brain-washing that passes for news and is swallowed by cattle as Truth.

It is quite easy to recognize Zionist intimidation and control of news media when mainstream newspapers radio and television around the world (including Al-Jazeerah) adamantly refuse to question the blatantly false official explanation of the 9/11 terrorist attack on America.

The bitter truth is that there are many Libyan Muslims who will now be mercilessly killed unless they submit and embrace the new blood-stained dictatorship which has been imposed upon them at the point of a Zionist sword.

Using a barbarian strategy which came from the 'beast of the earth', the forces of insurrection struck their final Satanic blow at dusk in the month of Ramadan when believers were breaking their day-long fast. They embarked on an indiscriminate killing-spree intended to instill panic in the Libyan capital city of Tripoli and to thus destabilize its military defense. More than a thousand innocent Libyan Muslims became shuhada - having just completed a day of fasting - as they were mercilessly mowed down with weapons supplied by the Zionist Kuffar. Only a brain-washed people would accept that satanic warfare as a spontaneous popular uprising.

I suspect there are some in Egypt who would have sleepless nights if a substantial reward were to be offered for credible information of how so many weapons - capable of outmatching a standing army - reached the insurrectionists in Libya, - perhaps from across the Egyptian border? With all their weapons however, the insurrectionists could never have succeeded without the active and visible assistance and support of Zionism's military arm, i.e., the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); nor can the new government survive without NATO protection. In this sense therefore, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Libya's new government all belong to the same group of countries whose tortured birth and continued survival cannot be explained without reference to Zionism.

NATO is already firmly established in Afghanistan and in Iraq and will never withdraw from those countries until Israel rules the world for 'a day like a week' and Dajjal declares himself to be the promised Messiah (see my book entitled 'Jerusalem in the Qur'an' for an explanation of this subject). The one-eyed do not realize that NATO is in Libya in order to protect and promote Israel's imperial interests. Israel is about to launch big wars against the Arabs in particular, and this writer warns that the world could then face at least another 25 years of continuous war until return of the son of Mary (Allah's blessings be upon them both - virgin mother and Messiah son). Those who see with one eye perhaps still do not realize that NATO will now seek to remain in Libya for the next 25 years.

The first implication of the above that we wish to share with our readers is that those Muslims who refuse to submit to Dajjal's Zionist State of Israel must now part company, for their own safety, from the one-eyed active participants and vocal supporters of the Libyan insurrection. No matter how loudly they may yell and scream in response to this essay, the fact is that - unless they repent - such people are not of us and we are not of them:

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَتَّخِذُوا الْيَهُودَ وَالنَّصَارَىٰ أَوْلِيَاءَ ۘ بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلِيَاءُ بَعْضٍ ۚ وَمَنْ يَتَوَلَّهُمْ مِنْكُمْ فَإِنَّهُ مِنْهُمْ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَهْدِي الْقَوْمَ الظَّالِمِينَ

"O you who have faith (in Allah) do not take (such) Jews and (such) Christians as your friends and allies who themselves are friends and allies of each other. And whoever from amongst you turns to them (for friendship and alliance) now belong to them (and not to us). Surely Allah does not guide a wicked people."

(Qur'an, al-Maida, 5:51)

[Note: The Qur'an does not here refer to individual friendship between a Jew and a Christian. Rather the verse anticipates the emergence of the Judeo-Christian Zionist alliance which is now waging unjust war on Islam and Muslims on Israel's behalf.]

Pakistani and Egyptian Muslims in particular must sever all ties with those within Pakistan and Egypt who dance with NATO. When the NATO attacks on Pakistan and Egypt are inevitably unleashed, such people will be used to play the same role in Pakistan and Egypt as they have just played in Libya.

I have no doubt that large numbers of Egyptians are now waking up to the dangerous implication of NATO's success in Libya, i.e., that the noose is tightening around Egypt's neck. This brief essay helps to explain that subject.

Israel has to expand her territorial frontiers to encompass the (false) Biblical frontiers of the Holy Land (al-Ard al-Muqaddasah). The Bible (i.e. the Torah) declares that the Holy Land extends "from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates". Whoever rewrote the Bible to insert this falsehood almost certainly did so because the Jews lived in the fertile Eastern Delta of Egypt for 400 years and they were also enslaved in Iraq (Babylon) for a long period of time.

No Jew will accept Dajjal's claim to be the Messiah when he does make that claim from Jerusalem in another 20-30 years from now, unless he rules over an Israel that encompasses the Biblical frontiers of the Holy Land.

And so it is inevitable that Israel will have to attack Egypt in order to physically occupy Egypt's Eastern Delta. The implication of NATO's success in Libya is that Egypt would now be attacked from both East and West; and as in the case of Pakistan, so too in the case of Egypt, the strategy would be to break up both Pakistan and Egypt into small states that can easily be controlled by India and Israel. (See my essays entitled 'Explaining Israel's Mysterious Imperial Agenda' and 'Obama's Afghan Surge, Pakistan's Moment of Truth and Death of the US Dollar' on my website.)

Despite his faults and eccentricities, this much we can say with confidence about Moammar Gadhafi that so long as he ruled over Libya he would never have permitted a NATO military presence in that country. It follows that so long as he ruled over Libya NATO could never launch an attack on Egypt with ground troops pouring into Egypt from across the Libyan border.

Thanks to the cattle, such an attack on Egypt is now possible. It is time therefore for every Egyptian to be armed - as every Venezuelan is armed - in preparation for what can now be clearly seen in the horizon.

We may also note that there were economic and monetary reasons as well for the shameless NATO attack on tiny Libya. The Zionists now have not only Iraqi but also Libyan oil in their control, and it seems only a matter of time before they assume direct control over Saudi oil as well. Zionist control over oil would eventually translate into Israeli oil blackmail for a world now dependent on oil for economic survival.

Finally it is reported that Libya had no foreign debts. As a consequence the Zionist-controlled international banking system could not bring this errant state under its influence and control. But the Zionists never give up. When the banking system failed to deliver this country to their control they then resorted to NATO.

There remains one part of this puzzle which defies explanation. Why did Russia and China support the UN Security Council resolution which permitted NATO military intervention in Libya? Were these two States really that dumb that they could not foresee the consequences of their support for the resolution? Or is there more to this than meets the eye?

***

Imran on The Aljezeera Deception

Prediction of The Arab Awakening ( in 2003 ) and the Role of Aljazeera and israel

Nuclear 911

2011-09-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

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Since 1950, there have been 32 nuclear weapon accidents, known as "Broken Arrows."

A Broken Arrow is defined as an unexpected event involving nuclear weapons that result in the accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft or loss of the weapon. To date, six nuclear weapons have been lost and never recovered. Recently declassified documents reveal the history and secrecy surrounding the events known as "Broken Arrows".

Six of these nuclear weapons have been lost and never recovered. What does this say about our defense system? What does this mean to our threatened environment? What do we do to rectify these monumental "mistakes"?

Using spectacular special effects, newly uncovered and recently declassified footage, filmmaker Peter Kuran explores the accidents, incidents and exercises in the secret world of nuclear weapons.

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

PART 6

10 painful lessons of 9/11

2011-09-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

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by Ralph Nader

The commemorative ceremonies that are planned for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 massacre are those of pathos for the victims and their families, of praise for both the pursuit of the supporters of the attackers and the performance of first responders and our soldiers abroad.

Flags and martial music will punctuate the combined atmosphere of sorrow and aggressive defiance to those terrorists who would threaten us. These events will be moments of respectful silence and some expressions of rage and ferocity.

But many Americans might also want to pause to recognize - or unlearn - those reactions and overreactions to 9/11 that have harmed our country. How, in this forward-looking manner, can we respect the day of 9/11?

Here are some suggestions:

1. Do not exaggerate our adversaries' strength in order to produce a climate of hysteria that results in repression of civil liberties, embodied in the overwrought USA Patriot Act, and immense long-term damage to our economy. Consider the massive diversion of trillions of dollars from domestic civilian needs because of the huge expansion and misspending in military and security budgets.

2. Do not allow our leaders to lie and exaggerate as when they told us there were funded, suicidal and hateful al-Qaeda cells all over our country. They were never here. Actually, the wholesale invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan became recruiting grounds for more al-Qaeda branches there and in other countries - a fact acknowledged by both then-Army Chief of Staff George Casey and then-CIA Director Porter Goss.

3. Do not create a climate of fear or monopolize a partisan definition of patriotism in order to silence dissent from other political parties, the citizenry or the unfairly arrested or harassed.

4. Do not tolerate presidents who violate our Constitution and start wars without congressional deliberation and a declaration of war (article 1, section 8, clause 11). Do not let them disobey federal statutes and international treaties in pursuing unlawful, misdirected quicksand wars, as in Iraq, that produce deaths, destruction and debts that undermine our country's national interests.

5. Do not have Congress write a blank check, outside the normal Appropriations Committee hearing process, for the huge budgetary demands from the executive branch for funding of the Iraq, Afghan-Pakistan and other undeclared wars.

6. Do not allow the executive branch to engage in unconstitutional and illegal recurrent practices such as wiretapping and other methods of surveillance of Americans without judicial approval, in addition to arrests without charges, indefinite imprisonment, torture and denial of habeas corpus and other due process rights established by our Founding Fathers. Congress has passed no reforms to check the continuing exercise of unchecked dictatorial presidential power.

7. Do not let the government hide the horrors of war from the people by prohibiting photographs of U.S. casualties; operating cruel, secret prisons; harassing reporters; and refusing to count civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is too much intimidation of returning soldiers - so many harmed for life - from telling the people what they experienced and think about these wars and their heavy outsourcing to profiteering corporations.

8. Do not allow leaders to violate American principles with torture or other war crimes prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. Nor should top military brass or members of the executive branch be above our laws and escape accountability.

9. Do not allow your Congress to abdicate or transfer its own constitutional authorities to the president. We the people have not exercised our civic duties enough to make our representatives in Congress fulfill their obligations under the Constitution to decide whether we go to war and act as a watchdog of the president's conduct. The Libyan war was decided and funded by President Obama without congressional approval.

10. Call out those in the news media who become a mouthpiece of the president and his departments involved in these hostilities. What more is the military really doing in Libya, Somali and Yemen as compared with the official line? Under what legal authority?

In addition, demand that news media outlets seek the inconvenient facts, wherever they might lead, unlike the pre-Iraq invasion period.

The celebrated American theologian-philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr aptly wrote decades ago that "to the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in the effort to prove that they are indestructible."

All empires eventually eat away at their own and devour themselves.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us. He is encouraging people around the country to gather in their own towns or cities on Sept. 10 to discuss ways to avoid overreactions to threats.

Court case lifts lid on secret post 9/11 flights

2011-08-31T16:17:00.000-07:00

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By STEPHEN BRAUN, AP

WASHINGTON ~ A hidden network of U.S. companies, coordinated by a prominent defense contractor, played a key role in the covert airlift that transported terrorism suspects and their American minders, according to newly disclosed documents in a New York business dispute between two aviation companies.

The court files of more than 1,700 pages shed new light on the U.S. government's reliance on private contractors for flights between Washington, foreign capitals, the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and, at times, landing points near once-secret, CIA-run overseas prisons. The companies included DynCorp, a leading government contractor that secretly oversaw a fleet of luxury jets, and caterers that unwittingly stocked the planes with fruit platters and bottles of wine, according to the court files and testimony.

The business dispute stems from an obscure four-year fight between a New York-based charter company, Richmor Aviation Inc., which supplied corporate jets and crews to the government, and a private aviation broker, SportsFlight Air, which organized flights for DynCorp. Both sides cited the government's program of forced transport of detainees, or "extraordinary rendition," in testimony, evidence and legal arguments. The companies are fighting over $874,000 awarded to Richmor by a New York state appeals court to cover unpaid costs for the secret flights.

The court files — they include contracts, flight invoices, cell phone logs and correspondence — paint a sweeping portrait of collusion between the government and the private contractors that did its bidding — some eagerly, some hesitantly. Other firms turned a blind eye.

Trial testimony studiously avoided references to the Central Intelligence Agency. When lawyers pressed a witness about flying terrorists from Washington or Europe to Guantanamo Bay, Columbia County, N.Y., Supreme Court Judge Paul Czajka put on the brakes: "Does this have anything to do with the contract? I mean, it's all very interesting, and I would love to hear about it, but does it have anything to do with how much money is owed?" At another point, the name of a high-level CIA official was mentioned, but the official's intelligence ties were not divulged.

Among the new disclosures:

. DynCorp, which was reorganized and split up between another major contractor and a separate firm now known as DynCorp International, functioned as the primary contractor over the airlift. The company had not been previously linked to the secret flights.

. Airport invoices and other commercial records provide a new paper trail for the movements of some high-value terrorism suspects who vanished into the CIA "black site" prisons, along with government operatives who rushed to the scenes of their capture. The records include flight itineraries closely coordinated with the arrest of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the suspected transport of other captives.

. The private jets were furnished with State Department transit letters providing diplomatic cover for their flights. Former top State Department officials said similar arrangements aided other government-leased flights, but the documents in the court files may not be authentic since there are indications that the official who purportedly signed them was fictitious.

. The private business jets shuttled among as many as 10 landings over a single mission, costing the government as much as $300,000 per flight.

According to invoices between 2002 and 2005, many of the flights carried U.S. officials between Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia and the Guantanamo Bay detention compound, where the U.S. was housing a growing population of terror detainees. Other flights landed at a dizzying array of international airports.

Jets were dispatched to Islamabad; Rome; Djibouti; Frankfurt, Germany; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Shannon, Ireland; Glasgow, Scotland; Tenerife, Spain; Sharm el Sheik, Egypt; and even Tripoli.

Some flights landed at airports near where CIA black sites operated — Kabul, Bangkok and Bucharest. Others touched down at foreign outposts where obliging security services reportedly took in U.S. terror detainees for their own severe brand of persuasion — Cairo; Damascus, Syria; Amman, Jordan; and Rabat, Morocco. Billing records show scores of baggage handlers, ramp officials, van and car providers, satellite and flight phone firms, hotels and caterers routinely serviced the flights and crews and earned tens of thousands of dollars.

The court records do not specify who was aboard the planes beyond a count of crew and passengers. But in several cases, the flights dovetail with the arrests and transport of some of the most prominent accused terrorism suspects captured in the months immediately following 9/11: Mohammed, the purported mastermind, and Ramzi bin Alshib, his key logistics man; Abd al-Nashiri, who allegedly planned the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole; and Hambali, an Indonesia terror leader tied to the 2002 bombing of a Bali nightclub. The detainees all vanished into the CIA's now-shuttered "black site" prison network and all are now at Guantanamo awaiting military trials.

President George W. Bush acknowledged the existence of the prison network in 2006, and the CIA director in 2009, Leon Panetta, said that the prisons were no longer in use. The intelligence agency has never acknowledged specific locations, but prisons overseen by U.S. officials reportedly operated in Poland, Romania, Thailand, Lithuania and Afghanistan. Detainees have claimed in legal actions that they were flown, often hooded and shackled, to the prisons, where some were exposed to simulated drowning known as waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques.

The inner workings of the flight program have leaked previously. Aviation logs and other records were exposed by lawsuits, European parliamentary inquiries and investigative accounts have traced patterns of some planes used in the flights. The Council of Europe estimated in 2007 that 1,245 CIA-operated flights passed through the continent, but an accurate count of actual rendition flights will likely never be known without a U.S. government accounting.

But few court and corporate records have emerged describing the backstage role of private companies that aided in the secret flights. The international human rights group, Reprieve, which discovered the court case in New York, said the material provides "an unprecedented insight into the government's outsourcing of torture."

In the court case, Richmor accused SportsFlight in 2007 of failing to pay more than $1.15 million for at least 55 missions flown by planes and crews chartered by DynCorp for government use. A state judge ruled for Richmor in January 2010, awarding the company $1.6 million. In May, an appeals court affirmed the decision, cutting the judgment to $874,000. Richmor contends it still has not been paid in full.

During the trial, Richmor's president, Mahlon Richards, carefully described flights as classified and said passengers were "government personnel and their invitees." But he also said he was aware of allegations his planes flew "terrorists" and "bad guys." In a phone interview this week, Richards said he had agreed to work with the government as a patriotic response to the Sept. 11 attacks, adding that his firm was only one of several air charter firms that provided jets.

"We thought we were doing a good thing," Richards said. He declined to specify which government agency he dealt with or describe how the flights operated, citing confidentiality agreements with the government. But he noted: "It was the government that called the shots."

SportsFlight's lawyers made the nature of the flights a central part of its legal appeal, insisting that SportsFlight's president, Don Moss, learned over time that "the flights would be going to and from Guantanamo Bay and would be used for assorted rendition missions."

During a deposition, he blurted out the name of a CIA official, a line of testimony quickly aborted by the lawyers. The official's intelligence background was not mentioned, but The Associated Press has independently confirmed the official's role in CIA operations. Contacted at his New York home, Moss would only verify that his trial testimony was accurate.

A CIA spokeswoman said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

DynCorp is the largest company known to be involved in the secret flights. Previously, the most prominent firm linked to the airlift had been Boeing subsidiary Jeppeson Dataplan, which was accused in a 2007 ACLU lawsuit of providing flight planning and navigation for rendition jets. Justice Department attorneys intervened in that case, urging judges to dismiss the case on national security grounds, and a federal appeals court agreed. There is no indication the government intervened in the New York state case.

DynCorp was purchased in 2003 by Computer Services Corp., another leading federal contractor, in a $940 million merger. CSC then took on a supervising role in the rendition flights through 2006, according to invoices and emails in the court files. CSC sold three DynCorp units in 2005 to Veritas Capital Fund, a private equity firm, for $850 million, but retained ownership of other parts of the old firm. Veritas in turn sold the restructured DynCorp — now known as DynCorp International — for about $1 billion in 2010 to Cerebrus Capital Management, another private equity fund.

DynCorp International spokeswoman Ashley Burke said Wednesday that the firm "has no involvement in or information about the litigation between Richmor and SportsFlight." She added that none of the DynCorp entities listed in the court files is owned by or has any affiliation with DynCorp International.

A Computer Sciences spokesman, Chris Grandis, said the firm could not comment because of the ongoing lawsuit.

Under DynCorp's guidance, Richmor provided 10-passenger Gulfstream jets and flight crews for its government clients nearly once a month between May 2002 and January 2005, according to flight invoices. The maiden flight was a May 2002 trip from Washington to Guantanamo and back, but by year's end, the Gulfstreams were flying more complex routes that paralleled the suspected movements of high-value al-Qaeda and other terrorist captives to black prison sites.

Every time the Gulfstream and other planes in Richmor's fleet took to the air, they carried one-page transit documents on State Department letterhead. The notices, known as "letters of public convenience" were addressed "to whom it may concern," stating that the jets should be treated as official flights and that "accompanying personnel are under contract with the U.S. government."

In trial testimony, Moss said the documents were provided from the government to DynCorp, which furnished them to Richmor. Richards said the letters were given to flight crews before they left on each flight, but declined to explain their use.

The notes, signed by a State Department administrative assistant, Terry A. Hogan, described the planes' travels as "global support for U.S. embassies worldwide."

The AP could not locate Hogan. No official with that name is currently listed in State's department-wide directory. A comprehensive 2004 State Department telephone directory contains no reference to Hogan, or variations of that name — despite records of four separate transit letters signed by Terry A. Hogan in January, March and April 2004. Several of the signatures on the diplomatic letters under Hogan's name were noticeably different.

A State Department spokesman said the department has a policy of not commenting on "alleged intelligence activities."

In some cases, the notes added that the jets were not restricted by standard federal flight rules governing aircraft for hire. Although such exemptions are vague in practice, said Gregory Winton, a former Federal Aviation Administration lawyer, they might allow pilots to avoid normal FAA restrictions on the amount of duty hours they could fly — helpful on the long international missions such as those flown by the Gulfstreams.

In some circumstances, Winton added, such diplomatic cover letters might also be used to allow pilots to deviate from their flight plans and to win cooperation from foreign authorities after an international landing. Human rights groups and foreign critics have contended that some rendition flights obscured their real destinations when they dropped off detainees at airfields near the black sites.

"When you go overseas and show up in somebody's back yard in your private plane working for the U.S. government, that's a diplomacy issue, not a flight issue," Winton said.

The court files break down costs incurred for on-flight computers and phones, landing fees and even money spent for meals. A $440 catering bill from Ohio-based Air Chef for an October 2003 flight from Washington to Guantanamo showed the Gulfstream was well stocked as it headed south. It carried fruit platters, assorted muffins and bagels, deli sandwiches, potato chips, cookies and two $39 bottles of wine.

Sav Momgelli, Air Chef's vice president for sales, said the firm had no idea it had been providing meals for secret government flights.

"We don't ask questions," he said. "We're never told and we never ask. It could be a VIP, but to us it doesn't matter. It's just another customer."

___

Associated Press writers Adam Goldman and Barry Schweid in Washington and Michael Hill in Albany, N.Y., contributed to this report.

Get the facts about 9/11Highly-Credible People Question 9/11

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The following people question the government's version of 9/11, or the government's openness in providing information about the September 11 attacks.

9/11 COMMISSIONERS

The co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission (Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton) said that the CIA (and likely the White House) "obstructed our investigation".

The co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission also said that the 9/11 Commissioners knew that military officials misrepresented the facts to the Commission, and the Commission considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements, yet didn't bother to tell the American people (free subscription required).

Indeed, the co-chairs of the Commission now admit that the Commission largely operated based upon political considerations.

9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says "I don't believe for a minute we got everything right", that the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, that the 9/11 debate should continue, and that the 9/11 Commission report was only "the first draft" of history.

9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that "There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn't have access . . . ."

9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said "We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting"

Former 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: "It is a national scandal"; "This investigation is now compromised"; and "One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up".

9/11 Commissioner John Lehman said that “We purposely put together a staff that had – in a way - conflicts of interest".

The Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) who led the 9/11 staff's inquiry, said "I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described .... The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years.... This is not spin. This is not true."

CONGRESS

According to the Co-Chair of the Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 and former Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham, a U.S. government informant was the landlord to two of the hijackers for over a year (but the White House refused to let the 9/11 inquiry interview him).

Current U.S. Senator (Patrick Leahy) states "The two questions that the congress will not ask . . . is why did 9/11 happen on George Bush's watch when he had clear warnings that it was going to happen? Why did they allow it to happen?"

Current Republican Congressman (Ron Paul) calls for a new 9/11 investigation and states that "we see the [9/11] investigations that have been done so far as more or less cover-up and no real explanation of what went on"

Current Democratic Congressman (Dennis Kucinich) hints that we aren't being told the truth about 9/11

Former Democratic Senator (Mike Gravel) states that he supports a new 9/11 investigation and that we don't know the truth about 9/11

Former Republican Senator (Lincoln Chaffee) endorses a new 9/11 investigation

Former U.S. Democratic Congressman (Dan Hamburg) says that the U.S. government "assisted" in the 9/11 attacks, stating that "I think there was a lot of help from the inside"

Former U.S. Republican Congressman and senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, and who served six years as the Chairman of the Military Research and Development Subcommittee (Curt Weldon) has shown that the U.S. tracked hijackers before 9/11, is open to hearing information about explosives in the Twin Towers, and is open to the possibility that 9/11 was an inside job

MILITARY LEADERS

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan (Col. Ronald D. Ray) said that the official story of 9/11 is "the dog that doesn't hunt" (bio)

Director of the U.S. "Star Wars" space defense program in both Republican and Democratic administrations, who was a senior air force colonel who flew 101 combat missions (Col. Robert Bowman) stated that 9/11 was an inside job. He also said:

"If our government had merely [done] nothing, and I say that as an old interceptor pilot—I know the drill, I know what it takes, I know how long it takes, I know what the procedures are, I know what they were, and I know what they’ve changed them to—if our government had merely done nothing, and allowed normal procedures to happen on that morning of 9/11, the Twin Towers would still be standing and thousands of dead Americans would still be alive. [T]hat is treason!"

U.S. Army Air Defense Officer and NORAD Tac Director, decorated with the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and the Soldiers Medal (Capt. Daniel Davis) stated:

"there is no way that an aircraft . . . would not be intercepted when they deviate from their flight plan, turn off their transponders, or stop communication with Air Traffic Control ... Attempts to obscure facts by calling them a 'conspiracy Theory' does not change the truth. It seems, 'Something is rotten in the State.' "

President of the U.S. Air Force Accident Investigation Board, who also served as Pentagon Weapons Requirement Officer and as a member of the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, and who was awarded Distinguished Flying Crosses for Heroism, four Air Medals, four Meritorious Service Medals, and nine Aerial Achievement Medals (Lt. Col. Jeff Latas) is a member of a group which doubts the government's version of 9/11

U.S. General, Commanding General of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, decorated with the Bronze Star, Silver Star, and Purple Heart (General Wesley Clark) said "We've never finished the investigation of 9/11 and whether the administration actually misused the intelligence information it had. The evidence seems pretty clear to me. I've seen that for a long time."

Air Force Colonel and key Pentagon official (Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski) finds various aspects of 9/11 suspicious

Lieutenant colonel, 24-year Air Force career, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the Defense Language Institute (Lt. Colonel Steve Butler) said "Of course Bush knew about the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism."

Two-Star general (Major General Albert Stubbelbine) questions the attack on the Pentagon

U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, former instructor at the USAF Fighter Weapons School and NATO’s Tactical Leadership Program, with a 20-year Air Force career (Lt. Colonel Guy S. Razer) said the following:

"I am 100% convinced that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were planned, organized, and committed by treasonous perpetrators that have infiltrated the highest levels of our government ....

Those of us in the military took an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic". Just because we have retired does not make that oath invalid, so it is not just our responsibility, it is our duty to expose the real perpetrators of 9/11 and bring them to justice, no matter how hard it is, how long it takes, or how much we have to suffer to do it.

We owe it to those who have gone before us who executed that same oath, and who are doing the same thing in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. Those of us who joined the military and faithfully executed orders that were given us had to trust our leaders. The violation and abuse of that trust is not only heinous, but ultimately the most accurate definition of treason!"

U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, a fighter pilot with over 300 combat missions flown and a 21-year Marine Corps career (Lt. Colonel Shelton F. Lankford) believes that 9/11 was an inside job, and said:

"This isn't about party, it isn't about Bush Bashing. It's about our country, our constitution, and our future. ...

Your countrymen have been murdered and the more you delve into it the more it looks as though they were murdered by our government, who used it as an excuse to murder other people thousands of miles away.

If you ridicule others who have sincere doubts and who know factual information that directly contradicts the official report and who want explanations from those who hold the keys to our government, and have motive, means, and opportunity to pull off a 9/11, but you are too lazy or fearful, or ... to check into the facts yourself, what does that make you? ....

Are you afraid that you will learn the truth and you can't handle it? ..."

U.S. Navy 'Top Gun' pilot (Commander Ralph Kolstad) who questions the official account of 9/11 and is calling for a new investigation, says "When one starts using his own mind, and not what one was told, there is very little to believe in the official story".

The Group Director on matters of national security in the U.S. Government Accountability Office said that President Bush did not respond to unprecedented warnings of the 9/11 disaster and conducted a massive cover-up instead of accepting responsibility

Additionally, numerous military leaders from allied governments have questioned 9/11, such as:

Canadian Minister of Defense, the top military leader of Canada (Paul Hellyer)

Assistant German Defense Minister (Andreas Von Bulow)

Commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy (Anatoli Kornukov)

Chief of staff of the Russian armed forces (General Leonid Ivashov)

INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS

Former military analyst and famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg recently said that the case of a certain 9/11 whistleblower is "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers". He also said that the government is ordering the media to cover up her allegations about 9/11. And he said that some of the claims concerning government involvement in 9/11 are credible, that "very serious questions have been raised about what they [U.S. government officials] knew beforehand and how much involvement there might have been", that engineering 9/11 would not be humanly or psychologically beyond the scope of the current administration, and that there's enough evidence to justify a new, "hard-hitting" investigation into 9/11 with subpoenas and testimony taken under oath.

A 27-year CIA veteran, who chaired National Intelligence Estimates and personally delivered intelligence briefings to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, their Vice Presidents, Secretaries of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many other senior government officials (Raymond McGovern) said “I think at simplest terms, there’s a cover-up. The 9/11 Report is a joke”, and is open to the possibility that 9/11 was an inside job.

A 29-year CIA veteran, former National Intelligence Officer (NIO) and former Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis (William Bill Christison) said “I now think there is persuasive evidence that the events of September did not unfold as the Bush administration and the 9/11 Commission would have us believe. ... All three [buildings that were destroyed in the World Trade Center] were most probably destroyed by controlled demolition charges placed in the buildings before 9/11." (and see this).

20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer, the second-ranking civilian in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer (David Steele) stated that "9/11 was at a minimum allowed to happen as a pretext for war", and it was probably an inside job (see Customer Review dated October 7, 2006).

A decorated 20-year CIA veteran, who Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh called "perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East”, and whose astounding career formed the script for the Academy Award winning motion picture Syriana (Robert Baer) said that"the evidence points at" 9/11 having had aspects of being an inside job .

The Division Chief of the CIA’s Office of Soviet Affairs, who served as Senior Analyst from 1966 - 1990. He also served as Professor of International Security at the National War College from 1986 - 2004 (Melvin Goodman) said "The final [9/11 Commission] report is ultimately a coverup."

Professor of History and International Relations, University of Maryland. Former Executive Assistant to the Director of the National Security Agency, former military attaché in China, with a 21-year career in U.S. Army Intelligence (Major John M. Newman, PhD, U.S. Army) questions the government's version of the events of 9/11.

The head of all U.S. intelligence, the Director of National Intelligence (Mike McConnel) said "9/11 should have and could have been prevented"

A number of intelligence officials, including a CIA Operations Officer who co-chaired a CIA multi-agency task force coordinating intelligence efforts among many intelligence and law enforcement agencies (Lynne Larkin) sent a joint letter to Congress expressing their concerns about “serious shortcomings,” “omissions,” and “major flaws” in the 9/11 Commission Report and offering their services for a new investigation (they were ignored).

SCIENTISTS

A prominent physicist with 33 years of service for the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC (Dr. David L. Griscom) said that the official theory for why the Twin Towers and world trade center building 7 collapsed "does not match the available facts" and supports the theory that the buildings were brought down by controlled demolition

A world-renowned scientist, recipient of the National Medal of Science, America's highest honor for scientific achievement (Dr. Lynn Margulis) said:

"I suggest that those of us aware and concerned demand that the glaringly erroneous official account of 9/11 be dismissed as a fraud and a new, thorough, and impartial investigation be undertaken."

The former head of the Fire Science Division of the government agency which claims that the World Trade Centers collapsed due to fire (the National Institute of Standards and Technology), who is one of the world’s leading fire science researchers and safety engineers, a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering (Dr. James Quintiere), called for an independent review of the World Trade Center Twin Tower collapse investigation. "I wish that there would be a peer review of this," he said, referring to the NIST investigation. "I think all the records that NIST has assembled should be archived. I would really like to see someone else take a look at what they've done; both structurally and from a fire point of view. ... I think the official conclusion that NIST arrived at is questionable."

The principal electrical engineer for the entire World Trade Center complex, who was "very familiar with the structures and [the Twin Towers'] conceptual design parameters" (Richard F. Humenn), stated that "the mass and strength of the structure should have survived the localized damage caused by the planes and burning jet fuel . . . . the fuel and planes alone did not bring the Towers down."

Former Director for Research, Director for Aeronautical Projects, and Flight Research Program Manager for NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, who holds masters degrees in both physics and engineering (Dwain A. Deets) says:

"The many visual images (massive structural members being hurled horizontally, huge pyroclastic clouds, etc.) leave no doubt in my mind explosives were involved [in the destruction of the World Trade Centers on 9/11].''

A prominent physicist, former U.S. professor of physics from a top university, and a former principal investigator for the U.S. Department of Energy, Division of Advanced Energy Projects (Dr. Steven E. Jones) stated that the world trade centers were brought down by controlled demolition

A U.S. physics professor who teaches at several universities (Dr. Crockett Grabbe) believes that the World Trade Centers were brought down by controlled demolition

An expert on demolition (Bent Lund) said that the trade centers were brought down with explosives (in Danish)

A Dutch demolition expert (Danny Jowenko) stated that WTC 7 was imploded

A safety engineer and accident analyst for the Finnish National Safety Technology Authority (Dr. Heikki Kurttila) stated regarding WTC 7 that "The great speed of the collapse and the low value of the resistance factor strongly suggest controlled demolition."

A 13-year professor of metallurgical engineering at a U.S. university, with a PhD in materials engineering, a former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment Senior Staff Member (Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn), is calling for a new investigation of 9/11

A Danish professor of chemistry (Dr. Niels Harrit) said, in a mainstream Danish newspaper, "WTC7 collapsed exactly like a house of cards. If the fires or damage in one corner had played a decisive role, the building would have fallen in that direction. You don't have to be a woodcutter to grasp this" (translated)

A former guidance systems engineer for Polaris and Trident missiles and professor emeritus, mathematics and computer science at a university concluded (Dr. Bruce R. Henry) that the Twin Towers "were brought down by planted explosives."

A mechanical engineer with 20 years experience as a Fire Protection Engineer for the U.S. Departments of Energy, Defense, and Veterans Affairs, who is a contributing Subject Matter Expert to the U.S. Department of Energy Fire Protection Engineering Functional Area Qualification Standard for Nuclear Facilities, a board member of the Northern California - Nevada Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, currently serving as Fire Protection Engineer for the city of San Jose, California, the 10th largest city in the United States (Edward S. Munyak) believes that the World Trade Center was destroyed by controlled demolition.

The former Chief of the Strategic and Emergency Planning Branch, U.S. Department of Energy, and former Director of the Office of Engineering at the Public Service Commission in Washington, D.C., who is a mechanical engineer (Enver Masud) , does not believe the official story, and believes that there is a prima facie case for controlled demolition of the World Trade Center.

A professor of mathematics (Gary Welz) said "The official explanation that I've heard doesn't make sense because it doesn't explain why I heard and felt an explosion before the South Tower fell and why the concrete was pulverized"

STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS AND ARCHITECTS

A prominent engineer with 55 years experience, in charge of the design of hundreds of major building projects including high rise offices, former member of the California Seismic Safety Commission and former member of the National Institute of Sciences Building Safety Council (Marx Ayres) believes that the World Trade Centers were brought down by controlled demolition (see also this)

Two professors of structural engineering at a prestigious Swiss university (Dr. Joerg Schneider and Dr. Hugo Bachmann) said that, on 9/11, World Trade Center 7 was brought down by controlled demolition (translation here)

Kamal S. Obeid, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering from UC Berkeley, of Fremont, California

Ronald H. Brookman, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering from UC Davis, of Novato California

Graham John Inman, structural engineer, of London, England

Paul W. Mason, structural engineer, of Melbourne, Australia

Mills M. Kay Mackey, structural engineer, of Denver, Colorado

David Scott, Structural Engineer, of Scotland

Nathan Lomba, Structural Engineer, of Eureka, California

Edward E. Knesl, civil and structural engineer, of Phoenix, Arizona

David Topete, civil and structural engineer, San Francisco, California

Charles Pegelow, structural engineer, of Houston, Texas (and see this)

Dennis Kollar, structural engineer, of West Bend, Wisconsin

Doyle Winterton, structural engineer (retired)

Michael T. Donly, P.E., structural engineer

William Rice, P.E., structural engineer, former professor of Vermont Technical College

An architect, member of the American Institute of Architects, who has been a practicing architect for 20 years and has been responsible for the production of construction documents for numerous steel-framed and fire-protected buildings for uses in many different areas, including education, civic, rapid transit and industrial use (Richard Gage) disputes the claim that fire and airplane damage brought down the World Trade Centers and believes there is strong evidence of controlled demolition (many other architects who question 9/11 are listed here)

LEGAL SCHOLARS

Former Federal Prosecutor, Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Department of Justice under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan; former U.S. Army Intelligence officer, and currently a widely-sought media commentator on terrorism and intelligence services (John Loftus) questions the government's version of 9/11.

Former Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation; former Professor of Aviation, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering and Aviation and Professor of Public Policy, Ohio State University (Mary Schiavo) questions the government's version of 9/11.

Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois, Champaign; a leading practitioner and advocate of international law; responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention; served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-1992), and represented Bosnia- Herzegovina at the World Court, with a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science, both from Harvard University (Dr. Francis Boyle) questions the government's version of 9/11.

Former prosecutor in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the U.S. Justice Department and a key member of Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s anti-corruption task force; former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois (J. Terrence "Terry" Brunner) questions the government's version of 9/11.

Professor Emeritus, International Law, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University; in 2001 served on the three-person UN Commission on Human Rights for the Palestine Territories, and previously, on the Independent International Commission on Kosovo (Richard Falk) questions the government's version of 9/11., and asks whether the Neocons were behind 9/11.

Bessie Dutton Murray Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Director, Center for Human Rights, University of Iowa; Fellow, World Academy of Art and Science. Honorary Editor, Board of Editors, American Journal of International Law (Burns H. Weston) questions the government's version of 9/11.

Former president of the National Lawyers Guild (C. Peter Erlinder), who signed a petition calling for a real investigation into 9/11. And see petition.

Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Troy University; associate General Counsel, National Association of Federal Agents; Retired Agent in Charge, Internal Affairs, U.S. Customs, responsible for the internal integrity and security for areas encompassing nine states and two foreign locations; former Federal Sky Marshall; 27-year U.S. Customs career (Mark Conrad) questions the government's version of 9/11.

Professor of Law, University of Freiburg; former Minister of Justice of West Germany (Horst Ehmke) questions the government's version of 9/11.

Director of Academic Programs, Institute for Policy and Economic Development, University of Texas, El Paso, specializing in executive branch secrecy policy, governmental abuse, and law and bureaucracy; former U.S. Army Signals Intelligence officer; author of several books on law and political theory (Dr. William G. Weaver) questions the government's version of 9/11.

Famed trial attorney (Gerry Spence) questions the government's version of 9/11.

Former Instructor of Criminal Trial Practice, Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley 11-year teaching career. Retired Chief Assistant Public Defender, Contra Costa County, California 31-year career (William Veale) said:

"When you grow up in the United States, there are some bedrock principles that require concerted effort to discard. One is the simplest: that our leaders are good and decent people whose efforts may occasionally warrant criticism but never because of malice or venality... But one grows up. ... And with the lawyer's training comes the reliance on evidence and the facts that persuade... After a lot of reading, thought, study, and commiseration, I have come to the conclusion that the attacks of 9/11 were, in their essence, an inside job perpetrated at the highest levels of the U S government."

FAMILY MEMBERS AND HEROIC FIRST RESPONDERS

A common criticism of those who question 9/11 is that they are being "disrespectful to the victims and their families".

However, half of the victim's families believe that 9/11 was an inside job (according to the head of the largest 9/11 family group, Bill Doyle) (and listen to this interview). Many family and friends of victims not only support the search for 9/11 truth, but they demand it (please ignore the partisan tone). See also this interview.

Indeed, it has now become so clear that the 9/11 Commission was a whitewash that the same 9/11 widows who called for the creation of the 9/11 Commission are now demanding a NEW investigation (see also this video).

And dying heroes, soon-to-be victims themselves, the first responders who worked tirelessly to save lives on and after 9/11, say that controlled demolition brought down the Twin Towers and that a real investigation is necessary.

PSYCHIATRISTS AND PSYCHOLOGISTS

Finally, those who attack people who question the government's version of 9/11 as "crazy" may wish to review the list of mental health professionals who have concluded that the official version of 9/11 is false:

Psychiatrist Carol S. Wolman, MD

Psychiatrist E. Martin Schotz

Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, as well as Radiology, at Duke University Medical Center D. Lawrence Burk, Jr., MD

Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology and Associate Dean of the Graduate School at Ruters University Barry R. Komisaruk

Professor of Psychology at University of New Hampshire William Woodward

Professor of Psychology at University of Essex Philip Cozzolino

Professor of Psychology at Goddard College Catherine Lowther

Professor Emeritus of Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies Ralph Metzner

Professor of Psychology at Rhodes University Mike Earl-Taylor

Retired Professor of Psychology at Oxford University Graham Harris

Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Nebraska and licensed Psychologist Ronald Feintech

Ph.D. Clinical Neuropsychologist Richard Welser

THOUSANDS OF OTHERS

The roster above is only a sample. There are too many Ph.D. scientists and engineers, architects, military and intelligence officials, politicians, legal scholars and other highly-credible people who question 9/11 -- literally thousands -- to list in one place. Here are a few additional people to consider:

The former director of the FBI (Louis Freeh) says there was a cover up by the 9/11 Commission

Former air traffic controller, who knows the flight corridor which the two planes which hit the Twin Towers flew "like the back of my hand" and who handled two actual hijackings (Robin Hordon) says that 9/11 could not have occurred as the government says, and that planes can be tracked on radar even when their transponders are turned off (also, listen to this interview)

Perhaps "the premiere collapse expert in the country", who 9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer referred to as a "very, very respected expert on building collapse", the head of the New York Fire Department's Special Operations Command and the most highly decorated firefighter in its NYFD history, who had previously "commanded rescue operations at many difficult and complex disasters, including the Oklahoma City Bombing, the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing, and many natural disasters worldwide" thought that the collapse of the South Tower was caused by bombs, because the collapse of the building was too even to have been caused by anything else (pages 5-6).

Former Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Warning under Nixon, Ford, and Carter (Morton Goulder), former former Deputy Director to the White House Task Force on Terrorism (Edward L. Peck), and former US Department of State Foreign Service Officer (J. Michael Springmann), as well as a who's who of liberals and independents) jointly call for a new investigation into 9/11

Former FBI agent (Robert Wright) says "The FBI, rather than trying to prevent a terrorist attack, was merely gathering intelligence so they would know who to arrest when a terrorist attack occurred."

Former FBI translator, who the Department of Justice's Inspector General and several senators have called extremely credible (free subscription required) (Sibel Edmonds), said "If they were to do real investigations we would see several significant high level criminal prosecutions in this country. And that is something that they are not going to let out. And, believe me; they will do everything to cover this up". She also is leaning towards the conclusion that 9/11 was an inside job. Some of her allegations have been confirmed in the British press.

Source

The CIA’s Islamist Cover Up

2011-08-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

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By Ian Johnson

The tenth anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington will be accompanied by the usual solemn political pronouncements and predictable media retrospectives. Pundits will point out that the West’s own economic mismanagement of the past decade has done more to weaken Europe and North America than the Islamists’ attacks. Some others will note how radical Islamists are still strong in Afghanistan and point to the recent downing of a military helicopter with dozens of US troops dead. Still others will use the anniversary to pontificate on how our concerns about Islamism have given racists an excuse to tarnish an entire religion. We will also hear about how the democratic uprisings in the Arab world—Libya being the latest—have undermined Islamists (by providing the region’s disgruntled masses with examples of positive, instead of destructive change).

All of these points are well and good and worth hearing again. But they shouldn’t distract us from a very precise and practical problem that hasn’t been addressed: the refusal of the CIA to disclose the details of its involvement with Islamist groups. In recent weeks, the agency has tried to block sections of a new book that deals with its handling of al-Qaeda before and after September 11. But this is only one part of a large-scale cover-up that Western governments have been perpetrating about decades of ties to Islamist organizations. Until we clarify our murky history with radical Islam, we won’t be able to understand the background of the September 11 attacks and whether our strategies today to engage the Muslim world are likely to succeed.

Of course some of this history is well known. The blowback story—how the US armed the mujahedeen, some of whom morphed into al-Qaeda—has been told in book and film. We are also getting a sense now of how parts of the US-backed Pakistani military-intelligence complex have actively supported radical Islamists. Collusion between Britain and Islamist movements over the past century has also been explored. And of course, Israel’s support for Hamas as a counterweight to the Palestinian Liberation Organization has gone down as one of the great diplomatic miscalculations of recent history.

But compared to the full scope of the issue, these insights are meager. To date, the Central Intelligence Agency continues to block access to its archives relating to radical Islam or cooperation with Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. In the course of researching my book on the Brotherhood’s expansion into the West, I applied numerous times under the Freedom of Information Act to see documents concerning events in the 1950s, some of which had been confirmed by already declassified State Department cables. Inevitably the CIA responded with the blanket exception of “national security” to justify denying access to any files.

Despite the CIA’s information blockade, it is clear from interviews with CIA operatives and other countries’ intelligence archives that the CIA was courting groups like the Brotherhood as allies in the US’s global battle against communism. In Egypt, the charge was often made by the government of Gamel Abdel Nasser that the Muslim Brotherhood was in the CIA’s pay. This was also a view of some Western intelligence agencies, which flatly declared that Said Ramadan, the Swiss-based son-in-law of the group’s founder, was a US agent. The agency may have—but for this we need access to its archives—colluded with Ramadan in attempting a coup against Nasser.

The CIA certainly did help the Brotherhood establish itself in Europe, helping to create the milieu that led to the September 11 attacks. The mosque in Munich that Ramadan helped found, for example, became a hotbed of anti-US activity. The man convicted as a key perpetrator of the 1993 attack against the World Trade Center had sought spiritual counseling at the mosque before leaving to carry out his attacks. And in 1998, the man believed to be al-Qaeda’s chief financial officer was arrested near the mosque and also sought spiritual counseling from the mosque’s imam. An investigation based on this arrest traced radical Islamists right to a second mosque—the al-Quds mosque in Hamburg—where three of the four 9/11 pilots worshipped, it but failed to make the final link. This isn’t to say that the CIA was behind the September 11 attacks but that US collusion with Islamists in the Cold War bore bitter fruit in later years—making it imperative that we understand exactly what happened in those seemingly distant years of the 50s, 60s and 70s of the last century.

More recently, despite Washington’s sometimes hostile public rhetoric toward to the Brotherhood, it is clear that the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have tried to court the movement. Internal CIA analyses from 2006 and 2008, which I obtained, show that the Brotherhood was viewed as a positive force and potential ally—this time not against communism but Islamist terrorism: the Brotherhood was considered a moderate Islamist group and thus able to channel grievances away from violence toward the United States (even if Brotherhood theoreticians did not renounce violence against Israel or US soldiers). The State Department also used US Muslims close to the Brotherhood to reach out to Islamists in Europe. Such support has given these groups legitimacy in the United States and Europe.

The CIA is blocking the release of information because the subject remains sensitive—both for the West and the Muslim world. In Washington, the CIA could come under fire if its own archives would confirm and fill out the current sketch view of history. For the Brotherhood, amid its current re-emergence as a major political force in Egypt and other countries, it would be extremely damaging to know that illustrious figures in its history were working for the country that most exemplifies the decadent, imperialist forces it has struggled against for decades.

Revealing this history could be painful but necessary to strip away the doublespeak that both sides have used to describe their dealings with each other. This isn’t to say that releasing information should be used to bash cooperation with Islamists. Clearly the United States and other Western countries need to deal with groups like the Brotherhood, and perhaps in some situations even to support them: for example if the Brotherhood really were to come to power democratically in Egypt, the United States would be obliged to deal with such a government. For the Brotherhood a case could be made that in past decades, when its members were so badly repressed by authorities in the Middle East, that some sort of help from the West was necessary to avoid destruction by the authoritarian governments that persecute it.

These are legitimate arguments. But they can only be made if the full history of these relationships is made known rather than kept hidden. To do this will require action from Congress. The CIA did not release documents concerning US intelligence dealings with Nazi officials, for example, until it was forced to by the passage of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998. This piece of legislation compelled US government agencies to release all files on their dealings with the Nazis during and after the war. It lead to an incredible flood of information on the topic, helping us understand, for example, US collaboration with ex-Nazis after the war.

We need a similar law today. This is not to draw a parallel between Islamism and Nazism—an argument that is tendentious and counter-productive. The only parallel is that the US government has dealt with these questionable organizations and is so unwilling to admit this that it will take specific instructions from Congress to make these dealings public. Whatever the merits of these policies they are based on a long-standing, but still mostly secret, strategy. As Western governments seek to distinguish between “good” and “bad” Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or between the Muslim Brotherhood and more radical groups in the Middle East, understanding this strategy—and its efficacy—has never been more urgent.

***

WTC ‘Jumpers’ Phenomenon

2011-08-29T17:26:00.000-07:00

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By Victor Thorn.

One of the most gruesome aspects of 9-11 occurred when newscasters reported that dozens of people inside the twin towers leaped hundreds of feet down, landing on the streets of New York or rooftops. Such dramatic measures go against human nature because nearly all of us will cling to safety rather than plunge to certain death.

At the time of the jumps, World Trade Center (WTC) 1 and WTC 2, despite being compromised, apparently, by the impact of airliners, still provided a safer haven than free-falling through the air and splattering below. Did all these victims willingly choose to jump, or was there more involved? On July 22, 9-11 researcher Carl Aschmann spoke with this writer to provide some valuable insights.

“What initially struck me is how many of the jumpers were removing articles of clothing before leaping,” said Aschmann. “Think about that for a moment. Utter chaos is raging in New York, the building they’re in had been struck by an aircraft, and in all this insanity they decide to do what—remove their clothing? It doesn’t make sense.”

He continued: “Emergency calls made that morning from inside the towers reflect how extremely hot these trapped people felt, yet they couldn’t see any flames. Even stranger, those inside each tower were leaning against the walls of these buildings, so the physical structure itself wasn’t very hot.”

Aschmann then offered this reminder: “If you listen to transcripts of firemen inside the towers to their dispatchers, they refer to seeing no raging fires and how they could easily extinguish two isolated pockets of fire in WTC 2. Neither skyscraper was consumed by a raging inferno.”

With this information in mind, Aschmann added, “There was no real fire anywhere, but an incredible amount of heat. People were actually disrobing, but tons of paper around them didn’t burn.Why? It’s almost like a microwave effect, where the food inside cooks, but the paper wrapper around it doesn’t.”

Aschmann wonders if the jumpers actually leaped of their own volition.

“It looked like these people were somehow thrown out of the towers—as if they hadn’t really intended to jump, especially when they were flapping their arms wildly rather than being resigned to a fate they had chosen,” he said. “On top of that, these people were cast outward much farther than they could have been able to physically jump, as if some type of internal force ejected them. From all the photos, it didn’t look like they intended to jump out, but were instead caught unaware.”

Upon impact, those unfortunate enough to view these tragedies provided some curious descriptions. Firefighter Bertram Springstead, who witnessed 30-40 jumpers splayed out on the nearby Vista Hotel’s roof, characterized the horrific sight in these terms: “As I was looking out the window, another jumper comes by [and] kind of like clipped the edge of the roof and just vaporized.”

Victor Thorn is a hard-hitting researcher, journalist and the author of many books on 9-11 and the New World Order. These include 9-11 Evil: The Israeli Role in 9-11 and Phantom Flight 93 and Other Sept. 11 Mysteries Explored. He was the co-founder of the WINGTV Network.

Aschmann cites Dr. Judy Wood’s book WHERE DID THE TOWERS GO? as the key source for his information regarding the jumpers.

What if the "Jumpers" were all fake?

Personally tested this theory and the lady is right! You too can do it;

I used Sony's "Vegas Movie Studio" video editor (Free Trial edition cab be downloaded here) to get all the frames (images inside video) visible, copied and pasted them inside Photoshop (Free Trial edition cab be downloaded here) and Zoomed to just 400% and lol the Jpeg artifacts were there for all to see, proving they were added to existing background

Fighting the defamation of Muslim Americans

2011-08-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

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Wajahat Ali, guardian.co.uk

Exploiting fear, hysteria and ignorance has been a lucrative business for the Islamophobia network in America.

After a six-month-long investigative research project, the Center for American Progress Action Fund released a 138-page report, "Fear Inc: Exposing the Islamophobia Network in America", which for the first time reveals that more than $42m from seven foundations over the past decade have helped empower a relatively small, but interconnected group of individuals and organisations to spread anti-Muslim fear and hate in America. I, along with co-authors Eli Clifton, Matt Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes and Faiz Shakir, expose this network in depth, categorise it, trace the money trail to the donors, name the players in the network, connect the dots between them, and uncover the genesis of several fictitious threats such as the current "anti-sharia" fear sweeping the nation, as well as the protests of neighbourhood mosques as alleged "Trojan horses" and incubators of radicalisation.

We've defined Islamophobia as the following: an exaggerated fear, hatred and hostility towards Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination and the marginalisation and exclusion of Muslims from America's social, political and civic life.

Healthy debate, disagreement and differences of opinion are a critical part of any civil society, and it is, in fact, necessary when discussing religion, race and politics. This report, however, targets those individuals who have clearly ventured towards poisonous extremist ideology and rhetoric by exploiting fears concerning terrorism and national security, as well general ignorance of Muslims, as a profitable vehicle to advance a hateful agenda.

The Islamphobia network in America is comprised of five categories:

• The money trail: a list of seven funders who have given nearly $43m to anti-Muslim organisations and thinktanks.

• The Islamophobia scholars and policy experts: five individuals and their respective organisations that act as the central nervous system responsible for manufacturing the fictitious memes and fear-mongering talking points about Muslims and Islam. For example, Frank Gaffney's neoconservative thinktank, the Centre for Security Policy, has used its millions to misdefine sharia, or Islamic religious law, as the pre-eminent totalitarian threat to America, which radical Muslims will allegedly use to supplant and replace the US constitution. No religious Muslim scholar, let alone a practicing layman, would recognise this definition of sharia, which, in reality, deals primarily with personal religious observances, including practices such as charitable giving, prayer and honouring one's parents, with precepts virtually identical to those of Christianity and Judaism.

• Grassroots organisations and the religious right: new and existing activist networks and mainstream popular religious personalities disseminate these messages to their constituents and elected officials. The organisation Act! For America relies upon Frank Gaffney's anti-sharia memes and promotes this fictitious threat through their 573 national chapters and 170,000 members worldwide. Currently, 23 states are in process of considering anti-sharia bills.

• The media enablers: the mainstreaming of this fringe, extremist rhetoric is aided by media allies in network TV (Fox News), radio (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck), online magazines (World Net Daily, Front Page Magazine) and the Islamophobia blogosphere (Jihad Watch), which give Islamophobe talking-heads an influential pulpit to broadcast their misinformation.

• The political players: finally, these talking points end up as soundbites and wedge issues for politicians and, specifically, several 2012 Republican presidential candidates, such as Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich, who all have jumped on the manufactured, fictitious "anti-sharia" bandwagon.

This fear-mongering rhetoric negatively affects our fellow Muslim American citizens and portrays them as perpetual hostile suspects, instead of our neighbours and allies. Currently, this has reached a crescendo resulting in certain communities attempting to curtail constitutionally protected rights and freedoms.

For example, we've witnessed grassroots organisations protest the construction of mosques, constitutionally protected houses of worship, in Tennessee, California and Brooklyn. In February, Muslim American families with young children attending a fundraising dinner in Yorba Linda, California were jeered by protesters who called them "Terrorists!" and told them "Take your sharia and go home, you terrorist lovers." This was not the result of a spontaneous groundswell of public bullying, but rather a well-organised and highly effective effort orchestrated by principal grassroots organisations of the Islamophobia network, such as Act! For America, Stop Islamisation of America and state Tea Party groups.

For example, blogger Pamela Geller, the co-founder of Stop Islamisation of America and face of the manufactured "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy – which was neither a mosque nor at ground zero – clearly reveals her bias against Muslims when she equates practising Muslims with Nazis: "Devout Muslims should be prohibited from military service. Would Patton have recruited Nazis into his army?"

Brigitte Gabriel, the "radical Islamophobe" founder of the effective, anti-Muslims grassroots network Act! For America, believes a practising Muslim "who prays five times a day – this practising Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Koran, cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America."

The Anti Defamation League has reviewed both of these groups' rhetoric and actions and concluded they are simply promoting a conspiratorial agenda against Muslims under the guise of fighting radical Islam. This report exposes these alleged "patriots" for what they really are: the primary motivators of fear and bigotry in an economically uncertain and politically volatile climate that urgently needs less hate, division and fear-mongering. Instead, we desire a proactive, united effort towards moderation by embracing American values that protect our religious freedoms, ensure a vibrant, diverse democracy and sustain America as beacon of inclusiveness.

History has taught us that what's happening to Muslim Americans right now is simply a remake. In the past, the characters were Jews, Irish Catholics, Japanese Americans and gays and lesbians. But America, despite sadly succumbing to hysteria in moments past, eventually – and sometimes grudgingly – tends to regain its moral compass and strive to become a nation resilient to fear and scapegoating.

Just like the McCarthyites before them, the individuals in the Islamophobia network revealed in the report should immediately cleanse themselves of their fear-mongering and ignorance, which may appear to offer short-term political gain but comes at the price of becoming the villains in our children's history books.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/aug/26/islamophobia-defamation-muslim-american

The Islamophobe Money Machine

2011-08-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

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By Jerry Haber, Occupied Jerusalem

Why has anti-Islamic hatred flourished in America? Well, of course, the root cause of all prejudice, as my father, of blessed memory would say, is ignorance. And when there was anti-Semitism in the US, and Jews suffered from it, it was born of ignorance. And fear of the other. But when prejudice becomes widespread, as anti-Semitism did in the US in the 1930s, you cannot blame just ignorance. You need the machinery that distributes prejudice, the mass media, the prominent "experts," the publicists. And, of course, you need money.

Big Money. How big?

The Center for American Progress published today a 130-page report detailing how $42 million dollars from seven foundations has fueled over the past decade. the spread of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim feelings in this country.

Read the full report below. The foundations are: The Donors Capital Fund, the Richard Scaife Foundations, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Russel Berrie Foundation, the Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund, the Fairbook Foundation, and the Newton and Rochelle Becker.

The money has flowed into the hands of five key “experts” and “scholars” who comprise the central nervous system of anti-Muslim propaganda:

Frank Gafney, David Yerushalmi, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, and Steven Emerson

These five “scholars” are assisted in their outreach efforts by Brigitte Gabriel (founder, ACT! for America), Pamela Geller (co-founder, Stop Islamization of America), and David Horowitz (supporter of Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch). As the report details, information is then disseminated through conservative organizations like the Eagle Forum, the religious right, Fox News, and politicians such as Allen West and Newt Gingrich.

So what is the big deal?

Has there been any violation of laws? Don't we have freedom of speech in this country. After all, these are not hate crimes. Yes we do. And funding hatred of Muslims is, in principal no worse than, say, funding hatred of other minority groups. (Although in practice, it is worse than, say anti-Semitism, because the Jews are a highly successful minority that has ample organizations and other means to defend themselves.) But the Islamophobia that ends up in state legistlation, such as the one pushed by David Yerushalmi (he contrasts sharia with halahka here, but, as I hope to show elsewhere, he is a complete am-haaretz when it comes to halakha) and Frank Gaffney, or pushed on college campuses by loud-mouth ignoramuses like David Horowitz -- has no peer in America today. We are not talking about a few hate websites.

We are talking about a well-orchestrated campaign funding "scholars" who, like the scholarly anti-Semites of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, spew their poison in the American mainstream. The fact that at least three of these scholars are Jewish, and one presents himself as an orthodox Jew, has to pain serious Jews everywhere. To think that only within several decades since the demise of organized anti-Semitism in this country, American Judaism has produced bigots of the sort mentioned above speaks volume about the success of the Jews in this country -- and, I may mention, the fact that the State of Israel is unnecessary for these folks. I mean, if you can be a well-paid Jewish bigot with impunity here, why bother to go to Israel?

Download:

The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America

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Who Funds All the Muslim Baiting?

2011-08-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

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By MJ Rosenberg

It has been just about a decade since Islamophobia exploded in this country. That was the moment that the World Trade Center and Pentagon were hit by al Qaeda terrorists. It existed prior to 9/11, but the losses that day and the general terror it inflicted upon this country made many, many Americans much more wary of Arabs and, fairly quickly, fearful of the religion the terrorists professed.

The first sign that 9/11 would be exploited to advance various agendas came from Binyamin Netanyahu, who was quoted in the New York Times as saying the attacks would be good for Israel:

Asked tonight [September 11, 2001] what the attack meant for relations between the United States and Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, replied, ''It's very good.'' Then he edited himself: ''Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.'' He predicted that the attack would ''strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror."

Netanyahu subsequently reiterated his views about 9/11, quoted here in Haaretz.

And, of course, ever since 9/11 the "pro-Israel" lobby has successfully used it to build support for right-wing Israeli policies in the United States.

But the lobby isn't alone.

It is just one of the components of an orchestrated and well-financed effort to make Americans fear and hate Muslims and Arabs.

I have to admit, however, that until I read a report published today by the Center for American Progress (CAP), I had no idea just how orchestrated and well-financed this movement was.

The report, "Fear Inc: The Roots of The Islamophobia Network in America," demonstrates that a small group of self-proclaimed experts (Frank Gaffney, David Yerushalmi, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, and Steve Emerson) backed by a host of foundations and donors (many of which also fund the lobby) have put Islamophobia on the map.

To put it simply, without these "experts," their donors, and Fox News (their media mouthpiece) you would never have heard that a Muslim community center (the "Ground Zero Mosque") was being constructed in New York City. And the center certainly would not have become a major news story. Nor would Republican (and even a few Democratic) candidates for president, Congress, and even village councils be called upon to condemn Islam and "Sharia Law" or face being labeled a supporter of terrorism. Nor would Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum make hatred of American Muslims such an integral part of their campaigns.

It all starts with the money. According to CAP:

A small group of foundations and wealthy donors are the lifeblood of the Islamophobia network in America, providing critical funding to a clutch of right-wing think tanks that peddle hate and fear of Muslims and Islam-in the form of books, reports, websites, blogs, and carefully crafted talking points that anti-Islam grassroots organizations and some right-wing religious groups use as propaganda for their constituency.

Some of these foundations and wealthy donors also provide direct funding to anti-Islam grassroots groups. According to our extensive analysis, here are the top seven contributors to promoting Islamophobia in our country:

Donors Capital Fund
Richard Mellon Scaife foundations
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust
Russell Berrie Foundation
Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund
Fairbrook Foundation

Most of these are new to me, although when I worked at AIPAC it was hard to miss the fact that some of them supported both AIPAC and its think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The amazing thing about the CAP report is that it exposes people who try very hard to cover their tracks. It is one thing to be known for supporting AIPAC, but it is quite another to be identified with the likes of Steve Emerson, Daniel Pipes -- and the truly unhinged Pam Geller, who appears in the CAP report as only a second-tier hater but whose anti-Muslim vehemence is nothing short of disgusting. (She rationalized the killing of the kids in Norway by pointing out that the camp they attended was associated with Norway's Labor Party, which she claims is anti-Israel!)

The hate funders are particularly determined to lay low since the Oslo slaughter by a self-described Christian conservative named Anders Breivik, who said that he was influenced by Robert Spencer, Pam Geller, and David Horowitz (another prominent propagandist against Muslims and beneficiary of the various anti-Islam foundations).

But CAP followed the money, went behind the innocent-sounding foundation names, and cross-referenced them. And now we have it: the hate network exposed.

It's pretty ugly. Jews whose main concern is Israel align themselves with Christian rightists who don't like Jews. There are even a few Muslims who are dispatched by the network to tell audiences at churches and synagogues just how bad their people are. It's weird.

But it's also very dangerous, as the Norway slaughter attests.

The strangest thing about the killings is that it happened in Norway. Reading this report, you have to wonder why it hasn't happened here. Yet.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/who-funds-all-the-muslim-_b_937979.html

Exposed: 'Fear Inc.' - The Anti-Muslim Hate Industryby Aziz Poonawalla

I’m proud to share with you today a report that my friend Wajahat Ali has been working on for more than 6 months with the DC-based think tank, Center for American Progress, entitled ‘Fear Inc., The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.’

The report can be downloaded from here: [Link: www.americanprogress.org…]

Wajahat Ali was lead researcher and writer for this expose on how just 7 groups have given $43 million over 10 years to a small, inter-connected group of people and organizations responsible for mainstreaming fear, bigotry and hate against Muslims and Islam in America.

Along with co-authors and researchers Eli Clifton, Matt Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, Faiz Shakir and the great editorial help of Ed Paisely, Tara McGuinness and Sally Steenland, Wajahat Ali has for the first time really dissected and exposed this network, categorized it, named all the names, connected the dots, traced the funding and $$ money trail, and shown the genesis of several fictitious talking points and garbage that you hear on the mainstream news such as:

‘President Obama is a Muslim’
‘Sharia is a threat to America’
‘Mosques are Trojan Horses’
‘Radical Islam has infiltrated America, the government and mainstream Muslim organizations’
‘There is no such thing as moderate Islam. Traditional Islam is radical Islam’
‘Practicing Muslims cannot be loyal Americans’

…and so forth.

The Network can be broken into 5 categories:

The Money Trail – Funders
Islamophobia Scholars and Experts
Grassroots Organizations and Religious Right
The Media Megaphone
The Political Players

The CAP research team wrote this public report for a mainstream, wide audience. It is timely, with an election looming in which politicians and zealots are trying to exploit fear, hysteria and ignorance and divide Americans based on religious and ethnic lines. This has happened before to Jews, Catholics, Japanese Americans and Gays and Lesbians.

The facts in this report are meant to empower communities with knowledge, facts and information with the hopes of marginalizing these anti-American, divisive, fear-mongering voices so we can return to a moderate course and partake in civil discourse.

The introduction to the report has an important note about the term Islamophobia itself:

Before we begin, a word about the term ‘Islamophobia.’ We don’t use this term lightly. We define it as an exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from America’s social, political, and civic life.

It is our view that in order to safeguard our national security and uphold America’s core values, we must return to a fact-based civil discourse regarding the challenges we face as a nation and world. This discourse must be frank and honest, but also consistent with American values of religious liberty, equal justice under the law, and respect for pluralism. A first step toward the goal of honest, civil discourse is to expose — and marginalize — the influence of the individuals and groups who make up the Islamophobia network in America by actively working to divide Americans against one another through misinformation.

Take a look at the report online – or download the entire report as a PDF. I will be discussing the findings and going step by step through the report in a series of posts after Ramadan concludes.

For comment on the report itself or to set up a call to discuss the report findings with your communities, feel free to contact the author, Wajahat Ali wajahatmali@gmail.com.

This post is cross-posted at my blog at Beliefnet, City of Brass. I have also been blogging about Ramadan this year and invite any and all - muslims and non muslims alike - to stop by.

Also see:
David Horowitz Responds To ThinkProgress Report By Calling Us ‘Fascistic’

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/39080_Exposed-_Fear_Inc._-_The_Anti-Muslim_Hate_Industry#rss

How to Start A Revolution

2011-08-25T13:41:00.000-07:00

American institutions and government have been captured by oligarchs and kleptocrats, who systematically set about stealing and looting what was once a great nation. America can once again be a great nation, but we must take it back. NOBODY will do this for us. It will not be handled back to us by bought 'representatives'.

By Willie Osterweil

The protest camp proved a central part of the revolution in Egypt. It’s impossible to say where the movements built around the camps of Spain and Greece, which closed earlier this month, will lead, but it is totally clear that their methods are capable of transforming consciousness (particularly among millenials), radicalizing participants and making a better future seem not only possible, but plausible. Camps have sprung up all across the world, and have strengthened protest movements and community activism wherever they’ve appeared. These instructions are based on personal experience from camps in Barcelona and New York City, conversations with campers from Madrid and Madison, and research of other camps around the world.

The early stages of any camp involve intensive planning. Although the camps in Tahrir and Spain were largely improvised from the ground up, they emerged from protests that had been planned for months. The first thing to do is to hold a big protest, and bring all your friends.

Choose a date, a time (a Friday will probably be ideal), and a public space centrally located to areas of political interest and with lots of foot traffic. Focus on a local political issue that can activate the community: these camps have largely been based around austerity politics, and though they have grown to encompass larger critiques of society, begin with local issues. You’ll also need a legal advisor, or at least someone who understands protest law and public use permits. Leverage your social media networks to bring out as many people as possible: you’ll probably want at least 100 serious comrades with mixed skills and full commitment. Bring tents, sleeping bags, warm clothes, and bed rolls, because you’re going to camp out.

As the protest goes along, set up your tents, beds, etc. Prepare them in such a way that you can be there a long time. You are going to be there a long time. The first 72 hours are vital- everyone is going to need to remain until the camp is well established and the police reaction has been figured out. Revolutions don’t have sick days, but jobs do.

All major decisions need to be made by the group, not by individuals – the camp can have no representatives, and no leaders. This decision making is done by the General Assembly, a meeting-based consensus process in which ideas, proposals and decisions are all made from the ground up. I’ve written more extensively on the General Assembly method for Shareable here.

Once the camp is established, you’ll want to make it a free space, a small outpost of the better world to come. Make art, placards, performance spaces, free stores and information booths. In Spain, the camps had set up generators to run computers, wi-fi, and communication stations. In Plaza Catalunya, Indignados built tree houses, a stage, a tattoo “parlor,” a free barber shop, and much more. They “hacked” statues with masks, bandanas, and colored paint. What does your city need? How can you build it? Show the people what a free society will look like while teaching yourself how to build one.

Provide free services that the city or country is taking away, to demonstrate both what is being lost and what the people can provide eachother. In Bloombergville, New York’s protest camp, we set up a free take-one leave-one library, as the budget brought huge cuts to public library funding. Show with your actions that the people sharing their efforts and their resources can build anything.

It’s also important to stay active: it’s easy to just hang out in camp with your friends, and you’ll do plenty of this, but make sure that you’re actively participating with the community. Organize protests relevant to your situation. Connect with local organizations that are working on the same issues. Gather the neighborhood on the day of the protest and march together from your camp (leaving behind enough people to hold it). Keep action happening at the camp everyday: make documentaries, give teach-ins, throw dance parties, etc. Make it a space of expanded consciousness and spontaneous possibility.

There are a couple key principles you’ll also want to observe to make the camp successful.

No Violence

The state produces violence, the people want peace. Use civil disobedience, peaceful retaliation, and free speech, but do not employ violence or destruction. If the cops inflict violence on the campers, this will only build your support among the people and demonstrate the intentions and methods of the state.

Follow the Law

No illegal drugs, no public drinking, don’t break the law at your camp. In the US, both the media and the law are more critical of drug use and less tolerant of improvised use of public space. The cops and the media will use any excuse to marginalize you. Don’t let them. Demonstrate how power works by making the police break the laws.

Social Media for Distribution, not Discussion

Twitter and Facebook are incredible tools for dispersing information about public meetings, protests, manifestos, articles, etc. Use the hell out of them, but don’t use them to debate tactics, plans, or ideas. They’re bad for producing concensus, and besides, it’s much easier for cops to follow a hashtag than get in your tent. And the cops will be following: At Bloombergville, an undercover cop showed up claiming to be an “agent” with MSNBC. He asked for our protest plans and to speak to the “leader” (protip: anyone asking to speak with “the leader” is a cop). Plan in person, and spread the message like wildfire over the web.

Be Anonymous: No Leaders, No Heirarchy

Leaders can be jailed, disgraced, rejected, even killed. Being anonymous keeps you from being a target of the police, and lacking an obvious symbolic leadership swells your numbers in the mind of the public. If you think a movement needs leaders, ask yourself: how far have leaders taken the people up to now?

Welcome Everyone, Listen to Everyone

You will undoubtedly get crack pots and weirdos among you: if they want the megaphone, let them speak (at least once). The people will vote against them: I saw this happen on three separate occasions in Barcelona. I also saw a group of children welcomed into a general assembly and allowed to speak to the crowd. Dealing with confrontational people will build solidarity as a group and understanding of the difficulties marginalized people face in our society. And the beauty of the camp is it allows you to practice the very thing you’re fighting for- a society in which everyone is welcomed, listened to, respected and actualized.

I hope that these methods will lead to a successful revolution: we know that they have built the groundwork for a huge movement in a short time and at little cost. On September 17th an occupation is planned for Wall St in NYC and on October 6th one begins in Washington D.C.

***

United States Day of Rage and Occupy Wall Street

@USDayofRage (currently 1,216 followers) has announced a facebook page, a facebook group, and a facebook profile along with the previous twitter account and hashtag #USDOR.

A new announcement from @USDayofRage (currently 1,164 followers) via Twitlonger.

Currently, Kansas, Tennessee, Idaho (September 16 Day of Rage), Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Seattle, Portland and Oregon are officially planning protests, and on September 17 the #occupywallstreet protest is scheduled to create an encampment protest at what is seen by many to be the epicentre of the problem. This is being planned here on reddit as well as Twitter. The official Twitter account is announcing all of the upcoming events and has just announced 8/2 at 4:30pm Gather at the Charging Bull (Bowling Green Park) Logistics for #Sept17 #OccupyWallStreet.

September 17th Is America Ripe for a Tahrir Moment?
A worldwide shift in revolutionary tactics is underway right now that bodes well for the future. The spirit of this fresh tactic, a fusion of Tahrir with the acampadas of Spain, is captured in this quote:

Seize DC Updates: Citizens For Legitimate Government

Gear Up for Seize DC! Posted by MDR and LRP 23 Aug 2011

Citizens for Legitimate Government, http://www.legitgov.org/ (CLG) calls for protest – SEIZE DC!

SEIZE DC will begin on September 10, 2011, at noon, until finished..

The 535 Americans who are blocking peace in the Middle East

2011-08-24T14:11:00.000-07:00

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by Mehdi Hasan, newstatesman.com

The US Congress is so in thrall to the American Israel lobby AIPAC that it more of a hindrance to the peace process than the Knesset itself.

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"I had 700 days of 'no' in Northern Ireland, and one 'yes'," remarked George Mitchell in May 2010. A year on, and having spent more than 800 days in the Middle East with no sign of a "yes" on the horizon in Ramallah or Tel Aviv, the frustrated former senator announced his resignation as President Obama's peace envoy to the region.

Cue much hand-wringing about the future of the "peace process". But there is nothing new about the Obama administration's failure to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table; peace talks have been on hold since 2008. As the mild-mannered Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, a long-time ally of the US, noted in a recent interview: "It was Obama who suggested a full settlement freeze. I said OK, I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump."

Obama, however, like George W Bush before him, is a distraction. When it comes to the US's Middle East policy, true power and influence lies elsewhere. Pronouncements from the executive branch of the US government attract much of the attention of foreign governments and the world's media; few outside (or, for that matter, inside) the US pay attention to the behaviour of the country's legislature when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians.

It is Congress that passes resolution after resolution backing Israel and condemning the Palestinians; it is Congress that approves arms sales to Israel and grants Tel Aviv billions of dollars in aid. Presidents, secretaries of state and special envoys come and go; meanwhile, Congress, whether Republican- or Democrat-controlled, always stands four-square behind Israel's occupation of the West Bank.

Following the Aipac

The Congress of the United States consists of 100 senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives; in effect, just 535 Americans are blocking efforts to bring peace to the Middle East. Why? Forget the pious guff about Israel being the region's "only democracy" and a "valued friend and ally" of Washington. In the corrupt and dysfunctional US political system, where legislators are outnumbered by special interests, from the gun lobby to Big Pharma, the Israel lobby - specifically, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) that brags on its website about being "the most important organisation affecting America's relationship with Israel" - has a financial stranglehold on both main parties. According to William Quandt, a former adviser on the Middle East to the Nixon and Carter administrations, "70 per cent to 80 per cent of all members of Congress will go along with whatever they think Aipac wants".

It is Aipac that polices congressional votes on Israel, demands unconditional US support for the occupation of the West Bank and insists that Israel remain the largest single annual recipient of US foreign aid ($250 a year per Israeli, compared to $1 a year per African). Consider this: the upper and lower houses of Congress are more divided, polarised and partisan than in any other period in recent history. Democrats and Republicans agree on nothing. Except Israel.

Presidents who have tried to pressurise the Israelis - from Reagan to Obama - have found themselves attacked not just in the Knesset but in Congress. In the words of Paul Findley, a Republican from Illinois who served in the House of Representatives for 22 years before being
defeated by an Aipac-funded candidate in 1982: "Congress behaves as if it were a subcommittee of the Israeli parliament." The irony is that there is far more heated debate about Israel's actions on the floor of the Knesset than on Capitol Hill. "For 35 years, not a word has been expressed . . . in either chamber of Congress that deserves to be called debate on Middle East policy," Findley wrote in 2002.

A move to J Street

On 2 May 2002, after Ariel Sharon's invasion of the West Bank and the destruction of the Jenin refugee camp, both houses of Congress overwhelmingly approved resolutions expressing "solidarity with Israel" - 352 to 21 in the House, 94 to two in the Senate.

On 20 July 2006, eight days after the start of Israel's war against Lebanon, Congress passed a resolution endorsing Israeli military action by a vote of 410 to eight. On 9 January 2009, as the Palestinian death toll from the Israeli air assault on Gaza topped 700, the House of Representatives passed a resolution "reaffirming the United States' strong support for Israel in its battle with Hamas". The margin was 390 votes to five.

These comically one-sided resolutions illustrate the power and influence of the Israel lobby on Capitol Hill - and the way in which craven legislators in both main parties blindly throw their support behind any and every act of belligerence. As Uri Avnery, the Israeli author and peace activist, once remarked: if Aipac "were to table a resolution abolishing the Ten Commandments, 80 senators and 300 congressmen would sign it at once".

But, slowly, the tide might be turning: the left-leaning, liberal Jewish lobby group J Street, founded in 2008, now provides political and
financial support to about 50 members of Congress and aspires to become a counterweight to the hawks at Aipac. And on 22 May, pro-peace groups will hold a "Move Over, Aipac" rally in Washington, DC to try to remind legislators down the road at Aipac's annual policy conference not to conflate the views of the Israel lobby with US Jewry.

In September, the UN General Assembly will prepare for a vote on whether to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state. But Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank is a reminder of just how irrelevant UN votes are. It is the votes on Capitol Hill that matter.

Jakarta-Warning to prospective CIA agents

2011-08-19T19:24:00.000-07:00

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By Wayne Madesn

Warning to prospective CIA agents:

"The Director will disavow any knowledge of your activities"

In the TV series "Mission Impossible," the chief of the Impossible Missions Force was warned in a taped message by his superior, "As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions." A little over ten years before "Mission Impossible" ran on American television, such a scenario may have played out in Indonesia.

From April 18 to 24 1966, leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement met in Bandung, Indonesia, hosted by Indonesian President Sukarno. The summit was attended by the leaders of and representatives from Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Ceylon, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, the Gold Coast (Ghana), India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, North Vietnam, South Vietnam and Yemen.

WMR has learned that Indonesian security arrested an American man in Bandung during the conference who was believed to be planning a terrorist action against the conference venue. The unknown American was sentenced to life imprisonment on an Indonesian prison island, known as the "Alcatraz of Indonesia," Nusa Kambagang, off the southern coast of Java. The American's passport was seized by the authorities. Eventually, the passport expired and the American was considered stateless and he was disowned by the U.S. embassy in Jakarta.

In 1955, the Bandung summit was the scene of a number of U.S. journalists who were actually CIA agents who attempted to disrupt the conference. Using Nationalist Chinese assets, the CIA also attempted to assassinate Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai at the conference. On April 11, 1965, an Air India Lockheed L-749A Constellation, the "Kashmir Princess," exploded from a bomb placed on board while flying over the South China Sea en route from Bombay and Hong Kong to Jakarta. Scheduled to be on board the aircraft was Zhou Enlai but he changed his travel plans at the last minute. Sixteen passengers and crew, including five Chinese journalists, a Polish journalist, an Austrian journalist, a Hong Kong journalist, and a member of the North Vietnamese delegation to Bandung, were killed when the plane exploded. The bomb on the plane was placed by a Nationalist Chinese agent on the CIA's payroll. The Nationalist agent, Chow Tse-ming, operated under the cover of the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company and he was ex filtrated from Hong Kong to Taiwan aboard a plane owned by the CIA proprietary company Civil Air Transport, a forerunner to Air America. The bomb was American made and used an MK-7 detonator of U.S. manufacture.

The CIA conducted a covert guerrilla war against Indonesia from 1956 to 1958. In 1956, with the encouragement of CIA director Allen W. Dulles, the CIA supported the failed PRRI-Permesta rebellion in the Celebes.. In 1957, the CIA supplied weapons to secessionist rebels in Sumatra but the rebellion failed in 1958. On May 18, 1958, a CIA-contracted B-26 piloted by American Allen Lawrence Pope was shot down over Sumatra after "accidentally" bombing a church during services and killing most of the congregants.

According to well-placed Indonesian sources, as late as 2002, the American was still believed to be held in the island prison. However, it was reported that after forty-seven years in detention, the individual had gone insane. Nine years later, it is unknown whether the American is still alive.

However, for those who may contemplate a career in the Central Intelligence Agency, the "Mission Impossible" rules are germane. There are cases when the CIA will "disavow any knowledge of your actions."

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist.

Why was the PA hosting American Kabbalah tourists in Nablus?

2011-08-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

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By Michelle Gyeney, ei

The message cut through the narrow passageways and abundant staircases of Nablus with remarkable speed on 11 August: a huge group of tourists was on their way to the city, and the governate was in desperate need of local, English-speaking tour guides to lead these invitees throughout Nablus. In exchange for 100 shekels (about $30), each guide was expected to lead his or her group through the Ottoman-era Old City as well as to religious sites such as Joseph’s Tomb and Bier Yacob church — and, most importantly, to refrain from political discussion of any kind throughout the day.

Official guests of the Palestinian Authority, the 1,200 students of the Kabbalah International Center in Los Angeles — wearing matching white t-shirts bearing Arabic, English, or Hebrew messages of peace — streamed into Nablus throughout the day and ended their visit in the downtown area where the visitors took part in the inaugural launch of “Peace and Freedom Day.” As part of this new Nablusi celebration, governor Jibril al-Bakri, his deputy Anan al-Ateera, and a number of other community officials spoke about the need for peace and statehood and then led the crowd in singing peace-related songs. While the Nablus governate was the official coordinator of the day, several of the roughly 100 Palestinian participants, including tour guides, organizers and volunteers, were quick to suggest that the invitation for the Jewish mysticism group came at the behest of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

The themes of peace and freedom were discussed without reference to their political context and were simply described as abstract concepts that Palestinians should have the right to enjoy. Ironically, the organizers’ emphasis that guides not discuss political issues with their groups was, in and of itself, an affront to Palestinian freedom. Further complicating the matter was the logistical impossibility of leading people through the Old City, which was a bastion of the resistance movement and bore a heavy civilian burden during both intifadas, without referencing politics.

Indeed, the physical appearance of Nablus’ Old City remains visibly altered as the result of years of Israeli invasions. Even today, the 1,000-year-old buildings of the Old City still bear the signs of invasions and the military’s devastation. In all likelihood, this blanket ban on discussing what really happens in Nablus under Israeli occupation sought to disguise the politics of the visiting Kabbalists themselves.

Thinly-veiled “gestures of peace and unity”

Browsing the event page for the Kabbalah International Center’s current trip is particularly telling. Labeled “Israel 2011 with Rav and Karen Berg,” their itinerary not only designates the West Bank cities of Hebron and Nablus as “Israeli,” but also refers to Nablus as “Shechem,” the Canaanite and biblical name most often appropriated by the Zionist movement to indicate that the city is part of the ancient territory of Samaria rather than modern Palestine. The group heralded its time in Nablus as “a day hosted by the Palestinian Authority in Shechem in a gesture of peace and unity,” and these themes were made the focus of the day, but one cannot help but wonder: if politics were made taboo and the group itself makes use of Zionist language, then whose idea of peace and unity was on the table?

A recent Ma’an News Agency article on the event, as well as governate representatives, referred to the participants as “international activists” attending a “peace rally,” but upon further inquiry, both claims appear highly suspect (“Hundreds of international activists at Nablus peace rally,” 12 August 2011).

While the official message of the visit may well have been “peace and freedom,” the cooperation between the PA and Israeli forces to ensure a sufficient security detail for the conspicuous caravan of 25 luxury buses — as well as the PA’s blatant disregard for the Kabbalist group’s own politics — emphasizes the PA’s continued normalization with Israel rather than any display of international unity with Palestinians. As so few Palestinians were actually present, aside from bemused onlookers, it is difficult to see with whom these internationals had hoped to express their solidarity.

The PA’s continued cooperation with Israel

More than anything, the “Peace and Freedom Day” visit raises many questions. Why would a group of 1,200 “activists” with a pre-scheduled visit to the West Bank cities of Nablus and Hebron, both of which are hotbeds of political activism against Israeli occupation and settler-colonialism, gain unfettered access to the occupied West Bank while international human rights activists, academics, professionals and even casual tourists are often forced to conceal any trips to the other side of Israel’s wall for fear of detention or deportation?

Most recently, the Israeli government denied entry to hundreds of “flytilla” activists at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv simply because they declared their true destination was the occupied West Bank. In contrast, these student-guests of the PA in “Shechem” were not only welcomed with open arms by Israeli and Palestinian officials alike, they were provided with a full security escort by Palestinian security forces during their visit to Palestinian Authority-administered areas of the West Bank. Even though the group visited Hebron and Nablus, it viewed both as part of Israel, which appears to have made all the difference for navigating the Israeli government’s often arbitrary entrance requirements.

The Israeli government and its forces have actively helped, rather than impeded, the group’s visit, casting further doubt on the motivations of Nablus’ Kabbalist guests. This is in sharp contrast to its typical treatment of Palestinian, international and Israeli activists, who are more likely to face checkpoints, detention, tear gas or worse. It stands to reason that despite the declarations of the PA, these students were not activists at all — especially not in the eyes of the Israeli government.

Furthermore, at a time when the PA is facing an intense financial crisis, shouldering the costs of such a seemingly absurd event raises further questions about the PA’s governance decisions. A little more than a month before its impending United Nations statehood declaration, the PA has proven once again that it does not have the interests of the average Palestinian at heart. In fact, the PA has shown that it values continued cooperation with Israel and the international community more than it does peace or freedom for the Palestinian people.

Michelle Gyeney is researching the policy incoherence of development practice in Palestine and writes from the West Bank.

“Bin Laden” Heroes Probably Murderered to Keep Them Quiet

2011-08-06T20:01:00.000-07:00

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Some Possibly Killed in Abbottabad Helicopter Crash Months Before

By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor

Today 31 NATO troops, 20 of them Navy Seals from the Osama bin Laden operation died in what is reported as a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

The chances of this story being true is almost nil. The chances of this being a staged coverup is over 80%. We believe these people were murdered to silence them. This is why.

We have solid information on two areas:

1 Osama bin Laden died in 2001 as an active CIA employee and his body was recovered in Afghanistan and taken to “the sand box.” We were told it was frozen. We have so much verification from this, CIA, ISI, US military and top officials. I have a direct confirmation from Bin Laden’s CIA handler who I grilled mercilessly on this.

2 The Abbottabad operation involved numerous American deaths, witnessed, bodies all over, a helicopter crash. These bodies were recovered by land vehicle from Islamabad and there was NO “successful” bin Laden operation of any kind. There was and has been a CIA safe house in Abbotabad where terror suspects were stored for years.

This gave the US several areas of severe vulnerability. Generally, Navy Seals are the best people in the world at keeping their mouths shut, these are real team players, as the term “Seal Team” belies.

We at VT were informed that the bin Laden operation was staged at this time, a theatrical farce, to cover the exit of Secretary Gates, the move by former CIA Director Leon Panetta into the DOD as Secretary of Defense and to stem any heroic claims by new CIA Director Petraeus of killing the long dead Osama bin Laden, the long frozen CIA operative.

Petraeus is a possible presidential contender and had to be denied this “gift from heaven,” a fast track to the oval office for sure.

Again, I remind you, I went over specific meetings on bin Laden with his handlers, getting every last detail. I have watched what has gone on, the continuing need to vilify a long dead top CIA operative to provide residual cover for the Bush administration….

The reason? Bush and his cronies are all facing charges of war crimes, not just in minor jurisdictions but heading for the ICC, putting them on the dock with Gaddafi ( a far less harmful character).

As for the timing of this incident? This we will work on. What we can easily surmise is that some of the dead have been dead since their bodies were taken away from the helicopter crash site in Abbotabad.

Who would order such a thing? We are going to have to wait but we are going to find out. However, we expected this, the timing is exactly as predicted.

HOW VT TRIED TO SAVE THEM

When the phony Abbotbad operation came out, I immediately understood what happened. I also saw much potential good from it other than the tragedy of the dead Americans from the crash. I wrote of this and see their deaths as more heroic than many recognize.

They died to erase for all time remnants of the Bush era fairly tale of badguy and evildoer Osama bin Laden. Enough good men had died chasing a ghost who lived only in phony video and audio tapes by “Bin Laden Studios” in Tel Aviv and in the continual “boogeyman” rhetoric of professional fearmongers.

Not long afterward, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, another able public servant announced the near defeat of Al Qaeda, another Bush fairly tale.

Al Qaeda has never existed, there are no magic worldwide terror conspiracies other than those run by governments. There are several of those and I have written extensively on these. Google will help you with this if you are curious.

When VT saw why the government staged this, we saw we could accomplish two things:

We could simply report the truth for those willing to believe it, something we believe is the right thing to do.
We could also support the United States in a very real way, knowing Pakistan would weather this crisis, timed, in some ways, as a face saving move in response to the embarrassing Raymond Davis affair. I believed if the truth came out, clear enough for insiders, intel and miliary for sure, to understand that we knew and other insiders knew, there would be no reason to “clean house” afterward, to stage a coverup and get rid of any involved.

I had felt that we had provided cover for the Seal Team, we hadn’t trashed them, we acknowledged the dead at Abbotabad where no one else bothered, this is our job as fellow members of America’s military forces (current and former).

More importantly, we got out word, I certainly did enough radio and TV on this, enough that, for anyone who care, the “truth was out there.”

This is all we could do but I hoped it would stem a need for covering tracks. After all, anyone leaking real information on the operation would only seem like they had gotten it from me and I put it out there in such a manner that I allowed room to be “debunked.”

I do this to protect myself but I really was thinking of them. These are great guys, Seals are among the best people on earth. The Seal and Special Forces communities are, of the military groups in the US, some of the finest people I know.

They also help cover my “behind,” which I appreciate.

This is just too obvious, too brazen. I can’t imagine it started at the White House or even cabinet level but maybe I am deluding myself. Bin Laden was all about the election.

After the bond collapse and credit disaster yesterday, anything threatening President Obama’s reelection is seen, by some, as a threat to America’s financial survival. This debt crisis is a bigger threat to the US than a Japanese invasion in 1942 would have been.

You may not see it that way and you certainly cant get out your hunting rifle to fix it. (Don’t be a sap, kill a Jap!)

Someone had gotten to someone. My best guess and this is a guess…an expose’ by the mainstream media, perhaps Murdoch, another guess, conjecture I admit, regarding the farce at Abbottabad, information possibly gotten through spying, bribery and blackmail, threatened to take down Obama.

With Murdoch’s good friend and “monkeyboy,” Netanyahu ‘on the ropes,” with crowds marching in Israel’s streets demanding his ouster, we have more timing to factor in.

The bin Laden killing, the third rate drama of capturing an unarmed frozen dead guy and throwing him into the ocean had probably become an albatross around certain high ranking necks.

Norway was no accident, it was a warning too. It has been containerized, just as the Murdoch espionage issue is now “poor Rupert and the pie thrower.”

These Americans are casualties in a game, one like 9/11, sacrificial pawns, like Britain’s 7/7, all lies, all theatre, all evil.

This is not for public consumption. There are those who know exactly who I am talking to.

There are many of us here who still keep our mouths shut about so many things. There are too many who don’t even care, most of us at VT do. Yes, I am aware I can be jailed, I am aware my passport can be pulled, I already see the damned surveillance.

Amateurs.

We aren’t anti-American. I am simply sick of seeing solutions that go one direction, stealing everything that isn’t nailed down. I am also sick of the fact that Washington can’t visit the “head’ without Israel’s permission.

This…today, this is too much. It is unforgivable. We are not going to allow this to stand.

We have a long standing history of “cleaning house” after operations of this kind. Usually its dead senators in plane crashes, heart attacks, car wrecks, like the Minot Barksdale or 9/11 incidents. I could name a dozen more. Does the name Wheeler meaning anything to you? Anyone remember Pat Tillman?

But this many?

RAYMOND DAVIS: Gordon Duff Discusses U.S. Diplomatic Immunity in Pakistan Murder

Seal Team 6 Crash Was An Inside Job!

War on error

2011-08-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

The "error" in the headline is not a typo. Israel's terror has been America's error. I've never been much of a fan of conspiracy theories, though most raise questions that should be answered.

However, I did question both the official story of 9/11 and several of the conspiracy theories advanced at the time.

My concern was who benefited from 9/11. My conclusion? Israel.

Without 9/11, the US had no excuse for invading Afghanistan. If it didn't happen, George W Bush's "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Iraq (with Iran in his gun sight) would have been even more irrelevant.

The battle against Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden was the precursor to the invasion of Iraq - and the trumped up connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq provided an excuse for the invasion.

David Ray Griffin's book The New Pearl Harbor Revisited showed that virtually every dimension of the official account of 9/11 was false beyond reasonable doubt.

Ever since G W Bush proclaimed America's war on terror we've had reason to question the veracity of many of the wars that America has engaged in.

However, the real evidence of who the terrorists are comes from several studies done on the role played by Israel from its beginnings.

A British-made documentary from 2002 called The Age Of Terror examines the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946 by Zionists.

The south-wing of the hotel, then occupied by British civil-military authorities, was bombed killing 91 people.

Twenty-eight of the victims were British, 41 Arabic and 17 were Jewish.

The Zionists who carried out the attack, known as the Irgun, were led by a future prime minister of Israel, Menachem Begin.

The King David Hotel bombing was an atrocity widely considered to be the first real incidence of 20th century terrorism.

Since that time Zionists, with the complicit intelligence gathering and plots of Mossad, have engaged in more terrorist acts against Israel's perceived enemies than those committed by the world's most notorious terrorists combined.

Last January, Washington-based investigative journalist, author and reputed syndicated columnist Wayne Madsen made a revelation that completely discredited the official story of 9/11.

Madsen revealed that: "British intelligence reported in February 2002 that the Israeli Mossad ran the Arab hijacker cells that were later blamed by the US government's 9/11 Commission for carrying out the aerial attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon.

"WMR (Wayne Madsen Report) has received details of the British intelligence report which was suppressed by the government of then Prime Minister Tony Blair."

The entire article should be read by all interested in the unveiling of a true conspiracy beyond theory and is available online at http://www.opinion-maker.org/2011/01/british-intelligence-reports/.

Madsen concludes his exposure with a comment that connects the terrorism of the 9/11 attacks with an Israeli minister and future Israeli Prime Minister.

"Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented on the 9/11 attacks on US television shortly after they occurred," he reports.

"Netanyahu said: 'It is very good!'

"It now appears that Netanyahu, in his zeal, blew Mossad's cover as the masterminds of 9/11."

It's now well established that neo-conservatives in the Bush administration and Israel-firsters - including William Kristol, Richard Perle, Ari Fleischer, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams and Douglas Feith - were responsible for getting America into a war with Iraq.

Now, a decade after invading Afghanistan and continuing the costly game of protecting Israel in the Middle East, America is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Israel has almost bankrupted America. China owns what's left.

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=311250

The forgotten War of Terror

Litvinenko, Putin and 9/11

2011-08-04T18:43:00.000-07:00

By Alexander Litvinenko

Litvinenko nuked by Putin's SS Thugs

One month before the 9/11 attacks, the influential Time Magazine published an article about Putin’s connections with Russian crime syndicates. Just one month later, after the terrorist attacks, the same magazine would call the Russian president “a reliable friend and partner of the United States”.

What made Russia and the US into allies was Putin’s telephone call to President Bush just 30 minutes after the 9/11 tragedy. Had Putin been sitting near his telephone and waiting for the right time? [Russian President Vladimir Putin was on the phone to George W. Bush -- the first international leader to call the U.S. president on September 11.]

So, who won from the 9/11 terrorist attacks? Afghan Taliban? Western democracies? Perhaps, Saddam Hussein, who is on trial now? Only one political force – Putin and his KGB – benefits from international terrorism, both inside and outside Russia. After the 9/11 attacks and following anti-terrorist hysteria, the KGB re-gained its power at home and influence at the internaional stage, not to mention the sky-high oil prices.

Long ago, Sudoplatov has revealed that the Middle East terrorism was part of the KGB’s “oil war” against the West. This war is still going on.

These days, Russian special services organised another performance, with their own diplomats being taken hostages in Iraq and the terrorists demanding Russia to withdraw from Chechnya immediately. In addition, it is said that the same hostage-takers also captured two American soldiers.

The Russian media immediately promoted the Iraqi terorists’ demands all over the world. The question is: why did the same media remained silent when a similar demand – to stop the war in Chechnya – was made by the hostage-takers in Beslan school? What is the diference?

Oddly enough, underdeveloped Russia is now a member of the G7 forum of the most economically developed democracies. Furthermore, the Chechens’ hangman Putin is now its chairman. On the eve of the summit, he desperately needs to show himself as a victim of internaional terrorism. Undoubtedly, the agents of Russian special services in Iraq organise these provocations exactly for this purpose.

Let me remind some statements of Russian officials which were made just after the 9/11 attacks.

“Four of the terrorists who piloted the planes for the terrorist attacks in the US had paticipated in military activities in Chechnya, says Sergey Yastrzhembsky, Russian president’s aide. According to Mr. Yastrzhembsky, the people who sent the terrorists to attack the sky-scrapers had trained them on the basis of Chechen rebels’ experience. The Russian side has already sent the proofs of that to US special services.”

*********

“A technical description of ‘Boeing-737′ airliner and a manual for pilots were found in a Chechen rebels’ hiding place, the FSB Chechnya Direcorate informs. This hiding place was found by the special services in a house of some women residing in Tsotsin-Yurt, Kurchloi District, Chechnya. A CD kept in this hiding place contaned the aircraft’s description. Besides, eplosives, weapons, ammunition and Wahhabite literature were found in the same hiding place. According to the special services’ information, this hiding plae was organised by the gang led by a notorious terrorist, known as Abdurahman the Small.

Meanwhile, mother of Ahmed al-Hamdi, one of the 9/11 attacks suspect, has confesed that her son had fought in Chechnya. According to her, two months ago her son telephoned her from Chechnya, where he had went without warning his family. The last time she saw Ahmed al-Hamdi was last December, when he visited Saudi Arabia.”

********

“Rusian special services possess an achive of Chechen rebels, whose documents show that the rebels received support from Osama bin Laden. According to the documents, wide-scale recruitment of mercenaries to send them to Chechnya is underway in a number of Moslem countries. The rebel leaders Hattab and Shamil Basayev co-ordinate their activities with Osama bin Laden, the number one terrorist and the ideologist of ‘Global Jihad’.

The training of terrorists and sending them to Chechnya is organised through Hezbollah, the Yemenese Moslem Brotherhood, and International Islamic Relief.”

Since September 2001, we still have got no proves of all these Kremlin’s lies. Where are you, Abdurahman the Small, Ahmed al-Hamdi, the 7-feet-tall Chechen nuclear sumbarine commander with a scar on his face who dreams of killing a US admiral, 500 Chechen bodyguards of Osama bin Laden, 300 most desperate Chechen defenders of Baghdad, numerous caves and hiding placs with pilot manuals? Where are all these Sheharezada characters, invented and promoted so well by Lubyanka and the Kremlin?

And, after that, how should we accept another lies of Russian propaganda about Chechen Resistance’s connections to “world terrorism”?

Putin about, September 11 attacks 9/11

A Secret War in 120 Countries

2011-08-03T19:14:00.000-07:00

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The Pentagon’s New Power Elite

By Nick Turse, Tom Dispatch

Somewhere on this planet an American commando is carrying out a mission. Now, say that 70 times and you’re done... for the day. Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world’s countries. This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now.

After a U.S. Navy SEAL put a bullet in Osama bin Laden’s chest and another in his head, one of the most secretive black-ops units in the American military suddenly found its mission in the public spotlight. It was atypical. While it’s well known that U.S. Special Operations forces are deployed in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s increasingly apparent that such units operate in murkier conflict zones like Yemen and Somalia, the full extent of their worldwide war has remained deeply in the shadows.

Last year, Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post reported that U.S. Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the Bush presidency. By the end of this year, U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me, that number will likely reach 120. “We do a lot of traveling -- a lot more than Afghanistan or Iraq,” he said recently. This global presence -- in about 60% of the world’s nations and far larger than previously acknowledged -- provides striking new evidence of a rising clandestine Pentagon power elite waging a secret war in all corners of the world.

The Rise of the Military’s Secret Military

Born of a failed 1980 raid to rescue American hostages in Iran, in which eight U.S. service members died, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) was established in 1987. Having spent the post-Vietnam years distrusted and starved for money by the regular military, special operations forces suddenly had a single home, a stable budget, and a four-star commander as their advocate. Since then, SOCOM has grown into a combined force of startling proportions. Made up of units from all the service branches, including the Army’s “Green Berets” and Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Air Commandos, and Marine Corps Special Operations teams, in addition to specialized helicopter crews, boat teams, civil affairs personnel, para-rescuemen, and even battlefield air-traffic controllers and special operations weathermen, SOCOM carries out the United States’ most specialized and secret missions. These include assassinations, counterterrorist raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence analysis, foreign troop training, and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations.

One of its key components is the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command whose primary mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. Reporting to the president and acting under his authority, JSOC maintains a global hit list that includes American citizens. It has been operating an extra-legal “kill/capture” campaign that John Nagl, a past counterinsurgency adviser to four-star general and soon-to-be CIA Director David Petraeus, calls "an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine."

This assassination program has been carried out by commando units like the Navy SEALs and the Army’s Delta Force as well as via drone strikes as part of covert wars in which the CIA is also involved in countries like Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen. In addition, the command operates a network of secret prisons, perhaps as many as 20 black sites in Afghanistan alone, used for interrogating high-value targets.

Growth Industry

From a force of about 37,000 in the early 1990s, Special Operations Command personnel have grown to almost 60,000, about a third of whom are career members of SOCOM; the rest have other military occupational specialties, but periodically cycle through the command. Growth has been exponential since September 11, 2001, as SOCOM’s baseline budget almost tripled from $2.3 billion to $6.3 billion. If you add in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has actually more than quadrupled to $9.8 billion in these years. Not surprisingly, the number of its personnel deployed abroad has also jumped four-fold. Further increases, and expanded operations, are on the horizon.

Lieutenant General Dennis Hejlik, the former head of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command -- the last of the service branches to be incorporated into SOCOM in 2006 -- indicated, for instance, that he foresees a doubling of his former unit of 2,600. “I see them as a force someday of about 5,000, like equivalent to the number of SEALs that we have on the battlefield. Between [5,000] and 6,000,” he said at a June breakfast with defense reporters in Washington. Long-term plans already call for the force to increase by 1,000.

During his recent Senate confirmation hearings, Navy Vice Admiral William McRaven, the incoming SOCOM chief and outgoing head of JSOC (which he commanded during the bin Laden raid) endorsed a steady manpower growth rate of 3% to 5% a year, while also making a pitch for even more resources, including additional drones and the construction of new special operations facilities.

A former SEAL who still sometimes accompanies troops into the field, McRaven expressed a belief that, as conventional forces are drawn down in Afghanistan, special ops troops will take on an ever greater role. Iraq, he added, would benefit if elite U.S forces continued to conduct missions there past the December 2011 deadline for a total American troop withdrawal. He also assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that “as a former JSOC commander, I can tell you we were looking very hard at Yemen and at Somalia.”

During a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association's annual Special Operations and Low-intensity Conflict Symposium earlier this year, Navy Admiral Eric Olson, the outgoing chief of Special Operations Command, pointed to a composite satellite image of the world at night. Before September 11, 2001, the lit portions of the planet -- mostly the industrialized nations of the global north -- were considered the key areas. "But the world changed over the last decade," he said. "Our strategic focus has shifted largely to the south... certainly within the special operations community, as we deal with the emerging threats from the places where the lights aren't."

To that end, Olson launched "Project Lawrence," an effort to increase cultural proficiencies -- like advanced language training and better knowledge of local history and customs -- for overseas operations. The program is, of course, named after the British officer, Thomas Edward Lawrence (better known as "Lawrence of Arabia"), who teamed up with Arab fighters to wage a guerrilla war in the Middle East during World War I. Mentioning Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mali, and Indonesia, Olson added that SOCOM now needed "Lawrences of Wherever."

While Olson made reference to only 51 countries of top concern to SOCOM, Col. Nye told me that on any given day, Special Operations forces are deployed in approximately 70 nations around the world. All of them, he hastened to add, at the request of the host government. According to testimony by Olson before the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year, approximately 85% of special operations troops deployed overseas are in 20 countries in the CENTCOM area of operations in the Greater Middle East: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. The others are scattered across the globe from South America to Southeast Asia, some in small numbers, others as larger contingents.

Special Operations Command won’t disclose exactly which countries its forces operate in. “We’re obviously going to have some places where it’s not advantageous for us to list where we’re at,” says Nye. “Not all host nations want it known, for whatever reasons they have -- it may be internal, it may be regional.”

But it’s no secret (or at least a poorly kept one) that so-called black special operations troops, like the SEALs and Delta Force, are conducting kill/capture missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen, while “white” forces like the Green Berets and Rangers are training indigenous partners as part of a worldwide secret war against al-Qaeda and other militant groups. In the Philippines, for instance, the U.S. spends $50 million a year on a 600-person contingent of Army Special Operations forces, Navy Seals, Air Force special operators, and others that carries out counterterrorist operations with Filipino allies against insurgent groups like Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf.

Last year, as an analysis of SOCOM documents, open-source Pentagon information, and a database of Special Operations missions compiled by investigative journalist Tara McKelvey (for the Medill School of Journalism’s National Security Journalism Initiative) reveals, America’s most elite troops carried out joint-training exercises in Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Germany, Indonesia, Mali, Norway, Panama, and Poland. So far in 2011, similar training missions have been conducted in the Dominican Republic, Jordan, Romania, Senegal, South Korea, and Thailand, among other nations. In reality, Nye told me, training actually went on in almost every nation where Special Operations forces are deployed. “Of the 120 countries we visit by the end of the year, I would say the vast majority are training exercises in one fashion or another. They would be classified as training exercises.”

The Pentagon’s Power Elite

Once the neglected stepchildren of the military establishment, Special Operations forces have been growing exponentially not just in size and budget, but also in power and influence. Since 2002, SOCOM has been authorized to create its own Joint Task Forces -- like Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines -- a prerogative normally limited to larger combatant commands like CENTCOM. This year, without much fanfare, SOCOM also established its own Joint Acquisition Task Force, a cadre of equipment designers and acquisition specialists.

With control over budgeting, training, and equipping its force, powers usually reserved for departments (like the Department of the Army or the Department of the Navy), dedicated dollars in every Defense Department budget, and influential advocates in Congress, SOCOM is by now an exceptionally powerful player at the Pentagon. With real clout, it can win bureaucratic battles, purchase cutting-edge technology, and pursue fringe research like electronically beaming messages into people’s heads or developing stealth-like cloaking technologies for ground troops. Since 2001, SOCOM’s prime contracts awarded to small businesses -- those that generally produce specialty equipment and weapons -- have jumped six-fold.

Headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, but operating out of theater commands spread out around the globe, including Hawaii, Germany, and South Korea, and active in the majority of countries on the planet, Special Operations Command is now a force unto itself. As outgoing SOCOM chief Olson put it earlier this year, SOCOM “is a microcosm of the Department of Defense, with ground, air, and maritime components, a global presence, and authorities and responsibilities that mirror the Military Departments, Military Services, and Defense Agencies.”

Tasked to coordinate all Pentagon planning against global terrorism networks and, as a result, closely connected to other government agencies, foreign militaries, and intelligence services, and armed with a vast inventory of stealthy helicopters, manned fixed-wing aircraft, heavily-armed drones, high-tech guns-a-go-go speedboats, specialized Humvees and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, as well as other state-of-the-art gear (with more on the way), SOCOM represents something new in the military. Whereas the late scholar of militarism Chalmers Johnson used to refer to the CIA as "the president's private army," today JSOC performs that role, acting as the chief executive’s private assassination squad, and its parent, SOCOM, functions as a new Pentagon power-elite, a secret military within the military possessing domestic power and global reach.

In 120 countries across the globe, troops from Special Operations Command carry out their secret war of high-profile assassinations, low-level targeted killings, capture/kidnap operations, kick-down-the-door night raids, joint operations with foreign forces, and training missions with indigenous partners as part of a shadowy conflict unknown to most Americans. Once “special” for being small, lean, outsider outfits, today they are special for their power, access, influence, and aura.

That aura now benefits from a well-honed public relations campaign which helps them project a superhuman image at home and abroad, even while many of their actual activities remain in the ever-widening shadows. Typical of the vision they are pushing was this statement from Admiral Olson: “I am convinced that the forces… are the most culturally attuned partners, the most lethal hunter-killers, and most responsive, agile, innovative, and efficiently effective advisors, trainers, problem-solvers, and warriors that any nation has to offer.”

Recently at the Aspen Institute’s Security Forum, Olson offered up similarly gilded comments and some misleading information, too, claiming that U.S. Special Operations forces were operating in just 65 countries and engaged in combat in only two of them. When asked about drone strikes in Pakistan, he reportedly replied, “Are you talking about unattributed explosions?”

What he did let slip, however, was telling. He noted, for instance, that black operations like the bin Laden mission, with commandos conducting heliborne night raids, were now exceptionally common. A dozen or so are conducted every night, he said. Perhaps most illuminating, however, was an offhand remark about the size of SOCOM. Right now, he emphasized, U.S. Special Operations forces were approximately as large as Canada’s entire active duty military. In fact, the force is larger than the active duty militaries of many of the nations where America’s elite troops now operate each year, and it’s only set to grow larger.

Americans have yet to grapple with what it means to have a “special” force this large, this active, and this secret -- and they are unlikely to begin to do so until more information is available. It just won’t be coming from Olson or his troops. “Our access [to foreign countries] depends on our ability to not talk about it,” he said in response to questions about SOCOM’s secrecy. When missions are subject to scrutiny like the bin Laden raid, he said, the elite troops object. The military’s secret military, said Olson, wants "to get back into the shadows and do what they came in to do.”

Nick Turse is a historian, essayist, and investigative journalist. The associate editor of TomDispatch.com and a new senior editor at Alternet.org, his latest book is The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Verso Books). This article is a collaboration between Alternet.org and TomDispatch.com.

The Dark Side of Murdoch's Russian Billboard Business

2011-08-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

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By Simon Shuster

Pieces of Rupert Murdoch's empire continue to fall away. Last month, as British police continued to investigate phone-hacking claims against the News of the World, the media magnate sold off his Russian billboard company, News Outdoor, for around $270 million, less than a fifth of the value it had three years ago. The sale marked a quiet end to one of Russia's oddest corporate sagas, and looking back, the troubles of the British tabloids seem almost tame compared with the murder and corruption scandals in the Russian billboard market, which Murdoch's company dominated for nearly a decade.

By all accounts, the unexpected break for Murdoch in the Russian ad market came in 2002 after the assassination of Vladimir Kanevsky, then the billboard king of Moscow. In February of that year, at an intersection near the Kremlin, a man in a black ski cap walked up to Kanevsky's car and pumped five rounds into his head and chest. Because of a weapons check at the security firm that protected him, Kanevsky's bodyguards happened to be unarmed that day, and the killer managed to escape. But aside from this peculiar detail, the fact of the murder was not extraordinary. Kanevsky had a lot of enemies, and hired hits were still a fairly common way of resolving disputes in Russia, which had not yet tamed the capitalist free-for-all that followed the Soviet collapse. Between 1996 and 2004, at least 11 Russian advertising executives were killed or wounded in contract hits, with car bombs and knifings among the methods used. Only two of those crimes have been solved.

For Murdoch, the killing of Kanevsky presented a surprise opportunity. The media mogul had acquired News Outdoor less than two years earlier, in November 2000, from a group of Russian businessmen, and had given the reins to Maxim Tkachev, a seasoned operator in Moscow's business circles. Tkachev had started out producing and selling bootleg CDs of bands like Deep Purple and Pink Floyd in the late 1980s, and went on with a group of college friends to create the billboard firms that Murdoch would later acquire. Less than two years after the deal, Tkachev had made News Outdoor the leading player in practically every major Russian city except for Moscow, where Kanevsky's company stood in the way.

The two men had known each other since 1995, when both were starting out in the billboard business. "[Kanevsky] was what I would call a hooligan, but a smart one," Tkachev says. "He was always willing to negotiate, and his business earned my respect." But one thing Kanevsky had never talked about was a desire to sell his assets, which included the most lucrative outdoor ad space along Moscow's central drags. His murder meant it would soon go on the market. "I had a revelation that it was time to get out," recalls Kanevsky's partner, Mikhail Lerner, who spoke to TIME by phone from his vacation home in Sicily. "I decided to go into a cleaner business — digital technologies."

But Tkachev was not so easily spooked by the violence in his industry, even after a hit man came for him in June 2002. At the time, News Outdoor's offices were housed in an old Stalinist building on Moscow's Leningradsky highway, a hulking mass of yellow stone adorned with crests of the hammer and sickle. As Tkachev hurried into the entryway one morning, he was met by a man dressed like a newspaper vendor. As Tkachev recalls, the man raised his arm as if to offer a free newspaper, and then fired one round into Tkachev's chest from a gun concealed beneath it. When he tried to fire again, the pistol jammed and Tkachev survived.

Murdoch was furious over the incident. He sent a letter to Vladimir Putin, then Russia's President, demanding a thorough investigation. But it did little good. No one was ever charged with ordering the murder. A few months later, after having surgery to remove part of his lung, Tkachev dove back into the billboard business, and by the beginning of 2003, talks were well under way to acquire two-thirds of Kanevsky's company under terms that were highly unusual for Murdoch's News Corp. There was no time to do due diligence or have a retention period, as would normally take place before a major acquisition in the West. "They wanted the money now, and this was nonnegotiable," Tkachev says.

So News Corp. agreed to lend its Russian company an undisclosed sum of money to buy the dead man's assets. Salim Tharani, who was News Outdoor's financial director in Russia at the time, says the deal was an incredible bargain: "They could have easily paid three or four times as much, because that deal made them the dominant player [in Moscow]. They could effectively dictate pricing after that." Never before had a foreign firm taken such a position in the Russian media industry.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2085878,00.html

Anti-Muslim Ideologues Spurred Killer to Attack

2011-08-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

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By Michael Collins Piper

The mass media is having a field day talking about the fact that a Christian—and so-called “right-wing extremist”—was responsible for the mass murder in Norway. But what the media has carefully played down is the fact that the confessed terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik, was a hard-line supporter of Israel, a violent pro-Israeli lunatic (like fanatic John Hagee) lashing out at a government—that of Norway’s Labor Party—he perceived to be hostile to Israel.

This fact casts a new perspective on the event and is one the media would prefer to keep under wraps, particularly those pro-Israeli voices that have helped shape Breivik’s thinking. References to Breivik as blond haired and blue-eyed permeated the media, even including The Washington Post, that, as a matter of political correctness, will not report the race of suspected criminals sought by the police in the nation’s capital. The implicit intent was to focus on white racism rather than pro-Israeli fanaticism.

Apparently, Breivik’s problem with the Labor Party—whose youth camp he targeted—was that he viewed the party as being an enemy of Israel.

In Israel, bloggers hailed Breivik, suggesting the result of his crime was the welcome and God-sanctioned destruction of Israel’s enemies. Breivik urged Europeans to enter into a “pro-Israel, anti-Jihad alliance,” according to the pro-Israel Washington Times, which admitted on July 25 that one of its sources had been in correspondence with the terrorist as far back as July 2009.

But Breivik does not stand alone urging Europeans to align themselves with Israel. In fact, his pro-Israel rhetoric was preceded with similar talk from a number of European nationalists—often referred to as being “right wing”—who find Israel to be a viable ally.

They include—but are not limited to: Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party; Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Front, who says her movement is now “Zionistic”; Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, who makes regular pilgrimages to Israel; and Filip Dewinter, chairman of the Vlaamas Belang Party in Belgium, who has claimed “Israel is a sort of outpost for our Western society, an outpost of democracy, of freedom of speech, of protecting common values within a hostile environment.”

While—as AFP’s readers know— all of Dewinter’s points are questionable, Dewinter (and Breiviks) ignore that, since its establishment, Israel has energetically razed Christian holy sites, destroyed ancient Christian relics and instituted laws imprisoning Christians for proselytizing their faith.

These Europeans ignore the fact that the Muslims they proclaim to be enemies of Christianity actually revere Jesus Christ as a beloved prophet, as did Mohammad himself. At the same time, they ignore the ugly hostility toward Christianity that is an article of faith in Israel and that has been acknowledged by modern-day Jewish scholars in such recent works as Jesus in the Talmud* by Dr. Peter Schafer and Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence** by Dr. Elliot Horowitz.

While no nationalist anywhere questions the European desire to maintain sovereignty and traditional cultural integrity, many do question whether nationalists in Europe should merge their concerns with those of Israel’s geopolitical ambitions. This is akin to the claim by pro-Israel propagandists who claim that the interests of Israel and those of the United States are the same.

In the wake of 9-11, those propagandists stoked up fears about the so-called rise of Islam and of a purported Muslim population explosion about to overtake the United States and Europe. This is precisely the kind of rhetoric that stimulated Breivik and many others.

However, as far back as Jan. 27, The New York Times let its elite readership in on the big secret: The Muslim population is not accelerating exponentially either in the United States or in Europe or even around the world. The Times was commenting on a study, The Future of the Global Muslim Population, the subject of a joint inquiry by two think tanks, the Pew Research Center and the John Templeton Foundation.

Cryptically entitled “Report offers surprises on Muslims’ growth,” the Times article advised that “predictions that Europe will become a majority Muslim ‘Eurabia’ are unfounded.”

The Times pointed out during the next 20 years the world’s Muslim population is projected to increase from 23.4 percent to 26.4 percent, hardly an “explosion.”

The Times added that “such growth is not enough to create a drastic shift in the world’s religious balance.”

And while many have been convinced by pro-Israeli voices that the Muslim population in Europe is growing by leaps and bounds, the Times revealed that the study found that Muslims in Europe, now making up 6 percent of the population, will only grow to 8 percent by 2030.

The Times noted: “In France and Belgium, Muslims will be about 10 percent of the population in 20 years, and in Britain, 8 percent.”

As far as the United States is concerned, within 20 years Muslims will only constitute 1.7 percent of the American population, described by the Times as “about the equivalent of Jews in the United States today.”

Essentially, the Times was telling its readers: “You really don’t need to worry about Muslim hordes taking over America and instituting Sharia law.”

But that message isn’t reaching the mass audience and it didn’t reach Christian-Zionist soldiers like Breivik, who are marching off to war against Islam.

*Jesus in the Talmud is available fromAFP/FAB for $25 plus $3 S&H.
Call 1-888-699-NEWS toll free to charge.

**Reckless Rites is available from TBR BOOK CLUB for $25 plus $5
S&H. Call 1-877-773-9077 toll free to charge.

A journalist specializing in media critique, Michael Collins Piper is the author of The High Priests of War, The New Jerusalem, Dirty Secrets, The Judas Goats, The Golem, Target Traficant and My First Days in the White House All are available from AFP.

The Piper Report Aug 1, 2011

MCP delves into the latest news coming out of the NYT involving Jewish lawyer David Yerushalmi and the Zionist role in fomenting the anti-Islamic hysteria in the US and Europe that has gripped much of the patriot/white nationalist movement.

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer fundraise on Norway attack
By Alex Pareene, Salon

America's most virulent anti-Islam bloggers continue attacking all Muslims, accuse terror victims of anti-Semitism

As a writer, it sure sucks when someone murders a bunch of people based on your ideas. (I mean, I assume that sucks. Weirdly, it's never happened to me.) So you can understand why right-wing anti-Islam bloggers are all being kind of defensive, these days.

Anders Breivik, the anti-Islam terrorist who killed 77 people in Norway on July 22, read a lot of American anti-Islam bloggers, many of whom he cited in his lengthy manifesto. Breivik's favorites included Robert Spencer, a self-proclaimed expert on Islam whose "Jihad Watch" blog was quoted and cited in Breivik's manifesto, and Spencer's ally and collaborator Pam Geller, whose "Atlas Shrugs" was similarly recommended by the killer.

So some people have been like, "hey, wow guys, a crazy person took everything you write so seriously that he murdered a bunch of people, in the name of protecting his nation from the creeping 'Islamization' of Europe that you guys constantly crow about, maybe you guys should stop and think for a minute about the horrible, hateful things you all write, all the time." And Spencer and Geller have basically screeched back, "CENSORSHIP!!!!!"

They are now actually fundraising on the fact that they helped inspire a massacre. Or more accurately, they're begging for money to protect them from the imaginary witch hunt that they claim the liberals will mount. (Is this part of the witch hunt? I am always confused about whether I'm witch-hunting or not, when I call people horrid hateful bigots.) Spencer also signed Geller's fundraising blog, and if you donate more than $500 to Atlas Shrugs, ThinkProgress reports, they will send you a signed copy of Geller's book, "Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance." (I assume a coordinated terror attack against radical Islam's liberal enablers is written off in the pamphlet as impractical.)

People are not responsible for what crazy people do after reading their blog posts for years, obviously (though inciting fear of and hatred for ethnic and religious minority groups tends to be the sort of speech with the bloodiest track record), and Pamela Geller never called on anyone to go out and murder some liberals, to save us from the Islamists. But she has now stopped just short of justifying the attacks, after the fact!

Adam Serwer notes the strong 'they had it coming' vibe in Geller's latest on Norway. From Geller's post:

But the more that is revealed about that youth indoctrination center, the more grotesque the whole story becomes. Of course, the genocidal leftists will twist what I write here; I am not condoning the slaughter in Norway or anywhere. I abhor violence (except in regard to self defense). But the jihad-loving media never told us what antisemitic war games they were playing on that island. Utoya Island is a Communist/Socialist campground, and they clearly had a pro-Islamic agenda.

Only the malevolent media could use the euphemism summer camp and get away with it.

The slaughter was horrific. What these kids were being taught and instructed to do was a different kind of grotesque. There is no justification for Breivik's actions whatsoever. There is also no justification for Norway's antisemitism and demonization of Israel.

Those are pretty perfunctory disclaimers against violence. Those dead people clearly had a pro-Islamic agenda! "Antisemitic war games" makes the victims sound like ... soldiers preparing to attack Israel, making violence against them conceivably an act of "defense of Israel," which is, of course, a justification for violence that in Geller's world is indistinguishable from "self-defense."

It may surprise you to learn that Geller feels any shame, ever, but she did delete the blatantly racist photo caption that originally accompanied the post. The faces of the camp attendees look, to Geller, "more Middle Eastern or mixed than pure Norwegian." (!) In other words: I abhor violence, but these pro-Islamofascist soldiers were being trained by the Commie-Nazis to destroy Israel, also they look sorta Arab, right?

So! Please remember how horribly these guys are reacting to what should be a moment of shameful self-reflection for them, the next time you see them cited in some newspaper editorial or interviews on Fox or something.

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More: Alex Pareene

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/08/01/pamela_geller_norway/index.html

The Zionist Terror Network in Norway and elsewhere

The Ultimate Miracle

2011-07-31T18:13:00.000-07:00

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Ed Warning :

The following may infuriate Muslims, Christians, Jews, Atheists and others who have sets of ideas implanted within themselves through their mentors or their environment. If you are one of those, please go away

Rashad Khalifa. Ph.D.
Imam, Mosque of Tucson 1'
Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A.

Library of Congress Card No. 82-083551

Why haven't you heard about this? Here in the West, Rashad Khalifa's work has not received the attention it deserves. Only two `Western' comments on his momentous discovery are noteworthy. The first comment appeared in the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN of September 1980.

It's an ingenious study of the Quran, but it could have been more impressive if Khalifa had consulted me before he wrote it. Nineteen¹ is an unusual prime. For example, it's the sum of the first powers of 9 and 10 and the difference between the second powers of 9 and 10... (Scientific American, Sept. 1980, p. 22)

Three years later the Canadian Council on the Study of Religion reported in its QUARTERLY REVIEW of April 1983 that the code Khalifa discovered is

"an authenticating proof of the divine origin of the Quran."

There now exists physical evidence for a message from God to the world. This marks the advent of a new era in religion; an era where FAITH is no longer needed. There is no need to "believe, "when one "knows." People of the past generations were required to believe in God, and uphold His commandments ON FAITH. With the advent of the physical evidence reported in this book, we no longer believe that God exists; we KNOW that God exists. Such knowledge is ascertained through God's final scripture, the Quran, wherein overwhelming physical evidence has been encoded.

Historical Background,

In 1968, I realized that the existing English translations of the Quran did not present the truthful message of God's Final Testament [...]

When I saw the truth of God's word thus distorted, I decided to translate the Quran, at least for the benefit of my own children. Since I was a chemist by profession, and despite my extensive religious background - my father was a renowned Sufi leader in Egypt - I vowed to God that I would not move from one verse to the next unless I fully understood it.

I purchased all the available books of Quranic translations and exegeses (Meanings) I could find, placed them on a large table, and began my translation. The first sura (Chapter), The Key, was completed in a few days. The first verse in Sura 2 is "A.L.M." The translation of this verse took four years, and coincided with the divine unveiling of "the secret," the great mathematical Miracle of the Quran.

The books of Quranic exegeses unanimously agreed that "no one knows the meaning or significance of the Quranic Initials A.L.M., or any other initials." I decided to write the Quran into the computer, analyze the whole text, and see if there were any mathematical correlations among these Quranic initials.

I used a time-share terminal, connected by telephone to a giant computer. To test my hypothesis, I decided to look at the single - lettered Quranic Initials -"Q" (Qaaf) of Suras 42 and 50, "S" (Saad) of Suras 7, 19, and 38, and "N" (Noon) of Sura 68. As detailed in my first book MIRACLE OF THE QURAN: SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MYSTERIOUS ALPHABETS (Islamic Productions, 1973), many previous attempts to unravel the mystery had failed.

Employing the ultimate in scientific proof, namely, mathematics, the evidence comes in the form of an extremely intricate code. Thus, every word, indeed every letter in Quran is placed in accordance with a mathematical design that is clearly beyond human ability.

Not only does the evidence prove the authenticity and perfect preservation of Qumn, but also confirms the miracles of previous messengers, including Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus. None of us witnessed the parting of the Red Sea, or the virgin birth of Christ. However, upon reviewing the evidence presented here, and examining the appropriate narrations, the reader will be as positively certain as an eyewitness.

Some the Quranic Challenges to mankind

No power on earth can produce a Quran like this:

"If all the humans and all the jinns banded together to produce a Quran like this, they can never do it, no matter how much assistance they give one another."

A great SECRET will prove the authenticity and divine source of Quran:

"The disbelievers said,'This is a fabrication by him (Muhammad) with the help of others. Indeed, they have produced a blasphemy and a lie. They also said,
'Tales from the past, dictated upon him day and night.' Say, 'This comes from the One who knows the SECRET in the heaven and the earth.'

Quran is God's message to the world, and God guarantees its reservation forever:

"Surely.we have sent down this message, and surely, we will preserve it"

This great secret is to be unveiled at a time subsequent to the era of prophet Muhammad:

"They say, 'How come no miracle came down to him from his Lord?' Say, 'The future belongs to God; so wait and I will wait with you"

***

It will take the reader a long while to research and verify this awesome phenomenon. But please take your time as it is really worth studying.

"One of the Great Miracles" [Quran 74:35]

The Quran is characterized by a unique phenomenon never found in any human authored book. Every element of the Quran is mathematically composed - the suras, the verses, the words, the number of certain letters, the number of words from the same root, the number and variety of divine names, the unique spelling of certain words, the absence or deliberate alteration of certain letters within certain words, and many other elements of the Quran besides its content. There are two major facets of the Quran's mathematical system: (1) The mathematical literary composition, and (2) The mathematical structure involving the numbers of suras and verses. Because of this comprehensive mathematical coding, the slightest distortion of the Quran's text or physical arrangement is immediately exposed.

SIMPLE TO UNDERSTAND - IMPOSSIBLE TO IMITATE

For the first time in history we have a scripture with built-in proof of divine authorship - a superhuman mathematical composition.

Any reader of this book can easily verify the Quran's mathematical miracle. The word "God" (Allah) is written in bold capital letters throughout the text. The cumulative frequency of occurrence of the word "God" is noted at the bottom of each page in the left hand corner. The number in the right hand corner is the cumulative total of the numbers for verses containing the word "God." The last page of the text, Page 372, shows that the total occurrence of the word "God" is 2698, or 19x142. The total sum of verse numbers for all verses containing the word "God" is 118123, also a multiple of 19 (118123 = 19x6217).

Nineteen¹ is the common denominator throughout the Quran's mathematical system.

This phenomenon alone suffices as incontrovertible proof that the Quran is God's message to the world. No human being(s) could have kept track of 2698 occurrences of the word "God," and the numbers of verses where they occur. This is especially impossible in view of (1) the age of ignorance during which the Quran was revealed, and (2) the fact that the suras and verses were widely separated in time and place of revelation. The chronological order of revelation was vastly different from the final format (Appendix 23). However, the Quran's mathematical system is not limited to the word "God;" it is extremely vast, extremely intricate, and totally comprehensive.

THE SIMPLE FACTS

Like the Quran itself, the Quran's mathematical coding ranges from the very simple, to the very complex. The Simple Facts are those observations that can be ascertained without using any tools. The complex facts require the assistance of a calculator or a computer. The following facts do not require any tools to be verified, but please remember they all refer to the original Arabic text:

The first verse (1:1),known as "Basmalah," consists of 19 letters.

The Quran consists of 114 suras, which is ..............19 x 6.

The total number of verses in the Quran is 6346, or ....19 x 334. [6234 numbered verses & 112 un-numbered verses (Basmalahs) 6234+112 = 6346] Note that 6+3+4+6 =.......19.

The Basmalah occurs 114 times, despite its conspicuous absence from Sura 9 (it occurs twice in Sura 27) & 114= 19x6.

From the missing Basmalah of Sura 9 to the extra Basmalah of Sura 27, there are precisely ...............19 suras.

It follows that the total of the sura numbers from 9 to 27 (9+10+11+12+...+26+27) is 342, or .............19 x 18.

This total (342) also equals the number of words between the two Basmalahs of Sura 27, and 342 = ........19 x 18.

The famous first revelation (96:1-5) consists of .......19 words.

This 19-worded first revelation consists of 76 letters .19 x 4.

Sura 96, first in the chronological sequence, consists of .....................................................19 verses.

This first chronological sura is placed atop the last ..19 suras.

Sura 96 consists of 304 Arabic letters, and 304 equals .19 x 16.

The last revelation (Sura 110) consists of ............19 words.

The first verse of the last revelation (110:1) consists of ................19 letters.

14 different Arabic letters, form 14 different sets of "Quranic Initials" (such as A.L.M. of 2:1), and prefix 29 suras. These numbers add up to 14+14+29 = 57 = ......19 x 3.

The total of the 29 sura numbers where the Quranic Initials occur is 2+3+7+...+50+68 = 822, and 822+14 (14 sets of initials) equals 836, or ................. 19 x 44.

Between the first initialed sura (Sura 2) and the last initialed sura (Sura 68) there are 38 un-initialed suras 19 x 2.

Between the first and last initialed sura there are ....19 sets of alternating "initialed" and "un-initialed" suras.

The Quran mentions 30 different numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 99, 100, 200, 300, 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000, 50, 000, & 100, 000. The sum of these numbers is 162146, which equals 19x8534.

This is a condensed summary of the Simple Facts.

***

1. The word ''Nineteen'' was mentioned in the Quran in a mysterious way that has never been adequately explained by Muslim Scholars. How could they without the use of a computer?

For those interested in The Ultimate Miracle and more go to http://submission.org/

But God ALONE Knows best

Related:

Jewish Rabbi admits Islam is the oldest religion on earth

Devout Jews know the Truth as revealed by God to all his prophets and messengers from Adam to Mohamed. The last revealed Book of God, the Quran informs us that all prophets and messengers were Muslims (i.e they all submitted to the Will of God) This revelation is not new but was in the Jewish Books all along. (i.e. A group of people known as bani Noah - Children of Noah- were called Muslims, Muslima...

"And indeed We sent Noah to his people and he said O my people! Worship God! You have no other god but Him." (Quran 23:23) and (Quran 11:25-27)

According to the oldest Manuscripts that survived the early Christian Book-burning Frenzy found in Palestine say that Jesus Christ is NOT God!

A Jew explains why Allah is the one and only God A must see!

The legendary video in which a Jew rebuffs the claim of evangelicals, newly edited and now in annotations! Even Jesus said Allah. According to an Aramaic dictionary, ( http://www.peshitta.org/lexicon/ ) the word for God in Aramaic (The language which Jesus spoke) is "Aalah", which is the exact same thing as the Arabic "Allah" since in English there are many ways to spell a foreign word (Example you can spell the Muhammad's name in 27 ways, including Muhammad and Mohamed). Just visit the link and type "God" if you don't believe me, then scroll down to "Pronunciation" So Christians, if your god Jesus said "Allah", it means the Muslims are using the correct word for the creator!

The word Allah is better than the word God and is purer since God can be pluralised (gods) and genderised (goddess), the word Allah is more suitable for being HIS name because it CANNOT be genderised nor pluralised (in Arabic) since it is genderless and single, an example in English would be the planet Mars, it is genderless (you cannot say Marsa or whatever it would be if it could be genderised) and it is unpluralisable (you cannot say Marses), it simply wouldn't make sense to genderise or pluralise this planet, the same goes for Allah (الله) in Arabic, so in essence IT IS SUPERIOR to the word God.

Let's not forget that Arab Christians, and Jews (as is the case in this video below) say Allah, and have been saying it before there were even any western Christians! Jesus said Allah too, so if you consider yourself a serious Christian you should follow Jesus not Paul, the Jewish hijacker of Jesus original message. Nonetheless all of these are Semitic words, so as far as I am concerned, any Semitic word for God is acceptable, but why use a European word for Allah when not a single prophet used a European word? Also, did you notice something? All of these words for Allah begin with either EL or AL, this is because in proto-Semitic (an ancient language which all Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, evolved from) the word for God was AL or EL, Abraham PBUH spoke proto-Semitic and he called God "El shaddai", "El" here meaning God and "shaddai" meaning mountain, so basically he called God "God of the mountain". The Semetic languages evolved in a way that they retain the word AL/EL at the beginning of the word, but there is an additional "lah" in Arabic and an additional "lohim" in Hebrew, I hope this clarifies.

Is Jesus God?

Is Jesus the Son of God

Holy Ghost?

Early Christians Prayers exact copy of Muslim prayers

Are you prepared for the Mother of All False Flags?

2011-07-27T16:41:00.000-07:00

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London starts countdown to 2012 Olympics today

Are the 2012 Olympics part of a plot to take over the world?

by Steve Rose, Guardian.co.uk

Secret Olympic Symbol 2012

Some people believe an elite clique will use the games to simulate an alien invasion in their plan for global domination

When Wenlock and Mandeville, the official mascots of the London Olympic Games, were unveiled to the world in May, the general reaction was one of bemusement. These stumpy, one-eyed, metallic-skinned creatures, the organisers explained, had formed out of stray drops of molten steel during the construction of the Olympic stadium, but most of the public and media simply interpreted them as aliens. What do monocular extraterrestrials have to do with the Olympics? A year earlier, the 2012 Olympic logo was greeted with a similar mix of derision and puzzlement. Jaded observers passed off these designs as sorry reflections of the state of British creativity, but a small minority had a very different answer: we were being primed for the establishment of the New World Order, by means of the greatest hoax in history.

Even in conspiracy-theory terms, the London Olympics plot is a difficult one to swallow, but that hasn't stopped a credulous minority from gulping it down. You'll find them on cult conspiracy blogs such as Red Ice Creations, Godlike Productions and Above Top Secret, or even making their own video presentations on YouTube. The basic scenario goes something like this: while the world's eyes are on London in 2012, a spectacular alien invasion will take place at the Olympic stadium. Or so the public will think; it will actually be a hoax invasion, orchestrated by the New World Order as an excuse to stage a global coup d'etat. Terrified by the appearance of aliens, the world's populace will surrender their civil liberties, and "they" – a vague array of elite cliques such as the Bilderberg group, the Freemasons, the Illuminati, and dynasties such as the English royal family, the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds – will have smoothly achieved their goal of a single world government, economy and religion. It sounds like a cross between Dan Brown, the X-Files and Watchmen, but believers insist this stuff is real.

The evidence for such a plot is vague: exhibit A is the 2012 Olympic logo. Rearrange the four angular numerals of the bizarre design, the theorists say, and it really spells "zion". There's even a dot to go over the "i". This is a sign that "they" plan to build the new Jerusalem right here in England's green and pleasant land, just as William Blake's poem predicted. The "dark satanic mills" of the Lea Valley will become the epicentre of the New World Order. Conspiracy theorists insist there is nothing anti-semitic in their use of the word "zion", although the suspicion is there.

The next giveaway is the street names around the Olympic site: Great Eastern Road, Carpenter's Road, Angel Lane, Temple Mills Lane, Church Road – don't they all seem a little biblical? Isn't it strange that such a large patch of land has stood undeveloped in London all this time?

It goes on: Prince William is the obvious choice for king of this New Jerusalem because of his royal bloodline, his birthday (the 21 June – the summer solstice) and the fact that he will be 30 years old in 2012, the year of the 30th Olympiad, or XXX in roman numerals. Numerology counts for a lot in these circles. And as for the fake UFO invasion, the theorists note the closing ceremony of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, in which a flying saucer landed in the stadium and an alien walked out and waved to the crowd. The staged spectacle, in which a blacked-out military helicopter lowered a model spaceship by cable into the Coliseum, did not prompt mass panic, but it has been interpreted as a warm-up. The advocates of "London Zion", as the theory has become known, have been poring over London Olympics promotional videos and finding a lot of suspicious symbolism in them – flying saucers and other spaceship-like objects, lights in the skies, stadiums in flames, all-seeing eyes. Then Wenlock and Mandeville came along and the theory really had legs, albeit stumpy alien ones.

"Once your eyes are open to it, it's amazing what's hidden in plain sight," explains David (not his real name), the friend of a friend who first told me about the London plot a year ago. So in the name of curiosity, and, perhaps, the future of civilisation, we arranged to meet at the Olympics site to look for evidence. You can't get into the site itself – construction continues apace and security is tight – but there are daily guided tours of the perimeter. On a clear, chilly morning, as we wait outside Tesco for the tour to begin, David explains how most of the clouds in the sky are now man-made. Aeroplanes have been lacing the atmosphere with metal particulates for decades to facilitate holographic projection, he claims. That's how they'll pull off the UFO illusion. These "chemtrails" also enable the use of top-secret super-weapons that bounce energy off the upper atmosphere to remote locations. The Haiti earthquake was triggered this way.

David spends hours scouring the internet for conspiracy information, and stumbled on the Olympics plot theory two years ago on a blog called the Cosmic Mind, run by 28-year-old Rik Clay from Leeds. Clay was making a name for himself in these esoteric circles. As well as the Olympics, his blog discussed everything from the significance of the No 11 to crop circles to Princess Diana. But three months after the Cosmic Mind launched, it suddenly went down in August 2008. Clay had died. Internet forums were full of wild allegations about the cause of his death.

As the tour proceeds, David's eyebrows rise at certain points, such as when the guide explains how they had to reroute power lines crossing the site 30 metres underground. "There's bound to be a secret network of tunnels so that dignitaries can escape when it happens," David says. Had the guide ever seen anything paranormal going on here? "What, you mean like flying saucers? No, nothing like that," she laughs. David's eyebrows rise again. No one mentioned flying saucers. The vast construction site looks fairly innocuous to me. David isn't so sure. "What about that cross in the sky up there?" he says. Two short fragments of aeroplane contrail have formed a distinct cross in the sky directly over the stadium. That is good enough for him.

Unsurprisingly, the London Olympics organisers deny all knowledge of the conspiracy. "Since we launched the logo in 2007, many people have passed comment on it and have suggested it resembles different shapes or characters," a spokesperson says. "This is a new one on us. The logo represents the figure 2012, nothing else." The conspirary theory is far from cast-iron: you could make the word "zion" out of the numbers 2,0, 1 and 2 however you designed them. And while some of the road names around the site might sound biblical, the ones that don't, such as Pudding Mill Lane, have been conveniently omitted. "Of course it sounds ridiculous," David acknowledges. And then he delivers the killer blow: "But if I had said to you 10 years ago that a few people were going to destroy the Twin Towers by flying planes into them, and that Britain and the US would start two wars as a result, would that have sounded believable?"

Just as the assassination of JFK and Watergate fuelled a golden age of paranoia, so the attacks of 11 September 2001 and its repercussions have ushered in a new, productive generation of conspiracy theories. It's not just a fringe minority. In a 2006 poll by Scripps Howard/Ohio University, 36% of Americans agreed that the US government was either involved in the 9/11 attacks or did nothing to stop them. Another poll by Zogby in 2007 put the proportion at 26.4%. Then again, polls this year also found that 18% of Americans believe Barack Obama is a Muslim and 27% believe he was born outside the US. Public credulity seems to be at an all-time high, or reliable information at an all-time low. For the conspiracy hardcore, though, 9/11, the London 7/7 attacks and other terrorist incidents are what's known as "false flag" operations; hoax attacks designed to advance the conspirators' agenda, and the London Olympics plot is the next one.

Rik Clay's Olympics theory was chiefly inspired by another British researcher, Ian R Crane, whom he saw speaking at an event in Glastonbury in 2007. A former oil industry executive, Crane is something of a heavy hitter on the conspiracy circuit. He regularly holds public lectures and releases DVDs on what he calls "deep geopolitics", and claims to have predicted the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, and pre-empted a failed terrorist attack in Chicago in 2006. It was Crane who first deciphered the "Zion" in the Olympic logo, and who suggested a fake UFO invasion was being planned. "We've seen the abilities of computer graphics in Hollywood movies," he says. "It doesn't take much to recast that fantasy as something that's then presented as a reality."

Crane also acknowledges that the Olympics conspiracy sounds crazy, but "it's only when one puts it into context with the much deeper geopolitical agenda that it starts to have some basis," he says. He sketches out this context in dizzying strokes. How the recent financial meltdown was deliberately planned, purported links between Obama adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and extreme rightwing thinktanks, Henry Kissinger and global warming. "They're all inextricably linked," he says. "What we're really looking at here is a web of intrigue that actually goes back a long way. The individuals who believe themselves to be the rightful rulers of the planet have some concern about what the very short-term future holds. In their belief system, they feel they need to have total planetary control by 2012."

Crane and Clay exchanged emails, but never met. Crane doesn't think there was anything suspicious about Clay's death. Nor do others close to Clay, including his parents, who have been understandably distressed not just by the death of their son but by the subsequent internet rumours. "There have been many outlandish ideas put forward about Rik's death, some that beggar belief, but most have come from people ignorant of the real facts and who have been too lazy to do their research," says John Clay, Rik's father. "An autopsy was carried out and an inquest held at Bradford coroners court in February 2009. The official verdict was that Rik took his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed." There were clear pointers to where Rik was heading, says John. A few weeks before his death, he had suffered some form of mental breakdown. He had jumped out of a third-floor window, fracturing his heel. His parents took him in for six weeks. "During his time with us he was not the Rik that we knew and was mostly very withdrawn," says John. "He told us that he had things in his head that shouldn't be there but would not elaborate, which was quite normal for Rik – he would only tell you what he wanted you to hear. Rik could be quite obsessional."

Another close friend of Rik's also believes his death was caused by a combination of his work and his mental health: "It's a stressful arena, conspiracy stuff. You can't trust anything any more. What level do you take it to? If you're passionate and paranoid, it can really take over, and I think that's what happened with Rik. He wanted to get to the bottom of everything. Unfortunately the result of that was that he pulled apart his own reality."

One of the problems with many conspiracy theories is that, unlike scientific theories, they're impossible to definitively prove wrong. Any attempt to do so invites accusations that you're in on them. Conversely, labelling something as a "conspiracy theory" is a convenient way to close down political debate or a challenge to authority by painting the theorists as wackos. Tony Blair described his critics as obsessed with conspiracy during the Chilcot inquiry earlier this year, just as George Bush in 2001 urged the UN not to tolerate "outrageous conspiracy theories" about the 9/11 attacks. Neutral observers point out that regardless of their content, conspiracy theories are "unofficial" knowledge, and therefore threaten institutions of official knowledge, such as academia and journalism. The two sides resemble each other more than they would like to admit.

The London Olympics theory is an intriguing case, not least because it actually makes a prediction. Either something will happen in 2012 or it won't: the theory will be right or wrong. What will people such as David do if nothing happens? "I'll be really bloody surprised," he says, "but if nothing happens, I'd say that the forces of good behind the scenes, like us, saved the day and the forces of evil were stopped."

London - Zion - 2012 - The Book

London - Zion - 2012 - Book

London Olympics 2012 Illuminati Card Game NWO Zion False Flag Attack

Might this be a hidden message from Steven Jackson that something will happen under the Olympic games in London 2012?

After Osama bin London, is the next boogieman Colonel Gaddafi? Or...

... The Return of Bin Laden:

Day of the Fake Alien Invaders - worth a listen

An advance warning of the next global event of desolation

The long-term legacy of 9/11

2011-07-26T19:14:00.000-07:00

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By David Sirota

Fascinating Article About the Legacy of 9/11, Terrorism, Norway... etc

Nearly 10 years later, new studies point to lasting effects on the nation's mental, physical and political health

Like most Americans, I can still remember it as if it were yesterday: The images of the burning building on the screen, the murmurings of bewildered morning TV anchors, the burst of "holy shit!" subject lines in my email box and then, shattering the slow-mo dreamlike quality of it all, the bark of a police officer telling me to get out of the Capitol complex as quickly as possible because a plane-turned-missile was headed our way.

This was my particular 9/11 experience -- a Washington of complete chaos where chest-thumping tough-on-terror congresspeople were instantly transformed into cowering child-trampling George Costanzas as they fled for the door. I'm sure everyone fortunate enough to survive that day has their own unique flashback -- it was, after all, a generation's "where were you when" moment a la the JFK assassination. Only now, approaching the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, a trio of new studies show the post-traumatic stress of the attacks resulted in deep cultural shifts that go way beyond mere haunting mental images and bouts of insomnia.

As probably the single most politicized event in modern American history, 9/11's most obvious long-term impact can be seen in the electoral arena -- and not merely in individual election cycles or races.

Just as the Vietnam-era draft once produced a structural shift toward the Democratic Party among potential draftees, a recent analysis by the University of Warwick shows that 9/11 generated a permanent shift to the Republican Party among newly registered voters. Using voter data from citizens who registered just before and just after the attacks, the May 2011 study found "that voters with birthdays in September were more likely to register as Republicans than voters with birthdays in August" and that "the political affiliation of these voters persisted through to the year 2008...even for those voters who moved and, thus, had to change their registration." In short, a psychologically traumatized electorate ran to a party that promised quick, easy and vengeful solutions to the terrorist threat.

Less obvious but equally profound is the effect 9/11 had on the health care system, according to two University of California studies looking at what researchers call "collective stress." As reviewed by Miller-McCune, the studies found that:

Among a nationally representative sample of about 2,000 American adults, reports of physical ailments increased 18 percent over the three years following the attacks of September 11, 2001…

It turns out watching [the attacks] in real time had huge health consequences. "When compared to individuals who learned about the attacks only after they happened, those who watched the attacks live on TV reported a 28 percent increased incidence of physical ailments over three years post-9/11," Holman and Silver write.

But maybe the most profound legacy of 9/11 is the attack's effect on our very concept of wars and enemies. Before 9/11, those ideas were finite and tangible -- though there were red scares and McCarthyist crusades that argued otherwise, we for the most part believed that conflicts had beginnings and ends and that villains could ultimately be thwarted. But the post-traumatic stress of 9/11 has elicited a kind of neurotic psychosis that embraces Permanent War and allow enemies to occupy a psychological space usually reserved for immortal bogeymen.

That's the takeaway from Ohio State University's recent national poll, which, thanks to serendipitous timing, inadvertently tracked how Americans attitudes shifted sharply after the killing of 9/11 architect, Osama bin Laden. Here are the key findings:

In the weeks following the U.S. military campaign that killed bin Laden, American attitudes toward Muslim Americans took a significant negative shift, results showed. Americans found Muslims living in the United States more threatening after bin Laden's death, positive perceptions of Muslims plummeted, and those surveyed were less likely to oppose restrictions on Muslim Americans' civil liberties…

Changes in attitudes were not related just to preventing a possible terrorist attack, but also included attitudes about religious tolerance of Muslims. For example, nearly one in three respondents surveyed after bin Laden's death agreed that "Muslims are mostly responsible for creating the religious tension that exists in the United States today." That was up from about one in five respondents before the killing... The negative feelings even carried over to personal relationships. The percentage of respondents who said they were unwilling to have a Muslim as a close friend doubled after the death, going from 9 percent to 20 percent.

Intensifying hatred after an enemy is killed -- this particular particular 9/11-related symptom is rooted in classic paranoia and it explains quite a bit about recent events. For instance, it explains why America barely flinched when, after bin Laden's killing, our government announced plans to stay in Afghanistan, increase the defense budget, begin a new war in the Muslim world and expand the president's authority to unilaterally initiate even more foreign conflicts in the future. It also explains why so many American media outlets initially blame Muslims for terrorist attacks that we later find out had nothing to do with Muslims -- and it explains how we so quickly define terrorism exclusively as violence committed by Muslims, but not by anyone else. In the 9/11-addled psyche, the war must continue even when the threat is neutralized.

No doubt, America's political and media class will collude to turn the upcoming anniversary of 9/11 into yet another platitudinous display of pomp, circumstance and hyper-nationalism that celebrates our abiding Americanness (whatever that means), trumpets our supremacy -- and ignores any of these findings. That's become the standard simplified script for 9/11, and its 10-year anniversary will likely be no exception. Lost in that spectacle, however, will be any effort to develop a deeper understanding of 9/11's impact -- one that both honors the dead, and better appreciates the grave psychological injuries that continue to scar the living.

Ignoring that deeper story, of course, is no accident. Exploring 9/11 as a complex and enduring psychological event requires an uncomfortable look at how the mass PTSD that followed the attacks fundamentally differs from standard PTSD.

Think about it: Whereas the mere act of physically experiencing a natural disaster may psychologically damage a victim, 9/11's immediate aftermath was at least as responsible for its negative stress-inducing psychological effects as the attacks themselves (especially for the majority of Americans who did not actually physically experience the attacks) -- and the 9/11 aftermath was anything but natural. On the contrary, the rank saber rattling and the carefully crafted fear mongering that became the Official 9/11 Reaction was exquisitely manufactured at the highest reaches of the political and media establishment -- and as we see, it worked like a charm, with significant downsides.

To understand those downsides and begin any kind of mass healing process, though, asks the political and media establishment to be willing to scrutinize itself. And in America, that remains the ultimate taboo.

David Sirota is a best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com.

Deep Parallels Surface – Norway, 9/11, 7/7 and Bali

By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor

veteranstoday.com

The greatest controversy in the world today is Israeli involvement in 9/11. Israeli terrorists were captured with explosives in New York on 9/11, others with electronics gear.

Bali Bombing, Reported as Suitcase Nuclear Weapon

A planeload were flown out of the country on presidential order the next day but, in the end, Muslims were blamed and two “revenge” wars buried America.

In fact, then Mossad operations chief Mike Harari, who escaped Norwegian police in 1973, after murder charges were leveled against him for killing an innocent Muslim he misidentified as a terror suspect, is the same Mike Harari who confessed to organizing the 9/11 attacks while having breakfast with VT staffer, Dimitri Khalezov on September 12, 2001 in Bangkok.

If you don’t remember the Bali bombing of 2002, it was Australian’s 9/11 just as 7/7 was Britain’s 9/11. These attacks were all political, all involved the same people, the same “event planners” and benefited the same players, Israel and right wing extremists in the US, Britain and Australia. Mike Harari planned and executed the Bali bombing but he needed help, he said. What he needed was a “fall guy” to blame and Dimitri Khalezov, former Soviet nuclear weapons intelligence officer was a perfect patsy, or so Harari believed when he approached him.

Harari was looking for help in a bombing project he was doing in Bali. Murdering innocent people for economic and political ends can be so tiresome. 202 people died that day, Muslims were blamed, the media said it was planned in Bangkok 10 months before. They just had the wrong “event planners.” If Khalezov were stupid enough to join the crew, news would have gotten out. Bali was a “suitcase nuke” bombing.

Now, despite the fact that a “domestic terrorist” has confessed in Norway, the terror attacks there are being tied to Israel, just as with 9/11 and the 7/7 attacks in London. The organizations in Norway and the United Kingdom, tied to the Tea Party in America, being hunted down by police are Israeli trained and funded, part of an operation tying “Islamophobia” to Christian Zionism, bringing to the surface dormant racist traditions.

The US result was the Project for a New American Century, the Bush administration and 9/11. In Britain, Tony Blair became an Israeli “lapdog,” joining Bush in America’s failed wars. Britain’s “9/11″ was July 7, 2005. Again, Muslim terrorists were blamed, another one of those predictable coincidences. 9/11 sold a decade of war, 7/7 kept Blair in office and was meant to propel the British into another Galipoli/Dieppe in Iran.

Again it was a false start and a far more dangerous enemy proved responsible, having covered its tracks carelessly, perhaps with even less skill than the Neocon/Israeli nexus responsible for 9/11. Not long ago, responsibility for the 7/7 attack was laid at the feet of the British government and its Israeli friends.

You missed that one in the news? Two months ago, a British jury, based on evidence presented by John Anthony “Maud Dib” Hill, found exactly that. No, you didn’t see it in the press but you can read about it here and see the video that started one of the most controversial human rights cases in history.

After 151 days in dismal Wandsworth Prison, much of it in solitary confinement, John Anthony Hill is finally free. The crime he was accused of was the mailing of a “7/7 truther” DVD from Ireland to the United Kingdom. Yes, you are hearing me right, he was extradited from Ireland for sending a copy of the film, “Ripple Effect,” which outlines complicity by the Blair government in terror attacks that killed 56 back in 2005, including 4 “suicide bombers” now believed by many to have been murdered in a bizarre plot.

(see that “restricted” video here)

This week, a Norwegian ultra-nationalist laid down his weapons before police after having butchered 93 people. Beyond this, we know little. It is now clear he had accomplices, on the island, more waiting, he says, to duplicate his effort. The puny police response, a “Keystone Cops” schtick, piling into a jalopy and then into a leaking rowboat made it all possible as did counter-terrorism officials who turned a highly focused “blind eye” to the real threat of domestic terrorism.

As the day has gone on, the search for accomplices has, overtly, crossed Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The search has spread to the UK, to the ranks of the infamous EDL and even to the United States and the Christian Zionist community, once the “apple” of George “W” Bush’s eye. The very real enemy, right wing terrorism, international in flavor, fascist in nature and underwritten by ultra-nationalists across Europe, closely allied to security agencies in Israel, has finally become a real target.

We have seen all this before, New York City, September 11, 2001.

Who was arrested that day? A white van filled with explosives was stopped by police on the George Washington bridge. The passengers, armed terrorists, were arrested and jailed. A second white van was pulled over, 5 were arrested there. They had been seen “photographing” the attack on the World Trade Center and openly celebrating the carnage.

The "Larynx," a Cruise missile, circa 1925

However, no film, no digital media was seized, in fact no filming went on at all. Why? The “cameras” were very likely something else, laser marking systems such as those used for guiding remote controlled bombs to their targets. Remote controlled aircraft used as weapons are old as the hills, the first dating to September 1925, yes, that old, the British “Larynyx. This radio controlled ramp launched plane traveled at 200 mph and was intended to be used against attacking Zeppelins.

What are the parallels with 9/11? The terrorists arrested in the “White Van” incidents were Israeli citizens, “art students” they claimed. Months later, over the objections of the FBI, they were repatriated to Israel without criminal charges tied to 9/11. Why? The Abe Foxman and the ADL, AIPAC, Netanyahu, Barney Frank and the entire Israeli wing of congress demanded it.

The real 9/11 terrorists were arrested by NYPD on 9/11, two of the teams at least. How did we honor the dead? We released the culprits, failed to follow the leads which went, went where? Tel Aviv? The White House? This is where all evidence, endless evidence, now leads and America is stuck in neutral, forever damned to a false history. A decade later, America is foiled by two imaginary enemies, the non-existent “Al Qaeda” and the long dead CIA operative, bin Laden while a small group of half starved tribesmen has beaten the greatest military machine in history to, not a standstill, but to full retreat. Where have I seen this before?

Norway

The initial flurry of “Islamo-blamia” died down, crushed by tons of evidence and, perhaps, the most theatrical mass murderer of all time. Photos have been pouring onto the internet, Brevik dressed in comic opera garb, many of the photos in the monumental style of Mussolini or his young protege, Julian Assange.

Only hours after the police announced that they had captured the “lone gunman,” 6 accomplices were arrested. They have since disappeared.

One accomplice was seen on the island, a fact pushed out of police statements but which has resurfaced. More are sought but, more likely, the real accomplices are in government itself, inside the security services and the police. It was that way in 1973, according to the Guardian, and it is likely that way still.

Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad, acted without Norwegian help in a botched 1973 assassination in the ski resort of Lillehammer, a national commission concluded yesterday.Norwegians have long speculated about involvement by their own police or intelligence service in the killing, which has been shrouded in secrecy for 27 years, and which has been a sore point in otherwise warm relations between Norway and Israel

The killers in 1973 were released, unpunished. The real planners of this weeks mass murder are probably already out of the country and will remain unpunished

Mike Harari escaped prison and planned both 9/11 and the Bali bombing that we know of. He is one of Israel’s greatest national heroes.

Who are the secret heroes this week?

9/11: Who Really Benefited?

Fact and Not Fiction...

Global Research Editor's Note

We bring to the attention of our readers this provocative review of the strategic and corporate interests behind 9/11 including Wall Street, the Texas oil companies and the defense contractors.

The statements in this article are corroborated by numerous studies, books, news articles and research reports published since September 2001.

In the course of almost ten years, Global Research has conducted a detailed review and analysis of the 9/11 attacks, focussing on their broad implications as well as their historical significance. See our 9/11 and the War on Terrorism Dossier

by Captain America

Forget so-called conspiracy theories. Instead look at reality. Dare ask yourself who actually seems to have benefited from the 9-11 calamity. In light of the debt ceiling debates and the continuous corrupt politics as usual of Washington D.C., it is time for the American people, and individual states of this federation, to look at a troubling set of facts. It seems there were “several” beneficiaries of 9-11 that don’t exactly fit the story line we were constantly fed by the propaganda machine and mainstream media as to how to connect the dots (which we were rhetorically asked to do).

Here is a list of peoples that benefited. Most of this list is factual. Some are more opinion but with strong support in reality-based argument:

1) The New York Port Authority was having difficulty renting out space in the Twin Towers. More importantly there was a huge asbestos liability. Surprisingly these Towers were sold to a new owner Larry Silverstein just three months prior—who managed to get an insurance contract for a big payout if any of the Tower buildings got hit by an airplane. This is a fact.

2) Our first international move was to bomb Afghanistan under the assumption that people there were involved. So the heroin industry of Afghanistan came back to life in a big way—that is international and local drug cartels rediscovered a gold mine of money supply. Bin Laden and the Taliban, because of their religious fanaticism, pretty much closed down the trade to a trickle. But after the bombing shake-up, people connected with the heroin trade in Central Asia reaped billion dollars rewards—including money-laundering groups of financiers—such as banksters, etc. (And this is pretty much all the U.S. military/ intelligence has really accomplished—despite all the rhetoric and high-sounding goals about exporting democracy.) This is fact and not fiction.

3) Investors of profitable corporations connected to the military industrial complex made a killing (pun intended). Obviously war has been profitable for some industries for eons as we are told by most war historians profits are an inevitable consequence of war for merchants of death yet they say profit is “not” the driving force behind war. Think again. For our American culture, since at least the Vietnam War, it seems to have become the driving force. (What else does America still manufacture?) Prior to 9/11 there was little in the way of war material inventories being depleted. But soon after 9/11 this all changed. In fact some corporate stocks immediately went up in value—as did some military contracts. Note as well that after the cold war both the Pentagon and the Intelligence apparatus should have cut their budgets in half. (But then no one would have been promoted and the Pentagon would have lost some of its clout.) That did not happen. Rather the budgets doubled in size. How is that for financial austerity? This is fact and not fiction.

4) Some powerful industry leaders and think tank politicos believed it was necessary for certain “companies” to “control” various strategic resources such as oil and gas. And not surprisingly the very countries in which we declared a war against terrorists are surprisingly the same countries that contain such resources—especially in the Middle East.

Gas and oil reserves are coveted by every industrial civilization and every military as a necessity. For example, there was a plan to build an oil pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan to ship out from the Indian ocean—requiring stable societies that don’t sabotage pipelines. Nevertheless despite things not going as planned oil companies for whatever reason reaped huge profits. Fact and not fiction.

5) Advocates, such as Paul Bremer, for extreme laissez faire economic policies, attempted to rewrite an Iraqi constitution to promote a free market system of neo-liberal economic principles to make it especially easy for foreign nations to own Iraq’s resources. And if you do your research you will come to learn that the U.S. did not have any gripes with Saddam Hussein until he kicked oil companies out of Iraq because they wanted to take the lion’s share of the profits. He nationalized oil. This is fact and not fiction.

6) Israel benefited by having one of their neighboring enemies, namely Saddam Hussein and his standing army, weakened and preoccupied. It is not a coincidence that advocates and newspaper pundits most defensive about our invasion happen to be strong advocates of Israel’s right-wing will. Evidence clearly shows that some Israeli supporters were part of the culture of deception to take us to war with Iraq—as they are now working to take us to war with Iran with a similar pattern of phony intelligence. Equally it is a fact that whatever Middle East group harbors hostility toward Israel is now considered terrorist in nature to Americans. It is a fact that the Israeli lobby pushed hard for war with Iraq.

7) Right-wing politicos, especially Christian and Judaic, who like to promote prejudice against anything Muslim and Arab benefited. Since 9-11 there has been a constant propaganda war against Muslims throughout Western countries. (This is not to argue that Americans should not be wary of foreign motives.) But the fact is that those who do not wish Muslims to have influence in this culture have clearly wages a major propaganda campaign for Westerners to fear and distrust a huge segment of the world’s population—as a “cultural clash” or clash of civilizations like the medieval era of The Crusades. This is to say that Israel’s enemies have become our enemies as “neocon” propaganda campaign harps on “Islamo-fascism,” “Islamo-extremism,” and “Islamo-fanaticism”. Meanwhile this event is used to further persuade Americans Israel is America’s “natural” ally and partner against the forces of evil. (Yet rightwing Israelis too are not willing to separate Church and State and so they discriminate against those not Jewish. Therefore they too do not share our democratic values of equality for “all” people—like many of the theocratic countries in the Middle East.) This is opinion but it still reflects reality.

8) Politically motivated people with the desire to use “fear,” namely terrorism, as an excuse to curtail and destroy civil liberties and freedoms normally honored in democratic countries. We have become more a fascist state with Homeland Security surveillance. This curtailment is similar to those who continue to try to censor free speech—and make it more difficult to have the right to “associate” via technologies such as the Internet. Such mentality has allowed spying on citizens by “privatized” corporations not accountable to the tax paying public who pay organizations to secretly spy and keep records on its own citizenry. Obama and his team have done nothing to make real, substantive changes, and in fact have reinforced this tyranny. The curtailment of our freedoms is fact and not fiction.

9) Some international political operatives willing to take American bribe money in exchange to playing and saying our tune have benefited, such as some political factions in the Middle East who equally play they game with our tax dollars—including journalists who will write and say whatever Uncle Sam wants as long as there is a brick of one hundred dollar bills as “disappeared” just like military contracts that did not get performed—but were still played. This could also include those creating phony websites to spew messages or take credit for events done by others.

10) People with a desire to destroy the political strength and good will of the American people and government. Our country is no longer looked upon as a “positive” force for democracy. Further our economy has been severely damaged by corrupt forces willing to sacrifice real national security to greedy and self-interested ends. We are seen as the rogue state by too many. It doesn’t seem to bother some profiting that America goes broke invading foreign countries—irrespective of what the rest of the world thinks—and what could be a long term disaster—if not a World War 3. (It almost seems like a deliberate foil to destroy military preparedness and to weaken our security.) Furthermore, those who believe in a two class system benefited because the wealth investor class, including most of the Congress and Senate, are “not” sending their kids to die—rather they rely on a volunteer military of lower and middle class kids that can’t find jobs or have few prospects to go to school.

11) Along with this financial bust is a drive to destroy liberal notions of any kind of welfare for the less fortunate—save welfare for corrupt corporations. While it is true that there is no free lunch (unless you live in the beltway) there is also way too much scorn for people who are not super-rich as deserving some kind of humanity.

Perhaps Obama should let the country default. Perhaps individual states “should” give serious consideration to secede from the Union. It has become one massive failure anyway. This litany is as contentious as the list of grievances in the Declaration of Independence written over two hundred years ago. And there is good reason to modify our current banking system and the Federal Reserve.

The U.S. Congress, like most pseudo-liberal chicken lefties, who have not had the guts to look seriously at what likely happened on 9/11, or why, have succumbed to the cowardliness of voting to not close the U.S. gulag. They are more afraid of their own lost of stature than they are of honoring the rights of law and justice. Meanwhile the legal system—id est lawyers—have been far too compliant.

This is to say that the U.S. is being strangulated by corporate America and its finance sector. This is a form of slavery to be manipulated into doing things under false assumptions. Why the ultra rich became even more so, they “own” Congress with their bribery of lobby money and especially the Republican party—despite all the Tea Party advocates.

You may not like these realities. Few do. So go ahead and continue to shun all “theories” about 9-11 as mere skewed imagination. Because while it is true that 99.99% of the Government is innocent that doesn’t mean a relatively small, but high-ranking cabal, could not have been involved—especially given all the security transgressed and air force stand down that ensued.

Still it is easy to point fingers at identifiable groups of people as over-generalizations. Nevertheless many people looked the other way to not notice the dots the machine was drawing was itself tainted—which had its own wisdom of reticence. But where are we to go as a culture if we continue to play blind?

You can believe in fantasy as most people choose—because in the short term it feels easier. But it may turn out to be worse in the longer term with both parties being irremediably corrupt. More importantly to the sell out of our human rights to corporations with laws like Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission.

Good Luck to all people who think they know something because they have been conditioned to believe what they currently do. Yet ask yourself how many Muslims actually benefited? Then ask that irrespective of who did it, does it not seem that our culture has some issues to contend with and some bureaucracy to address besides the liberal agenda? If lawyers don’t start making more noise we could have some serious problems.

After Oslo: Time to Crack Down On Mossad Terrorism

2011-07-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

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by Wayne MADSEN

Israel’s most secret and tried-and-true weapon is the “false flag” terrorist attack.

State-sponsored terrorism is defined by Encyclopedia Britannica as the “systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective [and] is employed by governments -- or more often by factions within governments -- against that government's citizens, against factions within the government, or against foreign governments or groups.”

On July 22, a bomb, said to be an Oklahoma City-type explosive device, crafted with fertilizer and diesel fuel, blew up in downtown Oslo, Norway, in the heart of the government district. Shortly thereafter, a man dressed in a Norwegian police uniform opened fire on a Labor Party youth camp on the island of Utoya in Tyri fjord. Access to the island was by boat only. Over 100 people were killed in the twin terror attacks.

Almost immediately, the world’s corporate media began pushing the story that those who were responsible for the blast and mass shooting were associated with “Al Qaeda” and other radical Islamist groups. CNN’s Washington, DC chief anchor Wolf Blitzer, a former spokesman for the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby and a correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, began his late afternoon program by pointing to “Al Qaeda” and radical Islamists as the chief culprits for the terrorist attacks in Norway.

CNN paraded out a number “experts,” in actuality, propagandists for the Israeli agenda linked to neo-conservative outlets and the Pentagon’s “terrorism industrial complex,” before the cameras to advance the radical Islamist meme even as Norwegian authorities pinned blame on the attack on at least one perpetrator, a Norwegian named Anders Behring Breivik. CNN constantly showed footage of frightened people in downtown Oslo running for their lives from the site of the blast, as well as still photograph of a pall of light-brown smoke over downtown Oslo. Of course, CNN’s intention was to evoke memories of the 9/11 attack in Manhattan.

Breivik, who sometimes anglicized his name as Andrew Berwick in his numerous web postings, was said to be a right-wing Islamophobe who sympathized with Zionism and who was a Freemason… Breivik was also reported to be a fundamentalist Christian but he adopted a stance against the Lutheran Church, the state church of Norway, and argued for a “collective” counter-reformation to return the Protestant churches to the control of the Vatican and the Pope. Breivik lambasted the Lutheran Church and other mainstream Protestant churches, condemning “Priests in jeans who march for Palestine.”

More incredibly, the London tabloid of Rupert Murdoch’s scandal-plagued News International, The Sun, went to press with the following false headline: “Norway’s 911: ‘Al Qaeda’ Massacre.” On March 29, 2011, Harvard Law School’s extremist Zionist Professor Alan Dershowitz penned a piece in the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, a newspaper that actively discriminates against the hiring of non-Jews as reporters and editors in violation of U.S. civil rights and equal opportunity employment laws, in which he called Norway anti-Semitic. Dershowitz cited as an example former Norwegian Prime Minister Kare Willock’s criticism of President Barack Obama’s choice of Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff because he is Jewish. In fact, Emanuel’s pro- Israeli sympathies as a former member of the Israel Defense Force are what prompted many political observers in Washington and elsewhere to question his primary loyalty to the United States.

A network of Israeli bloggers pushed a claim of responsibility on a previously-unknown group called Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami (the Helpers of the Global Jihad). The group’s claims were picked up and run by several corporate media outlets and then pulled when it was discovered the claim was a hoax. Mossad has a program to distribute bogus claims of responsibility for Islamist terrorist attacks via “Jihadist” websites that are actually operated by the Mossad and a network of “hasbaratchiks,” Israeli and foreign Jews who act as propagandists on the web. These hasbara (propaganda) agents and volunteers operate through such programs as Megaphone and GIYUS (“Give Israel Your United Support.”) After the attempt to blame the Norway attacks on Islamists failed, the “hasbaratchiks” shifted to “sock puppet” troll mode, posting comments on blogs that criticized allegations that Mossad and Zionists were behind the Norway attacks, emphasizing that such beliefs were “anti-Semitic” and wild “conspiracy theories.” Some Israeli “sock puppets” even offered lunatic suggestions that Breivik was planted by Islamists to make Israel and Zionists look bad.

When the “Islamist” connection to the holocaust in Norway was shown to be non-existent after Norwegian security and police agencies began looking at the evidence, the corporate media switched its propaganda line from “radical Islam” being responsible to “far –right extremism” opposed to multiculturalism and immigration in Europe as the culprit. Even outlets that in the past had been known for their independence from the corporate media line, including Al Jazeera and RT [formerly known as Russia Today], echoed the line that Breivik primarily represented right-wing opposition to Muslim immigrants in Europe. Al Jazeera repeated the line that Breivik was a “lone madman,” the insinuation being that he was not linked to any wider network. While Breivik certainly was associated with the far-right xenophobic elements in Norway, Europe, and North America, there was no mention by the corporate media of his admiration for such American Zionist Islamophobes as Richard Pipes and Pam Geller. Geller led the bigoted anti-Muslim campaign against an Islamic Center near the site of “Ground Zero,” the former World Trade Center site, in lower Manhattan. Breivik posted a number of his anti-Muslim and pro-Zionist screeds on the Norwegian website www.document.no, which is operated by Hans-Kristian Rustad, a Norwegian pro-Israeli journalist.

No corporate media outlets reported that the brand of far-right extremism of Breivik is closely associated with Zionist-supported far-right anti-immigrant political parties and movements in Western Europe, including the mis-named Progress Party of Norway, the Dutch Freedom Party of Islamophobe Geert Wilders, the Sweden Democrats, Finland’s True Finns Party, the Danish People’s Party, the English Defense League, the Pro-Germany Citizen’s Movement, and a pan-Nordic fascist terrorist group called “Nordiske.” Breivik also expressed support for the Tea Party in the United States…

The European anti-Muslim xenophobic network is linked to the notorious publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons by the neo-conservative Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and Norway’s Dagbladet. The Euro-xenophobes are supported by the longtime Zionist Bernard-Henri Levy, the French philosopher who is a friend of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and disgraced former International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn. It is noteworthy that Levy is one of the major backers of the Libyan rebels fighting Muammar Qaddafi. Norway announced it was pulling its aircraft from the NATO campaign in Libya at the end of July. Norway also announced its support for Palestine’s sovereignty resolution in the UN General Assembly in September.

As more and more evidence pointed to Oslo being yet another example of a state-sponsored terrorist attack by Israel’s Mossad, the corporate media studiously avoided mentioning how the Norwegian government through its recent actions, had become a major problem for Israel and its allies abroad, especially on the Palestine sovereignty issue… In addition, Norwegian police and intelligence are painfully aware of Mossad’s past operations in Norway, including the infamous Lillehammer Affair in 1973. On July 21, 1973, Mossad agents assassinated Ali Hassan Salameh, a Moroccan waiter in Lillehammer, wrongly believing he was the operations chief for the Palestinian terrorist group “Black September.” Norwegian police arrested the Mossad agents who killed Salameh and uncovered an intricate network of Mossad safe houses, phone numbers, and Norwegian sleeper agents for Mossad.

Just as was the case with the coordinated bombings of Madrid trains on March 22, 2004 and London buses and trains on July 7, 2005, viewed by European security services as being the work of not “Al Qaeda” but domestic “radicals,” there was no link to Islamist radicals with the attacks in Norway. However, there was every indication that the attack on Norway was intended to shake up the Norwegian population and damage the reputation of the left-of-center Norwegian government of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

The corporate media insisted that Breivik was solely responsible for Norway’s worst violent attack since World War II. Norwegian police reports that a second gunman, described as having “thick dark hair and a non-Nordic appearance,” were suppressed in much of the corporate media. The time line of the Oslo attack causes anyone’s imagination to be stretched on being sold a “lone gunman/bomber” theory.

At 3:26 pm Oslo time a massive car bomb was detonated outside the office of the Prime Minister of Norway. Since July 22 was a public holiday, there were relatively few people inside the Prime Minister’s office or the surrounding offices of the Petroleum and Energy Ministry and the VG [Verdens Gang] newspaper, Norway’s largest paper.

As police responded to the downtown Oslo blast, Breivik was said to have taken a boat the Utoya island dressed as a policeman and began opening fire on young members of the Norwegian Labor Party youth camp meeting. The shooting allegedly began at 4:50 pm. Norwegian SWAT team “Delta” had trouble getting a helicopter started and struggled to find a boat to get to Utoya island. The SWAT team finally arrived on the island at 6:20 pm only to find scores of the next generation of Norwegian Labor Party leaders dead. Breivik calmly surrendered to the police. When Breivik arrived on Utoya he told police on the island that he was there for a routine security check following the bombing in downtown Oslo.

Norway’s Acting Police chief Sveinung Sponheim said the police were still investigating whether Breivik was acting with a larger network. Sponheim’s revelation countered the “lone wolf” theory advanced by corporate media outlets in Western nations.

Norway’s coalition Labor-Socialist Left government has been seen as hostile to the interests of Israel and the United States. There is now a widespread belief that the terrorist attack against Norway was engineered to shock erstwhile peaceful Norway, a nation where police generally still patrol the streets unarmed, into adopting the police state tactics of the United States, Israel, Britain, and other Western nations. Norway’s pro-Palestinian foreign policy also irked the Zionist and the far-right anti-Islamic factions in Europe and North America, as well as the governments of Israel and the United States.

In a move that complements American and Israeli propaganda that Norway has not stepped up to the surveillance state model imposed by other Western governments, the suspicious WikiLeaks decided to release U.S. State Department cables from the U.S. embassy in Oslo that criticized Norway for not recognizing the “Al Qaeda” threat and maintaining an insufficient security apparatus to combat Islamist terrorism and Pakistani immigrants.

The Barack Obama-appointed U.S. ambassador in Oslo, Barry White, who is Jewish and received a 2005 award from the pro-Israel American Jewish Committee, complained that the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) rejected two twelve-person British MI-6 intelligence surveillance teams to monitor an “Al Qaeda” cell in Norway. Last November, the Norwegian government was shocked to learn that the U.S. embassy was operating a Surveillance Detection Unit in Oslo that was monitoring Norwegian citizens. Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget said he was not informed of the presence of the U.S. spy unit in Oslo, which employed retired Norwegian police and intelligence officials. The Norwegian Data Protection Commissioner, Bjorn Erik Thon, said he had never seen such an intelligence operation in Norway. White complained that Norwegian security officials were apathetic and incompetent in dealing with the Islamist “terrorist threat.” The failure of the Norwegian SWAT team to quickly respond to the massacre on Utoya may indicate that Norway’s law enforcement and security networks and command-and-control systems had been interfered with by infiltrators with knowledge of the Norwegian systems. Those retired police and intelligence officials working for the U.S. embassy’s surveillance unit are likely suspects in sabotaging the Norwegian police reaction capabilities on 7/22. Just 48 hours before the bombing in Oslo, police units were engaged in a terrorist bombing exercise at the Oslo Opera House, near what would later be “ground zero.” In addition, in the days before the terrorist bombing, there was suspicious sewer work being conducted in the area near the Prime Minister’s office.

In March, the leader of the Socialist Left, Kristen Halvorsen, the Minister of Education of Norway and a former Finance Minister, called for military action against Israel if it attacked Gaza. The Socialist Left and Labor Party, along with the Norwegian Peace Association and the Norwegian energy and telecommunications union, strongly support the Boycott Israel campaign, which includes backing the pan-European Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) committee and an embargo on arms sales to the Jewish state. In August 2010, the Norwegian pension fund divested in two Israeli companies controlled by Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, Africa Israel Investments and its subsidiary Danya Cebus.

Halvorsen had recently met with a delegation of American Jews who complained about Norway’s “anti-Semitism,” the tired and worn-out canard used by Zionists in confronting anti-Israeli sentiment around the world. In January, Halvorsen and her husband, Christo Halvorsen, a producer for the Norsk Rikskringkasting (NRK) television and radio network, took part in an anti-Israel and U.S. march in Oslo where picket signs with phrases like “USA and Israel: Axis of Evil” appeared. The Halvorsens and NRK were subjected to a vicious campaign launched by Zionists and the Israel Lobby in Norway.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of the Labor Party has been criticized by the Israel Lobby and Zionists for comparing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews. Støre has also called for the demolition of Israel’s “Separation Wall” that runs through Palestinian territory on the West Bank, a stance that has earned him enmity and hatred from Israel’s government and their Zionist allies in the West. Store paid a visit to Utoya before the massacre. The Foreign Minister was on the island as some of the Labor Party youth were participating in a “Boycott Israel” demonstration. The city of Trondheim was criticized by Israel for funding a trip to the UN in New York for Norwegian students to participate in a play called the “Gaza Monologues.” Israel also blasted Norway for distributing a film called “Tears of Gaza.”

After Israel offered assistance to Norway, including forensic and medical assistance, as well as the evacuation of the wounded from the 7/22 attack, Norway declined the offer. The rejection of assistance from Israel indicates that the Norwegian government was suspicious of the offer from Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Other Israeli military teams in the West Bank have been accused of trafficking in human organs, an expose brought to light by the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet in August 2009. That same month, Israel’s anti-Arab and anti-Muslim Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman accused Sweden and Norway of anti-Semitism, adding the outrageous charge that Norway was pro-Nazi, even though Norway’s anti-Muslim and pro-Zionist activists were affiliated with neo-Nazi organizations. On December 11, 2010, a suspicious terrorist explosion took place in downtown Stockholm, injuring two people and blamed on a Swedish-Iraqi suicide bomber. The bombing took place two weeks after the Swedish media reported that a Surveillance Detection Unit, operated form the U.S. embassy in Stockholm, was spying on Swedish citizens.

In the past few months, the Mossad has committed blatant acts of espionage and possible other terrorist attacks against nations it perceives as pro-Palestinian. During last year’s devastating earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, a team of Mossad agents was caught in the city. One of the agents died in the quake. The Mossad agents were found with multiple passports and thumb drives believed to have been used to download sensitive data from New Zealand government computer systems. New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key, who seemingly came from obscurity in New Zealand politics and whose Jewish mother immigrated from England, disregarded claims of Mossad espionage during the quake, even though he spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu four times on the day of the quake, after the dead Mossad agent was discovered by New Zealand police and intelligence.

New Zealand’s Southland Times was criticized by New Zealand’s Jewish community and Israel for promoting “conspiracy theories,” the typical modus operandi for pro-Israeli Jews, known as sayanim and katsas, who are used by Israel abroad as propaganda and espionage agents. Ironically, Key was meeting with Obama at the White House as the bombing and shootings were occurring in Norway. Key was believed to have attended the homo-erotic annual meeting of a men-only fraternity composed of American and foreign political and business elitists at the secluded Bohemian Grove in northern California, a conclave that also saw the attendance of Israel’s most notorious agent-of-influence in America, Henry Kissinger, who also serves as Obama’s “special envoy” to the Russian leadership. Key’s Labor Party predecessor, Helen Clark, was the subject of criticism in leaked 2004 State Department cables from the U.S. embassy in Wellington for cracking down on a Mossad team’s acquisition of forged New Zealand passports. Once again, the cable leaks were courtesy of the suspect WikiLeaks operation.

One of the Mossad perpetrators, Zev William Barkan, who fled New Zealand to avoid arrest, had also been reported in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, where he and other Israelis were producing pornographic and “snuff” movies, in which unsuspecting vagrants were murdered on camera.

In Egypt, Mossad agents have been accused by the present government of fomenting riots between Muslims and Coptic Christians. A recent explosion of seized Iranian weapons and ammunition being stored at a Cypriot naval base, a blast that killed the head of the Cypriot Navy, remains suspicious. The blast followed the decision of Cyprus’s left-of-center government to recognize the sovereignty of Palestine. The resulting public outrage over the blast resulted in the resignation of pro-Palestinian Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou and a major political embarrassment for Cyprus’s president Dimitris Christofias, a member of the Communist AKEL party.

Mossad is a master at false-flag terrorist attacks designed to alter perceptions and punish opponents of Israeli policy. The fingerprints of Israeli intelligence are all over the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the 3/22 train bombings in Madrid, the 7/7 transit bombings in London, and, now, the 7/22 attacks in Norway… While the Israeli-influenced corporate media has droned on and on about the dangers of Islamist terrorism, it is now obvious that the major threat to public safety comes from the State of Israel, a rogue nation that does not hesitate to murder the innocent to achieve its sordid political aims.

About Wayne MADSEN

Investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist. Has some twenty years experience in security issues. As a U.S. Naval Officer, he managed one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. He has been a frequent political and national security commentator on Fox News and has also appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and MS-NBC. He has been invited to testify as a witness before the US House of Representatives, the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and an terrorism investigation panel of the French government. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the National Press Club. Lives in Washington, D.C.