BEST OF YEAR 2002 WORLD AFFAIRS BRIEFS

 

JAN 4, 2002

 

WHY ISRAEL SPIES ON THE US

A couple of major stories have broken recently about Israeli spying on the US, including a devastating exposé by Fox News reporter Carl Cameron.   Cameron (incorrectly) claimed that the Israeli Mossad operates the biggest spy ring in the US.  [Actually, Israel is the third largest, after Russia and China.]  Of course, both the US and Israeli governments put pressure on Fox to cancel this coverage, acting in lock step, as usual.  The Israeli embassy discounted the Fox story in a published denial of wrong-doing in the Jerusalem Post: “The report on Fox News contains no quoted source, it has in no way demonstrated anything more than anonymous innuendo, and should be regarded accordingly. Israel does not spy on the United States of America.”   Meanwhile, most Americans are outraged, not knowing how the world really works.  Why would an ally who has been the recipient of so many voluntary contributions as well as taxpayer-funded foreign aid spy on its benefactor?   Actually, the reasons are varied and complex, but they become much more clear when the realities of the nature of the US government and its relationship with Israel are better understood.

 

Americans live under the naive illusion that the US is a benign liberty-loving nation, and that its government is a champion of freedom around the world.  Indeed, that is the intent of the American people, and it is also the stated, public position of its government.  But the reality is far different, as far as our government is concerned.  The US government has a very bad reputation around the world as a betrayer of its friends and allies who resist the US/NWO control agenda.  As a result, none of our allies trust the US completely, and each engages in some form of espionage against the US in order to protect itself from US meddling.  Remember the scandal in the last decade about French spying on the US?  That was only peanuts compared to the US government’s use of the Echelon global spy system to eavesdrop on all French government and commercial communications.  It is this complete arrogance on the part of the American government in deeming it their exclusive right to spy on the whole world that, in part, makes us the “ugly American” to other nations and induces the hatred we experienced on 9/11.  This is not a hatred of our freedoms.   

 

Israel has good reason to mistrust the US as its professed ally. Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew who was employed as a US intelligence analyst, is currently serving a life sentence for taking the US at its word.  There has been a long-standing secret agreement between the US and Israel, of which Jonathan Pollard was well aware, to share intel with each other that affects the security interests of either country.  Israel collects intelligence from many parts of the world (that the US cannot gain access to on the ground) and shares this important human intelligence (Humint) with the US.  But the US often does not live up to its part of the agreement.  Pollard became aware of information from US satellite signals intelligence (Sigint) crucial to Israel’s security.  He found out that this information was not being forwarded to Israel as per US/Israeli protocols.   When he brought this to the attention of his superiors, he was told to keep silent.  They claimed it was a matter of “national security”--a typical tactic by government leaders to suppress illegal acts and dissent within ranks.  Pollard went against the illegal demands of his superiors and provided the crucial information to Israel anyway and was prosecuted for it.  His sentence of life imprisonment (an uncharacteristicly severe penalty for delivering secrets to an ally) was handed down specifically to keep him locked up so that he could not reveal what he knows about illegal government operations and betrayals.

 

The foregoing is one of the reasons Israel spies on the US--it doesn’t trust the US to live up to its agreements.  However, there are other more serious and dangerous reasons for Israel’s distrust which have much to do with dark-side US-Israeli operations.  Israel’s Mossad has had a close relationship with the CIA since the early 1950’s, when Israel was battling for survival after the fragile truce of the first Arab-Israeli war.  Being almost totally dependent on US military support, the Mossad was anxious to ingratiate itself to the US, and became an eager accomplice in many international operations where the CIA wanted someone else to shield them from blame and to maintain plausible deniability.  The Mossad has done much of the CIA’s dirty work over the years, including  international assassinations and other illegal operations in which the CIA did not want to appear directly involved. 

 

For instance, the CIA has used Mossad agents assigned to the CIA to set up and manage overseas drug importation and money laundering centers, such as Michael Harawi did in Central America.  According to various CIA and military whistleblowers, Harawi was involved with Panama’s corrupt President Manuel Noriega (a CIA lackey) in the drug-for-weapons exchanges that were carried out under the cover of the NSA’s IRAN-CONTRA operations.  For a full catalog of these joint CIA/Mossad drug operations, see Rodney Stitch’s book, Drugging America (1 800-247-7389).  Much of the evidence in this book, including copies of statements by the Israeli embassy confirming joint Mossad/CIA operations, can also be found in Stich’s main work, Defrauding America, which I have previously recommended. 

 

This dark-side relationship between the CIA and the Mossad is still ongoing.  As recently as November of 2001, Israeli operatives were thwarted as they attempted to carry out a terror attack on the Mexican Congress.  A Mexican newspaper  La Vox De Aztlan, carried the story that “two men, one of them a former Israeli Colonel and Mossad agent, were arrested INSIDE the Mexican congress carrying 9mm pistols and dynamite, but were released following intense pressure from the Israeli Embassy.”   This was happening at a time when Mexico’s new President Fox (who has deep ties to the American NWO crowd) was having great difficulty getting the PRI opposition to go along with his support of President Bush’s phony war on terrorism.  Fox was booed by members of the Mexican Congress when he tried to rally support for America.  I suspect that the Israelis were engaged in an agent-provocateur exercise on behalf of the CIA to induce the recalcitrant Mexican left to get on board the anti-terrorist bandwagon. 

 

But the dark-side partnership with the Mossad hits America even closer to home.  The CIA and FBI have contracted much of the government’s illicit wire tapping to the Mossad.  Why?  Because (until the passage of the infamous US Patriot Act) it was illegal for the CIA and FBI to be tapping the communications of innocent Americans.  So, they would assign the Mossad to do it.  Is it little wonder that the Mossad would turn that same wire tapping equipment around and tap the communications of the CIA, FBI and high government officials?   Not at all.  They do it all the time.  Some of the best leaks about Bill Clinton’s misconduct came from Israeli surveillance, at a time when our own government agencies were protecting him. 

 

The important thing to realize is that Israel and the US are joint partners and partial adversaries at the same time.   Israel does a lot of the dirty work for the US, and in so doing Israel gets a huge junk of underground cash each year--cash which finances illegal operations inside Israel and which also lines the pockets of Israeli politicians loyal to the CFR globalist leaders who run America.  Israeli agents and government officials also see enough of the dark side of US operations to know that the dark side of the American government is ruthless and needs constant watching in order to keep from being stabbed in the back.  Just as Mafia chiefs spy on each other for personal protection, competing corrupt governments in the quest for survival in the lethal NWO do the same.

 

ASHCROFT USES EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE TO COVER FOR FBI CRIMES

NY Times columnist William Safire has been aiming his big guns at the Bush White House for days now.  In his latest salvo, he correctly chides the Bush Justice department for continuing the cover-up of both Clinton era crimes and ongoing FBI criminal links with the Mafia.  Sadly, he doesn’t understand the motives behind these continued cover-ups.  Here are some relevant quotations [with my commentary in brackets and emphasis added]:

 

“Stephen (the Rifleman) Flemmi is a gangster who spent a generation as a valued informant for the FBI in Boston. He is now awaiting trial for 10 murders he is charged with committing while on the FBI payroll.  Also charged is his FBI handler, John Connolly Jr., accused of tipping off Flemmi and his mobster boss before police were dispatched to pick them up. The boss, accused of 19 murders, is still a fugitive. Six years ago the Rifleman claimed that the FBI had promised him immunity from prosecution for his killings [true--a key element in the feds’ ability to control and use corrupt people to do their bidding] — allegedly including a couple of his girlfriends — but Federal Judge Mark Wolf, in a landmark decision, ruled that nobody in law enforcement had the power to sanction murder. [His ruling will probably be overturned on appeal]

 

“The New England FBI's long-running abuse of power is ‘the greatest failing in federal law enforcement history,’ according to James Wilson, chief counsel to the House Government Reform Committee. Evidence of this sustained miscarriage of justice was the 30-year imprisonment of Joe Salvati, whom FBI officials are said to have known to be innocent of the crime for which he was convicted — but they remained silent to protect Mafia sources [more than ‘sources’--these are partners in criminal dark side activities]. John Ashcroft's Department of Justice does not want Congress to air out this long, shameful story...Accordingly, the Bush Justice Department induced the president to sign an order asserting executive privilege over its ‘deliberative documents’ that would inform the public of answers to questions like: Why did Justice decline to indict an FBI supervisor who admitted taking money from Flemmi's gang?  Why did Justice help defend a hit man in California who killed a man while in the witness protection program? Much of this systemic perversion of justice took place decades ago, but the Ashcroft-Mueller crowd is determined to keep the embarrassing institutional history hushed up. That's why department lawyers recently adopted a policy of refusing all documents relating to its declinations to prosecute.” [In reality, the reason for the continued cover-up is because the dark side of government is still in control and Ashcroft and FBI director Mueller are part of the system.  These leaders project Christian identities only as a cover to keep conservatives believing.] 

 

JAN 11, 2002

 

CHEMTRAILS: FINALLY, SOME ANSWERS

Canadian investigative reporter William Thomas has uncovered, through tenacious and prodigious research, some answers to the mysterious chemtrail issue.  “Chemtrails” are chemical laden vapor trails dispersed at high altitudes by US military tanker aircraft and by some private aircraft under top-secret contracts with the US government. A draft version of Thomas’ report can be read online at http://www.nexusmagazine.com/chemtrails.html.  I don’t agree with everything Thomas writes or speculates about, but I will summarize his conclusions and share my analysis of what I think is well founded.

 

The chemtrail phenomenon has been observed for many years in different parts of the US as well as in other allied nations.  These chemtrails are primarily characterized by thick trails of white vapor, which persist for long periods of time, gradually dispersing to cover wide areas of the sky.  Let’s review some of the major differences between these chemical vapor trails and the normal, harmless condensation trails (“contrails”) often emitted by aircraft.  There are several critical distinguishing characteristics between these two types of emissions:

 

1)  Chemtrails often occur at altitudes and in environmental conditions where normal contrails cannot and do not occur.  According to NOAA meteorologist Thomas Schlatter, quoted in the article, “At temperatures lower than approx  -40 deg F  contrails almost always form, regardless of relative humidity. The higher the ambient temperature, the less likely that contrails will form. At temperatures above -40 degrees F, contrails are not expected. The persistence of contrails depends upon temperature, relative humidity, and the vigor of mixing between the exhaust plume and the ambient air. At low temperatures, with high humidity, and with stable temperature stratification (which inhibits vertical mixing of the air), contrails persist for many hours."  Chemtrails also occur at altitudes where contrails occur and thus the two are mixed. 

 

2)  Chemtrails persist for many hours and spread out continuously until wide areas of the sky are covered.  Contrails spread out only slightly and evaporate within 10 seconds to several hours, depending on the upper air humidity and temperature.  Contrails can persist under exceptional circumstances, so this is not a definitive criteria.

 

3) Contrails are always pure white and don’t exhibit much halo effect.  Chemtrails have an oily glint to them, with pronounced rainbow-like color effects (reddish or pinkish tint) as the sun shines through.  Some of the best photographic evidence of chemtrails is found at http://www.carnicom.com/contrails.htm.

 

4) Contrails are composed of water vapor combined with a small amount of residue from burned jet fuel.   Analysis of chemtrail residues, in contrast, claims to have uncovered a variety of chemicals and other substances, including barium, aluminum oxide, microscopic fibers and oil-based products, none of which are intrinsic to normal jet fuel.

 

5)  Contrails exit directly behind the engines of the aircraft, which produce the moisture.  Thus, aircraft will exhibit only 1, 2, 3, or 4 distinct condensation trails, each trailing an engine.  Chemtrails, in contrast, are expelled from multiple ports along the entire wing surface, not directly in line with the engines.   Once again, see the pictures on www.carnicom.com.  These photos are perhaps the most definitive of all chemtrail evidence. Some debunkers use cropped photos of high-G manuevers which gives off aerodynamic condensation from the wing--as a supposed explanation to wing emitted chemtrails.  But this is bogus.  Aerodynamic condensation doesn’t occur in straight and level flight and never leaves a long contrail.  It also shows up within inches of the wing trailing edge, unlike chemtrail spraying.  

 

6)  Contrails cannot be shut on and off at will, nor abruptly, as witnesses have seen in numerous sightings of chemical spraying by aircraft.  I personally have seen this type of on/off spraying in Utah by two military tankers flying in loose formation.  When numerous witnesses called KSL--TV in Salt Lake City to investigate, KSL dutifully parroted the government’s official response:  that the aircraft was a government contractor flying a Lear jet and doing experiments on ice crystal formation.  Baloney!  As one of those witnesses, and an experienced pilot, I can tell you those two huge military tanker aircraft were not tiny Lear jets.  The government is lying--but at least, in this case, they didn’t try to outright deny what hundreds of people were watching, as they usually do.  They simply tried to take advantage of public ignorance of aircraft recognition, feeding them a phony but marginally plausible excuse. 

 

7)  Aircraft dispersing chemtrails always fly back and forth over a set area, creating circular or zig-zag patterns of vapor in the sky.  Often many chemtrail aircraft can be seen in one area, flying in crisscross patterns laying down vapor trails before flying off over the horizon.  Large airliners operating under Air Traffic Control fly on set airways and do not make such patterns in the sky.  Government representatives have tried to pass off reports of crisscross chemtrail patterns as merely the convergence of airliner contrails at normal air traffic intersections, but this is false.  For one thing, almost all airways in the US run in straight lines.  Neither do airliners fly in close formation with other aircraft.  In addition, chemtrail sightings almost never come close to normal airway intersections, lest they interfere with normal traffic or be observed by other airline passengers.  

 

8) All legitimate aircraft at high altitudes emitting contrails will be acknowledged by the FAA.  Conversely, the existence of aircraft spraying chemicals is always denied by the FAA, under orders from the government.  You can be on a cell phone, in real time, reporting the presence of an aircraft overhead to the FAA and they will tell you that no such aircraft exists on their radar screens.  They are flat-out lying.  It’s amazing to me how many military pilots and government ATC controllers can so easily justify these lies.  Surely some are aware of the damaging health effects reported on the internet.  Occasionally, an honest controller will admit there is a “military exercise” blocked out for that area. 

 

Many have long suspected that the government has been using these airborne chemical sprayings to test dispersal methods for mild forms of biological or chemical warfare.  Indeed, chemtrail sightings have long been associated with community-wide illnesses reported in the areas of the sprayings.  Thomas himself was involved in a case in Espanola, Ontario, in the spring of 1998.  Residents there had been complaining of “severe headaches, chronic joint pain, dizziness, sudden extreme fatigue, acute asthma attacks and feverless ‘flu-like’ symptoms over a 50-square-mile area [which] coincided with what they termed ‘months of spraying’ by photo-identified US Air Force tanker planes.”  An expert witness in the case, former Ontarion Provincial Police Officer Ted Simola, described the “lingering Xs and numerous white trails, some of which ‘just ended’ as if they had been shut off but remained in the sky,” observations consistent with other chemtrail sightings.  

 

On November 18, 1998, the people of Espanola petitioned Parliament, suspecting possible government involvement in these airborne chemical emissions.  They called upon Parliament to “repeal any law that would permit the dispersal of military chaff or of any cloud-seeding substance whatsoever by domestic or foreign military aircraft without the informed consent of the citizens of Canada thus affected.”  In response to their petition, the Ministry of Defense eventually replied: “It’s not us.”  The government assertion was mostly true: it was not Canadian aircraft, but US Air Force tankers which were conducting the sprayings.  Yet the Canadian government was complicit in allowing the US to experiment over Canada.

 

Thomas did finally get an American ATC controller to talk to him, under conditions of anonymity.  The controller works on the US eastern seaboard.  Thomas called his contact “Deep Sky.”  Deep Sky confirmed that the chemicals being spread in the exercises were acting as electrolytes, enhancing conductivity of radar and radio waves.  Additionally, the spread of the material was actually degrading, not enhancing, ATC radars – so there had to be some other purpose behind the sprayings.  It is significant that many of the exercises were conducted out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Ohio, which, according to Thomas, “has long been deeply engaged in HAARP’s electromagnetic warfare program.”  HAARP is a US government radio wave project in Alaska which could be related to weather modification.  HAARP’s  huge powerful transmitters and arrays of antennas are, according to the official website, designed to heat up the atmosphere above it.  Phasing the antennas can skew the heating effect directionally, and may even interact with reflective layers of metal particles in Chemtrails.  What is interesting is that HAARP’s location is at the 65th parallel, just south of the arctic circle.  This position corresponds to the atmospheric boundary where relatively moist southern air moving northward collides with cold arctic air coming south.  When these dissimilar air mass meet they rise and form new storm systems.  Heating the atmosphere directly under this boundary layer would tend to accelerate storm development.  Finally, through a series of questions, Deep Sky confirmed that the US tankers were indeed involved in climate modification experiments. 

 

At this point in the article, Thomas launches into a theory that the reflective clouds are being used to reduce the effects of global warming (Edward Teller’s theory).  He discusses the Welsback patent, issued in 1994 to Hughes Aircraft, [long involved in government black operations] which involves the use of a reflective blanket of aluminum-laced cloud cover to cool the earth.  However, I think Thomas was fed disinformation here.  The government often uses phony patents to lead investigators down the wrong trail--especially when dealing with HAARP.   Global warming is a fraud.  There is no way the US government would engage in this massive a cover-up and risk illness to the US population over a theory with little basis in fact and even less evidence of actual damage.  Besides, government sponsored aerosol spraying has been going on before global warming became an issue. 

 

However, the weather modification process is, in my opinion, the best explanation so far as to the widespread use of spraying.  The reflective aluminum particles or fibers in the created cloud barriers cause cool spots over normally warm areas, which influence the rise or fall of air masses.  These reflective layers may also react with HAARP transmissions in some way.   Radio transmissions need reflective layers to channel the energy in specific directions.  The creation of sun or radiation shielding may explain why spraying occurs at high altitude, during the daytime, and in cloudless areas--where the reflective shield would be visible and effective for a long time.

 

None of these characteristics fit a biological or chemical warfare test scenario.  If the government was testing delivery methods of biological or chemical agents, it would be more likely to mix the chemicals in clouds at much lower altitudes where it would more easily precipitate downward on the population.  The chemtrail sprayings always take place at high altitudes where the materials can linger or drift long distances: hardly an accurate delivery method.  The sprayings are also done only in clear areas of the sky--which, again, points to weather modification.

 

What I’m convinced of now, is that the widespread flu-like and Alzheimer’s symptoms have been mere side effects of the sprayed chemicals, and not the direct purpose of the sprayings.   The extensive use of aluminum oxide, found as the primary component of these reflective clouds, does have serious medical side effects and may well explain the upsurge in Alzheimer’s disease in the US--which is reaching epidemic proportions.  I think it is also clear that the government has been experimenting with different types and mixes of chemicals, which explains why the observations and effects differ over time.  Several years ago, there were many sightings of sticky droplets falling from the sky, trailing spider-web-like strands behind.  Upon contact they made people very ill.  Later chemical analysis has shown a lot of aluminum oxide and micro fibers, also composed of barium and aluminum.  People living under these spray patterns have developed Alzheimer’s-like symptoms.

 

As expected, the US continues to deny any spraying as well as any experimentation in weather modification.  The media is totally complicit in this cover-up as well.  The allegations have been widespread over the internet for years.  Thousands of inquiries have gone out to the media over the years and not once has the major media ever done a story on this issue.   The health consequences are huge.  Even the politically correct environmental movement has had no luck in pressing the media for coverage.   There is no way to explain the media’s refusal to investigate or give coverage to this story except that they are fully aware of it and are under bogus  “national security” orders to spike the story.

 

A US Air Force Colonel, according to Thomas, told a senator: “The Air Force is not conducting any weather modification and has no plans to do so in the future.”   But as Thomas retorts, “In fact, attempts to steer hurricanes by spraying heat-robbing chemicals in their paths began in the 1950s. The recipe for creating ‘cirrus shields’ was outlined in an unusually arrogant US Air Force study. Subtitled, ‘Owning the Weather by 2025,’ the 1996 report explained how weather force specialists were dispersing chemicals behind high-flying tanker aircraft in a process the air force calls ‘aerial obscuration.’”   Sounds just like what people are describing as chemtrails.  Even members of Congress know about Chemtrails.  The term is in the list of prohibited Space activities of Rep. Kucinich's HR 2977 “Space Preservation Act.”    Because of the variety of different chemicals used in Chemtrails over the past 10 years and the changing patterns of spraying, I’m convinced the government is still experimenting and hasn’t actually found a predictable way yet to harness the weather.   Sadly, this only means the secret experiments will continue and people will suffer. 

 

EMERGENCY HEALTH POWERS ACT SPREADS TO THE STATES

The Neal Knox Report (http://www.shotgunnews.com/knox/knox.dog) mentions that “The Centers for Disease Control, which calls ‘gun violence’ a public health epidemic, has sent a ‘model law’ to state legislatures which would give state agencies unprecedented powers in the event of a public health emergency -- including the power to seize ‘private property.’  The first draft of the Model Emergency Health Powers Act -- the version introduced in some of the 14 states where it has been filed -- specifically includes the power to ‘control, restrict and
regulate ... firearms ....’  Other sections of the bill authorize seizure and destruction of ‘private property’ and exempt the state from liability.”   Whenever the government engages in illegal activities they always seek for official immunity. 

 

These are totally unconstitutional provisions that infringe on our constitutional protections for private property and self-defense rights.  Make sure conservative state legislators knows to watch out for this bill when “friendly” Republicans introduce it into your state legislator.  These dangerous proposals are being initiated by the Ashcroft Justice Department.  Sadly, it’s totally in line with the weekly betrayals of liberty we have been seeing from the Bush-Ashcroft team.  While the gun violence restriction didn’t make it into the final US Patriot Act (a terrible misnomer), the first draft of this bill produced by Ashcroft’s team contained a major limitation upon the fundamental and constitutional right of habeas corpus--the provision that allows any person to demand of the court that a prisoner be brought forth, forcing the government to show cause why he is being held.  Ashcroft’s proposal, to waive this important constitutional guarantee in the name of “suspected terror” (broadly defined), was stricken from the bill in committee, but it could show up at any time in some other bill or amendment.  We must be ever vigilant in safeguarding our remaining rights. 

 

JAN 18, 2002

 

ENRON-ANDERSEN & CO. ACCOUNTING SCANDAL: A BROADER VIEW

Yes, all the shocking news stories are true.  Enron has been heavily involved in insider trading, fraudulent accounting, investor deception, political payoffs, tax evasion, and personal enrichment of selected executives.  But the media neglects to discuss the underlying collusion that has protected and will continue to protect the biggest players in this debacle.  The Enron-Andersen scandal is really all about the arrogance of power that comes when top executives achieve protected status within the ranks of the American power elite; when they come to realize that loyalty to the establishment insiders (who all play a roll in the global NWO) can guarantee immunity from the laws that constrain ordinary businessmen.  This unwritten assurance of immunity is reinforced over time as these executives watch others climb the ladder of enrichment and power through less than ethical means and escape both scrutiny and prosecution.  It is reinforced when others whisper in their ear that the President of the United States (whether Democrat or Republican), the Attorney General, the SEC, international bankers, and even judges are on the same team.  All who have gone before were enriched and protected by demonstrating their loyalty to the same unnamed system.  [CNN reported this week that “The federal judge overseeing a host of shareholder lawsuits against Enron Corp. recused herself from the case, according to an order made public Monday.   US District Judge Lee Rosenthal, in a one-page order, wrote simply that ‘the undersigned judge is withdrawing from these cases,’ giving no explanation whatsoever for her decision.”  Giving no reason is a sign that either she had secret ties to Enron or that she wasn’t going to comply with secret pressure coming  from above to protect Enron and chose to recuse herself rather than join the conspiracy]

Knowing that this powerful team can provide wealth and immunity is heady stuff--and, like alcohol, it does go to some people’s head.  Enron was on a drunken power roll and fell off the wagon.  The resulting spectacle is proving to be messy and the Powers That Be don’t like it.  A lot of covering up is going to take place in the next year, and cover-ups always increase the risk of exposing the interconnectedness of the power elite. 

 

Enron, however, isn’t the only company acting brashly and irresponsibly.  There are dozens of other high flying companies that are cooking the books, with the help of one or more of the “Big Five” accounting firms. These companies are guilty of defrauding unwary investors--investors who foolishly rely upon the certified profit and loss statements of these big accounting firms and/or upon the rosy analysis of Wall Street brokers--who are also climbing their own establishment-supported ladder and repeating the trumped-up hype they are being fed by senior partners. 

 

It’s difficult to avoid this corruption process.  The problem with a business market that has numerous government strings attached, is that when certain big corporations are allowed to bypass some of the high costs of taxation and government regulation, and advance through insider connections, it gives them an illegal advantage in the marketplace relative to non-corrupted corporations, who watch their bottom line being continually eroded by the high costs of compliance and bureaucratic delays.  It translates into a perverse incentive to either join in the collusion with government or stagnate.  Certainly one’s chances of increasing market share, in the global “controlled” economy, is limited if you don’t play along with those that have partial immunity from the rules.  In other words, selective enforcement is used to impede those companies who don’t have “connections,” or at least to increase their price of doing business so as to induce them to join the globally-connected club, now euphemistically called “public-private partnerships.” 

 

While personal enrichment of the top players does occur in virtually all cases of such public-private partnerships, I do not believe this is the sole attraction to join nor the main criteria used by those higher in the chain to select which companies are allowed into the inner circle.  I believe the main criteria for acceptance is a corporate leader’s willingness to harness his corporation for global purposes related to the emerging NWO and to use his corporation to facilitate secret government operations.  Such facilitation may involve providing millions in contributions to pet global causes, revolving-door high-paying jobs for government cut-outs (agents playing the role of private citizens), laundering money from government dark-side operations (drug ops), hiding black budget weapons programs within high dollar contracts (military contractors), or covering for illegal government military and political intervention in foreign countries via private contractors.  All of this goes on in ever-increasing amounts as I have detailed in past briefs.  Not surprisingly, these activities always involve the same group of favored multi-national corporations, many of which expand their range of services from energy or financial services to also include covert military operations so that they can assure their usefulness to the dark side of US government operations. 

 

Enron was a well-oiled global player who could be counted upon to pony up lots of money for organizations promoting the NWO agenda.  Enron gave millions to the Baker Institute so they could award an annual “Enron Prize for Distinguished Public Service.”  Its first recipient was retired general Colin Powell, then ex-Soviet dictator Michael Gorbachev, and the latest is Eduard Shevardnadze, still a secret Communist who rules CIS/soviet Georgia--all reliable global players in need of constant promotion. 

 

This is not to say that everyone in Enron is aware of these hidden globalist ties.   Only those at the top of the power pyramid in these multinational corporations know of the globalist objects they serve.  The top executives of almost every major US corporation with extensive government relations are members of the Council on Foreign Relations--the prime organizer and cheer leader of the NWO agenda.  But only a few within the CFR know of the organization’s true power structure and chain of command, which goes beyond the CFR itself.  Many others only know that a loose control system does exist and that it can either make them or break them depending on how they play along.  That seems to be sufficient to keep most people loyal and compliant.

 

Each major player knows a dozen or more powerful people they can call upon to secure government contracts or bail them out if they have problems, but they almost never know where the ultimate trail of leadership leads.  They also know, by hints and intimidation, not to ever ask too many questions about where the ultimate power comes from.  Although the system prefers to operate more out of predictability, suggestion, and the lure of rewards than by direct pressure or threats, the latter happens often enough to keep people in line. 

 

It is the fuzzy nature of this power structure that allows for insiders to occasionally get sloppy, arrogant, and overconfident.  The Enron fall was partially due to that kind of bravado and overconfidence.  Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) displayed that same kind of bravado and lack of due care in the high flying derivatives markets.  LTCM was saved by the Powers That Be (PTB) because its dissolution threatened the whole system.  In like manner today, J P Morgan Chase is currently in tenuous financial straits, as are many major Wall Street firms.  They won’t be allowed to fail because they could bring down the whole economy--which the insiders aren’t ready for yet (though it’s still coming).   

 

So why didn’t they bail out Enron?   It certainly wasn’t for lack of pleading.  Enron executives met various times in private meetings with VP Cheney, Pres. Bush and Treasury Sec. O’Neill trying to forge a solution. As the NY Times reported, “Bush told reporters that he had not talked with Enron CEO Kenneth L. Lay about the company's woes.  But the White House later acknowledged that Lay, a longtime friend of Bush's, had lobbied Commerce Secretary Don Evans and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. Lay called O'Neill to inform him of Enron's shaky finances and to warn that because of the company's key role in energy markets, its collapse could send tremors through the whole economy...An O'Neill deputy, Peter Fisher, got similar calls from Enron's president and from Robert Rubin, the former Treasury Secretary who now serves as a top executive at Citigroup, which had at least $800 million in exposure to Enron through loans and insurance policies. Fisher—who had helped organize the LTCM bailout—judged that Enron's slide didn't pose the same dangers to the financial system and advised O'Neill against any bailout or intervention with lenders or credit-rating agencies.”  Either Enron was in too deep to save or the executives were turned down for other reasons.  It’s possible that the insiders decided they needed to teach an object lesson to the other corporations in the NWO club, who are running similar games, to tighten up.

 

In any case, Enron itself won’t be the big loser; bankruptcy laws ensure that an insolvent company’s losses are transferred to the employees, stockholders and creditors.  The principles have already taken out their millions and walked away.  A controlled Congressional committee will investigate (and do nothing); the SEC will instigate more control boards (which restrain only those not part of the insiders’ team); and the Justice Department will only prosecute a few mid-level players, who will spend a little time in jail and then will be compensated after they get out.  Many of the culpable players will sign plea bargains in exchange for immunity--a scheme used regularly in government to make it appear as if the investigation is going on in earnest, while shielding the favored players.

 

THEORETICAL COMMENTS ON COLLUSION: In this briefing, I will attempt to do what the insiders fear most--expose a few more linkages of connectivity and support between players that are not supposed to have any lawful connection or supporting relationships.  Each messy scandal adds to the evidence that a conspiracy of power exists.  Don’t look for the testimony of any defecting insider who will admit all.  I know that is what skeptics want, but the players in these evil conspiracies are too smart to allow that to happen.  Conspiracies illuminate themselves only dimly by the glimpses we get of government officials acting (multiple times) in ways that run counter to their legal mandate, and by cross contacts between supposedly separate fiduciary entities that violate their public trust--not in some unitary lone example, but in a pattern of conduct, and with a recurring group of players, each rewarded and protected for doing his or her part.

 

The reason the public finds it hard to believe in high level conspiracies is that the discovery process is long and voluminous.  One has to study and research a variety of scandals and cover-ups and remember enough names to correlate the common players, including business executives, judges, and government officials.  Key individuals have a habit of showing up in multiple scenarios.  It is also instructive to watch how the key players involved in certain scandals are shuffled into other protected employment rather than being disgraced or jailed (revolving door tactics).  Companies that have hired fallen agents or culpable executives of past scandals are almost always part of the protection racket.

 

However, since none of us in the private sector have the unlimited resources of government investigative agencies, a full view of the existent conspiracy is difficult or impossible to acquire.  The most voluminous leaks are always dated.  For example, we have fairly cohesive evidence of the collusion that took place during the 1980s--thanks primarily to the numerous whistleblowers of that era--but fewer and fewer whistleblowers are emerging these days as the ruthlessness of the enforcement divisions in government instills widespread fear amid the ranks.  Additionally, there are fewer and fewer principled people still in government service who are bothered enough to blow the whistle--at least at the mid levels and higher, where glimpses of collusion are sometimes visible.  The best we can do is gather and assimilate the various bits and pieces that other independent researchers find out and post on the Web.  I’m not the best of those detailed researchers because of my time restraints.  But my strong point is being able to scan lots of miscellaneous testimony see the emerging patterns of collusion.    Here are some anomalies from the Enron scandal that will illustrate the patterns of collusion at play here.  To due complete justice to the subject, it would take several books.  I will continue to add evidence in my briefs as it surfaces.

 

1.  SELECTIVE FAILURE OF GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT:

Evidence of collusion with government is strong when oversight agencies consistently choose target the small or medium companies and let multi-national corporations get away with egregious faults year after year.  Even  when the agencies claim to be underfunded and understaffed, as the SEC claimed in regards to Enron inquiries, logic would dictate that they would use scarce resources to go after the big fish.  In fact, they do on occasion--but these audits are a cover to obscure the public’s ability to see a pattern of selective enforcement.  For the most part, the few big companies targeted for enforcement by oversight committees are usually the ones out of favor with the insiders, or those which are not showing any willingness to support global objectives.

 

Selective enforcement may be a valid excuse if such selectivity is random, but there is no randomness in the history of the SEC and other government agencies covering for big Wall Street brokers and government-connected industries.  The worst offenders with the most connections with government get almost uniform protection.   For example, in the past 10 years, the IRS consistently failed to investigate Enron’s hundreds of off-shore entities and partnerships through which it engaged in sheltering billions of dollars in income.  The luck of the audit draw?  I don’t think so.  Enron’s audit profile was a mass of red flags.  Despite a gross income of over $100 billion per year, Enron paid taxes in only 1 out of the past 5 years.  The company even received over $143 million in taxes returned by the US Treasury.

 

Next, let’s consider the failure of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) oversight; it borders on the incredulous.  Publicly traded stock companies are required by the SEC to report income and expenses to investors every quarter.  In addition the SEC receives a copy of the year-end report to stockholders, which must be independently audited by accounting firms with no connection to the company.  The SEC has the authority to investigate those reports and challenge the results.  They refused to challenge Enron on numerous potential violations despite letters from company whistleblowers and angry investors detailing suspected irregularities.  Instead, the SEC chose to rely on the “Big Five” auditing firms to do its work.  Yet, as the SEC well knew, all of the Big Five accounting firms are involved in covering for the illegal accounting practices of government connected corporations.  Additionally, there is an incestuous revolving-door relationship between the big accounting firms and these insider-protected companies--an improper relationship which the SEC is also only too familiar with.  In fact, the SEC has the same relationship itself with the Big Five accounting firms.  Almost all the Chairmen and Chief Accountants of the SEC come from the ranks of either insider-connected Wall Street Brokers or the “Big Five” accounting firms.  Current SEC Chairman, Harvey Pitt, is an attorney who used to represent Arthur Andersen.  The current Chief Accountant of the SEC is from the “Big Five.”   It is little wonder that the SEC doesn’t blow the whistle on its own friends.

   

 

Specifically, the SEC refused to prosecute Enron executives on obvious violations of the law regarding insider stock trading.  These executives falsified reports of Enron’s true financial condition so as to allow themselves the opportunity to transfer their own stock ownership to other unsuspecting investors, who were left holding the bag those same executives knew would soon be worthless.  Enron’s employee pension funds were also devastated by the collapse.  In fairness to the SEC, they are proceeding (after the fact) to pursue some charges: Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow, who was fired from Enron in October after making an estimated $30 million on the partnerships deals within the company, is facing criminal charges about the sale of personal Enron stock in the weeks before bankruptcy.  Almost all Enron executives had separate lucrative partnerships with Enron to allow Enron to hide bad loans and to shelter income.   Fastow is going to be the token sacrificial lamb though there are dozens of others who should be include.  And why not Kenneth Lay, the captain of the ship?  He has connections!

 

Enron’s Chairman of the Board, Kenneth Lay, could not have been ignorant of the illegal accounting practices that Enron and its accountants from Arthur Andersen & Co. cooked up over his 10 year-plus tenure as Enron Chairman.  After all, Lay authorized and paid AA & Co. hundreds of millions of dollars in consulting fees specifically to create these accounting strategies. Internal Andersen documents which have been made public, according to the NY Times, “showed that as long ago as February, Andersen executives considered dropping Enron as a client because of concerns that it was keeping debts off its main balance sheets [via partnership agreements and off-shore corporate shells].  The documents also indicated that Kenneth L. Lay, Enron's chairman and chief executive, disposed of stock within days of receiving a letter in August warning him of accounting problems.”

 

The establishment press also dredged up one “smoking gun” letter written to Chairman Kenneth Lay by Sherron Watkins, VP for Corporate Development at Enron.  She detailed several looming crises that were about to explode, and spoke openly about the risk that investors might discover the financial fraud underlying previous reports issued by the company.  Watkins also pointed out to Lay the questionable nature of the partnerships involving several company executives that would potentially “implode in a wave of financial scandals.”  To read the unsigned Watkins letter, recently released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1764000/1764308.stm

 

2.  THE COMPLICITY OF WALL STREET BROKERS

Despite all the warning signs available to Wall Street in mid-year 2000, few warnings to shareholders were forthcoming.  Brokers obviously weren’t interested in doing any last minute “due diligence” for the millions of Enron investors and employees who were at risk of an imminent stock collapse. Newsday.com reported, “As Enron stock climbed and Wall Street was still promoting it, a group of 29 Enron executives and directors began to sell their shares. These insiders received $1.1 billion by selling 17.3 million shares from 1999 through mid-2001, according to court filings based on public records.  They continued selling just before Enron's stock started to tumble early last year and the company began its slide into bankruptcy protection.”  Well connected brokerage houses were also involved in the selling of Enron at its peak even while promoting it.

 

One of the biggest sellers was Kenneth L. Lay, Enron’s Chairman and a major player in funding President Bush’s governorship and run for the presidency.  According to Newsday, “He [Lay] was among more than a dozen Enron executives who received $30 million or more, including one who sold shares valued at $353.7 million.”   After the stock had dropped by more than half of its original value, company employees started to worry about their 401(k) pension funds and began switching to other stocks.  To add insult to injury, Chairman Lay intervened to void the employees’ option to change the composition of their pension plans.  They could not longer sell Enron stock.  As I reported earlier, the final act of greed and hypocrisy by top Enron executives was the draining of a large chunk ($50 million!) of remaining cash reserves to award bonuses to themselves and other mid-level executives days before filing for bankruptcy.  Even ex-CEO Jeffrey Skilling participated in the looting as he continued to accept huge “consulting fees” from Enron after he stepped down as president.  He escaped responsibility but still profited.

 

Despite the fact that unscrupulous lawyers and accountants can find loopholes in the laws to justify much of this looting and personal enrichment, an aggressive SEC could have used much of their discretionary power of investigation and prosecution to indict dozens of Enron executives.  It did nothing until the damage was irreversible.  Neither have any heads rolled at the SEC, which is predictable considering the trails of Enron connections and political donations that infiltrate the Bush administration as well as both parties in Congress.  Election records indicate that nearly two thirds of the Senate and almost half of the House of Representative received financial backing from Enron.   As to the Bush administration connections to Enron, the president himself has the most.  George W. Bush was the one to call and pressure Argentina to accept Enron’s bid for the Argentina-Chile pipeline, even though Enron had no previous experience in pipeline building and was offering to pay Argentina the least compensation for gas and oil.  Enron, CEO Skilling and Chairman Lay gave a total of $300,000 to President Bush’s inaugural fund.  President Bush’s selection as head of the Republic National Committee is former Montana Governor, Marc Rasicot [pronounced ROSS-coe] a former Enron lawyer and lobbyist.  Attorney General Ashcroft has received money from Enron in his former Senate campaigns.  

 

It is also telling that former chief accountant of the SEC, Lynn Turner, resigned last year, in part due to stonewalling by the agency and Congress on reforms that would have targeted regulatory violators like Enron.  Turner had tried in vain to create new rules that would have restricted big corporations and their Big Five hired guns from stretching accounting rules to hide poor performance or illegal financial activities.  His parting words were: “...the system is near a breaking point...The average investor is going to be nervous today as to whether these numbers are good or not, and I think he should be in light of what's going on...[M]y profession has to respond to what's going on, and come back and demonstrate to investors why they should trust us again....Since 1998, there has been a surge in the incidents of large public companies stretching accounting rules.  The amount of gimmickry and outright fraud dwarfs any period since the early 1970s, when major accounting scams such as Equity Funding surfaced, and the 1920s, when rampant fraud helped cause the crash of 1929 and led to the creation of the SEC.”  [Arthur Andersen & Company was the auditor which “failed” to discover the massive fraud in the Equity Funding scam.]

 

3. INSIDER CONNECTED ACCOUNTING FIRMS ARE ENRICHED THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS

This is the big story that needs to air in order to see fully the connection between the Enron scandal and the other private partners in government cover-up and crime. Recent revelations about collusion between Enron and its auditing/accounting firm Arthur Andersen & Co. are shocking, and telling.  It was revealed this week that AA & Co.’s senior partner David Duncan, the man in charge of auditing Enron, was fired on Tuesday for allegedly ordering the destruction of Enron-related documents and e-mails after the SEC issued a subpoena for information on the firm.  He is now cooperating with members of the US House Energy and Commerce Committee and will be granted some partial immunity for his cooperation.  While the focus of attention is on Duncan as a rogue player (an exception and not the rule), everyone in the Big Five accounting firms knows that he would never have acted without specific direction from higher-ups.  [In fact, Duncan is spilling the beans about the culpability of higher partners in Andersen and Enron, but I suspect that information will be buried by certain members of the House committee.] Incredibly, Duncan continues to assert that the roles of the “Big Five” accounting firms and government SEC regulations are suitable to guarantee the honesty of big business and big government.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The entire system is awash in cross-linking good-old-boy networks whose prime mission is to cover for each other.

 

It used to be there were the “Big Eight” accountancy firms,  then the “Big Six.”  Now, because of recent mergers, there are only the “Big Five:” Arthur Andersen, Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and KPMG (Klynveld Kraayenhof & Co, Peat, Marwick, and Mitchell & Co plus Reinhard Goerdeler).   All of these firms are international powerhouses with operations in every major country of the world.  Each has a history of merger strategy that includes aligning big European or British firms with powerful American firms.  These Big Five firms have themselves become corrupt as they have served as facilitators in the corrupt world of public-private partnerships.

 

To be fair, I should make it clear that these multinational accounting firms operate much like the government: there is a “white side” and a “dark side.”   Most of the accountants who work for the major firms know nothing of these conspiratorial affairs.  They operate diligently according to “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles” (GAAP).  Only proven unprincipled partners and accountants are allowed into the secret dark-side world of helping government-connected corporations hide their true financial picture.  These unscrupulous accountants are enriched beyond their wildest dreams, so the incentives are great. 

 

One of the prime attractions of the big accountancy firms has been their ability to promise insider contacts with government--in other words: to get around the system.  If accounting were only about keeping honest track of company records, income and expenses, smaller accountancy firms would fare better in this world.  But since government favoritism plays such a large role in determining which companies are allowed to do business internationally, accountancy firms that promise “access” are indispensable in helping companies to grow into mega-corporations.  In the age of globalism, companies cannot survive in the corrupt world of government favoritism and bureaucratic red tape without the high-priced help of the Big Five accounting firms.  Indeed, this promise of “access” is one of the reasons that the big accountancy firms are able to garner such outrageously high fees from their clients.   

 

In addition, all the Big Five firms have even larger consultancy components that have been split off as separate corporations.  These allow the Big Five to not only serve as general auditors and accountants, but to reap millions in business consultancy contracts with the same firms for which they serve as auditors.  It is this mixing of business strategy consulting and fiduciary auditing responsibilities, an inherent conflict of interest, that has given partial rise to the need for cover-up of accounting corruption.  Enron paid Arthur Andersen not only an outrageous $27 million for auditing fees, but also a whopping $52 million in consulting fees.  And for what?  It certainly wasn’t to straighten out the corporate problems, but to cook the books and design strategies to hide secret loans and expenses.  In the year 2000, Arthur Levitt, then SEC chairman, tried to restrict the consulting work that accounting firms could do, but he could not convince Congress to go along due to high pressure lobbying by the Big Five accounting firms. Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ total lobbying expenditures for last year were $960,000 and their lobbying income was a whopping  $6,500,000.   Someone obviously knows Pricewaterhouse has clout in government.

 

Meanwhile, virtually no one in the news is questioning the $27 million Arthur Andersen received last year for auditing services at Enron--setting aside the issue of the $52 million in consulting fees.   How about an audit of what services that kind of money really provided?   To rack up that kind of money, AA & Co. would have to be providing Enron with 300 auditors per day for every working day of the year--very doubtful.  I suspect there was a lot of pay-off money hidden in those exorbitant accounting and consulting fees.  Part of the fees were also no doubt intended as protection money to cover the blame the accounting firm will likely absorb as the facts unravel.   

 

Is this scandal going to break Arthur Andersen?   Not at all.  Complicity in accounting fraud is a valued commodity in this world.  Andersen’s services will still be in demand.  As before, they will confront state regulators (threatening their license to practice) by claiming that Duncan was a rogue element acting on his own.  Andersen has been hit with huge multi-million dollar lawsuits and penalties many times before, as have all the other “Big Five.”  They simply factor penalties into their compensation schedule.   For example, in the Waste Management fiasco, AA & Co. paid fines and counter litigation fees of $120 million for culpable accounting practices--but it’s all peanuts compared to the steady flow of protected income the company had previously received.  

 

And it’s not just Arthur Andersen.  All of the “Big Five” play “good guy-bad guy” in their turn, though Arthur Andersen and Pricewaterhouse Coopers are the two biggest government players.   When AA & Co. gets caught, they are fired and Pricewaterhouse comes in to play the good guy, uncovering Andersen’s fraud and collecting huge fees.  In another case, they may switch places.   One gets paid for the corruption and the other gets paid for uncovering it--each of the “Big Five” earning millions for helping dissolve firms each year that go belly up through the accounting magic of one of the other five.  Of course, the judges and lawyers have gotten in on the bankruptcy racket too, as I have outlined in previous briefs.   The only ones who lose consistently are the investors and employees, who are left with nothing, after the lawyers and accountants are paid. 

 

For example, in the UDC Homes Inc. collapse of 1995, a class action suite was filed against Arthur Andersen for “aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty and fraud by the directors and officers of the company. The shareholders, along with Coopers & Lybrand (now part of Pricewaterhouse), settled for $4 million.  The plaintiffs did prevail, however, in their claim that UDC had issued false and misleading financial statements that painted a rosy picture of the company's financial status for fiscal 1992, 1993 and 1994, and that Arthur Andersen had signed off on these statements.   There are tens of other similar cases.  Enron is not unique.

 

In one of the more egregious cover-ups directly related to the dark side of government, we see a direct connection between Pricewaterhouse and the CIA. In the 1980s the CIA ran their drug and money laundering operations through BCCI (with affiliate First American), which collapsed when the CIA withdrew its funds--leaving private parties holding all the debts.  Guess who was BCCI’s accountant?  Pricewaterhouse. Pricewaterhouse faced approximately $12.5 billion in legal claims from the Deloitte & Touche (another of  the “Big Five”) liquidators of the collapsed bank.  The fact that Pricewaterhouse could absorb these huge claims tells us something about the huge profits they make in their world of protected immunity.  While it may appear that paying huge fine proves they DON’T have immunity, they simply receive immunity by back-door compensation.  It’s all the same to them.  But this way, the public is still fooled into believing that the government is serving its fiduciary purpose of prosecuting this kind of evil.  Very slick!  

 

 Meanwhile, the CIA moved their money laundering operations offshore to the Cayman Islands with a proprietary bank called Nugan Hand Bank. Nugan Hand was also found to be laundering money, and involved with the illegal trade of arms for drugs in the Iran-Contra scandal.  Michael Hand, a CIA operative (cut-out) and former Green Beret in Vietnam, and co-owner of Nugan Hand, suddenly disappeared permanently in 1980 after the government (white side) began investigations.  Meanwhile, Francis Nugan, his CIA partner, was found dead in Australia on an abandoned country road sitting in his car. Amid his papers were found with the body were, according to investigative reporter Tom Legg, “hand-written letters linking Nugan Hand illegal operations to Republican Representative Bob Wilson, and former CIA chief, William Colby, who was acting legal counsel for Nugan Hand.”  Again the firm that was the “independent auditor” of the books for this CIA operation was none other than  Pricewaterhouse.

 

Pricewaterhouse Coopers was also implicated in the audit cover-up of diversion of IMF funds by the Russian Mafia.  In its audit of the Central Bank off-shore firm FIMACO, [one of the prime sources of diverted funds] Pricewaterhouse auditors blindly relied solely on documents provided by the Mafia-controlled Russian Central Bank to give FIMACO a clean bill of health.  Rather than be penalized for this kind of conduct, the US government continues to employ Pricewaterhouse to audit Russian problems.  Predictably, Russia always comes out the winner and the US, IMF, and World Bank can justify pouring more millions down the Russian rat hole.

 

In almost every major financial scandal in the past two decades, you will discover the participation of two or more of the current “Big Five”  accounting firms.  The pattern is unmistakable if you read enough cases.  I have only touched the surface in this brief.  The fact that the “Big Five” have grown and prospered despite this pattern of cover-up and collusion means to me that there exists an underlying system rewarding this behavior.  These players never lose their license to certify financial conditions despite hundreds of cases of abuse.  This is, indeed, a protection racket of the highest order. 

 

JAN 25

 

MARTIN LUTHER KING--THE MAN BEHIND THE MEDIA MASK

Every year America endures the same propaganda media-blitz on Martin Luther King day--the false portrayal of the “Reverend” King as an American hero; a saintly, self-sacrificing religious martyr for the cause of civil rights.    He was everything but that and certainly no hero that any American should look up to.  I have written extensively about the defense of true civil rights, no one can accuse me of hating the cause.  I say this be way of introduction in anticipation of the fury my remarks will generate among the media attempting to perpetrate this growing myth upon American culture.  Everything about Martin Luther King is a fraud. Here are the real facts.

 

1) NAME CHANGE: MLK is really Michael King, Jr.  His father was a minister and arbitrarily decided to rename himself and his son, Martin Luther King Sr. and Jr. 

 

2) PLAGIARISM IN HIS DOCTORAL THESIS:  The most complete analysis of King’s chronic plagiarism in his academic career was done by Gerry Harbison, professor of Chemistry at University of Nebraska:  “In 1988, the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project made a discovery that shocked it to its core. The Project, a group of academics and students, had been entrusted by Coretta Scott King with the task of editing King's papers for publication. As they examined King's student essays and his dissertation, they gradually became aware that King was guilty of massive plagiarism - that is, he had copied the words of other authors word-for-word, without making it clear that what he was writing was not his own. The Project spent years uncovering the full extent of King's plagiarism. In November 1990, word leaked to the press, and they had to go public. The revelations caused a minor scandal and then were promptly forgotten.”   Suppressed would be a more accurate description.  The National Endowment for the Humanities actively suppressed the story in preparation for celebrating King.  Its then director was Lynne Cheney, wife of the current Vice President.   For the full story see Prof. Harbison’s website: http://chem-gharbison.unl.edu/mlk/plagiarism.html

 

3) COMMUNIST BACKGROUND AND CONTACTS: It appears that King established an early liaison with the American Communist Party and sought to create civil unrest in support of the revolution.  His own biographer, David J. Garrow admitted that king once privately “described himself as a Marxist.”  King constantly surrounded himself with Communists, hired them, and even went to great lengths to keep them on through secret relationships. King’s personal secretary in the 1950s was communist and homosexual Bayard Rustin.  According to Sen. Jesse Helms, “King was repeatedly warned about his associations with known Communists by friendly elements in the Kennedy Administration and the Department of Justice [DOJ] (including strong and explicit warning from President Kennedy himself). King took perfunctory and deceptive measures to separate himself from the Communists [Stanley David Levison  and Hunter Pitts O’Dell ] against whom he was warned. He continued to have close and secret contacts with at least some of them after being informed and warned of their background, and he violated a commitment to sever his relationships with identified Communists.”

 

4) IMMORAL AND ABUSIVE BEHAVIOR:  Dr. King had an ample reputation as a philanderer and abuser of women of ill repute.  The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover had run surveillance on King and his entourage for years attempting to gather data on his Communist connections.  While the Bureau did surveill King’s attendance at Communist meetings, but most of the surveillance records show an extreme preoccupation after hours with illicit sex.  In deference to King’s usefulness in promoting a national holiday for civil rights, US Federal judge John Lewis Smith, Jr. ordered all the FBI records sealed up in the National Archives for 50 years (till 2027).  When I was Executive Editor of Conservative Digest, I called retired  Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray and asked him what was in the evidence locked away.  His answer surprised me.  He said there were approximately 15 file cabinets of evidence on King--14 of them were full of recordings and transcripts of his illicit relationships with prostitutes.  Only one file cabinet contained evidence of his Communist relationships.

 

Even former co-workers have blown the whistle on King’s scurrilous conduct.  The Rev. Ralph Abernathy, in his book, And the Wall Came Tumbling Down, King spent his last night in the motel having an immoral liason with three women and then beat one of the woman in the morning before he was shot. Assistant Director of the FBI Charles D. Brennan wrote a letter to Sen. John P. East (R-NC) in which he stated that King's conduct consisted of  "orgiastic and adulterous escapades, some of which indicated that King could be bestial in his sexual abuse of women."  The FBI surveillance records covering his first night in Stockholm, Sweden, where he was to receive the Noble Peace Prize, document that his only interest was how to secure prostitutes for he and his entourage.  An orgy followed.  King’s surveillance and wiretaps were personally authorized by then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.   If these allegations are true, this man should never have been put forward as a national hero.  Yes, I am aware that other national heroes have had there weaknesses, but King’s conduct borders on a Clinton-like sexual addiction.

 

SHOWDOWN BETWEEN TAX PROTESTERS AND IRS CANCELED

It was another one of those “too good to be true” stories:  Robert Shultz begins a hunger strike on the Capitol Steps and is successful in compelling the IRS and Treasury Department to hold face to face hearings with tax protesters to answer their direct and specific challenges to the legality of the Income Tax. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md  agreed to act as a facilitator of the meeting and received assurances from the IRS that they would attend. According to Jon Dougherty of WND.com, “Assistant Attorney General Dan Bryant agreed July 20, 2001, to send a representative from the Justice Department to the tax honesty forum after being persuaded by Bartlett. Bryant and Bartlett signed a written agreement signifying their commitment, while the IRS said it would meet with Schulz only in private. But Bryant assured Schulz of IRS' participation. ‘I assure you. The IRS will be there at those meetings,’ he said, according to Schulz.”  I believe Schultz.  He’s an honest man.

 

However, I expressed skepticism at the time that the IRS or the Bush Treasury Department would follow through.  I reasoned that the government could have easily closed all the tax protest loopholes and ambiguous language years ago, but have never attempted to do so--not once.  I concluded that they maintain these loopholes as a trap to see how many conservatives they can lure into activity that will make them vulnerable to arrest.

 

The original showdown was schedule for September 24-25, 2001.  The Bush administration used the events of Sept 11 as an excuse to cancel.  I knew then the jig was up.  There was absolutely no reason it could not have been held.  After some prodding, the Bush administration agreed to reschedule the meeting for Feb 27-28.   But, Evidence has now surfaced that Rep. Bartlett capitulated to the administration weeks ago and failed to tell Schultz.  The administration let Bartlett know last year that they were reneging on the agreement and Bartlett refused to tell Schultz.  He was apparently waiting for Schultz to make a false move that could help him justify the cancellation.  Schultz weakened his own position, as predicted by Bartlett, by trying to capitalize on the upcoming showdown to bolster the tax protest movement.  He launched a big media campaign to convince taxpayers to wait until after the February hearings to file their taxes.  This was all Bartlett needed.  He backed out claiming he would not be party to a tax protest movement.  But Schulz refuted Bartlett’s contention that the Wait to File ad was advocating non-payment of taxes.  The campaign merely (and rightfully) encouraged taxpayers to wait for the outcome of the February forum before they filed.  The Forum was schedule well before the tax filing deadline of April 15.

 

Barlett’s response was disingenuous, as well.  According to Schulz, [as reported by WND] the language for his “Operation Wait to File Until the Trial” campaign was approved by Bartlett staffer Lisa Wright Jan. 11 – nine days before the campaign launched.  What is even more bizarre is the Bartlett’s office knew the meeting was already canceled when they acknowledge his proposed campaign.  Worse, other Congressmen knew the IRS forum had been canceled before Schultz was notified. Again, according to the WND article, “Schulz also cited an e-mail sent by Kim Herb, a legislative assistant to Rep. John Linder, R-Ga., to ‘district directors’ Jan. 14 indicating that neither DOJ nor IRS would attend the Feb. 27-28 forum.” Linder specifically wrote, “Recently, it has been stated that there will be a congressional hearing on the IRS. I wanted to dispel this rumor. There will be NO hearing. I repeat, there will be no congressional hearing on the IRS in February,”   Even the accounting publication,  Tax Notes, written by Warren Rojas, he had seen a letter from Treasury in 2001 reneging on the forum. 

 

ENRON'S BAXTER DEATH: ANOTHER RUSH TO JUDGMENT

The day after the death of Enron VP John Clifford Baxter, a Texas medical examiner quickly ruled Baxter's demise a suicide--too quickly, in my opinion.  Sugar Land, Tx. police detective Billy Baugh had not even started his investigation into fingerprints, origin of the weapon, blood splatter analysis, and tracing of Baxter’s actions prior to his death.  Baugh is not at all convinced this was a suicide, despite the presence of a suicide note.  A suicide note can be forged, or written under duress, and must undergo extensive analysis to determine its authenticity.  One thing is for sure--the authorities behind the medical examiner want to put this issue to bed.  I don’t expect we’ll hear any more from detective Billy Baugh, especially if he uncovers evidence of foul play. 

                A lot of big players at Enron had good reason to want Baxter out of the way, permanently.  He was the one executive who was specifically named in the blockbuster letter by VP Sherron S. Watkins to Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, in which she complained numerous times about improper accounting practices and the threat of collapse.  In the Watkins memorandum, she warned Lay that the questionable secret use of the LJM partnerships to hide debt (a strategy partially designed and implemented by highly paid Andersen & Co. consultants) could bring the company down.  “Cliff Baxter complained mightily to Skilling [Jeff Skilling, then CEO] and all who would listen about the inappropriateness of our transactions with LJM,” Watkins wrote.  Baxter had already been subpoenaed and was expected to tell all.  Apparently he knew enough to sink a lot of important people. 

                There are over a hundred lawsuits pending against Enron’s top executives.  It is obvious that everyone at the top of Enron knew about the problems.  Why else would every single top executive at Enron start selling huge amounts of stock (averaging a quarter of a million shares each) when Enron stock was sailing on top of the world?  Even Baxter took advantage of his insider knowledge of a potential meltdown and sold his near 600,000 shares to net a cool $35 million dollars.   Now, the rest of the shareholders have no other alternative than to go after those executives who profited, now that Enron itself is protected by its bankruptcy filing.  Meanwhile, the SEC is creating the appearance of an investigation, by linking up with an internal investigating committee headed by none other than William C. Powers Jr., of the University of Texas Law School.  Guess who is UT’s biggest contributor to the Law School?  Enron Corporation, which recently contributed $250,000 dollars.  Powers is personal friends with many of the Enron principals. 

 

MORE ON ENRON’S BAXTER DEATH:

Reed Irvine of Accuracy in Media (www.aim.org) did some digging relative to the questions I posed last week about the rush to judgment in ruling Baxter’s death a suicide.  According to Irvine, “The autopsy found that Baxter was killed by a contact shot to his temple, not by a conventional .38 bullet, but by rat-shot, small pellets used to kill rats.”  None of these types of shutgun-type bullets have been found in Baxter’s home.   A New York Times reporter told Irvine that he called Baxter the day before his death to congratulate him for criticizing Enron’s questionable accounting practices before resigning.  In responding to a suggestion about a bodyguard, Baxter responded that he didn’t need one.  Obviously Baxter didn’t seem to be worried or threatened.  According to Irvine the Baxter family believe he was murdered.  I do too.  It is strange that the Police still haven’t released the suicide note.  We don’t know if his finger prints are on it, whether it was forged, or even the contents.  Reed Irvine reminds us that we ought to remember that Vince Foster’s suicide note was forged, according to three independent handwriting experts.

 

The most important piece of information dug up by Irvine is the identity and background of the medical examiner who so quickly ruled Baxter’s death a suicide.  It was Dr. Joye Carter, who previously was a medical examiner in Washington DC--one of the most corrupt, government controlled cities in America.  While working in the area she was, according to Irvine’s report, accused of falsifying an autopsy report and firing a whistleblower who discovered the evidence of Carter’s tampering.  This is precisely the kind of medical examiner the bad guys seek out to cover other crimes.

 

Now that Baxter is out of the way, all other Enron executives appearing before Congressional investigating committees, including former Chairman Ken Lay are invoking the 5th amendment against self-incrimination.  They all know they are guilty as hell.  The 5th Amendment merely forces the government to find its evidence elsewhere--and that “elsewhere” is much diminished with every additional death of people willing to talk.  Hopefully, the discovery process available to the hundreds of civil suits filed against Enron executives by employees and stockholders could bring much of the scandal to light--unless the judges are in collusion and sabotage that approach (likely). What is notably absent from prosecution is the prime federal regulatory body in charge--the SEC.  The SEC could easily find justification to impose millions of dollars in fines and penalties for “insider trading,” but so far, only silence.        

 

OFFICIAL LIES UNCOVERED IN THE BAXTER DEATH

According to the Mad Cow Morning News (a word play title mocking the establishment Dallas Morning News), Sugar Land, Texas police knowingly gave false information about the facts surround the discovery and condition of the body of John Baxter.  Here is what the official police spokesman said: “At 2:23 a.m. this morning [January 25] Sugar Land police officers on routine patrol discovered John. C. Baxter, a Sugar Land resident, inside a vehicle parked between two medians on Palm Royale Boulevard of an apparent self-inflicted wound to the head...Baxter was dead at the scene and the sole occupant of the vehicle.”  False, on several counts, according to Mad Cow Morning News (www.madcowprod.com).  Here is what they report.

                In point of fact, Sugar Land police didn’t discover the body at all, and Baxter wasn’t dead.  Baxter and his car were discovered by one of the local county constables under contract with the Sweetwater Development where Baxter lived. The constable found Baxter still alive and called for an ambulance.   Head constable S. H. Werlein said, “I don’t know why the Sugar Land Police Department is saying they found Baxter, because it isn’t true....My Deputy Constable found him.”  When confronted by the contradiction, Sugar Land Police spokesperson Patricia Whitty admitted that Werlein was correct, but offered no explanation as to why Sugar Land police chose to distort the facts. However, Ms. Whitty insisted that Baxter really did take his own life, stating there were “no apparent signs of foul play.”  None?  How can you make that statement at 10 a.m. on the same day without even a blood test or a ballistics test on the weapon? 

 

In the rush to judgment the Sugar Land police even sent the body to the mortuary without an autopsy.  The Baxter family had to intervene with a local judge to secure an order to have the body transferred to the morgue for an official autopsy.  The results released this week, according to the AP, indicate the high powered Enron executive had taken “a pain reliever, an anti-depressant and a sleeping aid” that night--supposedly implying suicidal tendencies.   But this brings up another question.  If Baxter was intent on committing suicide, why did he go to bed at a normal hour and take a sleeping pill?  How did he expect to wake up under those conditions to commit suicide?  --using an alarm clock, that would also wake his wife?  It doesn’t make sense.

 

MORE ATTEMPTS TO HIDE TRUTH BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION

Two stories have emerged this week further indicating that the Bush administration is aware of wrongdoing within the government and attempting to cover up.

                First, in a private meeting with Sen. Majority Leader Tom Daschle and other leaders of Congress, President Bush pushed to limit the scope of any Congressional investigation of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.  The meeting was called by Bush, indicating that he was sufficiently worried about the results of such an investigation, and was attempting to forestall it through a little arm twisting.  I think he and others up the chain are worried that Congress may discover or reveal to the public one or more of the numerous pieces of evidence that point to government prior knowledge of the events, and its recent relations with Osama bin Laden.   Bush knows that there are various witnesses who can give damaging testimony about government involvement--such as FEMA’s Tom Kenny, who has been kept completely out of sight and beyond the reach of any media interviews since he told Dan Rather that he and his team were sent to NYC on Monday prior to the 9/11 disaster; or the CIA station chief in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, who knows of US officials’ contacts with Osama bin Laden in the American hospital where bin Laden was being treated for kidney disease.   Even if the Bush administration is able to skirt the prior knowledge charges, they would certainly have trouble avoiding blame for egregious intelligence failures relative to the attacks--attacks committed by persons well known to the CIA and FBI and who were already in their computer files.  

                Second, Bush made an impassioned attack against Congressional efforts to force the administration to reveal what was discussed with Enron during the secret meetings on energy policy with VP Cheney.   The President said he must have the right to preserve a visitor’s private conversations if he is to be successful in getting people to talk with government.  Hogwash!  Bush might have had a point if the subject of the meeting were a matter of true national security or a criminal investigation, but this was supposedly a matter of government energy policy--something easily within the scope of government open meeting guidelines.  The only possible reason for wanting to maintain secrecy was to conceal government collusion with certain favored companies--designing policies and energy rates that would give those companies a favorable advantage in the market place.   We have the testimony of former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Curtis Herbert, Jr., who claimed that he was forced to submit to an interview with Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay prior to being considered for the post, and that Lay made improper demands to him about energy policy after he was installed.  Herbert also claims to have been removed by President Bush after he refused to comply with Lay’s demands.  If this is true, Bush has some explaining to do about why Enron seems to have veto authority over who serves in government energy oversight committees. 

 

FEB 1

 

THE BUSH STATE OF THE UNION:

President Bush’s State of the Union speech was both predictable and boring.  It has become woefully clear that Dubya has only one style: mildly bombastic, and it is no longer refreshing--even for those of us who disliked the smooth smirking drawl of Bill Clinton.   The Bush speech writers continue to draw upon the same new/old techniques used by  Slick Willie’s people manipulators:  predictable cameo appearances by people representing causes designed to pull on people’s heart strings, pompous blustering about US pride, excess applause, and an absence of crucial truths that require real answers. 

                On the economic front, we continue to endure the same socialist planning hype, promising benefits to all the politically correct entities:  the poor, the environment, and education.  Despite the looming shortfalls of tax revenues Bush, like Clinton, could only do the irresponsible thing--promise something for everyone--never mind how much it would cost or who will pay.   Debt and the printing press seem capable of covering anything now.  They won’t always.  Someday there will be a reckoning and the economy will plummet even further, once the false supports bolstering America’s apparent prosperity begin to crumble. 

                Bush also continues to squeeze the last possible advantage out of the phony US “war on terrorism” to undermine normal American resistance to increased government intrusion and expanded government powers.  Rather than fulfill Republican pledges to rid the country of federal boondoggles like the Kennedy’s Peace Corps and Clinton’s Americorps, Bush introduced and even newer iteration called Freedom corps.  Will there be no limit to how much superficial patriotism we must endure?  The Freedom corps will be an appendage of the growing Homeland Defense monster, with a suggestion of two years voluntary service by every American to federal causes.  I can easily see the day when the voluntary tag will suddenly morph into “mandatory,” given an appropriate crisis. 

                Bush also continued his strange predilection to promote Islam saying, “Let the skeptics look to Islam's own rich history - with its centuries of learning, and tolerance, and progress.”  Pure disinformation. Most of Islam lives in conditions dating back several centuries and has a history of violent aggression against other cultures that belies the president’s propaganda.  Even the states are sensing there is an ulterior agenda going on here--perhaps even a gigantic exception to the presumed neutrality of public education on matters of religion.  Several public schools have now instituted classes about Islam, including roll playing and readings from the Koran.  These same school districts would vigorously challenge anyone who would dare tell a Bible story.  Strangely the federal education watchdogs have not said a word in protest.

                The most worrisome part of the President’s speech was his increased warmongering.  Again, using the “war on terrorism” as a justification to invade any of the countries guilty of harboring, training, or funding terrorism (except the real villains like Russia and China)--Bush threatened further intervention in North Korea, Iran, and Iraq--the supposed new “Axis of Evil.”  What is particularly galling about the Bush warnings is that the US has been having secret dealings, excusing and shielding each of these nasty dictators for years.

                While I don’t usually quote from the World Socialists (who only hate the NWO because they don’t control it) their editorial board put forth the most powerful and accurate quote on the issue: “The State of the Union speech given by George W. Bush Tuesday night was among the most menacing and belligerent in American history. The US president outlined a program of limitless and perpetual warfare, on every continent, and against any regime that stands in the way of the rapacious American ruling class.”   That ruling class is not the inevitable outgrowth of “ruthless” capitalism as the World Socialists and Lyndon La Rouche would have you believe--but rather, is an amalgamation of a much more deadly global control system (with occult ties, in my opinion) that will not slow down till world domination is achieved. 

 

COPYCAT STATE OF THE UNION TREND

As if it is not enough to endure the annual State of the Union pony show, we must now endure the same thing at the state level.  The Clinton/Bush propaganda success formula has not been lost on ego-centric, ladder climbing state governors.  This year in Utah, for example, supposed “conservative” Republican Governor Mike Leavitt (who has big political ambitions) put on a copycat performance of the President’s speech in Utah’s State of the State address.   There were cameo appearances by celebrities and groups representing pet causes.  Leavitt bragged endlessly about Utah’s greatness (which, by implication, honored himself as its “leader”).  Going even further, he made ubiquitous, prideful and grandiose comparisons between Utah and the Olympic legacy (evading Salt Lake’s scandalous participation in the chronic corruption that is endemic to the international Olympic selection process).   Worse, he suddenly assumed the role of arch social-democrat by announcing a Soviet-like 1000 day plan for economic growth and prosperity that was a socialist masterpiece--promising benefits to all the favored sectors, despite the need to begin cutting state spending. 

                Leavitt’s proposals were dismissive of the growing economic plight of Utah taxpayers in the midst of a recession.  It was obvious he didn’t expect a single state program to decrease nor a single salaried state or education employee to have to tighten their belt in the same manner as the private sector.  Instead he wooed legislators and the televised public with the siren call of high-tech education creating some mythical future boom, catering to people’s insatiable love affair with the illusions of educational magic.

                Never once, as Leavitt ticked off his dramatic timetable (“On day one, we’ll do...” etc.), did he acknowledge that all these plans would require the assent of the legislature.  He was obviously assuming that an upsurge of state patriotic fervor would follow in the wake of his address that would sweep these new socialist programs into being.

 

FEB 15

 

THE CONTINUING MESS IN AFGHANISTAN

There is never going to be a clean solution to the problems in Afghanistan.  Afghanistan has few natural resources and has for centuries been a cross border no-man’s land of smugglers, dope peddlers and tradesmen.  The US has no business trying to remake this country after the Western image of a manipulated democracy.  Afghanistan’s people, with their multiple dialects and multiple ethnic allegiances, have little potential to become unified.  Because of all the disparate groups and tribal warfare, it’s nearly impossible to identify friend from foe.  To make matters worse, Afghan males have learned to play multiple roles, shifting their allegiance according to whoever is winning.  According to Rear Admiral John Dickson Stufflebeem, the US Navy Deputy Director for Operations, “It's a shadow war. These are shadowy people who don't want to be found....They've got multiple identity cards. They've got multiple passports. They've got multiple names and certainly multiple stories.”  

                It is little wonder that the US has bombed both friendly and enemy groups throughout the war, and civilians as well.  Simply put, this is not a war that lends itself to fighting from the safety of the air alone.  Rather than take the time to establish reliable and long-term sources on the ground (which the US could have started doing long ago, seeing as they have been planning this invasion with the Russians since the year 2000), US military officials continue to direct long distance attacks from the safety of their arm chairs in Washington.   Even more dangerous is the fact that the CIA operates completely independently of the US Army.   The area commander Gen. Tommy Franks reportedly has no authority to veto the CIA's military operations, although he is consulted as a “courtesy.”

                Nothing is more symbolic of this technological arrogance that the latest incident of the CIA using a remote controlled Predator Aircraft to launch a hellfire missile at a lonely APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) traveling along a mountain highway, heaped with men dressed in various native outfits.  How could the CIA possibly tell from their video monitors in Washington whether these people were friendly or enemy fighters or even some of the thousands of Afghans who have taken to the scavenging for military gear to sell on the black market?  All of the various tribal units on both sides of the conflict use the same kind of Russian equipment.  The Washington Post quoted residents of the area saying that three innocent civilians had been killed in the missile strike. In a separate incident, there are charges being investigated of a US helicopter gunship machine gunning men women and children fleeing a house under attack.  There are many more horror stories, but it takes time for the word to leak past the suppression of US censorship and denials.  

                Finally, one of the biggest anomalies of the entire “war on terrorism” in Afghanistan is the utter lack of any significant numbers of Arab detainees by the Americans.  There were numerous reports by the US government, prior to the invasion, that Osama bin Laden had employed and was in the process of training thousands of Arab mercenaries and terrorists in the camps, and that the country was being controlled by these henchmen of bin Laden.  Either this was mere propaganda or these Arabs have all been allowed to escape--for only a handful have been rounded up.  I suspect they were allowed to escape, along with bin Laden.  Nothing would take the air out of this phony war faster than bin Laden’s capture or death.

 

MILOSEVIC DEFENSE BEFORE THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL

Slobodan Milosevic’s testimony before the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague is important because of his inside knowledge of events.  In his testimony, Milosevic confirmed what several sources have previously reported on the web--that the US and NATO engineered the war in Bosnia and Kosovo in order to justify intervention in the Yugoslavia.  He charged that the US secretly encouraged Bosnia to secede in 1992 and gave them covert aid.  “Your bosses broke up Yugoslavia...They pushed Bosnia into a civil war. The Serbs did not start the war. It is nonsensical to accuse the wrong side.” He said it was a “terrible fabrication” that Serbia had expelled thousands of Kosovar Albanians.  He correctly pointed out and provided evidence that it was the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), under US guidance, that precipitated the Albanian exodus. He said the KLA killed heads of families who disobeyed orders to flee and threatened others with death if they didn’t comply. “When people were fleeing from these places of conflict, this is called deportation,” Milosevic declared.  “They want to make me accountable for the crimes they perpetrated themselves.”

                Milosevic also explained how the 78-day bombing campaign by NATO accelerated the exodus by targeting civilians.  He showed graphic photographic evidence of NATO’s targeting of civilian convoys and buildings, including housing developments.  “Civilian targets were NATO's main targets....they hit many more hospitals than they did tanks. They hit many more schools than they did tanks.”  One of NATO’s most egregious crimes against civilians was the bombing of the convoy of tractors and carts near Djakovica on April 14, 1999.  “Everybody could see they were civilians and peasants in their carts...They were intentionally targeted... They were targeted because they were going back to their village.”  Sadly, this is true.  NATO wanted no one returning to their homes.  Pamphlets were dropped by air urging civilians to flee, supposedly due to the dangers of bombing.  NATO destroyed many private homes in the bombing campaign, just to make sure their warning pamphlets were believed.  Afterwards NATO claimed either the bombs fell by mistake or the houses were occupied by Serbs, which was not true.  As I pointed out in a previous World Affairs Brief in 1999, the Russians released a tape recording of an intercepted communication between a US AWACS command and control aircraft and an Air Force pilot.  The tape documents AWACS demanding that the pilot attack the convoy of civilians despite his protests that there were no military targets to be hit.  The continued misuse of “national security” laws keeps military personnel from blowing the whistle on wrongful US government behavior.

 

FEB 23

 

BUSH’S WAR STILL DESPERATE FOR ANOTHER TARGET

The steam has been let out of George Bush’s little globalist war against terrorism.  The Taliban have been quickly vanquished (along with a lot of innocent victims), and bin Laden and his Arabs have mysteriously vanished from Afghanistan into never-never-land. Afghanistan is turning into the quagmire the Russians predicted, with Pashtun refugees fleeing the latest bouts of tyranny and internecine warfare between ruthless factions of the Northern Alliance.  The US is now using taxpayer money to bomb rival Afghan factions that are not cooperating with the globalist puppet government of interim President Karzai (the former UNICAL oil employee who is there to make sure Big Oil gets its new pipeline deal).  Not only is this latest turn in the Bush war a major departure from the terrorism charade, but it is turning into nation-meddling in its worst form. 

                Meanwhile, the Bush-Rumsfeld-Cheney team is desperate to find an excuse to continue the “war.”  But, nobody is cooperating. The Pakistan-India row has subsided to a low boil, and every vestige of the vaunted Al Qaeda network has apparently gone underground.  Al Qaeda now only shows up in US press accounts as the ready made label attached to any Arab or Muslim caught in some infraction of law: so and so is “suspected of links to Al Qaeda.”  The rest of the world’s real terrorists have all cut “cooperation” deals with the US to avoid being targeted, or they have slithered under the umbrella of protection provided by their major backers, Russia and China, who continue to claim they are allies of the US-instigated war.  The US knows better but continues to cover for Communist duplicity.  

                The US has been forced to stop broadcasting their daily “major terror warnings” as the public was beginning to become apathetic to the government’s crying wolf.  The Justice Department has even had to cut back on their weekly claims to have “stopped another terrorist incident.”  Whether real or conjured up, the public never had any way of knowing, since all information was generated internally. 

 

OFFICE OF STRATEGIC INFLUENCE

The government’s reputation for truth telling is now further discredited with the Pentagon’s announcement of the creation of a new special propaganda unit called the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI)--whose title sounds strangely close to the old Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor to the CIA.  The new OSI is to be headed by Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden, and will engage in aggressive media campaigns, using US and foreign media plants as well as the Internet rumor mill to plant news items at home and abroad.  The CIA also utilizes such tactics, secretly paying journalists to plant stories for them.  Every journalist who has access to government “anonymous” sources is part of the system--though only journalists on the Left get paid.  The OSI will also do covert operations to infiltrate the alternative media. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld assured the press that the OSI was harmless and that “US government would never tell a lie” to the American media.  Somehow I find his statement less than reassuring given the Pentagon’s egregious record of denials and half-truths about civilian casualties in the bombing attacks in Afghanistan--to cite just one example.  By omission, Rumsfeld left standing the charge that the Pentagon will be planting disinformation in foreign media sources--something which will hardly be surprising to our allies in Europe who have a healthy distrust of anything the US says. 

 

BUSH TAKES HIS PROPAGANDA BANDWAGON TO ASIA

The president’s current trip to Japan, Korea and China is a case study in the art of double speak.  While in Japan, Bush verbally bashed North Korea, maintaining his “Axis of Evil” rhetoric.  Then in South Korea, Bush was met by hundreds of leftist student protesters lobbying for détente with North Korea--what they have euphemistically labeled South Korea’s “Sunshine Policy.”  Under pressure to repudiate his inclusion of North Korea in the “Axis of Evil,” Bush suddenly changed his tune, carefully avoiding the controversial phrase, and pledging NOT to invade North Korea.  This is typical of the Bush double standard.    He invades Afghanistan for harboring terrorism, builds a case against North Korea (which is not only a nuclear powered terrorist nation with missiles aimed at Japan and Hawaii, but which exports terrorism advisors and missile technology worldwide), and then pledges not to invade. 

                George Bush’s “Axis of Evil” remarks were intended to set the stage for a broadening of the war on terrorism to other nations (notably Iraq, Iran and North Korea).  However, his rhetoric not only failed to generate any more patriotic fervor at home for his selective war on terrorism, but it has become a major source of embarrassment for the administration.  For one thing, there is the issue of the missing logic in his lumping these three nations together.  Each of these three rogue nations are competitors, not allies.  If there is any axis that connects them it is the ubiquitous and hypocritical roles of Russia and China who supply each of them with arms and technology.  But, of course, Bush won’t point the finger at Russia and China, who both claim to be our allies in the war against terrorism.

                National Public Radio and The News Hour with Jim Lehrer trot out a couple of liberal think tanks to pound home the lie that North Korea is no threat, but is only insecure and desperate for new ways to help her people. We ought to engage in dialogue rather than threats, they asserted. That’s the same line we were fed in past decades about Russia and China--and both are now building the world’s largest offensive military machines.  The pundits were quick to point out North Korea’s one and only compliance with arms limitation agreements--a cessation of missile tests--as indicative of the nation’s good intentions.  Of course, in exchange for that superficial compliance, North Korea received lucrative concessions from the Clinton administration (billions in aid, oil and food).   Plus, the compliance is only temporary: testing will surely resume when North Korea rolls out the next generation of missiles, which are currently under development.  When the inevitable violation comes, the pundits will express shock and dismay, but no remorse.  Rather than admit they were snookered (or worse, apologists for Communism), they will wring their hands and lament that we should have given the North even MORE incentives to keep the agreement.

                At least two think tanks are suggesting we buy all of North Korea’s missile production, under the ludicrous assumption that the only reason the nation engages in such violations of proliferation is the need for foreign currency to help its people.  Even taking this proposal at face value, these over-educated sophists don’t have the least notion about supply and demand.  Is the demand for North Korean missiles going to lessen by buying up the existing supply?  Such a policy would only encourage the North Koreans in their missile production endeavors.  Of course, the entire assumption that financial profits drive the proliferation of missiles in North Korea and other nations is false.  I refuse to believe that these think tanks can so easily dismiss the powerful “evil empire” ideologies that undergird these nations.  

                Apparently the Bush tactical planners wallow in the same muddled thinking pattern relative to China.  As Bush praises China for her role in supporting anti-terrorism, he fails to openly criticize China’s ongoing violations of non-proliferation agreements.  Not only are China’s violations worse than North Korea, China is the prime supplier of aid and technology to North Korea, itself.  Even the establishment NY Times couldn’t help but point out this hypocrisy on February 21, in an article by David Sanger entitled, “China Is Treated More Gently than North Korea for the Same Sin.”  Naturally, the administration claims they are talking privately with China about the arms proliferation issue, but the double standard adds to my suspicion that the main purpose of treating China with kid gloves is to avoid arousing American consciousness about the long-term danger China presents. Today’s news about the Buah-Jiang summit confirmed that Bush failed to gain any commitment from China to halt arms sales to client states.

 

SUMMARY:  The Bush administration is facing almost a total wall of opposition in its attempt to expand the war on terrorism.  So why is the Bush team adamant about continued warmongering?  Why not back down and say they’ve won the war and quit?  For one thing, they haven’t really targeted terrorism at all.  I estimate that 98% of all terrorist cells have been left untouched by the Afghan intervention.   Predictably, continued intervention in other nations will backfire and undermine US prestige and reputation as an honest broker for peace.  I think that is exactly what we are headed for, and what the global planner want.  The true purpose for this war on terrorism is to create an excuse to meddle with and antagonize other nations sufficient to generate hatred against the US--giving a reason for the world to cheer when Russia and China strike the US--after some regional provocation (probably in the Middle East).  Remember, globalist leaders actually want the US military destroyed as a necessary prelude to forcing the world to accept and fund a NWO army to fight WWIII. 

 

MAR 1

 

WHAT’S BEHIND THE SAUDI “PEACE” INITIATIVE?

In a much-publicized peace initiative, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Abdullah has proposed that if Israel agrees to completely withdraw from the occupied territories, the Arab nations will recognize the State of Israel and allow it to live in peace.  The most incredulous thing about crown prince Abdullah’s peace initiative is that it contains virtually nothing new.   Its promises are a farce.  Did the Arab world allow Israel to live in peace before Israel captured the occupied territories?  Not at all. So, what has changed?  Is the Arab world more friendly toward Israel today than 20 years ago?  Hardly.  So, where is the basis for peace, other than Abdullah’s hollow promises?  Yet, considering the way this proposal is being received by the press around the world, you would think some new political genius had strode onto the world stage.   Abdullah may be ruthless and devious, but he is no genius.  The crown prince is the most anti-American of all the Saudis next in line to rule.  Abdullah’s proposition is more probably intended to rectify Abdullah’s bad guy image in the West and/or obscure the world’s scrutiny of Saudi Arabia as a hostile country.  Remember that 15 or the 19 alleged Arab highjackers of 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia.

 

Pundits love to brag about how simple this “solution” is.  Why didn’t someone think of this before?    Because the proposal is so transparently fraudulent and simplistic.  It answers none of the crucial questions:

 

1) What will happen to the hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers living in the occupied territories?  Answer: They will have to move and the Jews, with aid from US taxpayers, will be forced to spend billions building new housing within the new Israeli borders, only six miles wide. 

2) What about the fate of the professional Palestinian refugees, cooped up in refugee camps at UN expense?  Answer: They will get to occupy the vacated Israeli settlements, without compensating the former Jewish owner/occupants.

3) How will Israeli agriculture survive once it has lost most of its water supplies from the Jordan river and the Golan heights?  Answer: It won’t, except on the narrow coastal plain which is dependent upon a dwindling supply of salty ground water from wells. 

4) How will Israel protect itself upon losing half of its military bases, including the strategic high ground artillery bases and listening posts of the Golan?  Answer: Israel won’t need to protect itself because the Arabs have promised them peace.  But just in case the Arabs betray their word, the US taxpayers will build much more vulnerable bases for the Israelis within the narrow coastal plain, where existing bases are already subject to easy infiltration from the nearby Gaza strip and where mass missile barrages from neighboring Arab states guarantee multiple easy hits.

 

This peace initiative isn’t, in my opinion, intended to fly on its own--but rather, it is intended to give the US and Israel governments another excuse to put forth a devil’s compromise (with lots more secret complexities and fine print)--hoping to convince the Israeli people one more time to “give peace a chance.”  Despite the hoopla, I think this is going to be a hard sell.  Nobody with any brains in Israel trusts anything the Arabs say--let alone Prince Abdullah.  Probably less than 20% of Israelis believe they will ever have peace with the Palestinians.   Sadly, it is true. 

 

US MEDIA PLAYS UP SHADOW GOVERNMENT   

Ever since 9/11 the US has begun implementation of its Continuity of Government (COG) plans.  Hundreds of US middle managers in the Executive department have been assigned 90-day rotating bunker duty in several of the underground US command centers that ring the Washington DC area.  This “shadow government” force is intended to ensure that the executive level power structure is keep intact during a major terrorist or wartime disruption of government in the nation’s capital.   

 

The known bunker locations are Mt. Weather, VA (50 miles east of Wash DC off Rt. 7); the main FEMA command center; Camp David (10 miles east of Hagerstown, MD, near the Penn border), which is a duplication of the White House bunker command and control system; and Site R (for Raven Rock, just across the border from Camp David in Penn), a duplicate command post for the Pentagon bunker.  Each of these are staffed by a combination of civilian, government and military personnel.  There are many other military command and control centers at major military installations, including Cheyenne Mtn. and Peterson AFB in Colorado, and Offut AFB in Omaha, NE.  

 

In my opinion, none of these publicly known underground facilities are the real “top secret” bunkers reserved for the higher echelon people who hold real power.  For each of the publicly known bunkers, there are probably at least two other secret sites that are meant to survive a full nuclear war.  We know, for example, that the First Lady and most of Congressional leaders were quickly ushered into vehicles and driven to underground bunkers beneath newly constructed public buildings in Washington DC.  Most members of government didn’t even know these facilities existed prior to 9/11. 

 

The shadow government story was planted by the Bush administration through a couple of Washington Post reporters, Barton Gellman and Susan Schmidt.   The AP has been pushing the story to the hilt.  This almost always means there is some propaganda value to the issue.  The public is being led to believe that this “first time ever” activation of the COG is because of fear of some suitcase nuclear weapon in the hands of a terrorist.  I think this is disinformation. In fact, the government knows that Russia and the US are the only ones with these types of weapons.  The COG is being activated to get both government employees and the public used to the knowledge that the US government is actively preparing to survive a nuclear event.  In reality, the government is preparing to survive the mother of all terrorist events--a Russian/Chinese preemptive nuclear strike.  They don’t want the public to be surprised or dismayed when all the important government leaders come through the strike unscathed.  Too bad the public isn’t asking the obvious questions: Why is the American public not being warned to prepare for a nuclear event?  How is it that the public is so stupid as to expect that all we have to worry about in a nuclear event is whether or not our government overseers survive?  If government officials are a risk, what about everyone else?  Sadly, the public is so used to following the lead of the media, that they will never ask the crucial questions if not prompted by talking heads on the 10:00 news hour. 

 

NIXON AND KISSINGER BETRAYED TAIWAN IN 1971

As reported by the National Security Archive, a private research group, we now have access to the original transcript of the July, 1971 meeting between Henry Kissinger and his Chinese counterparts as they negotiated the end of the Vietnam War.  Kissinger has always maintained that they only discussed “fundamental” basics about Taiwan.  Now we know that, in fact, Kissinger pledged that the US would never in the future support Taiwanese independence. This explains why the US public statements and talks with Taiwan have carefully skirted the issue of independence.  The US has always pressured Taiwan to capitulate to Chinese demands. 

 

What did we get in return for this devil’s bargain?  Nothing.  We lost South Vietnam, as the Chinese knew we would all along.  Did the US ever take advantage of this betrayal by reneging on its secret agreement with China?  Not at all.  We have steadfastly continued to betray Taiwan ever since, only allowing it token increases in military strength to make sure it could never survive a Chinese onslaught.  It makes one wonder how many other secret agreements the US has signed without telling the public or Congress.

 

MAR 8

 

9/11 INVESTIGATION--MORE SUPPRESSION OF EVIDENCE--A LITERAL SMOKING GUN ON FLIGHT 11

We now have additional proof that the FAA suppressed news of occurrences surrounding the 9/11 crash of American Airlines Flight 11.   A memo has surfaced from within the FAA indicating that hijacker Satam al-Suqami (hard to imagine how they could know his name) had a gun on the aircraft and shot and killed passenger Daniel Lewin in the process of hijacking the aircraft. The FAA initially denied the memo’s existence, and then admitted its existence, but altered its contents, denying the presence of a gun on board.  Anonymous investigators within the FAA have admitted that the original memo detailing the shooting is factual.  This information could only have come from detailed pilot to ATC controller radio transmissions as the hijacking was in process.  This partially explains why the FAA and FBI refuse to relinquish these tape recordings.  The government continues to claim that no usable black boxes have been recoverable from any of the crash sites, though they have the audacity to claim they have recovered letters and passports (highly flammable items) from the wreckage of the WTC.  All of these things indicate the government has much to hide.

 

NEW EVIDENCE LINKING VENICE, FLORIDA FLIGHT SCHOOL TO CIA

According to Daniel Hopsicker (www.madcowprod.com), a former investigative reporter for NBC, the Venice, Florida-based flight school at Huffman Aviation which trained two of the suspected 9/11 hijacker pilots, has links to a company called Britannia Aviation, suspected of being a CIA operation.  The CIA operates many shell corporations fronting for various aviation purposes that assist in its dark side operations.  Britannia Aviation surfaced recently in a dispute in Lynchburg, VA when a multi-million dollar contract for aircraft maintenance at Lynchburg Virginia Regional Airport was awarded to Britannia instead of a much larger local aircraft maintenance company, fully certified with many employees and already located at Lynchburg.  Hopsicker discovered that Britannia has only one listed employee and assets totaling less than $1000.  Britannia’s only address points to a small office sub-leased from Rudi Dekker’s Huffman Aviation in Venice, Florida.  Another pertinent question might be, who made the call to the Lynchburg authorities (home of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University) to influence them to award this suspicious bid to Britannia?  They aren’t talking.

                This connection may help answer the question why Arab hijackers, who could barely speak English, went to various English-speaking flight schools for marginal training when a fully operating Arab-speaking flight school was in operation at Dallas Fort Worth airport.  I believe the hijacker pilots were trained by large Middle Eastern airlines and attended the US schools only to establish a cover.  They didn’t want to implicate the Arab operation at Dallas Forth Worth.  This story adds to the growing body of evidence that the CIA had foreknowledge and allowed the attack to go forward in order to justify the ongoing war on terrorism.

 

MARCH 22

 

GOVERNMENT’S MIXED SIGNALS--MAKING IT HARD TO TELL WHAT’S REAL

Over the years, US leaders have elevated the “Big Lie” to an art form, making the Nazis and Soviets look like amateurs by comparison.  The game is somewhat like Charades, in that participants play a role that is false, but in real life our own government plays multiple roles and it is becoming increasingly more difficult to tell what’s real amid the smoke.  Sadly, the ones that are fooled by this two-faced charade are the American people, who are continually fed highly edited news coverage that selectively and purposefully omits crucial information that would counter the official government version of events. 

 

Here are some prime examples of government speaking out of both sides of the mouth:  The US government pretends to restrict illegal immigration while it disregards real enforcement solutions and rewards illegal aliens with welfare assistance and periodic amnesty.  It pretends to fight drugs via the DEA while controlling most of the world’s drug trade through protected CIA black operations.  It runs a justice system that feigns allegiance to the Constitution, but enforces the Constitution only selectively, when convenient, all the while covering for its extensive and systematic protection of government dark-side government operations.  The US pretends to defend liberty and democracy worldwide while undermining and betraying every anti-Communist revolution in the third world.  It pretends to a fight a “war on terrorism” while secretly funding and facilitating nations that harbor terrorists--in order to justify increased intervention in other nations.

 

All of these mixed or contradictory signals from the US government can be explained in one of two ways:  Either these men in power are too stupid to realize the contradictions and long-term evil consequences of their policies (the Jeff Nyquist view), or they have ulterior, conspiratorial motives that run counter to their publicly stated interests (my view).   As my subscribers know, it is my belief that these contradictory positions are critical to the Hegelian dialectic method whereby insiders purposely foment conflict (while feigning peace) in order to force the voting public to turn to globalist control “solutions” that they would not otherwise choose.

 

Now let’s look at some current issues that are even more difficult to decipher, because of the amount and complexity of the mixed signals being given.  Because of the sophistication of the politics being played in each of these cases, it is often difficult to determine the motives of the players, and the direction that each issue will play itself out.  I will propose some conclusions based on my own analysis, but there are many questions still left unanswered.

 

1.  Campaign Finance Reform 

Trying to figure out the motive behind this piece of unconstitutional legislation is extremely difficult.  All the leaders in Congress, both major political parties, and the president have all benefited handsomely from the existing system--even Feingold and McCain, and Shays and Meehan, the bill’s respective Senate and House sponsors.  So, why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?  We all know there is an incestuous relationship between big corporate donors and government, which rewards political contributors with government contracts.  The globally connected corporations involved give to both parties (though not equally) to make it difficult for conspiracy theorists to document a pattern of control.

 

The way in which this formerly unpopular bill suddenly changed from being “dead on arrival” in Congress to passing with a veto-proof majority is very strange.  Bush campaigned against it during the election, but did no lobbying in Congress among Republicans to stop this bill--which is telling.  Now he says he will sign it (shades of his father: George “Read My Lips” Bush, Sr.) for the “greater good.”  Why is it that when a radical Democrat is in office, he can get away with vetoing every conservative measure that passes Congress, without being called obstructionist, and yet when a “conservative” president gains office, he hardly ever uses the veto to defend against bad law?  Why is it that only Republicans are expected to be conciliatory and eschew “partisan politics?” 

 

It seems clear that the PTB want to push through the version of campaign finance reform which curtails “soft money” spending, the largest source of campaign financing.  The real key to this legislation may be the provision that prohibits any special interest group from spending money to attack a specific candidate 60 days prior to an election (the only time people really pay attention).  The NRA, for example, would be prohibited from running ads against any candidate who has an anti-gun record.  The same goes for any organization’s newsletter that tries to warn its subscribers about the voting record of any particular candidate.  This is a clear violation of the first amendment right to free speech. 

 

It is obvious why the insiders would want to curtail the conservative opposition.  But another possible reason behind the push for this bill is that the Powers That Be (PTB) are so confident in their control over the establishment media and both major parties that they see no reason to continue to feed both sides of the political debate with huge amounts of cash.  After campaign finance reform, the promotion of favored candidates can shift away from expensive television ads and be centered in the skewed news coverage by establishment newspapers and television news programs--at a fraction of the cost.  American conservatives, with no voice in the establishment media, will be the big losers.

 

Still, if the PTB are determined to shove this thing down our throats, why pull in a heavy-weight lawyer, former Whitewater special prosecutor Ken Starr (who sabotaged the Vince Foster murder investigation),  to challenge this new bill in the courts?  Attorney General Ashcroft has already proclaimed his verbal commitment to defend this bill strongly in the courts; why pit one insider against another?  I suspect the PTB are trotting out Ken Starr, who conservatives still ignorantly think is an honest Christian, to make it appear as if conservatives can still win.  It will also take the focus off of Bush signing the bill and shift blame to the courts--just as in the election.  I’m not sure yet that the courts are going to let this bill pass muster.  The restraint on free speech is clear. 

 

2.  The Middle East Debacle  

The US has always given mixed signals regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  Our government verbally and militarily supports Israel, but won’t ever allow Israel to win the conflict.  As I have written before, I’m convinced the entire purpose of the phony “peace process” is to weaken the Israeli military position through dangerous concessions given in exchange for paper promises of peace.  The yielding of territory, water rights, settlements and military bases will pave the way for a vastly more vulnerable Israel during a future war in which the globalists hope to impose a permanent UN presence in Palestine. 

 

The Israeli right-wing is having the same problem reading their own government’s mixed signals as conservatives are having in the US.  PM Sharon is touted as a pro-Israeli hard-liner, but he joined in a coalition with the far left and has allowed them to call most of the shots.  Sharon acts tough initially, but never follows through to a complete resolution.  His latest military penetrations went further than most Israeli leaders and almost had the right-wing convinced that Sharon really was going to do the job.  But, alas, it was not to be.  He stopped well short of rooting out the terrorists and is now allowing them to regroup as they dally in meaningless talks about a cease-fire.  The Palestinian position is telling.  They want the IDF to remove all roadblocks and encirclements around Palestinian strongholds so they can engage in resupply of munitions during the negotiations.  

 

Much of this current confusion is caused by US intervention in Israel, as demonstrated by these comments by Dov Zigelman.  Note the complete subservience of the Israeli government to US demands [my comments in brackets]:  “At 4:20 PM [March 21], on the corner of King George and Histadrut Street in Jerusalem, a Palestinian suicide-bomber blew himself up. Three Israelis were killed and about 100 wounded (3 in critical condition)....Amidst protest from many ministers [on the right], PM Sharon decided again NOT to retaliate for that attack too, and to 'give' Arafat enough rope to hang himself (I doubt that he ever will). The initial Israeli position was NOT to negotiate under fire. Then the Americans insisted that the Israelis will speak to the PA [Palestinian Authority]. Then came Gen. Zinni [Bush’s special envoy] and requested an Israeli unilateral cease-fire, and Sharon complied. Then came Vice-President Cheney's visit, and Israel withdrew from 'area A' [PA controlled areas] altogether and continued to 'hold the fire,' while Arafat continued to attack and kill innocent Israelis...Why? because the Americans took it upon themselves to revive the political negotiations [for global reasons as explained above].

 

The complexity of the US government’s position here extends to Saudi Arabia.  The US is praising the nothing-new “land for peace” proposal of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah that is merely a propaganda cover to divert world attention away from Saudi collusion with terrorism.  So, while the US continues to shield the public from the Saudi’s hidden anti-US agenda, they praise the Saudi Prince of “peace.”  Some analysts believe the main purpose of US pressure on Israel to gain a cease-fire at any cost is to make sure that Arafat gets to attend next week’s Arab summit conference and meet with Abdullah.  The Prince’s latest peace proposal won’t go anywhere without Arafat signing on.  Yet even the US praise is a mixed signal.  At the same time Bush is holding back criticizing Saudi Arabia, US intelligence has leaked information to the conservative press that Saudi Arabia financed Al Qaeda’s escape from the US military in Afghanistan.  Why go to all the trouble of building favorable propaganda for Saudi Arabia, only to undermine the façade with more damaging leaks?  Once again, it is difficult to determine ultimate motives amid all the complexity. 

 

But no matter what each side says or does in the coming weeks, be assured, there will never be peace in the Middle East--only further betrayal and war, interspersed with periods of false peace while enemies regroup.  My advice to Israel’s true defenders (not government leaders) is get ready for a much bigger war, and prepare to resist the inevitable international pressure to stop short of complete victory.

 

3. US-Russia Tension?

In another message of mixed signals, US intelligence agencies are starting to make a habit of exposing Russian collusion with terror--even while President Bush keeps praising Russia as a partner against terrorism.  CIA Director George Tenet, in his latest appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, criticized Russia directly for providing terrorist states with technology and training in weapons of mass destruction.  He also mentioned, according the Agence France-Presse, that Russia is continuing to transfer chemical and biological weapons to these countries.   I surmise that the Bush administration is trying to put Russia on the defensive prior to the upcoming Bush-Putin summit meeting so as to counterbalance the expect Russian negotiating position pushing for permanent dismantling of US nuclear weapons, rather than holding them in reserve.  As I’ve stated before, US globalist leaders desire to keep their nuclear weapons intact to aid in the counterattack following Russia’s first strike on the US.  They plan to allow Russia to defeat the US military, but they intend for the Western NWO to win the next World War.

 

CONSERVATIVE MIXED SIGNALS

I’ve discussed some of the complex positions of government regarding its policies, and the mixed signals apparent in many of its leaders’ dealings.  Of course, the duplicity of government should come as no surprise.  Savvy conservatives distrust much of what government says.  But we also have to be careful about people that appear to be on the side of liberty giving mixed signals as well.  I have discussed previously the appearance of new private internet news sources, like Stratfor.com and Debka.com, which are fronting for government intel sources.  Other phony conservative organs are working for the other side in a more sinister way, trying to undermine and confuse the opposition (us).  Let’s look at the two most obvious examples. 

 

First, consider Lyndon LaRouche, publisher of the Executive Intelligence Review (EIR).  EIR is a polished and well researched magazine that presents a conservative front, adding credibility to LaRouche’s recruitment operations.  However, when considered closely, LaRouche’s writings and speeches prove to be full of misleading conclusions that lead conservatives astray.  LaRouche is an expert at filling his speeches with conservative trigger words, pretending to be pro-Constitution and anti-greed.  He entices unknowing conservatives by touting conspiracy--but his is a narrow form, an Anglo-Jewish-Wall Street conspiracy theory based solely on “greedy capitalist motives.”  If you look carefully at his material, you will notice that he diverts attention from the much larger globalist conspiracy (going beyond greed) that drives and harnesses Wall Street on behalf of the global control system.  In reality, LaRouche attacks the “money powers” because he is anti-capitalist, not because he is anti-global control.  His proposed “solutions” promote his peculiar variation of socialism, complete with multiple layers of government control (his reform of medical care is a classic socialist model).   

 

I have occasionally commented in prior briefs on LaRouche’s bizarre philosophical and leftist background.  For instance, LaRouche has been in alliance with black radical Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.  His German wife, Helga Zepp, is a perennial Bundestag (German Congress) candidate from the European Workers Party--a name always linked to socialist dogma.  She visits regularly with many of the worldwide leaders of the Socialist International, which no true conservative would have access to.  LaRouche himself seems to have a private source of money that feeds his propaganda machine--far beyond that which is explainable by his meager profit making endeavors.  My personal opinion is that LaRouche is a mole for the Socialist International--the Moscow controlled front that is attempting to control the EU and the NWO from a Marxist perspective.  He is most likely working the US scene on their behalf. 

 

Next, we have the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, also posing as a conservative.  Moon captured conservatives early on with his strong condemnations of Soviet “peace” movements and of US policies of appeasement toward Russia.  However, in the last few years, the “Moonies” have begun to show some strange colors.  According to an in-depth article on Moon by Cliff Kincaid (read the whole article at http://www.usasurvival.org/moon-un.html), “since the end of the Cold War, I have seen an ominous turn in Moon's activities, away from a pro-American orientation to a pro-United Nations view of the world. I have seen this show up in the Washington Times. As you know, Moon has even been embracing the notorious Louis Farrakhan. Moon received a ‘Universal Peace Award’ at the UN, has called for a UN-based religious body, and has declared, ‘As long as America sticks with its nationalistic pride it will never be able to embrace the world.’ Moon even conducted one of his notorious mass weddings at the United Nations itself on January 27, 2001. The event was covered by Larry Witham, religion correspondent of the [Washington] Times and identified member of the Unification Church, in a story the next day. This is when Moon called the UN a ‘temple of peace.’”  Moon’s religion is a strange mix of eastern and western concepts.  He considers himself a Messiah. 

 

Moon has dozens of front organizations that promote family, marriage, the environment and world peace.  His most prominent foray into conservative politics was through his creation of the Washington Times and Insight magazine--both excellent sources of conservative investigative reporting … perhaps too good.  Being in the private intelligence business, I’m always suspicious of conservatives that are given access to government classified information.  The CIA and the State Department have long had a history of planting secret information with favored leftist reporters.  Every famous investigative reporter you have ever heard of has been on the far left (Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, Drew Pearson, Walter Lippman, Robert Matthews, Walter Cronkite, etc.).  They were favored to climb the ladder of success because they were known and reliable leftists or globalist insiders.  According to one CIA defector, most of these recipients of classified leaks also received payments from the CIA of thousands of dollars per month.  Now, someone or some group within government is leaking a few tidbits to the right.

 

Conservatives have always assumed that the few leaks our side got have been from patriotic intelligence agents who were opposed to the globalist agenda and wanted to get the truth out.  But I’m not so sure anymore.  The government surveillance system is so good that there isn’t any way that a conservative leaker could keep feeding classified info to someone on our side without being caught--especially with the government’s increasing emphasis on “shutting down leaks.”  The government knows who all the regular leakers are and is allowing them to continue.  Why?  After all, most of the leaks to conservatives consist of information we suspect is true and want to hear.  But consider this: Is a trap being set for disinformation that may follow?

 

Let’s take a minute to examine the Washington Times’ “miracle investigative journalist,” Bill Gertz.  Gertz is reported to be a member of Moon’s Unification Church.  He joined the Washington Times right out of high school, has no college education, and quickly rose to star journalist status.  How?  By suddenly being the recipient of regular leaks from the “good guys” in US intelligence.  Why Gertz?  Why not one of the veteran conservative journalists who are willing to tackle the evidence trail of conspiracy behind the dual face of US intelligence?   Don’t get me wrong.  I like what Gertz writes.  He is a sincere conservative.  He details many of the secret dealings with China that are continuing even under Bush.  I’m only bothered by the fact that Gertz was critical when Clinton did it but points no critical fingers at Bush, as if somehow the process is now unattached to the President. 

 

While there is little direct editorial control over the Times and Insight by Moon and his US agents, both have become veritable apologists for everything Bush says or does.  Not one word of criticism of the Bush agenda ever emerges from the pages of the Times.  Neither has either publication ever hinted to a NWO conspiracy, even when they served up endless criticisms of the Clinton administration which was deeply involved in pushing a global agenda.  I have detailed in numerous briefs the evidence pointing out that the Bush administration is run by the same globalist insiders that gave us Bill Clinton.  Bushes actions have continued to support all of Clinton’s globalist policies and have even accelerated them through his selective war on terrorism.  Any conservative newspaper with the investigative capacity of the Times is suspect if they cannot see at least some of the cross-over collusion between CFR insiders and the Bush administration.

 

Moon’s deep pockets (again, from mysterious sources, quite beyond his religious-trinket business operations in Korea and Japan) are also a sign of backing from a much larger power.  Moon kept the Washington Times and Insight magazine afloat during their start-up years far longer than a purely capitalist endeavor could have justified--losing millions each year.   Moon also gave “tens of millions” of dollars to North Korea during the 80’s and 90’s to shore up their need for hard currency--not exactly the act of a true conservative of liberty.  There are those who believe Moon may be fronting for the CIA.  But I doubt the CIA would have chosen a Korean religious leader with highly questionable religious ideas when they could more easily find an American cleric willing to do their bidding. My current suspicion is that Moon is fronting for the Chinese in the same way that LaRouche may be fronting for Moscow.  Both may be trying to influence and confuse conservatives, just as the US global insiders are doing through electing a phony conservative like Bush.  

 

The bottom line is, there are many sources of duplicity and deception out there, and conservatives are particularly vulnerable to the deception, especially when it seems to come from “our side.”  We must be constantly wary of government’s position, and ever critical of information from any source that seems to know more than it should.

 

MARCH 29

 

ADMINISTRATION SECRECY AND STONEWALLING

The Bush administration is quickly gaining a reputation for denying Congress crucial information relative to secret government operations, as well as issues that should not normally be classified.  Most of the Bush Cabinet members are active participants in cover-ups and obstructions of justice that mirror the pattern of conduct well established during the Clinton administration.   Here are some quick examples: 

·          When Congress wanted to investigate improper FBI collusion with the Mafia in several major cities,  Attorney General Ashcroft refused to cooperate.

·          President Bush continues to refuse Congress access to the actual wording of secret and dangerous Executive Orders and Presidential Decision Directives to the military, e.g.:  EO 25 on global “peace keeping” operations, and PDD-60 mandating that our Nuclear Forces absorb a nuclear first strike.  Obviously the government has something to hide.

·          President Bush has defied General Accounting Office (GAO) subpoenas for government records on Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force meetings with Enron and other favored companies relative to US energy policy.  When Judicial Watch filed for a FOIA request on government related documents, they found that “15,000 documents from the Energy Department were missing and another 10,000 from the EPA were also missing.” They said they have “received none of the requested documents from the Department of Treasury or the Department of Commerce.”  In a historical move, and to the embarrassment of Bush, the GAO has sued the executive branch for access to task force records.  So far, after almost two months, the Bush administration has yet to respond except with anything but a fraction of what it possesses.  Although Judge Lamberth has threatened contempt sanctions against government officials for refusing to deliver the documents (making him appear sympathetic to the numerous Judicial Watch filings), he has yet to follow through with any of those threats.   I don’t believe he ever will. 

·          Attorney General Ashcroft has refused to honor any of Congress’ attempts to reopen the Clinton-era investigations that were shut down or suppressed during Attorney General Janet Reno’s tenure, including inquiries into Chinagate, Pardongate, FBI corruption, and illegal IRS audits.  The Bush administration uses its “Let’s move on” excuse to effectively protect the previous Democratic administration--a telling indication of both major parties’ supporting the same evil agenda.  For the full Judicial Watch report on continued cronyism within the Bush administration, go to http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/ois/specials/bushenforce.htm

·          When Congress wanted a full investigation of 9/11 relative to FBI/CIA foreknowledge, the President and Vice President actively lobbied both parties vigorously, intent on killing any investigation that would illuminate government involvement or culpability.   Leaders of both parties in Congress protested little and have essentially complied.  Attorney General Ashcroft has refused to discuss the testimony of FBI and DIA whistleblowers, currently being represented by impeachment attorney David Schippers, who charge that they were told by FBI higher authorities to suppress crucial information that could have led to the early interdiction of the 9/11 hijackers. 

·          Bush’s Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton is now accused of hiding or destroying evidence relating to the high profile Cobell class action lawsuit, alleging that the Interior Department systematically mismanaged Indian Trust funds.  Judge Royce Lamberth repeatedly ordered Norton’s attorneys to preserve electronic records, including e-mails, and finally concluded that lawyers at Interior have been engaging in a pattern of overwriting e-mail back-up tapes--both at Interior’s Washington, DC headquarters and at other field offices.  Still, no sanctions.

·          Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is stonewalling Congressional attempts to continue investigations of corruption within HUD related to fraud, insider dealing, and kickbacks--many of which involve the Denver cabal which included the President’s brother, Neil Bush.  Meanwhile, it’s business as usual at HUD.  Secretary Thompson recently held a fundraising event at Vice President Cheney’s government mansion with donors who have business dealings with HUD--a violation of laws regarding the use of government property and funds.

·          Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge refused a request to testify before Congress regarding his request that funding for Homeland Security be doubled.  Congress has a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers to know precisely what Ridge intends to use the money for.  He doesn’t want to say.  Appeals have been made to President Bush to force Ridge to testify.  Bush is adamant that he does not wish to discuss Homeland Security plans with Congress, maintaining the excuse that Ridge is merely an adviser to the President and not actually a Cabinet member, and thus not subject to Congressional oversight.  Yet Congressional oversight powers over funding are absolute in our Constitution and not a matter of controversy.  A 100% increase in the budget of any government agency should be questioned, and the fact that the Bush administration is so reluctant to describe the purpose of the increase means they have much to hide.  Conservatives suspect that plans are being laid to further curtail American liberties and attack what is viewed by government as inevitable right-wing resistance to violations of the Bill of Rights, and that the increased budget plans may be intended to be used for such purposes.   

 

Given the increasing number of discoveries made each year about secret unratified Executive agreements made with foreign countries behind the back of Congress, I’m not sanguine about the possibilities of Bush being open or even telling the truth on any of these matters.

 

APRIL 5

 

US HYPOCRISY IN THE ISRAELI WAR ON TERROR

President Bush delivered a major policy address regarding the Middle East on April 4, declaring again that, "All states must keep their promise, made in a vote in the United Nations, to actively oppose terror in all its forms. No nation can pick and choose its terrorist friends [and yet the US does just this]. I call on the Palestinian Authority and all governments in the region to do everything in their power to stop terrorist activities, to disrupt terrorist financing, and to stop inciting violence by glorifying terror in state-owned media or telling suicide bombers they are martyrs." This statement is a glaring example of US duplicity. Even in the midst of Bush’s ongoing war on terrorism, there have yet to be any real sanctions against Yasser Arafat and the PLO. In fact, the US continues to deliver millions of dollars to Arafat’s organization each year. Why should Arafat stop financing terror when the US keeps financing him?

                President Bush continued to laud the "nothing new" peace plan of Saudi Arabia: "The proposal of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, supported by the Arab League, has put a number of countries in the Arab world closer than ever to recognizing Israel’s right to exist." Talk is cheap, yet there is absolutely no indication from Arab language newspapers and Arab language government statements that any of these nations intend to abide by these paper promises. In fact there have been dozens of statements to the contrary--which the US media never reports. Most of what is printed or broadcast in Arabic is so hostile to the US and Israel that, if publicized, it would dash the world’s illusions about any Arab nation being a "partner in peace." The Middle Eastern media watchdog Memri (www.memri.org) gives readers a dose of this duplicity (translated into English) every week.

                Furthermore, President Bush neglected to mention that Abdullah has been modifying his proposal. It is no longer a simple "land for peace" proposition. During the failed Beirut summit conference of the Arab League, which Arafat refused to attend for fear of being exiled, Abdullah appended to his proposal a demand that Israel recognize the "right of return" of millions of hostile Palestinian refugees. This has always been the most contentious of Arab demands--for it guarantees that if Arab nations cannot defeat Israel militarily, they can at least overwhelm Israel politically. Most of these "professional" refugees (kept in refugee status by Arabs for purely political purposes) would demand residency inside the reduced boundaries of Israel, giving the Arabs a political majority within Israel.

                Bush continued with some new language which supports what I have long maintained: that the "peace process" is really intended to set Israel up for future defeat and international intervention. "Israel faces hard choices of its own. Its government has supported the creation of a Palestinian state [which Sharon originally promised he would never do] that is not a haven for terrorism [an impossibility in light of existing Arab hatred and their stated goals for the extinction of Israel]. Yet Israel also must recognize that such a state needs to be politically and economically viable [meaning free from Israeli military power and eligible for billions in future aid--including from Israel itself, causing it to finance its own destruction]. Consistent with the Mitchell plan, Israeli settlement activity in occupied territories must stop, and the occupation must end through withdrawal to secure and recognized boundaries [an absolutely idiotic statement if you study terrain and water resource maps of Israel; withdrawal to these boundaries would leave Israel with no strategic high ground, no surface watershed, and no military buffer zones], consistent with United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338 [which require a total removal of existing Israeli settlements]. Ultimately, this approach should be the basis of agreements between Israel and Syria, and Israel and Lebanon."

                After making these superficially balanced statements, Bush then demanded that Israel immediately pullback from its incursions into Palestinian controlled areas. This is speaking out of both sides of the mouth. In one statement he defends (reluctantly) Israel’s right to defend itself. In the next, he chastises Israel for doing so. Bush’s contradictions haven’t gone unnoticed, even by Wes Pruden, the normally pro-Bush editor of the Washington Times: "In what sounded like a textbook exercise of moral equivalence, the president yesterday conceded that Israel has the right — he could have said duty — to protect itself, but scolded the Israelis for doing so and added to the pressure first exercised by the Europeans to force Israel's army to go home and wait for the next suicide bomber, when everyone will go tut-tut-tut."

                Congressman Eliot Engel (D-New York), was even more direct at pointing out the hypocrisy of the Bush position: "We are rightfully going halfway around the world to Afghanistan to destroy the terrorist cells and everyone applauds us for it. Israel is rightfully going into the Palestinian areas to destroy the terrorist cells and the world is condemning them for it. I really do not agree with Bush's calling on Israel to withdraw their military operations. We're either going to be consistent or we're not."
                from the selective media coverage, which mostly focuses on the plight of the Palestinians, you would think that Israel was only invading to destroy homes and a few gunmen. Mostly, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is searching out weapons and explosives in order to deny the Palestinian militants the means to commit terror. Here are the results so far, according to the Israel National News Service: Soldiers in Bitunya, west of Ramallah, found an arms cache last night containing 250 rifles, many submachine guns, 400 pistols, and more... The IDF's Operation Protective Wall has so far brought about the arrest of some 900 Arabs of Judea and Samaria, including hundreds of wanted terrorist fugitives, and the confiscation of 50 bombs, many submachine guns, dozens of crates of ammunition, dozens of kilograms of explosives, 1,300 rifles, and much more." This is only the tip of the Iceberg. The PLO also has missiles stockpiled and land mines.

                IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Sha'ul Mofaz is now pleading for Sharon to hold off complying with US pressure. He said he needs "at least four more weeks are required to complete the missions." He will never get that time. Bush is sending Secretary of State Colin Powell to make sure the Israelis comply with US pressure, but is delaying Powell’s departure until mid-week, next week. In this manner Sharon can be seen as resisting the US (to pacify growing Israeli hostility to US pressure) and then ending the operation "on his own" claiming (falsely) that "we have accomplished all our objectives." He will warn Gen. Mofaz not to contradict him, publicly, on this lie.

                To further illustrate the hypocrisy of Bush’s statements, let’s look at US actions on the ground. This week Israeli Defense Forces again plunged into the West Bank city of Ramallah, one of 4 major terrorist strongholds inside Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority (PA). The IDF does this repeatedly, but never finishes the job of rooting out the terrorists--mostly because of US political protection of Arafat and his CIA-trained cadres. This time was no exception: IDF tank forces burst through Arafat’s walled military and administrative compound and surrounded Arafat and his top leaders inside a single building--acting according to the "rules of engagement" set down by Israeli PM Sharon, under rigid orders by President Bush. Two days into the siege, after a series of desperate cell phone calls by Arafat to European and American leaders, demanding a rescue, the US quietly complied. While leaving Arafat in isolation within a couple of sealed rooms (to hold the world’s attention), the US quietly arranged a convoy of trucks to rescue all of Arafat’s armed fighters who had survived the Israeli attack on the compound. How would the world view this situation if Israel had discovered Osama bin Laden inside that compound with 50 Al Qaeda armed terrorists, and President Bush had suggested we merely "isolate" Osama bin Laden and then rescue his cadre of armed terrorists in the name of peace?

                I watched a BBC news video of the convoy leaving the compound. It was like a haunting replay of US collusion with Arafat in 1982, when he was rescued from certain destruction in Lebanon. Arafat’s foreknowledge and support of the 1983 truck bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut (killing 241 Marines) should have taught the US a lesson about permissiveness in dealing with terrorism. Predictably, however, it did nothing to change US appeasement policies.

                An editorial from the NY Post of October 27, 2001, remembering this incident, put it pretty bluntly: "It is instructive to remember why the Marines were in Beirut. Lebanon had long been a staging area for attacks against Israel by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In 1982, Israel had enough, and invaded. Israeli armored forces had surrounded Arafat and his fighters south of Beirut, and were about to destroy them. The Marines (and French troops) came to their rescue. We evacuated Arafat and the PLO safely to Morocco... A lot of decent people, Israelis and Marines alike, would not have died violent deaths if we had permitted the Israelis to finish off the PLO in Lebanon in 1982...And if we do restrain the Israelis again, we can be assured we will get no credit for having done so from anywhere in the Muslim world. The real cause of the intifada which began a year ago September was Israel’s decision to withdraw completely from Lebanon." I disagree with this last statement. Although the unilateral withdrawal of Israel from Lebanon has made Israel much more vulnerable to attack by Hezbollah terrorists supplied with Russian/Iranian Katyusha rockets, it isn’t the cause of the conflict.

                The real cause of the current Intifada (uprising) is the Oslo "peace process" itself which, under the guise of trading "land for peace," allowed Arafat to create a semi-autonomous safe haven (within Israel), allowing him to stockpile the tons of illegal arms, mines, rockets, explosives and mortars essential to the Palestinians’ future war of terror. The various Israeli Labor Party administrations eagerly went along with the Oslo Accords, despite continual violations of the accords by Arafat’s PA. Three different Labor/Unity governments gave training, arms, and millions of shekels to the Palestinian Authority--all in the name of peace--only to have that support come back to them in the form of bullets, mortars, and suicide bombers. The architects of Oslo were ousted from power in the recent election, but they were immediately invited back into government positions by Ariel Sharon, in the name of "unity." Oslo collaborators Yossi Beilin and Shimon Perez continue to undermine Israeli security using the authority and influence of their respective new government positions.

 

CONCLUSIONS: In light of the historic failure (to bring peace) of allowing the PLO to manage autonomous areas, both PM Sharon and President Bush have declared their support for a Palestinian state with even greater autonomy. That is why I don’t believe this war against terror is intended to be won. Despite all the appearances of Israeli vigor in prosecuting this war on terror, we will see them stop short of victory once again and cut a deal, under US pressure, that will once more ensure that terror has a safe haven from which to base further attacks within Israel. As I have said before, this war is not going according to global plans. It is continuing because Yasser Arafat isn’t cooperating with global attempts to sell out Israel. I don’t blame him, really. With the US speaking out of both sides of its mouth, who really knows what our government is up to? The US has lied so often in foreign affairs, it has no influence with anyone--except by virtue of its military power and force of covert intimidation.

 

PROSPECTS FOR A WIDER WAR

I do not believe this war will widen to include other neighboring Arab states (with the exception of the Hezbollah irregular fighters in southern Lebanon) despite the clear advantage in quantities of conventional armaments possessed by the major powers surrounding Israel.

                Egypt is not ready to fight. Mubarak’s ruling party is constantly courting civil unrest (with its fundamentalist opposition) due to their heavy-handed political control and the chronic state of poverty among the common people. Iraq knows the US is just waiting for an excuse to attack and thus would be unwilling to join in the fray at this time. Syria doesn’t want to shed blood to capture the heavily fortified Golan Heights as long as the US keeps promising to deliver up this strategic terrain the easy way--via the negotiation process.

 

THE PROPAGANDA WAR HEATS UP

Another indication to me that other Arab countries do not intend to launch a military intervention in support of the PLO is that a massive propaganda and protest campaign is gearing up throughout the West. The Arab nations resort to these tactics when they are losing the military advantage. It quickly allows colluding Western leaders to have an excuse to increase the pressure on Israel to accede to a cease fire, short of victory.

There are mass street protests being organized in Europe and throughout the Middle East. Hatred of America has reached a fever pitch in all the Islamic world. There are weekly fire bombings of Jewish synagogues in France, a nation which has a huge fifth column of Muslim extremists left over from the war in Algeria. These protests, marches and arson attacks are anything but spontaneous. They are well organized and are designed to give sympathetic globalist leaders like Frances Jacque Chirac, Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar, and the EU’s Roman Prodi an excuse to push for a quick settlement--helping the Palestinians gain at the negotiating table what they cannot achieve in war.

                Part of the propaganda battle is the flooding of media outlets with stories of Israeli atrocities--almost total fabrications, but so numerous and outrageous as to make people think the Palestinians are victims rather than perpetrators of terror. One egregious pack of lies circulating in internet circles (http://www.rense.com/general21/eyewitnessaccount.htm) comes under the byline of an Arab-American and former University of Minn. student Tzaporah Ryter. Ms. Ryter comes on with tears and pleas for help, claiming to be an eyewitness to wholesale random shootings of women and children escaping through the fields surrounding Ramallah. This is an outright lie. Israeli soldiers are working under severe restrictions to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen--and sometimes end up dead from giving civilian terrorists the benefit of the doubt. The soldiers have to keep a cordon around these towns to keep armed Palestinian fighters from escaping, and they do shoot at fleeing men who refuse to stop, but women and children are not targeted. Yes, civilians do get killed at times, especially when Israeli soldiers have to fight house to house with non-uniformed armed Palestinians--who don’t think twice about using innocent families to hide behind while engaging Israeli soldiers. I get irritated at the Palestinian sympathizers in Israel who feel completely justified in shooting and throwing fire bombs and lethal rocks from the sidelines at soldiers in the midst of battle, and yet get indignant and offended when a soldier strikes back with anger, or isn’t sympathetic to their wounded crying for immediate access to a PLO ambulance (which are known to smuggle combatants, arms and explosive charges past Israeli guards).

                None of the Israeli soldiers go around wantonly killing. Ryter claims that Israeli "militia" gunmen from the settlements are roaming the streets and going house to house lining civilians up against the walls after they have surrendered and shooting them. This is ludicrous. All the Israeli soldiers in Ramallah are regular soldiers or reservists under unified command; there are no militia vigilantes as she implies. She uses words like "chasing down" and "hunting" women and children looking for bread, but these are only touching elements of style by an American-educated liberal college student who knows how to pull the emotional chains of soft thinking Americans. Don’t be taken in by this kind of propaganda.

                Those of us who are familiar with Palestinian tactics know that the broad fabrication of wholesale lies is standard procedure for their purposes, intended to win the "hearts and minds" of Americans--who form the largest body of people supporting the existence of Israel. Remember, it was a Palestinian support group that fabricated the lie that hundreds of Israeli citizens were forewarned not to go into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. They also fabricated the lie about Israeli Jews collecting the blood of Arab dead to mix into certain ceremonial foods.

 

US GETTING READY FOR IRAQ INVASION DESPITE LACK OF JUSTIFICATION

The London Guardian reported that the US is already moving its Gulf headquarters from Saudi Arabia to Qatar in preparation for an attack on Iraq (which numerous experts predict will take place between July and September of this year). Saudi Arabia has refused to allow its territory to be used as a base of operations for either the Afghanistan operation or the future Iraqi invasion. There is growing skepticism surrounding US bullheadedness in taking on Iraq. Even perennial globalist yes-man Tony Blair, Britain’s PM, is trying to get President Bush to call off the attack. Tony Blair’s Labor Party has shown little enthusiasm for continued US saber rattling around the world. Blair knows he’ll be in political hot water if he doesn’t show some token opposition to the Bush warmongering. He issued orders to government intelligence agencies to not publish the expected dossier on Iraq’s secret arms programs--which Bush was hoping to use to justify the coming attack on Iraq.

 

APRIL 12

 

THREE TROJAN HORSES AT THE GATE

Global planners for a New World Order know that most citizens of Western countries, even dumbed-down as they are by public education and dependence on establishment media sources, would be highly resistant to a frontal assault against national sovereignty, such as handing over direct legislative powers to the United Nations General Assembly.  So, that’s not the way planners are proceeding.  Vesting real legislative powers in the UN, binding upon all nations, will be the last step in the globalization process.  Globalists are currently paving the way for that step by first building up regional governments such as the EU and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)--so that citizens become accustomed to relinquishing national control over currency, trade, and environmental issues to a supranational organization.   But even as these move ahead, eager globalist planners are busy implementing three non-elected structures of global governance that will effectively destroy national sovereignty, even while Congressmen and members of Parliaments wallow in the illusion that they still control their own destiny. I call these new structures Trojan Horses, because each appears small in scope, hollow of authority, and benign in intentions.  But, the mandate of each has built-in language allowing for infinite expansion of powers in response to the litany of man-made crises that will be foisted upon the world in due course. 

                Who are the global leaders orchestrating this movement?  All are members of one or more of several overlapping secret organizations, such as the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, the Aspen Institute, the Club of Rome, the Atlantic Alliance, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and the Committee of 300, among others.   One of the reasons there are multiple, overlapping groups is to make it difficult to identify the top leaders, or trace the lines of informal authority.  Meetings and activities for all of these groups have been picking up in pace since the provocative terrorist events of Sept. 11.   Despite the secrecy in which all these groups meet, these are NOT, I emphasize, where the high level decisions are made.  These are all leadership meetings where old line globalist conspirators recruit and influence other up and coming leaders.  Globalist plans are announced and strategy discussed.  Disagreement is tolerated on issues of implementation but not on the overall course planned.  People who aren’t team players aren’t invited back. 

                The Trilateral Commission held a major conference this past week in Washington, DC.  There were about 150 international leaders in attendance including Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and former head of the US Federal Reserve Board Paul Volcker (who has been recently called back to public service to head a committee to work out a bailout for corrupt auditing firm Arthur Andersen and Co.).   According to the Washington Times, “The running line at this meeting is definitely going, ‘What do we do now, and where do we go from here?’” quoting Francois Sauzey, the Commission’s press officer.  Major presentations on global taxation and increased management of world trade are scheduled.  The more sensitive topics are never announced to the public.  The Bilderbergers are also meeting soon (May 30- June 2) at the Westfields Marriott, near Washington’s Dulles Airport.  As usual, they will occupy the entire hotel and security will be massive.   If these meetings are innocuous discussions of foreign policy, why the extreme paranoia and highly effective attempts to control leaks?

                Here are the three major objectives, which I believe are being discussed and implemented as Trojan Horses.  Note that for each of the three, the initial mandate will not affect or disturb the affairs of the majority in any nation--a crucial tactic the insiders have long since learned to employ to ensure public complacency.

 

1)  GLOBAL TAXATION:  This horse has not yet arrived, but it is coming. This topic was the underlying objective of the Monterrey, Mexico conference on global debt which just ended.  The increasing crisis of poverty and debt in Latin American nations is being used as the excuse to foment a call for global taxation.  However, this objective failed in Monterrey as it has in past conferences.  Look for the Trilaterals, Bilderbergers, and others to continue to make sure the World Bank plays hardball with indebted nations in order to precipitate further crises.  Once implemented, the global tax levels will start out small and will be designed to only impact a few of the wealthy (e.g.: a tax on international currency trades).   Later, the tax rate will increase and will spread to other items of trade.  Organizations such as the WTO, ostensibly designed to control “free trade” worldwide, are strategically placed to act as “transaction” tax collectors in this scheme.

 

2)  UN MILITARY AND POLICE FORCES:  No global government has any power until it has police powers of enforcement.  Globalists are even now working towards using NATO as the eventual UN world police/military force.  Like all aspects of the globalist control scheme, the transition of NATO from a voluntary “peacekeeping” organization to a global interventionist military machine is happening gradually.  Americans currently resist the notion of US troops serving under direct UN command as “peacekeepers,” but there is virtually no resistance toward having US troops serve in similar roles under NATO.  Currently, NATO is controlled by the US which contributes most of the military forces.  But, Americans will be surprised to learn that NATO has always considered itself as an extension of the United Nations (though it acts independently whenever the US demands--as in the Kosovo intervention).  I predict that the US will continue to help build NATO, under its leadership, while the Europeans will tinker around with a small “EU rapid reaction force” (just to assuage European pride and sensibilities).  Then, in the next big war, when the US military will be decimated by a pre-emptive nuclear strike by Russia and China, I foresee NATO immediately transitioning into a full fledged UN army and absorbing the EU’s rapid reaction forces--which are already fairly indistinguishable from NATO troops.  Plans are also proceeding in the Americas to build a regional unified military command under NAFTA, mimicking the EU forces. 

 

3) INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC):  This Trojan Horse arrives at the gates of every country in July of this year.  The final four ratifications out of the sixty necessary for the ICC to begin operations were received on April 11.  The ICC now claims jurisdiction over even those nations which failed to ratify--such as the US.  What I fear is that non-ratifying nations (whose leaders secretly favor the ICC anyway) will slowly allow themselves to be “absorbed” into the ICC mechanism by “voluntary” participation, supporting the prosecution of selected enemies already before the court.  Expect the special “war crimes” tribunal at the Hague to suddenly merge with the ICC.   There is no grass roots control over the selection of judges for the ICC.  Thus, we can be sure that no judges will be appointed to the World Court who are not dedicated socialists (or worse) or who can not be relied upon to condemn any person deemed to be an enemy of the NWO.  

                Gary T. Dempsey, foreign policy analyst at the CATO institute, framed the controversial issues of the ICC succinctly: “Specifically, the court threatens to diminish America's sovereignty, produce arbitrary and highly politicized ‘justice,’ and grow into a jurisdictional leviathan. Already some supporters of the proposed court want to give it the authority to prosecute drug trafficking as well as such vague offenses as ‘serious threats to the environment’ and ‘committing outrages on personal dignity.’ Even if such expansive authority is not given to the ICC initially, the potential for jurisdictional creep is considerable and worrisome.  Moreover, it appears that many of the legal safeguards American citizens enjoy under the US Constitution would be suspended if they were brought before the court. Endangered constitutional protections include the prohibition against double jeopardy, the right to trial by an impartial jury, and the right of the accused to confront the witnesses against him.”

                Dempsey continues, “The court theoretically would take action only when national courts fail to fulfill their legal responsibilities. In fact, the preamble to the ICC draft statute states that the court ‘is intended to be complementary to national criminal justice systems in cases where such trial procedures may not be available or may be ineffective.’”  Read his entire report at http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-311.html.   Presumably, however, any failure to prosecute someone the ICC is eyeing would be viewed as “ineffective,” opening up an entrance for the ICC to exercise its claim to automatic extradition of any suspect it demands.  Anyone who thinks this movement is benign and not a serious blow to national sovereignty should wake up and reevaluate. 

                There is another crucial element necessary for fair ajudication of any case--the power of the defendents to compel the testimony of witnesses for both the prosecution and the defense.   This constitutes the essential difference between the new World Court and the Nurenburg Trials.  At Nurenburg the allied forces had control of all of conquered Europe and could secure the witnesses they needed.  For the ICC to effectively operate in fairness, it must have the power to enter any nation and compel testimony not only for the prosecution but for the defense.   It does not have that power now, and it may be convenient (for their purposes) to keep it that way.  That is why Slobodan Milosevic’s goose is cooked.  The Hague Tribunal will not compel the testimony of Clinton, Kissinger, or the KLA commanders who have personal knowledge of the conspiracy to falsify evidence in Kosovo of Serbian atrocities.  Even earlier, Clinton and his cronies had extensive dealings with Milosevic and encouraged him to procede with using force to hold Yugoslavia together--and now are allowing the Hague to prosecute him for use of force.  It is a rigged game.  The ICC prosecution team will always be able to get the cooperation of globalist leaders in every country to bring in witnesses against the accused,  but will claim “no authority” whenever defendants demand that witnesses from other countries be subpoened in their behalf.    

                Americans are being feted with an anemic legislative red herring to make its citizens feel safe from this new authoritarian threat.  Republicans, still beating the drums of support for the phony “war on terrorism,” are focusing all opposition to the ICC on the potential that some of our patriotic soldiers might be summoned before the World Court on “war crimes” charges.  Senator Jesse Helms (who has lost much of his old sharpness after a major stroke) has teamed up with Senator Zell Miller to push for legislation in Congress protecting our military from the jurisdiction of the Court.  This is a very weak tactic.  In the first place, our soldiers might indeed unknowingly engage in war crimes since they are taking orders from US or UN globalist leaders intent on intervening improperly against other governments around the world.   Those leaders who send our soldiers to do illegal acts should be held responsible.   The US desperately needs to return to the constitutional restrictions on war making powers.  Furthermore, soldiers are not the only ones who need to worry about improper attacks from the ICC.  What about all the rest of us?  Why not a blanket repudiation of the ICC for all Americans?   By limiting our legal reservations to our military personnel or leaders, there is a tacit acceptance of the Court’s jurisdiction elsewhere in America--that means over you and me. 

                Even Rep. Ron Paul’s improved legislation HR 4169 panders to the “protect our soldiers” ploy in order to get support from Congress.  It does contain a softly worded sentence that exempts American citizens in general from the ICC--but it appears as an afterthought.  Soldiers are treated as if they are sacrosanct, which is improper.  Soldiers should always be held responsible for violating others’ rights--even when just “following orders”--so they will be motivated to think, judge and demand evidence of the justice of what they are being told to do. They do kill people and that should never be done except in defense of fundamental rights. I realize that complicates military command efficiency, but that is the only way to keep holocausts and massacres from happening.  The best way to make sure people don’t take life except under truly justified circumstances to make everyone in the chain of command (especially the highest leaders, who have access to the overall picture) liable for their actions.  None should have immunity simply for “following orders.”  The ICC isn’t the proper venue for prosecuting these crimes, not only because of the flaws mentioned, but because its promoters don’t have a clue about fairly defining fundamental rights.  Theirs is an agenda intent upon ruthless prosecution of all those who fight against the NWO’s version of democratic tyranny, whether they be further to the Left (Communists like Milosevic) or on the right (Christian conservatives and libertarians).   

 

APRIL 19

 

US CONTRACT MERCENARIES--SECRET MISSIONS AND A BLANK CHECK

On April 14, a major story surfaced in the LA Times describing the increasingly extensive role of US mercenary corporations around the world.  The piece by Times staff writer Esther Schrader is a masterful piece of propaganda, helping to justify this increasing use of secret mercenary contracts and deflecting the critics.  This subject is of critical importance in our efforts to track the secret world of US government illegal operations.  I will quote extensively from the Schrader piece and add my comments and corrections in [brackets].

                “When the Pentagon talks about training the new Afghan National Army, it doesn't mean with its own soldiers. Instead, the Defense Department is drawing up plans to use its commandos to jump-start the Afghan force, then hire private military contractors (PMC) to finish the job. [This is not what the public is told--the Pentagon only mentions training by US forces directly.  The work of private military contractors (PMCs) is rarely discussed publicly.]

                “...the role of these private companies promises to grow right along with it [war on terrorism]. [These companies are private in name only.  Either they start out as CIA created entities, or they are bought out later by larger holding companies that are controlled by government or globalist yes-men.  No one gets into this line of work unless sanctioned directly by the government.]

                “Business has burgeoned in the messy post-Cold War world. The firms-- modern-day mercenary companies armed with Powerpoint presentations instead of weapons [a cute euphemism, but a lie nevertheless--the operators in the field are often armed and do engage in black ops]--operate today in more than 40 countries, often under contract to the US government. [Everything they do is coordinated with government.  They don’t go into any country without US approval.]

                “But the industry has met with growing criticism by military experts who charge that the firms work with little oversight and less accountability, particularly when hired by foreign governments. [There is no public oversight precisely because these people are hired to do blatantly illegal acts the US government does not want to directly be caught doing--and because the government has not been completely successful in silencing regular military personnel tasked to do illegal operations in prior years.]

                “Since Sept. 11 and the Pentagon's launch of the war on terrorism, the stock prices of the publicly traded contractors have soared [not surprising when you have a guaranteed income flow from non-competitive government contracts]. Already, trainers from private military companies are in the former Soviet republic of Georgia [the first admission of this--the government has only said it was dispatching US special forces to Georgia to train Georgians--something I pointed out was very strange given that Georgians use Russian equipment exclusively and have Russia trainers already], where Al Qaeda operatives are believed to be hiding [--that ubiquitous excuse used to justify all intervention....].

                “‘A lot of people have said, ‘Ding ding ding, gravy train,’’ Des Roches said. ‘But in point of fact, it makes sense. They're probably better at doing these sorts of missions than anyone else I could think of.’  [In a sense, what he is saying is true--though not for the reason the reader thinks.  Mercenaries are better at these operations because their assignments include a lot of clandestine illegal acts.  Training troops and subcontracting maintenance for aircraft is partially a cover for other activities the government wants kept hidden.  In the 1980s, when regular US military pilots or special forces were tasked to do these black ops, a certain percentage of decent pilots and soldiers would question the legality of the operations, and have to be threatened with “national security” provisions--which, in itself, is an illegal use of secrecy laws.  Hiring ex-military types with unprincipled attitudes or yes-man ex-generals who don’t mind furthering the globalist agenda is a sure way to keep the number of defectors or whistleblowers low.  That is the REAL reason for the existence of these “private” military organizations.]

                “Boasts retired Army Lt. Gen. Harry E. Soyster  an executive at MPRI [a former spook chief, head of Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and thus, an enthusiastic apologist for dark-side operations], the most prominent of the private contractors: ‘We've got more generals per square foot here than in the Pentagon.’ [A sad commentary on the level of integrity of many of our former generals.]

                Although the most successful of the US firms carefully screen their employees [for willingness to do questionable acts without question], prohibit them from carrying arms [a lie--depending on the assignment] and generally reject contracts with governments the US considers unsavory [Pure propaganda.  These companies exist because of the government’s need for “plausible deniability” in many illegal dark-side operations], they operate in a world populated by a darker breed of ex-soldiers who serve as guns for hire to thugs throughout the world.  [This author is definitely trying to make a less-than-truthful distinction between US mercenaries and the typical version shown in Hollywood films.]  Competing military companies in Britain and South Africa [e.g., Executive Outcomes] have hired out their employees as combatants in Angola and Sierra Leone [fighting FOR the bad guys]. And employees of the US companies have sometimes taken up weapons themselves, employees of the firms say. [Schrader avoids telling details here, lest she alert her readers to the less-benign reality of what they did with those arms].

                “MPRI, founded in 1988 by former Army Chief of Staff Carl Vuono and seven other retired generals, has trained militaries throughout the world under contract to the Pentagon. It counts 20 former senior military officers on its board of directors. The financial rewards presumably beat Pentagon salaries. Since Sept. 11, the per-share price of stock in L3 Communications, which owns MPRI, has more than doubled. [L3 Communications is itself another, larger, covert private-government company--which doesn’t do covert combat operations, but does supply high tech equipment and technology to government and even potential enemies.  According to it’s website,  “With over 23,000 employees and over $2.3 billion in sales, L-3 Communications is a leading merchant supplier to aerospace and military firms”  including China and Russia.]

                “MPRI has trained military forces in dozens of countries, including Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Colombia.  [The author neglects to say that MPRI has mostly trained forces who turned out to be the enemy.  In Macedonia, they trained and supported the Marxist-Albanian NLA in combat against Macedonian troops.  In Colombia, MPRI has trained certain paramilitary troops (labeled by the press as ‘right-wing death squads’), whose excesses have been used by the media to champion the cause of the Leftist guerrillas--helping create crises that justify US intervention.]

                “The top five executives at Science Applications International Corp. [SAIC] of San Diego made between $825,000 and $1.8 million in salaries in 2001, and each held more than $1.5 million worth of stock options. [SAIC was the insider controlled company related to Adm. Bobby Inman and George H. W. Bush which ended up buying out and stopping production on PGP--one of the few private encryption software products not controlled by the government].

                “The major U. S. firms in the field include MPRI, Vinnell, BDM International Inc. of Fairfax, Va., Armor Holdings Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla.; DynCorp of Reston, Va., and SAIC. [In my opinion, MPRI, DYNCORP, and SAIC do the most covert work.  Watch out for DynCorp--they are building a new “homeland Defense Force” division, which will target Americans instead of foreigners].

                “DynCorp trained the Haitian police force after the 1994 US intervention in the island nation [a disaster for liberty as ousted Marxist President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was reinstalled by force, courtesy of US Marines]. And MPRI and several other firms, under contract to the State Department, established the African Center for Strategic Studies to teach fledgling democracies how to run professional armies. [What they really did is train the bad guys in places like Sierra Leon to suppress legitimate dissent.]

                “But even the most polished of the firms have blemished histories. [Watch how the author will distort the truth to soften the criticism.] Employees of DynCorp were fired after being accused two years ago of keeping Bosnian women as concubines. [As I reported earlier, it was the whistleblower-employees who were fired--NOT the employees who bought and sold young girls as sex slaves.]  Companies hired by the CIA in the 1980s trained foreign fighters later charged with atrocities in El Salvador and Honduras.  [Only partially true. The true right wing vigilantes  defending property from government confiscation did not commit atrocities.  CIA-trained paramilitaries committed atrocities so the right wing could be blamed by the leftist media.]

                “When the firms are hired by the Pentagon or State Department, as they would be in Afghanistan, their work is audited and sometimes supervised by US military personnel, a process the State Department says helps prevent abuse. [There is no effective prosecution of abuse.  These people are on the dark side of government and considered “untouchable” by the law.  As a case in point, in the DynCorp sex slave case, which was investigated by the US military, nothing was done about it.  DynCorp did not lose its contracts, key violators were not fired, and the executives who covered up and stonewalled the investigation are still there.]

                “The firms say this [the Arms Export Control Act] prevents them from working with governments that the U. S. disapproves of. When MPRI tried to get a license to train the [Communist] Angolan army in 1994, for example, the State Department turned it down. [That is because the State Department had already agreed to let the South African mercenary force Executive Outcomes do the job--which directly targeted the anti-Communist forces of UNITA and led to the death this year of its great Christian leader Jonas Svimbi.]

                “But Congress is notified only of contracts worth more than $50 million. Sometimes there are conflicting views of what is in the US interest. And once a license is granted, there are no reporting requirements or oversight of work that typically lasts years and takes the firms’ employees to remote, lawless areas. [How convenient.  The lawlessness is often a result of the destabilization brought upon by US mercenary training of enemy forces.]

                “When the Croatian military, in a highly effective offensive called Operation Storm, captured the Serb-held Krajina enclave later that year [the Krajina massacre], there were suspicions that MPRI instructors must have been directly involved… The same Croatian military was subsequently implicated in uprooting more than 150,000 Serbs from their homes [Another example of US mercenaries creating the ethnic cleansing conditions to justify globalist intervention--a variation of what the CIA and MPRI mercenaries trained the KLA to do in Albania and Kosovo.]

                “But critics charge that the help MPRI provided the Croatians may have allowed the US to secretly influence events in the war while maintaining its neutral posture and without sending US troops, advisors or trainers.” [The critics are absolutely correct in this hypothesis.] [End of Schrader quote.]

                Other international PMC players are Sandline (UK/Bahamas), Executive Outcomes (SA) Chilport (UK) Ltd, Avient International, the Israeli Grupo Golan and Beni Tal, and Strategic Consulting International (a Sandline breakaway).  A growing database on these and other dangerous paramilitary organizations can be found at: http://www.dyncorp-sucks.com/mercs.htm. 

 

APRIL 26

 

DOCUMENTATION OF CHRONIC ARAB FALSIFICATION OF WAR CRIMES

Arutz-7, the most respected independent news source in Israel, has documented hundreds of lies and false accusations propagated by official Palestinian sources over the current Intifada.  I am republishing these because too many American conservatives are being influenced by the number of these falsehoods being propagated around the Internet.  Here are some excerpts from the Arutz-7 report. 

                “Palestinian television claimed on April 2 that a priest named Jack Amateis was killed and dozens of monks were injured in an IDF operation in Bethlehem. However, Reuters reported that day that Amateis later phoned the Vatican embassy in Israel to say that he was safe.

                “On April 3, Arafat told Al-Jazeera Television that Israeli forces ‘burned the mosque that was located in the Church of Nativity and ruined many churches and mosques.’ There is no truth whatsoever to this accusation.
                “The WAFA Palestinian Press Agency internet site claimed on April 2 that IDF forces bombed the new mosque in Tul Karem - but in fact such an event never occurred.
                “On April 2, Palestinian spokesmen spread ‘news’ which was broadcast on a number of television channels claiming that 30 Palestinians were killed inside the Preventive Security Service building in Betunia during the IDF
encirclement. In fact, however, the people who were at the compound left the building, and no Palestinian was killed there.
                “The Palestinian Authority accused the IDF last week of carrying out a massacre in the Ramallah hospital. This is an absolute falsehood. What happened was that following the receipt of reliable intelligence concerning
the whereabouts of a large number of wanted suspects hiding in Ramallah hospitals, IDF forces entered the city's hospitals in order to carry out searches and verify the identities of those people there. The IDF soldiers carried out their missions in a manner respectful to those in the medical facilities and withdrew.”

                The Palestinians routinely use local Red Cross ambulances to transport terrorists, explosives and weapons throughout the occupied territories.  This has given rise to various true stories asserting that IDF soldiers would not let ambulances pass checkpoints without being searched.  In recent weeks, some ambulances have even been rigged with explosives set to kill soldiers doing a search.  It doesn’t take many such experiences to cause reasonable soldiers to distrust all Palestinian humanitarian services. 

 

ARGENTINA IN A DEATH SPIRAL

Argentina’s makeshift and desperate government is breaking all records on what to do wrong in solving an economic crisis.  After months of crippling socialist budgetary shortfalls and debt overload, this country of 37 million people is having to suffer the worst of all possible scenarios: the literal shut down of the country’s banking system--not by outright bank failures, but by government edict.  Last Friday afternoon, President Eduardo Duhalde ordered that all bank transactions simply be halted until further notice.  This was in retaliation for Congress’ refusal to pass legislation allowing the government to abscond with all Argentineans’ savings and replace them with worthless government bonds.  Mexico did this to all dollar denominated accounts in the 80s and got away with it.  It will be a different story for Argentina.

                For the last month, Argentineans have been suffering with withdrawal restrictions, and now all bank account access has been cut off completely.  The economy has come to a near standstill and no one can get access to any money except that which they have stashed away.  On Monday, shops were half empty; people were only buying necessities.  Cars were using up the last of their gas supplies rushing to find ATM machines that had some cash to dispense.  The run on cash was complete within minutes and the economy has ground to a halt. 

                I’ve always said that countries don’t die from economic socialism; they just grind down to a survival existence and stay there until they get conquered militarily.  That transition in Argentina has just been accelerated exponentially by government stupidity.  The Argentine economy was sagging by about 40% before, but it was still operating.  Now it’s going down fast.  People who want to trade, who have money to trade, can’t--there is no means of exchange.  Barter is coming back in a few places, but it won’t be enough.  Weeks ago, Argentinos banged on pots and pans in the streets.  Now there will be full scale riots unless the government comes to its senses. 

                Argentina is breaking the cardinal rule of government survival:  don’t seriously inconvenience the masses--and they are doing it in spades.  Why doesn’t Argentina simply print enough cash to keep the banks solvent, like they have been doing for decades?  The reason is because the international bankers are still trying to keep Argentina from defaulting on all its foreign debt.  They are promising more bailout money but only in exchange for austerity measures, including low inflation--and that means limiting the printing of Pesos.  

                There is no quick solution to Argentina’s problems.  from a free market perspective, they have to cut government spending, cut taxation, get out of debt and cut regulations to stimulate growth.  None of that will happen.  The Argentine masses are benefit-corrupted.  They won’t tolerate the pain of going back to honest money, giving up their government benefits.  Given that, there are only a few alternative routes that can be taken.  Either the IMF will drop its straight jacket requirements and inject more billions (to be forever lost), or the Duhalde government will start up the printing presses.  If neither happens, the government will be overthrown and someone else will print the needed cash, feeding the inflation spiral.  Eventually, the crisis will result in the loss of Argentina’s sovereignty and its absorption into the chains of dollarization and regional control by an emerging FTAA--the EU of the Americas.  That’s part of the reason why these catastrophes are exacerbated by IMF intervention rather than solved: they drive countries inexorably into the arms of globalization. 

 

MAY 3

FRANCE: WHY THE PARANOIA OVER JEAN-MARIE LE PEN?

On May Day--a traditional European holiday based on the Marxist “worker’s day” celebration--major protests were orchestrated by the far Left aimed at embarrassing and vilifying their fellow Frenchmen who may, silently or otherwise, harbor French nationalist views similar to the growing right-wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.  Actually, these demonstrations have been going on regularly since Le Pen bested Socialist Premier Lionel Jospin (who has a deep Communist background) in the latest multi-candidate presidential primary, garnering 17% to Jospin’s 16%.   This was a huge upset for the far Left, and a great embarrassment, to have a reigning Premier go down to defeat in a primary.  Now the Left’s only alternative is to vote for centrist/globalist Jacque Chirac who garnered 20% of the primary vote.   Chirac is hated by the Left even though he acts as a leftist.  They can’t tolerate his playing both sides, a tendency of all “centrist” socialists (meaning conservatives get the rhetoric and the Left gets the action). 

 

Le Pen’s base of support is feared to be much larger than his 17% showing.  Bruno Megret, who split with Le Pen’s National Front, got 3%.  Together, the two candidates equal Chirac’s showing.   But no one expects Le Pen to even come close to beating Chirac since all the leftist parties are sure to throw their support behind Chirac.  So, why the paranoia?  Why stage huge protests against a candidate who will surely lose by a landslide? 

 

It is because the Left always fears the inevitable failure of socialism--a system which is destructive to individual liberties and economic incentives.   Any resurgence of opposition to the deceptive allure of socialism must be crushed.   As time passes, the many victims to socialist redistribution among the productive classes threaten to coalesce into a cohesive group, as voters follow the herd mentality.   Thus, all movements on the Right must be crushed in their infancy.   As Pat Buchanan cogently responded to the Left’s frothing at the mouth, “Now, any election that can produce that kind of pain on the Trotskyite-Socialist Left cannot be all bad.”  But there’s more to it. 

 

Le Pen is France’s perennial French-nationalist candidate: opposed to immigration, the EU, and the growing welfare state.   He is a stalwart champion of French sovereignty and wants to  control of French finances through reestablishment of the French Franc, dumping the Euro.  For this reason, he is hated by the globalist crowd, which, at the leadership level in Europe, is more numerous and powerful than the far Left.

 

Le Pen is consistently portrayed by the leftist media as an anti-Semite (possible), a racist (untrue), and a Fascist (ludicrous, since Fascists are Fabian socialists--not free market advocates).  It is the Left which has attached the connotation of “racist” to Fascism, in order to transfer the taint of Hitler’s Aryan philosophy to other socialist ideologies.   Rarely does an article on Le Pen appear in the international media without quoting his various faux Pás (false steps)--offensive comments on immigration, race, or the Jews.  A typical AP quote states, “Le Pen has been convicted five times for racist and anti-Semitic remarks. In the most well-known case, he was fined about $20,000 for saying that the Nazi gas chambers were a ‘detail in the history of World War II.’”   The public is not supposed to notice the horrific implications of such dangerous laws as those by which Le Pen was convicted targeting free speech--implications which should be far more worrisome to readers than Le Pen’s downplaying of Nazi crimes.  

 

One of the things I worry about in this case is the striking similarity between France’s Le Pen and Austria’s Jorg Haider.  Both defend free markets, both oppose the problems of immigration, and both champion national sovereignty (all good things), but both men have a tendency to make periodic unwise and insensitive statements about immigrants, race, or the Jews that bring down upon them (and their movement) a cacophony of howls in protest.  Both men are too smart and controlled to do this unwittingly, in my opinion.  Why do they persist?  Perhaps it is intentional.  I suspect that their rise as leaders might be cultivated by the establishment to capture right wing movements in order to poison or otherwise taint this side of the political spectrum.  Once people are preconditioned to feel embarrassed about ideas on the Right, they are induced to seek the safety of a “centrist” position (which is both globalist and socialist as well).  

 

ISRAEL:  US INTERVENES TO SAVE TERRORISTS FROM PROSECUTION, AGAIN

The Israeli Cabinet decided, under heavy pressure from PM Ariel Sharon (who was under even heavier pressure from the US), to allow Arafat the freedom to leave his Ramallah headquarters, where he has been kept under de facto house arrest by Israeli forces for nearly five months.  This decision came despite Sharon’s solemn pledge not to release Arafat until after he had handed over the four terrorists responsible for the murderer of Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi, as well as the two men who organized the Karin-A weapons ship smuggling affair--to Israeli justice, not to the Americans or Palestinian Authority (PA).   Israel had demanded that these men be tried in an Israeli court since the Palestinian Authority is known for only going through the motions of prosecution.  “Convicted” terrorists in the PA are kept in penthouse “prisons” and allowed full access to their terrorist networks. 

 

Through a slick deal worked out by American negotiators--ever maneuvering to shield the terrorists while appeasing the Israeli public--Arafat would be released following the transfer of the six terrorists were to a prison in Ramallah or Gaza under American and British wardens.  The men would then be tried by a pretense of a court within the Palestinian Authority--ensuring no conviction.  No one in Israel was fooled by this fig leaf pretense of justice, but it was enough of an improvement over a PA revolving door trial that it passed the Cabinet. 

 

You would think Arafat would be a fool to mess up this proposal.  However, just as he turned down PM Barak’s peace proposal giving Arafat 95% of what he demanded, news surfaced from Israel on Wednesday that Arafat was fudging on his commitment to this American brokered compromise.  According to a news flash by Arutz-7 on May 1, Arafat only is willing to hand over the four murderers of Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi, not Fuad Shubaki and Ahmed Saadat--the two responsible for the Karin-A weapons ship. 

 

The American brokers are beside themselves with disbelief.  They have marching orders to secure an American diplomatic “success,” whatever it takes. They wouldn’t care less if Sharon convinced the Israeli Cabinet to let Arafat free without any conditions, but they know Sharon couldn’t survive politically unless he at least pays lip service to his promises--and that is all this deal provides Israel--lip service.   If he reneges on this token “apprehension” of the terrorists, he will be seen as the ultimate right-wing sellout artist.  Sharon is already far out on a limb for agreeing to the creation of a Palestinian State.  (Sharon’s support in this matter, by the way, does NOT mean the Israeli government must go along.  This issue is not for the PM to decide.  It must be voted on by the Cabinet and the Knesset, and its passage is not likely.)  

 

On Thursday, I learned that the Americans finally convinced Arafat to go through with the deal.  I’m certain that the Americans guaranteed Arafat that they would make sure the six never reached Israeli courts.  After a few months the public will forget about these prisoners and they will be somehow released--if not soon, certainly as soon as war breaks out again.  It is little wonder that Tawfik Tirawi, the terrorist director of intelligence for the West Bank, proclaimed afterward that, “This is a victory for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people.”  Actually, it was a victory for terrorism and a sad commentary on American hypocrisy. 

 

EVIDENCE OF ARAFAT’S REJECTION OF BARAK PEACE PROPOSAL

This issue of Arafat changing his mind at the last minute is becoming known as a chronic impediment to a US-brokered peace agreement.  Thanks to Britain’s Weekly Standard interview with former Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross, we now know this same phenomenon sunk the Clinton-Barak proposal alluded to above.  Here is what happened, according to Ross:

 

ROSS: “The ideas were presented on December 23 [2000] by the president, and they basically said the following: On borders, there would be about a 5 percent annexation in the West Bank for the Israelis and a 2 percent swap.
So there would be a net 97 percent of the territory that would go to the Palestinians.  On Jerusalem, the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem would become the capital of the Palestinian state. On the issue of refugees, there would be a right of return for the refugees to their own state, not to Israel, but there would also be a fund of $30 billion internationally that would be put together for either compensation or to cover repatriation, resettlement,
rehabilitation costs...

FRED BARNES, WEEKLY STANDARD: Now, Palestinian officials say to this day that Arafat said yes.

ROSS: Arafat came to the White House on January 2. Met with the president, and I was there in the Oval Office. He said yes, and then he added reservations that basically meant he rejected every single one of the things he was supposed to give... He was supposed to give, on Jerusalem, the idea that there would be [Israeli] sovereignty over the Western Wall, which would cover the areas that are of religious significance to Israel. He rejected that... He rejected the idea on the refugees. He said we need a whole new formula, as if what we had presented was non-existent. He rejected the basic ideas on security. He wouldn't even countenance the idea that the Israelis would be able to operate in Palestinian airspace... So every single one of the ideas that was asked of him he rejected.... The
Palestinians would have in the West Bank an area that was contiguous. Those who say there were cantons [cut off from other parts of the Palestinian state], completely untrue. It was contiguous."

 

MAY 10

 

BUSH ADMINISTRATION USING GOVERNMENT SECRECY TO MASK ILLEGAL CHINESE PURCHASES OF MILITARY DUAL USE EQUIPMENT

The following excerpts come from an article by Charles R. Smith of www.softwar.net.  Smith has become an expert in tracking technology transfers to Communist China under the Clinton administration.  Now it is the Bush administration he is watching--specifically because Smith has found crucial evidence that, while claiming (via Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld) that China is a future threat, the Bush administration is allowing China to purchase tons of dual use military equipment--and trying to keep it a secret.  [My comments in brackets]

                “The Bush administration has decided not to tell America exactly how much business the Chinese army does inside the United States.  In a recent Freedom of Information response, the Commerce Department decided not to disclose what a Chinese air force front company bought from America.  According to the Commerce Department, the undersecretary for the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) has determined that ‘disclosure would not be in the national interest [meaning, it would not be in the globalist interest--which is counting on a future war with Russia and China that will force the world into a NWO for survival, followed by a permanent loss of sovereignty.  Naturally, there are other lessermotives, like enriching multi-national corporations like Boeing].

                 “‘Information about export licenses and license applications that list China United Airlines as a consignee or end-user of the items exported under the export license [such as Boeing aircraft--which are now being used for military transport], are protected from disclosure,’ wrote Barbara Fredericks, the Commerce Department assistant general counsel, in an April letter. However, the Commerce Department clearly was in the business of selling something to foreign militaries [which is not legal--thus the continued assertions by Commerce that this is a civilian transfer]. The recently declassified documents show that the department was informed in 1994 that China United Airlines is actually owned by the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF).”

                Smith also detailed in his report the use of  Lippo (Chinese subsidiary) agent John Huang (a convicted felon) by the Commerce Department to facilitate numerous arms transfers to other nations including missile frigates and Patriot Missiles to the United Arab Emirates.  He reports, “The Bureau of Export Administration (BXA), the section of the Commerce Department that authorizes foreign sales of aircraft, computers and commercial security software to civilian end users, pressed Congress to sell the warships to the UAE navy.”

                Smith also found some telling attempts by Commerce to suppress sensitive portions of the agreement between the US and China during China’s consideration for WTO membership.  “The Commerce Department did release information concerning China's ‘WTO Accession’ detailing US administration support for the red Chinese application to join the World Trade Organization. The department heavily blacked out the information, however, noting that the details were withheld in order to protect ‘the agency's decision-making process.’” [My sources indicate the blacked-out portions detail secret concession the US agreed to make to China which they do not want the American people to know about].

 

BUSH CONSIDERING SHIELDING US/RUSSIAN ARMS AGREEMENT FROM PUBLIC SCRUTINY

According to the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC), “Russian and American officials appear to be making progress on a framework accord that will define both countries' nuclear postures - and future
American missile defense plans.”  This means more US disarmament, without effective verification of similar disarmament on the Russian side, if historical precedents hold.  What is most disturbing is that the Bush administration is considering burying the details inside another executive agreement, so that neither Congress nor the American public can know the secret language.  According to AFPC, “Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (May 1) cites US Ambassador to Moscow Alexander Vershbow as saying that the ‘main question’ surrounding the framework accord now is simply whether it will take the form of a treaty or an executive agreement.”

                There are numerous Executive Agreements in force between the US and Russia.  When finally exposed to the partial light of day (usually 20 years after their signing, and heavily redacted) they always turn out to be devastating compromises of US security.   In the secret Kennedy-Kruschev accord after the Cuban Missile crisis, the US agreed to protect Castro’s regime against any anti-Castro Cuban forces in the US.  In the secret agreement between the US and China at the end of the Vietnam war, the US agreed to never support Taiwanese independence.  In the 1990s, Bill Clinton signed a secret agreement to keep half our nuclear missile submarines in port at any given time in order to make them easier for Russia to target with their missiles.    It looks like the Bush administration is determined to continue this pattern of secrecy. 

 

MAY 17

BUSH ADMINISTRATION ADMITS TO PRIOR WARNING ABOUT 9/11 HIJACKINGS

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer made a dramatic admission this past Wednesday--that US intelligence agencies had delivered to President Bush in early August definitive warnings that Osama bin Laden would be attempting to hijack commercial airliners.  Fleischer was quick to provide a ready excuse for government inaction on the warnings by stating that the warnings did not indicate the possibility that the hijackers would use the aircrafts as guided missiles targeting high profile buildings. 

                This announcement is suspicious on its face.  First, it has all the markings of a total fabrication designed to head off or soften the mounting real evidence of government foreknowledge and complicity with the 9/11 terrorist attack.  The CIA was collaborating with Osama bin Laden in Saudi Arabia as late as July of 2001, so it is highly suspicious that the supposed intelligence warnings would have mentioned bin Laden by name as an enemy--unless bin Laden’s primary purpose is to serve as a fall guy.  Second, if, as Fleischer says, the warnings gave no indications that the hijackings would be “for the use of suicide bombing, nor for the use of an airplane as a missile,” what did they think they were for, and why should this warning have been given such special priority?  Generic potential hijackings are not considered worthy news items to put before the President in his daily briefings.   last, why no prior admission of this prior warning (if it existed at all)?  Why wait for six months to reveal it?

                I strongly suspect that this is a ploy to defuse the growing evidence of government prior knowledge.  By airing a harmless version of prior warning, the public will be induced to view all other subsequent and more damaging evidence as ‘old stuff.’   Even Congress may be diverted from highlighting evidence of other more telling collusion between government and the hijackers as they go through the pretenses of an investigation.  Here are some major questions that will probably go unanswered by Congress as a result: 

 

·         What is the relationship between the CIA and Rudy Dekker’s Huffman Aviation which trained two of the alleged hijackers?  Dekker leases space in his hanger to Britannia Aviation, a CIA front company. 

·         Why did the INS give numerous visas to these hijackers (in previous years, before 9/11) when they were conspicuously prominent on the CIA and FBI computer terrorist  “watch lists?”   I think the INS “mistake” of issuing renewed student visas to them after the attacks was only to provide a phony image of government incompetence--which doesn’t match the exacting ruthlessness of the INS in holding Caucasian immigrants to the letter of the law. 

·         In light of the recent admissions about prior warning, why didn’t the same agencies who briefed the President put two and two together and link flight school training taken by Arabs (with supposed ties to Al Qaeda) to the known threat of hijacking (even assuming the CIA didn’t know the ultimate purpose of the hijacking)?

·         Why did Arabs who could barely speak English go to America flight schools (which offered no instruction in large airliners) when there was an Arab-speaking airline flight school in operation at Fort Worth International? 

·         Why is the FAA refusing to make public any of the tape recorded conversations with pilots of the hijacked airliners as the hijacking was taking place?

·         Why the suppression of ATC controller testimony that two F-16 fighters were vectored to and intercepted Flight 93 over Pennsylvania, or about witness statements of explosions aboard the aircraft and the unmarked white jet aircraft that followed Flight 93 down to the ground as it crashed and then flew off at tree top altitude? 

·         Why did the government shut down all military flight lines in the East half way through the 9/11 attacks so they could not respond to other hijackings still in progress? 

·         Why is the FBI refusing to release the service station surveillance camera video they confiscated minutes after an aircraft flew into the Pentagon?  How did they know to show up at the service station within such a short time period?  Why did the government leak (unofficially) to NBC strange excerpts from a Pentagon parking video that, in fact, does not show a large airliner crashing into the Pentagon?   The anomalies in the official story about the alleged crash of Flight 77 have given rise to a whole rash of internet suspicions pointing to another type of aircraft, possibly combined with a missile, that more fully explains the damage to the Pentagon.  All this could easily be clarified by evidence the government has in its possession.  Why the gag order?   

 

People are so easily duped into accepting facile explanations for government incompetency and inaction.  I participated on a panel discussion on terrorism at the FEE National Convention, and presented some of the anomalies in the official version of events surround 9/11, including the highly suspicious refusal of FBI headquarters to allow a local FBI office in Minnesota to search the apartment of an Arab flight school student who was reported to be only interested in learning to maneuver a large aircraft--not takeoff and land.  Michael Ladeen, a fellow panelist who works for the establishment American Enterprise Institute, was quick to react to my charges by saying the FBI was under pressure by the federal courts to be cautious about violating anyone’s rights.  Hogwash.  My learned colleague was apparently oblivious to the voluminous testimony of FBI whistleblowers stating that the FBI violates the law anytime it wants.  The surveillance of conservative Congressmen (Filegate) is only one example of such egregious violations of the law on a routine basis at the Bureau.  If the FBI chose to be cautious in this case, it was only because the FBI was looking for an excuse to avoid exposing evidence pointing to an incident that powerful dark side forces in government wanted to happen--perhaps to justify further restrictions of constitutional liberties in America (see below) and to further globalist intervention.

 

ANALYSIS OF THE US PATRIOT ACT

Several subscribers have requested I do an analysis of the US Patriot Act, which would have been more appropriately entitled the US Patriot Surveillance Act.  A definitive analysis of the Act has already been ably written by Kelly Patricia O’Meara of Insight Magazine.  I will summarize the major issues in brief.  You can read her entire article at http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=143236 .

 

·         The Act creates a definition of terrorism so broad that almost any minor criminal offense and even some misdemeanors could be construed as terrorist acts.  According to the Act, any “activity that involves acts dangerous to human life that violate the laws of the United States or any state and appear to be intended [vague]: (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping” could be construed as terrorism.  Like the government’s expanded use of RICO statutes to impose additional unwarranted penalties on two or more people for acting as a “conspiracy,” so this new definition of terrorism can potentially include almost all non-terrorist criminal acts--as long as they can be made to appear   to intimidate or coerce civilian or government entities.  What crime doesn’t have some element of intimidation or coercion?

 

·         The Act nearly eliminates any judicial supervision of telephone and Internet surveillance by federal law-enforcement authorities.  Federal agencies have been conducting illegal surveillance of civilians for years, but the Act makes their authority to do so official.

 

·         It expands the ability of the government to conduct secret “sneak and peak” warrantless searches.  Section 213 (Authority for Delaying Notice of the Execution of a Warrant) effectively allows police to avoid giving prior warning for searches of personal property.  Before the Act, the government was supposedly required to obtain a warrant and give notice to the person whose property was to be searched.  According to the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution, “No warrants shall be issued, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”  This provision is violated all the time by government officials, who either refuse to allow victims to see the warrant, or who use generic warrants that don’t even come close to specifying the specific person to be served nor the things to be searched for or seized.  With the passage of the US Patriot Act, such violations will now be even more common.

 

·         Section 215 authorizes the FBI to acquire any business records whatsoever by order of a secret US court without having to show evidence of a crime.  The recipient of such a search order is forbidden from telling any person that he has received such a request, which is a violation of First and Fourth Amendment protections of free speech and private property.

 

·         The Act gives the Attorney General and the Secretary of State the power to arbitrarily designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations, and to deport any noncitizen who belongs to such designated associations.  This will lead to broad based snooping of any American citizens whom Federal agencies view as ‘hostile to government.’   This tactic is already being used in Maricopa County in Arizona, where federal officials included in a published watch list of potential domestic terrorists “defenders of the US Constitution against government and the UN (Super Patriots).”  Since when is being a critic of government or the UN a crime?

 

·         The Act allows unverified information gathered in any federal investigation to be shared with intelligence agencies, and put on national databases, without public scrutiny or recourse against such information if false.  This constitutes one of the main pillars of a Police State.

 

·         Section 216 gives law enforcement agencies unlimited access to Internet communications.

 

·         Most of the sweeping changes the Act makes have little or nothing to do with fighting terrorism.  Drug enforcement powers are widely expanded, as well as the ability of federal agencies to make seizures of private property.  This same kind of expansion was instigated by the 1996 antiterrorism legislation, passed in the wake of the OKC bombing incident.  Most of the additional surveillance laws were used to prosecute drug trading, gambling, and prostitution.

 

MAY 24

 

JIMMY CARTER IN CUBA--THE MOST NAIVE EX-PRESIDENT EVER

President Bush lost no time in responding to Jimmy Carter’s propagandized visit to Cuba by promising that the US would loosen its trade embargo against Cuba ‘if reforms [are] made.’  The handwriting is on the wall: the US is looking for a way to allowing Cuba back into the club of ‘friendly nations.’  Carter’s trip was promoted by and encouraged by the Bush administration in order to give Bush a reason to respond and begin the shift in US position. The Bush administration is, in essence, inviting Castro to give them a tiny modicum of ‘reform’ so they can justify lifting the embargo.  Already, the current trade embargo is more idea than substance.  It is full of gaping holes.  Unlike the ruthless and comprehensive sanctions used against anti-Communist South Africa, Cuba’s European trading partners are not being pressured by the US to comply. 

 

Below is a major excerpt from Richard Robert’s newsletter regarding Carter’s woefully flawed judgment in foreign affairs.  You can get Robert’s email newsletter on a regular basis for only $12 a year.  Contact him at perceval@gtcinternet.com to receive other samples or to sign up. 

 

“Jimmy Carter never met a dictator or Communist he didn't like. Whereas Bush included North Korea as part of the ‘axis of evil,’ Carter said of the Koreans, ‘I don't see that they are an outlaw nation.’ As to Bush's remark, Carter said, ‘I think it will take years before we can repair the damage done by that statement.’  In effect, Carter is a one-man public relations firm for the world's worst hombres. Of the murderous Kim II Sung, Carter declared, ‘I find him to be vigorous, intelligent and in charge of the decisions about this country.’  Same could be said of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Indeed, in 1997, Carter did some unsolicited p.r. for Mao, entitled, ‘It's Wrong To   Demonize China,’ in which he penned, ‘Westerners emphasize personal freedoms, while a stable government and a unified nation are paramount to the Chinese. This means that policies are shaped by fear of chaos from unrestrained dissidents...’

 

“While he was President, Carter praised Yugoslavian dictator Marshal Tito as ‘a man who believes in human rights.’ And of Romanian dictator Ceausescu, he said, ‘Our goals are the same. We believe in enhancing human rights.’  Obviously Carter has a very novel sense of human rights if he sees so many totalitarian countries ‘enhancing’ them. ‘Restraining dissidents’ provides the stability that can only come from totalitarianism, thus it constitutes enhancing human rights in Carter's mind.  One thing that can interfere with the stability that a dictator can bring to a country is free elections, but if these are ‘well organized’ dissident votes can be easily controlled, so as not to jeopardize a country's ‘stability’ with a change of leadership. Carter's longtime friendship with Nicaraguan Marxist Daniel Ortega is well known. When the Reagan administration succeeded in providing free elections there in 1990, Carter self-appointed himself to monitor the democratic process in action. When the Sandinistas lost to the democratic opposition, he was bitterly disappointed.

 

“But Carter learned a valuable lesson from the Nicaraguan election. If ‘free’ elections are to achieve the desired outcome, they must be better organized. Small wonder then that he would be praising Arafat's 1996 election as ‘well organized, open and fair.’  After years of pro bono p.r. on behalf of tyrants everywhere, Carter found his new champion in Yasser (‘He's My Baby’) Arafat. In 1990, Carter and Rosalynn met with Arafat, who gifted Rosalynn with a Palestinian dress for Amy for whom Arafat expressed great admiration for her anti-CIA efforts in Nicaragua. That was enough to convince Carter to actually become a speech writer for Arafat.

 

“In The Unfinished President, biographer Douglas Brinkley writes that Carter conceived of the strategy and words for the subsequent speech which Arafat would ‘deliver soon for Western ears.’  One can imagine Clinton writing speeches for the Chinese Communists after the millions in donations he received, but in fact Carter has the dishonor of being the first ex-President to write speeches for a terrorist. Indeed, such advocacy for Palestinian terrorism has earned the Carter Center big bucks from Arab contributors. 

 

“When Carter went to Cuba, he didn't disappoint Castro. His speech was even translated into Spanish so that the Cuban people could hear it. He told the Cuban people the embargo against Cuba would be lifted...” [End of Roberts excerpt.]

 

Part of Castro’s bid for normalization of trade relations with the US was having Russia close down its huge spy base in Lourdes, Cuba.  This was done for two reasons:  1) to allow Russia to continue to play as if it is a legitimate partner against terror in Cuba, and 2) to make Cuba appear less hostile.  However, I have just learned that China is now building a replacement spy base in Cuba and will take over electronic espionage operations on behalf of Russia and Cuba.  Naturally, the Bush administration, as I reported last week, is covering for all covert military moves by China in and around the US.   No protest was lodged against China, and the Bush State Department shows no sign of making Cuba commit to halting construction of this new base as a condition of normalization.

 

PREDICTION: BUSH WILL SOMEDAY BE KNOWN AS A BIGGER FOOL THAN CARTER

Just before leaving for Germany and Russia, President Bush bragged to European reporters that he was right when he praised Russian president Vladimir Putin as “a man I can trust.”   Bush had received no small amount of ridicule from journalists on both the left and the right for this naive pronouncement.  Now, on the eave of signing another huge and unverifiable arms reduction agreement with Putin, Bush is claiming vindication.  “See, and I've been proven right,” Bush told European reporters in an exclusive White House meeting.  “I do trust him...It is important that Russia be viewed as a friend, not as an enemy.”

 

All this remains to be seen.  In any case, I fail to see how signing another Pollyanna agreement with Russia proves the Bush statement one way or another.  Proof of trust requires that the assertion be tested by time--which hasn’t happened yet, unless you count the negative record of the past.  All past historical dealings with Russia indicate that none of their leaders can be trusted.  Future historians (if honest) will certainly not be kind to the Bush assessment if and when Russia finally carries out its long-planned missile attack on the West.   Bush is setting himself up to be the Neville Chamberlain of WWIII--the former British PM who gushed about “peace in our time” and Hitler’s harmless intentions in Europe just weeks prior to the German invasion of Poland.

 

MAY 31

 

ASHCROFT CONTINUES TO EXPAND SURVEILLANCE POWERS

Not content with the general language of the US Patriot (Surveillance) Act granting the federal government draconian powers to perform warrantless searches (in clear contravention of the US Constitution), Attorney General John Ashcroft has rewritten specific surveillance guidelines for the FBI to make sure agents feel completely immune from any consequences of ongoing trampling of citizen privacy rights--especially in sensitive places like churches.  At present, churches are considered nearly off-limits by FBI agents and they are reluctant to conduct spying operations targeting religion.  Ashcroft, who claims to be a Christian conservative, is about to change this reluctance by specifically carving out guidelines that make surveillance of churches and other private gatherings allowed.

                According to the Washington Post, “New Justice Department guidelines to be unveiled today [May 30] will give FBI agents latitude to monitor Internet sites, libraries and religious institutions without first having to offer evidence of potential criminal activity.”   Heretofore, the FBI was legally only able to do so if it has specific information pointing to illegal activity.  Now under the guise of the “war on terror” everything is fair game for open surveillance via Carnivore, wire taps, tempest surveillance (monitoring the electromagnetic signature emanating from CRT type monitors) and other methods.  Contacts within the local telephone companies tell me that the number of government agents entering their facilities to conduct telephone surveillance has dramatically increased since Sept. 11--and this in a state (Utah) where there are almost no Muslims and no radical Muslim activity.  They are obviously surveilling other Americans and using terrorism as the excuse. 

                The new surveillance powers over churches is supposedly justified by Muslim terrorists using the cover of religion to plan their secret dealings.  Under the new guidelines, all churches may be surveilled for suspicious activity.  However, since the Muslim religion is being given extra-legal sympathy by the Bush administration (public schools can even read from the Koran without reprisals from government education watchdogs), we might well suspect that more conservative Christian churches will be surveilled than mosques.   After all, it is politically incorrect to target mosques, now that American Muslims are a ‘persecuted minority’ (by our own government), but non-mainstream, fundamentalist, and conservative Christian sects are fair game.

 

BEHIND THE LATEST BUSH/PUTIN ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENT

Despite references by the media to the new ‘Moscow Treaty,’ the newest arms control reduction agreement signed this week in Moscow by President Bush is a secret bi-lateral agreement--not a treaty.  The difference is crucial.  A treaty must be presented to the Senate for confirmation where it can be read by the nation’s representatives in all its detail.   A bi-lateral agreement requires no Senate confirmation and thus the administration can (and does) routinely keep the details of such agreements secret--to avoid public scrutiny.  What have they got to hide?  Let’s look at what is public and what is still secret.

                Even the public elements of the agreement are not straightforward.  Supposedly, both sides have agreed to reduce the number of their nuclear warheads from the currently unknown quantities to somewhere between 1,700 and 2,200 by the year 2012.  There is a lot of room for variance in these numbers, even if they could be verified--which they cannot (especially since US inspectors are not allowed into Russia’s secret underground manufacturing and storage complexes).   But even more ridiculous is the time frame.  Setting a due date of 2012 gives Russia plenty of time to delay even superficial compliance with the agreement, while the US continues its headlong disarmament.  Russia is currently developing a at least 500 new SS-27 mobile ICBMs that will be operational in the latter half of this decade and will give Russia a huge advantage in modern missile throw-weight over the US.  Meanwhile, the US is planning to begin dismantling its meager supply of 50 MX missiles.  The warheads will be stockpiled and the missiles put into storage but the guidance systems will presumably be destroyed.   While no one can trust for sure what governments say publicly, the MX missile could not be put back into operation even under wartime conditions in less than a year without maintaining these sophisticated guidance systems.   By 2004 the US will only have a mere 500 old-styled Minuteman 3 missiles, modified to have only a single warhead instead of 3.

                In contrast, insiders have revealed that the secret agreement allows Russia to install 3 warheads on each of the new SS-27 missiles Russia is currently building--giving Russia a guaranteed 1500 strike warheads.  Russia still has over a thousand other online operational missiles, that we know about.  We will never know how many SS-27s Russia actually builds since US inspectors do not have full access to all Russia’s secret facilities.

 

THE RUSSIAN MILITARY BUILDUP

Of particular concern are the 400-square-mile underground complex at Yamantau Mountain (meaning: ‘evil mountain’) and the nearby smaller underground military command complex at Kovzinsky mountain--both in the Urals 850 miles to the east of Moscow.  Yet according to WorldNetDaily journalist Ken Timmerman, “the Yamantau complex is but one of some 200 secret deep underground nuclear war-fighting sites in Russia, many of which have been significantly upgraded over the past six years at a cost of billions of dollars [over $6 billion, for Yamantau Mountain alone].”

                Timmerman also made the following cogent comments in a WND article in 2000: “In 1998, in a rare public comment, then-Commander of the US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) Gen. Eugene Habinger [a Clinton yes-man who waxed eloquent about the ‘camaraderie’ he felt with his fellow Russian missile officers in the PBS propaganda documentary, “Missiliers”] called Yamantau ‘a very large complex -- we estimate that it has millions of square feet available for underground facilities. We don't have a clue as to what they're doing there. [Habinger never had a clue about anything the Russians were really up to.]’  The Yamantau complex is believed to be large enough to house 60,000 persons, with a special air filtration system designed to withstand a nuclear, chemical or biological attack. Enough food and water is believed to be stored at the site to sustain the entire underground population for months on end.

                Timmerman continues, “‘The only potential use for this site is post-nuclear war,’ Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., told WorldNetDaily. ‘Yamantau Mountain is the largest nuclear-secure project in the world … They have very large train tracks running in and out of it [five tracks wide], with enormous rooms carved inside the mountain. It has been built to resist a half dozen direct nuclear hits, one after the other in a direct hole. It's very disquieting that the Russians are doing this when they [claim they] don't have $200 million to build the service module on the international space station and can't pay housing for their own military people.’  [Regarding this last comment, the US paid for the Russian portion of the space station and sent its own technicians to Moscow to show the Russians how to do it to US standards--thus transferring millions of dollars in top secret space technology to the Russians]. 

                “The Yamantau Mountain complex is located close to one of Russia's remaining nuclear weapons labs, Chelyabinsk-70, giving rise to speculation it could house either a nuclear warhead storage site, a missile base, a secret nuclear weapons production center, a directed energy laboratory or a buried command post. Whatever it is, Yamantau was designed to survive a nuclear war.

                “In response to repeated US inquiries, the Russian government has provided no fewer than 12 separate and contradictory explanations for the site, none of them believed to be credible. The Clinton administration admits that the Russian government has refused to provide any information on the underground complex. Despite this, administration officials tell Congress not to worry [indicative of our own globalist leaders’ hidden agenda to cover for Russian war preparations that will eventually lead to WWIII and a NWO].

                “A 1997 Congressional Research Service report said that the vast sums invested to build the Yamantau Mountain complex ‘provide evidence of excessive military modernization in Russia.’  Russia is pouring money into this and other underground nuclear sites at the same time US taxpayers have provided billions of dollars in aid to Russia to help dismantle nuclear warheads taken off line as a result of START I and START II.

                “The Russians have constructed two entire cities over the site, known as Beloretsk #15 and #16 [**check that], which are closed to the public, each with 30,000 workers.  No foreigner has ever set foot near the site.  A US military attaché stationed in Moscow was turned back when he attempted to visit the region a few years ago.  Neither the Central Intelligence Agency nor the Defense Intelligence Agency would comment on what the Russians were doing at Yamantau Mountain [although the CIA did tell the NY Times in 1997 that they considered the complex purely ‘defensive’].

                “‘I ask the Russians about it every time I meet with them,’ Rep.Curt Weldon told WND [Weldon is usually an apologist for Russia].  ‘We've never had a straight answer.’  Weldon got interested in Yamantau Mountain in 1995 when he saw a public report suggesting it was a vast mining project.  ‘I went to Moscow and spoke with the deputy interior minister who was in charge of mining,’ Weldon says.  ‘I asked him if there was any mining activity there.  He just shook his head and said he had never heard of it.  So I mentioned the other name the Russians use for it: Mezhgorye.  He said he hadn't heard of that either. Then he sent an aide out to check.  Twenty minutes later, the aide came back, visibly shaken. He said they couldn't say anything about it.’” [End of Timmerman quote.]

                The Russians aren’t spending scarce resources like this simply as a ‘defensive measure’ against the US, a newly presumed “ally.”  I believe Timmerman’s report adds to the evidence that the Russians still intend to strike the West in the future.  Bill Gertz of the Washington Times, reporting on an interview with Peter Pry, a former CIA analyst, said, “the Russian construction program also shows that Russian leaders do not see a diminished threat of nuclear conflict. ‘This [construction at Yamantau] is a manifestation of the Russians' continued war-fighting attitudes,’ Mr. Pry said. ‘They believe in the idea that you can survive and prevail in a nuclear conflict.  These kinds of facilities are designed to survive for weeks and months.’  By contrast, US nuclear protective facilities have been largely shut down. The complex underneath the Greenbriar resort in Virginia was abandoned, along with another facility in Virginia known as Mount Weather, US officials have said.”

                In light of all this duplicity and secrecy on the part of the Russians, it is disturbing to read that the cooperation between Russia and the US, outlined in a joint statement between Bush and Putin on the ‘new strategic relationship,’ includes information exchanges on missile defense technology, reciprocal technical visits, and “greater coordination for missile defense exercises.”  The only party which stands to gain from these exchanges is Russia since their missile defense system is primitive compared to that of the US--especially in missile tracking.  Even more disturbing are the joint proposals to produce an ABM system for Europe.  Russia will be a joint developer and will most likely have a high degree of operational control.  What this means is that the US will be helping Russia develop an ABM system (supposedly for Europe) which can easily be used to target any US missiles that are heading for Russia (assuming there are any left after Russia’s planned nuclear pre-emptive strike on the West--which the US has facilitated by instructing our missile squadrons to absorb a first strike [PDD-60].)

                Russian military officials expressed displeasure that Putin dropped his opposition to the US decision to stockpile its decommission warheads rather than destroy him.  However, you can be sure the Russians never make any concessions without a secret quid pro quo from the other side.  Just what the US promised in return has not been revealed, but it certainly won’t be good for US security.

 

JUNE 14

 

US HOMELAND SECURITY--THE MAKINGS OF AN AMERICAN GESTAPO?

The planning of this latest government department was kept so secret that even President Bush’s top aids were kept in the dark.  They were not briefed on the proposed massive reorganization of government until the day before it was publicly announced.  What is worse, we now discover that this new department was being planned even before Bush took office.  Most of the major elements were designed by the Clinton administration and were intended to be implemented by Al Gore when he ascended to the presidency.  Naturally, conservative Congressmen would have killed such a bill had it actually been proposed during the Clinton-Gore tenure.  Now, with a conservative pretender on the throne, there is, predictably, little opposition.

                Bush has used his executive order powers 57 times already and created 47 new federal agencies. Homeland Security will bring most of these under one roof, including all military forces in the US under Northcom (Northern Command).  Senate bill S. 735, section 908 (already passed) weakens the Posse Comitatus act to allow for use of military forces to intervene in domestic social disorder.

                The department’s initial budget proposal of $37 billion does little to assuage our fears that this new agency will become a behemoth.  When Congress demanded that Homeland Security Czar Tom Ridge appear before them to explain how he intended to spend this money, he flat refused--even when the Congress agreed to hold the hearings in secret.  The department clearly has something to hide. 

                        The department is now saying they will cooperate with Congress--who must approve the reorganization and authorize the funding.  But what Congress will see and vote upon will only be the benign portion of this new secret department.  Publicly, the Bush administration is claiming that they will be merging all or portions of the following government agencies into Homeland Security:  Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration, Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), including the Border Patrol, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Secret Service

                A couple of these are especially telling.  FEMA controls the ongoing secret construction of detention centers being built as ‘excess federal prison capacity’ --some on decommissioned military bases.  The Secret Service will form, I suspect, the basis for an expanded federal secret police. 

                There are also plans, yet unpublicized, to control the FAA and FCC (which regulate transportation and radio communications).  In addition, in order to put teeth into the numerous executive orders the President has at his disposal to take control of private enterprise during a crisis, the new Homeland Security department also intends to control the following: Commerce Department's Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office; the National Domestic Preparedness Office and National Infrastructure Protection Center; and the General Services Administration’s Federal Protective Service and Federal Computer Incident Response Capability .  I also predict that they will include the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in order to manage the new policy of mandatory immunizations against perceived biological or chemical threats.

                A large publicity campaign is being organized to downplay the growing dangers some people sense in this powerful new agency.   Bush has put together a National Security Advisory Council, filled with predictable yes-men and establishment government players.  It immediately held its first meetings with Bush last Wednesday at the White House.  Among those named to the panel was Utah governor Mike Leavitt--the only state governor to be so honored.  During his past three terms in Utah, conservatives have seen Leavitt transition from a states’ rights conservative to a champion for bigger government and a cheerleader for increased federal and state roles in education and heath care.  His latest State of the State address was a socialist Five Year Plan for Utah that would make Stalin proud.  He has also turned hostile to owners of concealed weapons permits in Utah. 

                Paul Craig Roberts said it best in a recent column: “After the FBI, CIA, Immigration Service and State Department fiascos that alone made the events of Sept. 11 possible, why does any sane person think a ‘Homeland Security’ department will provide any protection against terrorist acts?  Why assume that putting all the fools under one roof will reduce the foolery?”  Roberts doesn’t really believe anymore that all this is due to the incompetence of fools.  Without using the “C” word, he correctly acknowledges there is a very dark ulterior motive to the government’s anti-terror agenda.   I knew Roberts back in the 80’s when I was in Washington.  He was fairly optimistic then about the government under Republican leadership.  Not anymore.  You can depend on Paul Craig Roberts to put out some of the most critical public commentary today. 

 

THE ONGOING “AIRPORT SECURITY” SHAM

The Roberts column I quoted above continues with some cogent remarks on the ongoing sham dubiously labeled “airport security.”  As any frequent flyer can attest, the new security procedures at airports are both an outrage and useless.  Roberts comments, “Most air travelers regard ‘airport security’ as a bad joke.  It is worse.  It is an insult.  The refusal to focus on the group to which Muslim terrorists are known to belong treats native-born citizens as the enemy and ensures the lack of security.  Pointless searches of grandmothers, young children, US representatives, presidential appointees, pilots and Marine generals divert resources from security and send the message that the government has no idea whatsoever who terrorists might be.

                “On my last air travel, eyes rolled and heads shook when a feeble, elderly couple was selected for search. Everyone knows that these mindless, insulting searches provide no security to anyone but terrorists. Yet, the president of the United States and his Cabinet lack the wits to fire the fools who have made air travel safe for terrorists by refusing to profile.

                “Despite the terrible events of Sept. 11, the United States government continues to issue hundreds of thousands of visas to young Muslims [including those wishing to attend an Arab-speaking flight school in Fort Worth Texas]. We have no idea who these people are and are unable to track them once they arrive on our shores. The visa process is corrupt and replete with bribes. Osama bin Laden himself could enter the United States today on a visa.

                “In the name of ‘the war on terrorism,’ the US government kills Muslims in Afghanistan who have never lifted a finger against the United States, but refuses to profile Muslims on its own territory who might be planning terrorist incidents. Faced with the incongruity, the US attorney general has proposed fingerprinting Middle Easterners who enter on visas.  Opposition has risen to this politically incorrect proposal. But the unasked question is why the United States is allowing any visas to be issued to Muslims.

                “If the threat of terrorism is so great that constitutional restraints must be removed from police and a new, expensive Cabinet position of ‘Homeland Security’ must be created, why are visas issued to potential terrorists?!

Why is President Bush creating an incipient Department of Secret Police when nothing is being done to curtail the inflow of potential terrorists?  President Bush should not be surprised if millions of Americans come to the conclusion that the ‘war on terror’ is nothing but a propaganda cover for increasing the police powers of the government over native-born loyal citizens.” [End of Roberts quote.]  Indeed, all these security measures and newly imposed restrictions have nothing to do with controlling terrorism (an entity which is already highly--if not completely--controlled within the US) and everything to do with expanding government powers to the detriment of American citizens’ constitutional rights.  For yet another example of government running roughshod over the Constitution, read on.

 

STATE NULLIFICATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRAINTS ON SEARCH AND SEIZURE

Even states are now quickly following the government’s lead.  California, America’s emerging anti-gun police state, is the first to pass a law exempting state law enforcement officers from the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution. According to the Oakland Press, all search warrants will now be classified secret so that officers breaking down doors and searching houses will not be required to show a search warrant.  A person in California whose home is invaded and searched by police will not have access to the usual information justifying the search. Such records used to be available to the public unless a judge specifically sealed them (which has happened fairly often whenever the government wanted to cover up illegal acts).  Now the secrecy is uniform and blatant.  Judges who work in collusion with dark-side federal actions like it since they no longer have to risk exposure as a front for illegal government searches.  The new law makes their actions both uniform among all judges and expected.  Prosecutors also favor the change because it effectively denies defense counsel the paper trail that sometimes point to a defective warrant and/or lack of “probable cause.” 

                Where are all the federal officers sworn to uphold US Constitution?  The 4th Amendment states explicitly, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”  Yet as I have said before, I believe the Constitution is now dead.  It is only enforced selectively for convenience and to continue to give the government the illusion of legitimacy.  

 

JUNE 21

 

ISRAEL:  NEW GREEN LINE FENCE NOT FOR SECURITY

The Israeli government has already begun construction on a new “security fence of separation” supposedly intended to make it more difficult for suicide bombers to get into Israeli areas.  It will impede some, as would-be suicide bombers will have to go through very specific check points in the fence in order to get into Israel proper.  They will no longer be able to don their explosive belts in the nearby West Bank towns and then enter Israel as workers without a search.  However, the terrorists will adapt to the new restrictions as they have to obstacles in the past.  Up until now, the Palestinians have used their own Red Cross ambulances and other official relief agency means to transport explosives and suicide bombers across Israeli checkpoints.  Once the security fence is completed, the Palestinian terrorists will probably smuggle explosive belts into Israel separately from the suicide bombers themselves and then link them together in the safe houses of Israeli-Arab collaborators within Jerusalem.  Israeli security knows this, but the government is disregarding their objections. 

                Sharon’s administration obviously has its own reasons for proceeding with construction of the fence, not all of which have to do with Israeli security.  Indeed, Sharon’s justification for the fence as a response to recent terror attacks is suspicious for a couple of reasons:  1) this fence has been in the planning stages for some time even though it looks as if it was conceived only due to recent attacks, and  2) its new location is not best for security.  The fence is being built along portions of the “Green Line,” the line of armistice drawn between Israel and Jordan at the end of the Arab-Israeli war of 1949.  To see a map of the fence and the Green Line, go to http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101020617-260701,00.html and click on ‘Map: The Planned Barrier.’  

                If the government were going to build a fence for security reasons, it would not choose the Green Line as a basis, which leaves no buffer zone or distance between conflicting groups.  The Green Line also runs right through Jerusalem and puts numerous Israeli settlements outside the security fence, which will have to be protected as enclaves.  It is obvious to many Israelis that the construction of this fence will create a de facto boundary upon which future peace negotiations will be based.   Indeed, savvy Israelis fear its construction is setting up the nation for a new US peace process intended to confine Israel to the borders its own government is now so conveniently demarcating.

                I think one of the reasons Sharon came to Washington recently was to coordinate this new plan for giving in to a Palestinian state with Israeli defense policy.  The new Green Line security fence is almost certainly a planned part of this approach to get a foot in the phony “peace” door.   Without public discussion, the Sharon government decided to put up an expensive  $21,000 /mile “security fence” and just happened to pick the Green Line as the location.  In the near future, they will have a convenient fait accompli  in this de facto border that the Israeli people will have already gotten used to as a “natural boundary” for the new state. 

 

NEW EVIDENCE OF FBI COVER-UP IN THE ANTHRAX ATTACKS

Scottish journalist Nick Peters has dropped another bombshell that continues to point to US culpability in actively supporting agent provocateurs of terrorism.  Peters has interviewed several American scientists who claim they and the FBI know the government employee who perpetrated the anthrax attacks, but the FBI refuses to arrest him.  This claim is reminiscent of the FBI’s conduct in the OKC bombing where they knew the identifies of Middle Eastern John Does #2 and #3 and refused to arrest them or even present evidence about them to the grand jury.

                As Peters reports, “For several months the Federal Bureau of Investigation has claimed it has few leads and little evidence about the group or individual who targeted politicians and media organizations.... [However,] last week scientists at Fort Detrick, the US Army’s top secret biological warfare research center at Fort Detrick, Maryland, said the FBI had looked at ways in which anthrax could have been smuggled out of the complex.

                “Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, director of the biological warfare division at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS.org) [a leftist, anti-nuclear group], first accused the FBI of foot-dragging in February with a scathing investigation that included a portrait of the possible perpetrator so detailed that it could only match one person.  Rosenberg said she knows who that person is and so do a top-level clique of US government scientists, the CIA, the FBI and the White House.”

                “‘Early in the investigation,’ Rosenberg told Scotland on Sunday, ‘a number of inside experts, at least five that I know about, gave the FBI the name of one specific person as the most likely suspect.  That person fits the FBI profile in most respects. He has the right skills, experience with anthrax, up-to-date anthrax vaccination, forensic training, and access to the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (AMRIID) and its biological agents through 2001.’

                “Rosenberg’s profile suggests that the suspect is a middle-aged scientist with a doctoral degree who works for a CIA contractor in Washington DC [which makes him a good prospect for dark side operations].  She adds he has to know or have worked closely with Bill Patrick, the weapons researcher who holds five secret patents on how to produce weapons-grade anthrax, that he suffered a career setback last summer that embittered him and precipitated his campaign and that he has already been investigated by the FBI.  Most crucially, she believes the suspect has in the past actually conducted experiments for the government to test the response of the police and civil agencies to a bioterror attack.  ‘It has been part of the suspect’s job to devise bioterror scenarios,’ Rosenberg said.

                “The question she wants the FBI and the Bush administration to answer is, why it has taken so long to arrest this man? In the unlikely event that the government divulges all it knows about what she now believes to be a full blown cover-up, Rosenberg said responsibility can be expected to fall on a number of government agencies, all with a vested interest in shielding the truth.” [End of Peters quote.]

                Rosenburg and Peters both believe the cover-up is about inducing larger budgets in certain secret agencies, including the bio-warfare division at Ft. Detrick, MD.  In contrast, I believe the attacks were instigated to give the impression that there was a continuation of terrorism in the US after 9/11 (which there was NOT) so as to both distract Congress and induce them to pass various anti-terrorist provisions in a hurried manner.  Both, in fact, happened.

 

JULY 4

 

WHY IS THE GLOBALIST BUSH ADMINISTRATION FIGHTING THE ICC?

Conservatives have taken heart in the fact that the Bush administration is putting up a fight to keep the US out of the International Criminal Court, which officially went into operation this week.  But I am not equally as enthusiastic. I think the Bush team has ulterior motives for its opposition that have nothing to do with upholding US sovereignty--which this administration has consistently undermined ever since its inauguration.

 

In the first place, the US government is only demanding immunity for US troops and military leaders engaged in ‘peacekeeping’ operations around the world, not for normal US citizens.  The US is threatening to pull out of the Bosnian peacekeeping operation (which only has a few hundred US personnel) should it not receive guarantees of immunity from the ICC.  This is strange because the US is a committed player in the globalist arena, and the Bush administration in particular is proving itself to be the most aggressive and intrusive administration in the history of this nation.  One can’t help notice that the US isn’t threatening to pull out of Afghanistan, Kosovo or Macedonia, where the US has thousands of troops deployed, and where it has a much bigger exposure to claims of abuse.  This is telling, especially in light of the recent US attack on an Afghan wedding party by a C-130 gunship.  This and other attacks on innocent civilians could be prosecutable as war crimes by the ICC.  Here is a partial list of other civilian and friendly military casualties caused by US forces in Afghanistan [source: the Guardian]:

 

“October 11, 2001: Taleban claim 200 people killed by bombs in Kadam, eastern Afghanistan. Survivors say 50 to 100 were killed; 

October 21: In Thorai, central Uruzgan province, survivors say 21 people, including 17 children, killed by bombs; October 22:Qatar-based al-Jazeera television says 93 people killed by bombs in Chukar, southern Afghanistan; December 5:Taleban and residents say 150 people killed by bombing of a village near Tora Bora on southeast border; 

December 20:In Paktia province, eastern Afghanistan, a convoy of tribal leaders bombed on road to Kabul for the swearing-in of Hamid Karzai. Sixty people reported killed;

December 29:In Niazi Qala, eastern Afghanistan, the Red Cross says 52 people, half of them children, killed by bombs;

January 23, 2002: US forces strike Hazar Qadam, central Afghanistan, killing 16 villagers;

February 4:Unmanned CIA drone strikes Zhawar Kili in eastern Afghanistan, killing three villagers who CIA claimed belonged to al-Qaeda;

March 6:US jet attacks a vehicle near the border village of Shikin, in the eastern Paktia province. US acknowledges women and children are among 14 people killed;

April 17:An F16 bombs Canadian soldiers on patrol near Kandahar, killing four of them.”

 

Although these examples pale in comparison with the deliberate firebombings of millions of innocent civilians that Roosevelt, Churchill, Hitler and Stalin authorized during WWII, they are examples of the types of crimes that the ICC would normally prosecute.  However, the ICC does not claim the right to prosecute retroactively before the date of implementation (unlike the US- and EU-sponsored War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague, which has no such restrictions).  Thus, the US is temporarily safe from challenges from the ICC based on these actions.  The retroactive ban is not written in stone, however, so there is no real insurance that the rules will not change later on.

 

I can only presume then that US objections must be based upon some future intent of the Bush administration to intervene and overthrow other governments around the world that will make US leaders a target of these tribunals.  I have theorized for some time now that the real purpose of the Clinton/Bush globalist interventions in the Balkans and elsewhere was to pave the way for a building of hatred toward NATO and the US in order to facilitate a future World War.  This kind of antagonizing intervention is offensive to the Europeans, who are beginning to see the Bush “war on terror” for what it really is--just another form of bullying by the US.  

 

I think what we may be witnessing in this conflict over the ICC is a boiling over of the latent tension between the two major factions battling for control of the New World Order (the ‘Third Way’ US/British factions versus the Socialist/Marxist European faction).  Ever since September, 2000, when the European faction (which controls the UN General Assembly) tried to get the US and Britain to turn over control of the IMF, World Bank, and BIS to the UN (which the US wouldn’t hear of), I think the Europeans have been looking for another avenue to bring down US arrogance and control.  The ICC may be just that weapon.  It clearly threatens US leaders with prosecution for the covert operations they have engaged in for years against other nations (of which the US public is by and large ignorant). 

 

For example, former National Security Advisor and Sec. of State Henry Kissinger has already been subpoenaed to testify for his role in the overthrow of the Marxist Allende regime in Chile.  US State Department officials have helped overthrow many more pro-western nations (Free China, Nicaragua, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, Iran), but no one in the international legal profession is interested in bringing charges on behalf of so-called ‘right wing’ leaders who have been deposed and killed.  Israel’s PM Ariel Sharon was nearly indicted as well for past human rights violations while he was a military leader in the IDF (he got off with a timely US intervention at the Hague).  Certainly Bill Clinton could be prosecuted for much of the mess he created in Kosovo in order to justify US intervention there.  Indeed, the entire bombing campaign against Serbia, including the killing of hundreds of civilians, could be considered a massive war crime. 

 

It is interesting that none of the other EU nations seem to be concerned about ensuring immunity for their soldiers, who make up over 80% of the peacekeeping forces in the Balkans, even though they should be just as vulnerable as US soldiers.   Perhaps this is indicative of the fact that the EU controls the new ICC and intends to use it for political purposes. 

 

JULY 12

 

THE HYPOCRISY OF BUSH’S CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY PROPOSAL

The list of major US corporations that are “cooking the books” in order to hide debt, evade taxes, and falsify income (to buoy up stock prices) gets longer each week: Enron, WorldCom, Tyco International, Xerox, Bristol Meyers and Global Crossing are among the more prominent offenders.  All the ‘Big Five’ major accounting firms (particularly Arthur Anderson and Price Waterhouse) have separate consulting groups that specialize in helping insider-connected corporations engineer these (and other) fraudulent accounting practices.  Why only insider-connected corporations?  Simply because these accounting practices would surely trigger IRS and SEC audits under any normal circumstances.  The fact that these corporations have gotten away with these falsifications for years is strong evidence that they have had some form of immunity from government officials (“A little help from our friends,” to quote a famous song).

 

President Bush, in a statement on July 9, expressed outrage over corporate abuse of power: “We've learned of some business leaders obstructing justice and misleading clients, falsifying records, business executives breaching the trust and abusing power. We've learned of CEOs earning tens of millions of dollars in bonuses just before their companies go bankrupt, leaving employees and retirees and investors to suffer.”  He ought to know.  He has been at the center of these same types of protected misconduct all during his business and political career.  In fact, numerous charges of unethical conduct are being leveled at both President Bush and VP Cheney for being the beneficiaries of such corporate misdeeds and executive bailouts while serving as executives in Harken Energy and Halliburton Oil, respectively.  Adding heat to the administration’s hypocritical position, Judicial Watch is filing suit against Cheney for his role in alleged stock fraud while at Halliburton. 

 

Bush’s involvement in fraudulent business dealings is even more extensive.  In a classic case of “insider trading” George Bush Jr. dumped almost all his stock in Harken Oil just before the company collapsed--leaving other investors “holding the bag.”  Did he know the stock was going to collapse?  You bet he did.  Afterward, he failed to report this illegal stock transaction, as required by SEC regulations, for more than eight months.  I’m betting he had to wait till Daddy Bush could make sure the SEC would cover for him.

 

The Bush family’s corrupt role in corporate business has an even longer timeline.  Here is a summary of the Bush family’s business shenanigans before the Powers That Be decided it was time for George Jr. to run for public office.  This was put together by James Ridgeway, writing for Village Voice [left-wing publication] using material for the Center for Public Integrity in Washington book The Buying of the President 2000.   The book has a typical anti-Republican bias and the same authors declined to write a similar exposé of fraudulent business dealings and illegal political contributions received by Bill Clinton.  In spite of the left-wing bias, the information is essentially correct. [My comments in brackets.]

 

• “1979-83: Fifty Bush family investors and friends, led by uncle Jonathan, a New York Republican Party official and an investment manager, fork over $4.7 million to set up young Bush in a company called Arbusto.  It's a flop, and in 1982 gets a new name: Bush Exploration.

 

• “1984: Spectrum 7 Corporation, an Ohio oil exploration outfit owned by Dubya's Yalie pal William DeWitt Jr., buys out Bush Exploration, setting up young Bush as CEO at $75,000 a year and giving him 1.1 million shares of the firm's stock. Another flop. The company's fortunes soon sink, with $400,000 in losses and a debt of $3 million.

 

• “1986: In the nick of time, Bush and partners merge the failing Spectrum with Harken Oil, a Dallas exploration company, with a $2 million stock purchase. Bush puts up about $500,000 and gets a $120,000 annual consulting fee along with $131,250 in stock options. [A large chunk of Junior’s cash for this deal came from Jackson Stephens, head of Stephens, Inc.--Bill Clinton’s ‘bond king’ in Little Rock, Arkansas.  It is alleged by various credible witnesses and investigators that Stephens was Bill Clinton’s bag man and money launderer in the Mena, Arkansas drug importation scheme, which Clinton provided cover for while governor.  Both Clinton and Stephens were fronting for the CIA in that operation--which is why Clinton had so much immunity while in office.  Stephens later brokered a huge $25 million loan from a bank in Switzerland in exchange for an interest in Harken Oil.  Stephens then brought in Sheik Abdullah Bakhsh, a real estate tycoon and financier from Saudi Arabia, who got a seat on the board.   Stephens, the Swiss Bank, and Sheik Bakhsh all were involved with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the CIA front bank for laundering drug profits used for black operations. ]

 

• “Harken is a small outfit, looking for oil opportunities within the US. Then out of the blue comes Harvard Management Corporation, an investment adviser for Harvard University's endowment portfolio. It pumps millions into the venture. [This was a very strange move for a conservative establishment endowment fund.  Undoubtedly, the head got a ‘phone call in the night’ one evening to encourage this ‘investment.’]

 

• “1990: Although Harken has no international expertise, it gets the attention of the Bahrain National Oil Company, which unexpectedly appears on the scene [with a little help from President Daddy Bush] and bypasses big oil's Amoco and Chevron to sign a production agreement with the little Texas concern. The contract grants Harken exclusive rights to what seems to be a promising offshore area squeezed between two productive tracts owned by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Wall Street Journal speculates Bahrain was trying to cozy up to Daddy Bush, who was plotting an assault on Iraq after Saddam Hussein seized Kuwait.  In June, Harken drills two dry holes in Bahrain. The future looks bleak.  Dubya dumps two-thirds of his Harken holdings (212,140 shares), for $848,560.  He uses some of this money to buy into the Texas Rangers baseball club. This is a lot of stock to dump on the market all at once, and brokers say it was purchased by an unnamed institutional investor [who undoubtedly got a ‘hot stock tip’ from one of President Bush’s advisors].  That August, Harken posts a loss of $23 million.

 

• “January 1991: Daddy Bush attacks Iraq.

 

• “February 1991: Dubya, as the official in charge at Harken, reports his big stock sale to the SEC—eight months late.

 

• “April 1991: The SEC begins an investigation into Harken dealings. Chairman Richard Breeden, who had been appointed by the senior Bush and served him as an economic policy adviser, hails from Baker & Botts, a big Texas oil law firm where he was a partner [which has contributed $182,050 to Junior’s political campaigns]. Inside the SEC, James Doty, general counsel and the official in charge of any litigation that might come out of the Harken investigation, is another alumnus of Baker & Botts. And as a private attorney, before joining the government, Doty represented the younger Bush in matters related to Dubya's ownership of the Rangers.

 

• “1993: The SEC ends its Harken investigation following perfunctory interviews.”   [End of Ridgeway quote]

 

Following his hypocritical denunciation of corporate corruption, Bush then demanded that Congress pass a list of additional powers and throw $100 million more tax dollars at the problem.  But as James Ridgeway pointed out, “If Bush really wanted to address the situation, all he'd have to do is to pick up the phone, call Attorney General John Ashcroft, and ask him to launch an investigation of any one of these CEOs for fraud, conspiracy, theft, obstruction of justice, or perjury. The president could also turn to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can refer a civil case for criminal prosecution. Bush doesn't need additional legislation to do this. All he has to do is call. He refused to do that in the Enron case, even though his administration knew about the scandal months before the company went public with its bankruptcy. And he hasn't done it with any of the subsequent double-dealings.”

 

Part of the problem with letting the SEC police anything is that we have the proverbial fox guarding the hen house.   As Ariana Huffington noted, “And what are we to make of SEC chairman Harvey Pitt's [former Big Five accounting insider] utterly unconvincing attempts to paint himself as a combination of Dirty Harry and Howard Beale? The same corporate mouthpiece who once authored a white paper arguing against government efforts to eliminate conflicts of interests among corporate accountants, and who continued to meet privately with former clients under SEC investigation even after taking office, now wants to be seen as the ‘very tough cop on the beat.’”

 

JULY 19

 

THE COLLAPSING STOCK MARKET: GOVERNMENT “PLUNGE PROTECTION TEAM” WORKING OVERTIME

With the DJIA down over 2,000 points in the past month, everyone connected with this market is having trouble keeping up the facade of proclaiming a “recovery right around the corner.”  Still, virtually every government spokesperson and private sector stock guru interviewed on radio or TV is trying to pitch the recovery,  downplaying the depth and persistence of the current selloff.

 

President Bush has made two speeches in the past couple of weeks trying to bolster confidence in the economy, but in light of the president’s own Harken Energy scandals, he isn’t any more believable than Arthur Andersen & Company.  Despite Congress’ near unanimous passage of the biggest overhaul of accounting standards to date, few expect to see significant changes.  The insiders in big business who are immune from the law seem to be everywhere.  Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan also seems to have lost his touch.  No longer do the markets respond positively to his old magic pronouncements.  Despite recently assuring Congress that the economy was heading for a full recovery, stock markets continued downward that very day by 166 points.  Bush responded by attacking the integrity of the market players: “We've got to change from a culture of greed to a culture of responsibility...[but] I'm an optimist about the economy.”  --So are all the desperate yuppie stockbrokers camped by the money tree on Wall Street, who have a very big vested interest in wishful thinking. 

 

Now that an estimated 60 percent of US households own stock, more Americans than ever are at risk from this manipulation.  Most Americans have still not sold their collapsing technology stocks, in hopes of a rebound.  Even though the value is gone from many stocks, the full impact has yet to hit the markets.  One thing is certain--there is a broadening lack of confidence in stocks that could plunge the nation into a really deep recession.

 

The Fed has used up most of its options; interest rates cuts, legislative bailouts, and old-fashioned presidential cheerleading aren’t working any more. “You don't have too much room to go before you’re at zero,” said Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., at the Banking Committee meeting on Tuesday.  The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates 11 times in a row, leaving the federal funds rate at 1.75 percent--the lowest in almost 40 years.

 

While media financial analysts futilely tout the impact of a few positive earnings reports, bad news keeps flowing in. Yesterday, chip maker giant Intel announced another round of layoffs and cutbacks, as did other profitable companies in the high tech sector.  Every week it is getting harder to believe the establishment’s pronouncements about the recession being over.  There still is a lot of excess money floating around in the economy as the Fed keeps pumping up the money supply.  But with a falling dollar, the US is finding itself hard pressed to attract the normal round of foreign buyers for US debt instruments and stock shares.  The US relies on foreign investment to soak up about 1/3 of US debt.  This means that the confidence game must be preserved at all costs.  But America’s corporate world is now highly suspect on the international stage.  It’s going to take more than a quick fix by Congress to restore foreign confidence and trust in US accounting practices.

 

But there is a much more sinister aspect to this story, a tale of government intervention which goes far beyond Federal Reserve rate cuts and confidence-boosting speeches.  Today’s financial markets are largely manipulated, in a variety of ways.  In the first place, as the world is now discovering, large international corporations have long engaged in fraudulent accounting practices to hide debt and overstate earnings--not to mention evade taxes.  Secondly, the markets are falsely primed and propped up by injections of fiat money and credit through the Federal Reserve.  A true honest money economy would not have allowed the kind of rapid ‘miracle’ growth the US experienced in the 90’s.  Third, the markets are also manipulated directly.  Have you ever noticed that the general market for normal stocks has been declining or stagnant for more than two years, and yet the leading indicator stock averages rise and fall with tremendous swings?  Why does the high priced DJIA rise in price when the stocks of which it is composed are flat or falling? 

 

This is an indication of intervention by government in the markets--focusing on the key indicators only.  The markets run as much on crowd psychology as they do on economic expectations.  The government has long since learned that it is usually sufficient to make the DJIA or the S&P 500 stock averages appear as if they are beginning to rise, and the general public will fund the rest of the upswing, jumping on the bandwagon.  Much of the direct manipulation of index stocks is done by intervening in the futures markets on large volumes, highly leveraged.  Many of these trades take place after the markets have closed--so it’s clear that the Powers That Be don’t play by the same rules you and I have to follow.

 

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:  For the past decade and a half (since the October crash of 1987) the US government has operated a semi-secret coalition of private investment firms coupled to the Federal Reserve whose purpose is to intervene in the markets (using public funds or credits) in response to any major downturn.  Prior to 1997, there were only rumors to confirm the existence of the government’s illegal efforts to fix the markets.  But since the market crash of October 1997 when the DJIA dropped 508 points, or 22.6 percent, in the biggest one-day loss in history, the existence of this group has been confirmed and become commonly accepted (and welcomed) within Wall Street.  Technically, the government group is called the Working Group on Financial Markets (a.k.a. the “Plunge Protection Team”); the Secretary of the Treasury and the chairmen of the Federal Reserve Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are the group’s official members.  In reality, they just give the orders; the actual intervention is done by a joint group of selected partners from 5 or 6 of the major Wall Street brokerage houses--a quasi government-private sector partnership that is totally illegal.

 

Understanding this little segment of financial history is important to your understanding of how the illegal side of government operates. Let’s start with some background information by John Crudele, Financial Editor at the New York Post:

 

“Back in 1989 a Fed governor named Robert Heller proposed rigging the stock market. Heller had just left the Fed when he gave a speech suggesting that the central bank should step in and take direct action to keep the stock market from collapsing.  The Fed had taken action before. It made sure there was enough liquidity during the crash of ‘87 to keep the system going. It may have even strong-armed a few banks into propping up the market. And it has often lowered interest rates at opportune times.

 

“But Heller's idea was different. He wanted a more direct approach, especially when the bond and currency markets were becoming uncontrollable [like they are these days]Heller believed that in an emergency, the Fed should start buying stock index futures contracts until it managed to pull stocks out of their nosedive.   Essentially, whenever there is heavy buying of these futures contracts it causes the underlying stock market to rise. The futures contracts can be bought cheaply; they are highly leveraged so you can get more bang for your buck, and they eliminate the need for a rigger to purchase, say, all 30 stocks that make up the Dow. Heller explained that the process was simple. And it is. The trouble is, the government never has had authority to rig the stock market.” [End of Crudele quote.]

 

Since when have the illegalities of government action stopped government recently?  The Treasury Department decided to act without Congressional authority.  As Rex Rogers wrote in November, 1997, the government by that point had the system down pat.

 

“Black Monday. On the last Monday in October [1997], the Dow dropped 550 points and, to everyone's relief, the exchanges stopped the trading thirty minutes early. If the new rules had not required the halt, it might have been much worse.  Is this the beginning of the great crash?  If it is, it won't be from a lack of planning on the part of President Clinton, Robert Ruben and the Federal Reserve.

 

“According to credible sources, it has become government policy to ‘protect’ the investment community from the laws of gravity. The government has even admitted as much.  Alan Greenspan gave a speech in Lueven, Belgium [site of all the notably policy speeches in the EU] on the 14th of January, this year, in which he touted the Fed's obligation to bail out banks and private financial institutions not just by printing unlimited amounts of money but also through ‘direct intervention in market events’ [for which there exists no legal authority].

 

“S&P 500 Contracts. For a while now, there have been rumors among traders that the US government was stepping into the market from time to time to purchase S&P contracts.  The obvious reason was to thwart short sellers and stem possible panics.  The rumors [now known to be true] held that the government was buying S&P futures contracts through the good offices of Goldman Sachs, the firm once headed by Treasury Secretary Robert Ruben.

 

“If true, many people must have known about it. Everyone who did would be in a position to profit dramatically by purchasing the S&P futures in the full knowledge that the federal government was poised to intervene in the market to guarantee the profitability of their trades. [Every one of the insider brokerage firms did just that and profited handsomely.  Outside these insider-connected companies, others who have direct access to Stock Exchange computers have developed programs to track these insider trades and tag along.] Under those conditions, anyone could trade S&Ps as profitably as Hillary Clinton did cattle futures.

 

“But I was skeptical.  After all, such activity would (or should) require congressional approval.  Also, if short selling is a legally sanctioned activity, wouldn't it be highly illegal to secretly intervene with public funds on behalf of the longs and ignore the rights of the shorts? [Good questions, and no one else is asking them--not the courts, not Congress, not the General Accounting Office watchdogs.]

 

“But seeing is believing, and now I'm convinced its true.  The next morning after Monday’s big 550 point break, I, and everyone else trading S&Ps witnessed a most remarkable event.  It must have been the most blatant display of market manipulation in the history of Wall Street.  Or at least the biggest and most public.  In spite of this, to my knowledge, not a peep was made by the establishment press.

 

“The tip-off was the ‘timing’ of a dramatic rise in the premium (number of points in which the S&P contracts were trading in excess of the value of the underling stocks).  I have traded the S&P for years and I've never seen anything like it.  The average ‘fair value’ of the premium that day was 600 points.  Exactly six minutes before Bill Clinton was to address the market crisis on television, the premium rose almost instantly to 3,500.  This was undoubtedly caused by the concerted purchase of what had to have been at least a billion dollars worth of S&P contracts.

 

“The Computers Blinked.  The strange thing is that it almost failed to work.  Normally, anytime the premium rises just a little bit above the fair value, computers which are programmed by the arbitrage investment groups automatically enter orders to sell the overvalued contracts and simultaneously enter orders to buy the undervalued stocks generating an automatic riskless profit.  But this time it didn't work.  At least not like it should have. The premium rise was so fast and so big that, evidently, the fail-safe systems kicked in whereby the computer didn't believe what it saw. [He is wrong here.  Computers don’t act that way.  Someone intervened to stop the programs from functioning.]

 

“Under these conditions, it stops trading and calls a human to see what is wrong.  When I saw the 3,500 premium, I thought the same thing.  Some kind of computer error.  I immediately looked to see if the stock prices were rising, and they weren't.  Dead in the water!  I looked up at the TV, saw Bill, and it dawned on me.  It was Slick Willie doing what he does best.  Blatant manipulation of the highest order.

 

“I jumped in and made a very good profit.  A lot of other traders did too.  Of course Hilliary and Craig Livingstone were way ahead of me.  But the computers were slower than all of us.  It took about a half hour for their operators to override the systems and order the mass purchases of stock that the feds had been counting on.  Ultimately, though belatedly, it still worked.  A New Bull Market?  All things considered, the con was perfect.  The back of the would-be crash was broken and the bull was reborn.  At least for now. The real mystery is why and how the media keeps mum.[It’s called collusion and conspiracy]

 

“A concerted investigation by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times or Washington Post would surely reveal enough evidence to blow this outrage sky high.  This is nothing less than the illegal clandestine tampering with the free market.  But like the murder of Vincent Foster, the rigging of Wall Street is a dirty little secret the media establishment would rather not reveal.  The American people suffer less from ignorance and more from an illusion of knowledge.” [End of Rogers quote.]

 

In reality, the press was already in on the fix.  Clear back in February of 1997, Brett D. Fromson, a Washington Post Staff Writer, had written the first major media story on the Plunge Protection Team, in an article of the same name.  The government had obviously leaked the story to the Post in order to prepare the markets to look to government help when the next crisis arose.  The article mentioned nothing about the government’s lack of authority to fix the markets, and no one with any authority uttered a word of protest.  It appears that what we are dealing with is more than just a fix in the stock market.  Clearly the Powers That Be are trying to stave off a collapse, for now.  Whether or not they can, given the market’s tremendous downward inertia, remains to be seen. 

 

JULY 26

 

THE ECONOMY AND THE MARKETS--ANATOMY OF SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION

I cringe every time I hear some media talking head on the radio or television explaining the day’s movement on the stock market, such as:  “Stocks are up today on news that Intel met its earnings projections…”or, “Xerox posted a profit for the first quarter in three years [a manipulated paper profit to temporarily make a dying company look good]…” or reporting that some market index fund was showing some slight increase.  Such news in a true free financial market has little relevance for the majority of investors.   In an honest unmanipulated market, there are at least a thousand reasons why the overall market may be up or down, because honest stock purchase decisions are based on specific factors related to specific companies. 

 

The aggregate totals at the end of the day, up or down, have little to do with the specific company you are invested in, unless some conglomerate of powerful insiders or government itself is manipulating factors that eventually effect all companies.  Sadly, this is now the case.  As I pointed out last week, there exist powerful forces connected to government that can and do manipulate market responses, and by extension, the herd instinct.  Not only must the investor predict what the herd will do, he must anticipate what the insider players will do to manipulate the herd.  Establishment media commentators have become part of this manipulative system, putting out corrupt daily analyses designed to give the illusion of an honest market.

 

Almost never do specific market indexes make major jumps in valuation for the reasons the stock pundits claim.  Underlying every major specific spike in stock indexes are huge blocks of trades that are designed to trigger or induce a response that can be profited on by a growing group of insiders.  They don’t have absolute control by any means, but the fact that so much control is being exercised should make honest players nervous about even being in the game. Big movements in the markets are therefore suspicious--especially when they happen after normal trading hours, when the insiders buy and sell blocks of stock privately.   That’s why the markets always open at a different price on Monday than they close on Friday.  

 

This insider corruption pervades much more than the stock, bond and commodity markets.  My thesis is that corruption has become so endemic to the entire economy that the markets cannot produce for much longer the obscene levels of compensation the big players expect.  Everybody wants in on the action and the quest for unearned rewards is beginning to work all kinds of mischief that the corrupters-in-chiefs in government had not anticipated.  All the big CEOs now want and expect millions in compensation--and they are getting it, whether by hook or by crook.  They don’t seem to care if it sinks the company.  They no longer care what happens to the employees as long as “they get theirs” before the fall.  Most of America’s small corporations are still honest.  It’s the big ones, the ones that have some de facto form of immunity from government prosecution, that are turning out to be the worst.

 

What is really driving this semi-private form of pervasive corruption is, first and foremost, systematic government corruption.  The federal government engages in the most pervasive forms of account fraud.  Billions of dollars are ‘off the books.’  Other billions are lost and unaccounted for.  The government (CIA) counterfeits currencies from every country in the world.  High government officials, including federal judges,  receive secret payoffs through offshore banks.  Government insiders engage in tax evasion, have secret bank accounts in Switzerland and in the Caribbean.  In short, they do all the things American citizens get prosecuted for. 

 

In addition the government runs a protection racket which covers for official wrongdoing through a controlled Congress and judicial system.  It also doles out  trillions of dollars each year in phony money and credit creation.  This creates (and has created) the monetary basis for unnaturally high growth in the economy, a growth rate which cannot be sustained forever, and which must at some point be painfully corrected for.  The US government’s fraudulent accounting makes Enron look like a school boy.  The easy money policies advanced by government also form the basis for a huge payola system for key corporate players, as well as creating a huge feeding trough of benefit corruption, which undermines constitutional limits and people’s sense of the proper role of government.  The government’s nearly unlimited financial power also entices thousands of companies into a government-corporate system of collusion, in the form of federal contracting, that delivers huge profits and excessive compensation (in exchange for loyalty to some perverse globalist agenda). 

 

Even the little guy has been suckered into this corrupt mentality, thinking he can play and profit like the big boys.  Most people joined in this stock run-up during the last decade with a gambling perspective rather than doing their homework.  They didn’t really care which companies they invested in.  They invested in big name brokers who managed mutual funds that could promise obscenely high returns.  That is part of what’s wrong with the economy and the markets.  The motives which underlie it have become partially corrupt.  Increasingly, it is no longer the work ethic that undergirds the US economy in the highest sectors of wealth, it is mindless greed, and that greed has led to an exorbitant amount of corruption and illicit activity that cannot be sustained. 

 

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not against profits.  I’m a die-hard free market advocate.  The prospect of garnering excess returns beyond one’s needs is what impels savings, investment, and growth.  But free markets only work well when people make good decisions, based on what is right at any given time, not simply personal self-interest.  The libertarian adage is still true that “nobody does anything unless it is, first and foremost, in their perceived self-interest.”   But when perceptions of self interest get highly skewed from what is right and wrong, due to external manipulation of the factors upon which people base their decisions, the free market eventually gets in trouble.

 

REVELATIONS OF CORRUPTION IN ACCOUNTING ARE JUST BEGINNING

For every piece of good news, nowadays, there are three pieces of bad news--and the bad news is really bad.  This is a powerful negative force in the markets.  When WorldCom declared bankruptcy this week, giving notice to creditors that $41 billion owed them was not going to be forthcoming, the news guaranteed that several other companies will subsequently fail in the coming months--those that cannot absorb the resulting losses.  That’s the great evil of bankruptcy.   The product or service has been delivered and used, and the creditor doesn’t ever get paid.  Popular ignorance claims, “big business deserves to take the loss.”  Certainly most businesses can absorb some loss.   In rising markets, creditors raise prices to compensate for losses (that’s partly why credit card companies charge such high interest rates), but in a deflationary economy, the losses cannot be passed on as easily.  They eventually kill the creditor.  The heralded bankruptcy reform act just now passing Congress won’t even come close to correcting the problem.  In fact, in the short-term, the act has induced a wild flurry of bankruptcies as everyone scrambles to seek bankruptcy protection under the former, freer guidelines before they become obsolete.  This surge of losses for creditors is impacting the sagging economy.

 

AT&T posted a $12.7 billion loss this quarter, but I suspect it too is “cooking the books.”  According to the NY Times, AT&T wrote off “$13.1 billion in charges for goodwill and franchise impairments,” euphemisms for paper losses created to save millions in taxes and perhaps set the stage for the appearance of a solid comeback in future quarters (a ruse that has frequently been necessary to boost AT&T’s sagging stock prices).  Often there are other more serious losses hidden from stockholders in such accounting write-offs.   In spite of these sleight of hand maneuvers, I suspect companies like AT&T are experiencing some real losses due to competition in the markets, such as the “unlimited long distance” cell telephone plans that are gaining popularity, inducing consumers to dispense altogether with a large percentage of old style long distance calls

 

Yet besides issues of competition in the market which are one source of company losses, underlying most corporate business practices is the problem of excess and illegal compensation for high executives and consultants.  Excess compensation does matter.  When officers of large companies  like Enron, Adelphia, and ImClone siphon off millions of dollars for their own accounts, there are little or no reserves left in the company’s accounts to survive a downturn of any magnitude.  Companies which don’t keep substantial reserves fail during such a crisis, and investors in those companies cannot extract either dividends or equity.  They end up having  fewer disposable funds available for future spending or investment.  The employees laid off also have much less to spend, especially when they themselves have no reserves and high debt loads.

 

All of this produces a ripple effect which does not go unnoticed in the economy.   Keynes championed the principle of deficit spending for government and private businesses under the aegis of his famous multiplier effect.  But there is also a negative multiplier for these distortions of the economy, especially when the supply of money creation slows or contracts.  Money is never free, and distortions in the economy must always be corrected at some point by painful contractions such as a major depression, when the flimsy supports artificially holding up the economy crumble and true economic laws finally prevail.

 

THE CURRENT FALLING MARKET

One of my subscribers emailed me after last week’s brief on the government’s Plunge Protection Team (PPT), with the plaintiff cry, “Where is the Plunge Protection Team when I need it?”   His stocks were falling like everyone else’s and the usual government manipulation of future contracts to buoy up sagging index stocks seemed no where in sight.  This is to be expected from time to time, even when the Fed intends to keep the market up--as is currently the case.  With a falling dollar, and trillions in national debt and entitlement obligations, even the all-powerful US Treasury has certain constraints.  They cannot intervene at will all of the time, but have to save their shots for moments in the markets when their injections of funds will produce a follow-on affect of some magnitude.  The Plunge Protection Team can’t carry the market on its own for more than a day or two.  At best, they can make it appear as if a rally is happening, hoping that others will jump on the buying bandwagon. 

 

This week, we observed government intervention in a major way.  On Wednesday, the market rebounded sharply and gained nearly 500 points (DJIA).  Then it fell back on Thursday (almost 250 points) until the PPT intervene during the closing hours in a desperate drive to keep the illusion of an upturn alive.  Let’s look at the mechanisms used and why they aren’t working. 

 

The government and its cronies at insider-connected brokerage firms have access to computers at the various stock exchanges and have implemented sophisticated tracking software to monitor the pace of large blocks of futures contracts, derivatives, and shorts.  Only a minority of daily transactions are trades by individual investors--the little guy.  The majority are done by fund managers, foreign traders, speculators, and the big brokerage houses.  The PPT uses its insider knowledge of who is buying and selling large blocks of stock  (which normal investors don’t have access to) to track pressure points within the market, such as building margin calls or short contract due dates.  When pressures build within a market, relief is sought in a predictable direction, and the manipulators can take advantage of such short-term moves to induce a market reaction either up or down.

 

For example, in a falling market, numerous hedge players short the market by making an agreement to sell stock to a buyer at the price at which the shares are valued on the date the contract is executed, but with a deferred time of delivery--betting that by the time the delivery is scheduled the price will have fallen and the shorter can buy low and sell at the price already agreed upon.  Short players will delay their stock purchases until the last moment if prices are falling (to maximize profits), but if a rally begins, they can be counted on to buy immediately so as to cover their stock position and lock in profits (or minimize losses) before they are left in the dust in the upturn of the market. 

 

I think that is what we saw on Wednesday.  With thousands of short contracts coming due from prior week’s betting, all the PPT had to do was start the market upward, and the shorts had to move quickly in order to buy while the price still provided a margin of profit.  However, the move failed to engender an overall broad-based rally.  It was only a technical rally.  The majority of honest players still held onto their suspicions that the economy has more bad news hidden inside. 

 

In addition, there are millions of investors who have already lost a lot of value in their stocks, but have not yet sold.  After two years of hearing the financial media hyping the recovery, they don’t believe it anymore.  So whenever the market takes a brief jump, a lot of the little guys step in to sell, hoping to salvage some lost profits.   Thus, on Thursday, the markets started weak and dropped heavily in the afternoon.  Big institutional buyers (working for the PPT) stepped in to buy Dow stock futures in the final two hours of trading in order to force an upturn.  The Dow finished the day with a small loss, but other stocks were much further down.   One of the signs of manipulation is when the rise in the indexes are not matched by corresponding moves in other non-indexed stocks, in aggregate.  

 

AUGUST 2

 

WHY BUSH IS HELL-BENT ON WAR WITH IRAQ

Leaders around the world are shaking their heads in disbelief at US insistence on invading Iraq.  Russia, Iraq’s traditional arms supplier, is against it, as is China.  Europe is particularly averse to this seemingly irrational fetish of America’s cowboy president, for several reasons.  First, International pariah Saddam Hussein is still ruling Iraq because of US bungling by Bush’s father in the Gulf War, whereby US forces, under orders from the White House, failed to pursue the war to its full conclusion by removing Hussein.  Second, Saddam Hussein currently seems to be behaving himself and even offering to allow some weapons inspections as long as the US doesn’t control the process.  Third, the West’s sanctions and “containment policy” on Iraq has led to a humanitarian disaster of major proportion for the Iraq people, and finally, Europe is tired of constant US intervention around the world, dragging them into every conflict like a dog on a chain.   It’s as if US policy makers are facing a new anti-war movement on an international scale.  Even Britain, America’s predictable ally is getting cold feet on the subject of an Iraqi invasion.  But, Prime Minister Tony Blair will do whatever it takes to deliver Britain’s support, though it may well cost him the next election.  Basically, America has to plan on going this one alone.

                Is the US serious about this attack?  All indications say, yes.  Major movements of materiel and reserve troops have recently been transported over US highways from the West Coast to the East Coast.  Advance staging bases near Iraq (in Kuwait and Qatar) are being expanded at a breakneck rate.  But one thing is for sure:  the coming attack on Iraq is not about terror or weapons of mass destruction (WMD).  Here are some facts:

·          The hard evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is based on suspicion rather than hard evidence.  Frankly, I don’t doubt that Saddam intends to develop and field anything he can so as to be able to stand up against the US’s technically and numerically superior forces, but no one knows how far advanced his preparations are.  We have vastly more evidence about Russia’s and China’s secret development programs than Iraq, but there is, naturally, no move to attack these more powerful predators. 

·          Hypocritically, US companies (prior to the Gulf War) and western European firms (afterward) have been the prime suppliers of WMD technology to Iraq’s weapons program.  Russia supplies the technical advisors.

·          If WMD were the real issue, the US would be planning an attack on Iran rather than Iraq.  It is Iran that has the most vigorous and blatant program for building WMD including an arsenal of medium and long-range missiles to deliver them--all with the open assistance of Russia and China.  There aren’t even any effective sanctions on Iran, even though Iran has been listed as one of Bush’s “axis of evil” nations. 

 

Regardless, the Bush administration seems determined to press ahead with their plans to attack.  Even the scope and size of US planning for this operation is now public information, after being leaked by someone in the Pentagon to the NY Times.  Several journalists suspect that the leaks were planned in order to allow for a predictable furor to erupt over the issue of leaks.  Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld issued torrents of invectives against the “traitors” within government who compromise US operational security.  Predictably, government shills began floating new legislative proposals for “shutting down the leaks” and prosecuting journalists for publishing anything detrimental to national security.  While seemingly reasonable on the surface, such legislation is a very dangerous suggestion.  We must always keep in mind that the US government has a penchant for hiding its own wrongdoing under the label of “national security.”  Once it becomes illegal to publish anything labeled a “national security secret,” the government can effectively silence any publication of government actions by giving such information a security classification. 

                There is evidence that the Bush administration is clearly headed in this direction.  The current administration’s hunger for damage control power is so pronounced that President Bush even inserted language into the enabling act for Homeland Security giving the President emergency powers to void whistleblower protections for federal personnel in this new department.  Suppression of whistleblowers has been a critical factor in every major US cover-up, from the missile shoot-down of TWA 800 to the OKC bombing, and even including the events of 9/11.  President Clinton went so far as to issue a special Executive Order denying whistleblower protection to Navy divers who recovered TWA 800 black boxes.  There is evidence that the block boxes were recovered two days before their “official date of discovery” and then altered and returned to the ocean floor for the public ‘finding.’  The Navy divers knew about this deception, and Clinton’s order effectively warned them against leaking the government’s duplicity to the public. 

                Even the US Senate is getting into the act of scrutinizing the administration’s plans for attacking Iraq.  This week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on the administration’s plans.  What was telling about the hearings, however, was that the makeup of the roster of “experts” called to testify resulted in a confusing and mixed outcome--ensuring that the Senate would not be able to come to a definitive conclusion either way.  Iraq’s foremost defector from Hussein’s weapons program, Khidhir Hamza, an Iraqi nuclear physicist who defected in 1994, testified about the futility of containing Saddam Hussein or searching out his weapons.   According to the NY Times, he stated that “It is unlikely inspectors could uncover hidden weapons-development programs...With no large, easily distinguishable nuclear sites and little or no human intelligence, it is difficult to see how any measure short of a regime change will be effective,”   But Hamza left no doubt about Saddam’s concerted efforts to develop WMD.  He also made a compelling case that a “containment policy” could not work because of Iraq’s vast network of business contacts in Europe and the Middle East.  The US would have to police the whole world.  His failure to mention Russia as Iraq’s main ally in weapons acquisition was a conspicuous omission, indicating a narrow focus to his presentation.  Basically, his “containment is impossible” message backed up the administrations case for war against Iraq.  

                Another witness called was Morton Halperin, a pariah of the far left, appropriately representing the Council on Foreign Relations.  He was the Clinton appointee for Assistant Sec. of Defense whom the Senate rejected a few years earlier because of his vast connections with the Communist legal network in the US.  To honor this guy with a slot at the hearing is telling.   He predictably made the case against going to war with Iraq--the current anti-Bush line (but not for the same reasons conservatives should be against the war).  Halparin is following the line of the Moscow controlled European global faction.  Following his testimony, administration supporters like former CIA Chief James Wolsey and Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney testified that the US could easily oust Saddam.  McInerney said a massive air, land and sea assault could dominate Iraq's military in 72 hours. 

                Another problem during the hearings was the inability of US policy makers to present any vision of confidence over what a post-invasion Iraq would look like.  Assuming the US could easily defeat Iraq, no doubt the next step would be to install a pro-NWO puppet regime similar to Karzai of Afghanistan.  Yet replacing Hussein with a viable alternative, acceptable to the growing factions within Iraq, would be problematic, unless backup up with thousands of US ‘peacekeepers’--and even more so if Hussein goes into hiding and cannot be found by US invaders. 

                More ominously, more than one analyst testifying said that a post-Hussein Iraq would require a US presence in Iraq for years at a cost of billions of dollars--something like a Kosovo protectorate.  Worse, an invasion and occupation of Iraq by US forces would be very unpopular with other Arab nations.  Professor Shelby Telhami of the University of Maryland added that, “Even if the Iraqi people have a happy outcome, I believe that most people in the region will see this as American imperialism.”   Perhaps such an impression is intentional.

                The bigger question is why?  Why is the US appearing to march into a major and costly war with Iraq on relatively trumped up charges, without international coalition support, without a mandate from the interventionist UN, making itself look stupid by leaking battle preparations, and flying in the face of a solid wall of criticism at home and abroad?

                There are several possibilities: 1) There might be some “method to the US madness,” both in its intention to prosecute such a war, and in its appearance of bungling regarding the Pentagon plan leaks.   No one doubts that Iraq has no illusions about the coming battle, which assures that Iraq will be primed for its own defense.  If Saddam has WMD he certainly has every motive to use them.  That may well be part of the US intent--to drive Saddam into some limited use of weapons of mass destruction (chemical and biological weapons are the most likely)--so as to get the “genie out of the bottle” and force the world to become accustomed to this new level of threat.  A super-patriotic, warring mentality in the US as well as tremendous future restrictions on civil liberties could then be justified, as a whole new extension of the “war on terror” is instigated in response to the use of WMD. 

                2) The US may be attempting to pre-manage the inevitable larger Middle East conflict to come by paring down the size of the military opposition to Israel.  Taking out Iraq now would keep the coming regional war on a conventional scale.  This doesn’t mean that the US really intends to defend Israel’s sovereignty, but neither does it want Israel’s total destruction.  The planned international “final solution” is the reduction of Israel to the status of a UN protectorate, and the division of Israel into 3 sectors of control (Arab, Jewish, and Catholic) under UN supervision. 

                3) Lastly, but certainly not least, the US appears to be intentionally contributing to its own image as a reckless antagonist and warmonger among the world of nations--to induce a future backlash of huge proportions.  First it was Bosnia and Kosovo, which antagonized all the Slavic nations, and now Afghanistan and Iraq, creating a huge enemy of the Muslims.  Even George W’s growing image as a jingoistic, brusque, and tough talking cowboy President lends credence to this problematic image.  He makes it easy for the world to blame US irrational behavior on its rogue and blustering president. 

                This is especially crucial for globalist planners at the Council on Foreign Relations (who exercise behind-the-scenes control over all US administrations, whether Democratic or Republican) to set the atmosphere for a major world war with the US as the prime target.  In the wake of US bullying for a decade and a half, there will be few who will mourn a major retaliation against US military hegemony.  The growing hatred of Amerika in Slavic and Islamic regions will eventually bring on a Russian/Chinese pre-emptive nuclear strike on US military targets, which will give surviving US globalist leaders a dramatic opportunity to convince a vastly weakened America to join together in a NWO to fight the reborn Communist menace.  The sudden elimination of the US as policeman of the world will inevitably lead to a panic among lesser surviving nations.   Thinking only of survival, they will readily cede whatever liberties necessary to join in the new global coalition.  Under the guise of euphemistic titles and promises of democracy, the new global war making machine will offer no real protections for civil rights for those who oppose the order.  Conservative Christians who oppose the loss of Constitutional protections will be the ‘Jews’ of WWIII.  Even if you don’t buy the evidence of a globalist conspiracy to create war, you ought to fear this NWO just the same.  As simple review of its laws and civil and criminal procedures will convince you that it will be anything but benevolent.  An ominous example is detailed below in the latest revelations of abuse in the ‘war crimes’ trial of Slobodan Milosevic.

 

AUGUST 9

 

INS "RULES OF ENGAGEMENT" CAUSING GOOD MEN TO LEAVE

In any war where the politicians possess a hidden agenda, different from the public perception, one will encounter "rules of engagement" that undermine and thwart the effective prosecution of the war. A classic example is the Vietnam War, where all US armed forces were restricted from vigorous pursuit and prosecution of the enemy, preventing any kind of resolute victory. In a similar fashion, INS Border Patrol officers are being restricted from effective enforcement of the US-Mexican border by what amounts to "rules of engagement." Agents are leaving in droves over dissatisfaction with the way in which their time and efforts are being wasted by such limitations as standing guard in only one spot, leaving miles of border unobserved and unguarded. Over 2,000 Border Patrol agents have resigned since the war on terror began.

According to WorldNetDaily, quoting the LA Times, agents cite low pay and chronic boredom with ineffective assignments as reasons behind the resignations: "Starting salaries at the INS are as low as $30,000, about $10,000 less than an INS agent could get by going to work at the Transportation Security Administration....Border Patrol agents are often under orders to stay in one spot all day, in an official strategy [ostensibly] meant to deter illegal border crossings...[leading to] painfully monotonous work shifts and a self-defeating lack of mobility."

                Rich Pierce, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council and a Border Patrol agent, complained, "These guys go to work and they sit there 10 hours a day in a truck, staring at a fence...That's all they're doing. It's not the exciting law enforcement job they hoped for."

                Actually, it’s worse than that. Agents are assigned in this static manner to ensure that well used routes by "coyotes" (professional Mexican smugglers of human beings) will not be detected. This same type of restricted enforcement happens in the DEA all the time. Drug sniffing dogs go crazy as trucks that have been "pre-cleared" by customs on the Mexican side pass into the US from Mexico. When agents have complained to their superiors and suggested they stop some of these trucks for a second look, they have been reprimanded. Several DEA whistleblowers have gone over their superiors’ heads to high officials in Washington and received even heavier pressure to keep silent. This is an indication that the collusion is driven from the top down.

                I believe there is a purposeful policy in force to allow huge numbers of illegal aliens and drugs to cross US borders, so as to water down conservative political strength in border states and corrupt America’s youth (as well as fund black operations in the CIA with drug profits). There is evidence that this is not a policy of mere rogue officials but a concerted effort to further a global agenda hostile to American interests. Here is an interesting quote from Myron Fagan’s book, "The Illuminati and the Council on Foreign Relations":

                "In the main, [in the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries] the refugees streamed into New York, but the Schiff-Rothschild humanitarian-committees found ways to shuffle many of them into other large cities such as Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Los Angeles, etc. All of them were quickly transformed into ‘naturalized-citizens’ and educated to register as Democrats. Thus all of that so-called minority-group became solid Democratic voter-blocks in their communities, all controlled and maneuvered by their so-called benefactors. And shortly after the turn of the century, they became vital factors in the political-life of our nation. That was one of the methods Schiff employed to plant men like Nelson Aldrich in our Senate and Woodrow Wilson in the White House."

                I think the control was less direct than Fagan portrays. Most refugees from Europe at the turn of the century were already well indoctrinated in socialism and didn’t need much pushing to become Democrats. However, the use of immigration to increase socialist political power in America remains a valid tactic for those on the left. It continues today in support of a broader multi-cultural agenda to water down America’s traditional white, European background and sense of ethnic loyalty to Western Judeo/Christian ethics. It also undermines the political influence of what used to be the majority of Americans imbued with an understanding of and loyalty to the Constitutional founders’ views of limited government.

 

AUGUST 16

 

LAND CONFISCATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA--WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE?

Westerners don’t tend to be very interested in the affairs of Africa.  But what’s going on now in Zimbabwe and South Africa is crucial to your understanding of the continued existence of the Communist menace to people and property.  While the scourge of Communism spreads across the African continent, destroying economies and lives on a massive scale, Western leaders dolefully shake their heads but do nothing to stop it.  Indeed, little do most Americans realize that these same types of reform measures and policies will someday be implanted here in America, only instead of black Africans, it will be in behalf of “landless Mexicans” crying for land reform. 

 

I can well remember the international outrage proclaimed by the Western media in the 1980s, targeting for extinction the white minority governments of Rhodesia and South Africa.  Now that all the liberals have gotten their wish and we have Marxist black majority governments installed in both Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and South Africa, why is there no outrage at the ongoing atrocities perpetrated upon the white farmers in these countries by radical black Communist cadres, backed by the force of bad law?  Let’s take a closer look at what has been going on recently in each of these countries, especially concerning the Marxist land reform policies that have been instituted in each case.

 

Zimbabwe

In Zimbabwe, the corrupt regime of Communist Robert Mugabe (who is not worthy of the title of President, having stolen three consecutive elections through outright election fraud and mortal harassment of his black political opponents) issued a confiscation order of all farms owned by these white farmers.  Other Marxist nations have engaged in the evils of “land redistribution,”  but few have done so without at least some fig leaf of “compensation” – usually in the form of worthless government bonds.  In Zimbabwe, however, it is blatant theft – confiscation without payment.  The expulsion order applies to about 3000 white farmers who own about half of the productive agricultural land in Zimbabwe.  Only some 400 had abandoned their farms by the formal deadline, while another 800 left this past weekend.  But some 60% are holding out either in firm defiance of this gross injustice (a word never utter by the US media) or in the vain hope of a reprieve.  Even those who left have rented apartments in towns nearby hoping to resettle back on their land if the policy is changed. 

 

White farmers were glued to their televisions on Monday, August 12 as Mugabe spoke to the nation in response to the threat of several thousand white farmers to defy the expulsion order and defend their lands.  Somehow these farmers actually expected Mugabe to make some concessions.  Mugabe has never made concessions unless he was lying or playing for time.   True to his character, Mugabe lashed out at the farmers in Monday’s speech and touted the “rule of law,” calling them lawbreakers.  How convenient to wave the banner of the “rule of law” when a nation has no principles of law limiting government power via a constitution.  Such a government can invent any form of tyranny, enact it as law, and then turn on their victims as “lawbreakers.”   This is why raw democracy always leads to tyranny.  The power to take from the productive class corrupts majorities and turns them into thieves at the ballot box, aided and led by petty tyrants who harness the system to give themselves the air of democratic legitimacy.

 

Mugabe continued, “The game is up and it is time for them [the white farmers] to go... We shall not budge; we shall not be deterred in this one question. The land is ours.”  Spoken like a true Marxist: there is no such thing as private ownership; all land belongs to “the people.”  Then, as if to entice the whites into another trap further down the road, he said, “All genuine and well-meaning white farmers who wish to pursue a farming career as loyal citizens of this country will have land to do so...We shall always welcome and respect loyal citizens or residents who cooperate with government and respect our policies and decisions.”   In other words, sell your souls to the Devil, voluntarily give up your rights, and you will have the peace you want. Yes, and the peace they will get will be subject to the government’s interpretation of “genuine,” “well-meaning,” and “loyal.”  In other words, peace through slavery and submission.  Such is the fate of minorities under a Marxist “People’s” regime.

 

Why has it taken this long for these farmers to recognize the serious threat of the black Marxist government?  The most basic reason is that the white farmers of Zimbabwe have always acted like a bunch of optimistic fools.  Since the 1980s they have consistently refused to believe the warnings of outsiders about the predatory intentions of the Communists.  This was partly due to the fact that Mugabe was careful not to show his true intentions right away.  After Mugabe took power, he played it cool for a few years, and the white farmers settled into their smug conviction that they could live with the new black Marxist regime.  They refused to flee the country while the doors were still wide open.  As is the case now in South Africa, they can leave the country today, but they can’t take their money with them.

 

Now that Mugabe has finally shown his predatory colors, the whites hang onto the belief that the international community will somehow pressure Mugabe to compensate them for their land.  These are false hopes.  Britain, the US, and the EU have made verbal appeals to Mugabe (not to cease and desist from confiscation, but merely to give some token compensation), but there is no teeth in their appeals – a stark contrast from the strangulating pressure put on the white minority governments of Rhodesia and South Africa, which caused their eventual capitulation.  In fact, the international globalist community has always favored Marxist revolutionaries and attacked pro-western white colonial governments.  While neither alternative represents real constitutional liberty, the sins of white minority rule pale in comparison with the horrors of black African Communist regimes – which destroy even more blacks than whites. 

 

I have listened to numerous media sources cover this story, and all have downplayed its evil by emphasizing Mugabe’s intention to redistribute the land to “poor black landless farmers.” Some even justify the confiscations as payback for years of colonial oppression.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  For one thing, most of these white families have been working their land for generations, their ancestors having homesteaded the raw land and having improved it by their own labor and sacrifice.  These were not cases of productive land having been taken from the blacks, and had nothing to do with colonial oppression.   For another thing, there is still much land to be developed, land that could be made much more productive if the government would apply its funds to water development projects rather than social welfare schemes and land confiscation.  Confiscating existing productive farms has destroyed incentives, ruined productivity, and will eventually drive the best whites out of the country.  Several million Zimbabwe blacks are now starving as a result of this destruction of Zimbabwe’s agricultural base. 

 

Most importantly, however, these farms are not being given to landless farmers but to landless NON-farmers.  Essentially they are the same thugs and political cronies of Mugabe who have been killing white farmers (with government sanction) for the past two years.  These thugs are given the accolade of “veterans” of the “war of independence,” but they are nothing more than former Communist cadres and terrorists who don’t deserve to be rewarded with anything.  In fact, a good percentage of these “veterans” are far too young to have fought against the Rhodesian government of Ian Smith in the early 80s.  They have simply joined the ranks of the pillagers.  Meanwhile, the real black landless farmers who work for or with the white owners have often taken up arms in defense of their white counterparts, knowing that they too will be run off the land as Communist “veterans” take over. 

 

In the midst of this crisis of injustice, many white farmers have been looking to agriculture coalitions to help them fight for their rights as property owners.  Over the past several years the farmers have generally been represented by a middle of the road group called the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), which has all but accepted land redistribution and made excuses for Mugabe’s excesses.  A newer, more hard-line organization has recently emerged to represent those who are tired of going along:  Justice in Agriculture (JAG).  Its leader, Jenni Williams, doesn’t hesitate to confront the evils of this blatant confiscation.  In recent weeks she has been appearing on many radio talk shows telling it like it is and crying out for international sanctions with teeth (something that won’t happen).

 

Meanwhile, the CFU spokesperson has been intent on placating the whites by focusing on the illusion of Mugabe “toning down the rhetoric” against the white farmers.  But Mugabe’s “toned down rhetoric” cannot be trusted.  Among his claims in the last few days was the assurance that “no farmer would be left landless.”  But most white farmers had to surrender all of their land, houses and equipment.   Next, Mugabe said he was pursuing a “one farmer, one farm” policy, but this is also a lie.  Many white farmers with only one small parcel are on the confiscation list. 

 

The New York Times reported, “After signals from ministers and officials on Friday and Saturday that Mugabe's government would take tough action against farmers refusing to leave, there was no indication on Sunday on how the government would proceed.”   No indications?   With groups of terrorist “veterans” camped outside all the big farms, waiting to receive the attack order, you have no indications of what will happen next?  True, now that the rule of tyranny has become the “rule of law” Mugabe might send in the police to make everything look official.  In any case, no one should have any illusions about how this is going to end for those who resist.  After years of strict gun control, the farmers have only a few hunting rifles to protect themselves.  It’s not going to be pretty. 

 

South Africa

In South Africa under the Marxist African Nation Congress (ANC) leadership, things are not as bad – yet.  The ANC is much more careful about appearing to play along with the Western globalist powers (even while strengthening ties with Russia, China, Cuba, and other African Marxist regimes).  At the globalists’ insistence, the ANC leadership has tabled, for now, much of its promised harnessing of state-run industries and has begun privatization.  But this is merely smoke and mirrors.  It allows the South African Communist Party to mount public protests against the privatization measures, furthering the illusion that Communism is separate from and in opposition to the ANC.  The ANC always was a Communist front and always will be.  The privatization ruse also allows the ANC to reap billions in transfer payments from old line big businesses in South Africa to government coffers.  The ANC, of course, has no intention of allowing the privatization to stand.   Privatization measures can and will be reversed on a whim when there are no constitutional guarantees of private property.  The big money interests who invested in this privatization will not be compensated any more than white farmers.

 

One part of the Marxist agenda that is on track is land reform.  Legislation proposing confiscation of white-owned farms in the name of land reform is proceeding through the South African Congress.  The proposal does offer some compensation to the displaced owners, mostly in the form of bonds (of declining value).  The legislation is gaining a sense of urgency as attacks on white farmers in South Africa are intensifying, as they did in Zimbabwe.  The ruling ANC has done little to stop the overall avalanche of crime that has beset South Africa since the fall of the Apartheid government, let alone restrain ambush attacks on farmers.  In fact, in typical Hegelian fashion, the ANC has fomented these attacks to facilitate the need to offer up land reform as the solution to this “spontaneous” unrest of the masses.   White South Africans are now resigned to having to give up their land. 

 

According to a report by Edgar Steele, “White South African farmers, so productive that they had been supporting far more than the population of their own country, have been removed from their farms, if not killed outright, due to the racist policies of the black South African government.  ‘Kill the Boer, kill the farmer,’ a phrase first uttered by ANC member of Parliament Peter Mokaba, is the mantra now shouted aloft by crowds of blacks at all manner of public meetings and demonstrations. The South African Human Rights Commission notes that this slogan is not hate speech, but merely a manifestation of ‘the constitutional rights to free speech.’

 

“More than 1,300 South African farmers and farm workers and their families now have been murdered by roving bands of young African blacks, while authorities have stood by and literally watched, in what is nothing more than ‘ethnic cleansing,’ a euphemism for genocide.  The remaining white South Afrikaners are unable to leave their country because other countries, notably the USA, erect impassable immigration barriers to whites, while allowing a flood of nonwhites across their borders.  You don't hear about the carnage in South Africa because it is politically incorrect to note the murder of whites by blacks anywhere in the world today. South African President Thabo Mbeki [a Communist and former terrorist leader] calls the execution of white farm owners and workers, the ‘final stage of the revolution.’  Final because, presumably, they are now running out of white people to slaughter.” [End of Steele quote.]  It is clear that, at least in terms of land reform, South Africa is plunging headlong in the same direction as Zimbabwe.  It is too late now for these farmers to extract much value out of the land that has been decreed no longer theirs.  Indeed, many will be lucky to get out with their lives.

 

AUGUST 23

 

THE REALITIES OF MISSILE PROLIFERATION – KEY TO A FUTURE WAR

While the world is preoccupied with the Bush fetish for attacking Iraq, I’m watching a larger, more ominous threat – the headlong drive by every other hostile state to acquire inaccurate short-range missiles (Scud B, C) and/or accurate, medium and long range ballistic missiles (of various origins), tipped with weapons of mass destruction.  It’s no secret to tyrants around the world that missiles are the great equalizer and the most effective way to counter the US and/or Israeli technical advantage in conventional weapons.  Every major power (except the US) and every two-bit tyrant with an oil income is engaged in a massive missile arms race that foretells a much bigger future conflict looming than the assault against Iraq.  Indeed, I don’t believe one can truly understand the Bush fetish about Iraq without understanding how the globalist planners (like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who micro-manage the Bush foreign policy) are allowing this massive arms race to continue unchecked, and even covering for it so the American people will not realize its dangerous implications.  Iraq is merely a trigger event.

                The administration and supportive media continue to conjure up polls showing large portions of the American public “supportive of an attack on Iraq.”   That’s simple to do if you load the question with Iraqi threat images.  Wake up America – the threat is NOT Iraq.  Saddam Hussein is merely the fall guy in a transitory conflict that will be used to justify a series of planned interventions that will eventually embroil the whole world. 

                For example, in last week’s issue I detailed how the US was preparing to paint Saudi Arabia in a negative light so as to justify intervention there, during the Iraq conflict.  This week, the US is starting to threaten Egypt.  The US announced it will be cutting off future aid to Egypt (but not current military aid – go figure), which sounds more like a shot across the bow, rather than a real sanction.  These kinds of contradictory messages, threatening nations while publicly claiming them as friends, explains why no one trusts what our government says anymore.  Neither should Americans.   While claiming to represent US interests, our government’s actions are full of ulterior motives and secret globalist agendas that work to undermine US sovereignty and security.  

                The charge I make that the US government is downplaying, covering for, or hiding evidence of this massive missile proliferation should not be taken lightly.  The US makes a lot of noise about a whole range of threats, such as terrorism, drugs, illegal immigration, nuclear proliferation, and weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but does little to effectively counter them, and often actually feeds and directs the proliferation of these evils.  This is what I call the ‘dark side’ of American government that nobody sees unless they read one of the many whistleblower books on the market, such as Rodney Stich’s “Defrauding America” (www.defraudingamerica.com).   

                You should not be fooled by the administration’s incessant drum beat about the dangers of Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.  Whether or not they exist is a relatively moot point.  If they do, the associated threat is relatively minor compared with the more advanced weapons programs of Iran, Syria, Libya and Egypt.  More importantly, Iraq’s efforts are a pittance compared to nuclear pariahs North Korea, Pakistan, and India, and microscopic in scope compared to nuclear, biological and chemical giants Russia and China, who are the really dangerous predators of the world and the major players in this proliferation game.

 

The Proliferation Cheaters’ Club

Let’s take a look at what is really going on in the world.  While the US is disarming our best, most lethal ballistic missile systems (MX, Minuteman III), Russia continues its sham disarmament of older obsolete weapons (a disarmament paid for by US taxpayers), while building new high tech missiles (SS-27 and SA-400) in secret facilities not open to US inspectors.  Often well-meaning US Senators get duped into supporting disarmament programs that secretly aid Soviet cheating.  The most notorious is the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, also known as the Nunn-Lugar program.  This program, sponsored by senators Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), appropriates US tax funds to dismantle older ballistic missiles in former Soviet states.  The US taxpayers are never told, however, that all the warheads go back to Russia for reuse on more modern missiles.

                CTR also has paid for a complex in the northern Russian city of Severodvinsk, designed for handling spent nuclear fuel from submarines.  Last year, Sen. Lugar visited Severodvinsk to inspect the CTR program and to assess the utilization of nuclear submarines.  Not surprisingly, he found that the money Russia saved by US taxpayer assistance was allowing them to build newer and more modern nuclear subs without having to spend money on nuclear waste disposal.  Putting the onshore complex into operation allows the nuclear reactors of four Delta-class or two Typhoon-class submarines to be serviced each year – an effect which has nothing to do with disarmament, and everything to do with making the Russian nuclear fleet more efficient.  

                Naturally, all this didn’t deter the senator from negotiating further CTR expansion with Zvezdochka, the Russian contractor involved.  Lenin was right when he confidently claimed that the West would provide Russia the “rope to hang themselves with.”  The CTR program is also paying for massive cleanup efforts in Russia around older biological and chemical warfare plants of the Soviet era.  The US does not require Russia to curtail spending on new weapons in return for this taxpayer-funded gift, nor does it attempt to prosecute Russia for constant ongoing violations of biological and chemical weapons treaties Russia has signed with the US.

                As for missile delivery systems, the Clinton and Bush administrations have gone so far as to codify US acceptance of 500 of Russia’s new multi-warhead Topol-M missiles (SS-27) in current arms agreements.  In reality, the US does not know how many Topol-Ms the Russians are building.   It could be well over a thousand.  This sixth generation ICBM is mobile, and possesses electronic counter measures as well as decoy warheads.  It is currently capable of penetrating any anti-ballistic missile shield--and the president says “not to worry,” the Russians are our “friends.” 

                Russia continues to manufacture large quantities of its second-best weapons systems for export to China, Iran, India, Syria, Egypt, Cuba, North Korea, and various smaller allies in Africa and Latin America.  These weapons include millions of small arms, tanks, and artillery, as well as submarines, destroyers, fighters, ballistic missiles, and anti-aircraft/missile defense systems for the wealthier nations.  Russia exports nuclear, biological and chemical weapons technology to a few select allies as well.  It is the secret supplier of choice to all major terrorist groups in the world, though often Middle Eastern middlemen handle the actual transactions.   Yet, the US continues to claim that Russia is an ally in the ‘war against terror.’  

 

While the US sometimes expresses “concern” with these violations of proliferation agreements, it does nothing to effectively sanction Russia or stop these ongoing violations.  On the contrary, Russia is continually rewarded with new arms contracts with American companies (Boeing, Lockheed), direct aid, technology exchanges (International Space Station), and continued access to weapons labs, NATO functions, and high level G-8 meetings.  Russia walks like a predator and talks like a predator, but is treated like wounded kitty-cat that needs TLC.  In reality, Russia is a world-class grizzly bear, faking a mortal wound while sizing up its prey.  Besides being the only first-line threat to US military arrogance, Russia is currently the world’s premiere “evil empire” and weapons proliferator.

                The second largest proliferator of missile and weapons technology to enemies of the West is China, often working as a surrogate for Russia.  Russia and China play “competing adversaries” in order to effectively deal with nations who may have some antipathy for either Russia or China.  Those nations that dislike Russia (like Pakistan) deal with China, and those that dislike China (India) deal with Russia.  Often China takes charge of the proliferation when Russia wants to appear as if it is “in compliance” with various treaties or wishes to cozy up to the US.  That is why currently China is taking Russia’s traditional place as weapons and technology supplier in North Korea, Cuba, Panama and Venezuela.  Both Russia and China are supplying Iran. 

                China receives very few first-line weapons from Russia.  But the second-line weapons it receives are formidable: destroyers, submarines, fighter aircraft, air to air missiles, anti-ship missiles, anti-aircraft/missile systems and technical advice on a full range of weapons of mass destruction.  According to a report by the US-China Security Review Commission, “Despite overwhelming US military and technological superiority, China can still defeat the United States by transforming its weakness into strength and exploiting US vulnerabilities through asymmetric warfare, ... deception, surprise and preemptive strikes.”   Arthur Waldron, staff writer for the review commission, stated that China’s long range goal is aimed at deterring the US from interfering in its future conquest of Asia, including neighboring states from Mongolia to Japan. “With respect to China's proliferation behavior, we have all the evidence we need:  China is a major source of advanced weapons to terrorist-sponsoring and other dangerous states. ... Far more work is required, both from the commission and the government on China's role (or lack of it) in international terrorism...Beijing's close connections to terrorist-sponsoring states provide ample reason for concern. ... Foreign companies helping China's military and security apparatus should be denied any participation in US government procurement or development programs.”   Yet, as with Russia, president Bush continues to maintain that China is on board the coalition fighting against terrorism. 

                The main foreign company supplying China’s military and security needs is the Russian firm Rosoboronexport, which dismisses Washington’s concerns.  “I think that Russia is not doing anything illegal by [selling arms to China],” Rosoboronexport chief Andrei Belyaninov said Wednesday, according to a Reuters report. “We are acting within the framework of international law.”  Well, yes and no.  International law can be construed to justify almost any military assistance to an ally, but Russia is in clear violation of every disarmament and arms proliferation treaty signed with the US. 

                US officials excuse their failure to sanction either Russia or China with the claim that they do not have a precise picture of China's military program. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov reportedly signed a protocol with China during his visit there earlier this summer under which all arms deals between the two nations are classified as secret.  This is not, however a valid excuse for US inaction.  Although no one knows the full extent of either Russian or Chinese arms programs, the US doesn’t need proof of every violation to justify strong sanctions.   Even one major example is enough.  The US, however, prefers to be permissive – hiding behind excuses and insisting on “engaging” both predator nations (engagement is a code word for aiding and abetting a known future enemy, or at least, looking the other way when cheating occurs).

                Earlier this year, Beijing announced that it would boost its defense spending in 2002 to $20 billion, according to Reuters.  However, most analysts admit that both China and Russia understate actual spending by 4 or 5 times.  According to current Pentagon reports, this year alone China has ordered two new Sovremenny-class destroyers costing  $1.5 billion, eight Kilo submarines costing $1.6 billion, several SA-300 naval and air defense missiles, and 30 Su-30MK2 fighters equipped with X-31A supersonic anti-ship missiles.  China is also deploying the first of 40 Su-30MKK Russian fighters, and has acquired new Su-27 air superiority fighters, giving China a huge leap forward in aircraft firepower and range.

                Ilan Berman, who writes the Missile Defense briefing for the American Foreign Policy Council (www.afpc.org), makes the partly true case that “What the Chinese military is driving toward is to have a credible deterrent ... to make the US think twice about intervening on Taiwan's behalf.”  This is, in fact, already the case.  China has at least a dozen long range missiles targeting cities along the US West coast and will deployed missiles capable of hitting anywhere in the US within 4 years.  China also has one operational ballistic missile submarine that, if positioned correctly, could strike any US city.   Along the same lines, Richard Fisher, a China expert with the conservative Jamestown Foundation, made the observation that “Russia's arms sales to China amount to gasoline on smoking embers. This is simply unacceptable...If there is a conflict over Taiwan, both Taiwanese and US forces will be fighting against Russian weapons.”

                True enough, but there is more to this than the Taiwan issue.  China already knows that the US has agreed (thanks to the secret Kissinger agreement with China at the end of the Vietnam War) not to defend Taiwan’s independence.  Thus, it is more likely that the long-term reason for Chinese/Russian cooperation in China’s military build-up is that China is preparing to side with Russia during the next world war.  China is clearly positioning itself to take control of the Pacific Ocean region prior to the world conflict as Japan did in World War II. 

                Fisher, an apologist for the Bush administration, criticized only the Clinton administration for its permissive Russian policy.  He claims, “While the Clinton administration chose not to make a public issue of Russian military sales to China, there are some in the Bush administration, especially in the Pentagon, who now want to engage Moscow on the larger costs to Russian security and Asian stability of its military sales to China. This marks the beginning of a real change in US policy.”  I partly disagree.  True, there are always a few in the Pentagon who want to do the right thing – but the major policy makers under Rumsfeld will continue to cover for Russia.  The Bush administration continues to covertly aid both Russia and China.  The verbal warnings are only a cover to make it appear as if there is a difference between the former Democratic administration and the current Republican administration.  The real China sellout began during the late 1980s during the George H.W. Bush administration.  Bush Jr. is following the same pattern of betrayal of American security interests. 

 

Other missile proliferation examples

It will become obvious from the following reports from AFPC.org that would-be predators are consumed with acquiring weapons of mass destruction and missile delivery systems.  They know something that Americans seem oblivious to – that the only way to deal with an interventionist super power like the US is to balance the scales with missiles and WMDs.  What most Americans fail to realize is that a pre-emptive nuclear strike by existing Russian and Chinese missiles could eliminate 90% of US military power in a single day--and these two predators are not even listed as a threat under US policy guiding the development of our ABM defensive shield.  The US insists it only needs to defend against a few “rogue” nations like North Korea.  Yes, North Korea is a threat, and our measely 100 interceptors may well stop a limited number of missiles.  But, 100 interceptors with a kill ratio of less than 1 in 10 tries will do next to nothing against a Russian barrage of 1,000 -3,000 warheads.  US permissiveness in the proliferation arena will have deadly consequences.  The main US threat is from Russia and China.  The target of the Arab missile powers is Israel. Here are some excerpts from the AFPC reports, with my [comments in brackets.]  This is not an exhaustive review of each nation’s total program, but a sampling of recent events that show the level of intensity these nations are pursuing in their missile build-ups.

 

NORTH KOREA: “In late March, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage [former drug-importation  boss for the CIA in the Far East and Vietnam] publicly announced that the seizure and destruction of North Korean vessels found carrying ballistic missile components in international waters was a very real possibility.  [This was a bluff, intended only to give the impression that the US was serious about proliferation issues.  So are the sanctions announced today.  If the US were serious about sanctions they would cut off the nuclear power aid they are giving North Korea.  The threats by Armitage were only intended to rile North Korea and to further justify its paranoia about US intentions.]  In an April 12th broadcast, North Korea's official Central Broadcasting Station radio shot back, blasting Armitage's remarks as evidence that the White House was attempting to ‘invent an excuse to make pre-emptive nuclear attacks and at the same time conduct all-out armed aggression’ against the DPRK. However, the North Korean government mouthpiece warned, ‘if the US imperialists recklessly irritate us, they will have a bitter experience.’”  [The US knows the North Koreans have the nuclear and conventional missile capability to hit all US allies in the Pacific, including Hawaii.  Thus, N. Korean threats are not without some merit.]   North Korea has hundreds of operational short and medium range ballistic missiles hidden in caves.  US estimates are North Korean missile strength are inaccurate and grossly understated.  As the largest exporter of missiles to Third World nations, we can only assume that it has abundant stockpiles for its own use.  Missile exports are its largest source of foreign exchange. 

 

JAPAN:  “In its annual report to the ASEAN Regional Forum, the North Korean government has blasted the emerging missile defense relationship between Japan and the United States.  According to Pyongyang, US efforts to erect a layered international system to protect against ballistic missile attack contributes to the ‘destruction of the global security structure’ and a looming ‘arms race’ in Asia. For its part, Japan’s growing militarization, and its cooperation with the US, not only violates Tokyo's ‘Peace Constitution’ but constitutes a serious threat to regional peace.”  [All emerging missile nations that have few missiles are extremely sensitive to ABM systems, which have the potential of neutralizing a limited ballistic missile threat.]

 

SYRIA:  “The Syrian government is hard at work on a warhead capable of delivering a chemical payload on a Scud-class missile, according to the December 12th Middle East Newsline. The news agency cited American defense sources as saying that Syria has charted gains in its research and development of a VX warhead for the Scud-C missile, which has a range of 500 kilometers, and could attain this goal within a year.  Damascus is also believed to be working on a chemical warhead for the longer-range Scud-D missile as well, with much of the technology and equipment for its VX program reportedly originating in North Korea.”  Syrian missile arsenals contain an estimated 100-120 Scud-C with 500km range, 200 Scud-B missiles with 300km range, 200 SS-21 Scarab with 70km range and a homebrewed M-9 missile copied after the Chinese/North Korean CSS-6 (DF-15) with range of 600 km.  Syria also has several dozen cruise missiles. 

 

EGYPT: “The United States has received intelligence reports that North Korea delivered 24 [North Korean] No-Dong intermediate-range missiles to Egypt in the last half of 2001. The No-Dong missiles did not contain engines but Egypt is believed to have received a separate shipment of up to 50 North Korean engines via Libya.”  [Egypt has the following arsenal as of 1999: 100+ SS-1 (Scud-B) with 300km range, 90 Project T missiles with 450km range, a Scud-C variant production capability with 800km to 1,200km range.  In exchange for North Korean assistance, Egypt is exporting US military technology to North Korea.  Egypt also has hundreds of cruise missiles, of Russian, Chinese, French and US origins.] 

 

IRAN:  “John Wolf, Assistant Secretary of State for nonproliferation, confirmed that ‘there is an intense sort of cooperation that goes on among countries that are trying to acquire’ both weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. Wolf further cited Iran as a prime example of an emerging missile state that is now exporting WMD technology and ballistic missiles to other states.”  [Iran’s current arsenal includes at least 150 Scud-C with 500km range, 200 Scud-B with 300km range, and approximately 25 Chinese CSS-8s with 150km range.  They have an unknown quantity of indigenous Mushak missiles with ranges from 120km to 200km, and several new intermediate range Shahab-3 missiles with over 1,000km range and over 700kg payload.  Iran is working on the Shahab-4 with a 2,000km range and 1,000kg payload.  Iran also has hundreds of cruise missiles, including Russian Sunburn and Silkworm missiles and the US harpoon varieties.] 

 

SAUDI ARABIA:  “The Saudis acquired 50 Chinese CSS-2 intermediate range missiles in 1988.  This tally has increased to 120 in recent years.  The Saudis also have Harpoon and Sea Eagle anti-ship cruise missiles of US and British manufacture.” 

 

LIBYA:   “Ballistic missiles inventories include 100 Scud-C; 100+ Scud-B missiles, dozens of Russian SS-21 Scarab and an indigenous Al Fatah (Iltisslat) missile with 950km range.   Libya also has Styx, and French built Exocet anti-ship cruise missiles.”

 

INDIA AND PAKISTAN:  “India has successfully field-tested an improved version of its nuclear-capable Prithvi missile.   The improved missile [which previously has had many technical problems], launched over the Bay of Bengal from India's Chandipur testing range, has a range of 155 miles and can be equipped with a nuclear warhead. ‘The test was flawless and the missile impacted at the intended target point accurately,’ according to Indian Defense Ministry.

                Pakistan is well on its way to fielding one of the world 's most advanced ballistic missile systems. The Rawalpalindi Jang (August 1) reports that after months of development by Islamabad's National Engineering and Scientific Commission (NESCOM), the ‘Shaheen-3’ medium-range missile will soon be tested by the Pakistani armed forces. According to sources cited by the paper, once the 750-kilometer range rocket is operational, it will be capable of defeating prospective Indian missile defenses, such as the Arrow Theater Missile Defense system New Delhi is in the process of acquiring from Israel.”

 

Why Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Systems Fail to Deter Proliferation

If anti-ballistic missile systems were effective against the full range of missiles and warheads, missile production would quickly cease or at least be redirected to the production of weapons that could penetrate defenses.  However, missile production, including that of cheap unguided missiles, is still increasing, indicating that the world is not convinced of ABM effectiveness.  Here’s why.

 

·          ABM systems can be overwhelmed by large numbers (salvos) of guided or unguided missiles.  Clearly the thousands of missiles arrayed against Israel are intended to be launched in this manner.  Israel’s Arrow system is no match for a hundred missiles, let alone a thousand.

·          Western ABM systems, including the US Patriot System, the Israeli Arrow, and the more modern US PAC-3 system, are all composed of dumbed-down, relatively slow interceptors designed to comply with the 1972 ABM treaty signed with the Soviet Union.  Naturally, only the US has complied with this agreement.  Now that the US has opted out of the treaty, its ABM designs are all based on those former restrictions.  All US and Israeli systems are guided by ground based radar instead of satellites, and cannot reliably intercept incoming missiles having speeds greater than 3 km per second.  Intermediate and long-range missiles have speeds from 4-8 km per second. 

·          The new PAC-3 system being deployed by the US in Israel and Greece has no warhead, and must make a direct hit to disable a missile (very hard to do).  If an incoming missile has multiple warheads, the PAC-3 system will fail.  If the missile has decoys, the PAC-3 will fail in most cases.  If the missile is moving too fast, the PAC-3 will fail.

·          Most ABMs will be positioned around the target areas, and would only intercept an incoming missile close to the missile’s target.  Thus, even if the kinetic interceptor makes a hit on the missile body itself, the chemical, biological or nuclear warhead would still descend on its target below.  If the ABMs or ABM lasers are placed on flying platforms or on ships to intercept the missiles in the boost phase, the missile will be stopped in a safer location.  However, the warheads will still impact and explode on the ground in some undesired location.

 

The US ABM system has failed the majority of its flight tests.  Despite these problems, the US is persisting on deployment of this flawed system. The Washington Post reported on August 5 that, “despite high expectations, the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) system, which entered testing this past February, has failed to qualify for stepped-up production.  Instead, interceptor launch and target tracking problems have stalled expanded development and deployment.  Military planners, however, are chalking up these failures to random error, and remain confident of the program's long-term success.”  If this is true, then why are they now considering arming the PAC-3 with a nuclear warhead?  I’m all for that option.  The Russians have nuclear warheads on all their interceptors for the very purpose of ensuring a kill even with a miss.  We should too – if we are serious about defending America.  Of course, if the government were serious about defense, they would also be encouraging citizens to build shelters.  Despite all the billions being spent on Homeland Defense, there isn’t a penny being devoted to actually encouraging citizen self-help through home shelters--only for government leaders. 

                Even with a warhead, the PAC-3 system is too slow, too handicapped vis-à-vis its radar control system, and too limited in total numbers to protect America.  We need a multi-tiered space-based and sea-based system that can intercept and destroy missiles before the deadly warheads separate from the missile body.  While the Bush administration is still pondering on whether to restart the Aegis sea-based ABM system, we still have not integrated satellite guidance and control nor even begun designing a suitable warhead for these interceptors.  Meanwhile, the clock is ticking and our enemies are building and deploying weapons designed to nullify the US technological advantage in conventional weapons.  A warning to the wise: An Iraqi invasion may be the most costly diversion of US funds and public attention ever--at a crucial time when America needs to be earnestly preparing a full blown defense against a pre-emptive nuclear strike. 

 

AUGUST 30

 

US ALREADY SUBSERVIENT TO THE UN

Most conservatives think the US still operates as an independent sovereign nation.  Yet, the evidence is increasingly compelling that every US administration since George Bush Sr. (including the current administration) has quietly been handing over American sovereignty to the UN in a secret piecemeal fashion--without any formal legal change in our Constitutional mandate.  As in most cases pertaining to the undermining of the Constitution, one must disregard the verbal lip service government officials give to the Constitution and look only at what they do. 

                The New American magazine (www.thenewamerican.com) is an excellent source for indepth coverage on problms related to the UN.  In the August 26, 2002 issue, there appeared a blockbuster piece of sleuthing by Steve Bonta, entitled “Reporting to the UN.”  You can read the entire article at http://www.getusout.org/un/articles/reporting_to_un.htm.   Here are a few choice excerpts:

                “The [UN] Counter-Terrorism Committee was created by paragraph six of Security Council Resolution 1373, issued last September 28th in response to the September 11th attacks. The purpose of the CTC, in the words of 1373, is to ‘monitor implementation of this resolution.’ To allow the CTC to carry out this monitoring, UN member states are required to submit regular compliance reports to the CTC. The first round of such reports came in to the CTC from December 2001 through the early months of 2002 and, as we reported in the February 25th issue of The New American, the U.S. government was one of the first member states to submit its report on U.S. compliance with the Security Council’s new anti-terrorism guidelines. The U.S. report, dated December 19th, depicted the USA PATRIOT Act and other post 9-11 Bush initiatives as acts of compliance with UN demands in Resolution 1373.

                “This first report was worrisome enough, since it showed the degree to which U.S. officials are now willing to let UN authorities dictate terms to us. But now there’s more. After receiving the first report, the CTC sent a more detailed, focused list of inquiries to the U.S. government and demanded a response by June 15th. The second U.S. compliance report, submitted in response, is truly scary stuff.

                “Like the first report, the second is arranged as a series of responses to specific questions from the CTC on a range of domestic policies. The very first question pointedly asks: ‘Does the US have a specialist counter-terrorism body or is that the responsibility of a number of departments or agencies?’ The report’s author meekly replies that the U.S. is now trying to create a Department of Homeland Security, a process that ‘will take time, especially since new legislation will be required.’ However, the report promises, ‘we will inform the CTC when these new changes are in place.’ In other words, the Bush administration considers the Department of Homeland Security an act of compliance with UN requirements, and will keep the UN informed of our progress. This kind of truckling to alleged UN authority speaks volumes about the Bush administration’s real attitude towards UN-centered internationalism, despite its occasional choreographed outbursts of anti-globalist rhetoric.

                “But there’s more. Further on in the U.S. report, the CTC asks whether ‘natural or legal persons other than banks (e.g., attorneys, notaries, or other intermediaries) [are] required to report suspicious transactions to the public authorities.’ The U.S. compliance report explains that the Bank Secrecy Act gives our government broad power to spy on its citizens via banks, savings and loans, credit unions, and even the U.S. Postal Service, adding that the new PATRIOT Act requires the Treasury to issue a rule ‘requiring broker-dealers to file suspicious activity reports.’

                “Most alarming of all is a series of questions that ought to give every American gun owner pause for thought. The CTC asks: ‘How does the United States control the establishment in its territory of paramilitary groups that have the potential to engage in terrorist activities?’ Following that, under the heading ‘Weapons,’ the CTC presses the inquiry further: ‘What measures does the United States have to prevent terrorists [from] obtaining weapons in its territory, in particular small arms or light weapons? What is the United States legislation concerning the acquisition and possession of such weapons?’ Following a long section in which the U.S. describes to UN officials the plethora of federal gun control laws on the books, the CTC asks: ‘Does the United States have any means of detecting at the local, as distinct from the national, level activities preparatory to a terrorist act? Are there agencies and procedures at the local level for monitoring sensitive activities, such as combat sports and shooting with light weapons, paramilitary training, the piloting of aircraft, biological laboratories, and the use of explosives for industrial purposes’" In other words, the UN would like to see our federal government empowered to keep tabs on local target shooters, private planes, and sundry other acts of potential ‘terrorist training.’

                “But the most frightening aspect of these dry reports is what they tell us about the post-September 11th relationship between the United States and the UN. UN officials have made no secret that they consider Resolution 1373 to be a turning point in the history of relations between the UN and member states. As paraphrased by a UN report, CTC chairman Jeremy Greenstock told the Security Council on June 27th that ‘the most important success of the Counter-Terrorism Committee to date was that it had directed widespread attention to the power of resolution 1373,’ and that ‘a broad range of international organizations and regional and subregional organizations were now aware that there was a global structure for countering terrorism, into which they should fit their activities.... The fact that the vast majority of Member States were now engaged with the Committee … and that all States recognized their responsibility to follow up resolution 1373 … was a massive change from the situation that had existed when the Committee was formed.’

                “It’s one thing for UN functionaries to make claims like this; it’s quite another when our government agrees with them. At the same Security Council meeting, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte, responding to Greenstock’s comments, ‘reiterated the importance of all States abiding by their obligations under resolution 1373 … including the timely submission of reports. The second review would largely determine the impact that the Committee would have in the fight against terrorism.’ As described by the UN report, Negroponte added that ‘the resolution and the Committee had no time limits and would continue until the Council was satisfied with the resolution’s implementation.’

                “And that’s the real heart of the matter. The CTC is designed to accrue power over time, as so-called ‘soft law’ — the dense, vaguely committal jargon of international ‘protocols’ and ‘resolutions.’ It then morphs into ‘hard law’ — the brass-tacks reality of enforceable national and international statutes and regulations. As Greenstock himself has pointed out regarding the work of the CTC, ‘we believe that there may always be further work to do to meet the objectives of the resolution against a constantly evolving background.... [W]e will want all States to remain in close contact with the Committee, and to inform the CTC of any new developments which are relevant to the implementation of 1373.’” [End of New American excerpt.]

                The current issue of The New American has an excellent analysis of the Bush administration and why it is not truly a conservative, pro-Constitution effort. See the article, George W. – Master of Disguise

by Gary Benoit at http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2002/09-09-2002/vo18no18_disguise.htm.

 

SEPT 6

 

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, URBAN SPRAWL AND OTHER EXCUSES TO DESTROY PROPERTY RIGHTS

As the Earth Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa grinds to a welcome halt, don’t be quick to breathe a sigh of relief.  Even though US opposed some of the detailed economic subsidies and energy quotas others wished to impose upon the industrialized world, the US delegation totally acquiesced to the basic agenda of the conference: that private property rights must be held subservient to government controls on behalf of the poor, and the environment.  Behind every proposal and every form of control, including land-use regulation, the implicit assumption is that private property rights are subservient to majority rule and bureacratic mandates. 

                Urban sprawl is the egregious threat word being trumpeted in every state of the Union, giving governments at all levels the justification to cram the Oregon model of land-use planning down everyone’s throat.  It’s all dressed up in fancy euphemisms about “local control” but there is no local control when the criteria are mandated at the state level and enforced by state-appointed councils and the courts.  Being from Oregon, I know how the system works and it’s not nice.  There are legitimate ways to create voluntary incentives for land-use planning and proper stewardship of the environment, without infringing on the fundament rights of ownership and control of property.  But none of the plans and programs being implemented at the international level have the preservation of property rights in mind. 

                As Joan Veon (the best conservative watchdog at these international confabs) correctly described the Earth Summit, “The tone is decidedly ‘communistic’ as President Thabo Mbeki and World Summit on Sustainable Development Secretary-General Nitsin Desai invoked words like ‘solidarity’ and ‘transfer of wealth.’ Another well-worn phrase is a ‘reinvigoration of international solidarity and partnership.’  Meanwhile, the attitude of many non-governmental organizations is blatantly militaristic.”

                Tom DeWeese summed up how asleep conservatives are to this threat with these comments: “There is a crisis in the Conservative movement. It is a blind spot that threatens everything the movement stands for.  It is Sustainable Development, the theme of the United Nations conference in Johannesburg.  However, the conservatives who have always been there to fight off such utopian, socialist nightmares now seem to slumber blissfully in their ignorance at the very moment when vigilance is most urgently needed.

                “Sustainable Development is the greatest threat ever perpetrated against the American ideal of liberty. Under Sustainable Development [as proposed by the UN] there can be no free enterprise, no individual liberty or private property.

                “As I attend traditional conservative meetings around the country where the defense of property rights should be paramount, Sustainable Development is rarely mentioned.  Speaker after speaker addresses the audience about issues like abortion, taxes, and national defense. They declare their dedication to the fight for limited government.  I've even heard some of these speakers gleefully declare that we are in a ‘conservative era.’

                “If they believe this then they are seriously deluded. There can be no hope of living in a nation of limited government with Sustainable Development as official government policy. The two are diametrically opposed. Today, the Bush Administration is continuing to help entrench Sustainable Development policies that were started under the Clinton Administration.”

                DeWeese is right.  Without a full range of property rights, including complete ownership and control of property, the free market doesn’t operate correctly and personal incentives wane.  The reason most conservatives don’t get actively involved in this fight is because the devil is in the details, and the details are written in complex legal language which eludes most conservatives who are content to battle with generalizations and slogans.  Law has become very sophisticated, and conservatives have to learn how to recognize and counter bad law.  It’s not enough to simply say it’s not constitutional.  Almost all law today is unconstitutional or extra-constitutional – and nobody cares.  There is a huge constituency for bad laws because they offer people benefits or protection from the judgments of the free market.

                Conservatives have to learn how to counter the statist arguments with more detailed principles and understanding of law.  Also, it isn’t enough to abdicate your need to learn about law by sending your children off to become lawyers.  They simply get compromised in law school, which almost always teaches the statist version of law – and if not there, then they are compromised and corrupted by the requirement to comply with the demands of the ABA and the courts, which control licensure, legal procedures and the legal doctrines that will be tolerated. 

 

SEPT 13

 

JIM LEHRE’S INTERVIEW WITH DICK CHENEY

On September 10th, PBS news heavyweight Jim Lehre aired an interview with Dick Cheney that had taken place a week earlier.  It had been delayed, according to Lehre, at the request of the White House for political reasons of timing.  Bush didn’t want the VP upstaging his announcements on Iraq.  The interview was a masterpiece of propaganda.  In contrast to how the press handles people on the right (with interrogations and an argumentative format), Lehre was smiling and chummy with the Vice President.  He offered up a smorgasbord of softball questions (easy to handle, desirable questions that allow the interviewee to run off on favorite topics of interest) mostly concerning 9/11, Al Qaeda, and the coming war on Iraq.  Cheney’s answers were all smooth and predictable. 

                One of my complaints about journalists is that they never ask the tough questions – questions addressing the obvious contradictions that counter the establishment version of events.  I’ve always known that journalists are smart.  If the contradictions are obvious to me, they should be for them.  I was therefore surprised when out of Lehre’s mouth came two of the tough questions that I have posed numerous times to my subscribers.  However, it soon became clear that, as so often happens, Lehre was only posing these questions for propaganda effect.  Observe Cheney’s answers to each and Lehre’s subsequent response: 

                1) Lehre asked, if Al Qaeda is such a threat and has cells all over the country, then why have we had no terrorist attacks since 9/11?  No journalist had ever uttered that question in public before.  Cheney gave the standard response that we attacked their base in Afghanistan, interdicted some financing and destabilized them.  Hogwash.  None of that would have stopped individual cells, already trained and deployed around the world, from carrying out normal small scale attacks – car bombings, suicide bombings, etc.  Israel destabilizes and breaks up terrorist groups far more often and with far more effect than the US does and they still suffer daily attacks.  Did Lehre protest Cheney’s simplistic answer?  Did he rebut or argue?  Not a word.  He just smiled and let it go.  It was clear Lehre was simply giving the master communicator of the Bush administration the chance to debunk what was beginning to circulate on the web.

                2)  Lehre also broached the subject of why America is so hated in parts of the world.  Cheney gave the standard Bush line that some people hate American liberties (which isn’t true – they hate the way our government intervenes secretly via the CIA and State Department to overthrow governments and pressure them financially).  When Lehre continued by asking what America could do differently to avoid this antagonism, Cheney responded strongly that he utterly rejected the notion that America has ever done anything to deserve being the target of terrorism.   I was frankly surprised at Cheney vehemence.  He couldn’t have been so ignorant of the history of US hostile intervention in other nations, both secretly and publicly.  But it was obviously a sensitive issue with him.  Lehre let it drop.  So much for the journalist’s ability to pose the tough questions.

 

ANALYSIS OF THE ASHCROFT DETENTION CAMP PLAN

First, let me state clearly that despite all the internet traffic about Attorney General Ashcroft’s proposal to establish detention camps for American combatants, there has been no direct quote attributable to Ashcroft on the subject.  There is no public policy establishing these camps.  Strangely, there have been no denials either, and camps are being built – though not everywhere internet sites like AmericanGulag.com have listed.  Incidentally, http://gulagamerika.homestead.com/ has been shut down due to fear of being labeled an “enemy combatant” under the USA PATRIOT Act.  Their home page, with explanation, is still visible.  

                This firestorm of controversy was set off by Jonathan Turley, in an article written August 14th for the LA Times, entitled, “Ashcroft's Hellish Vision.”  The LA Times has been the only establishment news media to even comment on this volatile subject.  Turley is an professor of Constitutional law at George Washington University School of Law and a defense attorney in national security cases. 

                The most vociferous reaction has come from leftist defenders of civil liberties.  For example, Nat Hentoff, who writes for the left-wing Village Voice, has openly called for Ashcroft’s resignation.  He explains why: “Ever since General Ashcroft pushed the US Patriot Act through an overwhelmingly supine Congress soon after September 11, he has subverted more elements of the Bill of Rights than any attorney general in American history.

                “Under the Justice Department's new definition of  ‘enemy combatant’ – which won the enthusiastic approval of the president and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld – anyone defined as an ‘enemy combatant’ [including those who may intimidate government officials], very much including American citizens, can be held indefinitely by the government, without charges, a hearing, or a lawyer. In short, incommunicado.

                “Two American citizens – Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla – are currently locked up in military brigs as ‘enemy combatants.’ (Hamdi is in solitary in a windowless room.) As Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe said on ABC's Nightline (August 12): ‘It bothers me that the executive branch is taking the amazing position that just on the president's say-so, any American citizen can be picked up, not just in Afghanistan, but at O'Hare Airport or on the streets of any city in this country, and locked up without access to a lawyer or court just because the government says he's connected somehow with the Taliban or Al Qaeda. That's not the American way. It's not the constitutional way....And no court can even figure out whether we've got the wrong guy.’

                “In Hamdi's case, the government claims it can hold him for interrogation in a floating navy brig off Norfolk, Virginia, as long as it needs to. When Federal District Judge Robert Doumar asked the man from the Justice Department how long Hamdi is going to be locked up without charges, the government lawyer said he couldn't answer that question. The Bush administration claims the judiciary has no right to even interfere.” [End of Hentoff quote.]

                Turley was no less blunt in his “Hellish Vision” article. “Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for US citizens he deems to be ‘enemy combatants’ has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace...Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of US citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants.

                “The camp plan was forged at an optimistic time for Ashcroft's small inner circle, which has been carefully watching two test cases to see whether this vision could become a reality. The cases of Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi will determine whether US citizens can be held without charges and subject to the arbitrary and unchecked authority of the government.

                “Hamdi has been held without charge even though the facts of his case are virtually identical to those in the case of John Walker Lindh. Both Hamdi and Lindh were captured in Afghanistan as foot soldiers in Taliban units. Yet Lindh was given a lawyer and a trial, while Hamdi rots in a floating Navy brig in Norfolk, Va.  This week, the government refused to comply with a federal judge who ordered that he be given the underlying evidence justifying Hamdi's treatment. The Justice Department has insisted that the judge must simply accept its declaration and cannot interfere with the president's absolute authority in ‘a time of war.’

                “Few would have imagined any attorney general seeking to reestablish such camps for citizens.” [End of Turley quote.]  The process of building excess federal prison capacity and turning decommissioned military bases into internment camps began under Janet “Waco” Reno and the Clinton administration.  Ashcroft is simply continuing the Clinton agenda – which is damning in and of itself. 

                A few have challenged the assertiveness of the Turley article since Ashcroft has not made any public statements concerning the camps.  What the Justice Department did announce, as reported on August 8th by Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal, is that the Norfolk, VA facility used to hold Hamdi is being expanded to hold up to 20 “enemy combatants.”

                Here is Turley’s response to those challenging his source: “The quick answer to your question is that no formal policy has been issued.  The disclosure of the proposal first appeared in the Wall Street Journal on August 8th with confirmation from various unnamed aides to Ashcroft.  Since the op-ed in the LA Times, various newspapers have confirmed the story and the internal deliberations over the structure and locations of such camps. The WSJ article has never been denied. There was no formal statement issued by Ashcroft and members of Congress are now inquiring into the status of the proposal.” 

                Ashcroft’s lack of denial is telling.  He can’t very well deny it when there are many national sightings of camps being constructed.  One that is finished is on the northern boundary of Nellis AFB in Las Vegas.  It is a huge holding camp with triple fences surrounding mostly open terrain.  I spoke with the guard at the gate.  He said the facility was designed to hold 5,000-6,000 people.  However, the actual buildings can hold only several hundred; tents must be brought in to house the rest.  The site is listed on the federal registry of prison facilities.

                Since the number of sightings and complaints about secret camps being built around the country is rising, I think Ashcroft is allowing this story to circulate as a red herring.  The emphasis of Justice Department conversations with the WSJ editors focuses on the few US citizens playing a supporting role to Al Qaeda terrorists.  That may serve as a reasonable excuse for expanding the Norfolk facility to 20 beds, but the number and size of actual detention camps being built around the US far outweighs the number of potential US supporters of Al Qaeda.  Civil libertarians suspect these camps are actually destined for a much larger group of Americans who are increasingly skeptical and non-supportive of US intervention around the world in prosecution of the phony “war on terrorism.” 

 

THE US IMMIGRATION MESS

Despite all the government claims about tightening up the borders in response to 9/11, evidence continues to pour in that it’s business as usual for US open door policy.  According to Human Events, “the State Department reported that between Sept. 12, 2001, and March 31, 2002, it had given out 51,529 visas to non-Israeli Middle Easterners.  In a new document released to Human Events last week, the State Department reported that between April 1 and August 23 it had issued another 74,101 non-immigrant, or temporary, visas to nationals of Middle Eastern countries excluding Israel.” 

                Paul Craig Roberts, one of my favorite columnists, recently commented, “If you believe that the United States has borders, read columnist Michelle Malkin’s just released book, ‘Invasion.’ Malkin shows that aliens’ rights trump both citizens’ rights and citizens’ safety. ... No effort is made to control our borders. Malkin reports that in the six months following the Sept. 11 attacks, the State Department issued almost 200,000 additional visas to Middle Easterners and Southern Asians, areas that are known havens for al Qaeda.  People without visas enter unhindered from Canada and Mexico.

                “Visas continue to be granted indiscriminately even though the State Department knows that a high percentage will overstay their visas and disappear into the population. The United States has become such a hodgepodge of different peoples and cultures that the Immigration and Naturalization Service has washed its hands of locating and deporting illegal aliens.  Can a country conduct a war on terror when it cannot control its own borders?  Does it make sense for a country that refuses to defend its own borders to invade another country?” [End of Roberts quote.] 

                Good questions.  Despite all the $billions the US spent in forcing a regime change in Afghanistan, the US State Department continues to allow thousands of Afghanis to immigrate to the US.  Why?  I think there is a hostile multi-cultural agenda going on here.  True, cultural diversity adds interest to a nation, but when mass immigration of incompatible cultural groups is allowed such that the dominant culture becomes lost in a sea of minorities, then conditions become ripe for the kind of internal conflict that plagues Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. 

 

SEPT 20

 

IRAQ TRIES TO BUY TIME; BUSH MANEUVERS FOR THE ATTACK

Even the all-powerful US foreign policy team has to justify its actions on the world stage, and Iraq has just punched a big hole in the US case against Iraq by announcing that it would accept UN arms inspectors back in the country without conditions. 

                “Without conditions” is a ploy to stall for time.  Iraq has significant weapons programs in operation and has no intention of allowing unlimited, go-anywhere inspections.  Still, it is intent on showing  verbal compliance with the US demand for inspections in order to undermine the US rationale for invasion.  Note that I said, to undermine the rationale for invasion – not to forestall the invasion itself.  In point of fact, the Bush team is planning to invade whether the UN approves or not.  But if they do so without UN backing and while Iraq is giving the appearance of compliance, the US will have lost what little moral high ground it pretends to hold, and the world forum will erupt in angry denunciation of US arrogance and warmongering.

                As if making a prophetic utterance, Nelson Mandela, the Marxist darling of the African Third World, charged the US with trying to bully the rest of the world:  “They think they're the only power in the world.  They're not and they're following a dangerous policy.  One country wants to bully the world.  We must not allow that.”  Mandela knows whereof he speaks.  He has been a lifelong member of the Communist underground and knows of Russia’s coming surprise nuclear attack on the West.  Mandela’s purpose in toppling the white-ruled South African government was to further a Soviet plan to control the world’s strategic mineral supplies and keep them out of reach of the West during the next world war.  That strategic plan is still on schedule, despite Russia’s feigning weakness.

                But what Mandela probably can’t figure out is why the US assisted in bringing down the white government in South Africa (to the detriment of US strategic security interests).  Most Communists assume the West is simply naive and stupid.  This is not the case with the highest Western globalist leaders.  Mandela would be surprised to know that the US Powers That Be are secretly pleased with his charge of bullying.  This is how they want to world to react.  In my analysis, the long-term objective of the US in fostering the crises that have occurred in both the Balkans and now the Middle East, and then subsequently intervening, has been to create an image of the US as an aggressor in the eyes of the world – an image that can be used to justify an eventual attack by the Russian/Chinese/Islamic axis of evil upon America.  A large-scale attack on this pillar of Western economic and military strength is vital to promote the globalists’ eventual aim of forging a New World Order via a global control system under the cover of war.

                I think the US/British globalists also want to control a major portion of Arabian oil supplies prior to the coming war, knowing that Western armies would be paralyzed without it.  This is another reason why Bush and his cohorts are so intent on pushing through with their plans to attack, and subsequently control, Iraq.

                Clearly, Iraq is trying to buy more time before the attack, looking for every opportunity to stall.  Its UN representative has proposed a meeting in Vienna on September 29 (a 9-day delay) to discuss with the UN the “physical arrangements” for the inspection team.  The US and Britain are pressing for an immediate meeting, hoping to force Iraq to admit that it really isn’t sincere about allowing inspections “without conditions.”  Already, Iraqi representatives have backtracked under pressure and hedged sufficiently for the US to declare the Iraqi offer a fraud and a tactical maneuver to forestall UN action.

                Even so, the Iraqi position has presented a major stumbling block to US action.  France had set Iraqi refusal to comply with UN inspection demands as the criteria for France’s participation in the invasion.  So, the Iraqi offer keeps France on the “no attack” side of the fence.  Even Saudi Arabia had acquiesced to allowing the US to use its bases in Arabia, but only if Iraq refused inspections and if the UN sanctions force against Iraq.  As it stands, the UN isn’t ready to declare the Iraqi offer a fraud just yet.  So the US is stuck, temporarily, with having to let the UN work through this latest offer. 

                The Bush team isn’t showing any signs of patience, however.  It continues to work at a breakneck pace to accomplish two fresh goals:  1) Rather than avoid Congressional approval (which was last week’s strategy), the Bush administration is actively and openly pressuring Congress to approve a resolution of war against Iraq, couched in slightly less obvious language.  Bush’s proposal to Congress asked that he be allowed to use “all means that he determines to be appropriate, including force, in order to enforce ‘United Nation's Security Council Resolutions,’ and defend the national security interests of the United States against the threat posed by Iraq, and restore international peace and security in the region.”– in other words, carte blanche powers, military force included.  That last phrase, ‘restore international peace and security in the region’ is a particularly dangerous phrase allowing Bush to invade any nation in the Middle East.   Note that by passing such a resolution, Congress doesn’t have to actually declare war, thus evading its Constitutional mandate.  2) The US and Britain are continuing to push the UN Security Council for a new resolution that incorporates a very short time schedule for Iraq to comply with inspections and all other prior resolutions, or else face armed intervention under a UN mandate.

                The US knows it has no chance of achieving a UN resolution if it can’t first convince Congress to back military force.  So, there is a full court press going on in Congress right now to influence a favorable vote by next week.  Even with a compliant Congress (a foregone conclusion, to me, given the level of support in the liberal media for the Bush agenda), a UN resolution is still in doubt.  Even if a majority of the Security Council members vote for the US/British proposal, Russia will probably use its veto power.  (Rumor has it that China has already made a deal with the US to go along if the US will look the other way as China further suppresses its Muslim minority in Eastern China.)  However, US strategists believe they can attack Iraq even with a Russian veto, without appearing to act unilaterally, as long as the vast majority in the Security Council have agreed to take action against Iraq.  US leaders may even prefer it this way if their long term goal is to antagonize the world. 

 

WHAT’S SO URGENT ABOUT THE TIMING?

The strangest aspect of this whole debate is the feeling one gets that the Bush team is desperate to attack soon, at almost any cost.  Despite a wall of lies promulgated by members of the administration and by most Republican members of Congress, assuring the press and the public that no determination has been made to attack and that no military plans are being readied, evidence abounds indicating the US in engaged in a massive buildup of military forces surrounding Iraq.  Most of the military personnel needed for the initial attack are already in place – 100,000 plus troops.  US Central Command is in the middle of moving 2/3 of its entire administrative staff of war planners to Qatar, including its top generals.  The Pentagon still needs to move tons of armor and equipment into position to start.  Private shipping sources, with whom the US is forced to contract to move heavy military equipment around the world, indicate huge numbers of military shipments are indeed on the rise.   B-2 bombers are being readied to shift bases from Whiteman AFB in Missouri to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.  All these are clear indications of an imminent attack.  It’s my guess that the administration wants to launch this war openly during the month of October, and time is getting short.  Why the rush? 

                Most pundits look to the superficial reason of the election.  They suspect the Bush administration wants a patriotic war fever to help Republicans win back the Senate during the mid-term election.  To have the maximum impact on the outcome of the election, the war needs to begin in October.  I’m sure there is some truth in this. 

                However, from the perspective of the globalist CFR insiders who really call the shots in government, they couldn’t much care what the Democrat/Republican mix is in Congress (other than its contribution to the facade of democracy).  These insiders control the leadership of both parties and can reliably count on at least 75% of Congress to go along with whatever the liberal media and pollsters sell to the American people. 

                I think the larger reason for this rush to war is the attempt to maintain the momentum of the phony “war on terrorism.”  With the complete absence of real terrorist incidents in the US since 9/11, and with the Afghanistan war going nowhere, the globalists desperately need another battlefront to keep up the patriotic war fever that has been used so successfully to justify increased government surveillance, military spending, reckless deficits, private sector bailouts, and a confused and impotent Congress.  Ultimately, there may be some relationship between this conflict and the larger timetable relative to inducing WWIII, but the latter is still too far off for any direct linkage to be apparent.  Despite my foreboding about the false reasons being promoted for this attack on Iraq, I still don’t sense it is going to be the trigger for the larger war.  It’s simply another pillar in the building of antagonism against the ugly American. 

 

FALSE MOTIVES

In previous briefs, I’ve pointed out the sheer hypocrisy of all the charges the US has made about Iraq (even though most are true).  Every one of these charges (secret deployment of weapons of mass destruction, cheating on disarmament agreements, reneging on promises, massive human rights violations, predator actions against neighbors) can and should be applied to any number of other countries, both weaker and stronger than Iraq: Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya, etc.  It is this singular aspect of selective enforcement of these charges that makes the Bush agenda so suspicious.  Because only Iraq is being targeted, there has to be some other motive for this attack.  I’ve already detailed what I believe those motives are.  

                Leaving aside that obvious hypocrisy, I want to focus on another unique aspect of this offensive, a characteristic of the US’s position that has never been consistently present before in America’s foreign relations policy.  At least verbally, the US is prosecuting, vigorously, the violations of a known predator.  No “give peace a chance,” no negotiations, no détente, no permissiveness.  Why the sudden about face?  The only similar mode of attack was against Serbia--another trumped up enemy and a resulting war to antagonize the world. 

                For years, conservatives like myself have complained about US permissiveness regarding Communist revolutionaries: the secret US aid which flows to such groups, the impressions given by the liberal media of these revolutionaries as freedom fighters against oppressive “right wing” governments, the apathy of the US  regarding Russia or China arming our enemies.  Our government has consistently rewarded China and Russia with aid and technology transfers despite their known predator intentions.  The government has always had a series of ready excuses why we can’t threaten Russia or China, even when they were once weak and vulnerable: we have to “give peace a chance;” we must avoid provocation; we must use trade to induce them to be more democratic.  Now that they have grown too big for the US to attack directly, our government talks to us about mutually assured destruction and détente. 

                A controversy has been raging among conservatives about whether or not US duplicity, complacency, and permissiveness regarding Communist revolutionary movements as well as mature predator nations is born out of stupidity, liberal naiveté, or conspiracy to undermine US national sovereignty.  Those who have held to theories of stupidity or liberal naiveté (the latter of which surely does exist at lower and mid-levels of government) have for years been able to document a consistency in our government’s soft-thinking foreign policy.  Even during the heat of the Vietnam War, we were placating the Communists and allowing them safe havens and other protections so as to not “inflame” Russia or China. 

                But now in this Iraq situation we have a major contradiction.  We see that they very same leaders who have played soft on tyranny for generations, do indeed see all the tough arguments and can use them – just like conservatives would if the enemy were a real threat to the US (which Iraq is not.  To Israel it is, but not to the US).  To me, this is a vindication of the conspiracy argument.  US leaders aren’t stupid or naive after all.  They can be tough when they want to be.  This leads to the larger and more profound question: why don’t they want to be tough on the real enemies of the West, Russia and China? 

                Coincidentally, just as these contradictions are beginning to become obvious to the world, a secret Bush Hit List has been suspiciously leaked by the Pentagon to The Daily Mirror (UK).  In an article entitled, Hit List Draws World Outrage, British authors Alexandra Williams and Bob Roberts reported, “President Bush faced world anger last night over America's seven-nation nuclear hit list.  British MPs joined the outcry after a leaked Pentagon report revealed contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Libya.  The secret policy was denounced as warmongering ‘lunacy.’  Alarmed officials from Moscow to Tehran warned that the ‘power crazy’ President, buoyed up by the successful campaign in Afghanistan, could plunge the world into chaos.  British politicians said the strategy threatened the stability of the NATO alliance.”  The US press, meanwhile, is silent about this blockbuster revelation. 

                I think this leak was pure disinformation, intended to anger the world rather than actually threaten the nations listed.  Its intended audience was not Americans, but the rest of the world – so the leak went to Europe.  After 50 years of pandering to rogue nations, there is no reason to believe the powerful establishment behind Bush is really serious about nuking any of these seven nations, including Iraq.  These nations should have been destabilized and undermined in their infancy, if US leaders had any intent to counter the threats posed by each of these nations.  Instead, they have been consistently sheltered, fostered and promoted by the West. 

                That aside, what I see in this leak is an attempt to further the image of George Bush as a loose cannon, a “shoot from the hip” cowboy president who is a danger to world stability.  This presumed “hit list” policy of Bush, combined with his fetish for attacking Iraq, is beginning to make the US look like a menace to the world  – which, in the worlds of Marxist spokesman Nelson Mandela, the world “must not allow.”  My analysis is that this antagonism is intentional.  The US is being set up for the mother of all terrorist acts – a nuclear pre-emptive strike by a major power, justified as backlash for US predations around the world. 

 

SEPT 27

 

RUSSIA CONTINUES TO MANEUVER FOR FUTURE WAR

Jane's Defence Weekly (a front for British intelligence) reports that Russia intends to retain its strategic stockpile of MIRV nuclear warheads beyond the START II treaty deadline.  Nikolai Novichkov, Jane’s Moscow correspondent, writes, “Russia will not destroy its arsenal of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in the timeline stipulated under the provisions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II (START II), but will retain its MIRV capability until 2016, according to Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov.  Following the signing of the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty by US President George Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin on 28 May, Russia announced it would withdraw from the provisions of START II.”

                How convenient.  The US president tells the American people he has negotiated another great treaty with the continuing Soviets, and now we find that the Russians will be the beneficiaries after all.  According to Jane’s, “The decision means that Russia will now retain some 154 liquid-fuelled RS-20V (NATO reporting name: SS-18 'Satan') heavy ICBMs and combat rail-mobile missile complexes (RMMCs) with 36 RS-22V (SS-24 'Scalpel') ICBMs, each carrying 10 MIRV warheads.  All ICBMs of this type were to be phased out before 2003 and eliminated before 2007 under the provisions of START II.”  Note that the US had agreed, in mutual reciprocation, to dismantle its best ICBMs, the MX “Peacekeeper” missiles by 2003.  Now that the Russians are reneging we should too--but we are not.  Its “damn the obvious dangers---full speed ahead” with suicidal disarmament.

                Jane’s also found out that Russia’s reneging on the START II treaty was no surprise to the US.  Indeed, Russia had already informed the US of their intentions before the Bush-Putin summit in Moscow.  As Jane’s reports, “‘Even before the US announced its withdrawal from the ABM Treaty we [Russia] had informed US officials that these missile systems would remain on alert,’ Ivanov said. He added that essentially the decision implies that the heavy ICBMs with MIRVs will be phased out as their service lives expire. ‘This will enable [us to retain] the RS-20 missiles on alert until 2016,’ he said.  The possibility of retaining another division armed with such missiles is also being considered. [I’ll bet it is!] Extending the service lives of the missiles will require additional funding, and would include the cost of a reduction in procurement of new SS-27 Topol-M ICBMs.”  [End of Jane’s quote].

                This last statement about reducing production of Russia’s newest and most dangerous ICBM, the Topol-M, is pure disinformation.  This missile is being produced in secret underground factories that US inspectors are not allowed to visit.  President Putin also announced this month that all information about arms exports would be classified secret.  As the largest supplier of weapons technology of mass destruction, this announcement by Russia doesn’t sound like Russia is cooperating with the US on the war on terror.  

 

OCT 4

 

HEZBOLLAH: ONE ENEMY THAT REALLY NEEDS DISARMING BY ISRAEL

Even though Israel is gearing up for the coming Iraqi attack – being a primary target of Iraqi aggression – several Israeli generals are not convinced Iraq is really the big problem.  In an article published in the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, Reserve Brig. Gen. Aharon Levran stated, “the Bush administration has no solid grounds for waging war on Saddam Hussein and the variety of risks Saddam poses are exaggerated.”  The general disputes that Saddam has nuclear weapons, and says that Iraq has had several opportunities to use its chemical and biological weapons, but has refrained (i.e.: during the Gulf war, and during the Scud missile attacks on US troops and Israel).  This is true.  The Bush administration has never satisfactorily explained why Saddam has not yet used his WMD even when attacked. 

                The larger threat of war in the region is clearly from directly north of Israel, in southern Lebanon and in Syria (the latter, ironically, a US backed member of the UN Security Council).  As the New York Times reported on Sep. 27, “Over the last year, the radical Lebanese Shi'ite militia [Hezbollah] has amassed thousands of short-range rockets provided to the group by Iran and transported via Syria.  These deliveries, which include some 8,000 to 9,000 12 kilometer range Katyusha rockets, as well as several hundred of the longer range, Iranian made Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 missiles, have transformed southern Lebanon into a powder keg.” 

                While I suspect that the US will tackle Syria and Lebanon after Iraq, one wonders why the US is prohibiting Israel from launching any pre-emptive strikes into Lebanon right now.  This is an operation clearly within Israel’s power.  It seems that the Bush team is anxious to do it themselves, as part of their efforts to alienate forevermore the entire Arab world.

 

WHY AMERICANS ARE SO HO-HUM ABOUT WAR

Part of the reason Americans tend to be so passive about involvement in war, is that government has learned to shield Americans from the costs of war.  In WWII the US government had to use relatively honest accounting to pay for the war.  They raised taxes, and sold bonds.  Now, with deficit spending policies and journal entries creating billions of dollars out of thin air, the real costs can be kept relatively hidden.  So, the American public stays asleep. 

                The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported last week that the deployments to the Persian Gulf will cost between $9 and $13 billion and that the monthly cost of any war will be between $6 and $9 billion.  That is probably understated.  Some military sources in the region have said they have seen more equipment come into the area in the last four months than in the entire Gulf War.  An additional $5-7 billion would be required to bring the army home – IF there is no prolonged peacekeeping effort.  Judging from our post-war policies in Afghanistan, US troops, as in all “peacekeeping” operations, may be in for a permanent deployment.  A five year occupation could cost more than $272 billion according to CBO.  In other words, this little fiasco could have a $300 billion or more price tag.  Combined with an estimated $200 billion cost of US involvement in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Afghanistan, the result will be at least $500 billion spent on wars of intervention before the decade is over.  That’s $1,850 for every man, woman and child in America, or about $7,500 per family – on top of all other state, local and federal taxes (currently about 50% of income).  I’m betting that if people were informed of their individual monetary liability for these wars of intervention, they would not be so passive about its approval.

 

GERRY ADAM’S TERRORIST BACKGROUND

Remember Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein (the political arm of the IRA), who was welcomed and embraced by Bill Clinton as a peace broker in the terrorist war in Northern Ireland?  History, always late, has finally confirmed my suspicions that Adams was, in fact, no pacifist.  The Sunday Tribune of Belfast published excerpts from the blockbuster new book, A Secret History of the IRA, by Ed Moloney, an internationally respected reporter for the Tribune.

                As leader of Sinn Fein, Adams has always denied that he was either a member of the IRA, or a terrorist.  In reality, he was both.  The Sunday Tribune said in an editorial in the same edition that, “Nobody has believed him, and there has been a realization that there are understandable tactical reasons for this deception.  But it does not mean that everyone should acquiesce with this lie...Adams was responsible for many horrendous acts, even if he chooses for his own reasons to continue to deny them.”

                According to Moloney, Adams became a senior Irish Republican Army commander in 1971, and was the commander of the second battalion of the Belfast IRA, a team of 400 terrorists and support personnel.  They carried out hundreds of bombings and dozens of shooting attacks in Belfast.  Adams, working under the pseudonym of Joe McGuigan, evaded arrest for more than a year – partly because British intelligence officers didn't know what he looked like, and partly because Adams kept moving around to various safe houses.  When he was caught in March of 1972, he was brutally interrogated in order to break through his alibi.  The police determined that Adams directed the Belfast IRA's operations officer, Brendan Hughes, to go to New York City in early 1972 to smuggle hundreds of US-made AR-16 rifles to Belfast. 

                According to one CIA defector, Adams was assisted by the CIA in this arms smuggling.  The CIA also directly aided the IRA, a known terrorist organization, by flying at least one C130 aircraft to Belfast loaded with guns, ammunition and stinger missiles – all with the knowledge of Britain and Irish authorities.  My claim of collusion of US and British authorities with the IRA is backed up by the very existence of Moloney’s book.  Moloney could only have gotten this information by being the recipient of leaks from British Intelligence – which means that British intelligence have long known about Adams’ background and have covered up for him.  This lends credence to my conclusion that honest Western intelligence agents are under certain gag orders to not reveal embarrassing information about protected enemies that gets in the way of the globalist conflict agenda. 

 

OCT 11

 

LATIN AMERICA: AMERICA’S VULNERABLE BACK DOOR

While President Bush keeps America focused on his trumped up war with Iraq, our own hemispheric underbelly is crumbling from financial chaos and blazing with anti-American sentiment.  Brazil, Latin America’s largest and most powerful nation, has just given a huge vote of confidence to their first openly Marxist presidential candidate.  Luis Lula da Silva, leader of the Worker’s Party (far left, Communist in orientation), won a near majority on the first ballot: 47%.  Lacking the 50% required for outright victory, da Silva will face establishment candidate Jose Serra, who was hand-picked by the current ruling party but only garnered 25% of the vote, in a final runoff.  Da Silva’s victory in the runoff is assured by the announced support of another far-left candidate, Ciro Gomez, who received 12% of the vote.  Even though da Silva publicly moderated his anti-capitalist verbiage in order to win, backing away from earlier threats to repudiate Brazil's foreign debt and to sever ties with the International Monetary Fund, I am convinced he is another Nelson Mandela, carefully concealing his radical agenda until he gains power.  He has a long confiscation agenda like Mandela and  Zimbabwe’s Mugabe, though da Silva will probably be more careful in its execution.  Presuming da Silva wins the election, Brazil with its 175 million people will join Venezuela and Cuba as Latin America’s primary front-line nations with Communist leaders.  There are at least half a dozen other national leaders in Latin America with secret ties to the far-left as well.  However, Brazil will be a significant asset to the Communist cause due to its strong industrial potential.  It has a large military and an ongoing nuclear research program.  Da Silva will certainly want to eventually harness this most powerful of Latin nations for the cause of international Communism. 

 

As author of Strategic Relocation, I often get asked, what about moving to Costa Rica or other Latin American countries for a long-term strategic retreat?  Having lived and consulted in Latin America a few years, I’ve always given Central and South America low marks as a safe haven for Americans due to the latent Marxist menace posed by the predominance of radical Communists that pervade government, media and intellectual circles.  The most radical Communists went underground after several nations undertook ruthless tactics to eliminate, without a trial, Latin America’s burgeoning force of urban guerrillas (operating out of the autonomous universities where police are barred from entering).  This effort was deemed necessary because Marxists who dominated the judiciary in Latin America would not prosecute their fellow leftists.  Since then, like America’s anti-Vietnam radicals, these Marxist intellectuals have played as if they have reformed, taking up establishment jobs in government, the unions, the universities, and the press.  However, they haven’t given up their ardent hatred of America and capitalism.  Now, they are coming out of the woodwork in droves as nation after nation is failing economically and giving them a cause celebre.  The socialist bandwagon is failing, but Marxists have found others to blame.

 

Rather than blame socialism, Marxists are blaming austerity measures imposed by the Americans (via the IMF and World Bank) for the financial insolvency of these socialist nations.  After years of being lured into larger and larger deficits through Western loans (to finance capital-sapping socialist programs), Latin America is nearly bankrupt and its love affair with the big “sugar daddy” to the north is coming to an end.  Dissatisfaction with US dominance is pervading a full range of groups, not just the radical left – mainly due to the influence of the leftist controlled media.  Meanwhile, Latin America is too far gone into socialism to survive the world financial recession that is in process, even if the US continues to dump more money into these bankrupt nations.  Only debt repudiation and forgiveness will give Latin America more time, but the US can hardly afford to let its international banks take the hit, and taxpayers won’t go along with absorbing the debt themselves in the midst of a deep recession.  Thus, it appears that the resentment, anger, and disillusion with half-free markets in Latin America will continue. 

 

All of this points to why Americans need to start taking note of what’s happening down south.  If Latin America is allowed to build upon this burgeoning Marxist agenda, we could see massive social unrest and backlash directed right at the US.

 

Mexico is in a perfect position to serve as the channel for that retaliation, given the almost non-existent border controls between our two countries.  US Border Patrol agents are discouraged and disheartened at the lack of any US mandate to crack down on our porous border.  Drug couriers cross daily with the known collusion of Mexican police, and US border agents have been fired upon by Mexican border patrolmen intruding onto American land.  Even more suspicious is the fact that American border patrolmen are purposely assigned sectors to watch which are miles away from known alien crossing points.  They sit in the vehicles for hours, while aliens pour across the border, uninhibited, at other known locations.  These and other practices (such as allowing sealed Mexican trucks to cross the border without inspection, even when drug sniffing dogs indicate there are drugs on board) indicate a level of official US government collusion in illegal immigration and drug smuggling that belies administration claims of concern.  Tens of whistleblowers in both the INS and the DEA have been silenced by higher ups covering for these policies which are in open opposition to stated American objectives. 

 

Now, globalist Mexican leader Vicente Fox and global US lackey George W. Bush are colluding to break down what few barriers exist between Mexico and the US.  America could long ago have put up a suitable border barrier to illegal immigration, monitoring it with night vision surveillance cameras, but our leaders have consistently chosen not to do so.  They have always offered the public a variety of politically correct excuses for their inaction, but the real reason lies in the fact that multicultural conflict is part and parcel of the global agenda to break down national barriers.  Once those barriers are down between Latin America and the US, Mexico will serve as an open door to American welfare state goodies even more than it is today – thanks to unique and unprecedented US court rulings giving illegal aliens open access to public education and welfare benefits. 

 

It is worth noting here that Fox recently decided to pull Mexico out of the Rio Pact, an inter-American treaty signed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil which stipulates that “an armed attack by any State against an American state shall be considered as an attack against all the American States, and, consequently, each one of the said Contracting Parties undertakes to assist in meeting the attack in the exercise of the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense...”   The leftist Organization of American States, operating out of Washington DC, is the political embodiment of this pact.  The Rio Pact has never been formally brought into use since there has been no foreign invasion of any nation in this hemisphere since its signing (except for the Communist takeover of Cuba, which was secretly backed by the CIA and the US State Department).  It is also viewed as a moot point given US exclusive dominance in hemispheric affairs.  However, Mexico’s withdrawal from the pact is still considered to hold significant political repercussions.  The left is viewing Fox’s move as a sign of protest against US unilateralism in the coming war with Iraq.  However, I believe Fox is simply playing hardball, hoping to give Bush an excuse to be conciliatory to Mexico and accelerate this new open border agreement – which will include another grant of widespread amnesty to Mexican illegal immigrants. 

 

NOV 1

 

DC SNIPER CONNECTIONS THAT POINT TO ORGANIZED BACKING

A lot more information has become available in the past week since alleged DC sniper John Allen Williams (a.k.a. John Muhammad, Wayne Weeks, and Wayne Weekley) was arrested with his 17-year-old illegal immigrant sidekick, Lee Boyd Malvo (a.k.a. John Lee Malvo).  In particular, there has been ample information to indicate that Williams had significant connections to larger illegal resources or organizations. 

 

Multiple Identities:  Williams was a trafficker in false identities, sufficiently sophisticated in his methods as to indicate that he was a stringer for a larger dark-side operation.  Williams had on his person multiple identify cards, the making of which, according to experts, required knowledge of sophisticated computer programs to digitally alter photographs, text and artwork  (i.e., Adobe Photoshop).  There is no indication from his former wife or friends that he personally had such knowledge.  At least one former identity client of Williams has said that Williams represented that, in addition to providing a viable new identity, he could get his entire criminal history expunged as well.  While sophisticated hackers might be able to do such tasks, this, again, was far beyond Williams’ apparent level of expertise and indicates he was merely fronting for organized terror, organized crime, or dark-side government operations which can deliver on such promises.

 

Extensive Travel:  The Rev. Alan Archer, who runs the Lighthouse Mission homeless shelter where
Williams and Malvo often stayed, reported that Williams would often claim extreme poverty, and yet at times procure large quantities of cash and fly off to such destinations as the Caribbean, Florida on business, and to Denver and Salt Lake City for skiing.  Archer said that Williams frequently took phone calls from travel agents, so his jet-setting was a regular affair.  This kind of activity is highly indicative of the fact that Williams was part of some sort of international ring.  He stated to several friends that he moved to Bellingham to be near the Canadian border, so he could quickly get out of the US if needed. 

 

Immigrant Smuggling:  Williams is suspected of being involved in the smuggling of immigrants from Antigua and Jamaica, which requires participation in an illegal human smuggling pipeline.  Stories are now surfacing of his helping various people escape prosecution by the INS and jump the border from Florida to Antigua.  He was observed by friends in Antigua with multiple forged passports.  Illegal immigrant trafficking necessitates close dealings with the forged documents industry. 

 

Federal Enforcement Ambivalence: Bellingham Police had multiple reports about suspicious activities of Williams, including a visit to a gunsmith for size modifications to his rifle and the fitting of a silencer, during which he openly stated to a witness that he intended to kill police officers.  Incredibly, police claim they never followed up on the tips, instead passing the information on to the FBI, who interviewed the complainant.  The FBI claims it was in the jurisdiction of the ATF and passed along the report to them.  ATF Special Agent Patrick Berarducci told the Seattle Times that his agency heard about Williams and the silencer only from a casual conversation between officers at the Bellingham Police Department.  Considering the ruthlessness with which the ATF pursues honest gunshop owners, let alone individuals who openly threaten police, their ambivalence regarding Williams’ actions is highly suspect.  As for Malvo, he was arrested as an illegal alien in December, 2001, but avoided deportation to his native Jamaica when the US Immigration and Naturalization Service overruled a Border Patrol recommendation that he be deported.

 

Multiple Rifles, No Paper Trail:  The facts surrounding the rifle which authorities supposedly found in Williams’ Chevrolet Caprice when he was arrested (initially police reported to ABC news that there was no weapon found in the car) are becoming as convoluted as those surrounding the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle Lee Harvey Oswald supposedly used to shoot JFK.   In fact, there are now two Bushmaster rifles.  The first was purchased by Williams at Welcher’s Gun Shop in Tacoma (Dec. 1999), but then resold back to the shop on May 23, 2000 – a few months after Williams’ wife obtained a restraining order on him, making it illegal for him to possess a weapon.  The so-called warrants issued for Williams’ arrest in Maryland were based on his supposed possession of this rifle after the date of the restraining order.  However, since this original rifle had been resold to another person in Tacoma (who still has the rifle), with the appropriate documentation filed as required by ATF regulations, there was no standing legal basis for the Williams arrest warrant – nor for suspecting that this rifle was involved in the sniping.  In fact, the FBI’s national database on outstanding warrants was queried eleven times in reference to the license plates of Williams’ Caprice, and turned up no outstanding warrants for Williams.

                This brings us to the rifle said to have been found in Williams’ Chevrolet Caprice.  The serial number allowed the weapon to be traced from the gun manufacturer to Bullseye Shooter Supply, the largest gun dealer in Tacoma.  However, even after multiple visits by the ATF, Bullseye’s database shows no records of a sale of the rifle to Williams, or any of Williams’ multiple identities.  In fact, the records for this rifle as well as for 340 other weapons are entirely missing – a violation of law (for a gun shop) akin to murder.   Rarely will a gun shop under ATF’s rapacious scrutiny show any discrepancy in tracking the sale of a gun.  No honest gun shop will ever get caught selling any gun without the required background check.  Yet here we have the largest gun shop in the area (owned by a former Army sniper) guilty of 340 missing sales records for guns no longer in his possession.  The dearth in Bullseye’s database is not even news to ATF officials: An ATF audit taken in 2001 uncovered evidence of 150 lost records by the gun shop at that time.  Unbelievably, Bullseye not only has not been sanctioned by the ATF, despite the prior audit, but it is still in business.  Ask any other gun shop owner if such ostensible good fortune is possible within the ATF oversight system.  Frankly, all this smacks of government collusion in illegal weapons tracking, despite the ATF’s claim that it doesn’t know why these discrepancies weren’t prosecuted.  For me, it is impossible to believe that Bullseye’s owner (who has the reputation of being a stickler for paperwork) would allow any more errors after the initial 150 discrepancies found in the former audit.  Strangely, the ATF is praising the owner for his cooperation and suggesting that his employees may be “selling weapons out the backdoor.”  This is simply not believable that the ATF would again look the other way and not hold the owner responsible--they do in all other cases.  This has all the signs of a cover-up.  As with 9/11, suddenly all the most ruthlessly efficient federal police and intelligence agencies are feigning “incompetence” (and asserting that to remedy the problem, millions more in funding is needed – but no dismissal of responsible leaders). 

 

Mind Control Indicator:  I have always been a skeptic regarding broad-based mind control efforts – especially of normal people with a normal degree of conscience.  But in specific cases, it is possible that directed mind control techniques may be effectively applied.  The secret CIA study of mind control (MK Ultra) proved that a combination of mind altering drugs and hypnosis, applied to certain unstable people under duress, can be used to control behavior.  Apparently the CIA, in cruel and coercive top secret experiments, were able to program certain subjects to respond to key trigger words or phrases.  This may be the purpose behind the demand by one of the callers to the “tips” hotline that the police publicly announce the following words: “We have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose.”  In my opinion, this hint was dropped by Williams’ controllers.  The phrase was probably a subliminal signal that triggered Williams to set in motion a quick series of bad judgments (like going to sleep at a public highway rest stop) that would ensure his getting caught. 

 

Other Anomalies, Too-Good-To-Be-True Evidence:  Just like the preposterous finding of an intact, pristine passport, supposedly belonging to one of the 9/11 hijackers, among the rubble of the World Trade Center, there has been a series of all-too-convenient pieces of evidence linking Williams and Malvo with the sniping attacks.  For instance, we are supposed to believe that Williams and Malvo were almost caught by a police car fleeing the scene of one attack, and that Malvo conveniently dropped a gun catalog out the window with his fingerprints all over it.  Then there was the story of the $10 million ransom paid to a stolen credit card account, which was supposedly linked to the Montgomery Alabama liquor store shooting that Malvo was involved with.  Even if Williams was stupid enough to think he could take custody of ransom money paid to a stolen account, the whole link with Alabama was false.  In fact, there was no stolen credit card involved with the Alabama robbery/killing at the liquor store, according to Alabama police.  The credit card in question originated from an Arizona bus driver whose purse was stolen.  The original report by the Montgomery, AL police said a $12.01 charge for gasoline was made to it in the Washington, DC area.  Later the story was changed by the FBI to show a charge made in Tacoma, Washington, as well.  Of course, the FBI are not making any of the original documents regarding these transactions publicly available, which makes their version of the story even less credible.

                Another anomaly has come up regarding the story of the priest (Monsignor William V. Sullivan) that supposedly got a plea from the sniper on his answering machine and forwarded the information to the Sniper Task Force.  Now we find out that it was the FBI that came to Sullivan, not the other way around.  That means they had been tracing his calls and knew his whereabouts beforehand.  The FBI won’t say how they knew which call to trace. 

 

Conclusions:  The evidence points clearly to the conclusion that Williams was involved with some larger criminal organization, perhaps even the dark side of the federal government (with its gun control agenda).  Most of the illegal activities mentioned above cannot  be successfully engaged in as a loner.  Williams was definitely part of a team just as every drug dealer is part of a larger network. 

                It is strange that the Justice Department (which has taken control of the case, forcing local police to break off interrogations) has refused to imply any terrorist connections in this case, considering how anxious they are to promote the view that we are on the “verge of a big terrorist attack.”  Perhaps it is because Williams’ so called conversion to Islam was via radical Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, which enjoys protected status in America being composed of radical leftist Afro-Americans.  Ashcroft did not, however, hesitate to force a strained connection between the Portland black terrorist-wannabes, who were also converts to the Nation of Islam (with individual roots leading back to the Black Panthers).   My suspicion is that the feds are evading tying Williams to Islamic terror since their is a desire to shield Williams’ accomplices from exposure.   As in the JFK conspiracy, the government is insisting on the “lone assassin” theory.   Is this strange behavior for the DOJ?  Not at all, consider the long line of cover-ups the federal government has been involved with.  They are still covering for the Middle Eastern accomplices that were involved with Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in the OKC bombing.   

 

NOV 8

 

ELECTION ANALYSIS:  DEATH OF THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM

I’m not referring to the demise of the Democratic Party, which is all too alive and well for the comfort of my property and ownership rights.  But then again, I take no comfort in the born-again semi-socialist Bush Republicans who have jumped on the liberal “compassion” bandwagon in order to buy votes and deliver the “pork.”  It was bad enough when America was dominated by two giant political party machines, to the exclusion of third parties to the right and left of center.  That still goes on, but at least in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, both Democrats and Republicans made at least some pretenses to significant and differing ideologies that really mattered. 

                Now, after Tuesday’s election, it is obvious that ideology, as a political vehicle for debate, is dead; only the “irrelevant” third parties promote and argue substantive ideas and issues.  Democrats increasingly have to play the moderate socialist role, and Republicans have to promise to maintain or increase the level of government benefits voters have come to expect as their “right.”  Neither party owns up to the socialist label anymore and the public doesn’t seem to care what you call it.  This morphing of both parties toward the center-left has been going on in earnest since the Clinton era of the 90’s, but it wasn’t quite so obvious then because the Clintons were so intrinsically connected to the far left.   The contrast of the Clintons with even liberal Republicans made it all too easy for Republicans to move left and still appear on the “right.”  But now, with a supposed conservative Republican in the White House, the transposition of both major parties into one semi-socialist bickering whole has become obvious. 

                Almost no Republican or Democratic candidates in this current election ran on ideological issues.  Major candidates are not even bound by party platforms anymore, watered down as they are.  Both parties have abandoned their root ideologies and are engaged in a battle over pragmatic semi-socialist “solutions,” which concentrate on empowering government to solve all the ills that government itself has caused through over-regulation, defilement of money, deceptive accounting, mismanagement of resources, and usurpation of rights.    Democrats deride Republicans for protecting corporate greed and sleight-of-hand  accounting, but they never criticize their own super-corporation (government), which is the most inefficient, corrupt and deceptive of all.  None but the libertarians and constitutional conservatives (derisively labeled as “Patriots” by mainstream pundits) dare challenge the new status quo and declare that the emperor has no clothes.

                This general loss of ideology has been exacerbated by the prosecution of the “war on terror” – a selective, skewed campaign which officials have already conceded may never end.  Trumped-up fears of terrorism, fomented by persistent media drumbeats and official Justice Department warnings, have had a truly rejuvenating effect on government power.  Political candidates of both major parties, displaying the expected level of blind patriotism and unquestioning support of government efforts in this time of “crisis,” have become caught up in this government expansion wave, wrangling over who can best administer policies for micromanaging economies, war strategies, and social welfare schemes.  None of these central planning objectives can possibly prove successful, but the efforts sound good to a public wont to believe in illusions of peace and prosperity.

                Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans are still just as rancorous and distrustful of each other as ever – due to the very fact that each party has been forced to compromise away from its ideological roots.  Who has forced them into these compromises?   I believe it was and is the secret combination of globalist leaders who work mostly behind the scenes to control top positions in both major political parties and the major media (and all other key centers of power in government and business).  Globalist NWO leaders are uniformly socialist and controlling in belief and allegiance, but they have used the free market as bait to lure in conservatives and to keep socialism alive.  While Communists attempt to kill all free market incentives, Western globalist socialists have learned to harness free markets in behalf of government control. 

                This has not always been the case.  The Powers That Be (PTB) worked hard at suppressing free markets up through the 1970’s, but they changed tactics in the 80’s for two reasons:  First, socialism was well on its inevitable downward spiral to failure by that time, and was giving the Democratic government of Jimmy Carter a very bad image. Second, the PTB realized conservatives could be more easily corrupted by giving them the impression that they are “winning” on certain fronts (in exchange for some crucial compromises) than by engaging in direct ideological confrontation.  So the PTB began a limited promotion of free markets, forcing Democrats to moderate in their socialist position.  By changing ideological tactics in this manner, the PTB have been able to entice conservative Republicans into more compromises over the years, since Republicans have been led to believe that compromise gave them their free market “victories.”   In point of fact, the victories will prove to be only temporary, while the associated compromises of our liberty and sovereignty will be permanent.

                Regarding this past election, the hard core left in the Democratic Party is angry with their election defeat and is even more determined than before to push the Democratic Party back to its Marxist roots.  They clearly recognize that the Democrats have had to moderate their leftist stance in the face of the popularity of the Bush war-wagon.  In fact, they blame the Democratic defeat on these compromises, insisting that Democratic candidates did not sufficiently distinguish themselves from the new liberal Republican stance.  I think they are as out of touch as they always have been.  With Democratic Minority Leader Dick Gephardt’s announcement that he is stepping down, the Democratic left wing is nominating radical San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.  She is touted as number two in the party and is a well-known liberal.  The moderate wing is putting up Rep. Martin Frost of Texas, a moderate, but unexciting leader who said on Thursday that the only way to keep the party together is by staying in the center.   Frost is right, and I think he will come out the winner.  If Democrats choose Pelosi, they have a death wish.  

                One of the bright spots of the election was that despite the recent DC sniper incidents, 18 out of 23 pro-Second Amendment Congressmen won election victories on Tuesday.  This will make it harder for the anti-gun forces in both major parties. Compromising Republicans will showcase this election as an example of why compromise is good.  They will correctly be able to point out that, had any of these candidates taken a hard-line constitutional conservative position, they would have lost each of the tight races that were won.  However, don’t be deceived into thinking of these victories as an indication that the nation is turning back to the right.   On the contrary, the nation is being hardened towards the center-left, which is being billed as a moderate position.  True conservative Republicans standing on principle don’t have a chance of victory in the current political climate. 

                What this translates into is the demise of influence of the ideological conservative wing in the Republican Party.  The more successful liberal strategists like Karl Rowe are, the more real conservatives of liberty will be shunted aside and viewed as irrelevant.  If true conservatives want to have a real impact on the compromising direction of the Republicans, they need to leave the party, quit voting for the “lesser of two evils,” and join one of the principled third parties on the right (such as Libertarian, American, Constitution, US Taxpayers, or Independent American).   This will cause a vote split that will admittedly cause more Republicans to lose.  Only then,  when Republican leaders see that conservatives have the power to deny them victory, will Republican leaders show a willingness to realign themselves with the Republican roots of constitutional, limited government. The longer conservatives play a supportive roll in the Republican Party, the harder it will be to regain any power within the party (assuming you believe the Republican Party is redeemable – which I do not, at the national level.  I think it is controlled by the same globalist forces that control the Democrats).

                Does the shift in power towards the Republicans as a result of this election portend a real change in American politics?  No, because the silencing of legitimate opposition forces to current globalist objectives was essentially complete before the election.  It has simply reached a more permanent plateau.  Already Bush is demonstrating his impatience with the course of world events.  He can’t even wait for his new majority Senate to be assembled before pushing on with the globalist agenda.  He has demanded that the lame duck Senate session quickly pass his Homeland Security bill, which will give the federal government unprecedented powers to surveil and restrict any domestic opposition to his vaunted war on terror.  Also, he engaged in non-stop lobbying of France and Russia to gain their approval on his latest Iraq resolution for the UN Security Council, which just passed today--unanimously.   The Bush enticements or threats will someday shock the nation when they finally leak out. Bush now has a firm countdown to work with even as he marshalls US forces for the inevitable attack on Iraq.   At the first sign of non-compliance with the “new and improved” inspection regime, Bush will attack.  France was bought with one or two word changes that allow President Chirac to save face.  Even Russia and Syria caved in at the last moment.  Apparently, Saddam is expendable, for now.  It is also obvious that no one wants to tangle with the US juggernaut just yet--but that day will surely come.  Bush is on a roll, and the result will antagonize the world in ways America has never imagined.  The backlash will be unprecedented.     

 

NOV 15

 

HOMELAND SECURITY BILLS ADD TO GOVERNMENT SNOOPING POWERS

Not satisfied with the draconian powers already granted by the grossly mistitled USA PATRIOT Act, the Bush administration keeps adding to its wish list of surveillance powers with each new piece of security legislation.  Bush is now on a roll, with his new election mandate, and he is pursuing his course of dismantling US Constitutional protections with relish and enthusiasm.  Congress has become, by and large, a rubber stamp for anything done in the name of this phony war on terror.  Here are the latest disasters for our civil rights in the offing:

                Office ofTotal Information Awareness (TIA): This is a new bureaucracy intent on putting together the most comprehensive database about the private affairs of every person in America.  It is another brain child of DARPA, the ultra secret Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency which spends billions in off-budget black projects that go unreported to US taxpayers.  As William Safire describes the OIA in his recent NY Times piece “You are the Suspect,” “Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as ‘a virtual, centralized grand database.’  To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you — passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the FBI, your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance — and you have the supersnoop's dream: a ‘Total Information Awareness.’”

                This new office is to be funded by a $200 million budget (for starters) and is to be headed by John Poindexter – another of the NSA/Pentagon crowd from the Reagan/Bush years, like Donald Rumsfeld who has also been called back into service for George W.  I have good friends from my former days as a Marine officer who know Poindexter personally, and who think highly of him.  Granted, he is brilliant – he graduated first in his class at the Naval Academy, holds a doctorate in physics, and was one of Reagan’s top national security advisors.  But he also has a long history of working for the dark side of US special operations. 

                Poindexter was a key player in the Iran-Contra scandal whereby the Republicans (even before being elected – which tells us something about secret power in America) used government aircraft and offices to consummate the sale of American missiles to the terrorist government of Iran, as a ransom for US embassy hostages, with the proviso that their release be delayed until after the election to help ensure Carter’s defeat. The code name of this illegal black operation was appropriately October Surprise.  Poindexter and Oliver North were further involved in the diversion of Iranian funds to the Nicaraguan Contras (which also involved CIA drug running through Arkansas’ Mena airport, directly supervised over and profited in by then-Governor Bill Clinton).  The military aid part of this deal constituted a portion of the secret NSA dealings which at least had some patriotic justification, owing to the fact that the Contras were fighting Communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua (who, ironically, had put into power with the knowing assistance of Carter’s leftist State Department).  

                 I think dark side controllers in government always try to provide patriotic military men like Poindexter and North with some anti-Communist rationale that helps convince them to go along with illegal secret operations.  Sadly, once useful men like Poindexter become insiders (or so they think) they become all too trusting of government secrecy and black operations.  For Poindexter to be directing the level of compromise inherent in the OIA’s unconstitutional surveillance of ordinary Americans, indicates that he is either very naive or compromised to a degree my friends don’t realize.  In 1990, a jury convicted Poindexter on five felony counts of making false statements during a Congressional investigation.  However, his conviction was overturned on a technicality:  Congress had given him partial immunity for his testimony.  In fact, he did lie to cover for the illegal acts of government, and specifically to protect the President from scrutiny.  This kind of misplaced loyalty on the part of our military leaders is detrimental to citizen oversight of government.

 

House Revision of Homeland Security Bill:  On Nov. 13, the House passed several new addendums to the Homeland Security Bill that continue to point to a dark side agenda in the Homeland Security proposal.  One new agreement, pushed through in spite of token Democratic opposition, gives President Bush the power to bypass selective worker protections in the Civil Service Act.  As I have pointed out before, the Bush administration is refusing to produce of list of specific protections they want dismantled in the name of homeland security; rather, Bush wants a blanket veto power over any legal proviso that gets in the way of government’s security interests.  Specifically, I believe the Bush administration is aiming at eliminating, selectively, whistleblower protections for certain officials who might get cold feet enforcing unconstitutional surveillances or lockups of American citizens without normal civil rights.  In all dark side government operations, the government ruthlessly maintains the silent acquiescence of law enforcement and military personnel by the threat provisions tied to matters of “national security.”  However, when the government engages in blatantly illegal acts, even the “national security” line may be insufficient to deter whistleblowers, and additional measures become necessary to silence those who might object.

                There were also some fine print added which allows Homeland Security to contract with companies who have moved offshore to evade SEC accounting requirements and /or income taxes.  This is very telling, as it bolsters the suspicion that government connected corporations (like Enron) have been given secret assurances and protections from prosecution for tax and accounting practices that honest corporations don’t enjoy.  Congress previously passed laws outlawing government from doing business with these rogue companies, but the Republicans want those restrictions undone in the name of homeland security. 

                Next, the Republicans, in lock step with the White House, granted blanket immunity from private civil lawsuits to any and all companies contracting with Homeland Security, specifically mentioning airline security companies and vaccine manufactures.  To any careful observer, this is another telling indication that the government fully expects to run roughshod over people’s rights.  They anticipate numerous complaints and lawsuits, and have engaged Congress in ensuring immunity for all.  Is there no limit to Congressional knee-jerk yes-manship to the Bush agenda?

                Lastly, the Bush administration is determined to cram a new smallpox vaccination down our throats.  In the new Homeland Security Bill, Section 304, Subsection C is titled “Administration of counter measures against smallpox.”   It would give the HHS Secretary virtually unlimited powers to declare an emergency and order smallpox treatment that could include forced immunizations and quarantines, under a declaration of emergency without the consent of Congress.  If you are harmed, you cannot sue the manufacturer or the government.

 

House Rejection of 9/11 Investigation:  The terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 provide the impetus for all these new anti-terrorism powers.  It is therefore essential for the White House to keep the memory of 9/11 foremost in the public mind, while at the same time suppressing any portion of truth concerning government co-responsibility for this attack.  In this spirit, the House dutifully voted 215 to 203 (along party lines) not to create an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks.  Vice President Dick Cheney, who has steadfastly refused to accede to Congressional demands for records of his secret talks with energy leaders, was particularly instrumental in lobbying Republicans, on behalf of the President, not to probe any deeper into government culpability in the attacks.  In my opinion, Cheney knows much more about government dirty work than even the President, hence his extreme recalcitrance in this matter. 

 

Microsoft Becomes a Compliant Government Partner: Retired Coast Guard Cmdr. Thomas Richey, a former aide to leftist Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., has been hired as director of homeland security for Microsoft Corp.  Microsoft’s press release stated, “Tom's appointment is a significant step in establishing Microsoft as a strategic partner to the government as it evolves its homeland security strategy.”  I’ll bet it is!  What this really means is that Richey will play an integral role in coordinating Microsoft software’s vulnerability to federal tracking and snooping with federal homeland security policies.  Someday, all who value their computer privacy will be forced to avoid Microsoft products.  Fortunately, almost-free Linux-based operating systems and software are slowly making increased headway in challenging Microsoft’s monopoly on the PC platform.  Various third party vendors are taking the free Linux operating system and merging it with user-friendly programs to help people work within the new platform.  Consider the following distributions: Red Hat (www.redhat.com), Mandrake (www.mandrakesoft.com), or SuSE (www.suse.com).

If the government were serious about Homeland Security, rather than engaging in widespread domestic snooping, suppressing dissent, and excusing the radical roots of Islam, White House leaders would encourage public preparation for self-defense, including (but not limited to) encouraging the acquisition of concealed weapons permits for defense against direct terrorist aggression, and home security shelters to protect against nuclear, biological and chemical warfare.  After the DC sniper attacks, every American should realize that police simply will never be sufficiently numerous or ever-present to prevent anything but a fraction of personal crimes or terrorist events.   The most powerful deterrent to crime and terror against civilians is the presence, or even suspected presence, of numerous armed citizens.  Yet, every emphasis in the Bush paradigm of domestic security is on increased public reliance – indeed, TOTAL reliance – on government, rather than self.  Not one cent has been devoted to facilitate private preparedness – not even a word of encouragement.  Instead, we get increased millions for FEMA and local government programs, which cannot possible cope (even if totally equipped) with millions of unprepared citizens in a terrorist attack or other crisis.   Virtually the only citizen help the government has called for is for increased snitching on one’s neighbors!  Clearly, the Bush administration is not concerned with implementing real solutions to the problem of domestic terrorism, but is only taking advantage of public fears to restrict Americans’ liberties while concentrating ever more power into the hands of the federal government.

 

MORE EVIDENCE OF GOVERNMENT COLLUSION WITH RUSSIA

The following excerpt from the article “Navy Sides With Russian Spies,” by Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media (www.aim.org), is the culmination of a sad story of American political betrayal of its military, a story which I have tracked in previous briefs.  Read and let the implications settle in.  Remember, this final chapter attests to betrayal not only by the Clintons, but by the Bush administration as well.  It also points to the ongoing corruption of the American judicial system by the Powers That Be.

                “Lt. Commander Jack Daly lost his case in federal court recently, showing how hard it is to fight city hall.  Daly, a career US naval intelligence officer, had to take on not just a Russian shipping company, but his own service and the US Justice Department. ... In 1997, Daly was monitoring a Russian merchant vessel, known to be collecting intelligence on US nuclear submarines. On this occasion, the Russian ship was monitoring the U.S.S. Ohio submarine with Daly photographing the ship from a Canadian helicopter. During the mission, the Russians aimed a laser range-finder at Daly and the Canadian pilot. Daly was partially blinded in the attack and has spent the last five years seeking justice and compensation.

                “The Clinton administration covered up Russian involvement in the attack on Jack Daly. The Coast Guard initially detained the ship, but there was a twelve-hour delay while the State Department warned the Russians that the ship would be boarded and searched. There were serious irregularities in the search, including denial of access to a locked compartment. The search party was allowed only two hours on the Russian vessel and, not surprisingly, came up empty handed.  Since it could not find a laser, naval intelligence concluded that none had been fired from the Russian merchant vessel. It said a magenta dot of light on the ship’s bridge, which appeared in Daly’s photographs, was a running light even though it was daylight.

                “Daly sued the Russian shipping company, owned in part by the Russian government, seeking $25 million in damages. Republican Senator Bob Smith flew to Seattle, the site of the trial, prepared to testify that the US Navy had botched the investigation. Former Rear Admiral Richard Cramer, who was director of naval intelligence at the time of the incident, was on hand to tell the jury about the use of lasers on Russian spy ships. But the federal judge presiding over the case refused to permit the jury to hear their testimony.

                “The judge didn’t stop the Navy or the Justice Department from helping the Russian shipping company, however. The defense’s case was based largely on the Navy’s finding that there was no laser on the ship. In the courtroom, Navy and Justice officials sat directly behind the defendant and US Navy officers testified on behalf of the Russian shipping company.

                “The defense lawyer, an American, declared a total victory and complete vindication for his clients. That’s a total victory over a serving US Navy officer, wounded in the line of duty. The Navy doesn’t deny Daly was ‘lased,’ just that the Russians didn’t do it. Senator Smith asked how the country could send men into battle if the government won’t support them at home.” [End of aim.org quote.]

 

NOV 22

 

THE “CONSERVATIVE” BUSH ADMINISTRATION: RHETORIC VERSUS REALITY

No sooner has the euphoria over the Bush win in this year’s midterm elections subsided than signs have begun to appear indicating that Bush is only interested in pursuing his non-conservative globalist agenda, to the exclusion of root conservative issues.  What a president pushes forward, or conversely, refuses to support, in Congress is more telling that what he says in public. 

                One of the recent indicators of Bush’s real loyalties is his refusal to act on the partial birth abortion issue.  Republican Senate leader Trent Lott made an iron-clad campaign promise to bring this issue to the fore as soon as Congress reconvenes.  On Nov. 6 of this year Lott dramatically announced, “I will call [the measure prohibiting partial birth abortions]up, we will pass it, and the president will sign it. I'm making that commitment -- you can write it down.”  But within a day, Lott was told by the White House to cool down his support for the ban.  Bush aids told the Washington Post, “It's not because the president objects to the policy -- he had said he would sign a ban on the controversial procedure -- but because he does not wish to be seen as a captive of his party's ideologues.”   Ideologues is meant as a pejorative term, as I pointed out in my election analysis.  What the aid was really saying is, “we begrudgingly have to deal with the Christian/conservative wing of the party, but we’re going to delay, stall and lie to them as long as we can get away with it.”  When pressed about his support of the conservative agenda at his news conference, Bush said, “I don't take cues from anybody.”  This is true only with regards to the conservative right.  Bush not only takes cues from his most powerful advisors, but he is almost completely controlled by them – and not reluctantly so.

                In promoting conservative causes that really matter, Bush has done nothing beyond token rhetoric.  Meanwhile, leftist liberal causes continue to gain momentum and influence, with the Bush administration’s acquiescence and support.  The Department of Education not only still exists but is growing in power, thanks to Bush’s socialist education package.  The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is still using taxpayer money to propagate its slick liberal message on television (Jim Lehre News Hour, countless specials) and radio (NPR, PRI).  The Legal Services Corporation is still using taxpayer funds to undermine property rights, challenge traditional values, and defend criminals.  HUD is still dealing out billions to corporate insiders, and failing to account for billions of dollars lost in the corrupt government housing market.  Farm subsidies have grown, and corporate anti-competitive measures and price supports abound.  The military industrial complex has settled into a tightly controlled clique of five mega-corporations that still collects and feeds billions of dollars into secret and illegal black budget projects with no public oversight.  No remedies for these evils are even scheduled for discussion in the Bush White House.  To the contrary, Bush seems ever more intent on undermining the Constitution, under the guise of fighting terrorism and supporting the global NWO through the UN.  

 

HOMELAND SECURITY PASSES THE SENATE

Tuesday, by a vote of 90-to-9, the Senate passed the House version of the Homeland Security bill, including all its “special interest” provisions – thus paving the way for the president’s signature without having to call House members, who have already adjourned for the holidays, back to Washington for a conference committee.  The new department will be the largest government agency in history and will consolidate 22 federal agencies under the umbrella of its management.  It will also create yet another federal armed agency. 

                Democratic senators made a show of indignation at seven added provisions to the Homeland Security bill, which had the taint of favoring “special interests,” but in the end these same senators voted overwhelmingly in its favor.  I’ve rarely seen anything so hypocritical on its face as the partisan bickering that took place over the seven provisions, which ended with hardly any of the opposition having the courage to vote against the actual bill when the Lieberman amendment (which would have stripped out all seven Republican provisions) failed.  This demonstrates that virtually all of the Senate had already bought into the dangerous agenda inherent in this bill, and were only attempting to save face on the “pork barrel” issues. 

                The proposal to strip the bill of the provisions failed by a vote of  47-to-52.  President Bush and the Republican leadership did some heavy arm twisting on Senators who were wavering to achieve their narrow winning margin on this matter.  Three Democrats and three liberal Republicans finally turned against the amendment after Republican leader Trent Lott got House leader Denny Hastert (traveling in Europe) to verbally agree to alter three of the most bitterly contested provisions early next year.  These controversial “special interest” provisions are: 1) a multi-million dollar grant for a university-level research center on Homeland Security, to be located at Texas A&M University;  2) allowance for the new department to contract with expatriate US businesses who have left the country to evade federal taxes; and 3) the extension of blanket immunity to vaccine manufacturers, including retroactive protection from current lawsuits for Eli Lilly.  I’m betting that the alterations will preserve the substance of at least two out of the three provisions.

                The first provision is an obvious piece of pork barrel legislation which will probably get axed.  Typical of the way special interest legislation is worded, the writers detailed some 15 eligibility criteria for the research center that were so narrowly drawn that only Texas A&M University would meet the criteria. It is obviously more than coincidence that the university happens to be in the home state of Dick Armey and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, who wrote the criteria.  The second controversial provision will get reworded in such a way as to still allow some loophole for the government to contract with these government connected firms (most of which are secret CIA cut-out companies). 

                The third provision is particularly galling.  Thousands of children are suffering from autism and thousands of others have died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), due to vaccine reactions and the ill effects of the mercury-based preservative thimerosal (a neurotoxin) used in some infant vaccines.  The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has long attempted to downplay vaccine reactions and talk parents out of legal action.  Now that the evidence is building, and the anti-vaccine lobby is finally starting to win, the feds want to step in, deny all existing claims, and provide near blanket future immunity for the manufacturers.  This is only natural for a government that enjoys its own form of blanket immunity and wishes to extend that to all the incestuous companies doing business with Homeland Security. 

                Another provision of the Homeland Security bill shields ad hoc policy-making committees within Homeland Security from the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires advice provided by these committees to be accessible to the public.  This is the act that was willfully violated by VP Cheney when he made secret deals with energy companies during the energy crisis.  The law already allows the president to waive these disclosure rules for national security reasons, so why the additional language?  I believe it is meant to directly shield private, government-connected companies like MPRI and DynCorp from public scrutiny.

                Adding to the barriers to public oversight over this new federal monster, the bill further grants special exemptions to Homeland Security from provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), ensuring that the public won’t be able to go back later and ferret out the details of any betrayal by this monstrous department.  There are already so many loopholes in the FOIA that the federal government can use to block public access to sensitive issues, one can only imagine how much Ashcroft and team are planning to hide if they want more exemptions.

 

Senator Robert Byrd (D-Virginia) was one of the few Congressmen with the courage to oppose this bill.  Here are some excerpts from his speech on the Senate floor, which are notable for their prescience (my comments are in [brackets]):

 

“But the way this bill was brought in here, less than 48 hours ago, a brand-new bill. It had not been before any committee. It had undergone no hearings, not this bill. It is a bill on our desks that has 484 pages. There are 484 pages in this bill. [The original, written by the Bush White House, copied from Clinton Democrats, was less than 40 pages in length.]  It has not been before any committee. There have been no hearings on this bill. There have been no witnesses who were asked to appear to testify on behalf of the bill or in opposition to it. It did not undergo any such scrutiny.  And so here it is before the Senate now. [These statements are reminiscent of the underhanded way in which the Bush White House got the USA PATRIOT Act passed, without anyone having the opportunity to read the actual bill.] That is not the way in which our children are taught how we make our laws – not at all.

 

“If I had to go before the bar of judgment tomorrow and were asked by the eternal God what is in this bill, I could not answer God. If I were asked by the people of West Virginia, Senator Byrd, what is in that bill, I could not answer. I could not tell the people of West Virginia what is in this bill.

 

“The American people expect us to provide our best judgment and our best insight into such monumental decisions. This is a far, far cry from being our best.... As a matter of fact, it is a mere shadow of our best. Yet we are being asked, as the elected representatives of the American people,...to invoke closure [he meant to say “cloture,” meaning to cut off or limit debate, in this case to a mere 30 hours] on these 484 pages.

 

“There are a few things that I know are in it by virtue of the fact that I have had 48 hours, sleeping time included, in which to study this monstrosity, 484 pages.  If there ever were a monstrosity, this is it... I know a few things that are in it, and a few things that I know are in it I don't think the American people would approve of if they knew what was in there.

 

“And this is one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation I have seen in my 50 years.  I will have been in Congress 50 years come January 3... Never have I seen such a monstrous piece of legislation sent to this body. And we are being asked to vote on that 484 pages tomorrow.  Our poor staffs were up most of the night studying it. They know some of the things that are in there, but they don't know all of them.  It is a sham and it is a shame. We are all complicit in going along with it. I read in the paper that nobody will have the courage to vote against it. Well, ROBERT BYRD is going to vote against it because I don't know what I am voting for.

 

“This is a hoax. This is a hoax. To tell the American people they are going to be safer when we pass this is a hoax. We ought to tell the people the truth. They are not going to be any safer with that. That is not the truth. I was one of the first in the Senate to say we need a new Department of Homeland Security. I meant that. But I didn't mean this particular hoax that this administration is trying to pander off to the American people, telling them this is homeland security. That is not homeland security... This bill does nothing – not a thing – to make our citizens more secure today or tomorrow.

 

“The Senate Appropriations Committee ... tried to provide funds to programs to hire more FBI agents, to hire more border patrol agents, to equip and train our first responders, to improve security at our nuclear power plants, to improve bomb detection at our airports. That committee of 29 Senators – 15 Democrats and 14 Republicans – voted to provide the funds for these homeland security needs.... But the President said no – no, he would not sign it.... These moneys have been reported by a unanimous Appropriations Committee.  But this administration said no.

 

“How is it that the Bush administration's No. 1 priority has evolved into a plan to create a giant, huge bureaucracy [involving a massive reorganization of the federal government, and yet not replacing one agency head responsible for the failings in federal security leading up to 9/11]?  How is it that the Congress bought into the belief that to take a plethora of Federal agencies and departments and shuffle them around would make us safer from future terrorist attacks?” [End of Byrd quote.]

 

ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT PRAISES SURVEILLANCE RULING

On Monday, a three-judge federal appeals court panel overturned a decision by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which had rejected certain provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act granting the federal government broad surveillance powers and all but eliminating Constitutional guarantees against secret tribunals.  The secret court had also sought to impose restrictions on how and when the surveillance authority could be used.  Now, the ruling by the federal appeals court ensures that Ashcroft’s Justice Department can take full advantage of the broad new surveillance powers to track anyone labeled a “suspected terrorist.”  Ashcroft gleefully announced, “This will greatly enhance our ability to put pieces together that different agencies have.  I believe this is a giant step forward.”

                Something doesn’t compute here.  The secret FISC court is a fully operational part of the dark side of government.  It never publishes its rulings.  That it did so in this case means, in my view, that it intentionally wanted to give the appearance of NOT being subservient to the surveillance community it serves.  By throwing the ball into the public arena and allowing the federal appeals court to overrule the FISC decision, everything has the appearance of legitimacy, and the FISC can go back to rubber-stamping whatever the government wants.  This was a sham procedure for public consumption.

                Ashcroft lost no time in announcing a number of immediate steps to be taken to extend the government’s surveillance capabilities.   Among these measures are: increasing the number of surveillance agents, and installing a large computer system to help investigators get quick court approval for surveillance.  Court approval is already nearly automatic and always secret, so what difference does it make?  Ashcroft is also doubling the number of FBI lawyers assigned to surveillance applications.  He has assigned one attorney to every US attorney's office to act as a local liaison.  In turn, FBI Director Mueller has created a special new unit within the FBI with dozens of agents assigned to handle cases brought under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was amended by the USA PATRIOT Act to increase federal surveillance powers.

 

ISSUE OF PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD KEY TO ISRAELI ELECTION

Israeli polls indicate that the center-right Likud Party will win an overwhelming victory in January’s election.  This forces the real election outcome down into the smoke filled rooms of the Likud Party itself where former Prime Minister Netanyahu is challenging Ariel Sharon.  Sharon said again this last week that he accepts the prospect of a Palestinian state and that there is “no alternative” to such an entity.  He also waffled again relative to the status of the settlements in Yesha (what the left calls the “occupied territories”) by saying this would be a matter to be settled in negotiations – a clear indication that they would be up for grabs in future peace talks.  This statement stands in stark contrast to his pledge two years ago when he told Arutz-7 news service, “No community in Yesha will be dismantled.”

                Here is the right wing response to the growing rift in the Likud, according to Arutz-7: “Ze'ev Jabotinsky, grandson of the famous Zionist leader of the same name, wrote an open letter - published as a large ad in Ha'aretz - to the Likud membership, asking them not to vote for Ariel Sharon in next week's internal party election. Excerpts from the letter: ‘Shalom. I am a member of the Likud, and my grandfather Ze'ev Jabotinsky is the founder and spiritual father of our movement. Our movement has always strongly rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state in the Land of Israel. Such a state would have all the sovereign and military capabilities to threaten our very existence, which [the Palestinians] do not have today. Despite this, Prime Minister Sharon has recently [more than once] expressed his support for a Palestinian state. If Mr. Sharon thinks that this is the correct path, he should be vying for leadership of Labor, and not of our movement. Do not vote for a Palestinian state in our land. Do not vote for Ariel Sharon.’

                “Arutz-7's Haggai Segal spoke with the author of the letter today, and asked him if Binyamin Netanyahu was behind it. [Good question.]  ‘Netanyahu did not initiate it,’ Jabotinsky said. ‘I was the one who turned to the Netanyahu camp... I couldn't pay for the ad myself, so I asked the Netanyahu campaign to sponsor it, and they did.’ Segal:  ‘You say not to vote for Sharon, but are you sure that Netanyahu is against a Palestinian state?’ [VERY good question – which Jabotinsky evades.] ‘I talked about this with Netanyahu beforehand at length, and I can say this: I am sure that Sharon wants to establish such a state.… [He continues on in this vein and fails to answer for Netanyahu – who the Israeli right doubt because of his betrayal last time he was in charge.]” [End of Arutz-7 quote.]

                I think Sharon will come out on top next week despite the Netanyahu challenge.  The Bush administration wants an old “war horse” in there to control Israel during the coming Iraqi war.  Sharon has proven himself to be a loyal yes-man to Bush. 

 

NOV 29

COMMENTARY ON BUSH AT WAR

This is the title of Bob Woodward’s newest and instant best seller.  It has garnered display positions up front in every major bookstore, and in all the malls and airports.  The establishment has pulled out all the stops to make sure millions read this promo piece on George W. Bush and his war agenda.   Rarely have I seen a political commentary book promoted like this one.  Woodward has, in rapid succession, been interviewed on all the major networks, by all the establishment talk shows, and on National Public Radio.  Excerpts have been turned into three-day serialized versions in the Washington Post, New York Times and International Herald Tribune.

               

Woodward is the consummate insider -- and for good reason.  Whatever the big issue is that the Powers That Be (PTB) want promoted, Woodward is their man.  He got an early start as an insider spokesman first for the Navy, and then for the Pentagon.  He then joined the ranks of elite reporters at the Washington Post, one of the big eastern dailies that has secret ties to the CIA.  It has been alleged by numerous credible whistleblowers that the CIA keeps dozens of reporters like Woodward on secret retainers, in order to promote pet causes, or to taint the image of international leaders who are scheduled to be undermined or eliminated.  The CIA can guarantee fame for any journalist who signs on with them.  What better way to gain national or international notoriety as a journalist than by being the recipient of classified information that no one else has access to?  The CIA can promise such privileges.  Reporters like Woodward rarely write about anything commonplace.  They are the big guns, brought out to destroy or promote certain individuals or agendas.  If you want a President dethroned (like Nixon), call on Woodward.  If you want an agenda promoted (such as the Gulf War, or Bush’s war on terror), Woodward will spin the truth with expertise. 

                Few reporters get the kind of access to top leaders that Woodward does.  Bush at War is primarily based on his insider knowledge of the viewpoint of Sec. of State Colin Powell, who receives particularly sympathetic treatment. In researching for the book, Woodward also had access to Defense Sec. Rumsfeld, analyst Paul Wolfowitz, VP Dick Cheney, and dozens of other top officials -- as well as two and a half hours with the president himself.  

                Woodward is a globalist and a socialist, and has almost always in the past targeted Republican leaders (who resist globalism) in his attacks.  Strangely, we find him promoting Bush and his globalist agenda at every turn in this latest book.  In short, it is a blatant propaganda piece for Bush, Bush’s NWO agenda, and particularly the phony “war on terror.”  Woodward makes it appear as if he is taking his reader “behind the scenes” to view the personal conversations between heavy-weights in the White House.  In reality, he is simply rewriting history by selectively presenting quotes from various key players in order to sculpt the public’s image of Bush and his team.  At no point does he even attempt to elucidate the hidden agendas behind this selective “war on terror” or the coming Gulf War II. 

                We can actually tell a lot more from interviews Woodward has given in the wake of his book than we can from the book itself.  Almost every interviewer asked some form of the question, “Is there anything that really surprised you in your interview with the president?”  Most of the time, Woodward responded with a comment about how religious the president is, which was predictable for the author of a book trying to keep conservatives loyal to a president engaged in carefully crafted warmongering.  Bush’s “faithful born-again Christian” image has been carefully contrived to cause most conservatives to either overlook his socialist legislative agenda or disbelieve outright the growing evidence of his concerted efforts to actively undermine constitutional safeguards.  

                However, Woodward gave a totally different answer to Terry Gross, host and commentator for the woefully misnamed NPR program “Fresh Air.”  When asked what was most surprising or telling in Woodward’s conversation with the president, Woodward responded:

                “Overall, that he has a vision of almost wanting to remake the world -- this idea that American leadership is going to be the shaping force in the world.  He wants to be the liberator in countries where people are oppressed; he maintains his goal is ‘world peace;’ that he is concerned about mothers and starving children.  And, that there is a determination at one point -- maybe it’s religion; maybe its gut instinct, or maybe its visceral -- that he feels that either you worry about freedom and the human condition, or you don’t.  It is an almost Woodrow Wilson-like view in creating a New World Order, in using his presidency for this purpose.  I did not expect him to outline this.”

                I believe Woodward is fibbing when he claims that Bush’s remarks were unexpected.  The assertions that Bush’s goal is “world peace,” that he wants to be a liberator for the oppressed, caring for mothers and starving children,  are integral assertions in Woodward’s propaganda piece.  If Bush were really worried about peace and the welfare of women and children, he wouldn’t be jumping on the war wagon against Iraq six years after Iraq has done any aggressive action whatsoever.  There are at least five vastly more dangerous threats he could have chosen to target (Iran, Libya, North Korea, Russia, China).  If Bush were sincere, he would have been sympathetic to the plight of the millions of Iraqi women and children deprived of essential assistance due to US-led sanctions.  He would be going after international pariah Robert Mugabe, who is pillaging and killing white farmers in Zimbabwe, and oppressing his own black political opposition.

                The part about Bush pursuing a globalist, New World Order agenda is true, however.   And, while conservatives would like to believe that Bush simply views the global UN juggernaut with rose colored glasses, naively blind to its dangers and faults, they are dangerously engaging in wishful thinking.   I’m convinced this Skull and Bones conspirator, brought up from obscurity by a controlled media, is actively engaged in deception: playing the role of a Christian and compassionate conservative, while engaging in multiple violations of citizens’ rights domestically, and stirring up unprecedented hate and discontent against the United States abroad.  Bush and his team are also busily undermining US strategic interests by covering for post-Soviet rearmament in both Russia and China, where the real long-term threat to this country lies.

 

DEC 5

THE US AND WORLD ECONOMY: MORE BAD NEWS

The US, along with the rest of the world, is undergoing a classic contraction of spending and employment as the ratio of underlying legitimate productivity sags relative to amount of phony money being pumped into the system.  It takes ever-increasing amounts of fiat currency to keep a bubble inflating.  Even with major manipulation of the stock market, all the Powers That Be can hope for at this point is to create a soft landing; there will be no real recovery for many years, until real demand meets legitimate supply.  Meanwhile, the downward spiral of job loss and underemployment will continue.  November’s unemployment figures rose to 6%, despite continued claims that the economy is in recovery.  Personal bankruptcies are running at an all-time high and mortgage foreclosures are rising sharply.  I think we are seeing the first signs of a declining housing market--a bursting bubble that will take a lot of people down to position where they owe more on a house than it is worth on the market.  Treasury Secretary O’Neill’s sudden decision to bail out of the Bush cabinet, along with top assistant Lawrence Lindsey may be an indication that he knows the real downhill slide is coming soon--and doesn’t want to be around to take the blame.   The NY Times implies that both were “pushed” out.  In any case, there is clearly some strong conflict amid top economic advisors on how to handle this collapsing bubble.

 

United Airlines Bankruptcy a Near Certainty

The federal Air Transportation Stabilization Board rejected United Airlines’ application for $1.8 billion in loan guarantees.  In a negatively worded assessment, the board claimed that United’s business recovery plan was not financially sound and would not solve the airline’s fundamental problems of high fixed costs relative to declining income.  The word on the street is that United is planning on not only filing for bankruptcy (stiffing its creditors and fuel suppliers of billions in unpaid bills), but continuing to keep on flying. 

                Years ago, I read an article in United’s inflight magazine, written by its president, talking about the inevitable fiscal time bomb United was facing.  United is a near total unionized carrier which has negotiated its way into insolvency through generous wage and benefit packages for employees (not surprising, considering it is the world’s largest “employee-owned” corporation).  United is the world’s second largest airline, employing 81,000 people, operating a fleet of around 500 aircraft, and flying to nearly 100 US cities and 30 countries.  Even with a daily flight schedule of around 1,800 flights – mostly full – the company is still losing $8 million a day.  Obviously, some drastic cuts have to be made.  While United claims it has the cash assets to make its scheduled debt payments next week, doing so would leave it with no operating capital.  Since most suppliers are wisely refusing to extend any more credit to United, the airline must preserve its cash to keep on flying.  In short, dump the creditors.  Another billion dollars lost down the rathole of bankruptcy will just add another stone to the sinking ship.

                United has asked for and received major concessions from all its unions except the mechanics, in order to put together a “recovery plan” that would make United look survivable.  The plan didn’t even come close to being financially feasible, which tells us something about the high salaries United is paying.  In fact, United has been the wage price leader that has driven up prices in all the other major unionized airlines for many years, which means United isn’t the only major airline in hot water. 

                Let’s look at some of the comparative costs between major unionized airlines.  United’s mechanics have received no wage increases since 1994 when the company talked the mechanics into trading off wage increases for stock options (which are now worthless, leaving the mechanics feeling betrayed).  Even so, top wages for United’s mechanics are high at over $25 per hour.  Those at other airlines are even higher now, since their unions didn’t sign away their negotiating power.  Since 2001, mechanics at Northwest Airlines and American Airlines have won wage increases in excess of 28%.  In absolute dollar terms, United's mechanics lag behind.  The top hourly wage for Northwest Airlines' mechanics is $33.10 per hour and for American Airlines' mechanics is $34.00, while United mechanics' top wage is only $25.60   Only $25.60 per hour!  Somehow I fail to feel sorry for them.  As with all unions, it’s an issue of relative greed as compared to other highly paid union employees. 

                It is also a matter of comparative resentment.  The entire economy is full of excessive salaries, stock options, and bonuses, especially at the management level.  Top levels of management used to average 40 times the common worker’s wage.  Now it is over 500 times more than worker compensation.  Union employees watched incoming United president Glenn Tilman get a $3 million signing bonus.  They see the rip-offs at Enron, WorldCom, and other fat cat companies and have little sympathy for United management’s plea.  To United’s credit, top management is also taking major cuts, but it isn’t nearly enough to stop the flow of red ink.  

                It seems as if people get blinded by good times and high wages – and jealously cling to their blindness when the economy starts to crumble.  On the one hand, no one want to believe it’s happening, while on the other, everyone tries to grab for all the loot they can as the ship goes down.  Sadly, bankruptcy laws only exacerbate the problem.  If employees were really faced with the option of either cutting their pay in half or losing the company, they wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice some wages – especially in today’s declining employment markets.  But thanks to our liberal bankruptcy laws, employees all realize that United can simply dump billions in costs by defaulting on its debts--and all perfectly legally.  Why should employees and management sacrifice when they can stick it to the company’s creditors?  When a nation loses its sense of right and wrong, collapse is inevitable.

 

State Governments Awash in Red Ink

Virtually every state in the union is reeling from declining tax revenues as the economy continues to contract.  Politicians are in a bind.  To raise taxes during a recession is to court voter anger, while to cut welfare and education services is to incur the wrath of the liberal press and self-righteous public school teachers and public employees.  If past experience is any guide, we will see them cut essential public services first, in order to induce a cry for more taxes.  By no means will any options to permanently scale back the arm of government for the long term be explored or implemented.  Politicians are quick to respond to the education and welfare lobbies to increase the range and scope of government services when surpluses abound, but slow as molasses in January to cut back the size of government. 

                Ever notice how eager property tax assessors are to increase the value of your home as the market values increase?  They employ sophisticated computer software programs to track home sales and increasing property values to make sure the government doesn’t miss an opportunity to collect more revenue.  Don’t be surprised to find out these same computer programs are not used to reverse the process during deflation.  They wait till individual homeowners request an adjustment – and then they fight you all the way.  Fortunately, few states have the power to deficit spend, so they do have to bite the bullet in the end.

 

Brazil on the Financial Brink

According to Javier Paz, a publisher of FxBriefing.com, “sentiment for Brazil remains in shaky territory.  Money managers are making public their distrust that entrant [Marxist] president Lula da Silva will take on fiscal matters.  About a month away from taking power, Lula will seek to defuse the potentially largest debt ‘time bomb’ in history [$500+ billion in foreign debt].  According to Bloomberg dispatches, Brazil will need as much as US$61bn – about 8% of GDP – to meet debt repayments during the first six months of 2003.”  In today’s declining world economy, Brazil can’t keep this level of payments up.  Default, in my opinion, is inevitable.  Brazil is by far the biggest economy in Latin America, and its default will threaten the stability of the Mercosur economic pact, an agreement entered into by several major South American trading partners.  Two other members of Mercosur are already in default (Argentina) or near default (Uruguay).  The IMF keeps playing as if a resolution of Argentina’s debt repudiation is just around the corner, but few believe that to be the case.  A Brazilian default could put the IMF itself in serious trouble.  US taxpayers are ultimately on the hook for most of this debt due to loan guarantees given by the US Treasury to complicit US banks (Citibank and MorganChase).  

 

West Coast Dock Workers’ Slowdown Still Affecting Economy:

The free market hates being held hostage at monopoly roadblocks, and in fact only tolerates monopolies which are achieved by price and quality superiority – unrelated to some legal mandate.  Generally, the free market likes to see multiple pathways, at different prices, available for the production and distribution of goods so that competition induces prices to stay low and service to stay high.  In the case of the West Coast dock strike, we have neither.  Here we are dealing with two giant unnatural monopolies: the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), a conglomerate of shippers and port authorities (which controls all docks and terminals), and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU).   

                Because of total government control of import and export markets, a whole host of “facilitators” has grown up around the shipping business offering to shepherd cargo through the bureaucratic gauntlet of regulations, tariffs, fees and duties.  All of these regulations raise the price of doing business, especially for the small guy.  That is one reason why huge shipping corporations dominate the industry today: they can afford to pay for the rigged system--at least while times are fat.  The American consumer hasn’t really noticed the price tag associated with these gate entry fees into the US because of the high volume of imports, which has the effect of spreading out the costs among millions of payers.  But the fact that the world is still held hostage to two monopoly organizations on the West Coast is all too visible when a dock strike occurs.  There are no cheap alternative routes for large scale shipping.

                As background, this whole mess was started around July 2 of this year, when the dock workers’ contract ended.  The shippers and terminal operators who make up the PMA declined to renew their contract, wanting to eliminate labor union make-work guarantees in order to use increased computerization in the dock unloading process.  The union dock workers, in response, demanded that job losses be limited and that all technical specialists in the computerized operations be forced to join their union.  Like the “featherbedding” practices of the railroad unions (which nearly destroyed the competitiveness of railroads), the dock workers wanted to make sure their jobs and salaries (over $100,000 a year, on average) would be protected against the competition of machines.  When the PMA refused, the union initiated a slowdown of work, under the guise of strictly adhering to break times, not accepting overtime, and double checking everything for “safety.”  This amounted to a partial strike, even while workers were still being paid full time.  The PMA decided to lock out the ILWU workers in order to make the workers pay for their tactics.  The resulting strike precipitated a crisis and forced government intervention. Bush intervened under the Taft-Hartley Act, forcing the unions and shippers back to work, although they are still unloading at the slower pace.  During the actual lockout, the estimated cost to the economy was over a billion dollars a day.  Between the continued work slowdown and the backlog of ships to be unloaded, the economy is still being affected.

                Of course, the primary culprit in this mess is our government’s pro-labor union policy, which, during the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, built into law legal mandates favoring labor unions exclusively, and mandating collective bargaining.  Unions claim to be pro-workers, but they are really only pro-union workers – and hostile to non-union competitors (who would gladly work for less).  The major effect of union policy is to prohibit other, non-union workers from undercutting the high salaries unions have extracted from corporations via improper laws.   If companies were free to hire and fire at will, the unions would rarely have any powers to strike.  Working conditions naturally improve over time, even without unions, as full employment is realized and companies are induced to gradually raise safety standards and other benefits in order to attract more or higher quality workers.

 

General Observations on the Economy

It is helpful to keep in mind how much of the economy is real and how much is not real – that is, how much perceived economic prosperity is due to the inflationary bubble of fiat money injection into the economy.  While consumer spending is slacking, there is still plenty to go around.  But don’t be lulled into a false sense of security.  The real economic fall has yet to come. 

                A large portion of people’s disposable income indirectly comes from federal money creation.  For example, almost 75% of the money spent on the housing/construction market (which accounts for almost 30% of the GNP) is generated by debt – not cash – and financed by the Federal Reserve through discounted loans to banks or to its “private” partners in money creation, the federal mortgage lending agencies Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, which provide massive liquidity for the housing markets.  It used to be that home loans were scarce.  Banks had to wait for savings to come in or for existing loans to be repaid before they had disposable funds to loan.  Now, they simply get the money from the Fed through the discount window and remarket the loans to groups of investors.  While this free-money machine isn’t likely to stop anytime soon, it will eventually lead to greater inflation, now that the world is flush with dollars and can’t absorb much more.  The falling dollar value is indicative that the dollar is reaching saturation levels.  As I have pointed out before, the world has been absorbing US inflation for years as the world economy has grown – but that free outlet for surplus American dollars is beginning to taper off. 

                Another aspect of the unreal economy is the credit card debt used to purchase many of the high-end items people buy.  Debt, whether short-term or long-term, gives people the illusion of having more disposable income than they really do, especially if only minimal effort is made to pay off the principle balance of the debt.  The illusion applies to government as well as consumer spending.  Governments get away with delivering billions of your money in foreign aid and other wasteful measures simply because taxpayers never see the bill, personally.  It’s just added to the national debt, which keeps getting passed on from generation to generation.  But no debt can be postponed forever, and the final generation will be stuck with a balance much too high to repay and no means to postpone further the inevitable default.  Right now, each person’s share is about $60,000.  Obviously, even now it could never be repaid. 

                Does that mean we never suffer the consequences to deficit spending and a loose money policy?  No, but the consequences come back to bite us in a way that diverts the blame from the socialist spenders who got us into this mess, to the free market.  In short, the inevitable monetary contraction shows up as a depression--for which the free market is blamed.  Contrary to what your Keynesian high school text books tell you, we don’t owe the debt to ourselves.  We owe it to those who own the debt – half of whom are foreigners.  What’s so bad about them losing their savings or investments as a result of our default?  Simply that the money disappears from circulation, and never is spent here or abroad.  The end result is a massive contraction of the money supply.  A reverse multiplier comes into play, and declining money circulation eventually reaches backward into the economy where everyone feels its effect – though not equally.  First, a few lose their jobs.  Then others, due to the decline in spending, then others.  Declining tax revenues from sales and income taxes cause state employees to be laid off, who in turn spend less – and so the cycle continues. 

                The decline never descends below the survival level of subsistence living, because people will struggle for all their worth just to survive.  Life at its worst in Soviet Russia proved that.  But it’s no fun living with food shortages and uncertain housing.  To show you how fragile our inflated lifestyle is, take stock at what you and others do for a living.  Ask yourself how many of those jobs are essential for subsistence of life?  Hardly any.  They are artifacts of our rising standard of living and increased specialization.  To the extent that these advances have been made as a result of real capital accumulation in the market, they are sustainable and laudable, as they allow greater velocity in the economy and increased efficiency.  However, much of the highly accelerated advancement enjoyed by America over the past century has been financed by the bubble economy created by government fiat money inflation and easy credit policies.  It is an unavoidable fact that at some point the bubble must burst, and the resulting contraction is by necessity all the more painful the larger the bubble was before it burst.  Just as state governments have trouble deflating their employment rolls during decline revenue periods, people everywhere have trouble adjusting back downward to more useable professions and trades.  In fact, the resistance to change is so difficult that many will turn to crime and violence rather than adjust.  Don’t be caught unprepared for this inevitable retrenchment. 

 

DEC 12

 

MELTDOWN IN VENEZUELA

The Communist revolution of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez is collapsing.  Dictator?  Yes.  Even though he was elected democratically by an overwhelming margin in 1998, Hugo Chavez has since taken upon himself dictatorial powers that would make Edi Amin, Pol Pot, and Mao Tse-tung proud.  In response to the ongoing general strike (the fourth this year) protesting Chavez’s hard-line Marxist policies, political corruption, and failure to fulfill his socialist welfare promises, Chavez has issued one illegal decree after another in violation of the Venezuelan constitution. 

                He has threatened business owners with jail if they fail to be open for business during the general strike, now in its second week.  He has commanded his military to board tankers and arrest ship captains for failing to unload their cargo.  Even empty tankers have been taken over and placed under armed guards.  He has stationed armed guards at service stations to force them to stay open.  All the while he has been railing against the strikers and coup leaders, demonstrating a short and selective memory about his own call for general strikes in the last decade.

                The general strike has always been a preferred weapon of the left, but you wouldn’t know it from Chavez’s complaints about the “evil strikers.”   Had any right wing government used these anti-strike tactics on Chavez when he was calling for a general strike, he and his leftist partners in the international media would have called for immediate international intervention.  But when dictators such as Chavez, Mugabe, or Castro turn on their opposition with tyranny, we hear only muted comments or outright silence.  In Caracas, CNN-espanol only parrots the official Chavez line coming from the sole state owned TV station.  All the private TV and radio stations are anti-Chavez.  This typical for CNN--the official mouthpiece of darkside government interests--which rose out of no where during the Gulf War, with magical insider connections that no other news media could match.

                As background, Chavez staged his own coup attempt against the government Carlos Andres Perez in 1992.  Perez was unpopular for trying to reign in Venezuela’s raging inflation caused by rampant government welfare spending.  Austerity measures are never popular with benefit-corrupted majorities.  Chavez’s vehicle for the revolution was the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement.  The coup attempt claimed 18 lives and left 60 wounded.  Chavez, a colonel at the time, was captured and jailed.  Nine months later his followers tried a second coup which also failed.  Strangely enough, Mr. Chavez only spent two years in prison before he was pardoned by the establishment powers.  There is some evidence that this was because of pressure from the US State Department (which is always working to set the stage for future conflict in various regions of the world).

                After prison Chavez remade his party in a more “moderate” image and called it the Movement of the Fifth Republic.  As for himself, Chavez now began working under the guise of a politician rather than revolutionary.  Of course, he continued to use Marxist class conflict to mobilize the “working class” against the “oligarchy.”   In Latin American politics, all wealthy entrepreneurs are labeled “oligarchs” and treated as if they got their wealth illegally, which is, in almost all cases, untrue. 

                Returning to the present, you would think that a major people’s rebellion occurring within the largest foreign oil supplier to the US would merit front page coverage in the NY Times.  Yet, even as the capitol Caracas is embroiled in bloody street conflict, the world media is relatively silent.  Events will get their coverage, in time, when Chavez falls, but for now the leftist press is hoping Chavez will survive this crisis, as he survived the coup attempt made earlier this year, in April (which failed in large part due to failure of US support). 

                Here are some excerpts from a first-hand report from Shane Connor, a conservative activist and preparedness expert (www.KI4U.com), who has made three trips to Venezuela this year.  Shane was on the scene during the latest scene of bloodshed at Altamira Plaza. My comments in [brackets].

                “[I] was immediately encouraged to see the new optimism evident everywhere and so universally embraced that, finally, Hugo Chavez was soon to be history. And, hope everywhere that this embracer of dictators and terrorists the world over, along with his economically devastating regime at home, could be sent packing... and soon. This attitude has been confirmed all this week by the popular marches and protests expanding well beyond the capitol to include the whole of the country this time and the successful general strike now even impacting significantly the vital petro sector.

                “I want to emphasize that this is a very broad and universal protest, composed of thousands of clean cut, well groomed and well dressed people of all ages, united civilly in this cause. This was really eye-opening and refreshing for me as it was not some bunch of grubby fist-in-the-air mob of 'protestors' demanding the expansion of some free-lunch govt socialism program, like we might regularly see here [on the Chavez side] embraced by the USA media in Venezuela.

                “Support for Chavez is now under 20%, where even the lower classes have tired of his five years of empty rhetoric and promises. All the Venezuelan TV stations, except for sole government owned station, are now openly and eagerly anti-Chavez.  With a Chavez-packed Supreme Court (9 out of 11 justices), there is now a backlog of over 20 Constitutional abuse and corruption cases against him, languishing for lack of proper action by the Supreme Court – any one of which would, upon conviction, have him automatically removed from office.

                “Unfortunately, though, this new success has tragically driven Chavez supporters to desperation, unleashing violence here that is now being called the ‘Altamira Massacre’ at the Altamira Plaza.  Those occupying it now, call it the ‘Plaza de Libertad.’

                “At 7:10 PM local time last evening [Friday, 6 Dec.] in one of those ‘never forget where you were when’ moments, I heard what I figured were just some more fireworks from the festivities, speeches, energetic flag waving and loud cheering crowds so normal down below our hotel rooms overlooking the Altamira Plaza.  As I went to the window to look, saying, ‘I hope it's only more fireworks,’ a dozen staccato shots came, and screams quickly followed. Hundreds of panicked unarmed civilians were running and diving for cover.  It was the full spectrum of young and old, with lots of couples and families with children. The official death toll was 5 dead and 29 wounded.

                “Less than 40 minutes after the last shot, and while the threat of more gunfire was clearly possible (and actually happened later on), about a third of the original crowd of 2,000 local patriots, both from on stage and in the audience, came back out in the open defiantly resuming their program and loudly proclaiming that they would not be intimidated by Hugo Chavez and his cowardly hired thugs!  The last victims had only just been removed and the blood upon the Plaza was still wet and glistening, yet these Venezuelans had an ‘in-your-face and up-yours’ message to deliver to Chavez that could not wait and only makes me more eager to see them successfully deliver it!

                “[The left immediately began promoting the message that the guilty parties were right wing agent provocateurs, even though this kind of provocation has been the exclusive domain of the Left.] Four of the attackers from last night were promptly caught, two confirmed as government employees.  Some others firing from elevated positions and still others suspected of employing silenced weapons are still being sought as miles of video tape is studied here. The risk of state sponsored violence was not unknown to this crowd last night. Earlier Friday morning shots were fired into the Plaza from drive-by assailants.  Fortunately, no injuries were reported and the capable security teams here pursued and captured them and they were discovered to be two card-carrying DIM (Division de Intelligencia Militar) agents. They were turned over to the local police, who are also overwhelmingly anti-Chavez, but with the aid of a Chavez appointed judge were promptly ‘absolved’ and are now gone. This morning (Saturday) at about 10 AM local time, the security teams captured another two more potential assailants coming into the Plaza.  They were armed with a five shot revolver and Taurus 9mm.  I examined the ID carried by both and they are Chavez MVR Party members and one is a MVR political appointee, a Comisario.

                “The Venezuelan military high command has been quitting Hugo Chavez's regime en masse, in protest over his unconstitutional usurpation of power and Cubanization plans.  They not only quit, but then vowed to stay together and continue to occupy and protest at the Altamira Plaza until Chavez leaves.  All of this has happened over the last 46 days and these are the top 30 generals, plus about a hundred of lesser ranks, Colonels, Majors, etc.  They've only just recently come out from Chavez's regime and know what he's really up to.  They are quitting in protest and are eager to tell us all why!  You can view this impressive line-up of high-ranking former Chavez military officers who have risked all at the following URL: http://www.militaresdemocraticos.com/sp/oficiales.html  [These are clearly, Venezuela’s best and brightest officers.]

                “In addition, there's another 15,000+ officers, NCO's, and enlisted that they've instructed to stay inside the military while awaiting orders, but, in the meantime, to continue feeding additional intel out to the officers that have already left and are there at the Altamira Plaza. (Look for entire garrisons to renounce and desert Chavez dramatically en mass and leave to join the anti-Chavez forces soon.)

                “Clearly, no country in South America holds more promise for being a strong and effective ally and supporter of the USA, perhaps none better in this entire Hemisphere, when Chavez is gone and remnants of his regime are fully rooted out.  [I am not as optimistic as Connor about the long-term prospects.  All Latin American countries have huge majorities of benefit-corrupted voters that will always demand increasing benefits from their political leaders, which ensures that only the Left will prevail.  Even candidates on the ‘right’ have to make socialist promises to get elected.]  There is no current government in this hemisphere that is a more ‘Clear & Present Danger’ to the USA [other than Cuba] than the Chavez regime promoting the following initiatives...

                “1) ‘Free’ oil to Castro ‘in trade’ for Cuban advisors running secret ‘internal security’ training camps here. In fact, the first diesel tanker Chavez sent out yesterday, in defiance of the general strike, went to Cuba!

2) FARC/ELN Columbian revolutionists, that US is fighting, are supported materially in exchange for lucrative drug trade that's transported via official health dept. vehicles across Venezuela and on to Puerto Rico. 

3) Relationship with Gaddafi has secured Katushka missiles and their Libyan technicians here. 

4) Has deposited $4.5 Billion into Chinese banks and has visited China more frequently than any US President [a sad commentary on US policy]. 

5)China has made larger ‘investments’ in Venezuela than in all other South American countries combined, even if Mexico is also included. 

6) There are recent accusations Castro’s bio-weapon lab in Cuba was airlifted out by a Chavez C-130 in a rush/hush mission shortly after that news story broke.  It's here, still largely crated and being watched, awaiting final destination along with Cuban technicians that came with it.”  [End of Connor excerpt.]

                I don’t expect Chavez to survive long with this kind of opposition, but his removal won’t solve the basic problem.  The socialist mentality of Latin American voters ensures there will always be more Marxist leaders like Chavez.  Look at Brazil which just elected Marxist Lula da Silva.  The smart Marxists like Nelson Mandela survive by downplaying their radical agenda and playing along with the global establishment.  Brazil’s Lula will probably play this role too.  The angry ones, like Chavez and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, are typically removed by the globalists since they aren’t reliable players in the world of “Third Way” socialism.  Castro is the only exception to the trend of removing angry, radical Communist leaders —but then again, he was the beneficiary of a secret deal between Russia and the US during the Cuban missile crisis, wherein Pres. Kennedy secretly agreed to preserve Castro in exchange for removal of the missiles.  Judging by the failure of the US to offer any meaningful assistance to the Chavez opposition, we might speculate that perhaps the US has also cut a deal with Russia and/or China relative to preserving Chavez, in exchange for their joining this highly selective ‘war on terror.’

 

BUSH AND CONGRESS FLAUNT THEIR POWER

Here’s another telling quote from Bob Woodward’s Bush At War taken from his 2-1/2 hour interview with the president.  The subject was whether or not Bush ever had an obligation to explain his thinking relative to plans for a possible attack on Iraq: “Of course not,” Bush said. “I'm the commander; see, I don't need to explain – I don't need to explain why I say things.  That's the interesting thing about being the president.  Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, [but] I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”

                I don’t think any further commentary is necessary on the danger inherent in the President’s attitude. Congress can be just as bad.  Here a recent report by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Tex, of a confrontation between himself and other members of Congress on the Iraqi war resolution, and the subsequent cover-up by C-Span, which usually documents Congressional hearings for the record:

                “The proposed resolution on the use of force mentioned the United Nations 25 times. That was considered safe. Not once did it mention the Constitution. I do not look to the UN to find the authority for this sovereign nation to defend herself. I look to the US Constitution. Article I, section 6, gives Congress (and only Congress) the authority to declare war. The ‘war power’ may not, and should not, be transferred from the ‘people's house’ to the president - the very transfer the White House's resolution attempted to achieve. Under US law, the president, as commander-in-chief, has the authority to execute a congressionally declared war.
                “It was almost noon on October 3, the second day of the hearings, when my turn came. Under the harsh glare of television lights, I offered a substitute amendment, that is, new language to entirely replace what was currently in the resolution to use force.  ‘Mr. Chairman, my amendment is a clear-cut declaration of war.’ [Rep. Paul is opposed to the war in Iraq but was attempting to make Congress take responsibility for their warmongering through an open declaration of war.]

                “It was after that when the Chair [Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Il] stated that declaring war is ‘anachronistic, it isn't done anymore...’ It was a jaw-dropping admission...but there was more.  The Chair went on to say that the Constitution has been ‘overtaken by events, by time’ and is ‘no longer relevant to a modern society.’ The Ranking Minority Member [Tom Lantos, D-Ca] called the declaration of war ‘frivolous and mischievous.’

                “At least it was out in the open.  Now surely the display of such disdain for their oath to ‘support and defend the Constitution’ would light up Capitol Hill switchboards with angry callers!  Little did I know that no one was watching the hearings over C-SPAN – not a single person of what statistically is an audience of several million Americans – even heard those inflammatory comments.  When my staff called C-SPAN to get a copy of the video record to document these outrageous statements, we were told ‘technical difficulties’ prevented that portion of the proceedings from being recorded, and that same portion of the proceedings was also the only part missing on the internal record the House makes of such official hearings.”   [End of Rep. Paul’s quote.]

                Obviously, the record was purged without all the participants’ knowledge or permission, which is a violation of open meeting laws.  Rep. Hyde could have been removed from Congress based upon his direct violation of his oath of office and his order that the record be purged.  When officials collude with others to cover up for improper or illegal acts, it is a conspiracy – which is clearly not a rare occurrence in Washington.

 

DEC 20

 

THE KISSINGER AND MITCHELL RESIGNATIONS

In response to a requirement that both Henry Kissinger and George Mitchell make public a complete list of their clients and lobbying activities or resign as heads of a Congressional panel investigating September 11, both chose resignation rather than comply with disclosure.  Kissinger’s maneuvers were particularly telling.  At first he tried to negotiate a deal whereby he could make the appearance of disclosure while still keeping it all secret from the public.  He asked the 9/11 survivors group to designate a single person to receive knowledge of his client list, and stipulated that that person be sworn to absolute secrecy, prohibited from telling anyone what the list contained, even if he or she viewed a potential conflict of interest.  When this was turned down for obvious reasons, not the least of which being that it wouldn’t pass legal muster, Kissinger backed out rather than reveal who he does business with. 

                What’s Kissinger got to hide?  Kissinger and Associates includes other ex-government insiders such as National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, Under Sec. of State Lawrence Eagleburger, international economist Alan Stoga, and investment banker Jefferson Cunningham III.  Kissinger and Associates has lobbied for various Middle Eastern countries, most nations in the Far East (especially those with whom Kissinger has had major business relationships with, such as Indonesia with its gold mines), and Russia and China.

                Kissinger also serves the globalist leaders by meeting with new leaders of other countries and explaining to them what is expected of them vis a vis the global agenda, and what they must comply with if they expect to be favorably treated.  For example, Kissinger was the newly elected Spanish president’s first visitor.  President Jose Maria Aznar explained that Kissinger was merely explaining to him “how the world worked.”  I’ll bet he was!  Israeli government officials have often been observed meeting with Kissinger before engaging in official talks at the White House.  Kissinger also jets around the world and meets with up-and-coming government leaders in secret confabs like the Bilderburger Conference, the Club of Rome and the Committee of 300.   Thus, Kissinger certainly has much to hide in his client list – facts and relationships that would clearly indicate too much about Kissinger’s real power in the world. 

                Here are a few interesting facts that shed light on Kissinger’s commercial lobbying on behalf of corporations desiring an insider relationship with government.  There are undoubtedly hundreds more that are not in the public arena. 

                Henry Kissinger was an international director of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), the Italian bank whose branch in Atlanta, Georgia made a $4 billion unauthorized loan to Iraq during the Gulf War, according to the chairman of the US House banking committee.  Kissinger also had links to BCCI, a front for CIA money laundering. In 1991, the Banking Subcommittee received documents from BCCI's liquidators that linked Kissinger to BCCI's use of a retired Brazilian Ambassador, Sergio da Costa, who was trying to front the purchase of a bank in Brazil.  This was during the time the CIA relationship with BCCI was being leaked by various whistleblowers and they were getting ready to pull out, leaving the private shareholders and US taxpayers holding the bag.  Da Costa was a partner in Kissinger Associates.

                Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger played a major role in formulating the Bush administration’s proposal to use $1 billion in Export-Import Bank credits to sell defense technology and equipment to foreign companies that had lobbying contracts with Kissinger and Associates.  Brent Scowcroft was particularly attempting to promote military sales to companies that he owned stock in – a clear conflict of interest.  Another of Kissinger’s clients was Unocal, which was a partnered with Enron during the energy trading scandal.  These connections and meetings are part of the records VP Cheney is attempting to keep out of public hands.

                Bush has nominated Thomas Kean as Kissinger’s replacement.  Here’s some background on Kean.  He was the liberal governor of New Jersey from 1982 to 1990, and is currently president of Drew University.  He also serves as a corporate director for the Pepsi Group and petroleum giant Amerada Hess, which has extensive relations with Saudi Arabia.  Kean has a long history in managing left/liberal endowments: the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund, the National Center for Learning Disabilities, and the National Endowment for Democracy.  He served on the advisory board to the President's Initiative on Race during the Clinton administration, and has been involved in various UN gatherings, including the World Conference on Education for All and the Fourth U.N. World Conference on Women in 1995.  Kean is obviously a reliable team player who will ensure that the 9/11 investigation never touches establishment powers.

                Bush has also named Richard Ben Veniste to the panel, the same insider attorney that sabotaged Barry Seal’s counter-suit against the US government.  Seal correctly alleged that the CIA had hired him to fly in drugs to Mena, Arkansas, and he had the witnesses and evidence to prove it.  Seal was assassinated after he talked too much about Clinton’s connection with these secret shipments. 

 

OFFICE OF STRATEGIC INFLUENCE RESURRECTED AS “INFORMATION OPERATIONS”

Can we ever trust what a government says once they have determined to create an official “Office of Strategic Influence” (read: Propaganda Office)?   Can we believe them when they say the office won’t be created after all due to the public criticism the proposal engendered?  Apparently not.  The office has quietly resurrected itself under a new name of “Information Operations” under a special revision  of a Department of Defense directive just published under the auspices of Deputy Sec. of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (URL: http://cryptome.org/dodd3600-1.htm).  The only thing new about this proposal relative to the original OSI proposal is that the Pentagon is forming its own office for paying journalists to plant stories favorable to US policy.  The CIA has had dozens of journalists on its secret payroll for years; just consider all those journalists who regularly have access to top secret information.  Those leaks don’t just happen, they’re planned.

 

US FINANCES BORDER CONTROL EVERYWHERE BUT HOME

My readers have taken note that the new bill authorizing the Department of Homeland Security does virtually nothing to shut down the high volume traffic of illegal immigrants coming across America’s southern border.  Border Patrol agents continue to complain that they are assigned patrol sectors away from known infiltration routes.  Worse, the administration continues to lobby Congress to pass another amnesty bill for illegals, which will only increase the incentives to penetrate the border. 

                In response to such complaints, the administration claims that it doesn’t believe in the efficacy of border controls and fences, or that it “can’t afford” those measures.  But this is clearly untrue.  In every country in which the US has intervened recently, the US has spent millions in fortifying borders in order to stop cross infiltration (except when it wants to foment unrest, as in Macedonia).  It has just come to my attention that US officials are offering contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to US and European security firms to build 177 checkpoints along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and staff them with 12,000 border policemen.  How about spending some of those funds on US Homeland Security where in might make a difference?

 

RUSSIAN OLIGARCH BEREZOVSKY NO LONGER PERSONA NON-GRATA IN RUSSIA

I was always suspicious of Putin’s pretended exiling of Boris Berezovsky, the alleged kingpin of the Russian Mafia (a label used by the western media for Russia’s Communist leaders who bequeathed to themselves the riches of former Soviet industries).  Spanish intelligence tape-recorded no fewer than five visits by Putin to Berezovsky’s villa in Spain in the months prior to Putin’s ascension to the Russian “presidency.”  (Sounds like a godfather relationship to me.)  Berezovsky is, in my opinion, the underground leader of the “continuing Soviets,” a more cogent title for these oligarchs created by Soviet Analyst author Christopher Story.

                Berezovsky fronts as a “liberal” free-market reformer and funds various political parties on the phony “right wing” of Russia’s Duma (Parliament).  He created outrage on the part of real reformers who had been attracted to his front parties by calling for an alliance with the Communist Party in order to defeat his pretended nemesis, Vladimir Putin.  Berezovski was ousted from his own “Liberal Russia” party in response, several months ago.  Now in a dramatic move of forgiveness, after a political coup ousting current leaders Sergei Yushenkov, Viktor Pokhmelkin, and Boris Zolotukhin, the party has reinstated the exiled oligarch as the chairman.  In short, the undermining of what remains of free-market political parties in the Duma is in full swing.  Slowly but surely, the false anti-Communists are allowing the resurrection of Communism in Russia. 

 

DEC 27

 

SPECIAL REPORT ON ISRAEL

During this season of the year, the thoughts of millions of Christians and Jews are focused upon Israel.  To Christians, Israel is considered a “Holy Land” not only because it is the place of Christ’s birthplace and ministry, but because most Christians also recognize and believe in the Biblical (Torah) promises God made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that the land of Israel would be an eternal inheritance for their posterity – if the Israelites remained true to their covenants.

                To Jews (the main remnant of the original 12 tribes), Israel is Eretz Yisrael, a Hebrew term meaning the “Land of Israel,” but carrying the subtle connotation “land of our inheritance.”  Even non-religious Jews sometimes feel a great deal of passion for this ancient homestead, despite the preferences of many to live elsewhere.  I attribute this underlying devotion to a combination of Jewish affinity for their cultural and historical roots (accentuated by years of persecution), along with a divinely inspired feeling of reverence for their historical status as a “chosen people.”

                Fundamentalist Christians worldwide continue to be Israel’s largest single support group, despite orthodox Jewry’s discomfort with Christian claims of Jesus as the Messiah.  Not all Christians subscribe to the notion that the modern state of Israel represents a full or even partial fulfillment of the prophesied return of the Jews to their homeland.  It’s still a hotly discussed issue in some Christian circles.  No one argues the fact that Jews are returning, but some deny that any of this has the blessing of God.  How could the Jewish people qualify for God’s blessings if most Jews are indifferent or hostile to God?  How could God sanction a state whose government is secretly trying to undermine the very sovereignty of Israel and make it subservient to a global government hostile to God and religious people everywhere?  Scandals and corruption abound at every political level in Israel, and even high treason is suspected of Israel’s highest leaders. 

                It is true that, historically, the tribes of Israel have not lived up to their covenants with God, except during brief periods of repentance after large scale crises – such as the catastrophic destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD that set in motion the last great Diaspora (the scattering of Israel throughout the world, begun with the scattering of the 10 tribes following the Assyrian conquest in 750 BC, and continued with the Babylonian exile of 600 BC).  Even today, the majority of Jews are non-religious: a pro-worldly, well-to-do and prosperous people who perhaps see little need for God’s “inconvenient” requirements of devotion.  Not all non-religious Jews, however, are necessarily hostile to God or to his work to restore Israel.  Many are turned off simply by the excessive orthodoxy of rabbinical sects, or the occasional corruption surrounding a few high profile political rabbis, just as many Christians are turned off by the worldly excesses of many television evangelists.

                Some westerners are shocked to discover how much Israel has been and still is influenced by strong Marxist tendencies.  In fact, this Jewish homeland was founded and built by hard-core leftists, whose communal living associations, called kibbutzim, were highly Marxist in their organization.  Jews have been notorious for confusing their passion for group allegiance and cooperation with the forced communitarianism of Marxist dogma.  The influence of Marxism has diminished over time, but the socialist mindset is still pervasive in Israeli life and politics.  Fully 30 percent of American immigrants to Israel are so disgusted with the controls, regulations and high taxes that they give up and go back to the US within 5 years of making “Aliyah” (immigration or “ascent” to Israel).

                Despite all the evil that broods over the Holy Land, the hand of God keeps intervening in Israel’s destiny, keeping globalist intentions at bay (unlike in America, where we are losing ground steadily, even during a so-called Christian/conservative administration).  This mostly hidden divine intervention is surely not due to any worthiness on the part of Israel’s political leaders, but in spite of them; in fact, such intervention often runs directly counter to the intentions of Israeli leaders.  A clear example is the continual rejection by Yasser Arafat of US/Israeli “peace overtures:” blatant attempts to sell out Israel’s security position via a false and deceptive “peace process.”  No matter how much Israeli leaders attempt to hand over to Arafat, he always finds some tortured excuse to reject it, foolishly relinquishing that which would give him tremendous future military advantage.  Perhaps he rightly distrusts anything and everything the globalist community offers, especially considering the long history of British and European betrayal of promises made to the Arabs.  Of course, that would assume that Arafat cares a whit about his fellow Arabs, which is simply not true.  Nevertheless, it is becoming evident that while the globalist agenda has been advancing with ease all across the world, Israel continues to prove an elusive target for globalist control and subjugation.

                Perhaps, then, we should not underestimate the power of the promises God made to “the fathers” (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) that their posterity would inherit the land of Israel.  Even when the majority of Israelites are unworthy of the full blessings of protection, God tends to honor his basic promises for the sake of a faithful few – although Israel may be sifted and purged through war in the process. 

                I believe I have met some of the “salt of the earth” faithful in Israel.  They band together in small settlements to create businesses, work the land, teach their own children, and build self-sufficient institutions for health and welfare.  By and large they are found in the ranks of the beleaguered settlers and orthodox religious communities homesteading in the so-called “occupied territories.”  One example is the large contingent of Russian immigrants, who tend to be the most passionate about liberty and maintaining Israel’s independence.  Most are ruthlessly honest and willing to tell the truth about government duplicity.  They maintain a burgeoning Russian language voice in Israel via newspapers and other private media.  They are passionate about the quest for liberty, in large part due to the host of negative experiences they’ve had with heavy handed and deceptive government in Russia, even after the phony “demise of Communism” there.  Another noteworthy group can be found in the small start-up orthodox religious settlements.  With hardly an exception, these settlers are battling for survival on newly developed land that was previously barren and unoccupied.  They fight against drought, poor land, restrictive regulations, hostile Arab neighbors – and worst of all, a seductive government playing up to them while secretly trying to undermine and betray them.  Other associations of faithful, savvy Jews have become politically active, such as the stalwarts of Women in Green (www.womeningreen.org), the astute Professors for a Safe Israel, and the courageous founders and leaders of Arutz-7 (www.israelnationalnews.com), the beleaguered radio and internet voice of truth in Israel.  

                Yet for the most part, the Jews have demonstrated themselves to be unworthy of their full status as God’s “chosen people.”  Between the majority’s general lack of devotion to God, and the corruption and treachery of Israel’s chosen leaders, these rightful heirs to the promises made to Abraham are experiencing only the most minimal fulfillment of the Lord’s intended blessings.  But, as evidenced by the Lord’s demonstrated hand of intervention in establishing and maintaining the land of Israel again in modern times, there is still opportunity for the Jews to take control of their destiny and avoid the globalist trap--if they will wake up to the gravity of their situation and return in faithfulness to God.

 

WHAT ABOUT THE ARABS?

I have been accused of being extremely pro-Israel, and insensitive to the plight of the Palestinians.  Permit me a brief response.  I am not a supporter of the government of Israel, but rather of its people and their ultimate rightful claim to their Biblical homeland.  I do not support the use of force to secure that Biblical homeland, except as a response to Arab aggression intent on purging the Jews from their midst (which has occurred five times so far since the UN partition of Palestine).  Even when such defensive responses are called for, the property rights of existing Arab land holders who have not taken up arms against Israel should be respected.  I am supportive of the equal and individual rights of Palestinians who are willing to live in peace with Israelis, but in no way do I support any of the Arab leaders or belligerent organizations, especially the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is controlled by the corrupt PLO and Yasser Arafat.

                Conflicting cultures under one national roof have always been a problem (Bosnia, Kosovo, Croatia, etc.).  The moral right to rule tends to gravitate to whichever group has demonstrated a history of fairness in dealing with the other.  Unfortunately, there are some cultural hang-ups which so far have disqualified the Arab people from being responsible stewards over non-Arabs and even over their own people.

                1) Every Arab and Muslim country is ruled by an authoritarian system, from its tribal leadership on up through its national government.  There is no historical precedence for any true democracy, let alone the much more enlightened constitutionally restricted representative governments as embodied in the original American republic.  Arab tribal leader dominance and tyranny makes Latin American “machismo” look mild by comparison. Holding new elections has not proven to be a cure for this mentality.  The PA just announced that it was canceling its election supposedly due to the current state of Israeli security measures--how convenient for Arafat, who vowed he would never step down anyway.  

                2) The child-like mentality of the lower classes of Arabs make them vastly more susceptible to mob action and mindless rabble rousing than those of other cultures.  This tendency is particularly dangerous when used by cunning and evil leaders who have the power of the gun to threaten compliance and who have complete control over media propaganda and educational indoctrination. 

                Many a naive westerner has been enthralled by the easygoing personalities of most Arabs, as compared to the often abrasive personalities of many Jews.  But they fail to see what the Arab controlled media goes to great lengths to conceal: a kind of medieval savagery that erupts in Arab mobs, when whipped up by a blood thirsty leader after the capture of an Israeli civilian or soldier.  I’ve seen it also in their mistreatment of animals.  It goes beyond torture.  Bodies of human victims are dismembered, skinned alive, and body parts are draped around the necks of jubilant youth who parade around with their bloody hands.  Jews simply don’t act this way, no matter how much they feel victimized.  The international media has long colluded with the PA to suppress any leaks of these kinds of behavior to the world; Italian film crews who have documented such acts have been threatened with their lives for releasing it.  Yet Americans need to know it – not to crush any sense of compassion for Arabs, but to understand why most can’t be trusted with another’s liberty.

                Yes, I am aware of instances where Israel’s military has tortured Arabs for information.  While I don’t condone such conduct, even for military purposes, such acts are a far cry from the senseless violence that has been perpetrated by Arab mobs.  There are simply no comparable instances of Jewish mob action that approach what Arab mobs have done.  In fact, almost all modern cases of unprovoked aggression by Jews against Arabs, upon careful investigation, have been shown to have been done by agent provocateurs, working for the dark side of the Israeli Shabak (General Security Services), which then attempts to pin the blame on right wing Jewish settlers for political purposes. 

                Even in the historical comparison of Jewish treatment of Arabs living among them versus Arab treatment of Jews living in Arab regions, the record shows that Jews are far more likely to guarantee the safety and security of Arab businesses and individuals in their midst than Arabs are of Jews.  The Jews’ track record is proven.  I witnessed this time and again, even before the current Intifada (uprising) began.  Yes, Arabs experience some hassles, bureaucratic delays, and prejudicial treatment in getting access into Israeli territory to work, but once there, they are safe.  Not so with Israelis in Arab towns; they were constantly threatened, robbed, and targeted for assassination from time to time.  Even Arabs who are critical of Arafat are not safe in Arab towns, and all Arab businessmen are subject to periodic “shakedowns” by the PLO and its cronies in exchange for “protection.”  This speaks volumes about which of the warring groups is better suited to govern, though it should not be used as an excuse to deny Arabs within Israel equal rights – as long as each person is determined to live peaceably and settle disputes in accordance with just law (which doesn’t fully exist yet). 

 

UNDERSTANDING THE GROWING CORRUPTION OF THE HOLY LAND

The greatest scandal in the modern history of Israel was the killing of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November of 1995 by a conspiracy of government insiders (linked to rival leader Shimon Peres) who blamed Rabin’s death on right wing, anti-government groups.  It has all the markings of the many “domestic right-wing terror” setups pulled off in the United States by agent provocateurs hired by dark-side government operatives (JFK, MLK, RFK assassinations, plus Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the OKC bombing).  As in the US, the government of Israel has pulled out all the stops in order to cover up for this conspiracy of power.  But the information is slowly leaking out despite government deception and collusion.  The major body of evidence regarding the Rabin assassination is found in the Israeli best seller, Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin,  by Barry Chamish.   

                On Dec. 11 of this year, the major Israeli daily newspaper Maariv dropped another bombshell: the Ginosar scandal.  Here is a summary by Barry Chamish with my comments in [brackets]: “Yossi Ginosar was, until 1987, deputy head of the General Security Services (Shabak) [the same organization that pulled off the Rabin assassination].  He was forced to resign because of two perjury scandals but somehow became the [secret] personal emissary to the PLO for Prime Ministers Rabin, Peres and Barak.  Using his position, Ginosar opened a secret Swiss account to hide some $350 million that Yassir Arafat had stolen from his people.  Ginosar appointed Ozrad Lev to take care of the banking and Arafat appointed Muhamed Rashi to oversee the account with Lev.  It was Lev who broke the story to Maariv.  Meanwhile Ginosar opened a variety of phony and barely legitimate straw companies to launder Arafat's embezzlements. He appointed an American academic, Prof. Stephen Cohen to head some of these companies, adding a bit more legitimacy to the enterprises, and Cohen was paid well for his services.  The scandal was destined to implicate Peres, Barak and Pres. Clinton in massive payoffs and kickbacks but Peres was the most vulnerable since Ginosar and Cohen are both members of the board of the Peres Center For Peace which had invested deeply in Arafat and Ginosar's corporations. And if Peres went down, so would Daniel Abraham, a member of his board, and Stephen Cohen, a business partner of Wayne Owens who owns Middle East Peace Center. [Owens was the former liberal US Congressman from Utah and pro-Arab peace activist that mysteriously died on a Tel Aviv beach last week.  He had just come from a meeting with Avi Gil, one of the secret architects of the Oslo agreement which began the disastrous process of arming the PLO in Gaza.]”

                Consider for a moment the implications of this scandal.  They are explosive. The US, Israeli and EU governments have long known about Arafat’s corruption and skimming operations.  Publicly, all three have been critical of Arafat and have called for his resignation.  Now we find out that the Israeli government not only knew about this skimming from its inception, but they helped set up the accounts and managed the system for Arafat.  We also know that the US and EU knew about the arrangement and continued to contribute millions to Arafat’s PA, knowing that the money wasn’t getting to the Arab people.  Superficially, the Sharon government appears to not be linked with the scandal, but just as the newly elected Bush administration whitewashed and dismissed all the ongoing investigations against corrupt president Bill Clinton, the Sharon government is attempting to whitewash this scandal as well.  This is strong evidence that the Sharon government is only playing a right-wing role, and is, in reality, still controlled by the same globalist powers that controlled previous Israeli leaders. 

 

LIKUD ELECTION CAMPAIGN BEGINS: SHARON THREATENS HIS OWN

Here is some more evidence of Sharon’s duplicity, as reported by Arutz-7: “Sharon said again last night that current ministers who do not support his plan for a Palestinian state will not be able to take part in his next government.  He said that he assumes a large majority of the Likud ministers will accept his plan.  Of the 12 ministers, only Sharon, Meir Sheetrit, Roni Milo, and Tzippy Livni currently support a plan leading to a Palestinian state.  Ministers HaNegbi, Landau, Rivlin, Livnat, and Netanyahu have come out forcefully against, and Minister Naveh is also against a PLO state...Similar question marks are placed on the future membership of the National Union party in the [coalition] government - even though Sharon's aides have said that he would not forsake the Likud's ‘natural allies.’”

                Here’s what I think is really happening.  Every Israeli administration headed by the Likud Party (the equivalent of the US Republican Party) is, in reality, controlled by the same forces that control the Labor Party (equivalent to the US Democratic Party).  This explains why the Likud, even when winning an election by a large margin, always seeks to find an excuse to form a partnership with Labor.  In the past, Likud has always had the excuse that they needed the Labor Party since they didn’t have enough right wing allies to form a coalition exclusively on the right.  However, that excuse died last month when Sharon refused to form a coalition on the right after Labor pulled out of his “unity government.”  He chose, rather, to hold new elections, scheduled for late January 2003.  Now, even as the polls show Likud winning over Labor by a wide margin, Sharon is setting up the Palestinian statehood issue (controversial and dangerous to Israeli security) as a litmus test for any minister or party to participate in the next coalition government.  This test is meant be exclusionary, not unifying.  Only the Labor Party will show sufficient support in this issue to qualify to join in the next coalition government.  So, once again Israel will vote for change and get the same old sellout Likud/Labor government – a CFR controlled coalition appearing right wing but acting for the Left.

                Meanwhile, to weaken the far right nationalist wing of the Likud party, the Likud steering committee removed popular right-wing Likud candidate Moshe Feiglin (who heads the Likud faction Jewish Leadership) from the election list of party candidates.  The committee gave the reason that he was convicted on sedition charges related to his anti-Oslo activities five years ago.  This is like the US Supreme Court declaring Congressman Ron Paul guilty of “sedition” because he is protesting the dismantling of the Constitution by other members of Congress through participation in international globalist treaties.  Once convicted of sedition, an Israeli politician becomes ineligible to run for the Knesset until seven years have passed.  According to Arutz-7, Feiglin responded that his actions “to prevent the blood-filled process of Oslo should be looked upon with honor by Israeli society, and not as a disgrace.”  The vast majority of Israelis now agree, but have no voice of protest at this point.  Feiglin is reluctant to leave the Likud, despite this open betrayal and slap in the face.  He said “he would continue to be active in the Likud, to help strengthen the moral and ideological values in the Likud and in the national camp.”  Like many other leaders, Feiglin buys into the argument that one has to stay with the majority party in order to have influence.  In reality, such loyalty only supports the illusion that Likud is a legitimate opposition force to the Left in Israel.