JANUARY, 2003

 

NORTH KOREA:  BITTER FRUIT OF ENGAGEMENT

The hypocrisy of the Bush administration position on Iraq versus North Korea has not been lost in establishment media coverage.  On the one hand we have Iraq, one of the most westernized of Islamic nations, albeit under tyrannical leadership (like all other Muslim nations): a bit player in the WMD wannabe game, already invaded and beaten back in the Gulf War, presently making some effort to comply with UN inspections routines, and yet targeted for full scale war and destruction.  

 

Compare this to the Communist regime in North Korea, a recalcitrant throwback to an old Stalinist order.  Pyongyang has such a deadly stranglehold on production and distribution of products and services in the North that almost no private innovation exists, except in the desperate realms of smuggling and the growing of extra food to stave off starvation.  Iraq, even under sanctions, looks like a supermarket by comparison.  Which regime is the greater threat to its own people? 

 

North Korea is also a perennial pariah of weapons proliferation, and is the largest manufacturer and exporter of Scud missiles in the world.  It blatantly admits to having an active nuclear weapons program.  The Pyongyang regime last week disabled UN monitoring devices at a nuclear plant that has already produced enought weapons-grade plutonium to produce one or two atomic bombs.  UN weapons inspectors have been expelled from the country.  North Korea has continued advanced missile development (Taepo Dong I, II) despite verbal promises not to do so, and has already tested intermediate range missiles capable of reaching Japan.  New tests are imminent, say North Korean officials.  Much of the nation’s missile development is going on in Iran in the form of the Shihab 4 and Shihab 5 missile projects.  In short, here is an enemy already guilty of killing thousands of Americans (in the Korean War), which is a current threat to Japan and a future threat to all nations within a 6,000 km radius (including the Philippines, Guam and Alaska), and ironically, the US denies the need for a military solution. 

 

The media seems eager to provide excuses for this hypocrisy rather than unmask it for what it is: the furtherance of a US-led globalist agenda that will inevitably lead to a major world conflict.  In an attempt to appear as if seeking answers to this nagging question on the use of force in Iraq but not in North Korea, the American media parades before the gullible public a predictable array of foreign policy experts from leftist universities and think tanks in the Washington, DC area: Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities, Carnegie Endowment for Peace, the Brookings Institution, etc.  These experts, almost as if scripted, uniformly provide worn-out and servile justifications for the same failed foreign policies the US has implemented during and since Vietnam.   Namely, they favor engagement of any potential threat, rather than vigorous interdiction of predatory regimes.   Serbia and Iraq, of course, are the exceptions.  They were and are being targeted for elimination, not for any overt act, per se, but for their value in rallying Slavic and Islamic peoples in opposition to Western intervention.

 

“Engagement” is one of those permissive euphemisms (e.g.: containment, détente, dialogue, etc.) meant to lull the public into a stupor about the Communist threat to Western culture and liberty.  When one code word for permissive foreign policy becomes an obvious failure, a new one replaces it, but the pursuit of a deliberate course of  inaction relative to these bona-fide threats remains the same.   “Engagement” is currently the popular term in use.  It implies that we should engage the enemy in dialogue, trade incentives, and other non-hostile inducements with the objective being to reform the nation’s leadership, rather than cut out the cancer, militarily, before it becomes unstoppable. 

 

Thus, engagement represents (if we assume some honest, but soft-thinking intentions on the part of its promoters) a lack of understanding of the nature of the threat.  Most academics are on the left side of the political spectrum, and are extremely reluctant to view Communism as the enemy it is.  Ivory Tower scholars are particularly prone to view Communists as driven by benevolent desires for equality and the provisioning of basic human needs, with intentions merely to counteract the supposed ruthlessness of the free markets.  This is woefully mistaken.  Historically, all top Communist leaders have been violent predators with a fetish for control, and a distinct pension for the trappings of wealth once they gain power.  They have been brutal in their predation upon opposition peoples, even if their own public rhetoric has been deceptively smooth.  The doctrines of social justice are only promulgated to lend a façade of benevolence and political expediency to their ruthless policies. 

 

However, Western scholars, ever indulging in illusions of peace, reason that aid, trade and arm twisting of the propertied classes of these nations (into accepting land confiscation, progressive taxation, and redistribution of assets as reasonable domestic policies) will remove the seeds of revolution, and that Communism will die for lack of an issue. Such wishful thinking has simply not been borne out by historical facts, despite the appearance of the “demise of Communism” in Russia – which I consider to be a masterful and grand deception.  (It is not the first time the Russians have tried this, but the third in a serious of carefully crafted deceptions intended to lure the West into complacency.)  In fact, Communism has never been “contained” by policies of permissiveness and softness; engagement only serves to assist Communism by providing these nations more time to grow and develop militarily.  But such popular, if dangerously naive notions, do explain why US policy consistently promotes a socialist agenda in target countries, which only increases class conflict and destroys what economic viability existed rather than bring peace. 

 

An in depth look at the real facts on the ground will support the following crucial conclusion:  Every Marxist, anti-Western country that constitutes a pernicious long-term threat (Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea), all of which have been primary recipients of containment and engagement policies for the last several decades, are guilty of massive violations of arms limitation and arms proliferation agreements, and are stronger militarily today than they were before the “engagement” process.  

 

This failure of containment and engagement has been evident for 60 years, and yet South Korea’s outgoing president Kim Dae-jung, speaking out on the current crisis with the North, said this week that dialogue was the only option.  Kim is sending Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae-shik to Beijing and Vice-Minister Kim Hang-kyung to Moscow for further talks.  At least Kim recognizes who controls North Korea, even though both Russia and China have had the gall to make numerous public appeals to North Korea to abide by non-proliferation agreements (as if there were no control relationship between North Korea and its suppliers of weapons technology).  North Korea, like China and Cuba, acts as a surrogate for Russia in training revolutionaries and transferring WMD technologies to others client states (so that Russia, meanwhile, can play the role of reformer and peace partner). 

 

Kim argued before his cabinet that Pyongyang’s backsliding called for more conciliation and aid, not confrontation.  “Pressure and isolation have never been successful with communist countries -- Cuba is one example,” he asserted.  What world does he live in?  Perhaps he views pressure and isolation as the weak-kneed variety of the US policies following the Cuban missile crisis.  The reason pressure and isolation didn’t work after the crisis is that the US had secretly agreed not to remove Castro, in exchange for removal of the missiles.  But during the crisis, real pressure (the barrel of a gun) and a rigorously enforced blockage (true isolation!) quickly brought Cuba to its knees.  Too bad we didn’t follow through.    

 

But, it gets worse.  Kim started getting carried away by his own bravado: “We will work closely with our allies to solve this Korean peninsula problem and we will firmly oppose North Korea's nuclear arms program, but no matter what, we will pursue a peaceful solution.”  Firmly?  How firmly can one oppose a threatening military program if one is committed to a peaceful solution “no matter what”?  Kim continued, “We cannot go to war with North Korea and we can't go back to the Cold War system and extreme confrontation.” In other words, Kim (and his pacifist successor President-elect Roh Moo-hyun) claims to be able to solve this issue without the use of force.  Yet engagement, the much-touted alternative, has already been proven ineffective.  Let’s examine one case of the recent failure of such policies in this region.

 

In the Agreed Framework signed by the United States and North Korea in October of 1994, Pyongyang agreed to freeze its existing nuclear program, accept enhanced International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections and safeguards, and promise to work for a nuclear-free peninsula.  These were all paper promises, with no intentions of honest follow-through.  Notice that North Korea was not required to yield up anything specific or concrete in the agreement – not even the supplies of enriched plutonium it had illegally produced so far.

 

In contrast, the US provided much more than paper promises.  The US agreed to normalize trade relations, build a new nuclear reactor for Pyongyang, provide regular shipments of fuel oil, and bequeath tons of food aid to North Korea (80% of which was diverted to feed Pyongyang’s million man army).   Meanwhile, other than put its plutonium production on hold (supposedly), North Korea did not nothing to cease its nuclear program.  On the contrary, using existing plutonium stockpiles, it simply used the time to develop and build its first bombs in other facilities, not revealed to inspectors.  As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, “US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said in October that North Korean officials admitted to him that they had been secretly developing a uranium-enrichment program for several years to produce nuclear weapons in violation of a 1994 US-North Korean pact negotiated with the Clinton administration.”  Following the Bush administration’s logic in justifying military action against Iraq, this admission should be cause for another pulpit-pounding speech calling for UN action and a US attack in North Korea!  Instead, only expressions of concern are voiced.  

 

Now that the Agreed Framework agreement has gone up in smoke, let’s look at the end results of this dubious policy.  Instead of destabilizing the Pyongyang regime during its worst famine in a century, the West ensured the North’s survival by providing crucial shipments of food, fuel and a brand new nuclear plant.  The US, for its part, got nothing but egg on its face.  South Korea became less politically stable and more anti-American.  Local pro-American veterans of the Korean War and their families now find themselves in  the political minority as anti-American feelings are hitting an all-time high.  Meanwhile, the leftist/Marxist/pacifist student movement in South Korea has grown into a second and third generation, sufficient to capture a near majority in the nation’s parliament.  President-elect Roh, a human rights lawyer and covert leftist, is particularly sympathetic to the cause of the Communist regime to the North.  Like the American ACLU, “human rights” champions in South Korea have a fetish about errors in legitimate law enforcement and turn a near blind eye to the egregious human rights violations of China, Russia, Cuba and North Korea. 

 

So, what is so different now than in the mid-90’s that would give anyone confidence that South Korea has a legitimate partner in peace that can be induced to lay down its power, arms, and institutionalized control?  Is Chairman Kim Jong-il any less virulent in its hatred of the US?  Not at all.  Is he any more conciliatory in tone?   No.  Is his regime more trustworthy?  Not by any reasonable standards.  Is the North militarily weaker or more near the breaking point?  No, they are stronger and more confident than ever.  So chances are even less likely that a permissive policy will effect any positive changes in the North Korean regime.  At the same time, the South has little to gain by attempting to peaceably accommodate the North.  North Korea has few export products (other than weapons) and no service sector of any value to the South to offer in trade.  In fact, the North has only two advantages to offer the South in engagement: 1) access to the thousands of Korean families and relatives (hostages) stranded in the North at the end of hostilities in the Korean War; and 2) the prospect of dismantling their nuclear production facilities and weapons of mass destruction (which only fools and dupes take seriously). 

 

In short, the South, if committed solely to non-threatening gestures, can only give more and expect nothing of substance in return.  The North will continue to take and grow stronger. Yet this policy of accommodation, aid, and one-way trade, euphemistically termed the “sunshine policy,” is exactly what South Korea is intent on following.   When the deception finally unravels, this “sunshine” policy will end up as a night of darkness, leaving this once free country with the terrifying realization that it no longer has the power to stop an imminent military invasion.  The only negotiating point then will be how to arrange for an orderly capitulation – which the Red hoards will surely not honor.  And then the purging and pillaging will begin anew and people will come to the realization that they knew inside it was going to turn out this way.  Conscience has a way of reminding us when our illusions collapse that we weren’t ignorant after all.  We had received many subtle warnings, and dismissed them all.  Soft thinking is ultimately deadly. 

 

One of the reasons the grand deception of the “collapse of the Soviet Union” is so dangerous, is that it multiplies the force of people’s cowardly and false hopes that they will never have to confront evil.  It feeds the illusions of millions of wishful thinkers who are temporarily convinced that accommodation and compromise with tyranny really works.  It doesn’t.  There really is no historical precedent for virulent tyrants laying down their means of destruction and power voluntarily.  Anyone with any sense can feel that the Russian Bear and the Chinese Dragon are stirring, plotting and maneuvering behind the façade of reform and progress, preparing to strike.

 

WHAT ARE THE PROSPECTS OF WAR IN KOREA?

Surprisingly, the prospects of military engagement in the Koreas is very small, for the present.  US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has the bravado to claim he can fight a war in Korea while tangling with Iraq, but the experienced US commanders know better.  North Korea has an overwhelming numerical advantage (approximately 2:1) over US and South Korean forces, and the US is already strung out to about 80% of its capacity in preparing for the Iraqi conflict.  The Pentagon has resorted to using tens of private cargo vessels since the US Navy no longer has sufficient transport capacity to handle their modest commitments.  The logistics and spare parts supply lines have been strained to the limit in the attempt to bring deployed battle equipment up to full readiness.  Yes, the US could turn to weapons of mass destruction (as Bush has hinted) to keep up the façade of strength, but the US couldn’t get away with using them without inviting a Russian or Chinese retaliatory response. 

 

This is the salient fact that no one in the administration, nor any of the media talking heads, will address: that North Korea still has the full backing of Russia and China, our so-called partners in the phony war against terrorism.  Russia is playing both sides of the issue and no one is calling its bluff.  Defense Minister Ivanov recently chided Pyongyang, saying (tongue in cheek), “North Korea should strictly observe all its corresponding international obligations.”  Sure – just like Russia always does!   At the same time Ivanov warned the US that “aggressive rhetoric and threats, and especially attempts to isolate North Korea will only escalate tensions which contradicts regional and international stability interests.”  In other words, Russia will play the rhetorical game of cheerleading for “international compliance,” but the US must actually abide by the pacifist actions demanded. 

 

The US won’t use a pre-emptive strike on North Korean nuclear and missile facilities for the same reason it won’t tackle any key ally of the Russian/Chinese axis.  For their part, Russia and China are not going to allow the North to go rampaging into war until such action fits in with the much larger war agenda Russia itself has planned.  Russia, which is ultimately calling the shots for all the anti-US forces, intends to use some trigger event (either a Middle East regional war or a second Korean War) to induce a much larger US response--and then use that escalation to launch its long-planned pre-emptive nuclear attack on US military targets.  But it’s too early yet for that.  Russia still is working to finish its underground factories which will preserve its ability to manufacture WMDs in the midst of nuclear and conventional war.

 

It appears that Russia is willing to sacrifice Iraq at this time to US aggression in order to encourage the world to see the US in a negative light.  Few nations are really buying the US justification for attacking Iraq.  Most suspect oil as the motive.  It is, but the oil issue is only secondary to the overarching globalist agenda of fomenting war.   Both the US-led globalist forces and Russian/Chinese axis are maneuvering for this final showdown.  The winner will take possession of the vaunted New World Order.  There will be no victory for liberty, regardless of who wins.  Both sides intend to snuff out national sovereignty and limited government once and for all.  Korea is a potential flashpoint for this ultimate struggle, as are Taiwan and the Middle East.  

 

The India and Pakistan conflict is the only nuclear flashpoint that I don’t believe would give rise to a third world war, since both sides are allied with either Russia or China.  Most likely the subcontinent will erupt in nuclear conflict only after China and Russia turn on each other, which I view as inevitable, but highly unlikely before the start of the next world war.  However, at some point in the next war when the tide begins to turn against Russia, I expect China to betray her, removing Russia from the global power scheme and emerging itself as the new threat to the West. 

 

US CONTINUES TO PLACATE NORTH KOREA

The Bush administration has pledged to offer no more new concessions to North Korea, saying it won’t pay twice for getting North Korea back into compliance with the failed “Agreed Framework” disarmament plan.  Well, that may seem refreshing, but look at what the administration is saying out of the other side of its mouth: the US won’t implement sanctions on trade (no interdicting of weapons shipments from North Korea to other nations), it will initiate no military strikes, and it will continue food shipments (even though the rest of the world has nearly cut off food aid).  If there are no more concessions to be offered, and no military or sanction consequences with which to threaten North Korea, what has the US got to negotiate over?  Obviously, the US is bending over backwards to play into North Korea’s hand, and lying about what they intend to give away.  If there is a new agreement, I wouldn’t put it past Bush to agree to the same kind of non-aggression pact that Cuba has (secretly) with the US – which is exactly what North Korea is demanding.

                Today, North Korea upped the ante by declaring they are pulling out of the Non Proliferation Agreement.  So what else is new? Were they ever in compliance?  Incredibly, so called experts have a ready explanation for North Korea’s incredible ability to defy the free world and win bundles of concessions after every negotiated confrontation--the presumed “genius” of North Korea’s petty tyrant Kim jong-il.  Ludicrous!  What is really deadly to academic analysis is that it is now considered anathema to look at the truth: the US has been secretly favoring the rise of Communism for decades in order to foment future global conflict, from which they intend to force upon us a New World Order.   This is not without historical precedents: In the prelude to WWII we saw the same behind-the-scenes aid and trade with dictatorial regimes in Germany and Japan, followed by ‘look the other way’ diplomacy, and then incitement to war (Pearl Harbor and the early bombing of German civilians) that mirrors what is happening today.    

                Even the permissive EU can’t deal with North Korean duplicity on food aid.  Pyongyang won’t let aid workers into the country who speaking Korean (don’t want them finding out how bad things are), workers can’t travel outside of restrictive locations, and aid organizations can’t investigate what happens to the food after leaving government warehouses.  It is known that much of the food aid goes to feed the North’s million man army.  Worse, it is well known that the portion of the food aid which makes it to the general population is distributed only to people willing to give total allegiance to the Communists.  Dissidents are systematically denied food till they starve. 

 

YET ANOTHER MARXIST LEADER IN LATIN AMERICA

Ecuador is the latest Latin American nation to succumb to the wiles of Marxist class conflict, following Cuba, Venezuela and Brazil.  The election was billed as a “rich man versus champion of the poor” contest.  Well, it certainly is true that establishment candidate Alvaro Noboa, a kingpin in the banana trade, is very wealthy.  But newly elected Marxist president Lucio Gutierrez is no champion of the poor.  Like all Communist leaders, he plays upon people’s economic plight and sympathy for the poor in gaining their support, claiming, “I have a philosophy of service to the poor.” Yet it an unassailable truth that once Communist leaders attain office the poor always find themselves worse off, while the Communist hierarchy secretly lives in the lap of luxury.  Communists never can deliver on their promises to the poor.  They can only confiscate and regulate the productive class and otherwise tear down the fabric of society with their divisive and counterproductive redistribution schemes.  Look at Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez — both now hated figures in their own countries (at least by the majority wishing to be free).  Marxist Utopias still elude every nation which claims to be building them through socialist means.  Marxist leaders, being the most aggressive of socialists, hold power ultimately, only by force of arms. 

Gutierrez is a former army colonel who led a coup attempt in 2000 against former Ecuadorian President Jamil Mahuad, who was only one in a series of presidents who had to deal with Ecuador’s eternal economic crises — created by socialist programs, funded by and large by IMF and World Bank loans.  Since socialist programs create a net drain on the economy, Latin America becomes permanently bound to decline economic factors, which actually increases dependency upon international debt.  Further down the road, the increasing inability to service the growing debt leads to hatred of those who have them by the financial throat (international banks), providing more fodder for Marxist class hatred.

In this recent election, Gutierrez won with a margin of 54.3% compared with 45.7% for Noboa.   During this week’s lavish ceremony, punctuated with appearances by his fellow Communist leaders Lula da Silva, Hugo Chavez, and Fidel Castro, Gutierrez made superficial appeals to unity while already beginning to soft pedal his radical agenda.  In his address to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in Quito, Gutierrez proposed a new approach to government, naturally based on “ethical values, moral values — with social justice.”  The latter is a euphemism for redistribution by force, hardly a moral value.  He also said that he would govern the country of 13 million “with love.”  Tell that to the new wave of political prisoners who will quickly run afoul of his proposed “land reform” confiscation agenda.  Gutierrez also vowed to stamp out corruption, a flagrant and perennial problem in all Latin America.  Of course, it’s the Marxists, who claim to decry wealth and corruption, who always become the most corrupt — but in their case, it’s never admitted as corruption because it is official and eventually legalized (at least for the those in power). 

 

MEANWHILE, VENEZUELA CONTINUES TO DESCEND TOWARD SERIOUS CONFLICT

Venezuela’s Central Bank this week suspended sales of dollars for the third time in the 45-day-old general strike.  People have been lining up at banks (open only three hours a day now) to buy dollars as a hedge against the plunging value of the national currency, the Bolivar.  Meanwhile, President Hugo Chavez traveled to the US to seek support from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.  Naturally, Annan will stress the importance of using “constitutional and democratic means” to resolve the crisis.  This approach seems evenhanded, but in fact it favors only Chavez.   Restricting the options to those allowed by the Constitution means that Venezuelans are stuck with Chavez for the duration. 

Chavez, himself, is using dictatorial powers not granted by the Constitution and is therefore in violation of his oath of office.  So there would appear to be ample grounds for his removal.  But Chavez controls almost all of the legal law enforcement machinery, including the Supreme Court, which he has packed with his own supporters.

Last month, the Court played as if it were following the law by handing back control of the Caracas police to its mayor, an opposition leader.  But now, that same Court has allowed the military to disarm the Caracas police so they have no power. 

In November, opposition leaders put together a petition of 2 million signatures demanding a referendum on Chavez's rule, set for February 2.  The Venezuelan Constitution doesn’t allow for a binding referendum until next August (2003), so it is likely that the Chavez-packed Supreme Court will rule the referendum unconstitutional.  In fact, it is not unconstitutional because it is merely a non-binding referendum meant to embarrass Chavez and encourage him to resign.  Personally, I think the strategy of trying to embarrass Chavez is naïve.  Tyrants on a rampage will never step down voluntarily, especially on account of unpopularity.  As long as they control the use of force, they won’t go away peaceably.   Remember, Chavez is not some liberal reformer; he views himself as one of the prime champions of the underground Communist power structure, just now gaining strength throughout Latin America.  Chavez sees himself, his mentor Castro, and Lula of Brazil as comrades in arms, leading the way towards control of all Latin America where Marxists have been busy fomenting revolutions for 50 years.

If the Supreme Court rules against the opposition referendum, anti-Chavez leaders say they will begin round-the- clock demonstrations.  Soon, it will turn more violent than it already has.  Meanwhile, Marxist Brazil has offered to serve as a neutral “broker” in peace talks.  Of course, few believe Marxist President Lula will have any sympathy for the opposition to Chavez.  Consequently, the US is stepping in supposedly to “balance out” Brazil’s leftist viewpoint, but I am skeptical of a sellout or compromise that will retain Chavez in power.  The US State Department has long believed in a peculiar form of democratic freedom in Latin America:  “any government you want, as long as it’s on the left!”   Meanwhile, other pro-socialist states are adding their weight to the conflict.   Representatives from Mexico, Chile, Spain and Portugal have joined with Brazil to form a “Friends of Venezuela” group supposedly intent on seeking a solution for the strike, which has brought Venezuela financially to its knees.   However, the ultimate pressure group is the pro-left Organization of American States, chaired by Sec. Gen. Cesar Gaviria.  Gaviria has also called for a solution that is “peaceful, constitutional, democratic and electoral,” all of which means: the opposition has to stay within the electoral law and let Chavez serve out his term.  You can bet that if the duly elected president were pro-free market and anti-Communist (as in the case of Somoza of Nicaragua), these pressure groups would be calling for his immediate ouster. 

 

BUSH BACK-PEDALS ON TOUGH NORTH KOREA STANCE

Last week I reported on the President’s untenable position: he wasn’t going to reward North Korea with any more aid for coming back into compliance with an agreement it just broke, but at the same time, there would be no consequences imposed – no sanctions, and no military force.  Of course, this left the US with no options at all; a position which I knew was not going to stand. 

Sure enough, President Bush has backed down from his stance and has signaled a major softening of his policy towards North Korea.  He said this week that if North Korea would abandon its nuclear weapons program he would consider a “bold initiative” of aid, energy and perhaps even diplomatic and security agreements.  So, true to standard US policies of the last 50 years, another hard-line Communist nation will be rewarded for flaunting its power.   The “security agreement” Bush is offering is particularly worrisome.  North Korea wants a non-aggression pact, and I predict Bush will secretly agree to this as part of his “bold initiative.”   Such an agreement is consistent with the globalist plan to placate the real future enemies of the West to facilitate a future strike against us. 

China is the big winner if the US continues to be permissive with North Korea.  NewsMax.com published an interesting comment by a former high-ranking US intelligence officer, Thomas Woodrow of the Defense Intelligence Agency.  According to the article, Woodrow “says China may be building up North Korea’s nuclear strength to threaten the U.S. away from its commitment to protect Taiwan from Red China’s attempted takeover [or at least to spread the US forces too thin to effectively respond when the attack comes].  He warns the United States to bear in mind that much of the deadly threat from rogue states can be traced to Chinese-instigated nuclear proliferation.  ‘Beijing’s willingness to sell and transfer critical components of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] technology makes China directly or indirectly a key component of the global proliferation of nuclear and missile technology,’”   Indeed it does, and the US knows it, but is keeping silent.  See the whole article at http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/1/16/172426.shtml.

 

MORE HYPOCRISY ON IRAQ

In contrast to his bending over backward to accommodate North Korea’s belligerence, President Bush became very bombastic with reporters during his photo opportunity with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who was visiting the White House.   Bush grew angry as reporters asked about his timetable for attack on Iraq.  “Time is running out on Saddam Hussein,” he crowed. “I am sick and tired of games and deception, and that is my view on timetables.”   Bush also said, before meeting with the Polish president, “The United Nations has spoken with one voice.  [Saddam has] been given 11 years to disarm, and we have given him one last chance.”   Compare this tough stance with the administration’s policy concerning North Korea, which has been in direct violation of its non-proliferation agreements for at least as long as Saddam Hussein has, and which even provided Scud missiles to Iraq.   Why the crackdown on Iraq now, while North Korea is only given more chances?

The Pentagon has long indicated that Jan. 27 (the date the UN weapon inspectors’ 60 day report is due) will mark the time when the US will finally make its decision on whether to go to war.  But this date keeps slipping as the UN keeps failing to come up with a smoking gun.  On January 16, chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed El Baradei announced that they had finally found a smoking gun — but it turned out to be empty.  Inspectors had found 11 empty chemical warheads in what they described as “excellent” condition.  These were not, however, of recent origin.  They date back to purchases Iraq made in the 80s.  A UN spokesman said that these components were not reported in Iraq's declaration, but Iraq insisted the warheads had been included in its declaration.  The Security Council won’t easily be able to tell who is right since all non-permanent members only received an edited version of the original 12,000 pages. In any case, these are empty shells and hardly constitute a “material breach.”

My sources close to the Pentagon now say the Iraq war won’t begin in earnest until mid-late February at the earliest.  The administration is determined to attack, but is still waiting for some pretense of “material breach” on the part of Iraq.  It doesn’t appear as if the foregoing breach will qualify, though the US may try to make much of it.  Meanwhile, Bush will use the time to keep building up his war machine in the Middle East.

 

ISRAEL: MORE TERRORIST FUNDS FOR PA

Word has surfaced that, in the midst of US demands that corruption in the Palestinian Authority (PA) must stop and that Yasser Arafat must go, the US State Department is secretly pressuring Israel to release millions of dollars in tax funds originally earmarked for the PA but since withheld by the Israeli government.  Right wing leaders, not in the Sharon government, have come to the US in an effort to encourage Jews to lobby against the release of funds.  Some of the funds will go into Arafat’s Swiss bank accounts and much of the rest will go to fund more terrorism.  

The amount is not trivial; $500M is about to be released.  The money comes from tax funds set aside for the PA by Israel according to the Oslo agreement.  But the Israeli right correctly notes that the PA has violated every aspect of the Oslo agreement and therefore the agreement is null and void.  Why reward them for breaking the agreement?   Many Israelis who have been injured by terrorism or who have lost loved ones have filed suit to make claim on these funds as compensation for injuries.  At the same time, the Sharon government is anxious to release these funds before the court rules to make sure there are no funds left to pay victims.

 

AUSSIE GUN CONTROL:  THE NEWS IS BAD AND GETTING WORSE

Here is a brief overview from Ed Chenel, a police officer in Australia:  “Hi Yanks, I thought you all would like to see the real figures from Down Under.  It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by a new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own government, a program costing Australian tax payers more than $500 million dollars.


“The first year results are now in: Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent; Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent; Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent)!  In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent. (Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not and criminals still possess their guns!) While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since the criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed.  There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly. Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in ‘successfully ridding Australian society of guns.’”

FEBRUARY, 2003

 

PLAYING “GOTCHA” POLITICS--POWELL’S SHOW AND TELL AT THE UN

While most Americans were impressed by Sec. of State Collin Powell’s Feb 5th case against Iraq before the UN Security Council, I was struck by the weakness of it all.  Anyone with any background in US intelligence methods is able to perceive multiple ironies and contradictions in the Powell presentation.  The general public, on the other had, is led down the path of seeming perfect logic, not realizing it is being led to focus only on where Powell wants his audience to be lead.   Let’s examine some of the contradictions and ironies.

 

1) Satellite photos.  First of all I was struck by the thought “Is that all there is?”   The US makes multiple daily passes over Iraq with high definition satellite photo-reconnaissance, snapping thousands of photos per day—and all they can come up with for suspicious activity is an engine test stand and some trucks loading or unloading things from a bunker?  Both of these photos have no provable time/date tags and are given highly subjective interpretations, which cannot be verified without additional inspections on the ground. 

This brings us to a crucial question, which no establishment journalist asked:  Why no verification of these “gocha” images by UNSCOM weapons inspectors before Powell’s presentation?   Powell gives us a general time frame of November, 2002 for these violations and yet none of this info was passed on to Hans Blix for UN verification.  If the US is trying to make inspections work, they could and should have immediately alerted inspectors to descend on the trucks in question and examine their contents.  If an immediate response wasn’t possible, US reconnaissance could have tracked the trucks to their intended destinations and directed a subsequent inspection.  In like manner, if Iraq had ever mounted a missile engine on the test stand in question, the US could have alerted inspectors to inspect it at close range within hours.  The US could have provided actual satellite photos of the engine test in operations.  It is suspicious that there aren’t any photos of the test stand in operation.  It is standard procedure for the US to do multiple follow ups of these suspicious activities, so I know the US has the information.  They simply are withholding it.  This can only be because there was no actual smoking gun or the US is hiding the end result for political reasons.  All of this leads to the conclusion that the US is using its technology to sabotage the inspection process, not assist it.  In other words, they are more interested in collecting  “gotcha” moments for public consumption than disarming Iraq.

                Has there ever been a precedence for the US alerting inspectors to anomalies discovered by US recon satellites.  There is.  The NY Times reported that US officials recently gave the UN inspectors satellite photos of what the CIA claimed were “Iraqi clean-up crews operating at a suspected chemical weapons site.”  However, inspectors found otherwise upon direct inspection.  The concluded that the site “was an old ammunition storage area often frequented by Iraqi trucks, and that there was no reason to believe it was involved in weapons activities.”  [See, “Blix Says He Saw Nothing to Prompt a War,” NY Times, 31 January 2003).  So, why didn’t they use this procedure in the situations Powell cites? 

                The satellite photos of the supposed chemical weapons burial sites at Al-Musayyib amounted to an expanse of desert, and yellow lines drawn in by the CIA to help Powell paint the desire results.  Strangely, the public is required to take Powell’s word for these ‘facts’ even though even a cursory sampling by UN inspectors of the dirt in question  could have proven Powell’s point.  Why was no soil sample analyzed? 

                Indeed, there is evidence the US is withholding other important satellite photos.  Let’s examine what they are and why the US is being less than candid about them.   From leaks to the press prior to Powell’s presentation, we know that the US possessed multiple Satellite photos of convoys of Iraqi military trucks with armed escorts transporting tons of materials from weapons bunkers and taking that material across the border to Syria.  The US knows the origin of the convoys and the destination.   Israeli intelligence, which has multiple human intelligence (HUMINT) resources in Syria confirmed that these convoys contained Iraqi chemical and biological warheads.  So why was this information deleted from Mr. Powell’s presentation?   First, it would make President Bush look like a liar in his State of the Union address for having challenged Iraq to tell us where and what they have done with their WMD—as if we didn’t already know!   Second, it would point the finger at Syria who is a sitting member of the Council, exposing Syria’s duplicity in the matter.  Third, it would raise the question of why the US did not intervene to stop these convoys, which had to pass through no fly zones controlled by American aircraft.

 

2) Tapes of US eavesdropping.   It is impossible to know if these tapes are valid or not.  The US never allows any independent technical lab to analyze these intercepts.  Even if they are legitimate, one has to ask, ‘Is that all there is?’ out of a decade of electronic intercepts?  There should be hundreds of similar intercepts if Iraq was engaged in systematic violations. 

Let’s examine the possibility of falsification.  It is relatively easy to do.  The CIA’s private public relations firm, The Rendon Group, has long been engaged in black propaganda on behalf of our government.   According to an article in NY’s Village Voice, a Harvard graduate student was hired to make fake propaganda broadcasts of Saddam's voice to be broadcast into Iraq.  According to the student he was paid $3,000 per month and was never told who he was working for (typical of black operations).  He said, “I never got a straight answer on whether the Iraqi resistance, the CIA, or policy makers on the Hill were actually the ones calling the shots.”  [“Broadcast Ruse: A Grad Student Mimicked Saddam Over the Airwaves,” The Village Voice, 13-19 November 2002]

 Back in 1990 the CIA helped engineer support for the Gulf War by manufacturing the lie that Iraqi troops invaded a hospital and through Kuwaiti babies out of their intensive care incubator tents, and promulgating it through another public relations front organization.  [“The Lies We Are Told About Iraq," The Los Angeles Times, 5 January 2003).  Lastly, the CIA has a long standing record of promoting suspiciously vague voice and video recordings, supposedly of Osama bin Laden sending out coded messages to his terror networks.  No one in the media seems to be smart enough to ask the most obvious question:  “How is it that bin Laden, with the backing of millions in funds, and supposedly possessing encryption communications equipment, can’t seem to purchase or use a decent voice or video recorder to making these crucial public relations messages?  The video and/or voice recording quality is so bad that none can be deciphered except by CIA experts—making them suspect.

 

3) The Al Qaeda connection.   This argument is so weak as to border on the fraudulent.  Powell’s claims of Iraq’s Al Qaeda connection are based largely on the presence of one Abu Musab Zarqawi—a Jordanian national found operating out of northern Iraq.  Powell claims that Zarqawi (suddenly depicted, without an independent confirmation as is part of a huge terror network--complete with hierarchical organizational flowcharts) is Saddam’s Al Qaeda liason to this presumed worldwide network.  It never ceases to amaze me how much information the ‘incompetent’ CIA can come up with whenever Bush or Powell want to make an impressive presentation, and yet never be able to capture or invade these top secret networks before they strike.  How can the US know so much and yet seemingly have no power to interdict in a timely manner?   Either they are manufacturing the data or refusing to try very hard to capture—which appears to be the case with Osama bin Laden.

                Here’s the crucial contradiction.  How can the US definitively link Saddam Hussein to the elusive Zarqawi when Zarqawi is based in Northern Iraq which is off limits to Saddam Hussein and his military?  Powell painted a picture of Zarqawi running terrorist training camps in  Northern Iraq but conveniently neglected to address the paradox that, since 1991, northern Iraq has been completely out of control of Saddam Husseins government.  The area is controlled by Kurds, hostile to Saddam.   Secondly, why has not the US, with its numerous special forces teams present in northern Iraq, taken out these camps?  This can be added to other prior evidenc that points to US stonewalling about terrorists in northern Iraq.  As I previously reported, the Kurds who have been given control of northern Iraq have tried in vain to get the CIA to interrogate, much less take into custody of, 3 suspected Al Qaeda terrorist leaders being held by the Kurds.

 

4) Mobile Chemical labs.   The US simply has nothing verifiable to go on here except presumed defector’s statements—hence the artist renderings.  According to Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix, the US has tried, in vain, on several occasions to direct UN inspectors to these mobile railcars and trucks.  In every occasion, the inspectors said the vehicles inspected at US request did not contain chemical weapons equipment.  Powell neglected to mention these follow up inspections.

 

5) We must create a comparative construct with North Korea.  To get a sense of the hypocrisy of the Powell presentation, one must construct a mental model of what the US could have shown about North Korean violations, and deceptions.  Had the US given a side by side comparison, via satellite photos, eavesdropping intercepts, and defector statements about North Korean violations and deceptions, it would have made Powell’s Iraq presentation look like the US made a mountain out of a molehill.  The US has satellite photos of hundreds of Korean ships transporting scud missiles to dozens of nations around the world.  It has daily evidence of nuclear weapons deceptions as well as secret tunnels into which missiles are stored.  If America was impressed by the Powell presentation, it is only because Americans are ignorant of the bigger picture. 

 

6)  The Big Lie technique:  declaring the unprovable as fact.   Collin Powell made the following assertions on more than one occasion: “Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries.”  If I were to say that, Powell would excuse it out of hand; yet we are expect to take his word at face value.  He refused to say anything about his sources except to assert he had them—leaving us with nothing to judge. 

 

ISRAEL VOTES RIGHT, SHARON MOVES LEFT

The nominally right wing Likud party under the controlling leadership of PM Ariel Sharon won a stunning election victory last week, qualifying for 38 out of 120 possible seats in the Israeli parliament (Knesset).  In defiance of this powerful mandate to reject the disastrous OSLO peace process (which allowed the arming of the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority in exchange for ‘peace’) Ariel Sharon immediately declared he would seek to form a government with his presumed enemy opposition in the Labor and Meretz parties.  For any party to rule, it must put together a coalition with other parties totaling at least 61 seats in the Knesset.  Sharon could easily do this with the other right wing parties.  However, as a condition of their support, Sharon would have to agree on key portions of the right wing agenda—most notably, the refusal to grant the terrorist Palistinians a sovereign state.  Since Sharon is in favor or a Palestinian state, he chooses to join forces with the left rather than his own allies.  In Israel, as suicidal joining of Likud and the opposition forces on the left is called a “unity” government—a euphemisms for a sellout of Israeli national interests. 

 

What keeps driving Sharon back into the arms of the leftist ‘peace through concessions” crowd is that US pressure and control dictates such a suicidal policy.  Despite President Bush’s open repudiation of Palestinian terror and its terrorist leader Yasser Arafat, the US president continues to push for Palestinian statehood and for Israel is refrain from any definitive attacks on Palestinian terrorist groups.  Palestinian statehood would give Arafat and his gang sovereign immunity from terrorist plans such as the build-up of arms and munitions for future attacks.

 

While pretending to be on the right, PM Ariel Sharon’s government is starting to attack its own people.  Just as in the US, where a supposedly conservative Bush administration is quickly building up a tyrannical police state with police powers to illegal surveil, arrest and incarcerate citizens (deemed enemy combatants), Israel is slowly showing signs of corrupting local police forces, encouraging them to abrogated laws which protect free speech and the right to dissent.  Here’s a dramatic real life example in the life of Susie Dym a right wing activist-spokesperson for “Cities of Israel” that was arrested under false pretenses by orders from above.

 

“I received word from the chairman of our local Likud Youth outfit, that MK Yosi Beilin, one of the architects of the Oslo process, was speaking here in my hometown, Rehovot, at a Meretz (extreme dovish party) gathering.  I left my husband presiding over our five children, equipped myself with some placards which reside under one of the beds in our apartment for just such situations, plus some clothesline and clothespins, called a and set out to do my civic duty -- something I have done hundreds of times since Israel signed the disastrous Oslo Accords one decade ago.  When we arrived at the sidewalk in front of the hall where Beilin was to speak, the Likud Youth was already there, clustered in a dark corner on the other side of the street. This is not my style.  I got busy at a highly visible location, found two poles which could support my clothesline, and began -- as is my wont -- to hang my placards on the clothesline, using my clothespins.  A pair of Meretz organizers soon materialized at my elbow. ‘Disappear,’ they said brusquely. I replied that I was utilizing my democratic right to protest and added that I was surprised to hear their request since I would have expected them to support my endeavors. ‘Aren't you the people who are always in favor of democracy?’  I asked. ‘We'll call the police,’ they threatened. ‘That is your democratic privilege,’ I replied.

 

“A police car arrived on the scene only minutes later -- perhaps even less.  This did not bother me at all. After all, the police had often, in the past, visited our protest activities. And so whenever they asked me what the purpose of the protest was, which they invariably did, I always made sure to provide a detailed response. They usually wrote the whole story down, which was just fine with me. ‘Don't forget to mention, in your report that the Government has confiscated only 8 thousand of the 150 thousand guns which are thought to be in the hands of the Palestinian terrorists’, I would urge them.  I would begin to dictate [my name and organization, etc.]. Normally that was enough:--the policeman would usually know enough to supply without further input from me.  In short, my identity as a law biding protester has become very well known to the Rehovot police force over the past decade.

 

“None of this pleasant history was of relevance this time, however. This time, Officer Shuki Goldstein jumped out of the squad car and said brusquely, ‘Get all this junk out of here, and disappear. Right now.’  ‘This is a legal protest against Yosi Beilin,’ I replied firmly. ‘We are in full compliance with the law.’ This was of no interest to Mr. Goldstein. ‘You are hereby detained for questioning,’ he replied ominously.  ‘There is nothing to question me about, since it perfectly clear to us both that no crime is being committed here,’ I countered. ‘I know my rights, and if you are maintaining that I am committing a crime, you will have to arrest me. ’This is a standard ploy with the occasional aggressive police-officer. As they know, if you agree to be detained for questioning, there is little you can do afterward in the way of complaining.  After all, you agreed to be detained.  On the other hand, a wrongful arrest is a serious matter, and when you clarify to a police officer that you know your rights, and are aware that you need only go along to the station if duly arrested, the police officer normally backs off, because an arrest without a warrant is only permissible (by the books) if the police officer catches the perpetrator of a crime, red-handed. I knew that this was not the case here, and so did Mr. Goldstein, but ‘You are under arrest,’ was his answer notwithstanding. He and a colleague then grabbed me and pulled me forcibly toward the police-car -- which was entirely unnecessary, since I would not have resisted arrest (one is entitled to refuse to be ‘detained’, but one cannot decline to be arrested).

 

“’What is the charge?’ I asked with interest, as I was dragged along. I knew that it is my right to be informed of the crime of which I was being accused, by virtue of the arrest.  ‘Siruv leIkuv’ (declining to be detained) was the response. I laughed.  ‘Declining to be detained is not an offense,’ I told the officer. ‘Yes it is,’ he said.  ‘It is not an offense, and this is an illegal arrest,’ I continued pleasantly.

 

“At the police station, I was told I needed to be interrogated. To do this, the arrest, including the offense, had to be entered into the police computer. Here an embarrassing bureaucratic hurdle was encountered.  Just as I had said, Siruv leIkuv was not on the computerized list of crimes. This difficulty was discussed on the telephone between the various police personnel involved.  ‘Don't worry, we’ll find something,’ the interrogating officer said into the telephone, in an important tone, and rang off [hung up] (this remark, when reported to the Association for Civil Rights, was what convinced the association to write their very welcome supportive letter on my behalf). Officer Goldstein, as the officer in charge, solved the problem creatively and efficiently by briskly inventing several charges which were all duly entered at his specific instruction: ‘Refusing to identify oneself’, ‘Disturbing a policeman performing his duty,’ ‘Gluing posters unlawfully’, and ‘Endangering lives’ [All, pure fabrications to cover for the false arrest].

 

“In the course of the interrogation, I was asked why I refused to identify myself. ‘I did not refuse to identify myself. The policemen present at the event will, I am sure, confirm to you that none of them ever asked me to identify myself,’ I responded. ‘If they had done so, I would of course had been pleased to identify myself -- as I have always done in the hundreds of protest vigils in which I have participated in the Oslo years.’ I was released close to midnight.”   [End of Susie Dym excerpt].   Susie is suing the police for false arrest, but will find that all of the higher courts are controlled by Yossi Beilin and his crowds.  The case will be covered-up or dismissed.  The only justice Susie will get will be in satisfaction of sharing the truth with others who might finally wake up to the gravity of deception and betrayal among governments both in Israel and America pretending to abide by the law. 

 

ANOTHER CONVENIENT BIN LADEN TAPE

The sudden appearance of another Osama bin Laden tape is very suspicious—especially in its timing.  As I have pointed out before, the very fact that Osama bin Laden, with all his millions in support, and his access to encrypted satellite telephones, has to rely on a low tech tape recorder to broadcast a message to all Islam is very suspect.  Here is another tough question the media avoids: Why is it that Osama bin Laden doesn’t have access to and use a $500 video camera so there is no questions as to the authenticity of the voice, the message and the timing?   Arab speakers familiar with bin Laden have some doubts that this is bin Laden’s voice.  At least one has said the speaker pronounces several words differently than bin Laden.  A tape recording is simply too easy to falsify.

Then there is the problem of timing.  The transcript mentions bin Laden as saying, “I had referred to that in a previous statement during the Tora Bora battle last year.”   But the US attack on the Tora Bora caves took place in December 2001.  This means that the tape, if authentic, had to be made last year.  If so, why the two month delay in delivering it to Al Jazeera television?  And, why is Al Jazeera always the recipient of the bin Laden tapes?  Anything that comes through Al Jazeera is suspect because of its roots in the BBC, with its links to British intelligence.  Al Jazeera was created when the entire Arab section of the BBC left Britain’s employ and started up this Arab version of CNN television.  Like CNN’s sudden rise to fame during the Gulf war, with its unlimited access in Bagdad,  Al Jazeera’s sudden rise from nowhere to fame has led many to the conclusion that it and CNN have “too good to be true” insider connections and funding not available to other news outlets.

 

SYSTEMATIC CORRUPTION LINKS US AND MEXICAN GOVERNMENTS

One of the most obvious contradictions in the Bush administration’s claims to ensure Homeland Security is the government’s consistent refusal to shut down illegal immigration and drug running between Mexico and the US.  DEA, INS and Homeland Security officials give hundreds of technical excuses for why they don’t have the resources or the political will to do what is necessary, but these are, I’m convinced, simply cover stories and lies.

There are tens of federal whistleblowers who tell a completely different story:  that federal employees in these agencies are given direct and indirect orders by their superiors not to surveil selective areas or prosecute certain individuals. These whistleblowers also attest that when employees complain about these restrictions to higher officials in Washington, the cover-ups and stonewalling intensify.  In other words, the problem is not that of a few rogue agents corrupted by bribes, as the Bush administration would have us believe.  The problem is at the top, where systematic collusion is managed and covered up. 

In this briefing, I will attempt to give my readers an overview of how the system works, why there is official collusion at high levels and what the ultimate purposes are.  As to the specific evidence, there are numerous books and websites detailing examples of corruption and collusion by officials in the US and Mexico.  Since I do not have the space to detail all of this evidence I will give you some samples plus specific references for further study.  I encourage you to read enough of these accounts to understand the magnitude of the problem, keeping in mind that these stories represent only the tip of the iceberg.

 

Evidence of Government Collusion in Drug Running 

Both the CIA/DEA and the Mexican government have been deeply involved with drug running for years.  The Mexican system operates seamlessly (but compartmentalized) from the President down to border guards.  Major participants in the system include the largest political party (PRI), federal and local police forces (where bribery is rampant), and the Mexican military.  US Border Patrol agents have been fired upon on various occasions (on the US side of the border) by Mexican military personnel driving US-supplied Hummer all terrain vehicles, whose job it is to clear the path for drug runners crossing remote parts of the US border.  Appeals by the DEA to Washington to intervene with Mexico to stop these illegal military intrusions are met with excuses and delay tactics. 

On the US side, elite units within the CIA and DEA run their own joint drug pipelines to finance black budget (dark side government) operations – all the while pretending to be in support of the war on drugs.  The four most common infiltration routes are: 1) South America, Cuba, to Florida; 2) South East Asia, Panama (via Chinese vessels), to Mexico; 3) South America, Central America (CIA aircraft pipeline), to Mexico.   From Mexico, major CIA routes into the US are: McAllen/Brownsville to Corpus Christi, Texas;  Laredo to San Antonio, Texas;  El Paso, Texas to Las Cruces, NM; Nogales to Tucson, Az; Calexico to El Centro, Ca; and Tijuana to Chula Vista, Ca. Naturally, small time independent cartels use human carriers all along the uninhabited desert portions of the US/Mexican border.

Almost all the “success stories” of drug busts you read about in the media are DEA and Customs forces interdicting the drug pipelines of independent competitors to secret government drug operations.  Publicizing these success stories allows the US to maintain credibility and cover for their own black operations.  Whenever CIA drug operations are exposed, the DEA falls back on the cover story that the drugs involved were part of a sting operation.

One of the most common ways in which large quantities of drugs are imported across the border by the CIA are via sealed long haul tractor-trailer rigs.  Corrupt Mexican customs officials in charge of truck inspection depots on the Mexican side of the border certify and seal the cargos of these trucks prior to their crossing the border, ensuring that they will not be inspected on the US side.  Ostensibly, this is to facilitate border crossings for “drug free” trucks, but the certifying system is in fact an integral part of the illegal drug trade.  On a regular basis, handlers of drug sniffing dogs at the border crossings notice that their dogs go wild as the “certified” trucks drive past.  When these same guards have requested that the DEA perform spot checks on sealed trucks for compliance, DEA officials have consistently refused.  Washington backs them up, citing language in the NAFTA agreement.  The law was designed to ensure this kind of “free pass.” 

Let’s look at a few specific cases of individuals who have been directly involved in government drug running.  In 1995, DEA whistleblower John Carman [www.corruptcustoms.com] was interviewed by NBC's Dateline about his charges that Customs officials had deliberately undermined enforcement efforts in San Diego where he was stationed.  Carman corroborated the claims of another Customs whistle-blower, Mike Horner, who had alleged (in the June 1994 Reader's Digest) that Customs officials routinely delete computer files on known drug smugglers.  Horner was later pressured by government officials to retract his testimony.  He now says he fabricated his evidence.  I doubt that.  He was made an “offer he couldn’t refuse.”  Carman himself has compiled extensive evidence on his own that the TECS II drug tracking computer system had been deliberately compromised.  For instance, Carman was once ordered not to enter the name of Jorge Hank-Rhon in the agency's watch list computer files.  Hank is a notorious member of one of Mexico's well-connected crime families. He was also friends with DEA officials.  Carman claims as well that key Mexican officials with links to drug families had been given the secret passwords to access the TECS II program. “According to an internal affairs source, former Assistant Customs Commissioner Mike Lane was in charge of communications during that time and may have been responsible for this set up in Mexico through U.S. Customs District Director Alan J. Rappoport who has special contacts in Tijuana, Mexico.”  Rappoport was later forced to resign when allegations of his corruption were made public.  Carman told NewsMax.com (www.newsmax.com) on Jan 20, 2000 that “the situation has gotten so bad he now suspects that some Customs officials are actually acting as double agents. ‘District directors themselves who are tied in with these drug cartels are asking us whom we know and what we know,’ said Carman.”

As the drug corruption charges mounted in the mid 90’s, President Clinton brought in New York City Police Commissioner (always an insider, corrupted position) Raymond Kelly to cover up these scandals, naming him as Under Secretary for Enforcement of the Treasury Department.  Carman immediately noticed that Kelly was “firing people left and right…Anybody who complains about illegal activity – especially if you're not a manager or a GS-12 supervisor or higher – Kelly's getting rid of them.”  In his interview Carman said the Customs chief had fired a few people who should have been prosecuted. “That means they beat the rap before they were exposed. Customs will do anything it can to avoid indicting these people.”  

NewsMax.com also reports, “the Mexican drug kingpin and his own supervisor, John ‘Jack’ Maryon, actually met for lunch on a weekly basis.  Carman's website features a photo of another Customs official, Supervisor Jerry B. Martin, fraternizing with the smiling Mexican drug-mob chieftain.”

Then there is the case of William Gately, a DEA official who ran a drug sting operation called Operation Casablanca.  He was instructed by higher-ups to kill the operation after they found out the drug pipeline was connected to Mexico’s president Ernesto Zedillo.  Despite what the Clinton administration knew, it acted as if Mexico was still acting in good faith as a US partner in the “war on drugs.”  Secretary of State Madeleine Albright continued to certify to Congress that Mexico was in compliance with agreed upon drug interdiction plans.  Perhaps she was right — assuming the interdiction plan includes allowing CIA drugs to pass through!

 

The case of Guillermo González Calderoni has even more intrigue. Tim Weiner, writing for the New York Times, reported that Calderoni was a powerful drug agent for the Mexican authorities who walked a tight rope between the Mexican and US authorities and played ball at times with the drug lords as well.  Here are some excerpts from Weiner’s report.

“Thirty years ago, [Calderoni] became a Mexico drug policeman. By 1985, he was a unnaturally powerful one. By then, he had crossed the line so many times no one was sure which side he was on…Some battle-scarred American drug warriors knew and loved Mr. Calderoni from the days when their war was the most important thing in the world down here… They say he took a million dollars from one drug lord, Amado Carillo Fuentes, to murder another one, Pablo Acosta.…None of this really mattered to the American agents. What mattered was the Enrique Camerena case.

 

“Enrique Camerena, an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration known as Kiki, was captured, tortured and killed by Mexican drug dealers in 1985. The investigation into the killing ‘reached into the highest levels of the Mexican political apparatus,’ said Mr. Berrellez... ‘Mr. Calderoni broke the Camerena case for the United States. Nothing else counted.’ In their eyes, he became the most trusted police commander in Mexico — admittedly, not a long list.

“‘He was the only one who truly helped us in the Camerena case.’ Mr. Berrellez said. ‘And he was the only one who stood up the Salinas government and exposed their corruption.  His information caused [president] Carlos Salinas to have to leave Mexico.’ That information included accusations of large cash payments by drug lords to President Salinas's brother Rául.  Carlos Salinas left Mexico after his term ended in 1994 and lives in a kind of self-imposed exile, mostly in Ireland. Raúl is in prison on charges including murder.

“Mr. Calderoni himself fled Mexico for McAllen a decade ago, pursued by charges of corruption and torture filed by the Salinas government. In 1994, Mr. Berrellez, among others, convinced a federal judge in Texas that the charges were bogus.  Mr. Calderoni settled in McAllen, married a Mexican beauty queen and started a second family. By all accounts, he was a happy man…[This year] An assassin walked up to his silver Mercedes in McAllen on Feb. 5 and shot him right there on the sidewalk. He was 54. The McAllen police, who have identified no suspects, think it was a professional job. He was under the threat of death from Carlos Salinas, the president of Mexico at the time, his American friends testified.”  [End of Weiner quote.]

One of the most comprehensive yet concise sources about US secret drug running, extending beyond the Mexican connection, is Drugging America by Rodney Stich  [www.druggingamerica.com].  In his book Stich details the eye witness testimonies of dozens of CIA, DEA and military pilots who discovered that what they were doing was illegal and who turned on their government handlers.  The following accounts, among many others, are covered in this book:

1)       A former FBI undercover agent discovered CIA-Mafia drug links and suffered severe retaliation when he discovered official attempts to cover up his reports, going as high as the Justice Department.

2)       A veteran agent of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and chief of the New York City Anti-Smuggling Unit, uncovered considerable evidence of Dominican drug trafficking along the northeast section of the United States, which was being covered up by New York and federal law enforcement officials. He suffered severe retaliation when he continued to track drug smugglers, including those that funded terrorist cells in New Jersey and New York (among which were the terrorists responsible for the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993).

3)       A veteran INS agent, after reporting a drug trafficking operation by a DEA agent in Mexico and the murder of a Mexican national by that agent, witnessed his reports covered up by both US officials, and subsequently President Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico.  The agent suffered severe retaliation when he persisted in pursuing the matter.

4)       A former contract undercover pilot working for US Customs was about to disrupt a major Colombian drug cartel's operation of Pablo Escobar, but suffered Justice Department retaliation that protected Escobar.  Escobar later came under disfavor with the CIA and was killed.

5)       Terry Reed, author of Compromised, is a former head of a CIA proprietary airline who described in great detail the drugs that his aircraft carried for the CIA, how the CIA set up his airline, how the CIA funded the operation, and how Department of Justice officials retaliated against him when he shut down the airline in protest over CIA drug trafficking.  Reed details the corruption of  Judge Theis who ruled all evidence of CIA involvement inadmissible in the resulting case against Reed. (One of the most conclusive indicators of collusion between fiduciary elements of government to cover up darkside activities is the disallowance in court of evidence of government management of these activities.) 

6)       Military personnel described to Stich the conduction of drug trafficking by the CIA at military bases where these individuals were stationed.  Many pilots who flew drugs for the CIA and DEA in Mexico and elsewhere, lay out specific details of those operations in this book.

7)       The book also includes evidence that deep-cover CIA agents helped set up the Medellin and Cali cartels, making it easier for the CIA to obtain the drugs that were smuggled into the United States through Panama and Mexico.  The US eventually got into drug turf wars with both these Colombian cartels as well as with Manuel Noriega, the CIA’s front man in Panama.  Noriega was brought to America for prosecution.  Again, the judge, William H. Hoeveler, ruled that Noriega’s evidence documenting his connections with the CIA was ruled inadmissible.   Standard procedure in a cover-up of government secret operations!

 

The Aztlan Movement of Mexican radicals

There is a radical Hispanic movement in the United States, small but vocal (with abundant discrete funding) that is attempting to make the case that the Southwestern states of California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas were stolen from Mexico and should be reunited with northern Mexican states to form a new country called Aztlan.  [see: http://www.americanpatrol.com/RECONQUISTA/ReconNCN_CCIR.html ] While all lands conquered by warfare (almost every nation qualifies) are examples of injustice, the claims of the Aztlan movement have a radical political purpose—past injustices are merely the springboard.  This small band of urban Marxist guerillas have no hope of winning back these states by force of arms, but they do intend to raise a sufficient armed ruckus someday to justify a US/Mexican globalist ‘solution.’  It’s the latter threat that is the most worrisome. 

Disregard the abundant quantity of disinformation floating around the internet about thousands of heavily armed Chinese and Mexican soldiers crossing the US border daily.  The Chinese presence is a persistent internet legend that is false.  I have asked volunteers to check out these rumors of large troop concentrations on at least two occasions and the suspected areas have always been vacant—with no tracks or traces of large troop movements.  Yes, there are plenty of small Mexican army patrols—related to providing protection for drug running—but no invasion forces.  If there ever were a significant border skirmish, it would only be for the purpose of creating a crisis in which both presidents Bush and Fox could justify further US entanglement in some region government agreement.  That, I believe, is the sole purpose of the provocateur-oriented Aztlan movement.

Radical professors who openly champion the Aztlan movement, like University of New Mexico’s Charles Truxillo, [see: http://www.aztlan.net/homeland.htm]  are given special state funding and a wide latitude to foment their brand of protected hate speech among young college students.  New Mexico’s insider governor, Bill Richardson (yes, the former Clinton crony) is particularly active in fomenting the pro-Mexico agenda in his state.   Last month, Gov. Richardson flew to Davos Switzerland to meet privately with Mexican president Vicente Fox at the World Economic Forum.  Fox will make a special visit to New Mexico to help cement relationships. 

 

Motivation for Systematic Government Corruption

What is missing from all these accounts is a comprehensive understanding of why this collusion is happening, and why eliminating the individual corruption itself (if that were possible) won’t solve the problem.   In other words, there is more to this than personal enrichment. Yes, there are secret personal kickbacks that enrich US and Mexican officials — everyone along the chain of collusion (a select minority of officials) gets their cut.  Yes, there is official immunity granted the key players.  But beyond the lure of personal enrichment is a overarching control system that involves political leaders not directly in on the take. These individuals (higher up) have a much more dangerous objective for the Americas — the merging of all American nations into a regional government, of which NAFTA was the forerunner and the Free Trade Area of the Americas is the next iteration.  Massive inflows of illegal aliens and drugs into the US are merely a part of the conflict strategy by which they will justify large scale changes in American law and sovereignty.

From my investigations I have concluded that most DEA and INS agents at the lower level in the US are honest agents.  The problem in the US is at the top levels of power — the insiders who run dark side operations.  In Mexico, the system is corrupt from top to bottom.  Do not be deceived by the recent defeat of the PRI in the national elections and the rise of president Vicente Fox.  Nothing has fundamentally change in Mexico in terms of corruption.  Despite Fox’s campaign promises to stamp out police corruption and take care of Communist insurgencies in Chiapas, everything remains as bad as ever.  Police still issue tickets in order to induce a bribe.  Highway bandits still stop cars on lonely stretches of Mexican roads and demand your money or your life.  Marxist Guerrillas in the Chiapas province still operate with near impunity.  Americans who run resorts and ranches in this southern region of Mexico have been harassed and run off their land by the guerrillas.  The Mexican military clearly doesn’t have any control of this area (because they don’t want to).

What did change with the Mexican elections was that the PRI was ousted from the top leadership post (though not from the Mexican Congress).  The PRI, which controlled Mexico for the past 70+ years was an extension of the Socialist International in Europe—a Moscow controlled front for Marxist elected officials hiding their past (Willy Brandt, Francois Mitterand, Lionel Jospin, and Gerhardt Schroeder, for starters).  Likewise the PRI was always Marxist in orientation and substantially anti-America.  The arrival of Vicente Fox marks a major shift of power in Mexico.  Now the American globalist establishment has one of their own running the show in Mexico and has displaced Moscow controlled elements competing for control.  But, liberty is not the winner.  Fox was US educated and came up through the insider ranks working for multinational Coca-Cola Corporation.  He’s got globalist credentials written all over him.  He and President Bush are working hand in glove to eventually integrate Mexico, the US and Canada into a regional open-border government. 

That’s one of the prime reasons the US doesn’t build a fence on the border, either north or south.  They never intend to have one in place.  It’s also one of the reasons why we only have token enforcement of immigration laws, especially as they affect Mexicans.  It is estimated that over 10,000 illegal Mexican aliens to pass through the borders illegally every day.  This level of illegal crossings is not surprising considering the complaints of Border Patrol agents who are assigned to sit in their vehicles without moving all day long in areas where little crossing traffic occurs.  Someone is purposely making sure illegal immigration continues unabated.  The incursions have reach violent proportions in some border areas.  Local ranchers and other property owners have banded together to form militia groups to patrol and safeguard their land.  However, such efforts have been severely hampered by state and federal officials, and even Mexican officials have lobbied state governments to curtail private militias.  Ranch Rescue is the best organized of these patriotic efforts.  They have branches in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. [See www.ranchrescue.com]

 

 The courts and state legislatures have played a major role in increasing illegal aliens’ motivation to come, consistently voting to allow illegals to have access to government benefits and schooling.  The latest push is to allow illegals access to state universities at resident rates.  President Bush continues to add to the incentives by proposing yet another amnesty provision for illegals already here.  Watch for it to come before his rubber-stamp Congress this year.  He is also proposing expanded Social Security benefits for illegal aliens who have come to America and then returned to Mexico. 

In summary, our own globalist leaders know that nothing will induce Americans to accept a regional government in this hemisphere without continued immigration and drug crises, which cause people to clamor to government for a solution.  A dilution of American culture and constitutional allegiance is also necessary to ensure that in the continuing crises, politicians will project only globalist, anti-constitutional solutions.  In another dozen years, at the current rate of illegal immigration and assimilation, 40% of the residents in the USA will be Latino.  Personally, I like most Hispanics.  I speak their language fluently and know of their essential good heartedness.  But they have one major weakness.  They come from a culture embedded with and extremely susceptible to the call of democratic socialism.  If Mexican Americans even approach 20% as a percentage of US population, added to the existing Democratic vote, they will ensure that American conservatives will never again win another election battle — if we even have a constitutional conservative choice again (which, after Bush, is highly unlikely).  The only solution to this problem is for conservatives to use these continuing crises to demand that our border be fenced and patrolled vigorously.  

 

VENEZUELA: CHAVEZ STILL ON THE RAMPAGE

President-turned-tyrant Hugo Chavez gave orders the past week to destroy the opposition that has plagued him with a general strike for the past two months.  His secret police closed in on Carlos Fernandez, the main opposition leader and president of the largest business federation.  Fernandez was arrested in a Caracas restaurant.  Secret police agents fired into the air to stop patrons of the restaurant from coming to the support of Fernandez.  Co-leader Carlos Ortega of the Venezuelan Workers Federation (labor union) was also ordered to surrender to police after he called Fernandez’ arrest a “terrorist act.”  Both are being charged with “instigating violence” and “treason.”   What about Chavez’s police and supporters who have gunned down dozens of demonstrators?   This past month three opposition soldiers, as well as another activist working for the opposition, were tortured and killed.  Where is the outrage from the Bush administration?

 

PHONY JUSTIFICATION FOR WAR ON IRAQ

Yet another argument for war, which has emerged during the last few months, is that removing Saddam could help bring about a wholesale change for the better in the political, cultural, and economic climate of the Arab Middle East.  This argument is viewed with particular favor by conservatives who are looking for something to rationalize away their growing suspicion that Bush has ulterior motives in pushing this war on Iraq despite growing international opposition.  The CFR publication Foreign Affairs leads the way in promoting this justification with an article by Fouad Ajami, an presumed expert on the Arab world and a Bush administration insider.  He proposed that the United States might lead “a reformist project that seeks to modernize and transform the Arab landscape. Iraq would be the starting point, and beyond Iraq lies an Arab political and economic tradition and a culture whose agonies have been on cruel display.” 

 

Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, is also pushing this line, saying that the war in Iraq could help bring democracy to the Arab Middle East.  Journalist Nicolas Lemann of The New Yorker magazine parrots the same view as moderate pundit Charles Krauthammer, suggesting that the underlying US motive is benevolent in the extreme, including plans to remake the Middle East in the aftermath of the Iraqi war. 

This rationale is naïve in the extreme or just plain disingenuous.  Anyone who knows the Arab culture knows that it has no history of democracy, let alone a tradition incorporating the more enlightened constitutional limitations on majority rule that were instituted by the American Republic (which the US State Department never allows any new government to emulate).  There is a reason for that.  The Arab culture includes a high percentage of child-like simple people, who can be very kindly and pleasant when under enlightened leadership, but who are prone to being seduced by the first Arab strong-man leader that comes along.  Indeed, if “machismo” has been the bane of Latin American democracies, it is even worse in the Arab culture.  Nothing is done without the consent and direction of strong-men leaders.  Democracy would only be a controlled sham in these nations.  But perhaps this is what the US globalists intend.  A puppet leader government operating under the guise of democracy might be very useful — as it is in Afghanistan. 

 

NO DECLARATION OF WAR ON IRAQ: THE REAL REASON

Conservatives and libertarians have good reason to ask why Congress has defaulted on its responsibility to declare war.  According to Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the US Constitution, it is the exclusive domain of Congress to declare war.  However, it is not always easy to determine when a conflict of force arises to the level of full scale war.  Reasonable men have disagreed ever since the founding of America on what constitutes a war. 

 

Mary Mostert, analyst for BannerOfLiberty.com, in justification of President Bush’s assertion that he needs no declaration of war from Congress in Iraq, has written, “Less than five years after the Constitution was ratified, the first President to send troops as Commander in Chief, without the approval of Congress, was George Washington, who sent troops to Pennsylvania to put down the Whiskey Rebellion….President Thomas Jefferson had a remarkably similar problem when he sent the US Navy to battle the Barbary Pirates to stop them from seizing American ships.  

 

She is historically correct.  However, her eager apology for Clinton’s and Bush’s assumptions of presidential war making power does not consider the key legal question surrounding that power:  Is there some distinguishing factor or demarcation line that can denote when a President can rightfully respond to an immediate threat with military or police action, and yet delineate when Congress is duty bound to declare war?   There is.  When the attack requires an immediate defensive response, and/or when there is no clearly definable enemy, it is appropriate for the President to act in the defense of the nation without a Congressional declaration of war. 

 

Mary Mostert would claim that terrorism qualifies as an undefined enemy.  This I will grant, as long as we are talking about terrorists without a known provenance making hit and run attacks against US targets.  But this allowance cannot be accepted as an open-ended excuse to attack any country suspected of having a connection to terrorism, under flimsy pretenses.  Citing prior historical examples when the presidential war making criteria were not followed (such as in the British attacks on private American shipping after the War of Independence) is not sufficient to justify failure to employ rational criteria today.  Once we identify a nation that is a clear sponsor of terrorism (as Bush claimed was the case with Afghanistan and now Iraq) and determine to attack that nation, that action should be fully debated by Congress and require a declaration of war before proceeding.  There is no reason not to take this additional step.  Once initial defensive precautions are put in place, there is time for Congress to consider the evidence. 

 

The justifications for war against Iraq are tenuous, especially as to the link to terrorism, as I have detailed in prior briefs.  Even if Iraq’s links to terrorism can be proven, that linkage is not the primary reason Iraq is being targeted.  Actually, the entire government and nation of Iraq is presently being targeted for full scale war primarily because of a partial failure to comply with the conditions unilaterally imposed by the US at the end of a previous undeclared war.  Remember, the original Gulf War was not sanctioned by the UN.  Only after the US took unilateral action (with a token coalition) did the UN pass Resolution 1441 requiring Iraq to disarm.  This fact eliminates the argument that the US has to go back to the UN for permission to tackle Iraq.  

 

That said, here is the $64,000 question:  Why hasn’t the President asked Congress for a declaration of war, even when it is clear that he could easily get the votes?   The answer lies in the fact that, as a globalist, Bush needs to keep US public opinion tied to the UN.  The basic underlying purpose of all the warmongering that Bush and previous presidents have taken up in recent years is to keep US soldiers engaged with objectives of UN intervention, of some form or another.  In other words, the reason Bush has been avoiding a declaration of war is NOT because he can’t get the votes and would be embarrassed.  It is because forcing a US/UN linkage better serves the globalist agenda. If Congress were to declare war on request of the president, the US would be formally asserting that Iraq is a direct threat to the US and UN approval would become irrelevant.

 

So not only is Bush insisting on UN cooperation, he must make sure Congress doesn’t declare war lest it undermine the need to deal with the UN.  In Wednesday’s speech to the nation, Bush continued to hammer on further empowerment of the UN with force: “The world needs today and will need tomorrow international bodies with the authority and the will to stop the spread of terror and chemical and biological and nuclear weapons. A threat to all must be answered by all. (Loud cheer)…High-minded pronouncements against proliferation mean little unless the strongest nations are willing to stand behind them--and use force if necessary…After all, the United Nations was created, as Winston Churchill said, to ‘make sure that the force of right will, in the ultimate issue, be protected by the right of force.’”  In prior years all leaders downplayed the use of force for the UN to make sure people didn’t feel their nation’s sovereignty was threatened.  Now we are moving into the final stage of UN empowerment.  Thus, the necessity to create constant conflict and then insist on a UN solution via force. 

 

So, why has Congress itself resisted exercising its constitutional right, when it would be an open and shut debate leading to final approval?  I think it is because there is collusion among a broad spectrum of the leaders in Congress (of both parties), acting in concert with the President and his CFR advisors, to undermine the Constitution through UN interaction.  Rep. Ron Paul, in early December of 2002, elicited a telling response from key members of Congress when he presented a motion to Congress to declare war on Iraq.  His motion was met with an immediate wall of hostility from high leaders in Congress sworn to uphold the Constitution.  According to Rep. Paul’s report,  “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.’ Worse yet, all transcripts, both public and private, of the committee meeting where this was presented were purged illegally to hide what transpired.  Doctoring the public record of an open public meeting is against the law.  Whoever gave the orders to do so was guilty of obstruction of justice and other crimes.  That these records were purged is also firm evidence of a conspiracy because persons with fiduciary responsibility to Congress were threatened or suborned into altering or erasing the transcript.

 

The coming war is a unilateral act on the part of the US, even though there will be a token coalition of support involved in the Iraqi invasion.  Everyone knows it is the US pushing and bribing the others.  No one believes it is an honest and willing coalition.  British PM Tony Blair is carrying water for the Bush administration despite massive opposition at home.  Even European leaders may follow suit, despite popular opposition to the war running above 70%.  Europe’s leaders have shown a tendency to come on board with the US after putting up initial resistance.  Who can resist the US power to bribe with aid and trade? On Tuesday’s Jim Lehrer News Hour, it was openly admitted that various Security Council members were trading their “yea” votes regarding a second UN resolution, for US aid and favors.  Chile, for example, has agreed to support the US if it gets a beneficial trade agreement.  Mexico (no surprise) has gotten a promise from the Bush administration of increased easing of immigration policies (the details of which will be kept secret, no doubt). 

 

RUSSIAN ARMS EXPORTS TO CHINA CONTINUE TO GROW

The American Foreign Policy Council (www.afpc.org) reported this week, “Russia’s Committee on Foreign Military and Technological Cooperation has said that the country’s arms exports came to $4.8 billion last year. The sales set a post-Soviet record for a second year running, marking a major increase from the 2001 total of $3.7 billion.”  These are the public figures, which are understated by at least 10 times. 

 

The largest share of these exports goes to China, Syria and Iran.  The Taiwanese Research Institute, citing mainland Chinese sources, reports that “China has concluded a deal with Russia to purchase 72 Su-30 MKK fighters, with an agreement for licensed production of 250 more.”  In addition, China continues to import the latest Russian ICBM—the Topol-M  (SS-27), which has a strategic range capable of hitting the US mainland.  This deal will increase China’s ICBM fleet from 20 to over 100, all equipped with MIRV warheads.  According to the AFPC, “Hong Kong newspapers have reported that within two years, Beijing will begin deploying the DF-31 [its own indigenous version of the Russian ICBM], with a target range of about 8,000 kilometers.”  China, in turn, supplies North Korea with missile technology, so we can assume that North Korea has a domestic arsenal of missiles far superior to the scuds Pyongyang builds for export.

 

In typical fashion, Russia’s Technology Corporation chief Mikhail Dmitriyev insisted that “Russia is observing international sanctions in its sales programs.”  However, on February 8th, the Financial Times of London reported US intelligence sources as saying that “unofficial Russian suppliers” have been supplying Iraq with shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles.  We might rightly ask why the US would leak this sort of information to Britain, while its own president remains silent before the American public.  Here we have various direct ties linking Russia and China to the Bush axis of evil (Iraq, Iran, and North Korea), and yet there are no consequences dealt the larger predator nations; rather, all we see is a continued downplaying of these violations of international agreements.

 

ISRAEL:  SHARON’S INCREDIBLE BACK ROOM DEALING SABOTAGES THE RIGHT

It has been no secret that despite the landslide victory of the “right-wing” Likud party (which is actually more center left), PM Ariel Sharon’s first choice for coalition partners has been his old line buddies on the left—the Labor Party.  As reported by the International Christian Zionist Center (www.iczc.org.il), “In what can only be called incredible foolishness after its sensational big win in the recent elections, the Likud leadership is about to deliver a slap in the face to its own party, as well as to the electorate that just boosted them into such a position of influence, by giving back to Labor's politicians what they lost in the election: the power to continue in the road to OSLO, to an independent Palestinian State. And in addition, the dangerous possibility of giving Labor two senior portfolios! (Shimon Peres [architect of the disastrous Oslo Accords and prime suspect in the murder of PM Yitzhak Rabin] again as the Foreign Minister, and Amram Mitzna [pacifist compromiser] as the Defense Minister)…Thus Labor may well influence much of the coming Likud policies, after all. Thus the loser wins big!”

 

Incredibly, after Sharon’s begging and pleading for two weeks for the left to come on board, the Labor Party held fast and said no.  No one has a rational explanation.  This appears as stupid on the part of the Labor Party as was Arafat’s refusal to accept Labor PM Barak’s offer of 97% of what Palestinians demanded at the Clinton negotiating table.  The government of Israel, in both these cases, is caught offering to sell out their own nation to their enemies on the left, and miraculously, those very enemies of security keep it from happening!  (Why doesn’t that ever happen to us here in America, where our “conservative” leaders keep selling us out with nary a snag?)  

 

After being spurned twice by Labor (once when they pulled out of the previous unity government and now with their refusing to join another), you would think that Sharon would have no choice but to deal with his natural allies on the right wing.  Unfortunately, the reality is more complicated.  Yes, he is dealing with the right, but in doing so he is intent on coercing the right into compromising on their core principles.  Prior to the latest round of backroom negotiations, the parties further to the right of Likud were nearly unanimous in two crucial aspects—their opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state, provisional or otherwise, and their insistence on maintaining the Jewish character of the state of Israel.  Now, it appears, one of the conditions of acceptance into the Sharon coalition is the downplaying of these principles.  Rather than use their negotiating power to extract concessions from Sharon to drop his support of a Palestinian state, these right wing parties have each agreed to allow Sharon to continue to champion the cause of a Palestinian state.  Here’s the analysis from Arutz-7, reporting on the signing of preliminary agreements by the parties [my comments in brackets]:

 

“The coalition agreement of the Likud, Shinui [anti-religious party], the National Union, and the National Religious Party was signed in the Knesset this afternoon. The Knesset, with a majority consisting of at least the 68 coalition MKs [61 is the minimum], is scheduled to vote to approve it this afternoon [Feb 26]. The new government will not be sworn in until tomorrow or Monday, however, because the final distribution of the Cabinet portfolios has not yet been completed [another case of extreme infighting, explained below].  The coalition guidelines state that Sharon's ‘Herzliya speech,’ in which he called for a Palestinian state in accordance with US President George Bush's ‘vision of Middle East peace,’ will be the guiding principle.  The National Union [right wing, officially opposed to a Palestinian state] agreed to leave this reference in the guidelines, under the [naïve] assumption that the issue is not relevant.  [Not relevant?  It’s the key issue!]  National Union officials say that cooperation between themselves and the NRP [right-wing National Religious Party] will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

 

This rationalization is typical of right wing parties who are so anxious to attain positions of supposed influence within government, that they will explain away the danger of their compromises in order to prolong the illusions of political power.  Attorney Elyakim Ha'etzni of Kiryat Arba, a former MK of the now-defunct right-wing Techiya Party, correctly analyzed this disaster-in-process. “It's very painful,” he told Arutz-7, “to hear them say that their presence in the government prevents Sharon from including Labor in the coalition… As soon as [Labor Party leader] Mitzna leaves (and Sharon and Peres and Ben-Eliezer are working to make this happen), Labor will rush to join the government.  Sharon and the right-wing no longer have the same political ideology.  Sharon's ideology is now the same as Peres’, and he has in fact destroyed the right-wing; first he turned the Likud to the center, and now he has neutralized the NRP and the National Union. As soon as the diplomatic conditions ripen for his diplomatic plan, Labor will replace the National Union and the NRP.”  Incredibly, even as Prime Minister Sharon announced the new government he said that he is still interested in a national unity government with the opposition.  He just won’t quit.  This seems to verify that Sharon is simply joining forces temporarily with parties on the right until the next coalition crisis (which can be engineered at will), at which point he can dump them in favor of his Labor buddies.

 

Netanyahu ousted as Foreign Minister

As PM Sharon put together his fragile center-right coalition he shocked his own Likud Party by replacing his popular “no Palestinian state” Foreign Minister with one of his own lackeys, finance minister Silvan Shalom (who has no foreign policy experience).  He then offered Netanyahu the finance minister slot left vacant by Shalom’s ascension.  After a few days of haggling, Netanyahu finally accepted the offer under certain conditions. As Arutz-7 reports, “Sharon agreed to most of Netanyahu's terms, including full backing from the government, the authority to set the composition of the economic cabinet and to privatize government-owned companies, and the mandate to negotiate Israel's request for American loan guarantees.”  Sharon did not grant Netanyahu’s other major demand, the right to be Acting Prime Minister (who takes the place of the PM when the PM is out of the country or incapacitated).  This position went to outgoing Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, a more predictable Sharon ally.

 

Here’s how this looks to the Likud faithful and other Israeli political pundits.  Netanyahu is the de facto leader of the far right portion of Likud (even though when serving as Prime Minister he compromised many key right wing demands just like all other center-left prime ministers controlled by the US).  It is believed that since Netanyahu was Sharon’s prime competitor for Likud leadership, Sharon brought Netanyahu briefly into the government last November, to neutralize him. (As a member of Sharon’s cabinet, Netanyahu would be expected to play yes-man to Sharon’s policies.)

 

In contrast, here is what is really going on.  Netanyahu was given the Foreign Ministry portfolio to satisfy the right wing majority of the Likud party and to keep them from defecting to other more reliable right wing parties challenging Sharon.  Once the election was past, Sharon dumped Netanyahu and put in Shalom, a predictable yes-man to Sharon’s policies, which mirror what the Bush administration is demanding.  A $4 billion aid package is hanging in the balance plus an $8 billion loan guarantee package, depending on whether Sharon succeeds in assembling a center-left government.  Nothing further to the right will satisfy the US, despite its anti-terror rhetoric.  Thus we continue to observe that a consistent betrayal of the right wing of Israel by their pretended conservative leaders. Yet the right manages to survive in Israel due to the recalcitrance and unpredictability of the opposition, which miraculously continue to block implementation of the suicidal US peace plans for the region.  

 

MARCH 2003

 

THE “CAPTURE” OF KHALED MOHAMMED

Intervention Magazine reports, “Of 414 stories on the Iraqi question that aired on NBC, ABC and CBS from Sept. 14 to Feb. 7, the vast majority originated from the White House, Pentagon and State Department.  Only 34 stories originated from elsewhere in the country.”  As I have pointed out before, virtually everything the American public knows about Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda comes from the US government as well.  This tells volumes about how interlinked the establishment media has become with government sources of information.  Nothing is more dangerous to liberty than when the sole source of information on national security comes from the federal government.  I no longer trust anything that comes from the US government, so strong is its reputation for omitting key information and falsifying other key stories. 

There are reams of discrepancies in this week’s claims about the capture of Khaled Shaikh Mohammed and his being the “mastermind” of the 9/11 attacks.  Robert Fisk of The Independent and Toronto Star filed this report on March 3 that sums up the evidence against Mohammed (or lack thereof):

“In the theatre of the absurd into which America's hunt for Al Qaeda so often descends, the ‘arrest’--the quotation marks are all too necessary--of Khaled Shaikh Mohommed is nearer the Gilbert and Sullivan end of the repertory.  First, Mohammed was arrested in a joint raid by the CIA and Pakistani agents near Islamabad and spirited out of the country to an ‘undisclosed location.’ ‘The man who masterminded the September 11th attacks,’ was how the United States billed this latest ‘victory’ in the ‘war against terror’ (again, quotation marks are obligatory). Then the Pakistanis announced that he hadn't been taken out of Pakistan at all.  Then a Pakistani police official expressed his ignorance of any such arrest.

“And then, a Taliban ‘source’ - this means the real Taliban but ‘source’ is supposed to cover the fact that the old Afghan regime still exists - claimed that Mohammed ‘is still with us and in our protection and we challenge the United States to prove their claim.’  By this stage, it looked like a case of the ‘oops’ school of journalism: a good story that just might be totally untrue.  Not least because the last post known to be held by the Kuwaiti with a Pakistani passport was media adviser to the marriage of Osama bin Laden's son in Kandahar in January, 2001. Then there was the slow revelation that the man whose arrest was described by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer as ‘a wonderful blow to inflict on Al Qaeda,’ had been handed over to Pakistani authorities (if indeed he had been handed over) by the ISI, the Pakistani Interservices Intelligence - for whom Mohammed used to work.

“Like the man accused of arranging the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, Mohammed was an ISI asset; indeed, anyone who is ‘handed over’ by the ISI these days is almost certainly a former (or present) employee of the Pakistani agency whose control of Taliban operatives amazed even the Pakistani government during the years before 2001.  Pearl, it should be remembered, arranged his fatal assignation in Karachi on a mobile phone from an ISI office in the city.

“True, Mohammed is the uncle of the 1993 World Trade Center conspirator Ramzi Youssef and a brother of [a CIA declared] Al Qaeda operative. True, another brother was killed in a bomb explosion in Pakistan - he was allegedly making the bomb at the time. But claims that he was the Sept. 11 ‘mastermind’ — ‘it's hard to overstate how significant this is,’ the ever loquacious Fleischer informed the world yesterday – are still unprovable.  Hitherto, the nearest to a ‘mastermind’ anyone got was Mounir al-Motassadeq, who was jailed in Germany last month as an accessory to mass murder.

“The waters – and deep they are – were also muddied by the White House's claim that four men executed in an attack by a missile-firing pilotless drone in Yemen last year were ‘among Al Qaeda's top 20 leaders’   Whether they were numbers 2 to 5 or 17 to 20, no one at the Pentagon or White House could say. So how can we trust their word that Mohammed is a ‘mastermind?’  Of course, it may all turn out to be true. We may be provided with the proof the Taliban demand.  Or Mohammed may be kept in Pakistani custody until another ‘mastermind’ can be found.

“Or it may just be that reports of the ‘arrest’ of the likes of Mohammed are useful to Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf when he's just angered the Americans by criticizing any U.S. military attack on Iraq, or when Pakistan's new regional government in the North West Frontier province has just instituted Taliban-style laws in Peshawar. All in all – as far as Mohammed’s arrest and deportation and then his non-deportation are concerned - when constabulary duty is to be done, a policeman's lot is not a happy one. Especially if he belongs to the ISI.” [End of Fisk quote.]

 

MORE CRUCIAL EVIDENCE THAT THE “FALL OF COMMUNISM” WAS A DECEPTION

Once in a while a rare source comes forth that adds significant confirmation to my contention that the “fall of Communism” was a carefully crafted deception.  This is one of those opportunities to see the truth.  Pieces of the puzzle have surfaced in Romania, Bulgaria and Poland (where even the famed Solidarity opposition movement under Lech Walesa was found to be controlled by the Communists).  However, the following interview of Petr Cibulka, conducted by Czech expatriate Jan Malina, blows open the façade of deception in Czechoslovakia.  I am indebted to Jeff Nyquist for publishing this interview on the web.  The original transcript can be found at http://www.jrnyquist.com/petr_cibulka_2003_0310.htm.

Petr Cibulka is a Czech journalist and dissident (imprisoned five times so far) who publishes the newspaper Uncensored News specifically to counter the official information blackout about continued Communist control in Czechoslovakia.  In 1992 Cibulka acquired and published data from secret police files revealing the names of over 160,000 Communist officers and collaborators still in government positions, and demanded their removal from government and prosecution for crimes against human rights.   Subsequently he became a target of aggressive attacks from “former” Communist officials in the Czech government under the leadership of the internationally acclaimed and presumed dissident leader Vaclav Havel.  My comments in the following interview excerpt are included in [brackets].

 

Cibulka: “After the so-called ‘Velvet Revolution,’ the revolution that supposedly overthrew communism in November 1989, I asked many times for justice and the punishment of the communist cadres in power at that time. That would have meant a recall from power for all communists and a true public trial for their crimes against innocent people. I was unpleasantly surprised when I discovered that Vaclav Havel and Civic Forum [Havel’s political organization] were against my efforts. That was a real shock to me, and I refused to go along with it.  I organized massive protests against the leadership of the country's second largest city (Brno) where I lived at the time. After that I found that Civic Forum stands even more against me and against those who were fighting the communist dictatorship. Civic Forum became a great protector of the communist criminals and cadres that remained in power. I also realized, very quickly, that the censorship applied to dissidents remained strong. Therefore we put together the ‘Uncensored News’ publication.

 

JM: “How long have you been a journalist and can you tell us something about the STB [secret police] files you've published?

 

Cibulka: “Since the fall of 1990 we tried to publish ‘Uncensored News’ under the auspices of the anti-communist wing of Civic Forum, but that was totally dismantled, liquidated and defeated by the Havel regime. But shortly after that I was contacted by some people from Prague who invited me to begin publishing a true conservative newspaper. We all agreed on working together and in the spring of 1991 we published the first issue of ‘Uncensored News’ in about 70,000 copies. Our newspaper was then published bi-weekly and later as a weekly issue. Unfortunately for Vaclav Havel's ‘velvet’ regime this newspaper was too true and uncensored and was informing people too thoroughly about conditions in the Czech Republic. Our paper debunked many lies widely believed about the November revolution [of 1989] and the fact it was not an anti-communist revolution at all. It was a privatization coup organized by the reform wing of the Russian KGB. It was accomplished in order to install the self-invited ‘new administration,’ turning them into the country's rulers and lawful owners. And that was achieved in full measure by the communists, the STB and KGB structures under the leadership of Vaclav Havel. As a result there was a fraudulent privatization of state wealth that in fact ended up in the hands of communist and STB/KGB structures only.

This was shown fully and accurately in 1992 when, by blind luck, ‘Uncensored News’ acquired and published the names of 160,000 officers and collaborators of the communist secret police, STB, and its Second Department (the department charged with the ‘struggle against interior enemies’). For the first time the people had a chance to read the truth about the level of infiltration and the level of control of this society by communist and STB powers and structures.

 

JM: “How much interest was there from the government and also from the public to publish the communist dossiers? Were there any obstacles put up by the state to block publication?

 

Cibulka: “The public was, from the first day, insisting on a full disclosure and publication of all communist secrets (including those of the Soviet occupation government). Unfortunately, all the people in power, and that means President Havel, and all the others (Vaclav Klaus, Milos Zeman, Dienstbier, Pithart and others) were very strongly against it, against any publishing, against any openings of communist archives, against any punishment of communist criminals to whom they had guaranteed immunity! [The same thing happened in Germany after the ‘fall’ of the Berlin Wall.] In fact, punishment was blocked by this ‘revolutionary bunch’ through a ‘law’ rubberstamped by the Czechoslovak Parliament – a law that in fact guaranteed legal continuity with the previous communist regime. So today it is impossible to bring the communist criminals to justice.

 

JM: “How do you view President Vaclav Havel and his role in the so-called Velvet Revolution?

 

Cibulka: “Havel's family used to be one of the richest families in Prague. They worked very hard and reliably for the Gestapo in World War Two. In 1945, after the defeat of Nazi Germany, Havel's family was not charged with collaborating with the Nazis. Almost immediately, it is believed, they began cooperating with Soviet military intelligence and also the KGB and therefore were protected by the communists.  Vaclav Havel himself signed up with the communist STB and was regarded as a totally reliable cadre. To this day the Communist Party and the secret police do not regret their decision to recruit Vaclav Havel.

 

JM: “Can we say that the speech President Havel gave in the early 1990s to the US Congress was a carefully prepared deception based on lies?

 

Cibulka: “Of course. Vaclav Havel told them then: ‘If you want to help Czechoslovakia then you must help the Soviet Union!’ I think that this is again the same old communist strategy. They're realizing that Western Europe is already under their rule indirectly through communist agents of influence [including the highest national leaders, who are under Moscow’s influence via their membership in the Socialist International] – corrupt and compromised politicians. Western Europe is not a threat to Moscow. On the contrary, Moscow has a strong position there. This is now apparent when we look at the relationship between Western Europe and the United States. At the moment there is no desire on part of most European countries to support the USA…In the spring of last year, as reported by ‘The Guardian’ newspaper in Britain, there was a shipment of weapons that originated from the Czech Republic and ended up in Iraq. What kind of people are running the Czech military industrial complex and why did the Czech Republic, as a NATO member state, send weapons to people that are in total opposition to the United States?

“I'm convinced that the communists and their secret services, connected to Moscow, never lost any power in the Czech Republic. So admitting the Czech Republic into NATO did nothing to damage Moscow's position. Leading circles in the United States have been misled to think that Moscow was forced out of its ‘former’ satellites in Central and Eastern Europe. Quite the opposite is true. Instead of NATO marching East, Moscow moved its borders very far to the West and now it has more power than ever. Of course, the Czech Republic will support the USA through declarations and with words; but the Czech government's deeds will always threaten American liberties and values. …If America continues to deal with communist criminals as it has done over the last 13 years she will be overthrown and victimized for her political and economic errors.  [Here is where Cibulka shows his naiveté.   He fails to see that Presidents George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton and George Bush Jr. have all known about this deception and have their own globalist reasons for protecting this Communist deception.  During the Clinton administration it came to light that Czechoslovakia, under Havel, had keep secret the fact that Russia still had hundreds of medium range missiles in underground tunnels in Czechoslovakia, as well as in Bulgaria.  Our current president never made an issue of it and continues to promote the façade of Russian cooperation.] 

 

JM: “Do you think that this sale of [Czech] biological weapons to terrorists was an individual operation done by some unreliable Czech army officers or is there something more involved here?

 

Cibulka: “I am absolutely certain that the Czech Republic is still being controlled and directed by the Russian KGB. There are no anti-communist heroes in power in the Czech Republic, but only KGB agents and the Czech secret communist police STB.  Therefore, everything that's happening in the Czech Republic is part of their plans.  I don't believe in the fiction that ‘underpaid army officers’ are behind this.  We are looking at a large worldwide communist organization that is systematically working to destroy the United States.

 

JM: “So we can safely say that, regarding weapons sales from Russia and from other countries of the ‘former’ communist bloc to terrorist nations, the idea that East European military officers are uncontrollable and are selling weapons to terrorists without supervision is totally absurd?

 

Cibulka: “Yes, that's exactly it!  I'm saying that Russia and other post-communist countries are directed the same way as organized crime. When there's a scandal of one kind or another they all say that these are operations run by out-of-control individuals without any state involvement [the ‘rogue agent’ excuse]. I'm saying that these countries are criminal from the beginning and their politics are nothing else but the criminal communist politics of deception.  Our ‘Uncensored News,’ before it was liquidated by Havel's regime, devoted a lot of time to monitoring and describing Czech ‘organized’ crime and its connections to the government.

 

JM: “I wanted to ask about Bill Clinton. There was an article published in a Czech Daily newspaper in 1992 about Bill Clinton's possible co-operation with the Czech secret service. Can you tell us something more about that?

 

Cibulka: “I've read that article myself. It was written by a former STB agent, a writer for the Czech Daily ‘Lubor Kohout.’ He was able to document Bill Clinton's visit to Prague in January 1970 when he stopped on his way from Moscow. Clinton stayed with the Kopold family.  Mr. Kopold, a communist operative, used to work for the Czech Army.  The Kopolds are one of the highest communist families connected with Jan Sverma, who died in WWII. This ultra-communist family was very friendly to Clinton and he felt at home with them. Clinton has written many thankful letters about his stay with this communist family in Prague during the Red Army occupation. Clinton of course was not against the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, but quite the opposite. I'm convinced that Bill Clinton has been a communist for decades. In my judgment, his activities as United States president prove it 100 percent.  [I disagree.  Bill Clinton’s behavior can be better explained by his being part of the globalist conspiracy, paving the way for WWIII and covering for Communist war preparations in the meantime.]

 

JM: “You've told me that Europe is already under Russia's control. Is there any information that would confirm this opinion?

 

Cibulka: “There's a lot of information. For example, according to analysis published by ‘Uncensored News’ a few years ago about the Gestapo's ‘Operation Vampire’ carried out at the end of World War Two, and also according to  analysis done by French intelligence officer Pierre de Villmarest, the Gestapo infiltrated most of the underground anti-Nazi organizations in Europe with its best agents and gave them instructions to wait until the end of the war to join European communist parties, legislative power structures, armies, intelligence services and state apparatuses and to keep active in implementing National Socialism. This operation was according to every available information very successful; but after Germany's defeat most of the Nazi intelligence archives ended up in the hands of the Red Army. [The communists had their names from the start.]  That means the Red Army acquired many Nazi agents that could be turned against the United States [in ‘Operation Paperclip’ the US used many Nazi agents for dark side operations as well]. Of course, the Russians never revealed or made public any information about their agents unless these agents refused to co-operate. Only then are compromising materials published [also by dupes in the Western press]. Those agents who were ready and willing to work for Moscow were supported and protected by Moscow and so their children and family members are still obliged to work for Moscow today

 

JM: “Are the Russians still trying to install communist regimes all over the World?

 

Cibulka: “Yes, that's Moscow's basic objective. The communist movement is global, it is worldwide. The communist target is to conquer the entire World. [It’s more complicated than this.  South Africa and Zimbabwe are prime examples of nations where Western governments knew that the opposition parties were Communist but helped bring them to power anyway — so the spread of Communism  isn’t just a Moscow driven operation or deception.]

 

JM: “I was surprised that none of the Czech newspapers published President Bush's State of the Union speech. The Czech description of Bush's message looks to me like disinformation or incompetence on the part of local journalists. Can you explain this?

 

Cibulka: “The entire Czech mass media, TV, radio and newspapers are under control of the KGB's cover companies. The KGB, GRU and all the communist structures did not lose control over the information networks even during Vaclav Havel's presidency because they've known that whoever owns the information monopoly owns the power monopoly as well [as in Nazi Germany and in the US presently]. Furthermore, I think we are engaged in a fundamental fight as to which side the Czech Republic will join in the up-coming Third World War: if the Czech republic will be fighting on the United States’ side or against it, on the Russian side.” [End of Cibulka interview.] 

Again, Cibulka views this as a struggle only between Communism and the United States.  He fails to see the presence of a third, predominant force which carefully controls the US government and micromanages these deceptions.  These Globalists, who conspire to undermine all national sovereignty and replace it with a controlled, superficially democratic, New World Order — want exclusive powers to use force.  Once that happens, the opportunity for a nation to opt out will be permanently foreclosed.

 

“NOVA” CONTINUES TO PROPAGANDIZE AMERICA ABOUT THE RUSSIAN DEMISE

A couple of years ago I reported on the program NOVA produced, entitled “The Missileers,” in which NOVA journalists joined forces with naïve US Gen. Eugene Habiger to tour and film an old and decrepit Russian missile facility, supposedly demonstrating how weak Russia is and how important it is for the US to help “safeguard” Russia’s nuclear arsenal with US taxpayer dollars.  NOVA claimed to have gained “unprecedented access to Russia's largest missile base.”  It was pure propaganda, including Habiger’s wistful references to the camaraderie he felt with his fellow Russian missileers.  The base they toured was indeed decrepit, but it was maintained only for show and tell for the benefit of US inspectors and eager media liberals at PBS and NOVA.  The disinformation involved is that the show masks the existence of Russia’s top-of-the-line missile facilities (for the Topol M series ICBMs) which are anything but decrepit.  Naturally, NOVA journalists and US inspectors are not allowed inside these latter facilities, although US officials have been given a superficial view of the Topol M.  Russia’s state of the art facilities are all underground and out of sight of US inspectors. 

Now NOVA is at it again, beating the drums about the threat of bioterrorism and the proliferation of biological weapons from the “former Soviet Union.”  NOVA producer Kirk Wolfinger (of “The Missileers”) also produced this new program, entitled “Bioterror.”  He used the same format, showcasing men on both sides of the war on bioterror and labeling them “bioweaponeers.”  Much of the information presented is true and beneficial — especially the interview with former US bioweapons expert Bill Patrick and Russian defector Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov (whose name has been changed to Ken Alibek). Alibek defected in 1992 and brought with him intimate knowledge of the Soviet Union's biological weapons program, including Russian cheating on all international treaties related to the ban of such weapons. He should know — he was deputy chief of Biopreparat, the main Soviet agency in charge of bio weapons.

“Bioterror,” first aired in November of 2002, concentrates on showcasing the threat (which is real), and spotlights the decrepit condition of the older Russian facilities opened to NOVA.  That’s where the disinformation starts.  By showcasing the old facilities, the program again gives the impression that Russia is no longer a threat.  NOVA makes a big deal out of the claim that “former” bio weapon scientists are “for sale” for practically nothing.  But, this is more false than true.  Russia still keeps tight control over the terrorist organizations it allows to have bioweapons.  Yes, bioweapons are allowed to escape, but not via the free market. 

Here’s a critical review on the NOVA special from J. Adams, one of my sources.  “The NOVA special included parts where Judith Miller and U.S. DOD officials were in the former Soviet Union to tour former biological weapons facilities in Kazakhstan and other such places (specifically, the Stepnogorsk plant, purportedly the largest biological weapons plant in the history of the world).  As they entered the Stepnogorsk plant, they went through a rusted old gate into what appeared to be an abandoned old factory.  There was one part where they visited the ‘anti-plague institute’ in Kazakhstan and entered a secret room, never before seen by Western journalists, where there's a bunch of old refrigerators with signs on them, in English, [very suspicious] saying ‘Plague’ or ‘Anthrax’ and the like.  They opened the Plague refrigerator and there were old pea cans and soup cans filled with vials of various strains and samples of the given pathogen. There's little sheets of old paper in the cans with listings of what's there suggesting an archaic cataloguing system where something could easily go missing unnoticed. Also notable was the flimsy security of the room that had a simple locked door and a great big window in the back.

“Next, they visited the home of the former director of the Stepnogorsk facility. The director had supposedly been relieved from his job just days before NOVA arrived and so he was seemingly drunk and singing with his dog about what will he ever do now that he has no job. NOVA took the clue and reported about concerns of how these scientists with super lethal bioweapons expertise could sell out to the highest bidder since Moscow can't afford to keep things running.  They noted how Kazakhstan and Tajikistan where these facilities are located are not far from Afghanistan and the home of Moslem terrorist networks and rogue states like Iran that could take bioweapons and use them for horrible acts of bioterrorism.

“Needless to say, given my perspective on Russia's deceptive pursuits, I considered what I saw in the program classic disinformation.  Why would such flimsy security and cataloguing be used for substances that could reap such tremendous harm on the world by terrorists... including Russia that is supposedly threatened by Moslem extremists angered by the Chechen war? Why would these scientists with such dangerous know-how be left payless and desperate such that they'd go work for rogue states and terrorist groups bent on using biological weapons for terrorist purposes? What is contained in the NOVA program is nonsensical disinformation.” [End of Adams quote.]

There was one interesting and candid exchange between Patrick and Alibek which speaks volumes about US claims that it knows today what is going on in Russia:  Alibek, commenting on what surprised him after defecting, said, “What was amazing to me, when I came to the United States, I realized I knew practically everything about the United States program.”  Patrick then responded, , “Right. And we knew absolutely nothing about yours. I never will forget when you started giving me the potential production figures for your various weaponized agents. If you recall, I just put my head down on the table where we were talking and said, ‘Oh, my God. Oh, my God.’ It was a revelation that was just unbelievable to me.” 

Earlier in the 90s Alibek had told  Reader’s Digest  about Russia’s multiple violations of bioweapons treaties it signed.  Naturally, these violations were never mentioned in the NOVA special.  According to Alibek the threat of a Russian attack is greater today than ever.  Russia has never disarmed its newest and best weaponry.  If Alibek mentioned any of these things in the NOVA interview, they were edited out.

 

IRAQI WAR: WHICH IS IT, “SHOCK AND AWE” OR “IRAQI FREEDOM”?

The war has finally emerged into open attack, even though the US has been softening up and attacking Iraq by air for months.  There was never any doubt in my mind that the US attack on Iraq was inevitable.  The failed UN diplomacy gambit was only a show for the sake of achieving partial legitimacy before the American public, and to propagandize Americans about the noble globalist agenda that will live on and prosper even as the US and the UN pretend they are at odds over this war.  Watch for the UN to jump right in once the war is over and turn the US victory into an opening for more UN intervention.

The original title chosen for the Iraqi war, Shock and Awe, is the real one.  The euphemistic follow-on, Iraqi Freedom, like the deceptive title Enduring Freedom for Afghanistan, is being used to propagate the big lie that Iraq will be a free and democratic nation after the inevitable US victory.  Afghanistan itself is hardly free today under the globalist puppet government of Hamid Karzai (who recently said that his government needs “foreign stabilization for as long as necessary”—which means occupation troops and foreign aid for a long, long time).  I predict that in like manner, Iraq will never be free, except superficially.  It will become another UN protectorate under a token Iraqi leadership whose primary function will be to keep buying off competing opposition groups with aid and lucrative local concessions.  It is ironic that the US never allows a country to establish a government similar to its own constitutional Republic with strictly limited government powers.  Instead, it always pushes for socialist democratic forms of government—ensuring constant future conflict between competing minority groups that hate each other.  The US has solved nothing by its interventions in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, except to replace indigenous tyranny with global control.  Yes, the result is superficially more peaceful, but underlying resentment and hatred of their NWO occupiers is building. 

President Bush has no intention of implementing the disinformation plan presented in the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which supposedly justifies US intervention under the benevolent concept of using force to change the world for democracy.  The President does intend to use US military power to overthrow unfavored regimes, but his objective is to supplant them with the UN—not a system of liberty.  The president’s spokesman, Ari Fleischer, went out of his way to deflect the suggestion by a WND reporter that the US discard the UN as a failed institution.  At Thursday’s press conference he asserted: “Looking ahead toward the future, there is indeed a very important role for the United Nations in the humanitarian efforts and the reconstruction efforts that lie ahead.  That is, indeed, important. The United Nations has fulfilled that role in all corners around the world with ability in the past, and the president will look to them to do that again in the future.”  I beg to differ.  The UN has failed miserably to establish peace, and has on many occasions looked the other way while Communist insurgents take over nation after nation in Africa.  The fratricidal wars of genocide in Rwanda can be specifically blamed on the UN’s refusal to intervene in a timely manner.

Tony Blair, in his speech to the British nation, was even more specific.  He let the cat out of the bag about UN control when he said, “Our commitment to the post-Saddam humanitarian effort will be total. We shall help Iraq move towards democracy and put the money from Iraqi oil in a UN trust fund so it benefits Iraq and no-one else.” If Iraq is to be given liberty, why is it not given control of its oil revenues like any other Arab state?  Apparently all the talk of Russia, the US and France negotiating with the Iraqi opposition for post war oil contracts was just so much disinformation to let the Iraqi opposition think they would have real power after the war.

Gordon Brown, Britain’s Chancellor of the exchequer reinforced the truth that US allies intend to put Iraq under UN financial control when he said, “I think the Government is of the view that the oil revenues should come under a United Nations trust fund.  And therefore one of the arguments about this being a war for other countries to control Iraq's oil is simply not the case. There would be an international effort through the United Nations for reconstruction.”  Journalist Matt Peacock stated the ultimate truth: “Whatever happens at the UN in the next few days, it's not going to stop the war. More likely, it'll ensure its role after war.”

In short, all of the somber faced piety of the President while addressing the nation about our supposed benevolent intentions was put on to deceive America’s religious conservatives into uncritical support for the war.  But the president’s assurances about protecting America are but a mask to cover the ongoing global agenda to install the UN in protectorate status in as many trouble spots as possible.  Indeed, it is my assessment that is the prime reason why George Bush, Sr., who used the term “New World Order” hundreds of times in speeches during his presidency, declined to remove Saddam Hussein at the conclusion of the Gulf War, shocking all his military leaders.   The former president was setting the stage for round two of this conflict, a round that would finally harness Iraqi oil for NWO “nation building”—a euphemism for achievement of global control, one nation at a time.   Iraq, under its new puppet regime, will probably never be in charge of its own oil or destiny again.

Let’s look at who the US is planning to work with in its “new and improved” Iraqi government.  Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC--the main opposition coalition in exile) has a less than sterling background.  Chalabi fled Jordan after bilking investors out of millions in the failure of the Petra Bank—a bank he and others started up in Jordan to take advantage of the Shiite minority in Jordan, who complained that they had no bank sympathetic to their needs.  Chalabi was found guilty by a Jordanian court and sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in the disappearance of funds.  Like all the other high level officials put in place by globalists, Chalabi fits the profile of being controllable due to the corruption hanging over his head.  If Chalabi is allowed to lead in Iraq, you can be sure the US will twist Jordan’s arm to pardon Chalabi for his crimes.

I’m also keeping a look out for the reappearance of Gen. Nizar al-Khazraji, Saddam’s former army chief of staff, who was in charge of Saddam’s military when the Kurdish revolt was crushed by the use of chemical weapons.  Al-Kharzraji defected to the West via Jordan and Spain and finally received asylum in Denmark in 1999.  He mysteriously disappeared this week from his home after telling a friend he was “going for a walk” to smoke a cigarette.  It is not known if he was finally nabbed by Iraqi agents or whether he was spirited away to a safe house by the CIA to play a future role in Iraq. 

 

The US Tactical Strategy in Iraq:  The US military/political strategy for the attack on Iraq is clever and has several options, designed to maximize the shock effects of new weapons and to encourage defections for a quick victory.  The Bush administration wants out quickly and with the least casualties possible, not due to any great benevolence and regard for life (otherwise they wouldn’t be pushing this unjust war in the first place), but so they can continue intervening in other regions of the world without a huge public backlash at home.  The US military, meanwhile, does not share in this secret globalist agenda.  They are just following orders, though gratefully they are sincere in wanting to avoid casualties, both military and civilian.

The US prepped the war by taking out most of Iraq’s Russian provided air defense radars and dropping millions of leaflets encouraging Iraqi troops and units to surrender to avoid destruction.  In order to induce Iraqis to accept these offers, the US began the first stage of hostilities with a brief but massive show of force—aerial bombardment for the shock effect—targeting points that would not kill many soldiers or people.  Iraqi armored units and troops were carefully instructed by the leaflets on how to signal US forces of their intentions to surrender, so as not to be fired upon.  Now, the US has begun the ground invasion in closely guarded armored columns, looking for surrender signs or resistance.   If resistance is met, they will initiate more heavy bombardment to encourage surrender.  Failing that, they will engage the enemy with full force on both ground and in the air.  US units found very little resistance the first day.  They are thus continuing northward toward Basra in southern Iraq and Baghdad, carefully probing for the enemy. 

The US public is being flooded with non-stop war coverage, even more dramatic than in the Gulf War.  Every major network has a key journalist assigned to combat units who can be seen riding into battle with mobile satellite uplink equipment doing real time reporting.  However, none of these reporters are allowed to report on the Shock and Awe bombardments going on in Iraqi cities where civilian casualties are surely mounting.  This selectivity in reporting is intentional.  The US public, being inundated with war reports, thinks they are in the know, while the US government is able to successfully shield them from news of Iraqi civilian casualties—euphemistically termed “collateral damage.”  

One thing is sure:  if the war ends up being a “cake walk” for the military and they do not find massive (not just some) stockpiles of WMD, the US is going to lose a great deal of credibility for having overstated the case for “imminent threat” and war—especially in light of the blatant and real threats represented by North Korea, China and Russia.

 

INTERESTING COMMENT ON THE MYTHICAL AL QAEDA ORGANIZATION

Laurie Garrett, a reporter for Newsday, made note of some very interesting comments she heard while mingling with the world heavy-weights at the Davos, Switzerland World Economic Forum. “I was in a dinner with heads of Saudi and German FBI, plus the foreign minister of Afghanistan. They all said that at its peak Al Qaeda had 70,000 members. Only 10% of them were trained in terrorism the rest were military recruits. Of that 7000 [terrorists], they say all but about 200 are dead or in jail. But Al Qaeda, they say, is like a brand which has been heavily franchised. And nobody knows how many unofficial franchises have been spawned since 9/11.”

So where did all the 70,000 disappear to?  Only a few hundred were killed in the Afghan war.  If the numbers she heard are true, it certainly may explain why the US hasn’t had any legitimate terrorist attacks after 9/11.  But, frankly, I don’t think these CIA sidekick agents could know such specific numbers, not to mention the specific fate of so many would-be terrorists—unless they are privy to US satellite photos showing thousands of Al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan on ships (which the US allowed to escape by failing to intercept).  More probably, this continued preoccupation with Al Qaeda explains why the US Justice Department (and the complicit media) continues to dangle the stock phrase “suspected of having links to Al Qaeda” before every arrest of suspected terrorist sympathizers—without any supporting evidence to the claim whatsoever.  It’s the terrorist threat idea that is being franchised and marketed to an unsuspecting world—not Al Qaeda itself  (which may or may not exist as a terror network, independent of CIA control).

 

APRIL 2003

 

BAGHDAD – STREET FIGHTING OR SIEGE?

As a brief overview of recent events in the current war with Iraq, the US has successfully bombarded the life out of the two Iraqi Republican Guard divisions south of Baghdad, and is now attempting to make sure the survivors don’t retreat back into the city.   Some have already escaped into the city, leaving their heavy equipment behind.  The US claims to have destroyed at least 1,000 of Iraq’s 2,500 tanks in the southern zone — which I don’t doubt, given the billions the US has spent in the massive air campaign.  Saddam’s generals made a tactical error by positioning their armored divisions outside the city where they could be easily targeted by US missiles and planes.  No matter how well such divisions are dug in and shielded by revetments, an offensive with unlimited time and a virtually unlimited budget for aerial bombardment will eventually kill everyone on the ground.  It’s a good thing the American public is shielded from having to directly confront the costs of this hugely expensive aerial war

Now the tough part of the war is about to begin.  The US has to decide whether to start reducing the city of Baghdad to rubble as it roots out the defenders building by building, or to lay siege to the city, hoping to cause a civilian uprising after a period of starvation.   They may do a combination of both.  Here are the issues:

Baghdad has approximately 5 million inhabitants.  The Iraqi government has stockpiled enough food for several months of siege conditions.  It would therefore take a while to generate enough civilian hardship to cause unrest.  In the meantime, media publicity of civilian suffering would not be good for the US image.  As for the street fighting option, Baghdad is a sprawling city, mostly composed of low masonry buildings with ample modern streets.  In contrast, European cities primarily consist of tightly packed urban alleys lined with high buildings,which are ideal for urban defenders.  With Baghdad’s wide boulevards, even tanks can maneuver inside the city, so the US will probably opt to take the risk of entering into street fighting rather than subject the civilians to a siege.   If it does, the city will likely sustain a high degree of damage since the US tends to use overwhelming force in any combat situation.  Houses and buildings will be blown away at any point that US troops are taking fire and it is probable that the civilian occupants have fled.  Again, the American deficit will pick up the tab for reconstruction. 

Once the city is taken, the huge expanse of territory occupied by Baghdad will make it extremely difficult for the US to hold the city.  Guerrilla styled attacks could erupt at any time after pacification begins, causing US troops to get mired down in constant small scale skirmishes.  In addition, I believe the level of hatred of America is sufficient in the capitol to make real pacification a difficult and long-term process. 

 

WHO’S NEXT?

The US State Department is putting out warnings that the US will target Iran and North Korea next.  Asst. Sec. of State John Bolton said on Thursday that, “In the aftermath of Iraq, dealing with the Iranian nuclear weapons program will be of equal importance as dealing with the North Korean nuclear weapons program.”  However, I fully believe that the US intends to “confront” these two surrogates with diplomacy—not armed force.

If there is to be any more armed confrontation, it looks like Syria is next on the list.  The US could easily use the longstanding Syrian occupation of Lebanon as the excuse—another “liberation.”  Notice US hypocrisy here:  the US has defended and protected Syria’s occupation of Lebanon as a “peacekeeping operation” (which it clearly was not!) for nearly two decades.   Recently, the US also supported Syria’s membership in the UN Security Council, even though it was and still is on the US black list of terror-sponsoring nations.  Now, suddenly, Syria is the bad guy (true, enough).  This dichotomy is all too reminiscent of US duplicity regarding Communism and its surrogates.  The US State Department has aided, defended, and covered for Communist regimes around the world since WWII.  Yet we are to believe they are now serious about attacking the “enemies of democracy” in the name of liberty?   Why the sudeen change?  And, why are they still protecting the Russia and China who control these surrogates?

This week, US Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld took pains to charge Syria with aiding Iraq.  Among his charges, Rumsfeld’s claims that Syria was shipping Russian night vision goggles into Iraq are particularly suspect, as are the further charges that thousands of suicide bombers are traveling from Palestine and Syria into Iraq to join in the defense of Baghdad.  First, the US currently controls all the roads leading into or near Baghdad.  There is no way thousands of suicide bombers in trucks or on foot, or even shipments of military equipment, could get past US surveillance or interdiction forces on the ground.  Second, the Russians and Syrians have known for months this war is coming.   Specialized equipment like night vision goggles would have long since been supplied to Iraq.  As usual, Rumsfeld refused to document his charges with specifics.  Either he is picking up an old piece of intelligence and making it appear as if it is current (as they did in the UN briefings), or his claims are a fabrication, generated by any number of spies and defectors the US uses and controls for political purposes. 

Syria clearly sees the handwriting on the wall and is actively making preparations to defend itself.  Syria’s president Assad was publicly defiant this week as he declared, “We will not wait to be the next target of US aggression!”  If attacked, Syria is capable of doing a lot of damage to Israel and/or US and British forces in the region.  Unlike Iraq, Syria has not been the object of years of inspections and sanctions.  It therefore has a burgeoning stockpile of biological and chemical weapons, augmented by weapons shipments from Iraq (of which US and Israeli intelligence are fully aware).  Syria also has hundreds of Russia anti-aircraft missile batteries and between 800 and 1000 medium range Scud missiles. 

How soon will the US make its move against the next target?  If the US has its way, it won’t be soon, but it won’t be a long time from now either.  The US will have used up over half of its high tech weapons inventory by the time Iraq is subdued.   Those stocks will take time to replenish.  Factories are in full production right now, and will probably never slow down.  Politically, US globalists would like to have at least six months of pacification in Iraq, to be able to declare that operation a “success” before moving on to Syria or Iran.  But bearing in mind the increasing costs of the Iraq war, I don’t think the US will want to ship all the troops and equipment back home and then bring them all back again to attack Syria.  I believe that the pacification of Iraq will be sufficiently difficult to justify our forces remaining in the Middle East long enough to tackle the next target.  Troop rotations will occur, but the equipment will stay.

I also expect to see the US bring over its new Stryker Brigades to test them in battle.  These light armored mobile divisions, which are undergoing intensive training right now, were deemed unready and too light to stand up to Russian heavy tanks in the current war.  However, given that the strategy of using bombardment to disable enemy heavy tanks is working in Iraq, the Army may bring over the new Stryker vehicles to test them in mop up and urban warfare.

 

THE RUSSIAN COMPONENT OF THE WAR

Iraq has been a surrogate for Russia’s Arab support strategy for many decades.  During the Gulf War, Russia made daily resupply flights into Iraq despite public proclamations by the US that Russia was an ally in the war.  The G.H.W. Bush administration, desperate to promote the president’s vaunted NWO agenda, covered for this Russian deception during the entire war.  Things have only slightly changed.  Russia still has things to hide in Iraq.  That may explain why, as the Russian publication Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports, “Russian intelligence agents are in Iraq, possibly to evacuate the Iraqi special services' archives before Saddam Hussein's regime falls.”  The Russian source continues, “The agents are in daily contact with their Iraqi counterparts and are trying to preempt the CIA and Britain's MI-6, which have also sent agents into Iraq to get hold of the archives.”  These archives detail Russian weapons involvement in Iraq.

Despite Russia’s willingness to let Iraq fall (to allow the US to paint itself with the black image of the aggressor) there are distinct advantages for Russia’s future war plans in allowing the Iraq war to be drawn out for the time being.  With the US eagerly testing out its new experimental equipment in wartime conditions, Russia has numerous advisors and intelligence teams in Baghdad keeping tabs on the latest US tactics and equipment.   You can bet they are learning everything they can about US electronic countermeasures and air combat tactics.  Russia has listening stations in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf waters, monitoring and deciphering US coded tactical communications.  Russia is also evaluating the effectiveness of its own anti-missile systems in Iraq (one brought down a US F-18 Hornet Wednesday).   The Russians sent in a limited number of their newest Kornet-E anti-tank missiles, which have scored a few kills on the powerful US Abrams main battle tank.  One Russian defense contractor, Aviaconversiya Ltd., is in Baghdad with a portable GPS-jamming device that can seriously impair U.S. satellite-based guidance systems in Iraq.   

The only thing surprising to me in terms of Russian contributions to the war has been the relative absence of Russian shoulder-fired SA-7 Strela missiles.  In Afghanistan, US shoulder fired Stinger missiles proved the nemesis of Russian helicopter gunships.  .  There should be thousands of these missiles in the hands of Iraqi troops.  Yet we see video of dozens of US helicopter gunships circling around smaller Iraqi cities in support of our troops, seemingly without ever having to encounter or evade these deadly missiles.  This is odd.

 

US MEDIA FINALLY ADMITS: US TARGETED CIVILIANS IN WWII 

In the media’s eagerness to contrast the supposed care in which the Pentagon is trying to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq, it has openly mentioned that US leaders purposely targeted civilians areas of cities in WWII.  The NBC news broadcast I was watching this week specifically mentioned Dresden, Germany and Tokyo, Japan.  There were many other examples they could have mentioned, especially in Germany.  They also failed to mention the most disastrous of all civilian attacks: Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The US media and government have always justified these latter nuclear holocausts with the reasoning that millions of American and Japanese lives were saved by ending the war without having to invade Japan with conventional forces.  This is simply a cover on two counts.  First, the Japanese were already extending feelers about a surrender, and second, the US could just as easily have chosen an offshore military target close to Tokyo as a show of force, which wouldn’t have targeted millions of innocent civilians.

The purposeful targeting of civilians is the standard element associated with terrorism.  Sad to say, both American and British leaders were guilty of that in WWII.  In fact, Britain, not Germany, was the first to have targeted civilians—contrary to what most history books portray.  Churchill felt he needed to induce more German atrocities in order to goad the Americans into joining the war.  A careful examination of the facts indicates that Hitler’s attacks on London didn’t come until after Churchill had provoked Germany with numerous attacks on civilians in Berlin and the Ruhr valley.   The British had long claimed that civilian deaths early in the bombing campaign were merely collateral damage that occurred when bombs went astray of industrial areas, but we know better now that secret archives have been opened.  A certain portion of British bombers were loaded with incendiary bombs and given target coordinates within civilian areas which supposedly contained some secret military site.  These sites turned out to be total fabrications.  Documentation is found in David Irving’s book, Churchill’s War, Vol. 1.  As for the US, it was lured into civilian bombing late in the war, beginning with Dresden.  Roosevelt had promised Stalin to bomb German cities in support of the Russian offensive.  Gen. George Marshall got an earful of protests from Army Air Corps commanders and pilots in Europe after the carnage became known, but their protests fell on deaf ears.  Marshall was a party to the globalist objectives facilitating post-war Russian control over Eastern Europe.  Bombing cities into oblivion was part of the treacherous deal made with Stalin by Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta.

The Current Strategy:  In the current Iraq war, US politicians are trying to limit civilian casualties — but not for the noble reason Americans suppose.  The underlying globalist objective of fomenting conflict to give viability to a NWO requires that two public relations goals be pursued simultaneously, one negative and one positive.  The first involves continuous intervention and bullying around the world to generate hatred against America as the policeman of the world.  Accomplishing this will provide the justification necessary for a future attack on America and the accompanying WWIII. The second goal involves keeping US military casualties and Iraqi civilian casualties low.  This will keep Americans passive and accepting of the public justifications given for the current war, as well as future offensives.  Above all, the instigators of this trumped up war don’t want Americans to get wind of the ulterior globalist motives underlying this conflict. 

There is an inherent conflict in the simultaneous goal of keeping both US military and Iraqi civilian casualties low.  The US war plan of relying on massive airpower and “precision” bombardment to wear down and destroy opposition forces is working to keep US casualties to a minimum.  However, it is not working as well in avoiding civilian casualties.  Just as the US grossly overstated the success rate of the Patriot missiles in the Gulf War, they have overstated the success rate and accuracy of US high tech weapons in the current Iraq war.   These weapons work well when they work, but when they don’t, they can land anywhere. 

Although precise numbers about weapons gone astray are a closely guarded secret by the Pentagon, we know that the numbers are significant enough to cause both Turkey and Saudi Arabia to have declared their airspace off limits to cruise missile over flights.  Apparently many of the missiles have crash landed in these countries.   It has also been confirmed that the explosion at the posh shopping mall in Kuwait was caused by an errant US cruise missile.  Two cruise missiles are also the prime suspects for causing the marketplace deaths in central Baghdad — although Pentagon officials continue to promote the unlikely possibility of Iraqi anti-aircraft fire causing the damage (which doesn’t match the extent of the damage shown).  What is not known is whether the cruise missiles in question are of the older model Tomahawks, relying on terrain mapping, or whether they utilize the newer GPS aided technology — which has been the target of Russian satellite jamming equipment deployed in Baghdad. 

 

CIVILIAN CASUALTIES — WORSE THAN US CENSORED REPORTING

There have been two significant reports of civilian casualties One example is the well publicized shooting of civilians in a car at the Najaf checkpoint.  Apparently the officer in charge had trouble with his own men not responding to his dramatic orders to fire a proper warning shot to disable the vehicle prior to its getting into lethal range.  According to William Branigin of the Washington Post, who witnessed the incident (as reported by Raymond Whitaker of the Independent--UK), 10 people were killed, including five small children.  Branigin also reported that the first shots fired included 25mm high-explosive cannon shells from one or more Bradley fighting vehicles.  So it wasn’t simply small arms fire which tore into the Toyota off road vehicle. 

As the vehicle raced towards an intersection held by troops of the US 3rd Infantry Division, Branigin reported that Capt. Johnson grew increasingly alarmed. “From his position at the intersection, he was heard radioing to one of his forward platoons to alert it to what he described as a potential threat. ‘Fire a warning shot,’ he ordered as the vehicle kept coming. Then, with increasing urgency, he told the platoon to shoot a 7.62mm machine-gun round into its radiator. ‘Stop [messing] around!’ Capt Johnson yelled into the radio when he still saw no action being taken. Finally, he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘Stop him, Red 1, stop him!’ That order was immediately followed by the loud reports of 25mm cannon fire from one or more of the platoon's Bradleys.  About half a dozen shots were heard in all.”   Branigin said the troops' commander, Capt. Ronny Johnson, shouted to his platoon leader:  “You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!” 

Strangely, another even more lethal mistake of killing civilians was completely missing by the American news.  According to Mark Franchetti of the UK Times, a company of Marines shot up a whole line of civilian vehicles trying to flee Nasiriya.  “Some 15 vehicles, including a minivan and a couple of trucks, blocked the road. They were riddled with bullet holes. Some had caught fire and turned into piles of black twisted metal. Others were still burning.  Amid the wreckage I counted 12 dead civilians, lying in the road or in nearby ditches. All had been trying to leave this southern town overnight, probably for fear of being killed by US helicopter attacks and heavy artillery. Their mistake had been to flee over a bridge that is crucial to the coalition's supply lines and to run into a group of shell-shocked young American marines with orders to shoot anything that moved.”

These accidents happen in war.  US policy isn’t responsible.  US military commanders have clearly cautioned troops to be careful not to harm civilians.  In this case, fatigue and battle stress played a role.  The Marines had been ambushed earlier in the day and had to retreat back over the bridge.  It was dark and no procedures had been put into place to prevent civilians from getting on this bridge.  Further casualties were only avoided by a Marine commander’s wise decision to simply block the bridge from all further traffic till morning.  What concerns me, however, is that media coverage in both these cases was deliberately skewed. In the first case, the reports made it appear as if the accident was in no way the fault of the Army, while the second incident, much worse than the first, wasn’t reported in the US at all.

In other foreign press reports, there was a hospital bombing in Rutbah, and large residential neighborhoods attacked by aircraft in several smaller cities, nowhere near any military action.  Twenty people, including 11 children, were killed when a nighttime missile attack struck a farm near Baghdad on Monday.  Iraq claims civilian casualties are now over 1,250 and climbing, which is probably accurate.  Undoubtedly, they will be much higher before Baghdad falls.  

I’m somewhat suspicious of the big play American news media gave the video of Iraqi people welcoming US troops with several little American flags present.  The flags were all uniform in size, lending one to question where they came from, and the people waving them were less than enthusiastic.  One man shown prominently on film was clearly of military age, looking very much out of place.  These half-hearted public demonstrations may have been preplanned to allow irregular forces to blend in and hide amongst the crowd.   But, to the US media, this was a propaganda opportunity which they played to the hilt.

I also object to the huge play all the media is giving to the title Operation: Iraqi Freedom.  Next week I will cover the growing battle over who is going to control the Iraqi occupation.  It certainly won’t be Iraqis.  To the disappointment of the Iraqi opposition in exile, virtually all the important administration positions are being given to Americans like former CIA chief Jim Woolsey, even though there will be a token Iraqi figurehead.  This is not a good omen for the “freedom” of Iraq. 

 

WAR AGAINST INDEPENDENT MEDIA

With heavy handed self-censorship of all US media personnel embedded with the troops, the US media is actively trying to downplay both US casualties and Iraqi civilian casualties.  They report a small percentage of each in order to appear honest, but most of the world is having to bypass the American media in order to get the truth.  In turn, the US continues to try to shut down independent reporting in Iraq — not on the grounds of distorting the facts, but simply for telling the truth.  Cases in point:

1) Peter Arnett was fired this week for acknowledging the obvious in an interview with Iraqi TV — that Iraqi resistance to US forces had been greater than expected and that it was responsible for the slowdown in the invasion.  Clearly Arnett was not trying to give aid to the enemy, but he did have a 10 year working relationship with the Iraqi news media — which all reporters in Baghdad are required to maintain if they want access to areas controlled by Iraq.  NBC initially defended Arnett, then distanced itself, and finally fired him as a result of pressure from the Bush administration.

2)  Two Israeli journalists were roughed up and ejected from Iraq by US forces.  According to Arutz-7 in Israel, “Semamah, representing Israel TV's Channel One, and Bismut, of Yediot Acharonot, said afterwards that their phones and other personal items were taken from them. ‘The Americans don't want independent reporters here,’ Bismut said. ‘They want only those who are imbedded into the army units, so that no one will hear the criticism that many soldiers have against the war.’  Semamah said that the above explains why the Americans ‘treated us so forcefully, cruelly, and inappropriately. They accused us of being terrorists, spies, Iraqi intelligence.’”  Even though the Israelis had press credentials, they were treated as prisoners of war.

3)  At least half a dozen journalists have been killed in the past two weeks, with almost no reporting on this issue in the American press.  This is a very high percentage of casualties compared to the numbers of journalists in Iraq.  One BBC reporter expressed these sentiments: “It seems way, way beyond coincidence that most of the fallen journalists are non-embedded writers dedicated to telling the truth.”  The latest death is British reporter (Channel 4, ITN) Gaby Rado, covering the action in Northern Iraq.  Rado died under mysterious circumstances in a fall from a hotel roof.  See the following URL:  <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2900379.stm>.  Another ITN journalist, Terry Lloyd, was killed in Iraq by “friendly fire” from Allied forces.  Lloyd was one of the noncontrolled foreign reporters, traveling freely around the war zone, who the US had previously threatened to attack if they didn’t agree to being embedded with US forces.

4)  Al Jazeerah has received unusually high viewer ratings because of its access to coverage of civilian casualties and American prisoners.  The Qatar based Arabic news service has been subjected to numerous hacking attempts to deny Americans access to its website — the only way Americans can receive uncensored Al Jazeerah news in English. 

 

US BACKS DOWN ON MILITARY THREATS TO SYRIA

In a sudden show of moderation, after two weeks of increasing threats and warnings to Syria, the White House has suddenly backed down from military confrontation.  Both Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and Sec. of State Colin Powell have given fulsome assurances that there are no plans to attack Syria.   This is only partially true.  Militarily, the Pentagon is still making plans for an attack on both Lebanon and Syria.  It’s their job to anticipate future war scenarios, whether or not they have been authorized for confrontation.  But politically, the Bush administration has, temporarily, decided to halt its antagonism of the Arab world. 

This is a major change of position, despite the administration’s assertions otherwise, and Syria is playing along for all it’s worth.  Last week, Syria was belligerent and adamant in its denials of any harboring of Iraqi leaders, and of the charges that it has WMDs.  This week Syria has become conciliatory and diplomatic.   Syria has even gone so far as to declare the Iraqi diplomatic corps persona non grata, and has volunteered to be the first signer of a treaty declaring the Middle East a nuclear free zone.  Both actions are a ploy.  The former was intended to make Syria appear as if it was turning against Iraq, while the second action was aimed at Israel, whose nuclear weapons constitute that nation’s main deterrence against the missile attacks Syria has planned for Israel.

As far as Syria’s weapons status is concerned, the US knows much more  than they are letting on in their little two-bit public accusations.  I will quote a portion of Fred Kaplan’s article: “Syria’s Military Machine May Be Hollow, But It Isn’t Harmless” (http://slate.msn.com/id/2081578/), demonstrating what the US claims to know privately.

“After the Israelis stripped bare the myth of Syrian defenses in 1982, Hafez Assad [father of the current president, Bashar al Assad] abandoned his goal of achieving ‘strategic parity’ with Israel and instead aimed for ‘strategic deterrence.’  To that end, he built up huge stockpiles of biological and especially chemical weapons—including an arsenal of missiles with sufficient range to reach Israeli cities, as well as bombs and artillery shells to kill enemy troops on the battlefield. [Deterrence has nothing to do with it; Syria’s WMD systems are meant for a future non-conventional offensive against Israel, in which Syria intends to rely on missile barrages to overwhelm Israeli defenses and conventional superiority.]

“Hafez Assad received his first batch of chemical artillery shells as a gift from Egypt just before the Yom Kippur War in 1973.  After that, he started buying them in quantity from the USSR and Czechoslovakia, though it's generally believed that the Soviets refused to help him set up his own production facilities. [Here, Kaplan is relying on US disinformation , which always protects the Russians.]  For that, he went shopping in China and North Korea. [As if they are a completely different source from Russia!]  Until the early '90s, before export controls started tightening, he also bought chemical precursors from companies in France, Germany, Austria, Holland, and Switzerland (from the same firms that supplied Iraq).  He started producing nerve gas in 1984 and was able to pack chemical weapons into missile warheads by the following year.  The CIA estimates that Assad started deploying missiles with VX nerve gas in 1997.  He is thought to possess 500 to 1,000 tons of chemical agents, including VX and sarin.

“Syria is now believed to have several thousand chemical bombs, packed mainly with sarin, as well as 50-100 chemically tipped ballistic missiles, mainly Soviet-built SS-21s and Scuds.  Assad bought Scud-B's, as well as the longer-range Scud-C's and -D's, from North Korea, which also provided the means for Syria to manufacture them. [The Israelis say Syrian missiles number over 800.]

“There are reportedly four chemical-weapons production sites in Syria, though there may be more, since the Assads integrated this effort with the country's extensive commercial pharmaceutical industry.  Intelligence analysts and their think-tank associates have written of underground bunkers and tunnels where chemical weapons are churned out and stored. It is hard to tell how much of this claim is true and how much is ‘threat-inflation.’” [End Kaplan excerpt.]

Despite all this evidence of WMD stockpiling, the US has decided to decided to play the same game with Syria as it is playing with North Korea:  overlook the massive buildup of weapons of mass destruction, refuse to intervene militarily (for now), and engage in negotiations that will simultaneously mollify the American public concerning the threat, and allow both nations to continue their war preparations.  The new US position of diplomacy with both North Korea and Syria stands in stark contrast to US belligerence in Iraq.

I think the reason the US has decided to cool it, for now, is that public support for rampaging into another country so soon after the Iraq war would be nonexistent.  A second military confrontation would only give more credibility to the claims of those of us who believe the US is attempting to antagonize the rest of the world for purposes of global intervention and control.

I still think the US will target Lebanon (currently occupied by Syria) eventually, and probably before the troops now rotating in go home (they’ll be there at least a year).  Syria will probably not defend against the “liberation” of Lebanon, hoping to save itself for another day.  Lebanon will allowed to fall from its sphere of influence, just as Russia let Iraq fall for strategic purposes.  The US, however, will probably need another terrorist event (this one by Hezbollah in Lebanon) to justify restarting the military action. 

 

GROWING ANOMALIES IN THE IRAQ WAR

US politicians had initially planned on a “cake walk” in Iraq, but then had to quickly bring in reinforcements when they found initial resistance to be stiffer than expected.  Yet after only 3 weeks of concerted warfare (consisting primarily of massive bombardment as opposed to actual tank battles) we find it was a relative “cake walk” after all.  The conquering of an entire armed nation with only a couple hundred casualties indicates very weak resistance, overall.   Indeed, anti-war protestors feel they have been vindicated by two general facts: that Iraq clearly was no threat militarily to the US, and that no major weapons of mass destruction have been found.

Now that the Iraq war is winding down and the US is declaring victory, it is time to examine the growing number of unanswered questions emerging from the all-too-easy and sudden collapse of organized resistance. 

·         Where did all the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi soldiers go?

·         Why were only one or two effective anti-tank weapons employed against US armor?

·         Why was there no use of SA-7 Strela missiles against US helicopters?

·         Why was there no shift to irregular warfare after the collapse of organized military units?

·         Where is Saddam Hussein and all his leadership corps?

·         Why were no biological or chemical weapons used?

 

Where did all the soldiers go?  Conventional reasoning would have it that upon being confronted with massive overwhelming US firepower and bombardment, the Iraqis correctly surmised that “resistance was futile” and gave up the fight.  They shed their uniforms and melted back into the civilian populace.  Historically, that did happen in the first Gulf War, but should not have happened in Gulf War II.   We expect military planners to have learned from the mistakes of the past.

Iraqi generals did, in fact, do some things differently.  They put no major armies out in the open desert where they could easily be targeted and cut off from retreat.  Instead, they presented integrated defenses in and around cities, hoping to deter massive US bombardment by reason of their proximity to civilians.  This latter tactic wasn’t nearly as effective as was hoped; indeed, the Iraqis quickly discovered the US didn’t have as much aversion to civilian casualties as they had expected—despite US assurances to the contrary.  

Around the capitol, the Iraqis did make the mistake of placing elite Republican Guard armored divisions far enough away from urban Baghdad to avoid civilian casualties, thus leaving them exposed to constant aerial bombardment by US planes and missiles.  True to form, tanks were picked off one by one with precision weapons and/or carpet bombing until all survivors had to flee into the city.  But what else do you do when you have thousands of Russian T-72 tanks that beg to be used?  Since they were all inside earthbermed revetments, it was obvious the Iraqis already knew of their tanks’ uselessness in open maneuvers with the superior US M-1 Abrams main battle tanks—with their extended gun range and computerized fire control systems.  Still, if older tanks were going to be used as fixed artillery pieces, they should have been placed inside the city to ambush other tanks in urban warfare.  That didn’t happen either.

What about the anti-tank missiles?  The fact that Russia did not provide the Iraqis with any version of the Kornet anti-tank missiles indicates that Russia never intended to allow its long-time client state to win this war—or even to noticeably blunt the US attack.  Why no Strellas?  On the other hand, I don’t have a good explanation for why the Iraqis didn’t make use of older SA-7 Strella shoulder fired missiles to down US helicopters.  It’s certainly not for lack of supply.  According to US sources, at least four of these missiles were fired at US jet fighters—which is silly, since US jets stay at higher altitudes where they can outrun and outmaneuver the slow performing Strellas.  But helicopters are lower and slower and can easily be targeted by these missiles.  Unless the helicopter pilot sees it coming in time to deploy flares or other countermeasures, it is usually fatal.   These missiles are available by the thousands and are crying to be used up.  Where were they and why weren’t they targeting US helos?  I don’t know. 

Why no irregular warfare?  Why didn’t the Republican Guards and Fedayeen reorganize into irregular warfare units?  Military units did become partially effective guerrilla fighters in southern Iraq, where they used hundreds of loyal cadres to keep battle discipline by shooting deserters and otherwise coercing weaker soldiers to fight—though the resistance in those cases didn’t appear to be set up for the long haul.  Based upon that surprising show of irregular-warfare resistance, I expected the Iraqi military to follow the same natural progression of morphing into small groups of guerrilla teams, capable of harassing US troops in the urban warfare environment of Baghdad.  None of this occurred, and that fact begs for an explanation. 

I can understand why ordinary troops did not do so.  It takes special training and motivation to prepare to go “underground” and fight relatively independent of rigid command structures.  This kind of irregular warfare needs to be prepared in advance, and in order for it to last for the long-term, secret lines of supply and communication must be established.  Russia and China are experts in establishing and supplying these types of movements, and surely could supported such a move in Iraq.  I would estimate that there were at least 50,000-75,000 hard-core Iraqi fighters who have sufficient hatred of the US to fight as guerrillas on a long-term basis.  The Palestinian terror networks embedded in the PA areas of Israel are a classic example of how long an occupied people can keep fighting and breeding new hatred even in a small area. 

I can accept that the majority of regular Iraqi soldiers retreated back into the civilian world, but I cannot accept that none of the elite Iraqi troops failed to reform as irregulars, unless they were specifically told not to do so, or were told to wait for a few months.  It may be too early to write off irregular warfare entirely, but at this writing, it seems that some sort of fix is in.  If that fix involved the US side making a deal, the telltale sign will be the absence of any concerted effort by the new Iraqi puppet regime to root out and arrest all former members and officers of elite fighting groups.   There will be some token arrests, but the effort must amount to much more than that to be effective or real. 

Speaking of arrests, the high profile arrest of Abu Abbas is suspicious, especially in its timing.  It is highly unlikely that ordinary US soldiers just happened upon Abbas as they were fighting in Baghdad.  He would have been in deep hiding, with multiple layers of protection.  Abbas had to have been betrayed to US authorities by someone within the Hussein regime, which is another indication that Iraqi resistance in this war was less than genuine.  Also embarrassing to the US, relative to the Abbas arrest, was the Palestinian revelation that a secret portion of the Clinton-Arafat peace talks granted blanket amnesty to all PLO terrorists whose crimes were committed prior to the 1993 Oslo Accords.  Funny how the American public only finds out later what kinds of dirty deals the US has made with terrorists (in the name of “peace”).  Technically, Abbas created an offshoot terrorist group from the PLO and was not part of that organization.  However, the PLO is now claiming he was still under their control, and hence subject to the amnesty.  This is a de facto admission of PLO complicity in terror—an admission they make only when it serves their purposes. 

                Where is Saddam?  I have detailed in previous briefs the extensive evidence that the US has consistently refused to capture Osama bin Laden or close in on known locations where he has been hiding, as well as other indications that the US still is in secret contact with him.  There is similar evidence that Saddam has long been a CIA asset.  As far back as 1959, Saddam Hussein was employed by the CIA as part of the hit team that overthrew Prime Minister Gen. Abdal-Karim Qasim.  This support continued through the 80’s as Saddam attacked Iran.  As with al Qaeda, the US claims that its support of Saddam ended at some point, but we only have its word for it.  Source: <http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030410-070214-6557r>.

There are several major stories circulating now about one or more deals the US has made with Russia to provide a safe haven for Saddam.  Conveniently, these stories cannot be verified since they emanate from sources supposedly deep within foreign or American intelligence agencies—a fact which is always suspicious.   But they cannot be discounted either, considering the all-too-suspicious inability of the US to destroy its targeted enemy leaders and hence eliminate the ever-growing terrorist threat.  Here are some articles on the subject, just for interest:

 

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=84189

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=4/10/03&cat=2&Num=017

http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/03/04/Mueller150403.html

 

Why no use of chemical or biological weapons?  If Saddam really had them in any quantity as to be a serious threat, and if he were really an enemy of the West, he would have used them.  He didn’t.  The real reason these weapons weren’t used is that he transferred them to Syria, and the US knows it.  Had he used even a few, it would not have been effective in stopping the invasion and would have allowed the US to say “I told you so.”  As it stands, the US justification for this war, on the grounds that Saddam posed a serious potential threat to the US, is incredibly weak.  Naturally, I suspect that the US will find a few leftover weapons in Iraq and make much of the find.

 

SETBACKS AS US BUILDS ITS PUPPET REGIME

A day before the US held its first council with Iraqi leaders competing for control in the new US led regime, albawaba.com reported that Nizar Khazraji, the prominent Iraqi general who defected to the West, and who had mysterious disappeared from asylum in Denmark last month, had shown up in Iraq under CIA auspices and was promptly assassinated on his way to attend the meeting in Nassiriya.  Last month when Khazraji disappeared, suspicions were openly expressed by European sources that the CIA had a hand.  Khazraji had often been mentioned as a possible successor to Saddam Hussein.  The NY Times and the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat both quoted sources in the US and the Middle East as saying the US had chosen Khazraji to run Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam.  Apparently those who hated this general (it was he who directed the chemical attacks against Iran) made sure he wouldn’t be available to be the US figurehead.

Meanwhile, Ahmed Chalabi, the equally disputed would-be puppet leader of Iraq, finally made his triumphal entry into Baghdad.  This longtime London-based Iraqi opposition leader rode unexpectedly into Baghdad with hundreds of his US trained “Free Iraqi Forces.”   The armed band brought food with them in pickup trucks to distribute in a bid to win some public support.  Chalabi is the nominal head of the Iraqi National Congress, a disparate group of exiles who have only recently made a show of unity in order to gain US permission to reenter Iraq.  All of the tens of competing groups in Iraq hope to gain a foothold in the executive council that will lead the nation, which the US is shortly going to select.  Infighting has already broken out among the various factions.  Some of the larger Shiite factions boycotted the first US meeting of opposition forces claiming they were under represented.  Good luck to anyone trying to unite all of these Arab and Muslim factions.

 

US CORPORATIONS REAP MILLIONS IN RECONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS

Of course, the US anticipated this infighting and thus put Americans in virtually all positions of administrative power to ensure the US controls the day to day operations of the reconstruction.   In the face of daily charges that the Bush administration favors insider corporations in the “bidding” for reconstruction work, the White House and Pentagon brushed it all aside and still awarded deals to all their old friends:  Bechtel (utilities and construction), Haliburton (oil), Dyncorp (enforcement), and many others.  The selection of Dyncorp is particularly galling in that this is a CIA proprietary black operations group that was found guilty of running sex slaves in Bosnia.  Dyncorp will be in charge of the training of police forces in Iraq. 

What is most strange is that these contracts have huge dollar amounts attached to them, and were awarded before any of these corporations could have possibly made a technical assessment of the actual reconstruction efforts they would be contributing.  This means that these contracts either have huge amounts of extra padding, or that they are essentially open ended without a fixed payment amount.  All of this adds legitimate fuel to the charges of collusion in government with insider controlled corporations.

 

US RECORD ON REGIME CHANGES IS MIXED

The American public has been led to believe that with this war in Iraq, the US is engaging in compelling a “regime change” in another nation for the first time.   This is only nominally true, in the overt sense of using direct military force to accomplish such a change.  However, if we count the employment of covert actions to overthrow other governments, the US has a long history of such practices.  US involvement in regime changes in other nations, for good or for ill, has always been a little complex because of two major factors:

First, the takeover of the American Republic by socialists and globalists has been gradual.  During the first half of the twentieth century, these agents of influence were a minority in government and had to hide many of their motives for championing “progressive” changes.  At the same time, they had to deal with the anti-Communist sentiment that prevailed among the American public, in Congress, and among most government employees (including the military).   There were active and contending ideological factions in the media, the public, the military, in universities and Congress.   There were even multiple factions within the secret world of US intelligence (OSS, ONI, DIA, CIA, FBI, etc.) whose dark-side operations, which ran counter to US best interests, had to be hidden from the many loyal and patriotic agents who would not have approved. 

Second, even as socialists and globalists gained effective control of all facets of the federal government (including Congress) during WWII and the 1950’s, they still had to play as if they were “centrists” and moderates—hiding the more radical NWO agenda that has as its main goal the demise of US Constitutionally derived sovereignty.  The public had to be prepped for the globalist transition, cleansed of residual awareness of and loyalty for our Constitutional Republic and indoctrinated with the principles of raw democracy.  This took time.  It also took time to gain more comprehensive control of the media and public education institutions which would be the prime indoctrinators.  In sum, the domestic and foreign policy of the US involved playing two simultaneous roles:  1) nominally defending legitimate US interests—mostly through hollow rhetoric, and 2) undermining those same interests, in secret, through collusion with third party socialists and Communists along with the selective use of their own covert teams (black ops).

To understand the conflicting record of US regime changes and government overthrows, one more key point is necessary to understand.  There is a line of demarcation that occurred during the Carter administration that helps explain in part what happened before and after that era.  Before the Carter administration, the CIA still had an active human intelligence (HUMINT) network of spies throughout the world, who were mostly interested in ferreting out Communists and other hostile double agents.  James Angleton, the longtime CIA head of these operations, was targeted for removal by the leftist factions within government.  The same was true of J. Edgar Hoover, longtime head of the FBI.   Both men kept files on leftist political leaders to stave off reprisals from other leftist factions in government.  

The US State Department and White House staff were the hotbed of Communist agents of influence beginning with the Roosevelt administration and continuing to the Carter era.  Leftist sympathizers saw themselves at war with the “right wing” factions within the security and military services.  It was the US State Department, in collusion with the Executive Department and controlled media, that actively attempted to overthrow pro-Western regimes and replace them with Communist revolutionaries masquerading as “reformers.”  This latter association was amply played up to the public by key leftist reporters such as Herbert Matthews, Drew Pearson, Edward R. Murrow, Walter Winchell, and Walter Lippman.  The CIA and ONI, on the other hand, were primarily behind the attempts to overthrow Communist regimes in the pre-Carter years.

This explains why the US was at various times both installing and overthrowing Communist regimes before the Carter era.  For instance, the US covertly worked to install Communist regimes in China, Cuba, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Angola, Mozambique and Nicaragua, among others.  Hard as this is for most Americans to believe, there is in each case strong documentation published by patriotic witnesses who tried to stop these betrayals and who were consequently removed from government or otherwise sanctioned.  Naturally, none of these testaments made their way into establishment histories.  Two of the most detailed and accurate of the dissenting views are found in the following accounts: Foreign Policy Failures in Cuba by Mario Lazo (the US ambassador to Cuba at the time of US covert assistance to Castro) and Nicaragua Betrayed by Anastasio Samoza (the former President of Nicaragua who meticulously documented his conversations and dealings with leftist State Department officials as they systematically betrayed Nicaragua to the Communist rebels).  Neither books are currently in print, but you can find them in used bookstores.

Let’s look at the other side of the equation.  At the same time that socialist and globalist factions were working to install Communist regimes, other factions within the US government covertly overthrew various regimes, some democratically elected, that had significant secret ties to Communist movements and that presented a threat to indigenous anti-Communist leaders or American business interests (due to land confiscation policies, etc.).  Notable examples that have enraged the liberal press ever since include: the 1953 attempt to overthrow Mohammad Mosaddeq in Iran and restore the shah; the 1954 coup to remove President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala; the 1961 Cuban Bay of Pigs attempt to remove Castro; and the 1973 overthrow of  Salvador Allende in Chile by Augusto Pinochet.   Each of these operations was planned and executed by anti-Communist factions within the CIA.  The Cuban Bay of Pigs failed because the leftist elements of the State Department and White House were able to convince Kennedy to deny air support at the last minute. 

Since the Carter administration, however, these conflicting factions have been for the most part eliminated or neutralized.  Carter appointed leftist Stansfield Turner as CIA chief, and he eagerly purged some 800 espionage officers, many of whom were connected to James Angleton, chief of the CIA's counterintelligence from 1954 to 1974 and an ardent anti-Communist. (See http://edwardjayepstein.com/archived/whokilled2.htm.)  Almost all other remaining anti-communist agents had been eliminated or withdrawn by the time the Aldrich Ames spy case blew open in 1994.  According to the Senate investigating committee, “Ames had been an employee of CIA for 31 years, with most of his career spent in the Directorate of Operations, which is responsible for carrying out CIA clandestine operations around the globe. While the precise extent of Ames's espionage activities was unclear at the time of his arrest, Justice Department officials confirmed that Ames was believed to have caused the death or imprisonment of a number of Soviets who had been sources of the CIA and FBI.”

Some conservatives have theorized that the dismantling of the anti-Communist spy sections was either attributable to US stupidity, or due to the control exercised by the many secret Communist agents that had infiltrated the State Department during and since WWII.  However, it is my theory that this dismantling was intentional at some level to further globalist objectives which required, among other things, playing along with grand deception of the “collapse of Communism” in Russia.  I believe that the globalist control system actively uses predictable socialists to further the leftist agenda, and facilitates Communist espionage to undermine US sovereign interests—while avoiding the prospect of getting caught doing so directly. 

True, the US government has attacked and facilitated the overthrow of Communist governments since the purge of anti-Communism from government agencies, but it has done so for different reasons.  No longer are operations like Kosovo and Bosnia the work of residual patriotic factions inside the CIA or military intelligence.  Rather, the Communist leaders and regimes in Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq were targeted for globalist reasons – either because they resisted the transition to globalist control, or because their removal was necessary to serve other longer range globalist purposes (control of oil resources, antagonism of the Slavic and Muslim worlds towards the US, getting the US military used to acting as global cop, etc.).  Eventually, all Communist regimes, even those brought to power with US influence, will be brought down by the globalists after they have served their usefulness. 

The Newest Target: North Korea.  According to leaked documents from the Pentagon, Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is calling for a regime change in Pyongyang.  This is not, in my analysis, because the Bush administration wants a truly disarmed or reformed Korea in the near future.  Remember, the US has worked behind the scenes with the UN for years to preserve this ruthless Communist regime, which is a surrogate of China and Russia.  Some evidence of these efforts:  1) The Truman administration established safe areas for Chinese troops and aircraft, thus prohibiting McArthur from winning the Korean war through hot pursuit; 2) The US failed to sanction Russia and China for turning N. Korea into an armed camp with WMD;  3) The US has known about N. Korean transfers of Scud missiles for years and has never intervened; and 4) The US has provided billions in food, oil, and nuclear power plant technology transfers, in spite of a constant flow of evidence of Korean non-compliance with non-proliferation issues. 

In my analysis, it appears that the tensions between China and its neighbors Taiwan and N. Korea are being preserved to serve as future trigger events for the next World War.  The other potential trigger is the Israeli-Arab conflict.  Globalist planners may view it as necessary to avoid a confrontation with N. Korea now since that would force China and Russia to come to N. Korea’s aid, and trigger a World War neither side is ready for.   Thus, both N. Korea and Syria are being encouraged to play moderate so the US has an excuse NOT to attack militarily.  Syria is being compliant (for now), so Rumsfeld is focusing on N. Korea, pushing China to remove Kim Jong-il and replace him with someone more stable and compliant. 

The talks this week in Beijing between the US, N. Korea, and China have broken down.  Rather that be conciliatory, the Pyongyang representative Ri Gun bragged openly that N. Korea actually possesses operational nuclear weapons.  He also claimed it has an ongoing program of reprocessing spent fuel rods, allowing it to increase production and export plutonium to other countries.  This brash in-your-face boast was presented in order to provoke the US into a sense of urgency, hoping to force the US to accept N. Korea’s demand for direct one-on-one talks—a  demand that Sec. of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice have rejected.  The Bush administration wants first and foremost to push the international agenda of multilateral talks.  The US only settles on a course of unilateral action when the UN refuses to go along with US intentions and the US doesn’t mind inflaming world opinion.

 

MOUNTING COMPLICATION IN THE REGIME CHANGE OF IRAQ

The US is quickly digging itself a hole in terms of world opinion as it continues to act unilaterally even after the collapse of Saddam’s regime. 

 

Control Over Oil:  The US has fallen into a legal quagmire of its own making.  According to Reuters, “After extending until June 3 emergency arrangements for Iraq's oil-for-food plan, the UN Security Council faces contentious US demands that U.N. controls be struck entirely from the multibillion-dollar plan. President Bush has said several times he wants the sanctions, imposed in 1990, lifted entirely and diplomats said the United States was crafting a resolution that would guarantee that proceeds from future oil sales be held in trust for an interim Iraqi authority [US puppet regime] rather than the United Nations.”

This, of course, would give the US direct access to all the oil revenues.  Russia and France are teaming up to use their veto powers to stop the US from dismantling current UN authority over oil.  No oil company is allowed to purchase Iraqi oil while sanctions are in place, and the US has no legal standing to sell Iraq’s oil.  

 

Weapons Inspections.  The biggest charge of hypocrisy has been in response to US refusal to allow UN weapons inspectors into the country.  Bill O’Reilly and former US weapons inspector Scott Ritter have correctly pointed out that this looks very suspicious.  The US is short on manpower, and should welcome all the help they can get.  Suspicions run high that the US is desperate to find something major that can be used to justify the war—even if they have to bring something in.  This is what Ritter had to say in a recent interview:

“The Bush Administration is desperate at this point in time to find evidence of retained prohibited capability, because this would in one fell swoop legitimize the entire invasion.  People have to take a step back and understand that the Bush Administration fabricated and misrepresented information going into this conflict about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. If they don't find it, there is every reason to believe that they will fabricate and misrepresent information to legitimize the other end of the conflict.

“I would recommend that everybody take a long hard look at the people involved in this [inspections] process.  Charles Duelfer, the former deputy executive chairman of UNSCOM. He is a State Department employee who served with the weapons inspectors from 1993 to 1999. As a state department employee, he implemented unilateral American policy of regime removal – containment, destabilization, and removal through intelligence collection, using the weapons inspections process to achieve this. He was not there to disarm Iraq.  This is a man who leaked film images to the media in 1996 of burning leaves claiming to be burning documents. This is a man, whom in the presence of myself and others, said to a senior CIA official out of frustration of not finding weapons, ‘Why don't you put a missile in Iraq for us to find?’ This is a man who deliberately misrepresented the body of data held by the weapons inspectors in their final report to the Security Council so as to achieve American political objectives. This is the man now – a senior participant in this effort with this exploitation team that they are ready to send into Iraq. Why should I trust Charles Duelfer? Why should any American trust him?  If the U.S. is serious about legitimizing any potential weapons of mass destruction, they should have the U.N. weapons inspectors go in and do the work, with an independent objective and an implementation of a Security Council mandate.”  [End of Ritter quote.]

UN Weapons Chief Inspector Hans Blix has correctly warned that any US finds of WMD would be suspect unless confirmed by international inspectors.  The US has even demanded that Syria return weapons it was hiding on behalf of Saddam Hussein, quietly admitting that the US has known all along where the bulk of Saddam’s weapons went.  Will the American public put two and two together and see the duplicity here?  I doubt it.

 

Any Kind of Democracy You Want—Except Religious.  The US is very clear that it does not intend to allow the Iraqis to choose a leader or government if that government is Muslim fundamentalist in orientation.  “If you're suggesting, how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: That isn't going to happen,” Donald Rumsfeld told the AP in a recent press conference.  Notice the pejorative manner in which he rephrased the question to make it look undemocratic: “a few clerics running everything.”  

This kind of selective democracy is actually typical of what the US government sets up every time it intervenes formally or informally in a nation.  I have personal experience of this from working in Latin America as a political advisor to emerging political parties, and can assure my readers that the US never allows any nation to install a type of government modeled after the US Constitution, or anything close to it.

The Shiite majority is demonstrating loudly against the US occupation of Iraq.  Not only have they been underrepresented relative to their population percentage (above 60%), but they know that the US is intending to exclude them from power.  The US said as much when it issued public warnings to Iran not to “interfere” in Iraq—meaning sending in political organizers to help the fundamentalist cause.  Iran already has a fundamentalist government.

 

US Puppet Regime Will Never Be Accepted by Most.  Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi is being touted as the future leader in Iraq.  But if the Bush administration thinks that all Shiites will emulate Chalabi and come together under a future secular government, they are kidding themselves.  The Bush administration is in a form of denial about the passion of the Iraqi Shiite community who have not had the freedom to express themselves for years.  They are doing so now, and the US is treating them as if they are loud minority.  They are not admitting that the rising anti-Bush sentiment is causing many Iraqis, Shiites and Sunnis included, to form alliances that were impossible before.  These alliances won’t last for the long term, but they do guarantee tough going for the US if it tries to impose its will for long.  As for Chalabi, Iraqis view him as a nobody or as a Western lackey, and they particularly distrust the fact that he was allowed to arrive with a small army of trained mercenaries.  No other leader has been allowed his own private army.  It has not been lost on the Iraqis that Chalabi and his men still carry foreign passports and don’t intend to give up their escape plans, should things not work out.  In other words, they aren’t in it for the long haul, unless they are propped up by US power. 

 

US Occupation of Military Bases.  When I watched Defense Secretary Rumsfeld deny any US intention to maintain a long-term military presence in Iraq, I sensed he was lying.  He gets a disturbed look on his face when he is being less than honest, and he was looking very troubled as the media peppered him with questions.  He even got angry at one point, realizing he wasn’t being believed despite his absolute verbal assurances that reports of US long-term intentions to stay were “inaccurate and unfortunate.”  When he said, “I have never heard the subject of a permanent base in Iraq discussed,” he was probably thinking in Clintonian terms—“That depends on the meaning of ‘permanent.’”    He definitely began to get uncomfortable when probed about “how long.”  He grabbed at three or four excuses, all of which were quite open-ended.  It would depend on “how rapidly an interim Iraqi government evolves and how successful external influences might be in destabilizing the country.”   Well, that says it all—it wouldn’t be hard to imagine those criteria lasting forever!

 

US Soldiers Caught Stealing Millions and Robbing Artifacts.   Photos taken of US soldiers prying archeological artifacts off the wall of a museum to keep as souvenirs have been circulating on the internet, causing outrage among viewers, as they should.  Causing similar outrage are reports that troops from the 4th Battalion of the 64th Army Division found millions in US bills and cached some of it away to smuggle back to the States for personal enrichment. 

We expect better of our troops.  This is one of the reasons why I refrain from showing unconditional support of our troops—as if they were all homogeneous.  I cringe when I hear of self-serving generals praising our troops as if all are the greatest people in the world.  Many individuals are truly outstanding, especially in the elite units, but most show a real lack of motivation, or are motivated by swaggering bravado and other dangerous macho attitudes.  Having been a Marine officer myself, I have wide experience handling enlisted men.  Only a small minority are really sharp and faithful to the high standards the Marines set.  Drug and alcohol problems are common, especially among those who enlist for lack of anything better to do back home. I am actually surprised there are not more incidents such as these.  In a longer term war involving much more discouraging conditions, there probably would be.  Morality problems are in the military are epidemic.  The new policies of intermixing women and men in military units is a disaster.  Since the military never preaches anything but a pragmatic “don’t get caught” form of sexual morality, it is no wonder that thousands of single males on board a ship mixed with a few females don’t control themselves.  A lot of women in the navy end up pregnant.

In terms of the artifacts incident, a larger issue here is the refusal of the Pentagon to forestall looting of Iraq’s archeological museums.  The looting was preplanned and systematic—done by professionals.  The Iraqi archeological community had forewarned the US through various sources and on more than one occasion that they expected theft and specifically requested the US prepare to protect these museums and artifacts.  How does it look to the world that the US prepared special teams to secure all oil infrastructure and even oil related administrative buildings and did nothing to protect the museums? 

 

MAY 2003

 

ISRAEL:  THE BUSH ROAD MAP TO NOWHERE BUT WAR

How many “peace process” failures does it take to prove to the world that international “peace plans” which cover up the root problem of terrorism always lead to more war—especially in the Middle East?  The Bush administration is promoting the same old failed Oslo formula whereby Israel trades away occupied land in exchange for a temporary peace—a peace that is becoming more temporary with each new attempt.  The Oslo accords merely allowed Arafat’s PLO to develop a safe haven (with funding from Israel, the US, and other nations) from which to stockpile arms and explosives in preparation for the last two Intifada uprisings.   Trading “land for peace” has never worked before, because terrorists were never rooted out of the Palestinian side of the political formula.  The US has always simply declared them “reformed” –even while possessing hard intelligence of continued terrorist planning and training.  But, dressed up in a new title—Road Map to Peace—we are expected to believe Bush’s proposal is something new.   The only thing new about this fraud is the heightened order of deception inherent in its appearance of balance and neutrality. 

The promoters of this plan (US, Russia, UN, and EU) have gone so far as to give themselves a new name—the Quartet—so as to appear benign and unified.  Politically, the reality is otherwise.  This is a US initiative from beginning to end; the other participants are merely on board for window dressing and globalist propaganda value. 

·          Russia, as the longest standing supporter of terrorism worldwide, has no business being part of any peace plan—especially in Israel where it has provided the Palestinians with Russian advisors against Israel.  The US even has direct evidence of Russian intelligence liaisons with and support of Iraq before and during the current war.  The US continually allows Russia to play these charades of supporting peace and countering terrorism, despite the mounds of evidence that suggest otherwise, to further the deception that Communism is dead and that Russia is reformed. 

·          Including the EU in the promotional group is merely a ploy to allow France to have a major say in the process.  There has long been a deep connection between French financing sources and the Pro-Oslo Labor Party.  France also played loose with the rules in Iraq, allowing several sets of Roland 2 and Roland 3 anti-aircraft missile launchers to find their way into Iraq, which were subsequently used to down American aircraft.

·          The UN itself is anathema in Israel, having always used its international offices to promote the Arab agenda and undermine Israeli sovereignty in key areas of Jerusalem.

 

The Bush Road Map itself is a hodgepodge of every past “peace innovative” from the Oslo accords to the initiative of anti-American Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, selectively cobbled together into one giant proposal.  In true allegiance to Bush globalist objectives, every pertinent UN resolution is listed and applied, together with other past US initiatives such as the Tenet (CIA) and Mitchell (State Department) Plans.  Each of these contain deadly pieces of fine print that undermine Israeli security issues.

To briefly summarize, here is what the Road Map lays out, in three phases meant to finalize a comprehensive settlement by the year 2005.  [My comments on the prognosis for success are included  in brackets]

 

Phase I: By the end of May 2003,

A.  The Palestinian Authority must:

1. Officially recognize “Israel's right to exist in peace and security” and call for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire.  [This is easy for the PA to do verbally, while impossible for the international community to verify the PA’s sincerity.]

2.  “Undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt and restrain individuals and groups” engaging in terrorism against Israel.  [This is a page right out of Oslo.  Again, easy to do in a few token ways, impossible to verify. These kinds of requirements have never been effective.]

3.  Dismantle “terrorist capabilities and infrastructure.” [This will not happen.  There is not enough time and all is well hidden.  The US will certify this requirement as complete without sure knowledge—in stark contrast to its Iraqi policy.]

4.  End all incitement against Israel. [In the past, the PA ended incitements in English, but not in Arabic.  The US media will again fail to report on incitements in Arabic.  Also, school textbooks, which are full of incitements, will not be replaced]

5.  Bring all security organizations under control of interior minister Mohammed Dahlan. [Dahlan is a former protégé of Arafat, and former Chief of security over all of Gaza.  As for his track record of curtailing terrorism, Dahlan permitted Gaza to become a safe haven for the hundreds of fugitive terrorists fleeing Israeli police, including his boyhood friend Mohammed Dief, a top Hamas Terrorist.  On Dahlan’s watch, Gaza became the primary launching grounds for the hundreds of Kessem rockets and mortars fired at Israel.]

6. Hold free, open, and fair elections. [Another requirement that is easy to satisfy superficially. However, no one expects anyone opposed to the PLO to run for office—it would be a sure death sentence.  Former Arafat cronies like newly appoint Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen is his nomme de guerre) appear to be opposing Arafat, but it is only a show to help justify US support for this phony peace process.]

 

B. Israel must:

1. Publicly commit to “the two-state vision of an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state” [The US will make sure Israel never backs out of this commitment, even though the US has never held Arafat accountable for breaking his tenuous commitment to recognizing the “right of Israel to exist.”]

2. Make a call for “an immediate end to violence against Palestinians anywhere.” [As if there were ever any Israeli government incitement.  This statement was put in to make it look like both sides have been inciting to violence, which is patently untrue.]

3. Freeze all construction in Jewish settlements.

4. Immediately dismantle illegal settlement outposts built since March 2001. [Israel has already begun this process in a ruthless way, demonstrating that they had already succumbed to US pressure before the release of the Road Map.  PM Sharon had promised never to do this.]

5. “Take no actions undermining trust, including deportations, attacks on civilians, confiscation and/or demolition of Palestinian homes and property, as a punitive measure. [These are all key strategic tools in a proper war against terror.  A prohibition against attacks on civilians means the IDF simply cannot combat terror in the future, since virtually all terrorists are dressed as civilians, or intermixed with other civilians.]

6. Withdraw progressively from the occupied territories of the 1967 and successive wars. [These territories correspond approximately with the new Green Line security fence Israel has been building over the past year—another sign of advanced complicity with the US Road Map.  As I have covered in prior briefs, satisfaction of this demand will result in the dismantling of over half of Israel’s key military bases on the strategic high ground, and the loss of half of Israel’s water supplies.  It is this core provision that is fatal to Israel security and guarantees Israel’s vulnerability in the coming war.]

 

Phase II: By the end of 2003,

1. Israel must provide “enhanced territorial contiguity” for the Palestinians. [This is very dangerous. It means that Israel must provide corridors of travel between all separate Palestinian areas, free of Israeli security forces.  This guarantees the Palestinian’s future ability to transfer arms from one sector of their new state to another.  Can you imagine the US allowing Saddam Hussein to negotiate something like this?]

2. Palestinian constitution must be ratified. [Without the specification of any criteria for the constitution, this is meaningless in promoting real change.]

3. An international conference will launch the process leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state with provisional borders. [This implies the conference has the power to impose final conditions on the two parties.]

4.  Quartet members will promote international recognition of the Palestinian state and UN membership. [I’ll bet they will!  What’s another terrorist nation among the many already in the UN?]

 

Phase III: By 2005:

A second international conference will finalize the permanent-status solution for the Palestinian state in 2005, including the issues of borders, the division of Jerusalem, the status of refugees, and the ownership of settlements -- leading to peace between Israel and other Arab states. [The list of final issues is the most contentious and, in my view, impossible to settle via negotiations.  Despite the fact that Phases I and II of the Road Map will give the Palestinians 98% of what they want, they will push for that last 2%.  One of the hottest issues here is the “right of return” for the extensive number of descendants of original Palestinian refugees, kept all these years in prison communities for this purpose—but only for relocation to Israel, so the Arabs can become the political majority in Israel too. This is political suicide for the Jews. No Israeli government can get away with allowing that kind of repatriation, but the Arabs won’t settle for less.]

 

The timing is the tell-tale giveaway.  The most striking thing about the Road Map is the sheer audacity of its proposed timing.  To even imagine that centuries of animosity and near constant warfare is going to give way to a benign resolution within the next two years is ludicrous.  To me, this is a dead giveaway indicating the true purposes behind this proposal.  I believe the aggressive timing schedule is only aimed at Israeli compliance.  As I have pointed out before, the world court of opinion never held Arafat’s feet to the fire over his constant and blatant violations of the Oslo Accords.  And yet Israel—because its commitments were fiscal, visible and verifiable—was required to fulfill its part in full while the world was still giving Arafat’s PA the benefit of the doubt.  Isreal is being set up for this same dual standard for the future. 

As part of the Road Map, Israel will have to withdraw physically from all strategic bases in the occupied territories and dismantle tens of settlements, leaving thousands of other Israelis unprotected within the new Palestinian state. Meanwhile, the Palestinians will be given near sovereign protected status to rebuild their armed camp, free from Israeli intrusions.  With each new terrorist attack, the PA will always claim such terrorism is beyond their control, yet Israel will have to continue withdrawing or be ruled out of compliance—just like during the Oslo years.  The timetable is aimed at Israel.  The Palestinian commitments are almost all verbal and unverifiable.  They can appear to comply and still be hiding terrorism.  Israel cannot comply without actual and verifiable destruction of its security.

As for Palestinian reform, this is a sham.  The US officially declared that it will not deal with Yasser Arafat anymore, and demanded a new PA cabinet with a Prime Minister who has legitimate powers to act.  So why did the US allow the other three members of the Quartet to rush over to Chairman Arafat and present the plan to him?  The US is playing as if  Abu Mazen, the newly ordained Prime Minister of the new PA cabinet, represents a “new PA” supposedly committed to peace and free from terrorism.  President Bush naively praised Abu Mazen last week as “a man dedicated to peace,” and indicated that he would soon invite him to the White House for talks.   Let’s look at Mazen’s record.

Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, was, in fact, the PLO’s paymaster who doled out the money to the PLO offshoot Black September prior to that organization’s launching of one of the 20th century's most infamous terrorist attacks: the killing of the 11 Israeli athletes (including American David Berger) at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany in 1972.  Naturally, Mazen claims he didn’t know what they were going to do with the money.  Really?  Black September was supposed to have been such a radical splinter group that the PLO had disavowed any further relationship after their split.  So why did the PLO continue to fund Black September, if it was truly repugnant to the PLO’s goals?

As far as Mazen’s supposed opposition to Arafat, there is much evidence to suggest otherwise.  For instance, the new Prime Minister is demanding no less than the total removal of the siege on Arafat's Mukata compound in Ramallah where Arafat has been quarantined by IDF forces for the past year and a half, due to his responsibility for the Oslo war and continued terrorist attacks on Israel.  Additionally, although the US expects Abu Mazen to dismantle the terrorist organizations Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Arafat’s own Al-Aksa Brigades, all three have announced that they have no plans to disarm or cease terrorist attacks on Israel.  Do we really expect that Mazen is going to attack them with military force (still controlled by Arafat), his only recourse now that they have openly defied him? 

In typical compromising fashion, the Bush administration is demanding that Israel provide some “welcoming gestures” for the new Prime Minister, such as the release of hundreds of Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails, plus an immediate withdrawal from Northern Gaza.  Of course, there are no provisions for Israel to recapture those prisoners or regain lost ground once terrorism resumes and the Israeli gestures are flaunted.  As Israeli General Security chief Avi Dichter said, “Terrorists have taken advantage of Israeli largesse [in the past] to improve their capabilities and carry out attacks… Every gesture by Israel carries a price.”

 

A BETTER SOLUTION

Tourism Minister Benny Elon has proposed a new outline for peace, according to Arutz-7 in Israel. “Elon, successor to the assassinated Rehavam Ze'evi as head of the Moledet Party in the National Union, conceived the plan as an alternative to the Road Map currently under consideration.  He says that the Road Map is merely a ‘rehashing of the decades-old goal of trying to seat two peoples on the western side of the Jordan River’ –an objective he calls ‘unworkable and dangerous.’ Giving the Arabs of Yesha a quasi-state will not solve the fundamental problems of borders and refugees, Elon says, but will instead guarantee the next round of terrorism and warfare.

“Elon's plan offers what he calls ‘the genuine and original two-state solution,’ proposing that it encompass the full extent of Mandatory Palestine on both sides of the Jordan River. Its six points include the following:

·          The Palestinian Authority will be dissolved;

·          Israel will put a firm end to Palestinian terrorism by expelling terrorists, collecting weapons, and dismantling terror-hotbed refugee camps;

·          The international community will recognize the Hashemite Kingdom [Jordan] as the sole representative of the Palestinians, and will help it economically as it absorbs a limited number of refugees;

·          Israel will become sovereign over Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and the Arabs living there will be Jordanian citizens living under a form of autonomy to-be-determined;

·          The exchange of Jewish and Arab populations begun in 1948 will be completed, and the international community will help rehabilitate the refugees in their new countries;

·          Israel and Jordan-Palestine will declare the conflict ended and will work together as neighbors.

Though political opponents say that Elon is ‘ignoring the reality of the Palestinian Authority,’ the Elon Plan states that just as the ‘evil regimes of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were destroyed,’ the same must befall the PA, ‘one of the most dangerous regimes.’”  [end of Arutz-7 quote].  Absolutely correct! I would add that this would only be workable if a true system guaranteeing equal fundamental rights to Arab citizens of Israel were implemented.  Again, the rule of law restricting government strictly to the defense of fundamental rights, properly defined, also outlaws socialist redistribution schemes as a violation of ownership rights—something the Israelis need to come to grips with.  They can never have peace as long as citizens inside a country are competing for pieces of the productive pie—taken away from others by force of taxation.

 

CUBA AND LIBYA ON HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

The White House this week expressed outrage that Cuba has been re-elected to the UN Human Rights Commission after last month’s crackdown on 78 anti-Castro dissidents in Cuba.  White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer correctly observed, “This is a setback for the cause of human rights. Cuba does not deserve a seat on the Human Rights Commission. Cuba deserves to be investigated by the Human Rights Commission.”  In fact, a motion was made at the Commission to investigate Cuba, and Cuba protested.  In response, the Commission not only backed down, but voted to re-elect Cuba.  Also on the roster of the Human Rights Commission are such notable terror-sponsoring nations as Sudan, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Togo, Syria, Algeria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam—all guilty of egregious human rights abuses.   In spite of all this hypocrisy, the US refuses to withdraw from the UN or to use its veto to stop these appointments.

 

IRAQI CIVILIAN SHOOTINGS

American soldiers are not being trained in how to maintain good fire discipline when confronted by civilian demonstrators.  Two times now, agent provocateurs have shot at American troops under the cover of civilian demonstrations.  In a third this last week, soldiers opened fired on the crowd when no shots were fired—only when a youth threw a shoe and hit a soldier. In response to all these cases, some justified and one not, US troops have open fire with automatic weapons on the unarmed crowds, leaving many dead and wounded. 

The US cannot afford to continue to feed the Iraqi people’s growing hatred of American occupation by responding in this manner.  In 2 out of the 3 recent cases, Americans were in protected buildings where they could have taken cover and determined where the shots were coming from.  Instead they blasted the crowds in an over-reaction to the perceived need to “return fire” with maximum force.  That’s what they are taught in training.  In contrast, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) is carefully trained on how to avoid firing on civilians merely throwing rocks, sticks or shoes, and to target the few with rifles hiding behind the crowds.  Yes, some rock throwers occasionally get hit, but civilian casualties are kept to a minimum.  The US will no longer be able to chastise the IDF for civilian casualties after our own soldiers’ poor use of fire discipline.  I’m not blaming the soldiers as much as our military officers for not preparing them on how to handle these kinds of situations.  There is much the US did not do to properly prepare its troops to attack a country and keep order in the aftermath.

 

US LEAVING SAUDI AIR BASE, BUT NOT FOR GOOD

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced this week in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia that the US would withdraw its forces from the nation, now that the military mission of the Iraq war is ended.  This is only partially true.  The US is only putting the its facilities at Prince Sultan Air Base in mothballs and will keep it operationally ready for a quick return when the next Middle East crisis arises.  To this end, 400 to 500 military personnel will remain to keep the facilities operational.  I view the withdrawal as only a token move to appease the Saudi regime.  US forces have long been a thorn in the side of this fundamentalist Muslim nation.  There are thousands of other Americans in numerous operations through the Saudi Kingdom—many working with corporate/government partnership deals.  However, the need for a fully staffed military base in Saudi Arabia has been lessened since the US invasion of Iraq.  Having four new airbases in Iraq under US control has allowed this gesture to the Saudis to go forward.  I fully expect the US to maintain a very substantial military presence in Iraq for future intervention in the region. 

 

THE BILDERBERG MEETING IN VERSAILLES, FRANCE

The closed meeting of the famed Bilderberg group of world leaders met on the 15-18th May 2003 at the Trianon Park adjacent to the Versailles Palace outside of Paris.  Security was especially tight to allow for the visit of perennial Bilderberg notables such as Henry Kissinger—wanted on outstanding warrants in various nations, including a French war crimes tribunal (a telling indicator of the power these men possess to evade inconvenient laws they promote selectively to prosecute others.)  Interestingly, the Bilderberg conference always takes place close to and prior to the G8 meeting where actual government policies are decided.

 

Nothing is known about the content of the meetings exactly, except that they discuss plans for moving the world towards greater global governance as they manage various world conflicts they allow to fester or sometimes foment.  The fact that these discussions concern matters of individual and national sovereignty and are held under ultra secret security measures (even reporters and media moguls are sworn to silence), is good evidence that these people are acting conspiratorially against the sovereignty the rest of us partially enjoy.

 

Bilderberg watchers hover around each conference like paparazzi (tabloid photographers) photographing members with telephoto lenses and taking names.  Not all the power elite show up at each meeting—that would become too obvious.  But there are representatives of most powerful factions. There are at least a dozen other overlapping organizations (Club of Rome, Aspen Institute, CFR, Trilateral Commission, Committee of 300, etc.) that allow the real power brokers to pick and choose their appearances.  Here’s a partial list of this year’s Bilderberg participants by group, so that you can get a feel for who really exercises power on the globe:

 

Royalty and elected officials: Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Sofia and King Juan-Carlos of Spain, Paavo Lipponen (former PM of Finland), H.R.H. Prince Philippe (Crown Prince of Belgium), Gareth Williams (Leader of the House of Lords Sen. Jon Corzine (D. NJ), Valéry d'Estaing,(former French President. Chairman of the Convention on the Future of Europe, drafting new EU constitution), Stephen Harper (Canadian Opposition Party Leader),

 

Government ministers, advisors/controllers (these are the hands behind the throne): Henry Kissinger (CEO Kissinger Associates, Inc.; Member, Defense Policy Board; Member J.P. Morgan International Council), Robert Zoellick (US Trade Representative), Kenneth Clarke (UK minister),  Richard Perle (Defense Policy Board, American Enterprise Institute,  Project for a New American Century), Paul Wolfowitz (US Deputy Secretary of Defense), John Bolton (US State Department), Colin Powell (US Sec. of State), Thomas Donilon (VP, Fannie Mae), Martin Feldstein  (Counsel of Econ. Advisors, Federal Reserve), Philip Gould  (adviser to Tony Blair), Richard N Haass (US State Dept), Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. (Clinton advisor, lawyer, lobbyist)

 

Central bankers: James D. Wolfensohn (World Bank),  Jean Claude Trichet (Banque de France), Gertrude Trumpel-Gugerell (Bank of Austria), Jacob Wallenberg (Scandinavian Private Bank), Svein Gjedrem (Central Bank of Norway), Dermot Gleeson (Allied Irish Banks).

 

Major financial powers: David Rockefeller (Chase Manhattan, J.P. Morgan International Council), Craig J. Mundie (Advanced Strategies and Policy, Microsoft),  Roger Hertog (Alliance Capital Management), Peter D. Sutherland (Goldman Sachs International; BP Amoco), John L. Thornton (Goldman Sachs Group, USA), Jurgen E Schrempp (Daimler Chrysler), Philippe Villin (Lehman Brothers Europe), Allan B. Hubbard (E&A Industries), James Johnson (Perseus L.L.C.), Jeroen van der Veer (Royal Dutch/Shell Petroleum),

 

Education Institutions: R. Glenn Hubbard, (Columbia University), John Ruggie (Kennedy School of Government, Harvard),

 

Think tanks: James B. Steinberg (The Brookings Institution), Klaus Schwab (World Economic Forum), George Perkovich (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), Lilia Shevtsova (Carnegie Endowment in Russia), Marie-Joseé Kravis (Hudson Inst),

 

Major media owners: Rupert Murdoch (Fox news and many others in US, Canada, Australia and UK) and Conrad Black, (UK Telegraph Group)

 

Reporters:  TIME Magazine, The Economist (Micklethwait, R. John),  NY Times (Thomas Friedman),  Wall Street Journal (Paul Gigot), Die Zeit (Naas, Matthias-Germany), Politiken (Toger Seidenfaden-Denmark),The Financial Times (Martin H Wolf –UK), Newsweek International (Zakaria, Fareed),

 

JUNE 2003

 

DANGERS OF THE NEW EU AND HOW IT AFFECTS EVERYONE

Every nation of the world can learn crucial lessons about the dangers inherent to the emerging New World Order by taking a close look at the evolution of the European Union, from a harmless commercial alliance of independent states to a regional all-controlling government-in-the-making.  Of all the attempts in recent history to consolidate nations into regional governments, preparatory to the establishment of a one world government, the European Union has been the most successful, paving the way for the eventual realization of the globalists’ vision.  The EU is clearly the forerunner or testing ground on how to get sovereign citizens to cede essential sovereignty in exchange for euphemistic promises of world peace and free trade.  The process should be scrutinized closely.  The EU’s method of establishing pervasive control through carefully staged progressions, leveraging off one crisis after another, sets a pattern for how globalist leaders in Britain, the US, and other nations will attempt to coax citizens away from national sovereignty and into global interdependence. 

 

The world is being enticed to join in this globalization movement with the tantalizing promised benefits of freer trade, cheaper prices and fewer barriers to impede cross-border exchanges of labor and products.  But all of this, in my opinion, is merely bait luring nations into the growing control system that is being written into the fine print of the WTO, NAFTA, GATT, and the EU.  Since nations are still somewhat free to abstain or withdraw from these regional organizations, globalist leaders have been careful to minimize the effects of the control aspects, which are just now getting started in earnest.  Now that European nations have had a chance to taste of the (perceived) benefits of regionalization, and are committing themselves more solidly to EU membership, these control aspects will begin to attain mandatory status in the EU.  A fundamental shift in sovereignty is planned, moving dramatically away from nationhood and toward regional government.   The most dangerous provision proposed in the new constitution is that secession from the EU will no longer be an option.  In short, opting out will no longer be an option. In the long-term as these mandatory regional laws and regulations evolve; given the current declining trend in world economies, I think we will see a diminution of free trade and an increase in calls for higher benefits, taxation, and other uniformly socialist “solutions.”

 

Currently there is significant conflict between the decrees of the European court, whose jurisdiction has been growing ever more expansive, and local laws within the member nations.  But these intrusions have generally only attacked one small sector at a time (government whistleblowers, anti-war protestors, or Christian broadcasters), rarely rising to inconvenience the masses all at once.  This will change once a new European Presidency and Foreign Minister is installed, as per proposals currently on the table.  The conflict in jurisdiction between the new powers of the EU elected leadership, which are more than symbolic, and the powers of the member nations themselves will, I predict, lead to a call for more legislative control at the EU level—something heretofore resisted.  Notice how an increase in power on one side of the EU ledger generates, in reaction, a demand for a counter force of power on a different side of the same EU system—but rarely at the nation-state level where sovereignty should reside.   

 

Background on the transition from Common Market to European Union.  Just as its name suggests, the Common Market began as a modest alliance of completely sovereign and independent nations whose first task was to try to harmonize their various and different economic regulatory barriers (tariffs, taxation, subsidies, regulations, and immigration) in order to facilitate trade.  Frankly, harmonization through voluntary means never worked out in practice.  There were too many special interests within the socialist economies to which every politician was beholden to.  These politicians knew they could never get reelected by promising to take away benefits or relinquish a protected status, if such benefits protected a special interest group of any size.  This is why socialism, in a raw democracy, never diminishes significantly or votes itself out of existence.  It merely sags deeper into the morass of inefficiency until politicians, faced with the inevitable economic crisis, are forced to loosen some of the burdens on the productive class, so that these semi-free capitalists can continue to be harnessed for the “benefit of society.” 

 

The highly innovative and industrialized north countries of Europe got a real boost after WWII with the destruction of their former socialist governments and a healthy (albeit temporary) dose of less-regulated capitalism encouraged by the presence of the Americans and Marshall Plan guidelines.  But it was not to last.  Just as the economic miracle was beginning to take off in the 1950s, socialism began to reemerge, with voters demanding an increasing share of the benefits via redistribution schemes.  Over the next several decades, the northern European countries experienced a rise in GNP, innovation and industrial might, along with a steady increase in protectionist measures.  They have created a host of complex subsidy schemes to protect inefficient, heavily unionized labor and costly (but high quality) local products as their economies have outpaced the more slowly growing economies of southern Europe.

 

Spain, Italy, and Turkey, the “poor southern cousins” of Europe, fostered a form of competition (itself a semi-socialist mix, but with a cheaper labor component) which, in the eyes of some in the north, threatened their coveted protected status as primary suppliers of higher-priced local products.  As with labor unions worldwide, whose members always view cheaper non-union workers as the enemy, so it was with subsidized local producers throughout the European Common Market.  The consuming public of northern Europe wanted to enjoy the cheaper products of southern Europe, but their fellow subsidized producers were resistant to competition and applied political pressure to legislators to maintain protective barriers.  This problem was never successfully addressed, despite occasional strikes, riots and other social protests against freer trade, until the decision making process got further removed from local and national leaders.

 

This is where Common Market leaders were able to instigate beneficial changes in the economy of Europe and at the same time strengthen their own position of authority over the individual nations.  The failures of harmonization were finally overcome step by step by gradual deregulation—enacted not by local politicians, who could never have survived at the polls, but rather by unnamed distant bureaucrats in Brussels, the headquarters of the Common Market.  Being removed several stages from the direct vote of the people, European leaders in Brussels could issue rules which locally affected people would feel relatively powerless to fight.  One step at a time, the Common Market began to knock down regulatory barriers (actually, a good thing) aimed at various trade imbalances (causing some economic pains in the corresponding protected sectors), which would then exacerbate, in turn, different but related imbalances.  This would then lead to a subsequent round of deregulation, and so forth. 

 

Over time, the resulting economic dislocation engendered both a backlash against a European union among protectionists, and an increased desire on the part of pro-unification politicians in each nation to somehow gain more control over the regulatory process.  The more individual nations felt threatened by the larger powers, and the more they attempted to forge coalitions and alliances to increase their collective share of power within the union, the deeper they were pulled into the emerging EU system.  In effect, the (mostly futile) attempts of each nation to gain some measure of control over the regulation process only lent more credibility to the regulatory union itself.  A few nations (Austria and Denmark) tried to opt out at various times, but the Common Market leaders knew how to penalize them in trade so as to induce them back to the table.  England is one of the few nations today that is not yet fully integrated due to its wise decision to hold onto the British Pound Sterling—something Tony Blair is determined to undermine.

 

An early obstacle to unification that globalists in Europe needed to address was the cultural identity that each country retained with respect to the other European nations.  One of the earliest effective steps at breeching each nation’s cultural homogeneity was to introduce small numbers of foreign workers into the industrialized north.  These foreigners brought competition to the protected local labor markets, providing an initial benefit of cheaper labor, increased productivity, and lower prices to the host nations.  But there was also a downside.  The burgeoning social welfare state in prosperous northern Europe served as a magnet to workers from Turkey, Spain and elsewhere—especially after the fall of the Iron Curtain—and the initial inflow of foreigners soon became a flood due to purposefully lax immigration controls.  The long-term price was a heavy one—not only in terms of indigenous job loss and increased infrastructure costs (housing, schools, roads), but in terms of the strained the cultural and political homogeneity of the host country.

 

Naturally all of this has led to a greater polarization of the European society, and interestingly enough, greater political power to the forces of globalism.   How, you may ask?   The working foreign poor teamed up with their sympathetic allies on the far left and began to look to the newly empowered EU to give them the political edge they couldn’t otherwise achieve against the mixed socialist center-right parties in Germany and France.  Thus, the next level of authority in any unresolved conflict is the natural benefactor in any appeals process in regulatory law.  In fact, for those that track conspiracy, these higher globalist leaders have been known to help foment crises that rebound power back to themselves.  Not only do they accrue more political power, but when their edicts are disregarded, they have more justification to call for increased enforcement power.  That’s partly what the EU’s plans for a small non-NATO rapid reaction force are all about.

 

Military pacts, like NATO, have brought their own brand of consolidation impetus to Europe.  For the first 50 years of NATO, everyone was trying to see who could contribute the least in money and troops, letting the USA shoulder the largest share of the burden.  Naturally, the US wanted to call the shots, which ultimately led to increased resentment toward American hegemony in Europe.   This resentment has come to a peak recently due to the Iraq war, where Europe has made a quantum leap forward in its resolve to stand up to the US on foreign policy issues.  President Bush’s trip to the G8 meeting in Europe this past week was partly intended to rebuild relationships with Europe, but it will only be cosmetic in my opinion.  I think the rift is now permanent.  Europe doesn’t trust the US anymore to be an honest partner.  They all know the US wants to run the whole show.  Again, this has driven Europe to lessen emphasis on internecine rivalries and concentrate on presenting a more solid front against the US.  All of this has resulted in less resistance to the upcoming changes in EU power, as proposed in this latest draft of the coming constitution, which offer less sovereignty to individual nations but more power to confront the US jointly.  This same thinking is affecting the expansion of NATO, where smaller nations are voting for the inclusion of Eastern bloc nations to counter the traditional Big 4 (US, Britain, France, and Germany).   In turn, the expanding membership in NATO to include countries like Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary provides a perfectly natural transition into EU monetary and political union.

 

There is some outright manipulation of this whole process.  The unionization of Europe has not proceeded simply out of mutual national interests.  The failure of voluntary harmonization was merely the sticking point that instigated the call for radical solutions.  The real planning and drive for unionization came from the core cadre of European globalist leaders who had an agenda far beyond the advancement of socialism.  If they had only been Fabians or Marxists like the majority of other politicians in Europe, they would have been more interested in protecting their home turf with subsidies and high labor rates.  The fact that this clique was the driving force for breaking down the barriers of socialist protectionism, in opposition to the majority will of most benefit-corrupted voters, indicates they had an alternative agenda beyond socialism itself.   In other words, socialism was one of many tools to be used—not an end in and of itself with them.  It is the realization of this distinction, however tardy, that has finally turned the radical left against globalism.  The far left realizes that the globalist leaders are not really as committed to socialism as they are to an elitist form of control that mixes both the benefits of partially free markets with the voter corrupting potential of the limited welfare state.  Libertarians and conservatives should not relax because the left is out there demonstrating against the global NWO.  Their solution is not liberty, but their own version of control. 

 

Conservatives in both the US and Britain need to wake up and realize that they have the most to lose in this battle and that conservative leaders who continue to promote globalism are not doing so in their best interest.  There is nothing wrong with globalist cooperation and alliances as long as such alliances maintain the rigid sovereign status of the individual states, a characteristic which was the original genius of the US constitutional model.  The states within the US have long since relinquished most of their sovereignty to federal control, but still, America’s tradition of liberty makes it a potential enemy of globalist control.  Naturally, US globalist leaders know this and work hard to make sure Americans are as isolated as possible from the inconveniences of globalism so as to keep them passive.

 

In short, with each crisis of resistance to the barriers of partially free trade, the globalists in the EU have sought to expand the power of the EU as the solution.  The 1992 Maastricht Treaty was another major advancement in the attack on European national sovereignty.  With the implementation of a single European currency, member nations ceded away the power to regulate their own currency—one of the key pillars supporting the inefficient but politically appealing welfare state.   All EU nations were Keynesian in orientation, essentially holding to the theory that they could spend their way to prosperity, and they financed their spending levels by creating budget deficits and debasing local currencies as opposed to raising taxes—which were already very high.  Naturally, some European states were much more profligate at the spending and inflation game than others.  To accomplish the formidable task of unifying the currencies, the EU spent the next decade in chipping away at some of the most pernicious imbalances in the European economy: differences in rates of inflation, and differences in deficit spending levels between member countries.

 

The Maastricht Treaty, of necessity, placed strict criteria upon each nation’s rate of inflation and public spending, as a percentage of GNP, in order to ease the transition to a single currency.   These criteria did bring a lot of financial discipline to Europe, but in the end every nation had to fudge their economic statistics in order to qualify for monetary union.  The leaders in Belgium were only too willing to look the other way, desiring as they did that no nation be excluded if possible.  It was interesting to watch this process during the final months of the transition.  There was a flood of cash buying across borders as people sought to spend their hidden hoards of cash before it became worthless.

 

I am not a believer in fiat currency, and thus do not sympathize with the complaints of the various EU countries when it finally distilled upon them what they had lost in monetary union.  Suddenly, they had lost the means of direct currency creation to hide government expenses from their taxpaying citizens.   With the EU now setting the rate of monetary expansion, each nation has been forced into the same policy mold.  Now EU states are left only with the options of either direct borrowing from central or international banks or tax increases.  The latter is politically unfeasible now that EU member countries have incorporated, on top of previous taxation levels, a Value Added Tax (VAT) currently taxing most purchases at a rate of between 17% and 22%.  This is an example of how a flat tax grows to become a monster—with precious few ways to avoid it.

 

Besides monetary policy, there are several other legs upon which sovereignty stands:  foreign policy, legislative and executive powers, judicial authority, and police power.  With the new EU constitution coming to a vote this month, the EU is attempting to make yet another step towards full political union with the election of a real European President.  The proposal provides for a term of 2 ½ years, as opposed to the current system of short-term rotating 6-month presidencies that have only ceremonial significance.  There is already an EU Parliament, but it has a limited role since many of its decisions are not binding.  The formation of a viable executive branch of government will be the last hurdle to leap in the EU’s quest for mandatory powers. 

 

The current constitutional proposal continues to give lip service to individual member states’ powers, but the fine print says otherwise: Where member nations’ law, policies or interests conflict with the Union, EU law will have “primacy over the law of member states.”  “They are most alarmed,” as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard stated, “by the concept of ‘shared competence’ put forward in the text, an innocuous sounding term that would prohibit member states from legislating in everything from public health to social policy, transport, justice and economic management unless Brussels waived its powers first.”  The EU already controls a common fiscal policy.  Now it will be given the power to define and implement a common foreign and security policy and eventually a defense policy.  Even if the UK does not join the EU in accepting the Euro, its freedom to set its own economic policy will diminish step by step under its duty to harmonize its interests with the “Objectives of the Union,” which, more and more will dictate all European policy. Naturally, the European Court’s powers will continue to grow as each conflict is adjudicated.  

 

The new president (chairman of the EU Council) will be picked by the sitting national leaders in a majority vote.  The candidate must be a current or past Prime Minister or president, thus, limiting the field to establishment politicians.  Front runners for the future presidency are Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar, Britain’s Tony Blair and Germany’s Joschka Fischer.   Aznar and Blair have the disadvantage of having backed the American war in Iraq, with all its tenuous and unpopular rationalizations.  However, since the EU desperately wants to bring a reluctant Britain into full EU participation (currently outside the monetary union), putting Tony Blair on the throne may be just the ticket to allowing him another six years to propagandize his people into the benefits of giving up the time-honored British Pound.  Then again, if the US doesn’t finally manufacture some evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, Blair may become the laughing stock of all England.  Both Aznar and Blair are nearing the ends of their terms and looking for something big as a follow-on.  They don’t want to fade into relative oblivion like Bill Clinton.  Fischer, the current German Foreign Minister, is a Marxist, and so will be the favorite of the far left, which controls much of the EU.  One obstacle to his election is the growing fear of German dominance by the smaller EU nations.  They will most likely vote for Denmark’s Anders  Rasmussen, the Dutch Labor politician Wim Kok, or former Belgium PM  Jean-Luc Dehaene. 

 

The EU Charter of Human Rights  While not currently part of the draft of the new Constitution, there is widespread support among EU globalists for simply blending this charter into the Constitution seamlessly as a “bill of rights.”  The Charter has all the euphemistic catch words like respect and dignity, but a careful reading demonstrates that it is full of ambiguous and imprecise pronouncements, allowing for a host of dangerous interpretations, as well as statements directly contradictory to each other, and hence legally impossible to adjudicate.   Here are a few examples:

 

1.        From the Preamble: “[The Charter] is based on the principles of democracy and the rule of law.”  Actually, raw democracy is the unfettered will of the majority and is in opposition to the rule of law—which in its finest incarnation (US Constitution, as originally conceived) places absolute restrictions on the will of the majority so that government’s powers are restricted to the defense of fundamental rights, as opposed to the distribution of direct benefits.

2.        Preamble, again:  “the principle of subsidiarity: Enjoyment of these rights entails responsibilities and duties with regard to other persons, to the human community and to future generations.”  Weeding through the jargon, this means that fundamental rights are not absolute, but are subservient to the whims of the community or the “public good.”  The EU Charter can make all kinds of pronouncements that “no one shall be subjected to involuntary servitude,” but that is exactly what this means.  If one’s rights are subject to duties and responsibilities imposed by the majority via democracy, there is no actual limit to such subservience.  One can justify all kinds of involuntary service to the community with this doctrine.  (See the section on Law and Government at my website, www.joelskousen.com for a workable definition of fundamental rights and a full exposition of what it takes to defend those rights.)

3.        Article 1: “Human dignity is inviolable.  It must be respected and protected.”  Dignity is one of those words that are almost impossible to define.  This statement leaves everyone open to the threat of legal action for supposed violations of someone’s dignity.

4.        Article 2: “Everyone has the right to life. No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed.”   Without a serious death penalty provision, the right to life of all potential victims of crime is put at risk. 

5.        Article 3: “Everyone has the right to respect for his or her physical and mental integrity.”  Once again, “integrity” is so difficult to define as to lead to interminable legal challenges.  The second part guarantees “free and informed consent” for all medical procedures, but there are a host of exceptions to this provision, such as forced incarceration due to mental incapacity.   Once again, the rights of the individual are subordinated to the rights of the community.  

6.        Article 4: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”   Torture can be defined with some effort, but “inhuman or degrading treatment” as applied to punishment for crimes is another imprecise wild card.  All punishment is degrading to some extent.  Are we to be left with nothing but country club prisons? 

7.        Articles 7, 8: “Everyone has the right to respect for his or her private and family life, home and communications…and data.”  Besides the terribly imprecise key word, “respect,” the fine print in point #3 of this article says: “Compliance with these rules shall be subject to control by an independent authority,” who, I am sure, will be appointed by the government.  Government-appointed authorities are never “independent” because they are predictable yes-men to the system—or they wouldn’t have been selected in the first place.

8.        Article 9: “The right to marry and the right to found a family shall be guaranteed in accordance with the national laws governing the exercise of these rights.”  This looks like a statement of an unconditional right, but in fact, it is tied with the applicable restrictions in law—to be decided and/or changed in the future.  Rights subject to constant amendment are not guaranteed in any sense of the word.  The EU definition of family includes homosexual unions.

9.         Article 10: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or in private, to manifest religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”  Of course the EU isn’t anxious to recognize that this pronouncement is in clear contradiction to the EU laws prohibiting any person from expressing religious beliefs critical of others, such as homosexuals or adulterers.  Once again, the Charter makes the following qualification: “the right to conscientious objection is recognized, in accordance with the national laws governing the exercise of this right,” meaning, restricting what is recognized as a conscientious objector to war.  These are not rights, if one has to read the fine print before exercising them.

 

Most nations already have constitutions full of sloppy language that easily allows for the degradation of individual and family rights for “public purposes.”  Those who live with written or unwritten constitutions that more clearly address civil liberties and fundamental rights (almost exclusively limited to the British/American traditions of common law) should be very concerned about the ease in which Europe is sinking into the quagmire of politically correct law, with only a fig leaf of protection against the total loss of liberty.   Even if you don’t believe there are forces conspiring to undermine the British and American legal traditions of liberty, you should be unwilling to join in a NWO based upon such flimsy documents masquerading as a constitution and Bill of Rights.

 

US TO ILLEGALLY YIELD SOVEREIGNTY OVER EXTRADITION RIGHTS TO EU

Extradition treaties between nations are an important feature of national sovereignty.  When a crime is alleged to have been committed by an American in a foreign country, the offended country must obtain permission from the US to arrest the American and transport him, if necessary, back to the foreign nation for trial.  This adds a level of protection for Americans, as our own court system has the opportunity to rule on the preliminary evidence and also intervene if the prospect for a just outcome for the accused citizen is unlikely. During the Cold War, few Americans were yielded up to the Soviet authorities for trial due to the Soviet Union’s record of sham trials and denial of commonly accepted civil rights.

 

This week, European sources have announced that the US will sign two accords with the EU at the planned EU-US summit meeting on June 25 in Washington, DC: the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) and the Mutual Legal Assistance accord (MLA).  By signing on to the EAW and the MLA, the US claims to have more power to gain access to private records on Europeans as well as arrest “terrorists” overseas without having to present classified evidence in an extradition hearing.   Despite the references to prosecuting terrorism, the language actually applies to all “serious crime including organized crime, terrorism and financial crime.”  The sky’s the limit.

 

These accords carry dangerous implications for citizens’ rights, both in Europe and the US.  The reason is that the arrest warrant agreement runs both ways.  Naturally the EU is not going to wave its rights to hold hearings on US extradition requests without getting the reciprocal right to march into America and arrest US citizens on one of the many bizarre charges now commonplace in European courts.  American Christian broadcasters, for instance, will now have to pay special attention to EU “hate crime” laws that have been used in Europe and Britain to sanction ministers who quote Biblical verses to document homosexuality as a violation of God’s law.  Poul Nielson, the European Commissioner for Overseas Development and Humanitarian Aid, describes anti-abortion Christians as a “small group of extremists.”  Elaborating, he went on to say that “anti-choice groups are powerful, well-funded and determined…They hold extreme views on religion and sexuality”—meaning, of course, that they are anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality. These are the kinds of prosecutors in Europe who would love come after American Christians. 

 

As a further example, American anti-war or anti-globalist protestors at a G8 meeting might well find themselves greeted at the door of their home by a couple of Europol agents (the new Interpol-type police of the EU) with a European arrest warrant in hand.  They won’t be read any rights or given the chance to call a lawyer, but will be whisked out of the country without an extradition hearing.  Or worse still, they might find themselves arrested in any EU location, and subsequently tried and imprisoned without any appeal to US justice at all, given the new EU provision stating that accused persons can be tried in absentia and forced to serve their prison sentence in the country where they are found.

 

The move to yield sovereignty rights in exchange for arrest powers overseas is hardly surprising, given the Bush administration’s rapacious appetite for powers to surveil its own citizens in the name of fighting terrorism.  Despite all the uproar among informed citizens over the USA PATRIOT Act and the devious manner in which it was rammed through Congress without hearings, Attorney General John Ashcroft had the audacity to come before Congress this week demanding still more powers in the name of fighting terrorism.  The expansion of powers called for, including enforcement of the death penalty in terrorism cases, show ominous similarities to the draft of the “Patriot II” Act which was leaked out earlier this year and then vehemently refuted by the Justice Department. 

 

Ashcroft, in calling for the expansion, claimed that the lack of terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11 is directly attributable to the effectiveness of the original PATRIOT Act, rather than admit the more plausible explanation—that the number of actual terrorist cells in the US is grossly overstated due to the lack of any signs of normal terrorism (car bombings, rural infrastructure attacks, etc., to which America is disturbingly susceptible).   Ashcroft has used the inflated numbers of terrorist cells on several occasions to brag to Congress about the effectiveness of his war on terror, without ever admitting the exaggeration or correcting the numbers later.  Such an admission would expose the fraudulent nature of the dragnet instigated in the wake of the WTC attacks, and undermine the agency’s entire justification for riding roughshod over constitutional rights.  It is clear to many that America is being set up for a wholesale revision of its traditional legal system based on fundamental rights.   The quiet signing away of our right to extradition hearings is simply another part of the process—boiling the frog slowly so that death creeps up on him unawares.

 

Ashcroft and the Justice Department have come under increasing criticism by the US Inspector General over the finding of “significant problems” in the department’s detention of over 700 illegal immigrants after the 9/11 terror attacks, holding them in harsh conditions for months even though officials knew they had no reliable evidence of any connection of these individuals to terrorism.  Attempting to deflect criticism, DOJ spokesmen have repeatedly referenced the secondary conclusion of the Inspector’s report that “no laws were broken” in detaining the immigrants [thanks to bad laws like the PATRIOT act and the Material Witness statute].  But the criticism has been aired sufficiently to make Ashcroft, normally a media hound always seeking the spotlight, evade the press.  In his latest news conference, Ashcroft quickly read an upbeat statement on a side issue and then made a hasty exit, ignoring reporters’ shouted barrage of appeals for comments on the Inspector’s report. 

                Ashcroft was back in a few days to take credit for the apprehension of Eric Rudolph, the presumed right-wing abortion clinic bomber, who had successfully eluded capture five years.  Ashcroft bragged that, “The FBI always gets its man."   The truth is Rudolph was captured not the FBI, but by a local police officer who saw him rummaging through a dumpster for food.

 

KOREA:  US TO PULL BACK FROM DMZ

On February 23 of this year, there was an unprecedented call by South Koreans and US leftists for the US to withdraw its 37,000 troops from South Korea in light of the growing threat from the North.  The Left in South Korea favors a policy of appeasement with the North, euphemistically called the “Sunshine Policy.”   The presence of US troops is viewed as a major source of antagonism to the North (as it should be, given the fact that the North has 1.5 million troops poised on the border waiting for another invasion opportunity).  The Bush administration is constantly being accused of taking a hard-line stance with Pyongyang, although in comparison with Iraq, Bush is bending over backwards to avoid confrontation with North Korea.

 

This month the US responded by announcing it would pull back its troops from the DMZ, reduce the numbers of personnel and move them to other bases to the south of Seoul.  Let’s analyze why.  US military planners have long known that these US front line troops would be sacrificial fodder if the North chose to attack in large numbers (an ever-present threat).  Unless the US were willing to use weapons of mass destruction, these troops would not be able to stop the sheer quantity of men and firepower the North has all along the DMZ.  Either the US chose to pull their men back from the brink so they could have more time to react to an attack, or they are simply removing one of the main sore points (an excuse for provocation) so as to improve the US negotiating position in both South and North Korea.   

 

In either case, there is much more to the story than either the US or South Korea is telling.  A recent defector from North Korea has revealed to the Wall Street Journal information that implicates both South Korea and Japan for supplying nuclear and missile technology to North Korea.  Neither nation could do this without US knowledge and silent assent.  Here are excerpts from the report of Bok Ku Lee (not his real name), the former head of the technical department at a North Korean munitions factory that made guidance systems and related electronic devices for North Korea’s missile and armaments industry. [My comments in brackets.]

 

“I was one of 100,000 or so scientific and professional people involved in the regime's weapons of mass destruction industry…I witnessed mass starvation and oppression of those less fortunate, and unspeakable abuses of power and lifestyle excesses by senior political officials of the regime. As did everyone, I lived in constant fear of being sent to the gulag for the slightest indiscretion.

”Nonetheless, I was trusted with some of the regime's biggest secrets. While serving, I was sent to Iran to test launch one of our missiles with a new guidance system [allowing the US to continue certifying that N. Korea was in compliance with the Clinton Accords] … I consulted with colleagues who were sent to serve on an operational war basis for Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War, and others who were sent to other countries to sell, service and install such missile systems.  I ordered, supervised and monitored the foreign purchases of electronic and guidance material -- 90% of which came from Japanese suppliers. I worked with some of the 60 or so Russian scientists who had been ‘cherry picked’ by the regime to work in Pyongyang's nuclear, atomic, chemical and biological warfare programs -- and who continue to work there. [So much for Russia being an ally in the ‘war on terror,’ and ‘pressuring N. Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.’]

 

“Upon my arrival [as a defector], I was debriefed by South Korea's National Intelligence Service, and occasionally put in the hands of unsophisticated American questioners [very telling] in Seoul. Remarkably, the South Korean officials made it clear to me that I would be in danger if I were to speak out about the WMD programs I had worked on or the atrocities I had witnessed. It soon became obvious that they feared my testimony because it might jeopardize South Korea's ‘sunshine policy,’ which seeks to keep the North's repressive regime in power in order to avoid the economic consequences to the South were it to collapse. [There are darker reasons.  The Communists have always penetrated other governments in order to directly influence policy, using euphemistic language such as this ‘Sunshine policy’ to mask their intent.]

“Incredibly, Seoul seems unwilling to accept that propping up Kim Jong Il's regime has had grave consequences for the world. While traveling to the China-North Korea border last year, I met with former colleagues and learned that the production at our old missile guidance system plant was up to normal levels
following receipt by the regime of substantial amounts of foreign currency from the South. In 1997, when I left the plant, the output had shriveled to 30% of the pre-Nodong One launch in 1993 due to the lack of hard currency that had limited the capacity to pay for Japanese parts imports.

 

“Last year, facing increased pressures from the South Korean Intelligence Service to remain an invisible man, I decided to do all I could to escape from South Korea's hands. I obtained a passport under the pretense of traveling to Japan, and, with the aid of an underground-railroad activist, obtained a visa
that brought me to the U.S. last month.”

 

Speaking critically of S. Korean and US policies, Bok Ku Lee told the US Senate, “First, ‘understandings’ with Pyongyang that cause the exchange of hard currency for ‘guarantees’ that the regime will discontinue its nuclear and WMD programs are both immoral and doomed to failure. Immoral because such understandings come, in the end, to this: promises by Pyongyang not to export terrorism are exchanged for assurances to Pyongyang that it is licensed to commit as much terrorism against its own people as it wishes. And doomed to failure because, as the Clinton agreements prove, any effort to finance, legitimize or empower the regime only strengthens its desire and capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction.” [End of Bok Ku Lee quote.]  Well said, and very disturbing.

JULY 2003

 

EVIDENCE OF US MANIPULATION OF EVIDENCE IN IRAQ

The evidence of US government manipulation of the facts for the sake of ulterior motives is building. 

 

Scheer begins with a typical Bush quote: “‘The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons.’– George Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati.”

 

He continues, “The mainstream press, after an astonishing two years of cowardice, is belatedly drawing attention to the unconscionable level of administrative deception. They seem surprised to find that when it comes to Iraq, the Bush administration isn't prone to the occasional lie of expediency but, in fact, almost never told the truth.  What follows are just the most outrageous and significant of the dozens of outright lies uttered by Bush and his top officials over the past year in what amounts to a systematic campaign to scare the bejeezus out of everybody:

 

“LIE #1: ‘The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program ... Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.’ – President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in Cincinnati.

FACT: This story, leaked to and breathlessly reported by Judith Miller in the New York Times, has turned out to be complete baloney. Department of Energy officials, who monitor nuclear plants, say the tubes could not be used for enriching uranium. One intelligence analyst, who was part of the tubes investigation, angrily told The New Republic: ‘You had senior American officials like Condoleezza Rice saying the only use of this aluminum really is uranium centrifuges. She said that on television. And that's just a lie.’

 

“LIE #2: ‘The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.’ – President Bush, Jan 28, 2003, in the State of the Union address.

FACT: This whopper was based on a document that the White House already knew to be a forgery thanks to the CIA. Sold to Italian intelligence by some hustler, the document carried the signature of an official who had been out of office for 10 years and referenced a constitution that was no longer in effect. The ex-ambassador who the CIA sent to check out the story is pissed: ‘They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie,’ he told the New Republic, anonymously. ‘They [the White House] were unpersuasive about aluminum tubes and added this to make their case more strongly.’

 

“LIE #3: ‘We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.’ – Vice President Cheney on March 16, 2003 on Meet the Press.

FACT: There was and is absolutely zero basis for this statement. CIA reports up through 2002 showed no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program.

 

“LIE #4: ‘[The CIA possesses] solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade.’ – CIA Director George Tenet in a written statement released Oct. 7, 2002 and echoed in that evening's speech by President Bush.

FACT: Intelligence agencies knew of tentative contacts between Saddam and al-Qaeda in the early '90s, but found no proof of a continuing relationship. In other words, by tweaking language, Tenet and Bush spun the intelligence 180 degrees to say exactly the opposite of what it suggested.

 

“LIE #5: ‘We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases ... Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.’ – President Bush, Oct. 7.

FACT: No evidence of this has ever been leaked or produced. Colin Powell told the U.N. this alleged training took place in a camp in northern Iraq.  To his great embarrassment, the area he indicated was later revealed to be outside Iraq's control and patrolled by Allied war planes.

 

“LIE #6: ‘We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] for missions targeting the United States." – President Bush, Oct. 7.

FACT: Said drones can't fly more than 300 miles, and Iraq is 6,000 miles from the U.S. coastline. Furthermore, Iraq's drone-building program wasn't much more advanced than your average model plane enthusiast. And isn't a ‘unmanned aerial vehicle’ just a scary way to say ‘plane’?

 

“LIE #7: ‘We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established.’ – President Bush, Feb. 8, 2003, in a national radio address.

FACT: Despite a massive nationwide search by U.S. and British forces, there are no signs, traces or examples of chemical weapons being deployed in the field, or anywhere else during the war.

 

“LIE #8: ‘Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.’ – Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5 2003, in remarks to the UN Security Council.

FACT: Putting aside the glaring fact that not one drop of this massive stockpile has been found, as previously reported on AlterNet the United States' own intelligence reports show that these stocks – if they existed – were well past their use-by date and therefore useless as weapon fodder.

 

“LIE #9: ‘We know where [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.’ – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003, in statements to the press.

FACT: Needless to say, no such weapons were found, not to the east, west, south or north, somewhat or otherwise.

 

“LIE #10: ‘Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq which the UN prohibited.’ – President Bush in remarks in Poland, published internationally June 1, 2003.

FACT: This was reference to the discovery of two modified truck trailers that the CIA claimed were potential mobile biological weapons labs. But British and American experts – including the State Department's intelligence wing in a report released this week – have since declared this to be untrue. According to the British, and much to Prime Minister Tony Blair's embarrassment, the trailers are actually exactly what Iraq said they were; facilities to fill weather balloons, sold to them by the British themselves.

 

[Editor’s note:  The biggest of all lies, which Scheer misses, is that the president and Secretary of State kept demanding before the UN that Iraq tell the world where they have hidden their WMD.  The world naturally inferred from these remarks that the US did not know where the WMD were and wanted to invade to find out.   We now know that the US has known all along, from satellite photos and Israeli intelligence, that Iraq shipped his weapons to Syria.  Strangely the US isn’t pushing Syria to deliver up those weapons.]

 

“So, months after the war, we are once again where we started – with plenty of rhetoric and absolutely no proof of this ‘grave danger’…The Bush administration is now scrambling to place the blame for its lies on faulty intelligence, when in fact the intelligence was fine; it was their abuse of it that was ‘faulty.’

 

“On the terrible day of the 9/11 attacks, five hours after a hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon, retired Gen. Wesley Clark received a strange call from someone (he didn't name names) representing the White House position: ‘I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, ‘You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein,’  Clark told Meet the Press anchor Tim Russert. ‘I said, “But – I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?” And I never got any evidence.”  And neither did we.” [End of Scheer excerpt.]

 

BREMER SUDDENLY RESURRECTS IRAQI PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT

In a surprise move to quell growing criticism of US unilateralism, civilian administrator Paul Bremer reversed course and appointed a 25-member Iraqi council.  A week after the victory in Baghdad, the US had talked of installing a provisional government of selected US-friendly Iraqi leaders.  However, it became obvious after the first two meetings that US hand-picked favored candidates would not be chosen by the factionalized groups represented—even when the more hostile Shiite clerics were excluded.   US puppet Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress most certainly would not have been selected if it had been put to a vote by native Iraqis.

 

All of this troublesome political rangling was swept aside when the US appointed outright the 25 members of the new council.  While not all are abject yes-men to the US, the vast majority are fully predictable.  The members include several Shiite leaders who don’t object to working with the Americans; one radical Shiite cleric, Abdul Azia al Hakim; the US favorite Ahmed Chalabi; various professional leaders in the Iraqi business community; several local tribal leaders; one sheik; and even Hamid Majid Mussa, a Communist.  Of course, the Shiite cleric and the Communist are there to give the semblance of diversity, while not having enough power to control the vote.

 

Despite the token inclusion of Shiites in the Council, Shiite support for the council is very low. As the Associated Press reported, “At the still center of the debate is the enigmatic, 80-year-old Ayatollah Ali Hussein al-Sistani, who is recognized by all Shiites in Iraq and many elsewhere as the world's leading Shiite religious authority. Al-Sistani has rebuffed all attempts by American officials to negotiate with him. In the latest bid, U.S. administrator Paul Bremer visited Najaf last Wednesday and requested a meeting with al-Sistani, but the cleric refused to meet with him.”  Al-Sistani said further, “The constitution will be illegal if it is written by a council, whether that is chosen by the Americans or by what is called the Governing Council or by anyone else.”  I think it is clear the Shiite clerics will never buy into the US agenda for Iraq.

 

BUSH ADMINISTRATION ADMITS WE ARE IN A GUERRILLA WAR

The new American commander in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid, acknowledged for the first time that US is facing a “classical guerrilla-type war situation” against opponents ranging from members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party to non-Iraqi fighters from Palestine, Syria, and Egypt.  This could easily turn into another Vietnam except for one fact—the US government is actually trying to win this battle.  In Vietnam, our own government tried to sabotage military success in order to destroy America’s fervor for fighting Communism abroad. 

 

Troop morale in Iraq continues to plummet into cynicism and anger as deployments are extended month after month.  Nobody trusts or believes what their officers promise them.  Troops are becoming openly critical of President Bush and his military lackeys.  To counter this growing discontent, Gen Abizaid, in typical military fashion, warned that any soldier who criticized Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would face “possible verbal reprimand or something more stringent” from his commanders.

 

Meanwhile, Iraqi civilians are turning more hostile each day, and American troops have lost a lot of sympathy for the local people.  This is a recipe for more fire discipline mistakes and counter violence.  Rumsfeld just announced more call-ups of reserve forces.  But suddenly there’s little willingness to serve.  Watch out for the coming draft, as the US becomes more overextended with foreign entanglements.

 

SYRIA BEGINS TOKEN REMOVAL OF BASES FROM LEBANON

At least this is how the NY Times announced it.  In fact, the removal of bases is only a show to avoid the coming showdown with the Bush administration.  Syria, which has at least 20,000 troops occupying Lebanon (ostensibly to stop violence between Syrian back guerrillas and pro-Israeli Christians), is only moving its troops from the west and north to the east--closer to the border with Syria.  Naturally, this change is not expected to ease Syria’s complete stranglehold over every aspect of Lebanese politics.

 

HERE’S THE QUID PRO QUO FOR SYRIAN TOKEN SHIFT OF BASES IN LEBANON

Last week Syria started making moves at partial withdrawal from its decades long occupation of Lebanon. The Bush administration responded by blocking a planned presentation to Congress by John R. Bolton, undersecretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs and one of the State Department’s harshest critics of Syria.  He was to deliver new warnings this week about Syria's efforts to develop unconventional weapons.   The administration’s actions telegraphed a message to Syria that it can expect similar concessions if it continues to comply.  Of course none of these concession is going to induce Syria to eliminate its stockpiles of WMDs, received from Russia, China, and Iraq.  Even Bolton wasn’t intending to say that Syria had been the recipient of Iraq’s WMDs.

 

AUGUST 2003

 

ISRAELI ROADMAP POCKMARKED WITH LIES

Palestinian Security Chief Mohammed Dahlan and Israel’s Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz met on Thursday to try and come to an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from two more West Bank towns.  The talks failed as neither could even agree on which two cities.  The Israeli government position is marked by an obvious attempt to comply with constant US armtwisting to make concession after concession.  But the road to this appeasing kind of peace is loaded with roadblocks and pot-holes. 

 

The latest Palestinian charade came in the form of an outright retraction of a major portion of the roadmap by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohmoud Abbas.  This was in start contrast to the media hype in Jordan last month. Addressing the Americans in Aqaba, Jordan and all the world’s english speaking media, Abbas openly proclaimed his complete agreement with the American “roadmap for peace” including the explicit provision that the PA detain and arrest terrorist groups in Palestine.  However, it’s always a different story when the Arabs speak to each other in Arabic—knowing that the Western media purposely avoids coverage for addresses in Arabic.  After a meeting in Cairo with Amr Moussa, Sec. General of the Arab League, Abbas was asked by Arab reports, in Arabic, if he was really going to dismantle armed terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.  Here is a translation of his response:

 

“Cracking down on Hamas, Jihad and the Palestinian organizations is not an option at all.”   That’s an interesting and candid about-face—not to mention an open admission that what he said in Aqaba was a lie.  President Bush and the US State Department were predictably silent on this egregious deception, continuing to act as if nothing has changed.  So is the Isreali government, who has (or should have) a vested interest in protecting their people. 

 

In other news last week, Isreal’s perrenial left-wing pariah, former PM and peacenik Shimon Perez continues to promote the globalist concept of Jerusalem as the world’s capital.  This is a popular concept among internationalists, ever willing to seek another reason, however impracticle, to justify UN intervention in Israel. 

 

US RUN PRISONS AN IRRITANT TO WORLD SENSIBILITIES AND JUSTICE

Author Gordon Thomas calls the US run prisons in Iraq an “American Gulag.”  The conditions are totally inhumane.  They might have been justified in the initial days with the war was in full swing, but now, months after the US has full control, they are unconscionable.  Here are some excerpts from Thomas’ report:

 

“Each prisoner receives six pints of dank, tepid water a day. He uses it to wash and drink in summer noonday temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius [120 degrees F]. He is not allowed to wash his clothes. He is provided with a small cup of delousing powder to deal with the worst of his body infestation. For the slightest infringement of draconian rules he is forced to sit in painful positions. If he cries out in protest his head is covered with a sack for lengthy periods.  This is daily life in America’s shameful Gulag – Camp Cropper on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport.

 

“Only the International Red Cross are allowed inside. They are forbidden to describe what they see.
But some of its staff have broken ranks – to tell Amnesty International of the shocking conditions the 3000 Iraqi prisoners are held under.  None had been charged with any offence. They are listed as suspected ‘looters’ and ‘rioters’. Or listed as ‘loyal to Saddam Hussein’… [T]hey live in tents that are little protection against the blistering sun. They sleep eighty to a tent on wafer thin mats.  Each prisoner has a long-handled shovel to dig his own latrine. Some are too old or weak to dig the ordered depth of three feet. Others find they have excavated pits already used. The over-powering stench in this hell-hole is suffocating.   [End of Thomas excerpt.]

 

These are the kinds of stories that make America hated.  The mainstream press never prints them and the American public continues to live under the delusion that these kinds of prison conditions only prevail in Communist countries.  Sadly, the Red Cross is totally subservient to the political agenda being carried out under Paul Bremer’s control.  Nada Doumani, the International Red Cross spokesman in Baghdad said, “We never comment on the conditions at the detention centers.”   Why not?   Someone has to speak out.

 

ISRAEL:  US ROAD MAP FINALLY DERAILED—BUT NOT FOR LONG

The US designed “Road Map” has once again fallen apart in the wake of another massive terror attack in Jerusalem.  Arutz-7 reported that “shortly after 9:00 pm (Tuesday night), a 29-year-old Moslem religious leader - imam - and teacher from Hevron boarded a public bus making its way from the Western Wall to the Geulah and Har Nof neighborhoods in Jerusalem - and blew it up. The [accordion-style double] bus was ripped apart and set aflame. Twenty people were murdered and more than 130 were injured as a result of the suicide bombing. Among the dead and wounded are many children.”

 

What made this attack more significant than the many others preceding it was that, prior to the attack, the most radical terrorist groups (Hamas and Islamic Jihad) had ostensibly joined with the Palestinian Authority (PA) in a 3-month cease fire agreement, the “hudna.”  Both terrorist groups jointly claimed responsibility for this tragedy.  Israel retaliated with a rocket attack on the car of an Hamas leader and now the cease fire has officially been called off by Hamas.  Israel has cancelled all further peace talks with the PA—for now.  I don’t expect it to be permanent since both the US and the Israeli government are determined to shove this phony deal down Israel’s throat.

 

The attack did one thing, for sure.  It forced the US to temporarily abandon its permissive approach to Hamas and Islamic Jihad.  Earlier this week, the US was waffling all over in the attempt to give the PA an excuse to avoid its commitment to disarm and dismantle terrorist groups.  “For the second time in two weeks,” the ZOA (Zionists of America) writes, “Powell has said that the Hamas terrorist group need not be eliminated - which clearly contradicts President Bush's recent statement that Hamas must be dismantled.”  Powell told Egypt's Nile Television last week, “I didn't call for an all-out war against [Hamas].”  Powell is now having to eat his words. 

 

Even the Sharon government was in lock step with Powell last week, much to their embarrassment now.  On August 16, three days before the bombing, Arutz-7 announced, “Israel has relented on one of its core demands on the Palestinian leadership, backing away for now from its insistence that the men it regards as wanted terrorists be held under lock and key in Palestinian prisons, Israeli and Palestinian officials said today. Instead, Israel has accepted in principle the assurances of Muhammad Dahlan, the Palestinian minister of security, that he will monitor the wanted men in the cities where they now live and prevent them from mounting attacks, the officials said.  That would represent a less aggressive strategy than the immediate ‘dismantlement’ of terrorist infrastructure that Israel has sought. Bush administration officials had indicated that they would accept for now the milder Palestinian approach, which amounts to containment and, perhaps, assimilation into mainstream society.”   When will they ever learn—terrorists cannot be reformed.  They must be eliminated.

 

Arutz-7 also reported that “former senior IDF intelligence officer Brig.-Gen. (res.) Aharon Levran, speaking with Arutz-7 this morning, said that both attacks are rooted in a similar source: ‘They are both the fault - not exclusively - of the US, both diplomatically and in terms of its war against terrorism.  After all, where did all these suicide bombers in Iraq come from?  They took their lead from Palestinian terrorism - the main source of inspiration for terrorism around the world.  The Palestinians boast already well over 100 suicide attacks - and what did the US do?  It granted them the largest possible prize - a state!  Not purposely, but the Americans proved that terrorism pays off!’” [It may be more purposeful than Levran thinks.]

 

SEPTEMBER 2003

 

IMPERIAL AMERICA ON THE MARCH

Americans used to scoff with confidence at Soviet and Chinese Cold War propaganda during the Vietnam era, that charged America with imperialistic intentions in Southeast Asia.  The propagandists were wrong.  America had no intentions of occupying or colonizing these areas.  The McNamara “whiz kids” and CFR insiders had only one prime intention in jumping into the quagmire of that guerrilla war, which was exacerbated by rules of engagement favorable to the enemy and prolonged by allowing Russia and China to feed unlimited supplies of war materiel into the theater of operations.  The Vietnam debacle was designed, among other smaller goals, to eradicate any current or future desire by the American public to directly confront Communism’s subversion of third world nations.   It served its purpose.  America got its fingers burned trying to “make the world safe for democracy,” and a period of isolationism reigned in the USA - until the George H. W. Bush administration reversed the course of American foreign policy and began a deliberate and calculated series of wars of intervention in order to reengage Americans in global conflict. 

 

The same old verbiage about opposing tyranny and saving democracy was there, but this time the globalist insiders would trumpet their vaunted New World Order to the world – openly.   They obviously had something bigger in mind than mere nation building via non-coercive, helpful means.  Neither were they targeting the larger threat of Communist Russian, still feigning weakness after allowing a “spontaneous” uprising of the former Soviet states.  In this new round of intervention, the US would exclusively target smaller tyrants who couldn’t fight back, almost as if their goal was to antagonize the post Soviet world with American hegemony.  The change in tactics was also notable in its different approach to war and its commensurate justification.  In earlier wars, the US simply played soft with Communism and waited for the inevitable domino effect of small revolutions that would justify US intervention.  Coup d’etats were often facilitated by small hints from the US State Department that the US would not intervene to support the “corrupt” pro-Western regime being threatened.

 

But with the initiation of more directly controlled conflict in the 90’s, the small circle of globalist planners used, more than ever before, behind-the-scenes provocations and agent provocateurs to falsify the appearance of war crimes in Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo, and otherwise manufacture justifications for intervention that could be trumpeted by the media.  It is obvious in the aftermath that US intentions of managing the news had the full cooperation of the heads of all establishment media outlets.  The vaunted fourth estate was clearly unwilling to acknowledge, much less publish, the obvious contradictions brought forth by a minority of foreign journalists.

 

Today, we hear renewed charges from the left of US imperialism in Afghanistan and Iraq.  This time the charges are justified.  The US is clearly acting as conqueror rather than liberator of Iraq.  While the Bush administration continues to pretend that the Iraqi people are free, and that this whole exercise is about allowing for self-determination, the facts speak otherwise.  The US is obviously determined to control any potential “democratic” outcome in Iraq, just as they do in the US.   Their manipulations have been so transparent as to invite international distain for US pretensions.  Despite fostering great expectations internationally for an Iraqi “interim governing council,” the US quickly disbanded the council when insufficient servility to US whims was manifest.  Talk of imminent elections was quieted soon thereafter.  Later, a smaller, more hand-picked and controllable council was selected, but still no elections.  As a tide of criticism arose from the emerging Iraqi free press, the US quickly shut down any newspapers espousing anti-US views.  That’s imperialism—not democracy, nor freedom.

 

A few key quotes in the news have hit upon the growing colonial and paternalistic sentiment among American administrators in Iraq.  Time magazine caught administrative Tsar Paul Bremer referring to Iraq as if it were his own personal fiefdom: “We’ve got oil, we’ve got water, we’ve got fertile land, we’ve got wonderful people.”   “We’ve got?”   Why not “They’ve got?”   Whose country is Iraq, anyway?  Along the same lines, the Associated Press quoted an unnamed source in the Pentagon (most likely a political appointee) enthusing on US intentions in Iraq, “You have to go in and tell them: ‘We’re gonna do what we did in Germany and Japan.  We’re gonna write your constitution.  We’re gonna install your government.  We’re gonna write your laws.’” 

 

Far from being idle statements of arrogance, these statements hint at the real purpose behind US continued presence in Iraq.  With big name corporations like Halliburton and Bechtel maneuvering to justify their huge no-bid contracts, Americans think US contractors are solely engaged in rebuilding essential utilities and infrastructure in Iraq.   But there is a large contingent of smaller contractors tasked to completely change the social and legal structure of Iraq.  I don’t recall the administration ever getting a mandate from Congress to engage in this kind of change.  The administration is clearly no longer a servant of the people, but a change agent of its own.

 

Arizona Republican Jim Kolbe sounded a clear warning when he said, “They are going to lose their credibility with the Iraqi people if we don't get services up…But they are going to lose their credibility with the American people if they are not up front and tell us what the cost is, what we can expect.”   This is even more true as the American people find out that only a tiny part of the billions being doled out in Iraq are going toward getting essential services up and running.

 

The US is busy revamping Iraqi judicial system, the education system, the agricultural sector, the tax structure, pension systems, social security and the medical system.  The Observer (UK) reports, “An American law firm with ties to the Bush administration has been hired to help set up a legal system in Iraq. The firm, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, has been drafted in by USAID to advise on privatizing former government-held industries, structuring government economic and regulatory agencies, and developing a tax structure.  The legal deal is part of a larger package worth up to $79.6 million taken on by Bearing Point, formerly called KPMG consultants, to advise on the restructuring of Iraq. The deal is expected to lead to several million dollars of work for Squire, Sanders, effectively as sub-contractor. It was also announced on Friday that the administration in Iraq has appointed a JP Morgan-led consortium that includes France's Credit Lyonnais to set up and manage a trade bank for Iraq.”

 

Who authorized this kind of reform?  Certainly not Congress.  Aside from the patent illegality of such interference, whether or not such revisions are necessary or proper depends on exactly what kinds of legal structures are envisioned and implemented.  The reason Japan and Germany rebounded so quickly following their own American-led restructuring was that the socialist system within both nations was to a large extent dismantled.  While the legal and constitutional structures and laws imposed upon Japan and Germany were by no means perfect in free-market terms, they did unleash sufficient entrepreneurial spirit to cause both countries to make tremendous gains in economic growth and stability - before the inevitable reversion to democratic socialism took place. 

 

In contrast, In Iraq the US has no pretense of creating a real broad-based free-market economy.  It will build a “privileged” economy whereby only compliant businessmen and corporations get sufficient economic liberty to prosper.  Opposition forces will be denied prosperity—mostly by being denied access to American aid, and the necessary permits to do business. 

 

All of this meddling in non-essential infrastructure will be costly and politically unpopular both in Iraq and with the American public as US citizens see domestic spending being cut at home while Iraqi social programs are being given priority over American needs.  It is little wonder that the Bush administration is very cryptic and evasive about what Iraqi operations are costing.    It seems the Bush administration throws out low ball figures on Iraq and then waits for more scrupulous watchdogs to ferret out better figures.   Only after a couple of months does the administration admit to the higher figures.  By then the real expenditures have climbed higher still.  Thus far, the Bush administration’s cost analysis has gone from $2 billion per month to $4 billion, and the numbers are still rising.  All this is on top of the ongoing expenditures of a billion dollars a month in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and other lingering quagmires – none of which get much press any more.  Some analysts are predicting costs in Iraq will reach $10 billion per month, and for good reason—as the US tries to alter Iraq’s judicial, educational, and medical systems to mimic US controlled systems, it creates a constant and growing need for more funding - never less.  Such is the nature of benefit-corruption in socialism, and government mandated standards of quality.  

 

Let me return briefly to the subject of US imperialism in Iraq.  It is not, as the left assumes, a mere exercise in power and greed, a manifestation of “Capitalism gone bad.”   US warmongering and colonial paternalism in Iraq has a higher globalist purpose—that of using conflict and the appearance of peaceful resolution to slowly accustom the America people to constant globalist intervention.  Even the apparent bungling of US efforts in Iraq may have some perverse purpose to the globalists.  After bashing the UN about its failure to attack Iraq, the US is notably eager (as always) to lead American public opinion back to the premise that we must keep going back to the UN to establish legitimacy.  Indeed, US heavy handedness makes people forget how corrupt and incompetent UN peacekeeping efforts have been in times past. 

 

As both the US and UN jockey for control of the New World Order, each plays off the evils and excesses of the other in order to make themselves look like the Saviors of the world.  And yet, neither have any other intent but to dominate and subject the world to their brand of international control.

 

The tactics of the US negotiators at the UN are telling.  It is obvious they want a larger UN role in Iraq at almost any price – except loss of control.   Thus, the core demand prevails that all UN peacekeeping forces be under a US commander, just like in Kosovo and Afghanistan.  The reasons for US insistence on a UN presence have nothing to do with saving US taxpayers any expense.  The US can’t get any allies to send more than token forces into this sniper’s den without offering to bribe them with direct or indirect payments.  If the UN joins, the costs and inefficiencies will also rise, and Americans will pay later through increased UN dues.

 

The key to understanding the dual personality of the US in foreign policy (its love-hate relationship with the UN) is that US globalist leaders are trying to simultaneously foster antagonism towards the US and respect for globalist institutions.  The antagonism is meant to lead to the ousting of the US as the reigning knight in shining armor, policeman of the world.  Meanwhile, the world is quickly and predictably being lured into accepting the UN as benevolent, despite its bloody history.   It’s the old “good cop, bad cop” routine on an international scale.

 

THE US IN TROUBLE IN IRAQ

The guerrilla movement is growing as Islamic Jihad fighters stream in from  neighboring countries, eager to have a go at the “great Satan.”  Bush may not regret his “bring ‘em on” challenge, but his troops highly resent it.  They are the intended targets.  Syria is actively recruiting “liberators” for Iraq via its surrogate “minaret network” of fundamentalist cells.  The Saudis allow similar networks to operate under the umbrella of the burgeoning Wahabi movement—despite that nation’s eager appearance to be a partner in the war on terror.  All of the Middle Eastern nations know they have to play up to the US, but each is eager to stab us in the back.  Sadly, it is not the front-line, heavily armed US forces that are taking the brunt of the ambushes and sniper attacks – it’s the rear echelon columns of truck drivers and other “non-combatants,” many of whom are women. 

 

US casualties have risen to an average of ten killed and wounded per day. The Washington Post reported, “The number of those wounded in action, which totals 1,124 since the war began in March, has grown so large, and attacks have become so commonplace, that US Central Command usually issues news releases listing injuries only when the attacks kill one or more troops. The result is that many injuries go unreported… Although Central Command keeps a running total of the wounded, it releases the number only when asked - making the combat injuries of U.S. troops in Iraq one of the untold stories of the war... Since the war began, more than 6,000 service members have been flown back to the United States. The number includes the 1,124 wounded in action, 301 who received non-hostile injuries in vehicle accidents and other mishaps, and thousands who became physically or mentally ill.”

 

US troops are growing wearing and angry as the promised short war turns into an indefinite deployment.  A “stop loss” order is in effect, whereby no one is allowed to leave the military (with certain exceptions such as that of General Tommy Franks, who decided he’d seen enough of this boondoggle and wanted out).   Extensive use of National Guard units is wreaking havoc in an uncertain employment market as employers of guardsmen are required to hold their jobs open for them during their deployment.  In desperation, Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld is now considering activating three reserve divisions to relieve troops in Iraq.   The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the Pentagon cannot continue to keep current troop levels deployed past a year without destroying morale and negatively impacting future recruitment.  Enlistments are already drying up.  According to the CBO, to sustain a suitable rotational deployment schedule for the long-term, with existing manpower, the US can only maintain a maximum of 64,000 troops in Iraq.  Watch out for the draft.   While there is little support for a draft considering the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq, a sudden flair up of terrorism or war in Korea or Syria could be conveniently used to suppress public resistance.

 

NORTH KOREA RATTLES SABERS AND COMES AWAY A WINNER – AGAIN

In contrast to Iraq, who couldn’t beg, borrow or steal any mercy from the US in order to avoid war, North Korea can slap the US in the face, rattle its nuclear sabers, eject UN inspectors, and still walk away from the negotiating table better off for having done so.  What gives?   Why is one tyranny treated ruthlessly, given neither mercy nor “second chances” while the other, infinitely more repressive, is allowed to walk away without consequences?   The answer can only be found in a theory that illuminates North Korea’s favored position as a surrogate of Russia and China, the two future world predators that the US is coddling in preparation for World War III.

 

The US took great pride in getting N. Korea to agree to hold talks with six nations, supplanting Korea’s demand for one-on-one negotiations with the US.  The six nation parley just ended, and although there is no formal agreement, what is left on the table for future talks is telling.   As the NY Times reported yesterday, “President Bush, in a significant shift in his approach to North Korea, authorized American negotiators to say last week that he is prepared to take a range of steps to aid the starving nation — from gradually easing sanctions to an eventual peace treaty.”   All the things the US said it would never do again for N. Korea are still there on the table and gaining viability:

 

1) Free oil shipments provided by the US;

2) Open direct diplomatic relations;

3) US-provided direct economic and humanitarian aid;

4) The signing of a nonaggression pact, similar to the secret pact President Kennedy signed with Khrushchev over Cuba. .

 

Pyongyong is demanding these things be agreed upon before N. Korea abandons its nuclear facilities.  I predict the major concession extracted from N. Korea will be a pledge to make token efforts to abandon parts of its nuclear program before some or all of the wish list is granted—simply because it is an easy concession to make when the US purposely fails to demand close inspection privileges.  The devil will be in the details, which will be kept secret.  Never before has the US demanded sufficiently rigorous inspections to preclude N. Korean cheating, and it doesn’t appear as if the future will be any different.  Remember, this is the administration that made a big to-do about “not wanting to reward bad behavior.”  But that is precisely what the US does when it acts permissively of Communism. 

 

In fact, this has been the pattern of US behavior ever since the Korean War. Even after North Korea dramatically ejected UN inspectors and broke way from the former “Agreed Framework,” the US continued to supply oil, food and nuclear technology (because of contracts with Bush connected firms doing the construction of the nuclear plants). 

 

The only concrete promise to emerge from the recent six-power talks in Beijing was a mutual agreement not to say anything to aggravate tensions further.  It only took a day for N. Korea to break that promise, saying that if the talks proved anything, they proved that N. Korea needed to maintain her nuclear deterrent more than ever.   I believe she will, no matter what disarmament agreement is signed.

 

ISRAEL:   BUSH ROAD MAP IS DEAD,  BUT ALL THE PLAYERS ARE STILL ALIVE AND MANUEVERING AGAINST ISRAEL – INCLUDING PM ARIEL SHARON

For the umpteenth time in the past two decades the establishment’s efforts in both the US and Israel to create a false peace of accommodation with radical Arab forces has collapsed in failure.  This time the failure is so dramatic that the Middle East is in danger of being subjected to a new and even more radical intervention—foreign troops.  Here’s an outline of the recent chain of events leading up to the collapse.

 

1.  The PA Prime Minister Abu Mazen was forced to resign after suffering a vote of no confidence in the Palestinian parliament.  Most Palestinian leaders have determined that the Bush Road Map is dead, and with it the prospect for establishing the coveted Palestinian state  to serve as a safe haven for war preparations against Israel.  I agree to a large extent with the analysis of Giora Shamis, publisher of Debka.com, on this issue [my comments in brackets]: “It is no secret that Israel's campaign of targeted assassinations and preventive operations against the Hamas barely scratched the surface of the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure. This restraint was explained by the need to bolster Abu Mazen's standing and hopes that he and his internal security minister Mohamed Dahlan would finally do the job.   In fact, Israel's selective counter-terror tactics actually weakened the former Palestinian prime minister. The Hamas was not his enemy, but Arafat [Actually, all were allies.  They were political enemies only in the sense that they got in the way of Mazen appearing to do his job to please the Americans], while the most massive terrorist infrastructure was not the one built by Hamas but the one based on his Tanzim, Fatah and al Aqsa Martyrs (Suicides) Brigades [run by Arafat himself].

 

“Israeli forces concentrated on hitting the Hamas and scarcely touched Arafat's forces, allowing them
to gain strength. [That’s because Sharon is a lackey for the Americans and has no intention of really eliminating terrorism in Israel.] When Palestinian politicians saw Arafat getting away with his buildup and with pulling support away from Abbas, they deserted the prime minister in droves leaving him with no choice but to quit.  His removal leaves Bush and Sharon face to face with Arafat and the violent offensive he is preparing to loose. Gone is the artificial buffer presented by the flimsy Abu Mazan-Dahlan administration. Since Israeli forces were restrained from striking at the foundations of Arafat's military strength, the next Palestinian-Israeli war is likely to be more violent and bloody than the previous rounds.” [End of Shamis quote.]

 

2. Arafat named as PM another more obvious lackey, Ahmed Qurei, also known as Abu Ala, to replace PM Mahmoud Abbas  (Abu Mazen).  (All Palestinian leaders have a nom d’guerre beginning with “Abu”.)  Abu Ala, 65, is no moderate despite the spin given his background in the Western media. 

 

According to Arutz-7's Haggai Huberman, “Abu Ala presented fairly moderate positions when he served as one of the PA's chief negotiators in the early days of the Oslo process, ‘but has recently expressed much more extremist positions.  He is very demanding of Jerusalem, and has said that both the west and east of the city must be up for negotiations.  After Wye, he wrote an article in the PA's Hayat al-Jadida that Israel's borders are the Partition Lines of 1947 - which do not include even Be'er Sheva.’  It was also noted that in a rally in July 1997 in Ramallah, Abu Ala demonstratively trampled - in front of television cameras - atop an Israeli flag.  


”Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA (www.imra.org.il) notes that in December 1997, Abu Ala told him that there would be ‘no compromise for one centimeter of the West Bank including Jerusalem’ - and not even on such integral parts of Jerusalem as French Hill or Ramat Eshkol [exclusively Jewish areas].  A year later, Abu Ala told a rally of PA Arabs:  ‘The leadership that threw stones is ready to return and use stones to free the people and the land’ (quoted in The New York Times, December 3, 1998).  The next day, a Palestinian lynch mob attacked an Israeli vehicle near Ramallah, stoning the car and nearly killing its passengers.”

 

3.  Terrorist acts by Hamas and others escalated dramatically, killing large numbers of Jews on buses, in stores, and in market places.  The IDF reacted by targeting leaders of Hamas, including its radical founder and spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin.  Out of pressure to avoid collateral damage that might bring on more American pressure, the Israeli Air Force used a small smart bomb which failed to do the job, merely wounding Yassin.  Following the attack, Yassin successfully spurred his followers to renew the carnage with Israel.

 

4. Sharon returned from his first trip to India (spent discussing selling US/Israeli anti-missile technology to India—prompting Pakistan to protest to the US) to a cabinet determined to force the PM into changing strategy in dealing with the PA.  The Israeli cabinet had grown weary of Sharon playing softball with terrorism and giving in to US pressure to preserve Arafat.  Minister Rafi Eitam, representing the hard-line position of many cabinet members, said, “Perhaps what there is left to say is that the government seems to finally be open to the realization that we are facing a monster of a terrorist infrastructure that is totally dedicated to destroying our country.... It is precisely for times like these that we have a state, and an army, and a national leadership, and I demand that in our coming Cabinet meeting we discuss not a reaction, but a total change in our approach.  We must first of all expel - or kill, or put on trial - the entire leadership of the terrorists.  This includes Yassin, Arafat, and the rest.  I think that even some ministers who until now have seen the PA as a potential partner, now realize that there is no difference between Arafat and the rest.” 

 

5.  The Israeli cabinet voted to expel Arafat, but backed down on a specific deadline.  The threats by Sharon and the Americans forced the hardliners to settle for a verbal victory, while Sharon settled down to figure out how to placate both the pro-Palestinian American State Department and his own increasingly hostile conservative political base.  Meanwhile, Arafat reacted with defiance, knowing that if they expel him, he will be free to jet set around the world where the media can continue to interview him daily, setting him up as a martyr and hero of the “beleaguered Palestinian people.”  All the world is rallying around Arafat, the terrorist.  Everyone is parroting the same line about Arafat being an elected president and thus immune from being expelled from his own county.  Really?  Was Saddam Hussein’s election any different than Arafat’s?  Why does being elected give anyone immunity from his acts of tyranny and terrorist?   Certainly the US didn’t give Saddam Hussein any slack.  There is obviously a double standard here.  Everyone is allowed to attack terrorism and its sponsors ruthlessly, except Israel! 

 

To it’s credit, even the “moderate” Jerusalem Post came out in its latest editorial saying that “Arafat should be killed.”   I agree.  If the leaders of Hamas are worthy of being targeted with missiles, so is Arafat in Ramallah.  Israel faces a “damned if you do” and “damned if you don’t” choice whatever they do with Arafat.  If they get rid of him, at least it will force the world to move on and accept the fact that one more terrorist leader has been put down.  I don’t think Sharon will do it.  He won’t go against the will of the Americans.  In any case, he doesn’t really want to solve Israel’s terror problem any more than does Bush.  Terrorism is a clever means to a globalist end.  Publicly, Bush says he will not deal with Arafat, but he still supports him in private.   

 

The latest rash of terror attacks has all but destroyed Sharon’s insistence upon a Palestinian State, though the Americans have not yet given up on this dangerous idea.  Arutz-7 claims optimistically, “Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has changed his mind about the establishment of a Palestinian state.  At least so writes his good friend and confidante, journalist Uri Dan.   After returning from the official visit to India with Sharon early this morning, Dan wrote in Maariv today that he has the impression that ‘in India, the State of Palestine was buried.’  In light of the recent wave of Palestinian Arab terrorism, Dan writes, ‘The Palestinian leadership will not get to see a Palestinian state - at least not in this generation.  The chance that they were given has expired.’  Dan, who has never been known to criticize a position taken by Sharon, wrote that the events of the past few days have convinced the Prime Minister that the PA must ‘disappear from the map.’” [End of Arutz-7 quote.]  I know Uri Dan.  He is very savvy and competent, but he clearly doesn’t believe his friend Sharon is a puppet of the Americans, as I do.  In fact, Uri Dan may be privy to Sharon’s true feelings, but I’m convinced Sharon will buckle to American demands over time.  He only has to remember what happened to Yitzhak Rabin when he decided to resist American pressure. 

 

Every cease fire, negotiated settlement and peace plan imposed upon Israel since 1948 by American and European globalists has had the same objective:  to reduce Israel’s position of military strength and open it up for the next inevitable Arab assault.  This is not because globalists want Israel to be defeated and the Jews driven from the land (what the radical Arab leaders want), but rather because they want an excuse to finally force Israel into accepting a permanent UN caretaker government in Israel,in the name of “peacekeeping.”  The UN already has plans to divide Jerusalem into 3 sectors; Jewish, Christian and Arab.

 

The Oslo process was a major deceptive step in this direction of weakening Israel and strengthening the Palestinian side.  Its provisions gave the Palestinian Authority huge amounts of autonomy, arms and money from which to build a base of support for terrorism and the importation of arms.  Tunnels were constructed for arms smuggling between Egypt and Gaza. Factories were built to assemble rockets and mortars in both Gaza and the West Bank.  After the collapse of the Oslo accords, the Road Map proposed another version of a Palestinian state which would give Arafat even greater sovereignty and freedom from Israeli intervention.  Like the Oslo process, the Road Map collapsed when Arafat could not or would not control terrorism even long enough to justify the establishment of the Palestinian safe haven the Americans were willing to provide.

 

What I fear is that the continual failure of the globalists’ phony “peace” initiatives will force them to seek other more radical measures to ensure a Palestinian State.  As Barry Chamish, Israel’s most courageous commentator, recently warned, “Here Come the Troops.”  Middle East News Online said, “The United States has been examining the prospect of organizing an international force to stop the Israeli-Palestinian war. Officials said both the Bush administration and Congress have quietly discussed an effort to recruit at least one division of combat troops that would patrol the West Bank and Gaza Strip and enforce a Palestinian ceasefire with Israel. They said many in the administration and Congress have concluded that a Palestinian state can not be established without an international force that will impose a ceasefire in the region.  ‘We're not talking about another U.S. military deployment,’ an official said. ‘Instead, we're discussing a NATO-type heavily-armed combat force that would be based mostly on troop contributions from Europe. There has been some discussions and positive feedback from some of our European friends.”  Both the US and Israel are publicly denying rumors about posting troops in Gaza.  However, that is exactly what the US State Department is exploring with Europe.

 

Pressuring PM Sharon into accommodating the Palestinians is one thing.  Getting Sharon to acquiesce to the presence of foreign troops is another matter.  Even though he may be willing to accommodate American pressure, Israel has a strong political tradition of rejecting UN supervision.  Ever since the original partition of Palestine, when the UN tried to take control of Jerusalem as an “international city,” Israel has never experienced anything but betrayal from UN troops.  In fact, troops in Gaza will have two major effects: they will keep Israel from intervening militarily against terrorism, and they will look the other way at Palestinian rearmament. 

 

Even the Saudis and the Russians know what’s in the wind.  ITAR-TASS reported from Moscow, “Deployment of international forces in the zone of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict might be the best way of stopping bloodshed there, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters Wednesday after a meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov. While the Israeli government is sticking to the use-of-force tactics against the Palestinian people, introduction of international disengagement forces
into the area seems to be the only way of settling the problem, Prince Saud said.”  Ivanov, representing one of the “Quartet” of nations presuming to mandate a solution for Israel, agreed.

 

TARGET SYRIA: HERE WE GO AGAIN

After being put off for a month, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton was finally allowed to give his classified briefing before a Congressional committee.  Bolton’s address sounded like the same broken record we heard before relative to Iraq:  “We cannot allow the world's most dangerous weapons to fall into the hands of the world's most dangerous regimes, and will work tirelessly to ensure this is not the case for Syria.  In Syria, (relative to weapons of mass destruction) we see expanding capabilities and continued state sponsorship of terrorism.”  The Washington Times summarized the major points of Bolton’s briefing as follows  [my comments in brackets]:

 

“that Syria is developing medium-range missiles with help from North Korea and Iran that could be fired in nerve gas attacks hundreds of miles from Syria's borders, [US has known this for years]

 

“that Syria continues to take hostile actions against U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq by permitting sympathizers of Saddam Hussein to enter Iraq to kill Americans…Syria permitted volunteers to pass into Iraq to attack and kill our service members during the war, and is still doing so,

 

“that Syria has purchased nuclear goods that indicate it may use a Chinese-made reactor to build nuclear arms, [US never before protested the Chinese reactor, even though it knew of its dual use]

 

“the Syrians are working on offensive biological weapons, and Syria has one of the most advanced chemical weapons programs in the Arab world that includes the nerve agent sarin and the more deadly nerve gas known as VX, [Again, old news.  Why no demands to stop this years before?]

 

“that Syria has several hundred Scud and SS-21 short-range missiles and has built a longer-range Scud D with help from North Korea. The Scud D has a range of some 310 miles and Syria test-fired one in 2000…    Some of the missiles can be outfitted with deadly nerve gas warheads... Syria's missiles are mobile and can reach much of Israel from positions near their peacetime garrisons and portions of Iraq, Jordan and Turkey from launch sites well within the country. Damascus is pursuing both solid- and liquid-propellant missile programs and relies extensively on foreign assistance in these endeavors. [Again, why no prior protestations?  Was Syria any less dangerous two years ago?]

 

“Regarding reports that Iraq hid weapons in Syria, Mr. Bolton said: ‘We have seen these reports, reviewed them carefully, and see them as cause for concern…Thus far, we have been unable to confirm that such transfers occurred.’  [This is untrue.  The US has its own satellite photos of the transfers and confirmation by Israeli intelligence on the ground.]”

 

The Times reported further the subtle downplaying of this dramatic evidence by the Bush administration: “At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he has seen ‘snippets of information over time’ about weapons transfers from Iraq to Syria. [He calls hundreds of satellite photos ‘snippets’ of information?]”  The Times concluded more truthfully, “Other U.S. officials said numerous intelligence reports from a variety of sources indicate that the transfers of Iraqi weapons took place.” [End of Washington Times excerpt.]

 

What we have here is systematic deception by the selective use of intelligence to first, allow terrorism to grow unchecked and then to attack a country and micromanage world conflict for hidden ends. The US had its hands full of intelligence in Iraq and downplayed the very same evidence they now tout as dramatic.  Now, the US warmongers appear to be prepping for the next phase of antagonizing the Arab nations.  Don’t get me wrong:  I have never downplayed the Syrian threat in prior briefs, and I’m not doing so now.  What I am warning is that up until now the US overplayed the Iraqi threat and covered for Syria.  Now, suddenly, they are turning on Syria.  The world must demand to know the why behind this all too common contradictory foreign policy. 

 

Incidentally, it is telling that US contracts with civilian administrators and security personnel in Iraq are in excess of 5 years in duration.  Apparently, the US intends to stay in Iraq longer than what it is letting on.  France is entirely correct in demanding that the US transition to Iraqi rule should only take months, not years.  It is clear to me that the US intends Iraq to become its main military base of operations for launching new attacks in the Middle East, as well as its “oily cash cow” to pay for future interventions. 

 

IRAN ALSO ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK?

It is not news to anyone in the Middle East that Tehran has been actively developing a nuclear weapons and missile delivery system.  The US has known for years and has continually looked the other way in deference to Moscow, the most active co-conspirator in the system (along with surrogates China and North Korea).  In contrast the unilateral and ruthless military action the US took against Iraq, the US goes begging for UN “enforcement action” whenever it wants to make a token appearance at toughness, or when it wants to ensure that nothing will be done.  (The UN is also notorious for being soft on tyranny, e.g.: North Korea, Zimbabwe, Syria, Libya, etc.)  The US has verbally demanded that Russia cease its nuclear transfer of technology to Iran, but utterly refuses to implement meaningful sanctions against either Iran or Russia. 

 

Russia’s latest move is meant to appear as if it is doing something serious about the Iran nuclear issue.  Their latest draft resolution to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),  like all other UN  resolutions on this subject, requires Iran to prove it is NOT secretly developing nuclear weapons.  How does one prove a negative proposition?  The Russian resolution sets a deadline of October 31.  According to the source familiar to the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC.org), “the draft softens a previous version by giving the Iranians ‘room to maneuver, so they are not pushed into a corner like North Korea [who withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty].’”  This is doubletalk for appearing to require performance but providing certification loopholes that Iran can hide behind. 

 

IRAQ: HATRED OF US GROWING, NO END IN SIGHT

Hardly a week goes by without US troops killing innocent Iraqi civilians in reaction to mere gun-fire, even when not directly being targeted.  The latest tragedy this week occurred when a US patrol opened up with automatic weapons fire in all directions after nearby celebrants to a wedding starting firing rifles into the air – a rather typical Middle Eastern tradition at celebrations.  US troops over-reacted and started firing indiscriminately into the crowd.  Last week, US troops killed nearly a dozen Iraqi policemen who got in their line of fire.  On a previous occasion US troops killed a family at a checkpoint, when another checkpoint a block away came under fire. The list goes on and on. You would think after dozens of these “friendly fire” incidents that US commanders would drill it into their troops: “You don’t fire upon others unless you are taking fire directly.  Protect yourself, get under cover, but don’t start shooting unless you are taking hits in your actual location.”  Besides the tragedy associated with each civilian casualty, with every innocent Iraqi civilian killed, his entire extended family begins to hate Americans and vows revenge. 

 

This week, the US finally admitted to holding over 10,000 Iraqi prisoners, having only admitted to less than half of that number before.  Only a third of the detainees were captured in battle and are actually enemy troops – and these have not been separated from the others and are not accorded their full Geneva Convention rights.  As for the rest, the majority are people who were caught up in the mindless dragnet of security detention, for dozens of reasons long forgotten.  Soldiers have often rounded up everyone in an area where shooting occurred, and often have virtually no basis for holding people specifically. 

 

Yet, once in US custody there is no procedure for getting out.  No one in the US command wants to be responsible for letting anyone go – even the dozens of children and teen-agers separated from their families.  The detainees have no rights and no status, and the Americans are refusing to allow them any significant contacts with those outside prison who may be able to clarify their status or vouch for them.  This is very much in contrast with the end of World II when the US made every attempt to empty the prison camps as soon as possible (with the notable exception of “Operation Keelhaul” when Eisenhower, at the behest of Gen. Marshall and his pro-Soviet advisors, refused to release Russian and Eastern German prisoners, and drove them back into the Communist Gulag at gunpoint).  The US is acting with tremendous arrogance and distain for international law in the matter of prisoners.  It is a cause of increasing bitterness among the Iraqi people. 

 

BREAKDOWN IN CANCUN TRADE TALKS

The US is almost always the 300-pound gorilla at international trade talks.  But this time in Cancun, Mexico, the US was clearly on the defensive.  Marxists from all over Brazil and Latin America were reveling in their “good guy” image as they decried US refusals to relieve the Third World’s debts, even as the US insists upon more free trade agreements – which always mean more American job losses but globalist control.  The US was also put on the spot for refusing to drop its own forms of subsidies to American farmers, while demanding that others drop their subsidies – a clear case of hypocrisy.  US negotiators holed up in their hotel rooms for days at a time and refused to join in the talks when it became obvious they were only going to be embarrassed.  As the conferees started leaving in disgust, the US team tried to transfer the blame to others by saying they would “pursue trade deals with nations who are willing to reform, not those living in fear.”  Let’s see the US set the example by dropping crop subsidies for corn, cotton, wheat, sugar, citrus fruits and a host of others.   True, that’s political suicide in the agricultural areas, but that’s what Europeans have to face every year as the US demands they remove their subsidies.

 

SOPHISTICATED RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION

The Ruskies have always been masters of the art of disinformation, especially in dealing with the West.  Russian exiled “Mafia” tycoon Boris Berezovsky, recently granted UK asylum – a telling hint about dark side control in Britain – recently paid big money to take out full page ads in British and US newspapers to assail Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Berezovsky was join by the following notable but naive “Russian dissidents:” Elena Bonner, widow of Andrei Sakharov; Vladimir Bukovsky; Ruslan Khasbulatov, a Chechen intellectual; and Ivan Rybkin, leader of the Liberal Russia political party.  The ads made the case that Putin has all but destroyed any vestige of democracy in Russia, and that Bush should reexamine his trust and friendship with the Russian leader. 

 

The charges are true enough, assuming that Russian democracy ever was free and open – which it never was. The best evidence is that the Russian Duma was only a façade to fool the West, and that it was and still is controlled in most cases by the KGB and former Communists fronting as “liberals.”   In fact, there are many levels of Russian deception.   Putin has made much of his public attacks against the “Russian Oligarchs” like Guzinsky and Berezovsky – portraying them as leeches on Russian society, raking in millions from illegal endeavors while the poor Russians struggle.  Now, we see Berezovsky playing the role of concerned democratic, asking the US President to shun the undemocratic Putin.

 

In fact, Putin works for Berezovsky, who is the real power behind the scenes in Russia.  As I have reported in past briefs, Putin met with Berezovsky secretly in Spain five times prior to suddenly ascending to the presidency.  Unbeknownst to either, their meetings were surveilled by Spanish secret police who leaked the information to the European press.  The story was spiked in the US. 

 

Actually, the real purpose behind Berezovsky’s ad campaign is to give a sort of back-handed support to Putin’s upcoming summit with Pres. Bush.  Since Berezovsky has this oligarchial “Mafia” reputation, his expensive campaign can be seen by the White House as an attempt by corrupt Russian forces to discredit Putin.  Without addressing the truth of Berezovky’s claims, Bush will simply have an excuse to come to Putin’s defense and embrace the Russian leader all the more enthusiastically.  Of course, the secret Russian leaders will think they have gained a subtle coup, but they themselves fail to realize that the US globalists have their own reasons for supporting the return of Russian Communism.  It remains to be seen which side is the greatest of the Hegelian dialectic practitioners – the Russians or the US globalists, both playing their multiple layered roles to the hilt.

 

OCTOBER 2003

 

COVER UP OF DAVID KELLY EVIDENCE POINTS TO MURDER

The British government has finally issued its report of the Hutton inquiry, a Warren Commission style body which “investigated” the alleged suicide of British weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly.  Investigative reporter Jim Rarey has analyzed the report and presents powerful evidence that it amounts to a JFK style cover-up, with all the same tell-tale signs: mysterious persons present at the scene whom authorities refuse to identify; evidence the body was moved to the position it was found; and falsified, incomplete and/or manipulated autopsy results.  The British government and news media were all too quick to rule the death a suicide.  Much of the evidence points to murder, and the inquiry report specifically evades or distorts these key elements.  Here are some highlights of Rarey’s report:

“On Thursday, July 17th sometime between 3 and 3:30 pm, Dr. David Kelly started out on his usual afternoon walk. About 18 hours later, searchers found his body, left wrist slit, in a secluded lane on Harrowdown Hill.  Kelly, the U.K.'s premier microbiologist, was in the center of a political maelstrom having been identified as the ‘leak’ in information about the ‘dossier’ Prime Minister Tony Blair had used to justify the war against Iraq.

“Kelly's body was likely moved from where he died to the site where two search volunteers with a search dog found it.  The body was propped up against a tree according to the testimony of both volunteers. The volunteers reported the find to police headquarters, Thames Valley Police (TVP) [via cell phone] and then left the scene.  On their way back to their car, they met three ‘police’ officers, one of them named Detective Constable Graham Peter Coe.  

“Coe and his men were alone at the site for 25-30 minutes before the first police actually assigned to search the area arrived (Police Constables Sawyer and Franklin) and took charge of the scene from Coe.  They found the body flat on its back a short distance from the tree, as did all subsequent witnesses.

“A logical explanation is that Dr. Kelly died at a different site and the body was transported to the place it was found. This is buttressed by the medical findings of livor mortis (post mortem lividity [ashen, pallid skin]), which indicates that Kelly died on his back, or at least was moved to that position shortly after his death. Propping the body against the tree was a mistake that had to be rectified.

“The search dog and its handler must have interrupted whoever was assigned to go back and move the body to its back before it was done. After the volunteers left the scene the body was moved to its back while DC Coe was at the scene.

“Five witnesses said in their testimony that two men accompanied Coe. Yet, in his testimony, Coe maintained there was only one other beside himself. He was not questioned about the discrepancy.  Researchers, including this writer, assume the presence of the ‘third man’ could not be satisfactorily explained and so was being denied.

“Additionally, Coe's explanation of why he was in the area is unsubstantiated. To the contrary, when PC Franklin was asked if Coe was part of the search team he responded, ‘No. He was at the scene. I had no idea what he was doing there or why he was there. He was just at the scene when PC Sawyer and I arrived.’

“A second red flag is the nature of the wounds on Kelly's wrist. Dr. Nicholas Hunt, who performed the autopsy, testified there were several superficial "scratches" or cuts on the wrist and one deep wound that severed the ulnar artery but not the radial artery.

“The fact that the ulnar artery was severed, but not the radial artery, strongly suggests that the knife wound was inflicted drawing the blade from the inside of the wrist (the little finger side closest to the body) to the outside where the radial artery is located much closer to the surface of the skin than is the ulnar artery. For those familiar with first aid, the radial artery is the one used to determine the pulse rate.  Just hold your left arm out with the palm up and see how difficult it would be to slash across the wrist avoiding the radial artery while severing the ulnar artery. However, a second person situated to the left of Kelly who held or picked up the arm and slashed across the wrist would start on the inside of the wrist severing the ulnar artery first.

“A reasonably competent medical examiner or forensic pathologist would certainly be able to determine in which direction the knife was drawn across the wrist. That question was never asked nor the answer volunteered.  In fact, a complete autopsy report would state in which direction the wounds were inflicted. The coroner's inquest was never completed as it was preempted by the Hutton inquiry and the autopsy report will [conveniently] not be made public. Neither will the toxicology report.

“Both paramedics testified that DC Coe had two men with him. Curiously, both also volunteered that there was a surprisingly small amount of blood at the scene for an artery having been severed.

“When the forensic pathologist (Dr. Nicholas Hunt) who performed the autopsy testified, he described copious amounts of blood at the scene.  [Obviously, as in the JFK autopsy, the autopsy physician made contradictory and lying statements to cover for inconsistencies between witnesses’ testimony and the official government position].  He also described scratches and bruises that Kelly ‘stumbling around’ in the heavy underbrush may have caused. He said there was no indication of a struggle or Kelly having been forcibly restrained. However, the police made an extensive search of the area and found no indication of anyone, including Kelly, having been in the heavy underbrush.

“Strangely, none of the witnesses mentioned anything about rigor mortis (stiffening of the body) which is useful in setting the approximate time of death.  Even Dr. Hunt, when he was asked directly what changes on the body he observed that would have happened after death, failed to mention rigor mortis. He only named livor mortis. Hunt set the time of death within a range of 4:15 pm on the 17th to 1:15 am the next morning. He based the estimate on body temperature which he did not take until 7:15 pm on the 18th, some seven hours after he arrived on the scene.  A forensic biologist (Roy James Green) had been asked to examine the scene. He said the amount of blood he saw was consistent with a severed artery. Green works for the same private company  (Forensic Alliance) as Dr. Hunt. A majority of the company's work is done for police organizations. [It is apparent that major players in this company were compromised and drawn into the cover-up.]

“The afternoon of the 18th DC Coe turned up at the Kelly residence accompanied by a man identified only as ‘an attachment,’ who acted as an ‘exhibits officer’ presumably collecting documents in behalf of some other government agency.

“Detective Constable Coe and those accompanying him are somewhat of a mystery. There are no corroborating witnesses to any of his actions to which he testified (other than ‘just being there’ at the scene where the body was found).” [End of Rarey quote.]

 

ANALYSIS OF RON PAUL’S BILL TO REPEAL CORE PROVISIONS OF USA PATRIOT ACT

Charles Levendosky wrote the following synopsis of HR 3171, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich’s attempt to roll back the core provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act.  His summary is particularly useful as a guide to understanding the core aspects of how the PATRIOT Act and other legal provisions undermine essential civil liberties.  If you ever have to convince a friend about what’s wrong with the PATRIOT Act, this is the list to have in your back pocket.  It also covers a couple of other areas of law that the Bush team uses in conjunction with the PATRIOT Act to get around the Bill of Rights (which technically isn’t supposed to be possible if the courts were ruling by the language of the Constitution).

Levendosky writes: “The True Patriot Act [as HR 3171 is called] heralds its intent by quoting Benjamin Franklin's famous statement: ‘Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty or Safety.’ The act would make 11 sections of the Patriot Act null and void 90 days after the bill is enacted. 

“The True Patriot Act would repeal Section 213 of the Patriot Act, which authorized property to be searched and seized in secret by government law enforcement officials, without notifying the subject of a warrant.  The act would repeal Section 214 and Section 216, relating to the use of pen registers for foreign intelligence purposes and criminal cases. Pen registers record all phone numbers dialed from a person's telephone. It would repeal Section 215, which authorized searches of library, bookstore, medical, financial, religious and travel records without a judicial warrant.

“Probable cause: The True Patriot Act would repeal the broader application of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorized by the Patriot Act, Section 218.  This section of the Patriot Act, in essence, gutted the Fourth Amendment's requirement for probable cause to obtain a search warrant in criminal investigations.  The act would repeal Sections 411 and 412 of the Patriot Act, which granted new grounds for the deportation and/or the mandatory detention of aliens.  The act also would repeal Section 505 of the Patriot Act which authorized FBI field agents to issue national security letters to obtain financial, bank and credit records of individuals - all without a court order or judicial oversight.  And the True Patriot Act would repeal Sections 507 and 508 of the Patriot Act relating to the seizure of educational records and the disclosure of individually identifiable information under the National Education Statistics Act of 1994. Finally, in regard to the Patriot Act, the True Patriot Act would repeal Section 802, which defined the new crime of ‘domestic terrorism.’ The definition is so broad that political protests that unaccountably become violent could be classified as domestic terrorism.

“The Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act also would repeal sections of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, so that the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security are no longer exempt from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The True Patriot Act goes further - to roll back policing powers that the federal government took upon itself since Sept. 11 without congressional authorization. For example, the federal government would no longer be able to monitor conversations between attorneys and their clients, violating the fundamental right of attorney-client privilege. The act would void U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's memorandum to all agencies of the federal government narrowing the scope of FOIA and the ability of citizens to obtain information about how their government is working. The act reinstates tough guidelines instituted in 1989 by former Attorney General Dick Thornburg to rein in a runaway FBI, which had been conducting unlawful surveillance of protesters, peace demonstrators and religious groups. Spying on religious institutions - allowed by Ashcroft's rules - would be put under strict limits.”  [End of Levendosky quote.]

HR3171 has 20 co-sponsors so far, all Democrats.  Republicans are digging in their heals in lock-step with the Bush administration.  If you live in a district held by a Republican, let your Congressman know you expect him to support this proposed return of our constitutional protections. 

 

BOLIVIA: ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT MARXIST TAKEOVER

Bolivia may be the next Latin American country to fall to Marxist revolutionaries.  Indigenous Aymara Indians led by Communist infiltrators are staging massive protests and blocking major roads linking the country's capital, La Paz, with other towns in Bolivia and also with neighboring Chile and Peru.  President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada is under pressure to step down after nearly five weeks of violent demonstrations, including a public transport strike in five major cities.  The rallying cry is “the peasants are being exploited” – a typical Marxist slogan.  The Indian movement is demanding land reform – a misnomer for the confiscation and redistribution of currently productive land, rather than the reconfiguration of raw land owned by the government.

The left is using the government’s planned exportation of natural gas to demand, in true Communist fashion, that poor Bolivians be supplied with free natural gas as a condition of export.  Bolivia has the largest natural gas reserves in Latin America, reserves which were developed with the help of foreign companies who invested billions in Bolivia.  Leftists want the natural gas companies nationalized as they are in most other Latin American countries.  This is a recipe for economic disaster as Bolivia is poor and desperately needs a source of exports to garner foreign currency reserves.  The Marxist approach would restrict Bolivia’s ability to get out from under its huge burden of debt, and would further the benefit-corruption of its people.

President Sanchez has attempted various free market reforms of this former socialist nation.  The backlash is inevitable.  The army thus far has been supportive, but rumors of a coup are becoming more common. 

 

HAS THE US ALREADY SECRETLY MERGED WITH THE SOVIET UNION?

This question has been prompted by the internet circulation of an article by Charlotte Iserbyt entitled, “US-Russia Merger: A Done Deal?” Read it at http://www.newswithviews.com/iserbyt/iserbyt9.htm. 

Iserbyt bases her article on an old quotation by an insider Ford Foundation chairman Rowan Gaither to Congressional Reese Committee investigator Norman Dodd. Gaither said, “We operate here under directives which emulate from the White House... The substance of the directives under which we operate is that we shall use our grant making power to alter life in the United States such that we can comfortably be merged with the Soviet Union.”   Despite my belief that there exists an over-arching high level conspiracy to undermine US sovereignty and the Constitution, I think this particular quote was disinformation.

The Gaither quote has always been an all-too-convenient leak.  There is absolutely no reason why Gaither, as an insider and co-conspirator with others, would have volunteered this information to Dodd.  The purpose of the quote, I believe, was to offer up a less than totally evil excuse for what the conspirators were doing.  Gaither wanted to spread the concept that the liberals controlling the White House were simply naive US socialists trying to integrate the US with Russian socialism.  Most people who see this quote come to the dubious conclusion that there won't ever be a Russian attack because the Russians are controlled by the Anglo-American establishment.  The entire John Birch Society hierarchy believes just that – that there will be no war.  But anyone who really knows the Russians knows they are never anyone's lackey.  They have a superiority complex and despise the soft corrupt leaders of the West.  

The mere fact that Russia was busy trying to steal nuclear secrets from the US via the Rosenburgs, Openheimer, Alger Hiss, and Lofton Currie is evidence that they were not aware of any direct collusion with Western leaders.  In fact, they viewed Roosevelt’s naïve offers of secret assistance as foolish Western stupidity.  This was also the view the Russians held of Nixon (who gave them miniature ball bearing technology to increase the accuracy of Russian ICBMs and MIRV warheads), of Bush Sr. (who kept the secret that Russia was secretly resupplying Iraq during the first Gulf War), of Clinton (who signed PDD-60 and a secret submarine pact almost eliminating any of our retaliatory “launch on warning” nuclear capability), and Bush Jr. (who treats Russia and China as “allies” in the war on terror and continues to dismantle our vaunted MX missiles despite Russia’s reneging on their side of the disarmament agreement).  Russia’s strategy, as far as they are concerned, is entirely separate from the goals of Western leaders.  They intend to start and win the next world war.

                I admit, it looks superficially as if the US is merging with a Russia that is too weak to continue its hegemonic goals – but that impression is only part of the facade keeping the US public dumbed down about the Russian threat.  I'll give you a key question:  If the Russians are co-opted and controlled, why are they still secretly building for the attack?  There should be no need for all this expenditure now that they have pulled off the great deception of the fall of Communism.  But they are still building. 

 

US MILITARY WHISTLEBLOWER REVEALS USS LIBERTY COVER-UP

The Associate Press reports, “A former Navy attorney who helped lead the military investigation of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American servicemen says former President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, ordered that the inquiry conclude the incident was an accident.”   Finally, we have a defector from the military’s ring of secrecy who is revealing what I knew but couldn’t prove.   Navy Capt. Ward Boston (Ret) claimed he had first hand knowledge, as an attorney in the investigation, that “Johnson and McNamara told those heading the Navy's inquiry to ‘conclude that the attack was a case of mistaken identity despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.’”  

According to my sources in Israel, the cover-up was part of a mutual agreement by Israel and the US.  Knowing that US intelligence on board the Liberty was eavesdropping on Israeli military operations, Israel had sent at least two secret coded warnings to Washington demanding the Liberty be withdrawn.  Israeli intelligence knew the Russians had spies throughout US intelligence and didn’t want the Russians to know of Israel’s timing for the assault on the Golan Heights (where Russian advisors were guiding the Syrian bombardment of Israel).  The US refused, so Israel attacked the ship.  The attack on the Golan Heights was successful and numerous Russians were captured, along with several officers.  These prisoners of war were quietly used as blackmail to gain concessions from the Soviets on Jewish emigration.  

Captain Boston had always been bothered by the cover-up but had remained silent for so many years because of his misplaced allegiance to what he believed were lawful orders to keep silent.  He now realizes those order were not lawful and has spoken out.  Many Americans think that US laws protecting whistleblowers do what they claim.  They do not.  Whistleblowers from government ranks are subject to a variety of legal and non-legal harassment.  As Salon.com pointed out, “Many federal whistle-blowers -- including the one who exposed the security flaws at U.S. nuclear plants -- have had their careers destroyed because of a glaring loophole in the law designed to protect them: If their security clearances are revoked, as frequently happens to whistle-blowers, the special federal agency that investigates their cases has no power to restore it -- and the federal appeals court that is their last recourse is a kangaroo court that almost never rules in their favor. Even if a whistle-blower is vindicated, the crucial security status is often not restored -- in effect ending a career.”  Now that he is retired, Capt. Boston figures they have little over him now.

 

MORE ON THE BOLIVIAN REVOLUTION

The situation in Bolivia is deteriorating.  The leftist organized Indian protestors were successful in forcing President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to resign.  One of my Latin American sources commented that Marxists often use indigenous peoples to front for their causes.  Indians are always at the bottom of the economic ladder in Latin America, and not simply because of exploitation as the Marxists claim.   Indigenous peoples throughout America have exhibited a long history of indolence, below average intelligence, and emotional susceptibility to resentment.  Obviously, there are some who rise about these historical disadvantages.  But overall, they make easy prey for Marxists plying their doctrines of victimization and anger. 

Free market reforms are being unfairly blamed for the cause of the current uprisings.  There is not much, in fact, that characterizes recent changes in economic policy as “free market.”  The now deposed president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada had been running a typical scheme of US-controlled globalist styled “privatization” – not true free market reform.  In fact, Sanchez has all the markings of one selected by US globalists to do their bidding in Latin America, as was Vicente Fox in Mexico.  I heard Sanchez being interviewed on NPR radio, and was taken aback by his flawless English with hardly a trace of Spanish accent.  This can only come from being educated in the US and spending many years here. 

The Reason Foundation published an excellent appraisal by Jesse Walker of the true nature of the supposed “free market” reforms in Bolivia.  This analysis can be generalized to demonstrate how the PTB are promoting false or partial free markets throughout the world, to serve as bait to induce acceptance of globalist restrictions.

“If you unpack [Bolivian] Market Reform a bit, you will find some actual market reforms: Bolivia has reduced its tariffs, for example, and has moved to a quasi-private pension system. You'll also find some anti-market reforms: An earlier wave of riots, in February, followed the president's proposal to increase the personal income tax. You will find measures that look like market reforms at first, then change shape when you peer more closely. The city of Cochabamba's infamous water privatization of 2000, in which Bechtel [globalist engineering firm linked to government insiders of both parties] provoked protests and then a violent crackdown after it raised rates by anywhere from 10 percent to 60 percent, would be a more credible example of the free market in action if there were a competing private company on the scene, rather than a single corporation with a government contract and a guaranteed rate of return.

                “And you'll find the war on drugs [much like the US intervention in Colombia]. It's a strange species of doublethink that allows the Bolivian government to say it is introducing ‘market reforms’ while simultaneously carrying out a brutal and expensive crusade to wipe out one of the country's most successful markets. I'm not playing word games here. While the proximate cause of the uprising that just brought down Bolivia's president was nationalist opposition to the export of natural gas, a deeper source of both this and other recent revolts is the war on coca cultivation.  Coca itself is not illegal in Bolivia: The law has allowed farmers to grow up to 13,000 hectares for domestic consumption. (Cocaine is prohibited, but Bolivians may chew the coca leaf, drink coca tea, and ingest the plant in other manners more mild than white powder.) The state's efforts to eliminate all other production of the crop—with the U.S. pushing to eradicate it altogether—has been a human rights disaster, with soldiers assaulting peasant lands and paramilitary forces assassinating activists. And while there is a carrot dangling next to that stick, it hasn't impressed the farmers…They fear that they will have to completely eliminate the only crop that gives them a steady income without the security of a marketable replacement crop. And they believe that the compensation money they once used for starting up another income source will instead be diverted to the government's alternative development fund, leaving the individual farmer without a means to provide for his family. The government has done nothing to dispel these fears, and no new alternative crop programs are in the offing.

“Drugs lurk in the background of the news coverage, yet we hear so much more about Market Reform. Well, Bolivia could use some market reforms— not tax hikes and ‘privatized’ monopolies, but a war on the red tape that strangles new enterprises (according to a World Bank study, it takes 67 days and $1,500 to start a small business in Bolivia) and the institutional corruption that has made ordinary Bolivians so suspicious of privatization and foreign investment.”   [End of Walker quote.]  He’s right.  Employment regulations, licensure and micro control of all business activities stifles growth in Latin America—as they do increasingly here in the US as well.   Touting free market reforms without cutting the socialist bands of regulations, taxes and inflation that inhibit private business only serves to cause a backlash against liberty in any nation where such a scheme is implemented.

 

US ON NORTH KOREA—PLAYING WORD GAMES

The Bush administration insists they will not yield to North Korea’s demands for a non-aggression pact in exchange for dismantling its nuclear weapons program.  Yet, at the same time, the administration keeps assuring North Korea that it will provide it with sufficient international “security guarantees” to make sure the aggressor nation feels secure.  What’s the difference?  Nothing, except that a formal treaty will not be signed—a procedure that would bring the whole US Senate into the ratification process.  By signing a mere security agreement with another nation, the Bush administration can withhold the specific wordage from both Congress and the public. A similar tactic was followed in signing the non-aggression pact with Cuba, which is still in force.

 

THE UNANIMOUS ACCEPTANCE OF THE US IRAQ RESOLUTION

Last week, I pointed out the strange and rapid acquiescence of France, Germany and Russia to the hotly contested resolution that the US was promoting to gain international acceptance of its occupation of Iraq.  I suspected a secret deal was made.  One of my subscribers pointed out that the answer may be found in the refusal of President Bush to require that Iraqi oil revenues be used to repay US expenditures in Iraq.  He surmises, correctly I believe, that the US has already committed years of future Iraqi oil revenues to pay off Saddam Hussein’s old debts to Russia, France, and Germany.  Most of the debts are owed to Russia, which poured billions into Iraqi arms programs.  This is hypocritical in the extreme on the part of the Bush administration—to reward Russia for arming the enemy that American blood was spilled to overthrow.  What it really means is that while the US continues to irritate the world with its war-for-profit invasion, it is using the illicit occupation profits to funnel billions to Russia, America’s foremost future enemy.

The world has good reason to be skeptical about US assurances of a speedy turnover of power to emerging Iraqi leaders.  More and more information continues to surface about the Bush administration giving exclusive open-ended bids to favored corporations.  In March, ABC News reported that the Washington Group International was one of five companies invited by the Agency for International Development (USAID) to participate in a “secret bidding” process for contracts to help rebuild Iraq.  By law, bids are required to be announced publicly so that any qualifying company can participate; yet somehow WGI managed to achieve preferential status in gaining Iraq contracts.  The Sunday Herald (UK) reported that the Washington Group International “gave $438,700 to the Republicans, placing it in the same select group as Halliburton, the company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney.”  In reality, all of the firms given exclusive contracts in Iraq have given liberally to both Republican and Democratic parties, so the political contribution connection cannot be the prime or ultimate motive for qualifying as an insider company.  What is more probable is that all the leaders of these corporations are strong supporters of the globalist NWO agenda, and thus are eligible for immunity from accounting scandals and fat government contracts.   

 

AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT: NWO LACKEY

The contrast between the visits to the Australian Parliament of President Bush and Chinese Chairman Hu illustrates how much the Australian government, under Prime Minister John Howard, is a lackey for the globalist agenda.  The Australian government knew in advance that public discontent with the Bush phony war on terror in Iraq would produce many hecklers during the US president’s visit.  The government, therefore, threw up an unprecedented security cordon around the Bush visit to Canberra, making sure that no ordinary people could get near enough to Bush to express their disgust for his occupation of Iraq.  The Bush party also included a huge contingent of US secret service personnel and staff—650 strong.

As journalists Terry Cook and Mike Head reported, “During his 21-hour visit, as part of a whistle-stop tour of Asia, Bush spoke only to dignitaries, parliamentarians, a handful of vetted guests and military personnel. Even the Australian media—not known for challenging the Bush administration’s war crimes—was barred from speaking to the president, a privilege accorded only to selected White House journalists.

                “After his plane touched down at Fairbairn air base, Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, together with their wives, posed at the top of the plane’s steps waving as if to a large crowd of well-wishers. A photograph of the scene appeared on newspaper front pages around the country. The tarmac, however, was empty except for US diplomatic personnel, contingents of security agents and White House journalists.  The stage-managed event captured the real character of the brief visit and its complete separation from reality.

“For the first time since Federation in 1901, Parliament House was completely closed to the public, while Bush addressed a joint sitting of the House of Representatives and the Senate. All access roads were closed off and barriers erected over 100 meters from the front entrance to cordon off the 5,000 or so demonstrators who booed and jeered Bush’s arrival at parliament.”  [End of Cook and Head quote.]

Compare this to the visit of Chinese Communist Chairman Hu, as reported by Australian journalist Annabel Crabb.  “A Communist regime leader yesterday succeeded where the leader of the world's greatest democracy failed the day before. Chinese President Hu Jintao won and kept the respectful attention of Parliament for nearly 21 minutes. Liberal, Labor and minor party MPs listened without demur as President Hu explained that China was sort of a democracy, having experimented with ‘political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party’. There was nary a peep from the lefties as he boasted of his government's commitment to ‘protection of citizens' rights and freedoms.’
“And when he vowed to ‘build a socialist political civilization,’ even Janette Howard smiled encouragingly from the gallery - as if building a socialist political civilization was the very thing she'd been meaning to get round to doing.  It was the first time a foreign communist had been allowed to use the House of Representatives chamber to discuss the building of a socialist civilization.  After the speech, polite applause sounded from both sides of the chamber.  The only Australian MP who formally boycotted yesterday's proceedings was independent senator Brian Harradine, who was worried by the precedent of ‘allowing a dictator from a country with an appalling human rights record to address Australia's democratic Parliament.’”  [End of Crabb quote.]  At least there are a few Aussie politicians with some principles left.  Sadly, as in the US, they are not nearly enough.

NOVEMBER 2003

 

RUSSIA: THE KHODORKOVSKY AFFAIR

A showdown has been brewing for months between Russian “President” Vladimir Putin and one of Russia’s wealthy “oligarchs,” Michael Khodorkovsky – head of Yukos, the largest of the Russian oil companies.  This is a complex affair, full of deception and disinformation.  The globalist players in this fiasco include Russia, President Bush, VP Cheney, various international oil companies, and even Jacob Rothschild.

First, the official story.  Khodorkovsky was arrested this week by the Prosecutor General's Office (Putin’s thugs) for alleged tax evasion and corporate fraud and corruption.  According to the Moscow Times, “The charges against Mr. Khodorkovsky arise out of the mid 1990's, when laws were badly written and poorly enforced. The state was selling valuable companies cheaply, and executives acquired vast interests. More recently, these large companies have expanded their reach, in part through the sort of transparent transactions Mr. Khodorkovsky says he favors, and in part by staging hostile takeovers. ‘To call it the end of democracy — this is rubbish,’ said Boris G. Fyodorov, former Finance Minister. ‘Oligarchs used the law and the corrupt judges to their benefit for many years. They are now getting some of it back in their faces.’” 

There is a lot of disinformation in the above quote.  State owned giant companies were not simply “acquired cheaply.”  They were acquired exclusively by chief Communist leaders who then used state money to offer “loans” to these companies in exchange for stock.  In other words, the Communist leaders gifted themselves the industrial riches of the Soviet Union and then transformed themselves into the “Russian Mafia,” or the “tycoons” or the “oligarchs,” whichever term you wish to apply. 

In short, the Berezovskys, the Khodorkovskys, and the Guzinskys are still the real secret rulers of Russia.  As my readers recall, Putin met Boris Berezovsky at his villa in Spain for secret talks no fewer than five times in the year before Putin ascended to the presidency.  This is but one indication of the power that these oligarchs still wield.  The oligarchs attack Putin and Putin attacks the oligarchs, but it is all for show.  What is gained by all this?  Simple: Capitalism is given a bad name, and Putin increases his popular support by doing battle with the “evil robber-barons.”  Meanwhile, each of these oligarchs has been openly trying to buy influence through phony free-market political parties in the Duma, Russia’s parliament.  Thus Khodorkovsky’s recent moves politically are now under attack.  True libertarians in Russia see Putin’s attack on Khodorkovsky as the “end of democracy” in Russia, but in reality there never has been any true democracy – only phony democratic parties and statist parties.  Putin’s party is about to become the majority ruler of the Duma.

That’s an overview.  In the details, the game playing gets complicated.  The UK Sunday Times reported that “Control of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's shares in the Russian oil giant Yukos have passed to renowned banker Jacob Rothschild, under a deal they concluded prior to Mr. Khodorkovsky's arrest…Voting rights to the shares passed to Mr. Rothschild, 67, under a ‘previously unknown arrangement’ designed to take effect in the event that Mr. Khodorkovsky could no longer ‘act as a beneficiary’ of the shares.”  So now we have a globalist connection to one of the great financial controllers.  I think there is a Berezovsky connection here, and that Rothschild is fronting for him.  Berezovsky is the senior oligarch and probable real ruler of Russia.  He is exiled in London right now, and the British government has granted him asylum (which is strange given that PM Blair is on extremely friendly terms with Putin). 

There is also an American oil connection.  The New York Times reported on July 23, 2003 that Richard Perle told a group of political analysts in Moscow to ‘Lay off Yukos Oil.’  That was only several weeks after the investigation had begun [in the Khodorkovsky affair].  According to one internet source (Voegelin), Henry Kissinger [another interesting globalist connection], a trustee of Khodorkovsky's Open Russia Foundation, is rumored to have tried to get the State Department to pressure Putin to back off as well.  The Carlyle Group [a Bush family connection] is said to be on the side of Perle and Kissinger as well. Speculation has been that Cheney, his associates at Halliburton, and others have opposed these moves. 

The US has, under George Bush, begun importing Russian oil and Simon Kukes has replaced Khodorkovsky as CEO of Yukos.  Kukes was the CEO of the Tyumen Oil Company.  A press release from 1998 states, “Halliburton Energy Services Enters Into Alliance Agreement With Tyumen Oil Company.”  In June of 2001 Kukes hired a 300 strong team from Halliburton to improve Tyumen's aging Samotlor oil field.   The bottom line is that nothing will happen to Khodorkovsy or any of the other oligarchs.  After all, that would be like President Bush trying to prosecute top boss David Rockefeller for tax evasion and corruption.  

 

ISRAEL: WHAT’S BEHIND THE GENEVA ACCORDS?

An informal Mideast peace plan drafted by prominent left-wing Israelis and Palestinians got a real boost this past week when Secretary of State Colin Powell entered the fray and gave written encouragement to the parties to the agreement. Powell wrote to former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, the key public author of the new imitative, "Dear Yossi …The president remains committed to a two-state solution [The Road Map]... but we also believe that projects such as yours are important for sustaining hope and understanding." The accord was formulated by Israeli politicians from the extreme left such as Yossi Beilin [who covered up for the Rabin assassination by the Israeli Shabak], Amram Mitzna and Avraham Burg [former Labor Party head], together with Yasser Abed Rabbo of the Palestinian Authority. PM Ariel Sharon claims to be against it, but one can never tell what Sharon believes, being a controlled entity of the American establishment.

The Geneva plan proposes a Palestinian state on nearly all the land east of the Green Line, which includes land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War. It would also give Palestinians complete control of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, known to Muslims as the Haram as-Sharif or the al Aqsa Mosque.

According to Arutz-7, the promoters of the Geneva Plan "plan to sign the agreement with great fanfare in Jordan next week, on the eighth anniversary of Yitzchak Rabin's death. [This is ironic since Rabin was overheard rejecting this same sell-out of Israeli sovereignty-and paid for it with his life.] The document has aroused strong objections from both the left and right, and in both Israel and the PA. The ‘Palestinian Return Centre’ (PRC) convened a conference in London this month in support of the so-called ‘right of return’ for Arabs who left Israel in 1948. [The Geneva Accords dictates that the Palestinians will yield the ‘right of return’ in exchange for huge Israeli security concessions.] …Yasser Arafat, for instance, said that the agreement does not reflect the PA's position, and senior PA official Fares Kadura, who took part in the negotiations, said that the agreement's only purpose was to cause internal squabbling in Israel. [It is hard to tell what Arafat really believes since he never tells the truth in public, at least while speaking English.]

"The Geneva agreement stipulates that 100,000 Jews will be evicted from their homes in Yesha [occupied territories beyond the Green Line]; that the Temple Mount and most of eastern Jerusalem will be given over to foreign control; and that Israel complete its withdrawal from all of Yesha, except for minor changes, within 30 months. In exchange, the Arabs are to agree to allow Israel to limit Arab refugees to 30,000 and others who are eligible for ‘family reunification.’ Yossi Beilin has said many times that the full text of the agreement - a 70-page booklet - will be delivered to every household in Israel."

The massive funding necessary for this huge propaganda stunt will be provided by Switzerland (which secretly sponsored the meetings in Geneva and picked up the expense tab for the participants) as well as France and Belgium.

Let’s take a closer look at the specifics of this proposal. The old saying, "The devil is in the details," applies literally here. Once again, quoting from Arutz-7, "[Supporters claim] the agreement guarantees Jews' right to pray on the Temple Mount, [but] this was not perfectly accurate. The agreement says 'access' with regards to holy places…The only reference in the agreement to the right to worship is in the Western Wall Tunnel. Article 6 Paragraph 5(b)iii [states that] the Waqf will determine what may 'disrupt religious worship decorum on the site' - and since the Waqf has the authority to determine what may disrupt religious worship decorum, and since, as you know, the Waqf believes that Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is blasphemy, it follows that they will bar Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount on the grounds that it disrupts decorum…

"Other aspects of the Geneva agreement that are potentially harmful to Israel [include]:

 

·          Supervision to prevent the smuggling of weapons may remain in force for only five years.

·          An Israeli military presence, under the supervision of an international force, may remain in the Jordan Valley for only 5.5 years.

·          Israel is to begin withdrawing from Yesha immediately, while no time element is associated with the disbanding of Palestinian terror forces.

·          No mention is made of the collection and removal of illegal weapons within the PA.

·          Israel is barred from patrolling the airspace over Judea and Samaria, only a few kilometers from Ben-Gurion International Airport.

·          Israel is to pay a lump sum covering the aggregate value of ‘Palestinians' property at the time of displacement’ to be determined by a third party.

·          A permanent corridor linking Judea/Samaria and Gaza Strip will be under joint Israeli sovereignty and ‘Palestinian administration.’ Israel cannot unilaterally shut down the corridor if the Palestinians abuse it.

·          Israel forfeits its sovereign right to carry out defensive operations within the PA area when necessary.

·          All disputes between Israel and the PA state are ultimately subject to imposed third party arbitration.

·          Israel is not guaranteed the use of certain roads passing inside the PA state, such as those from Jerusalem to Tiberias via the Jordan Valley and from Jerusalem to Ein Gedi [on the Dead Sea]. Instead, ‘Israelis may be granted permits for use of designated roads.’

·          The new borders between Israel and the PA state will be based on the June 4th 1967 lines ‘with reciprocal modifications on a 1:1 basis’ - meaning that Israel will give up sovereign territory.

·          Existing arrangements regarding the Jewish residents in the territories to be given to the PA, including security, shall remain in force only ‘until the date prescribed in the timetable for the completion of the evacuation of the relevant settlement’

·          Similarly, ‘Israel shall keep intact the immovable property, infrastructure and facilities in Israeli settlements to be transferred to Palestinian sovereignty,’ with an agreed inventory to be drawn up beforehand. ‘The state of Palestine shall have exclusive title to all land and any buildings, facilities, infrastructure or other property remaining in any of the settlements on the date prescribed in the timetable for the completion of the evacuation of this settlement.’" [End of Arutz-7 quote.]

This means that Israel will be prohibited from exercising security over Palestinian terrorists. Sovereign status will give the terrorists a free reign to plan and execute attacks on a much diminished Israel, which will have to build new military bases on much less defensible terrain. Guess who will help foot the bill for all this? The US taxpayer! The agreement will force Israel to turn over all the thousands of homes built up in Jewish settlements (with American loans) and find new housing for all the displaced Jews. This is almost impossible given the limitations of Israeli land restrictions and diminishing water supplies. Over 40,000 Russian Jewish immigrants have returned to Russia during the past decade due to lack of housing, onerous regulations, and the general runaround given refugees in Israel.

I think the Geneva proposal is a radical proposal designed and promoted to induce Israelis to rush back towards acceptance of the Road Map as if it were a "lesser of two evils." Israeli politicians, being mostly corrupt and controlled, always accede to these kinds of deceptions. Israeli people take a little longer to be convinced. Fortunately for Israel, the Powers That Be in the world can’t seem to get the Arabs to ever go along with their schemes. The Arabs are justifiably so distrustful of Americans and Europeans that they don’t recognize when they are being handed Israel on a silver platter.

 

BRITAIN AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER

Britain continues to play yesman to the US and the New World Order.  Consider the following recent developments:

Britain to Pay for Preserving Russian Nuclear Subs: According to the AP, "Britain has agreed to pay Russia some 5.5 million dollars to keep its decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines safely afloat." For years the US has paid for Russian disarmament of aging missiles (only the oldest and most decrepit Russian missiles were dismantled and the warheads were given back to Russia) and cleanup of egregious environmental damage from bio/chemical factories. Britain is now joining in this deception under the auspices of saving the environment from future nuclear pollution. According to the Russian atomic energy ministry, Russia has decommissioned 192 nuclear submarines, 89 of which have been dismantled with US monetary assistance. Britain’s $5.5 million will be used to keep the remaining 103 Russian nuclear submarines in "mothballs," ostensibly to make sure none of the nuclear reactors leak into the environment. What I think is really happening, is that the West is allowing Russia to keep her nuclear fleet in storage pending the time when the Russian bear reawakens to strike the West. Once again, the West is "providing the rope with which to hang itself" (Lenin’s words).

Blair Government Determined to Introduce Biometric ID Cards: Not to be outdone by the EU’s push for Orwellian control of its citizens, the Blair government in Britain is preparing in earnest to require that each Britain have mandatory biometric ID cards. Naturally, the rationale is to protect against "illegal immigration, welfare fraud and terrorism." Because of technical difficulties, implementation is still at least two years away.

London Central District to be Subject to Security Lockdown During Bush Visit: Scotland Yard is reported to be furious over the White House’s security requirements for the upcoming visit of President Bush to Buckingham Palace. Civil libertarians in Britain are about to see the same tactics used upon the Brits that the US uses in America to cordon off protestors so they can’t even get within blocks of their intended audience. As the Evening Standard reports, "White House security demands covering President George Bush's controversial state visit to Britain have provoked a serious row with Scotland Yard. American officials want a virtual three-day shutdown of central London in a bid to foil disruption of the visit by anti-war protestors. They are demanding that police ban all marches and seal off the city center. But senior Yard officers say the powers requested by US security chiefs would be unprecedented on British soil. While the Met [Metro London] wants to prevent violence, it is sensitive to accusations of trying to curtail legitimate protest." The British Left is planning huge demonstrations estimated to exceed 100,000 person - not only over the Bush and Blair joint falsifications of the justifications for war in Iraq, but over the planned curtailment of free speech during the Bush visit. If the demonstrations turn angry, the British government could use them as an excuse to practice repressive measures.

 

TRANSITION IN IRAQ – THE LATEST DECEPTION

Coalition Provisional Administrator Paul Bremer has announced that the US is giving up on its December 15 deadline for the Iraqi Council to form a new constitution and set a date for elections.   Bremer also gave the impression that US forces would remain in Iraq, with a different mandate.  “Our presence here will change from an occupation to an invited presence.”  The “invitation” will no doubt be courtesy of the slavishly compliant regime that the Bush administration has announced will be installed in a “temporary” capacity by June.  Undoubtedly the new leader will be Ahmed Chalabi, currently the US-installed chairman of the Iraqi Governing Council.  Bremer enthused, “I’m sure the Iraqi government is going to want to have coalition forces here for its own security for some time.”  Given the growing instability from guerrilla attacks and the continued antagonism by US forces who are now resorting to major air strikes against mere “suspected” insurgent targets, I’m sure this will turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

 

Bremer also said, “Iraqi leaders should write a constitution first, then hold elections.”  That’s what he said about the 15 December election.  By announcing the “change,” US leaders have used sleight of hand to merely give the whole process another half a year.  Keep in mind that the 15 December deadline was supposedly a major concession to France, Germany and Russia to gain their agreement on the recently passed US resolution on Iraq.  Somehow I find it strange these three “partners” are not complaining about the US defaulting on its promise.  Could it be that each of the three already have what they want?  A secret US agreement to pay off their outstanding Iraqi military loans? 

 

Earlier this week, while in Japan, Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld said that American troops will not be withdrawing from Iraq under an accelerated timetable even with provisional Iraqi self-rule.   He made it a point to emphasize that political transition does not mean military needs will change.  I fully suspect that the US will find every pretense to stay in Iraq for years to come.  The central location of Iraq’s major military bases would provide the US massive leverage in any future Arab-Israeli conflict, and allow the US a safe haven when other bases in Saudi Arabia become untenable due to the growing hostility of the Saudis to the US presence.

 

All of this must be put in context and compared to EU Foreign Minister Javier Solana’s surprising statement this week that “US forces will quickly come under international control” in order to avoid humiliating confrontations with Europe in the handover of power.  Obviously Solana, a rabid Marxist, would not have made this kind of presumption without some grounds.  His position is bolstered by the fact that Sec. of State Powell is visiting NATO this week to hammer out details of some form of US-NATO cooperation in Iraq. 

 

According to the NY Times,  “Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, arrives in Brussels tonight for talks with EU ministers, which he will combine with a meeting with the retiring NATO secretary general, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen [also a Marxist]. Diplomats say that Mr. Powell is expected to ‘test the water’ about the involvement of the transatlantic alliance in Iraq. The litany of setbacks, growing US casualties and the recent killing of 18 Italian servicemen has brought intense domestic and international pressure on the Bush administration to give the occupying force more legitimacy.”  Such continued danger for foreign troops will make it just that much harder for NATO to take over the tough job the US wants relief from.  My best guess is that the US will have to give NATO some very big financial inducement to take over day to day patrolling responsibilities in Iraq.  The US is hoping to convince them that the Iraqi opposition won’t target UN troops as badly as they have US occupiers.  All this is far from proven.  But if the handover were to take place, such a strategy would allow American troops to retreat behind the high security barriers of their major military bases, and save face at home. 

 

NOTE:  Since President Bush insists on continuing to claim the moral high ground – using glowing generalizations, wrapped in selective but deceptive truths and half-truths – I am going to depart from my normal analysis this week and give you some disturbing background on some of the darkest secrets of government kept hidden from the American and British public.  Sadly, these facts dispel any pretense that our globalist leaders have benevolent intentions or that they have had such intentions even in years past. 

 

BACKGROUNDER ON US/BRITISH WAR CRIMES OF WWII

Amidst the growing evidence of America’s and Britain’s ulterior motives for going to war in Iraq (under largely false pretenses), coupled with ongoing charges of our government’s mistreatment of Iraqi POW’s, indiscriminate shooting of Iraqi civilians and even shipping a Canadian citizen to Syria to be tortured, it would be instructive to understand that these charges pale in comparison with what US and British governments did on a huge scale during WWII. 

Following are some essential examples of our governments’ betrayal of the basic principles and moral standards underlying the just conduct of war, during and after WWII.  I will give background on each, along with references to a few excellent source books on these subjects.  The evidence demonstrates that:

1. The Roosevelt administration, like the Bush administration today, demonstrated the full range of ulterior globalist motives in its intent to take the US into WWII, well before Pearl Harbor, as evidenced by the Tyler Kent affair.

2.  The US deliberately covered up atrocities committed by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalinin the Katyn Forest affair.

3.  Churchill began a purposeful campaign of bombing German civilians in order to provoke Hitler into reciprocating in Britain.  Roosevelt and Gen. Marshall, as a favor to Stalin, began to order US airmen to commit these same crimes against humanity, beginning with the Dresden fire bombings.  

4.  Gen. Eisenhower, under the direction of Gen. Marshall and President Roosevelt, knowingly, by force, repatriated millions of Eastern Europeans back into the Soviet Unionin Operation Keelhaul.

5.  Gen. Eisenhower, again under the direction of Gen. Marshall and President Truman, systematically starved to death almost a million German prisoners of war in the “Other Losses” affair. 

 

THE TYLER KENT AFFAIR

In 1939 and 1940, an obscure cipher clerk at the American Embassy in London named Tyler G. Kent processed secret coded conversations between FDR and Winston Churchill even before Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as PM of Britain. These communications clearly showed that Roosevelt and Churchill, through their agents in Britain, were engaged in illegal activities, contrary to the US Neutrality Act of 1936, which were designed to foment a Second World War and compel American involvement.   

Kent’s testimony about his discoveries is important because most academics, eager to promulgate the establishment view of Roosevelt and Churchill as heroes and patriots, concentrate only upon the official records in State Department and National Archive files, which have been carefully sanitized and kept separate from the secret communications seen by Kent.  Obviously, a few other key US officials had also seen what Kent had seen, but were committed to keeping their oath of loyalty to the president, rather than upholding their higher allegiance to the Constitution and then extant US law. 

                Over a period of a year, Kent began taking copies of incriminating documents to his apartment with the goal of alerting a few sympathetic British and US politicians who opposed the war.  Sadly, all these secret papers incriminating Roosevelt and Churchill that Kent collected were confiscated upon his arrest.   He was betrayed to British or American authorities in Britain through a leak from someone close to his British confidant, Capt. Archibald Ramsay (Member of Parliament), who was a staunch opponent of Churchill.  The British secret service (SIS) was also shadowing an acquaintance of Kent, Anna Wolkoff, a Russian refugee who, unknown to Kent, had some German contacts.  Because of these superficial contacts, US officials would charge Kent with being a spy for Germany or Russia.  The following excerpts from Kent’s own story demonstrate that he was no spy and that his reasons for exposing these state secrets were very similar to why constitutional conservatives today object to actions of the Bush administration. [My comments in brackets.]

“I was born in 1911, the son of a member of the United States Foreign Service who was stationed in China at that time. After returning to the United States, I pursued my advanced education at Princeton and then in various
European universities. In 1933, I joined the staff of the new American Embassy in Moscow which had just been established as a result of the establishment of diplomatic relations with Bolshevik Russia by President Roosevelt. I already had some knowledge of the Russian language and as I have always been blessed with a natural aptitude for languages my tour of duty in Russia enabled me to become quite fluent very rapidly.

I took the opportunity to meet and mingle with the ordinary Russian citizens in Moscow and learned first hand the beastly nature of Bolshevism, realizing what it would mean if this oriental barbarism were to spread further. My awareness grew also of the worldwide ideology of the soi-disant [“so-called”]‘liberals,’ who gushed over what they called the ‘new civilization’ of the Soviet Union. I began to see, dimly, the power of Jewish propaganda in the United States [Kent never has properly understood the larger nature of the conspiracy he discovered, especially concerning Roosevelt’s globalist motives.  He therefore sees the many Jews involved in nefarious activities as evidence of an exclusive Jewish conspiracy.  This is in error.  Jews are naturally bright, and often pragmatic and unprincipled, and are therefore naturally drawn to the secret halls of power.  However, they are rarely allowed to lead at the top.] which harped constantly on the alleged brutalities of the new National Socialist regime in Germany while simultaneously completely ignoring the far worse brutalities in the USSR [true enough, though this was the product of either outright Communist agents in the US government and media, or globalist agents trying to build up a future Communist enemy]…

“I arrived in London in September of 1939 to assume duties at the United States embassy there.  My duties included access to sensitive documents dealing with matters of policy.  Almost immediately, I became aware that the clandestine activities of the Roosevelt administration were at variance with the public statements of its spokesmen [who were claiming to be intent on keeping America out of war]. This included Roosevelt himself and the lesser figures around him. The Neutrality Acts passed by Congress were being cynically flouted.  It seemed to me at the time that it was my inescapable duty to try to inform the right persons in the United States of what was going on. It should always be borne in mind that at this time there was no unanimity either in Congress or among the general public with regard to either passive or active participation of the United States in a European conflict. Opinion polls had, in fact, shown a huge majority – 83% – opposed to such involvements.

“Much of the vicious slander that has been directed against me over the years has centered around the allegation of ‘disloyalty.’ The Department of State's press release of 2 September 1944 hammers away at this. Yet to whom and to what was my loyalty due? It was claimed that I owed loyalty to Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy and to President Roosevelt. Under most circumstances I would agree.  But a government employee takes an oath to ‘support the laws and Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic’ [a key point of intent that sets Kent apart from other accused spies].   Events have now proven that as regards the damage done to the interests of this country no foreign enemy could have done more than Roosevelt. He was the greatest ‘domestic enemy’ and no subordinate owed him any loyalty whatsoever in the furtherance of his illegal activities [absolutely true]. No court of law has convicted Franklin Delano Roosevelt but the court of history will do so in time. This is the essence of the ‘Tyler Kent incident’ and the justification for my actions in London in 1939 and 1940.”  

The story of Kent’s arrest is also significant in its revelations about US collusion to subvert normal procedures in dealing with security leaks within its own ranks.  As Kent relates, “It was on the morning of that date - 10 a.m. if my memory serves me accurately - that the government of the United States took a rather drastic step when it permitted - and in fact cooperated in allowing - the British police to arrest and incarcerate a member of the staff of the American embassy in London, a person who was the bearer of a diplomatic passport and officially protected by the provisions of ‘diplomatic immunity.’ In so doing, the government of the United States set an unusual precedent the nature of which we shall examine below….  At 10 a.m. I was startled to hear the smashing of wood and the snapping of locks as a burly goon squad from Scotland Yard, accompanied by an officer of British Military Intelligence and an official of the American embassy, burst into my apartment.  My visitors could most certainly have arrived in a more conventional manner and I would certainly have admitted them had they simply knocked and requested admission in the normal polite manner. But they evidently preferred the dramatic smashing of doors. Looking back on it all now, I have become convinced that such tactics were and are used by the police precisely in order to surprise and intimidate.” 

Kent was arrested along with a few other British citizens he had had contact with, including MP Archibald Ramsey.  The trial had to be held in absolute secrecy due to the embarrassing nature of the documents in Kent’s possession.  British prosecutors informed Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy (JFK’s father) that, “The documents in question would certainly be produced only behind locked doors in a cleared court….the press [would] be ordered not to publish their contents. No press man would be present.”   As Kent himself observed, “What was it that they dared not discuss in public? That is really the crux of the case. The real reason why I was tried and sentenced to a prison term in England and not tried in the United States is clear from the…statement of the British authorities, made to Joseph Kennedy…There you have it in a nutshell. The British, like the Bolsheviks, still have secret trials.” [Indeed, they still do today, in the name of fighting terror.]

Kent was never convicted of treason nor of being a spy for German or Russia.  He shared no military secrets with anyone, according to the court records.  In the transcript the Director of Public Prosecutions stated, “Kent did not have any knowledge of the transmission (of a certain document) nor does the prosecution contend that he acted in concert with his co-defendant, Anna Wolkoff, in this matter.”  He was prosecuted only for “having documents which might be useful to an enemy – not for transmitting them knowingly to any foreign power.”  However, even with knowledge of the trial’s outcome, the US State Department still disseminated the innuendo that Kent “had contacts with Germany and some vaguely defined ‘confederates’ who were attempting to communicate with Germany, with which Britain was then at war” – all to give the impression to the public that he was a spy.   The media and all subsequent “scholarly” books have continued to portray Kent, the conservative constitutionalist, as a traitor.  We haven’t seen the last of this tactic.  The bottom line is that Tyler Kent was silenced because he was savvy enough and principled enough to recognize a pattern of lies and conspiracy in the secret communications between Roosevelt and his hand-picked staff in England, and Winston Churchill.  The information he was gathering was indeed a threat to the Powers That Be.  If the documents had fallen into Hitler’s hands, he certainly would have used them to discredit US and British intentions.  So would have other truly patriotic US Congressmen who suspected Roosevelt of treason but couldn’t prove it.  In either case, Kent had to be silenced.  In my opinion, he deserves the Medal of Freedom.  You can read the entire account in Kent’s own words (reprinted from The Journal of Historical Review) at http://www.vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/4/2/Kent173-203.html.

While we don’t have the secret documents collected by Kent to peruse, there are other evidences of Roosevelt’s eagerness to get the US into war, including Churchill’s War Cabinet minutes of August 19, 1941 and the diaries of those in attendance.  See David Irving’s Churchill’s War, Vol. II, pg 38.   On that date, Churchill briefed his top people on the commitments he extracted from Roosevelt as they held a summit at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland on the USS Augusta, Roosevelt’s flagship cruiser.  Churchill, according to the diary of Vice Chief of Britain’s General Staff, said that “Roosevelt is all for coming into the war, and as soon as possible…But he said that he would never declare war, he wishes to provoke it.”  The American plan, according to Churchill, was to “create an incident that brings war about.”  This is pure Hegelian dialectic evil.  Another aide to Churchill (Sir Alexander Cadogan, head of the Foreign Office) said in his diary of the Roosevelt talks, that Roosevelt’s upcoming ultimatum to Japan (yet to be drafted) would produce another “situation which may lead to war between Japan and the US.”   We now know from declassified messages that Roosevelt had crafted a six point plan to provoke Japan into attacking the US.  For more background, see Robert Stinnett’s Day of Deceit.

THE KATYN FOREST AFFAIR

After Russia invaded Poland, Stalin struck a secret deal with Hitler to divide up Poland between Russia and Germany.  Accordingly, Stalin implemented a twofold policy of suppressing all resistance and destroying members of the Polish military, business and education aristocracy.  This policy began with the secret mass murder of 15,000 Polish military and other important prisoners during April-May of 1940 in the Katyn (pronounced “cott-yun”) Forest, located some 12 miles west of Smolensk, Russia.  

The military prisoners fell into the hands of the Russians due to a series of deceptions that deserve careful analysis.  In the aftermath of negotiating a cease fire and peaceful surrender of the undefeated Polish army at Lvov, Poland, the Russian Field Marshall Timoshenko promised Polish General Langner safe passage for all his officers and soldiers so that they could return (disarmed) to their homes in Poland.  As General Langner’s men were leaving Lvov, they were stopped by Russian troops at the outskirts of the city and put into hastily constructed detention camps.  General Langner protested this action to his Russian counterparts with whom he had just finalized the agreement.  He was temporarily assuaged by the complete assurances he received that the agreement would be fulfilled “to the letter.”  The Russians claimed they were merely holding his troops temporarily before letting them leave in smaller groups so as to not put a burden on Polish society.  However, the “temporary” encampments quickly began to look permanent. 

After one Russian excuse after another for the continued confinement of his troops was revealed to be a lie, Gen Langner and his staff undertook a long odyssey throughout Russia, demanding to appeal to higher authority.  After weeks of purposeful delays they finally got an interview with Stalin and Molotov in Moscow.  At virtually every stage of the interview, Langner was lied to repeatedly as he was given absolute assurance of Russian intentions to fulfill the agreement.  Meanwhile, more and more thousands of Poles were disappearing into the “missing and unaccounted for” category.  The Russians seemed to be able to proffer a ready excuse for every contradiction - devious excuses, claims of ignorance, or explanations that Langner was incapable of checking up on, having no freedom of movement in Russia.  This deception went on for months until Langner began to hear rumors of mass executions.  Only then did he realize that he had been played the fool all the time. 

There is a lesson to be learned here.  Westerners are never prepared for this kind of disingenuous behavior, or the “big lie.”   It’s almost as if they have a built in mental block against believing in real evil, especially when it is cloaked in a deceptive smile and pretensions of friendship.  Naturally trusting demeanors leave Westerners susceptible to being led along by the lie until it is too late to do anything about it – a tragic mistake when dealing with Communists and conspirators.  Conservative Christians still suffer from this defect today. 

Polish and Russian “hilfsarbeiter” (help labor) working for the Germans discovered the mass graves in the Katyn Forest by accident in April of 1943.  The Russians, naturally, blamed the killings on the Germans, who had occupied the Smolensk area of Russia beginning in the summer of 1941.  The US and Britain blamed Germany as well, even though Germany produced local Russian eyewitnesses who could testify to the Russian killings in the forest.  The Russians had even built a dacha nearby for NKVD executioners.  Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels tried to use the Katyn massacre to drive a wedge between the US and Britain and their Russian ally, but the US refused to budge.  The Germans then suggested bringing in an international forensics team to prove their point, but Russia refused to participate, and the US and Britain declined to participate as well, in solidarity with Russia.

In response, the Germans took some educated American prisoners of war and forced them to serve as observers to the German-organized international investigating team at Katyn Forest.  One such American officer, Lt. Col John Van Vliet, recorded his findings at the investigation after returning to prison.  After the war he went directly to Army intelligence with his findings.   Though he had initially been skeptical of German claims, his report ended up confirming Russia’s guilt based upon “undeniable facts” which Van Vliet personally witnessed.  One piece of evidence Van Vliet observed was the almost new condition of all the footwear on the dead Polish officers and soldiers.  Remember, the Polish soldiers had been initially confined in the spring of 1940, but the Germans didn’t gain control of the area until the summer of 1941.  Had the men been killed by the Germans, their shoes and boots would have shown more than a year’s worth of wear—which they did not.

Higher officers at Gen. Eisenhower’s headquarters realized the political significance of Van Vliet’s conclusions and shipped him off to Washington to see General Clayton Bissell.  Upon reading Van Vliet’s report, Bissell slapped a “Top Secret” classification on it, and commanded Van Vliet never to reveal his observations to anyone ever again.  The report then disappeared.  Bissell would not have acted so quickly and forcefully in this manner without being privy to an American political agenda of covering for the evils of Soviet Russia.  Several years later, rumors of the existence of Van Vliet’s report reached Congress, whose members were eagerly probing evidence of Communist influence in the US executive branch.  Congressman Ray J. Madden was assigned to hold hearings on the Katyn cover-up by the State Department.  He summoned Gen. Bissell before the committee.  Bissell claimed the Van Vliet report was nowhere to be found and that he couldn’t remember its contents.  The committee then contacted Van Vliet.  After relieving him of his oath of secrecy on the matter, Van Vliet reproduced much of his report from memory.  The contents of the report are not as telling as the fact that the US suppressed it ruthlessly. 

Recent discoveries from Russian archives have provided additional proof of Russian guilt in the affair.  The CIA has now published (see http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter99-00/pg62.gif) a Memorandum on NKVD letterhead from L. Beria, head of the Russian secret service, to Stalin talking about his intent to execute (by shooting) Polish officers, soldiers, and other prisoners. Stalin's handwritten signature appears on top of the incriminating document.  Politburo members’ signatures (Voroshilov, Molotov, Mikoyan, Kalinin and Kaganovich), are also present in the margins, indicating concurrence with the plan.  Throughout the cold war, the US continued to keep secret all evidence of Russian guilt in the Katyn murders.  Why?  I believe it was more than just détente with the Russians.  It was to continue supporting the growth of a follow-on antagonist to Hitler, to ensure another future world war in pursuit of globalist objectives.   The relevant source book on this whole affair was written years ago by a Polish Officer who was a prisoner in Russia during WWII and had personal connections to many of the key players in these events.   The book, by Thaddeus Wittlin, is entitled, Time Stopped at 6:30 – the Untold Story of the Katyn Massacre (Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. 1965). 

 

US AND BRITISH BOMBING OF CIVILIANS

Establishment history texts always point to Hitler’s bombing of London as the justification for Britain’s retaliation against German cities.  However, in point of fact, we now know that Churchill’s codebreakers at Bletchley Park in London had broken the German secret code and knew that London and all civilian targets had been declared “streng verboten” (strictly forbidden) by Hitler.   Churchill even knew that Hitler wasn’t going to invade Britain, though he pretended publicly that Britain was always in danger of imminent invasion.  

The Battle of Britain was raging in the Spring and Summer of 1940.  German Air Marshall Herman Goering was using a specific tactic to deplete Britain’s fighter forces.  Germany would send over a modest number of bombers during each attack, covered by a disproportionately higher number of fighters.  Britain’s fighters would be lured into battle and sustain losses of 45 to 50 aircraft during each engagement.   Although Germany lost more total aircraft in this manner, it had thousands more in reserve.  Britain, in contrast, was quickly depleting its British fighter force.   Secretly, then, Churchill decided to induce Hitler to concentrate on bombing British civilians, partially as a tactic to save his dwindling fighter forces.  He had other motives as well.

According to David Irving’s exhaustive research in Churchill’s War Vol. 1, Churchill had been looking for a pretense to induce Hitler to bomb London, both for the above reason and, more importantly, to invoke American sympathies – hopefully leading to a quick US declaration of war on Germany.   This explains why others noted Churchill’s strange disappointment every time German bombers would fail to hit population centers.  Irving found such evidence in de Gaulle’s diary: “On August 4, de Gaulle found the prime minister on the lawn at Chequers (Winston’s suburban London retreat) shaking his fist at the sky, and shouting in strange fury, ‘so they won’t come.’”  At last, in mid August, one of Germany’s bombers overshot his target (the London docks) and a stick of bombs landed in the worker’s district of London’s East End.  No one was killed, but the resulting fires destroyed about 100 homes.  Churchill finally had his incident to justify retaliation and induce the bombing of London.  Churchill’s Ultra briefings (from reading the German secret messages) knew all too well the attack on civilian homes was unintentional, yet he ordered immediate retaliatory air attacks on Berlin’s residential areas.  It was only after several days of successive bombings of Berlin civilians that Hitler issued a change of order to begin targeting London. 

Churchill and his Air Marshals (Sir Charles Portal, and later Arthur “Bomber” Harris) began devising ways to destroy whole cities.  Portal said on Sept 2, 1940, “We have not yet reached the stage of desiring to burn down a whole town, but when this stage is reached we shall do it by dropping a large quantity of incendiaries first and a sustained attack with High Explosives to drive the firefighters underground and let the flames get a good hold.”  This is pure genocide.  The British under “Bomber” Harris began a sustained campaign to target German civilians first by designating “military” targets in residential areas, falsely claiming certain buildings were military targets.  This was done so that bomber crews would not have to face the fact they were bombing women and children except as “accidental collateral damage.”   Given the lack of precision in bombing in those days, the resulting conflagrations would be and were deadly. 

In late September of that same year, Churchill traveled to Moscow to meet and please the “ogre” Joseph Stalin.  Churchill displeased Stalin by declining to mount a 1942 cross channel invasion, desirable for Stalin in order to force Germany to pull forces away from the Russian front. It would be too costly in terms of troop losses, Churchill complained.  Stalin derided Churchill for not being ruthless enough in war.  The “old ogre,” as the British staff called him, thought nothing of losing 10,000 men a day.  Churchill warmed to the idea and began boasting of his ongoing campaign to target German civilians by air raids.  According to Roosevelt’s man on the scene, Averill Harriman, “between the two of them [Stalin and Churchill] they soon destroyed [in their imaginations] most of the important industrial cities of Germany.”  Then, speaking of destroying German civilian morale, through residential bombing, Churchill boasted that, “we seek no mercy, and we shall show no mercy.”  Stalin agreed readily: “That is the only way.”   So much for Churchill being the great savior of Western civilization! 

Dresden, a cultural center with no military targets, was the first civilian targeted city that American bomber crews were order to help destroy (in early 1945).   British pilots had been bombing German civilians for over two years. The American pilots were scheduled in on the third wave and were not given specific targets, but were told that airborne controllers would direct their bomb releases.  As they circled the burning central areas, the pilots could easily make out the darkened residential sectors.  To their shock, the airborne controllers told them to release their bombs anywhere on the darkened areas of Dresden.  Some protested over the radio that these were not military targets, but they were ordered to release their bombs anyway. 

In his dramatic new book, Beyond Slaughter: Memories of '45,  Jorg Friedrich says, “The bombing of Baghdad cannot be compared to the Allies' incineration of German cities in WWII.

“At high noon on March 12, 1945, just eight weeks before the capitulation of Germany to the Allied forces, 1,000 American planes attacked the city of Swinemuende on the Baltic coast of Germany. The city, crammed with refugees from eastern Germany who had been ethnically cleansed and systematically raped by the Red Army, was

bombed mercilessly and sprayed by machine gun fire from American dive bombers, which chased people through the city. Of the city's 25,000 civilians, 23,000 were killed that night.

“A similar fate befell the city of Wurzburg just four days later, when 225 Lancaster bombers dispatched by British bomber command dropped 1,100 tons of bombs. The city -- a bishop's seat in southern Germany, one of the jewels of European rococo style -- was destroyed by flames in 17 minutes. Although the end of the war was imminent, 6,000 civilians were killed that night.

“This was more than ‘shock and awe’: This was the final months of the relentless, five-year Allied bombing campaign that took civilian deaths to their apex -- bombing, burning, incinerating the cities of Germany in a round-the-clock effort to destroy morale, foment insurrection and weaken the industrial heart and soul of Adolf

Hitler's war machine.

“Forty-five thousand people were killed in Hamburg during the air attacks; 50,000 in Dresden, 12,000 in Berlin, 10,000 in Kassel, 5,500 in Frankfurt and so on. In Pforzheim, a city of 63,000, one-third of the population was incinerated in one night in February 1945, even as the war was coming to a close. Night after night after night, entire cities were lighted on fire, like a non-nuclear version of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

“Never before in modern history had a civilian population endured such a military assault. One and a half million bombs were dropped on 161 German cities and 800 villages over five years, leaving half a million civilians dead, including 75,000 children. An additional 78,000 of Hitler's slave workers and prisoners of war were killed. No one was ever punished for these acts. The winners, not surprisingly, didn't indict themselves for war crimes.” [End of Friedrich quote.]

US Air Force commanders had to deal with not a few outraged pilots returning from these kinds of missions. Pilots resistant to further bombing of civilian targets were reminded about the need to follow orders without question.  Some who would not relent were reassigned elsewhere.  Most got used to the idea after being given the justification that the German people were responsible for supporting Hitler.   I contend that people who are denied the political power to overthrow a government, coupled with dedicated propaganda omitting essential truths, are hardly in a position to be fully responsible.  Are Americans to be held fully responsible for the war crimes of our leaders that are only now being brought fully to light?  Those who knew back then are responsible, but most Americans were kept ignorant, just as the German people were.  Tragically, once military personnel cross a certain moral threshold and rationalize away the evil they are commanded to perform, they become dumbed-down participants in genocide.  That’s what happened to German soldiers guarding the death camps, but it also happened to thousands of US pilots and their commanders who knowingly bombed civilian targets, and also to those who took part in the US death camps following the war.  Read on.

 

OPERATION KEELHAUL

The prime source for this US-led travesty is Julius Epstein’s Operation Keelhaul – The Story of Forced Repatriation (Devin-Adair, 1973).  Julius Epstein was one of the prime researchers for the belated Congressional investigation of the State Department’s cover-up of Russian involvement in the Katyn Forest murders.  While searching through military archives during his investigation, he discovered evidence of a top secret program of forced repatriation, called Operation Keelhaul, which is still classified to this day.  Obviously the US has some very dirty secrets they still want hidden.

Although the US signed international agreements opposing forced repatriation, and verbally assured they world they would never countenance such actions, they inserted fine print in these documents excepting from the ban all those who originated from nations given over to the Soviets at the close of WWII.  While claiming to “make the world safe for Democracy,” Roosevelt and his cronies condemned millions to slave labor camps.  The Allies even kept secret from the world the fact that Stalin was holding over 5,000 Allied soldiers as hostages in order to make sure that the West complied with his demands for repatriation.  US and British troops had to beat, drug, and drive at gunpoint these millions of liberty loving people back to Russia.  Even after doing so, Stalin never did return American and British prisoners.  They died in the Soviet Gulags.   The US still refuses to open the archives about their fate.

Even refugees that had fled from WWI and who had already been integrated into Western society were driven back into Stalin’s work camps.  Thousands of Eastern Germans had fled the advancing Russian armies in order to find a haven in the West.  Most were driven back to slavery.  Almost a million anti-Communist Russian soldiers under Russian General Vlasov had defected to the Germans in hopes of freeing Russia from Stalin’s grasp.  They had never become Nazis, but had agreed to fight on the German side solely for purposes of achieving Russian liberty.  At the war’s end, they pushed West desperately trying to seek asylum, or to at least the designation of prisoners of war, so they could be protected under the Geneva Convention.  US military leaders expressly guaranteed that Gen. Vlasov’s men would never be turned back over to the Soviets.  But under General Eisenhower, in consultation with the State Department, the US went back on their word of honor.  Headquarters refused to designate them POWs or give them asylum, and eventually turned them over to the Russians.  All their military leaders were shot or hanged.  The rest went to Soviet labor camps.  Some committed suicide before falling into Russian hands, knowing of their fate.

This entire operation was filled with horror stories.  Let there be no ambivalence in our conclusions.  US and British leaders were guilty of war crimes.  Allied soldiers shot innocent men trying to escape as they were being forcibly repatriated.  Soldiers used clubs to beat hundreds of men senseless, then dragged them onto trucks and ships.   When deportees would disable a Russian ship, Americans would come aboard, subdue the resisters and make the repairs.  Americans and British leaders have on their heads the blood of hundreds who committed suicide rather than being sent back, as well as of all those who eventually died in Stalin’s work camps.  These were criminal acts and American soldiers and officers should have refused to follow orders.  Only a handful did and they were treated with severe threats and/or punishments.  A few American servicemen allowed prisoners to escape, having pity on them.  But, by in large, American and British servicemen were no more moral or courageous in standing up against evil military orders than their German counterparts.

The Allies used grand deceptions and lies to trick victims into submitting to forced repatriation.  Here is one egregious example from Epstein’s book.

“General Shkuro and his Ukranian Cossack troops had long been known to be anti-Bolsheviks.   Gen Shkuro, himself, had emigrated after World War I and had never been a Soviet citizen.  He felt he was safe from repatriation.  The Cossacks had fought for Germany and surrendered to British troops.  They demanded political asylum for which they easily qualified.  The British confiscated all their Western currency and held them in detention.  They were told on May 28 that all officers and enlisted men were to attend a conference with higher British authorities, and would be transported by truck.  This seemed implausible.  Why transport everyone in trucks when the British could come to them?  When the Cossacks started to feel nervous about the destination, an English Lieutenant said, ‘I assure you on my word of honor as a British officer that you are just going to a conference.’  Another British officer gave the same assurance.  The convoy was guarded, which did nothing to alleviate the Cossack’s anxiety.  A few jumped from the trucks and escaped into the forest.  They were the smart ones. Those that trusted the British ended up at a prisoner of war camp in Spittal, Austria (in the Russian sector of control).  A British officer then informed them that, ‘in accordance with an agreement concluded between the military authorities of the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, all officers will be put at the disposal of Soviet military authorities.’  A Cossack General asked the officer when the agreement was signed.  He replied, ‘On May 23 of this year (1945).’”   According to Epstein, one Cossack officer remarked, “The NKVD or the Gestapo would have slain us with truncheons, the British did it with their word of honor.”   There were multiple suicides that night in the camp, and all of the others had to be subdued by clubs and rifle butts as none would leave the camp voluntarily.

The US and Britain represented the highest images of liberty and freedom for the rest of the world laboring under Nazi or Communist domination.  To have betrayed these 6 million persons (quite another holocaust) certainly caused many behind the iron curtain to vow never to trust the West again.  Indeed, the Communists used this very argument with those who had been forcibly repatriated.  To those who had been released after years of camp labor, a commissar said, “Whether they were Vlasov men or prisoners of war who did not want to return to the motherland does not matter now.   All their sins have been forgiven.  But the English and American bayonets, truncheons, machine guns and tanks used against them will never be forgotten.  No Russian will ever forget Lienz, Dachau, Plattling, Toronto and other places of extradition, including New York,  And they must never be forgotten.  It is a lesson all Russians must learn well.  For it show that you cannot trust the capitalist states in the future.”    The West had provided the Communists with the best argument for deterring future defections from the Soviet state.   

 

OTHER LOSSES

Other Losses, by James Bacque (Prima Publishing, 1991), is the latest in the series of ongoing revelations of US official atrocities and war crimes committed against others at the end of WWII.  Bacque’s research details an operation kept so secret that it was not given any official code name.  It was the systematic and planned starvation of almost a million German prisoners of war, along with some civilians, in what can only be described as US and British death camps.   All the evidence points to Gen. Eisenhower as the prime mover in this tragedy, as he boasts to subordinates how he is going to “treat the Germans roughly” after the war.  Indeed he did, but “rough” is hardly an adequate word. 

This is a must read book for any person wanting to know the full history of the betrayal of Western ideals of liberty and morality in the aftermath of war.  Eisenhower used verbal orders only to ensure there was no paper trail for history to find.  Fortunately, he could not silence the voice of those who felt the orders were unjustified and evil.  Over time, military men have talked about the concerted effort to cause death by disease, exposure to the elements and starvation.  Have you ever seen the pictures of postwar prison camps for German POWs?  They are all virtually open fields surrounded by multiple fences of concertina and barbed wire.  There are no huts, not tents, no latrines, no shelter of any kind.  These weren’t just temporary camps.  German prisoners were forced to live out in the open for over a year.  Fecal matter and urine was everywhere.  They were not allowed to shower.  Food rations were cut to 1,500 Calories per day on average.  Predictably, men died by the dozens every day – mostly from disease. 

Officially, the prisoners were not being released because France and other nations were demanding they be used as forced labor to rebuild European cities after the war.   But this does not explain why they were allowed to waste away and die by the thousands for over a year.  They were not much good for labor by the time they were turned into slaves anyway.   Nothing of what I am describing here is meant in any way to excuse the crimes against humanity committed by the Germans Nazis and the Soviet Communists (who made the Nazis look like pikers by comparison).  But the US government can never claim the higher ground and prosecute others for war crimes with this kind of record, suppressed though it is. 

The publisher of Other Losses, in a brief forward, attempts to plead with readers not to forge any notion of equivalence between the horrors he will read in this book and the “much greater evil of a state-instigated campaign of hatred and systematic murder that was the singular legacy of Nazi Germany.”  The publisher is wrong on all counts.  It wasn’t a much greater evil - it was the same evil, using the same methods of secrecy, force, deception and trickery to get people into death camps and cover up the facts of their suffering.  Both atrocities were shielded by the power of the state.  We know now that death camps are certainly not the “singular legacy of Nazi Germany.”  They are the legacy of all conspiratorial governments: Communist, National Socialist (Nazi) and Western Democracies trying to create conflict with the intent of forging a New World Order.  

I realize this summary report is not pleasant to read, but these realities are part of the core curriculum of life that you must share with others so that the West does not continue down the road of blind optimism and foolish hope following the pronouncements of false leaders.  Such blind faith delays preparation for resistance and permits these continuing atrocities to occur unabated. 

 

DECEMBER 2003

 

IRAQ: US COUNTER INSURGENCY TACTICS WILL BACKFIRE

US military tactics have taken a more ominous and ruthless turn these past few weeks, a fact that does not bode well for a successful and quick exit from Iraq.  Perhaps that was the intent, in order to justify a near permanent US military presence in the Middle East.  However, for the sake of argument let us assume that the US is really trying to pacify the growing Iraqi unrest, and analyze where current tactics will lead.

US military forces have launched major offensive operations against civilian strongholds in the Sunni triangle.  These include undertaking large scale air attacks targeting whole neighborhoods, setting up barbed wire enclosures around entire towns and making regular security sweeps through hostile areas, arresting anyone who looks suspicious or who has been fingered by Iraqi informants.  All of these measures will, over time, increase hostility against the American occupation, especially as US built prison camps continue a policy of “no release until proven innocent,” coupled with a refusal to let any prisoner’s relatives present their case.  The US has no procedures for the orderly processing and release of innocent people caught up in the ongoing dragnets.  They simply keep them incarcerated under very sad conditions.

Civilian casualties are mounting once again and so is the Iraqi psyche of revenge.  The US should have learned from other wars that targeting civilian population centers, as in Germany and in Vietnam, only increases the perception that the US is an enemy, not a friend. 

This week’s claim by the Pentagon that US soldiers had killed 54 enemy attackers, after Sunday’s currency convoy was attacked in the city of Samarra, deserves careful scrutiny.  The media should be soundly chastised for accepting without confirmation the Pentagon’s version of events.  According to the foreign reporters who have done “due diligence” in checking out the facts, the US actually killed fewer than 10 enemy combatants, some of which wore uniforms of the Fedayeen, Saddam Hussein’s militia.  The rest of the casualties were civilians, as the US used huge quantities of tank firepower to blow away neighboring houses and buildings.  NBC.com admitted, “Many residents say US troops were attacked but add that when the force began firing randomly at townspeople, many civilians joined the fight…Iraqis say most of those who died were civilians caught up in the battle after US forces targeted civilian installations. A kindergarten was damaged, apparently by tank shells, but no children were hurt.”  Reinforcing my assertion that US heavy-handed tactics generate future attacks, NBC reported as well that, “Many said residents were bitter about recent US raids in the night [rounding up young males and incarcerating them].”  The coordinated attack by Iraqis – some in Feyadeen uniforms - was linked to insider information they possessed about movements of the new currency the US military convoy was carrying – an ominous sign that the highest echelons of the US command structure have leaks to the enemy.

While the massive US retaliatory attacks on Sunni towns have been credited (I think, prematurely) with a decrease in direct attacks on US soldiers, the result has been both a heightened sense of injustice by the local residence and a switching of targets to other coalition forces.  These past two weeks have seen attacks on 16 Italian police (Carabinieri) and 8 Spanish Intelligence agents.  These attacks caused immediate repercussions in Italy and Spain from government opposition forces, although predictably, each of these “yes-men” governments are determined to “stay the course” and support the Bush war in Iraq.  However, given the fact that native Italians and Spaniards are far less compliant regarding political issues than the American public, I do not expect their governments to be able to continue such support policies if the casualties continue to mount against their personnel in Iraq.

Many military and civilian experts, like Charles Duelfer of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, claim the US made a major mistake by rejecting the administrative assistance of anyone formerly connected to the Ba'ath Party and of disbanding the entire Iraqi army and security services.  The US has thereby alienated a large majority of the Sunni population and turned many into future enemy combatants.   In Saddam’s Iraq, as in Nazi Germany, almost all city and town administrators were obliged to become members of the ruling party, even though they did not share the same ruthless philosophy.  After WWII, US Generals like George Patton were criticized for allowing Nazi mayors and bureaucrats to keep their positions.  But the strategy turned out to provide a successful and quick transition to peace and an early pacification of the people.   The former Nazis were replaced in due course through local elections, and the US occupying presence naturally took on a more benign role.  In contrast, the US presence in Iraq is headed for deeper antagonism and conflict.  The US simply doesn’t have the number of translators required to deal effectively with the Iraqi people on crime and security issues without using former Iraqi administrative and security personnel. 

If the US really wanted to win the “hearts and minds” of the people, they would quickly give them a free-market constitution, establishing true fundamental rights (with no contradictory clauses) and prohibiting the economic and judicial predation of majority powers over minorities (via socialist mandates).  The US always plays lip service to these ideals, but the legal language they insist on is always socialist, creating a system in which all parties continually vie for their share of the communal pie.   With a new constitution that is non-conflicting the US could quickly organize the registration of voters, and let the voting begin (starting with local administrations and town councils first).  But, the US has no intention of allowing real democracy into Iraq anytime soon. 

As the NY Times reported this week, “Iraqi census officials devised a detailed plan to count the country's entire population next summer and prepare a voter roll that would open the way to national elections in September. But American officials say they rejected the idea, and the Iraqi Governing Council members say they never saw the plan to consider it.”  The real reason for rejecting a census is that it gives the US one more reason for saying, “Iraq isn’t ready to hold an election.”  That, in fact, is precisely the tactic Bremer used.  Again, from the NY Times, “As the American occupation officials rejected the plan to compile a voter roll rapidly, they also argued to the Governing Council that the lack of a voter roll meant national elections were impractical.” Obviously, the US is responsible for the delays that ensure Iraq isn’t ready.  In trying to establish a top down system of interim governance (ensuring the US can continue to control the country from the top), the local towns are left to languish in maladministration and corruption.  Resentment against America builds. 

The rotating leader of the Iraqi Governing Council, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite Muslim cleric, called for the US to allow the proposed transitional legislature to be elected directly by Iraqi voters.  There is plenty of time to accomplish the necessary voter registration before July, but the US remains opposed to the move.  They claim such a legislature would surely be dominated by opponents of the US occupation.  In order to discredit the council, the US leaks reports about how the Iraqi Governing Council is at loggerheads and cannot function.  Whose fault is that?  After all, the US hand picked these members, and it’s the US’s second try (or failure) to manipulate governance in Iraq.  Rather than stop trying to manipulate the process, the US will use the current failure to justify further deferring self-rule.  How dialectic; how convenient for an agenda of continual occupation!

On the positive side, the US has overcome the initial criticism about not getting the Iraqi infrastructure back into operations.  In terms of water, sewer and electricity, things are now better than before the war.  But all of that goodwill is being undermined and overshadowed by the colonial mentality of the Bremer administration in proceeding to rebuild Iraq to a far greater extent than what the US public was initially told.  US contractors are being hired to rebuild, to US standards, the entire economic, social, political, education, and judicial infrastructure of Iraq—all financed with US deficit spending.   This is a bottomless pit that will absorb this year’s $87 billion like pocket change, and next year Bush will be back asking Congress for more.

 

ISRAEL: GENEVA ACCORDS MORE THAN A STRAW MAN ARGUMENT

Israeli Major General (res.) Yaakov Amidror cogently set forth the summary case of why Israel should never accede to the new “Geneva Accords” [my comments in brackets]:

·            “A self-appointed Israeli negotiating team, claiming to speak in the name of a majority of Israelis, concluded the Geneva Accord with a Palestinian delegation. It conceded almost all the security arrangements for the West Bank and Gaza Strip sought by past Israeli governments.

·            “The Geneva Accord leaves Israel with no safety net in the event that the agreement is violated by the Palestinian side. [Only a costly war could win back the lost territory, military bases and strategic high ground.]  It is as though its architects learned nothing from the collapse of the Oslo Agreement.

·            “The Geneva architects agreed to the expulsion of more than 100,000 Israeli Jews from the territories [and the ceding of all the new homes and business currently occupied by these settlers.  He also fails to mention all withdrawals from the West Bank areas will mean the loss of 2/3 of Israel’s water supplies and a large percentage of its farms in the Jordan valley].

·            “In the name of the Jewish people, the Israeli Geneva team gave up the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Jewish history. They seem unaware of the long-term implications for the Zionist movement of conceding Zion [I doubt they are “unaware”].

·            “According to Geneva, Israelis recognize for the first time a Palestinian ‘right of return’ to Israel proper. In exchange, the Palestinians agreed that not all the Palestinians will come to Israel. The number that will enter Israeli territory cannot be understood from Geneva’s wording [very true – the wording is ambiguous].

·            “The Geneva model should not be adopted by anyone concerned for the security and future of the Jewish state.” [End of Amidror quote.]

 

All this is very true, but the Geneva Accords is much more than simply a straw man (easily-debunked), Israeli left-wing attempt to undermine Israeli security through non-official backroom dealings.  The timing of the Accords were specifically designed to cause a fearful reaction within Israel (that the Accords might someday be approved) and thus cause the Israeli public to rush back to embrace the equally dangerous Bush Road Map.  Both proposals give the Palestinians a sovereign state from which they will continue to launch military and terrorist strikes, without fear of Israeli military reprisals.  In other words, this is a covert attempt to resurrect the Road Map and induce Israelis to “rejoice” in its return – an insidious tactic with dangerous implications for Israel.  The louder Israeli patriots sound the warning about the dangers of the Accords (without a concomitant attack on the Road Map), the more they unwittingly set the stage for their own constituency to breathe a sigh of (false) relief at the reinstatement of the Bush Road Map. 

The greatest evidence that this back-handed persuasive tactic is, indeed, the official strategy of the US is demonstrated by Sec. of State Colin Powell’s decision (along with Dep. Sec. of Defense Paul Wolfowitz) to meet with the prime Israeli proponent of the Accords, Yossi Beilin (one of the chief conspirators in the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin).  Powell also has insisted that Israel consider the Geneva Accords anytime it restarts negotiations with the Palestinians.  While Powell claims he is not giving official recognition to the proposal, his actions tend to do just that.  Israeli opposition leaders are taking comfort in statements by insiders that, “Powell doesn’t have real influence within the Bush administration.”  However true that may be, they fail to note that Bush could easily have told Powell not to meet with Beilin.  Instead White House spokesman Scott McClellan placated the public by saying, “The path forward to peace in the Middle East is the road map.”  However, he left the door open for the Accords by saying that “other approaches could be useful.”   The Bush team knows very well that it plays to their advantage to scare the Israelis into thinking that unless they rush back to the Road Map, they might get something far worse.

Despite Bush administration rhetoric in support of Israel, its actions are almost always pro-PLO.  The US penalizes Israel for building new settlements in the suburbs of Jerusalem (over the Green Line) and yet never retracts one penny from the millions it has given Arafat’s terrorist-backing Palestinian Authority, despite the PA’s refusal to shut down terrorist attacks.  As Steven Plaut of the University of Haifa put it, there are other signs of double standards and false promises:

“The Bush people had run for election on a platform pledging unambiguously to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which is Israel’s Capital. We are still waiting. Powell repeatedly declared that US policy regarding the Palestinian Authority would be conditioned upon PLO compliance with its Oslo obligations, and specifically with an ending of the terror. We are still waiting.  Bush and Powell promised to hunt down Islamist terrorists everywhere in the world. We are still waiting for them to add the PLO and its affiliates to the list. The PLO is currently not on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.  And who is on the list of terrorist organizations?  Some small harmless groups of Israeli Rightists, followers of the late Rabbi Kahane, who may be guilty of scribbling uncouth graffiti on some walls in Israel!  The State Department has officially declared them to be terrorists.”

Plaut continues his powerful criticism of the Bush/Powell double standard on how to fight terror: “It is a policy of ‘Do as we say and not as we do,’ regarding Israel and terror. The US can target terrorist leaders anywhere in the world, and shoots missiles at them, regardless of whether or not there are civilians nearby.  The US assassinated the two sons of Saddam, taking out two innocent civilians along with them, and splashed photos of the corpses all over the news. It targeted terrorists everywhere from Yemen to Afghanistan with missiles.  But when Israel assassinates terrorists who have perpetrated mass murders of Jewish children, this in State Department Newspeak is ‘aggression,’  ‘unhelpful’, an ‘obstacle to peace,’ ‘useless military action,’ etc.

“Virtually any military operation by Israel is ritually denounced by Powell’s State Department as having used ‘excess force.’ Israel must never kill terrorists and murderers if there is any chance of any civilians nearby getting hurt -- and there always is such a risk. Therefore Israel is expected by the State Department to fight the mass murders of its civilians through aggressively turning the other cheek and trying to appease the terrorists into abandoning their jihad. While holding hundreds of terrorists in Guantanamo without trial, the US Administration regularly demands that Israel free the Palestinian mass murderers and terrorists it has in its prisons.”   [End of Plaut quote.]  These are powerful accusations of US duplicity.

The US is reacting to the growing criticism of its illegal holding of prisoners in Guantanamo by releasing some 100 prisoners and allowing others to have “access to attorneys.”  However, this is a ploy enacted simply to help the controlled US court system to rule in the government’s favor now that legal challenges are growing both here and abroad.  The attorneys whom the prisoners will be provided are military attorneys, which doesn’t bode well for fairness.  Last week, the two military attorneys assigned to the first prisoners out of Guantanamo were replaced for daring to protest the sham representation they were being pressured to provide.  It’s nice to know all military men aren’t yes-men.  Sadly, careful screening and selective advancement ensures that all higher ranking military leaders are!    

 

EU FAILS NINTH AUDIT IN NINE YEARS

According to my source in the UK, this is the “9th year in a row the International Court of Auditors has refused to sign off the accounts of the European Union.  Only 10% can be accounted for.”  That means 90% of EU funds have been fed into various spending schemes without any accurate accounting for the expenditures.  Since the EU is not directly accountable to the taxpayers, and since the member nations’ governments are complicit in this new Soviet-styled regional government, no issue is being made of this huge discrepancy.  A truly independent media would have a field day with it.

 

RUSSIAN ANALYSIS OF IRAQ WAR DOESN’T MISS A BEAT

Russian military experts, in a series of recent speeches and papers presented at a closed conference, outlined what Russia can learn from the successes and failures of the US military in Iraq.  Naturally, translations of these presentations quickly made their way into the US military schools and academies, as was intended.  This is not to say that the presentations were simply disinformation.  The Russian analysis is chillingly accurate when cataloging US mistakes, changes in tactics and overall strategy.  What the Russians are hiding, however, are their real intentions about how they are using this information to prepare for the inevitable Russian/US conflict in WWIII.  The portion of the presentations that alludes to their motivation is full of disinformation about their desire for “cooperation” rather than “confrontation.”   What was clear, however, though it was couched in careful language, was the Russians’ sense of damaged pride at US arrogance in projecting a unipolar image of world conflict, where the US acts and thinks as if it is the only superpower.  The Russians commented liberally on how the US uses its bully position to coerce the world into its own version of a New World Order, playing token attention to the UN only when convenient to do so.  There was a discernable allusion in several presentations to the attitude that “We’ll show them, someday, who is boss.”  

As part of their ongoing preparation for regaining world hegemony, the Russians were eagerly taking notes in Iraq on every aspect of the strength and capability of US military forces, and testing some new equipment of their own against the US adversary – just as the US was testing its new equipment (electromagnetic pulse weapons, microwave weapons, jumbo concussion bombs, etc) on the Iraqis during the war as well.   The Russians cataloged and recorded all our communications and undoubtedly had some success in decoding secret messages, an ongoing project.  They tested GPS and communications satellite jamming equipment.   The Russians successfully knocked out a US tank with a tiny experimental shaped charge/penetrating rod warhead that made a hole no bigger than a fat pencil.  They cataloged carefully all mechanical failures of US armor vehicles in the desert environment.  They knew about our supply problems, and military organization experiments.  Throughout the following quotations from these Russian presentations, my comments will be in [brackets].

Here is General M. L. Gareyev, President of the Russian Federation Academy of Military Sciences, describing the following US weaknesses:  First, “Practically all of the branches of the US Armed Services depend to an enormous degree on satellite communication for targeting and orientation.  It is this very thing that predetermines its vulnerability, since at any given moment it can be neutralized by taking appropriate jamming measures.” 

Naturally, the Russians are already planning to interdict America’s satellite advantage.  Major-General (ret.) V. A. Menshikov, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Space Systems, predicted the following: “Foreign specialists believe that the shift toward controlling outer space and conducting strikes from space will be unavoidable, since their role is steadily growing. In the future it is entirely likely that not only will the enemy's satellites be destroyed in space, but also strikes will be conducted from there against ships, airplanes, ground targets and warheads in flight. That is why some space powers [Russia, for one] are in the process of developing directed energy and kinetic weapon systems for the destruction of targets. Ground complexes as well as aircraft are supposed to be used for their employment in combat. An indicator of the growing importance of space forces is their inclusion along with nuclear weapons in the combat air force.”  The Russians have already demonstrated significant anti-satellite weapons technology and clearly intend to use it to thwart the US advantage in satellite-relayed command and control.

Back to Gen. Gareyev’s analysis: “Second, from the perspective of the development of the art of war, the experience of the war in Iraq does not allow us to draw any far-reaching conclusions, since there was no serious war with a strong enemy. It was a politically acute and technologically powerful state's harsh treatment of a country that was obviously weak in all regards, which was betrayed by its very own rulers. What kind of war is it when a grouping of [US] troops, aviation at airfields, and the headquarters of the attacking side are outside the range of influence of the enemy? [Gareyev is referring to the US “arm’s length” policy of keeping its support forces outside the range of Iraq attacks.]

“The Iraqi air defenses and aviation were paralyzed. After 9 April, when Baghdad was surrendered without a fight, the military operations for all intents and purposes came to an end. Under such conditions it is difficult to say to what extent the American command and control system, weapons or strategy and tactics stood up to the test of combat.  [He has a good point, and most US military leaders are also aware that our claims of success are hollow until our forces are tested against a formidable foe.]

“But even in such a simplified situation, which looked more like a one-sided exercise than a war, there were plenty of problems in the coalition grouping with the command and control of forces and weapons with their dispersed operations along wide fronts,

with recognizing their own troops, with the accuracy of guiding the artillery, tactical aviation and helicopters to the targets, and interactions between the various branches of arms. The armored equipment turned out to be insufficiently equipped for operations in the desert. Even in such a comparatively limited war they had to expend a larger amount of ammunition and GSM [fuel and lubricants] than they planned.”

Colonel A. D. Tsyganok, Head of the Center of Military Forecasting, adds the following: “Coalition's Weak Points: First. The overestimation of their air mobility forces' capabilities. The massive use of helicopters as a separate branch of arms did not work out. All attempts by the American chain of command to organize the air and ground operation forces using air mobility units ended in failure. That is why just four days into the war the air mobility units were distributed throughout the grouping and included in the make-up of the offensive groups as reconnaissance and fire support subunits. The greatest load was on the ‘heavy’ mechanized and tank units. [Tsyganok is referring here to organizational problems where the US took a step back into pre-WWII days and tried to centralize all helicopter lift operations.  They quickly had to return to what has worked best for the Marine Corps for years: allow local commanders to control their own helicopters and close air support aircraft.]

“Second. The extremely weak logistical support. Despite the presence of a new logistical support system, there were still serious interruptions in fuel deliveries. At times the tank units sat with empty fuel tanks for up to 6 hours, essentially making them targets for the Iraqis. The delivery of food, water, ammunition, fuel and lubricants became a headache for the American commanders. Also noted was massive dissatisfaction among the soldiers with the quality of the new army MRE's.”  This kind of detail indicates that Russian spies have access to a wide variety of Pentagon classified information.  This kind of information could not have come directly from the Iraq battlefield unless the Russians had broken US codes, which are the best in the world.

 

The Russians have a good handle on overall US strategy. They know all about US covert contacts with Iraqi military leaders prior to the invasion, attempting to bribe them into giving up early in the fight.  These attempts explain why the US expended so many millions in cruise missiles and other expensive precision guided bombs to target Iraq’s top leaders, rather than troop concentrations at first: As long as Saddam was alive and in charge, lower echelon leaders were unwilling to defect – so they had to kill or isolate Saddam first.  The Russians also know all about the Bush administration’s attempt to design a “war at arm’s length” so as to avoid the political consequences of US casualties, something the US can only attempt when confronting a weak and powerless enemy without first rate equipment.  Certainly, the long reach of Russian ICBMs will nullify any US attempts to use distance as a safe haven in the next world war.   Lastly, the Russians know exactly why the recent switch to guerilla tactics by Iraqis is succeeding when everything else has failed. 

The Russians also have no illusions about real US intentions in falsifying the motives for invading Iraq.  Again, Gen. Tsyganok: “The main objective is to establish a base of operations in the Middle East.  The military objective is to destroy Iraq's armed forces, and subsequently to leave behind occupation troops and set up bases; to test the network-centric concept for combat operations and troop transfers, as well as the reliability of the combat command and control systems and the logistical transport system. The political objective is to deny the enemies of the United States control over the Middle East's oil reserves; to establish an occupation regime, under which [controlled] democratic institutions of civil authority will be established. The geopolitical objective is to decrease the influence of the primary European countries and the Russian Federation on the countries of the Middle East. The technical objective is to perform massive testing in real combat conditions on new components of the missile defense system, combat equipment and weapons.”  What Tsyganok does not realize is that there is an overall globalist objective lurking behind all of these points.  The US is purposefully trying to antagonize the Muslim world as well as the Slavic world so as to facilitate Russia’s justification for a future attack on America.   The resulting WWIII will finally justify removing the last vestiges of national sovereignty from “rogue nations” like Russia, and will be instrumental in persuading US citizens to turn over sovereignty to a global government, in the name of saving them from future nuclear holocausts.

These presentations belie the notion that the Russians are falling-down-drunks incapable of strong military action.  The US has wittingly handed the Russians the ideological “high ground” of principle.  But Russia does not quite have everything in the bag. The following prideful analysis by General Gareyev, defending national sovereignty vis-à-vis US global warmongering, indicates that the Russians are not yet aware of the trap the US is setting: Russia defends the concept of sovereignty, then attacks the US to stop its continued intervention, and the US turns around and uses the fact of Russian “aggression” to vilify national sovereignty and demonstrate why “nationalism always leads to war.”  This, in turn, will justify forcing all sovereign nations to become mere “member states” of a world government.

Here are General Gareyev’s comments:  “As we know, Russian Federation President V. V. Putin with regard to the Iraq war took a position of principle [albeit in total hypocrisy]. He said the following with complete justification: ‘If we allow the rule of brute force to substitute the rule of international law, whereby the strong are always right, can do anything, and are unrestricted in the ways in which they decide to achieve their goals, then one of the fundamental principles of international law will come into question: the principle of the inviolability of a sovereign state’ [as if the Russians ever honored that themselves!]. And if that happens, no country will ever be able to feel secure. Such a position facilitates strengthening Russia's international authority, uniting the forces of the global community that are in favor of the equitable relations of sovereign states, and the resolution of contradictions emerging in the world through peaceful political means. But this sensible policy is being attacked. There is a growing chorus of voices that are saying that by not supporting the American-English aggression in Iraq, Russia has committed a mistake, believing that no matter what we need to ally ourselves with the likely victor. Indeed, Sergey Karaganov writes: ‘...So far there has been no visible trend that would indicate a future weakening of the US [this illusion of US supremacy will continue right up till Russia attacks in one massive nuclear pre-emptive strike. The balance of world power will change in a day]... Recognizing this means one thing: to have friendly relations with the US as a rule is beneficial, and to oppose it, as a rule, is not.’[at least, for now]

“Of course being friends is always more beneficial than being hostile, but that does not depend solely on us. First of all, the Iraq war was proclaimed to be the presentation of a unipolar world and the burial of the multipolar world. It is believed that the UN has become obsolete and it must be replaced by some kind of world government. The founders of this ‘new world order’ proceed on the notion that all countries must subordinate themselves to this global center and then there will be order in the world. The norms and rules of international life are being reconsidered. They are being tailored to suit the interests of those who are aspiring to global domination. [The Russians understand well the globalist motives.  What they don’t say is that they too are trying to put forth their own brand of NWO using controlled leaders through the evolving and Soviet-like EU].  Secondly, the concept of ‘state sovereignty’ is being declared outdated. In the opinion of certain political scientists, as a result of the struggle for national liberation, a large number of politically and economically bankrupt states have been formed. They give rise to crisis situations and destabilize the situation in the world [allowing conflicts to be triggered].  Indeed, S. Karaganov asserts that ‘it is global destabilization, along with, naturally, the desire to reinforce its power and position as a superpower, that is the main reason for America's actions in Iraq.’ [a cogent observation] Others believe that countries that are ‘developed democracies’ are now acquiring the right to overthrow undesirable regimes in such states and to turn them into ‘true democracies’ by force.” [End of Gareyev quote.]  

Of course the Russians are hypocrites too.  They have always used the excuse of liberating the people from capitalism (incorrectly labeled “fascism”), in favor of democratic socialism, to justify their own hegemonic tendencies.   Americans have no illusions about Russian lying.  Trouble is, they don’t believe their own leaders capable of this level of sophisticated deception.  That’s why the Bush administration is getting away with what they are doing.  Americans refuse to impute bad intentions to their leaders despite the growing evidence of duplicity. 

 

PUTIN WINS MAJORITY IN THE DUMA

Putin’s United Russia party won a majority in the recent parliamentary elections for the Duma.  This puts Putin in the drivers seat legislatively as well as the high concentrations of Executive authority in the Russian presidency. Celebrations among blue jacketed Putin supporters were widespread putside its Moscow headquarters.  What Putin has achieved by both infiltrating his opposition (and then arresting its leaders) is to capture the democratic process by the appearance of legitimate elections and harness democracy in a way reminiscent of the old Communist regime (which he still secretly represents).  There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the old rubber-stamp Communist congress and today’s “democratic” Russia.  Only the sophistication of the deception is different.  Much of the Russian press is complaining about Putin’s return to strong-man political structures, but nobody is sounding alarm bells in the West.   

 

SELLOUT OF TAIWAN NEAR COMPLETION

This week’s confrontation over Taiwan’s independence ended with all parties (including Chinese Premiere Wen Jiabao, US President Bush and Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian) agreeing privately to ensure that Taiwan never emerges as an independent nation.  The Taiwanese people are the only ones who don’t yet know it’s a done deal.  It has been a tragic progression of secret talks and agreements over the years, beginning with the Kissinger promises to China at the end of the Vietnam War, that have committed the US to denying Taiwan its liberty.   This is supreme hypocrisy for a nation that supposedly claimed the right to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the name of championing the “self-determination” of its oppressed people.  What could be a more tragic irony in the aftermath of the Iraq war than betraying the Taiwanese to Red China, with its brutal system of prison camps (Laogai) that make Saddam’s crimes look mild by comparison?

Adding insult to injury, President Chen was not present at the sellout talks between Wen and Bush.  Taiwan, despite being a faithful trading partner with the US since WWII, is not recognized as a sovereign entity by the US, has no embassy, and is refused access to the White House.  In contrast, Communist China’s Premier, openly avowing eventual conflict with the US, is granted full diplomatic recognition, military exchanges, and preference in visiting all secret US military facilities.  Premier Wen was given full military honors this week as he met with President Bush, including a 21 gun salute, state dinner and every diplomatic praise and courtesy President Bush could bestow. 

The issue Wen brought to the table was the possibility that Taiwan’s president might present a referendum to his people incorporating a vote on full independence.  One wonders why PM Wen should have been so concerned.  Not so subtle threats by Chinese agents in Taiwan the previous week had already cajoled the Taiwanese Parliament into limiting the new referendum law so that Chen could not expressly ask for a vote on independence.   President Chen made the appearance of a struggle, but yielded too easily in the end.  Without even trying to find ways to slip in any reference to independence, Chen decided to merely present a token referendum asking the Taiwanese voters to express their opposition to the Chinese offensive build-up of hundreds of missiles on the other side of the Taiwan straits.  Who wouldn’t be against them?  You don’t need a national referendum on that question.  It only thwarts people’s real aspirations by giving lip service useless protestations. 

The more I observe President Chen’s behavior, the more I am convinced that he is only fronting for independence; he has no intention of ever declaring it.  He continues to encourage Taiwanese business interests to move manufacturing plants to the mainland in order to retain existing production contracts.  Economically, Taiwan has been loosing jobs to China just like the US.  Labor rates in Taiwan are 2 to 3 times what they are in mainland China.  If Taiwanese businesses are to retain their ability to sell to the US, they have to lower production costs to compete.  The more they move onshore to China proper the more vested their interest will be in not seeking confrontation over independence.  So, even though the majority of older Taiwanese favor independence, that majority is dwindling daily as the aging population is replaced by a younger pragmatic, business oriented generation.  They look to the superficial retention of freedom in Hong Kong and think Taiwan might survive under Chinese domination as well.  Everyone has short memories of how ruthless the Chinese Communists can be after the honey-bated trap is shut.

I believe the real purpose of Chinese PM Wen’s visit was to continue the ritual of committing every succeeding US president individually to the promised sellout of Taiwan that Henry Kissinger (Sec. of State under Nixon) made in 1971.  The Chinese are terribly insecure that the world might see through their pretensions of peace.  They work constantly at putting on a pleasant Western image.  But when they get behind closed doors, they are anything but pleasant.  They are intense, hardened negotiators that aren’t used to losing.  Yang Jiechi, China’s Ambassador to the US, demanded prior to Wen’s visit that Bush handle the Taiwan issue in a “cautious, adequate way.”  He wanted the US to “Stop selling advanced weapons to Taiwan or raise the level of US-Taiwan relations.”  Above all, China did not want the US to send “wrong signals to Taiwan separatist forces.”  The Chinese left no doubt that they wouldn’t be satisfied short of a clear and unambiguous statement opposing Taiwan independence. 

Even before Wen’s arrival, Washington sent an official representative to Taipei to ask Chen not to hold a sovereignty-related referendum, just as the US had demanded in March.  On the eve of Chinese Premier Wen's visit, the Bush administration warned President Chen not to take any unilateral steps that might provoke China to attack (meaning: don’t start defending yourself).  Wen got what he wanted in his private meeting with Bush – a personal commitment from Bush to never allow Taiwan’s independence.  According to the Taipei Times, “while US spokesmen said the administration stuck to its policy that it ‘does not support Taiwan independence,’ Wen told the reporters that Bush reiterated to him US ‘opposition to Taiwan independence,’ a phrase Bush did not correct or object to.  By the end of Wen’s visit, Bush didn’t have the guts to announce publicly what he had said to Wen.  Instead he said something more cryptic, announcing his opposition to “any unilateral decision by either China or Taiwan to change the status quo… And the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status quo (a referendum), which we oppose.” 

While Bush administration official continued to reiterate the rhetoric that they would oppose “any use of force” by China to reunite with Taiwan, it is obvious that the current tactic of “strategic ambiguity” (a US official’s actual words) indicates that the US wants Taiwan to be absorbed peacefully.  Of course, whether liberty is lost slowly or through force, the same tragic ending is reached—death or imprisonment in Chinese death camps for all who resist.

 

HALLIBURTON OVERCHARGED US MILLIONS, BUT REWARDED WITH NEW CONTRACT   

According to Matt Kelley of the AP, Pentagon auditors “found that Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company (Halliburton) overcharged by possibly as much as $61 million for gasoline in Iraq.”   All of this was done through Halliburton's subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), which also submitted a proposal for cafeteria services “that was $67 million too high, the officials said speaking on the condition of anonymity. The officials said the Pentagon rejected that proposal.”   KBR has contracts with the government totally $15.6 billion.

Pentagon officials said the Pentagon was negotiating with KBR over how to resolve the fuel overcharging issue.  What’s there to negotiate?  Rescind the contract and throw the rascals out.  Instead, since this is a “favored” government contractor, Halliburton has just been awarded an addition $1 billion worth of reconstruction work in Iraq by the US government without having to compete for it — even though President Bush pledged that all future contracts would require competitive bidding.

 

IRAQ:  CAPTURE OF SADDAM HUSSEIN LEAVES MANY QUESTIONS

US claims leave many unanswered questions.  Here’s a synopsis of the official version:  Saddam was discovered in a sealed pit close to a shack on a farm located in the town of Adwar, 10 miles from Tikrit.  The US military claimed they had an informant from Saddam’s elite Special Security Organization (yet to be identified) telling them where Saddam was hiding.  Soldiers, part of a 600 man sweep, say they were drawn to the hiding place by the sight of two men running away from a small walled compound.  They cordoned off the area.  There was a carpet on the dirt, out in the open, which they removed and began to dig below it.  After removing earth and bricks, they found a foam lid which opened to the hole in which Saddam was sitting, gun on lap.  He made no attempt to use the gun and readily identified himself. This was on a Saturday night, due to a tip from a source yet to be named. 

By Sunday afternoon American military officials were claiming DNA confirmation as well as visual confirmation by Tariq Aziz, former Iraqi Foreign Minister, now cooperating with US officials.  The two room hut next to the hiding place had a bed, a chair, a sink and some clothes.  Soldiers found two rifles, a pistol and a suitcase with $750,000 US dollars.  Saddam was reported to be subdued, and compliant, but unwilling to admit to any wrongdoing under conditions of secret interrogation.  His beard shows many months of growth.  His face showed signs of small abrasions or wounds, and his hair and eyebrows were strangely dyed so recently that no gray roots were showing.

Now, let’s examine the anomalies of this story and what is absent from US claims:  

1.  The Hole: I find it very hard to believe that this was a hiding place for Saddam.  A ruler of a nation who had built dozens of bunkers certainly would have been provided with progressive levels of secret hide-outs far more sophisticated than this hole.  This hole had no secondary escape route, no food, no light, no water supply.  Even rudimentary Vietcong tunnels had all of these aspects plus numerous secondary concealed exits.  This hole obviously was not intended for even short-term habitation.  In fact, the hole had to be a place of captivity for Saddam could not get out on his own.  Neither would the location have acted as a suitable hideout to be used only for short-term threats, as we are led to believe.  The only entrance was out in the open, instead of inside a building, or among bushes, where the considerable effort of covering uncovering the entrance could have been suitably concealed from view.  The entrance was marked by a carpet—why?  It only served to give away the location.  A carpet out in the open on the dirt is not smart concealment.  Clearly this carpet was meant to mark a cell—not a hiding hole—to which the supposed ransom seekers could use to direct the Americans.

3.  Saddam’s Appearance: The facial marks; the unbathed, unkempt condition of Saddam tends to indicate he was a prisoner, not simply on the run.  The US claims he was moving every day.  This is improbable.  Once a person has a good hideout, with secondary concealed exits, you stay put and avoid movements, where the probabilities of discovery are dramatically heightened.   With no food and water and no easy access to the outside, he could not have been in there very long.  Neither would he have been stupid enough to use the crude and labor intensive open-surface entrance on a daily basis to go back and forth into the hut.  He couldn’t have been living in the hut for his primary security because the conditions do not match the financial resources he had sitting in the suitcase.  Neither did the hut give easy, concealed access to the hiding hole.  Nothing here makes sense if you ask the right questions.

4. Dyed Hair: Lastly, at 65 years old, Saddam Hussein had lots of gray hair which he dyed regularly.  The recently dyed hair and eyebrows (no gray roots showing) indicate he was not in that hole for long periods. Nor were there dye bottles found in the hut.  In reality there isn’t any reason for continuing to die the hair, if he wanted to change his appearance.  A better disguise would have been to let the gray hair grow out.  The graying beard (undyed) mixed with the dyed hair and eyebrows indicates something very conflicting.  It doesn’t give evidence of a savvy leader looking for a consistent disguise.

5.  The Entire Security Operation:   Why did they only cordon off the area after seeing the two men run away?  The US had searched this area before, many times, they said.  So, they aren’t amateurs at search missions.  They obviously had the manpower (600) so why not use them correctly, to cordon off the area before you begin the search.  In addition, the US had information that Saddam had several look-alike doubles.  Why, if the US is diligently searching for Saddam Hussein, do we not have a record of them having arrested any of these doubles?  Certainly, the doubles would have had no reason to be hiding, and would have attracted attention everywhere they went.   

6. The Continued Secrecy:  If this really is Saddam, why not put him before the cameras and let reports and the Iraqi public test him with public questions?   Instead, just like supposed “mastermind of 9/11” Sheik Khalid Mohammed, Saddam is whisked away to a secret location for months of interrogation and we are left only with periodic leaks about juicy things the US claims their captive has revealed.  We are left with zero independent corroboration about anything the US claims.  The reason the US is so reluctant to put him on trial is because a phony Saddam would likely be found out, and the real Saddam could well attempt to tell all, including his secret collusion with US leaders over the years, just as Milosevic tried to do at the Hague.  So, what ever War Crimes venue the US chooses to subject Saddam to, you can bet it will be secret and closed to the public. 

6.  The DNA Claims:  The US claims to have made the match in less than 18 hours.  Wired news said, “Normally, it can take up to a month to get a DNA study done, although if you pay more money, the process can be completed in five days.”  Of course, the US has dedicated and unlimited resources, so we can assume they could have done the job.  However, we have been given no evidence that they had a provable sample of Hussein’s actual DNA to start with.   The US has a track record of claiming phony DNA evidence

IS THIS REALLY SADDAM HUSSEIN?  I don’t know.  We are denied sufficient information.  I certainly could be, but the evidence so far raises so many questions about the US version that I have my doubts.  If it is Saddam, I would be expecting the US to offer him a deal in order to get him to admit to WMDs.  The US is desperate to extricate themselves from the growing reputation that they falsified the evidence – especially on the heels of this week’s report that the US Senate was assured in secret session by US intelligence officials that Iraq had the means of threatening the US directly with their WMDs.  The US is also leaking the story that they want to find out from Saddam whether or not he shipped his WMDs to Syria.  But this is disinformation.  They already know this and are attempting to make out as if they are unsure.  They want “new” corroboration so they can justify going after Syria over a year after they really found out.  Deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein could be offered a deal in which he would give his captors information on if and how he hid weapons of mass destruction and if he smuggled some of them into Syria.  The bottom line, however, is that Saddam’s capture will on serve to accelerated hatred toward the US occupiers.  With Saddam supposedly out of the way, the US has even less reason to delay their withdrawal.  Others, who heretofore have not wanted to be seen siding with pro-Saddam forces will no feel free to join in the opposition.

 

THE BAKER MISSION FULL OF SECRETS AND INTRIGUE

Former Sec. of the Treasury James Baker, 73 was resurrected from retirement to put pressure on Iraq’s former creditors to forgive major portions of that debt.  He was specifically tasked to gain concessions from France, Germany and Russia.  The International Monetary Fund lists Iraq's debts at about $120 billion.  The so-called Paris Club of nations (Western Nations dedicated to third world debt reduction) is owned about 40 billion of that.  France, Germany and Russian debt exceeds 12 billion.  The balance outside the 40 Billion in Western debt is owed to Arab nations, who are strangely being left out of the negotiations.  

The US has officially been reluctant to start down the debt forgiveness path, since worldwide debts are primarily owed to US banks.  More importantly,  US globalists use foreign debt as a club to force Third World nations into continued financial bondage, which makes them subject to leveraged political and economic control.  Yet, it appears as if the Bush administration is trying to use Iraq’s fragile debt situation as an excuse to finally push the US into the first of many debt-forgiveness schemes.  Certainly, after arm twisting European nations into forgiving a portion of Iraq’s debt, the US will be in no position to resist European demands that the US forgive Latin American debt.

Although Baker’s trip was billed as a “mission impossible,”  he all-too-easily extracted promises from Europe’s big 3 debtors.  According to international law, the Bush administration has no legal authority to be representing Iraq in these matters, so I suspect there is an ulterior motive.  The so-called Paris Club is only allowed to negotiate changes in the terms of indebtedness of internationally recognized governments.  French president Chirac apparently told Baker, that French debt relief would be conditional on Iraq being returned to full sovereignty.   That won’t be too hard for the US to comply with—at least superficially.  By July we will see a new puppet government installed in Iraq with supposed “sovereign” powers (controlled by the US more or less from behind the scenes.)

 

I fully suspect that Baker made other promises to Chirac and German Chancellor Schroeder behind the scenes.  The big issue of US and EU contention that erupted days before the Baker mission was that of disallowing other nations who opposed the war to bid for lucrative reconstruction contracts in Iraq.  It appears now that the US has opened the door for each of these nations to participate in those bids if they make some token gesture towards debt forgiveness.  German and France gave assent to the Baker demands only in principle and decline to agree to anything specific.  But, it seemed enough for Baker to return home a “winner.” 

One difficulty for Baker might be that he has a major conflict of interest in this assignment.  He is tangled in a maze business relationships with insider US corporations doing business in Iraq.  According to the Asia Times, “Baker is senior counselor to the Carlyle Group, a global investment company that has done business with the Saudi royal family. He is also a partner in Baker Botts, a Houston law firm whose client list includes Halliburton, the US construction giant with highly lucrative contracts already won in Iraq. Baker Botts has an office in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and a strategic alliance with another firm in the United Arab Emirates, and it deploys Baker's name and past government service on its website to solicit Middle East business.”  The Left will definitely raise a howl of protest over Baker’s conflict of interest.  However, I view his contacts as mere proof that Baker is an insider carrying out the globalist agenda.  None of the companies he represents will be nudged out by Europe.  Their place within government is assured by virtue of other darker relationships.

Meanwhile, the US public is now unknowingly committed to debt forgiveness – another future blow to the US economy.   But, not to worry!  This all seems part of the unlimited charity of US deficit financing – the consequences of which the US intends to evade through the future destruction of war. 

 

US FINALIZES CENTRAL AMERICAN ‘FREE TRADE’ DEAL

Every time the Bush team seems to suffer a loss on the globalist agenda, we find them coming back with a secondary victory through a side door.  Despite not being able to finalize progress on the FTAA proposal, due to wrangling with South American debtor nations, the US sudden pulls a rabbit out of the hat and signs a Free Trade agreement with a portion of the FTAA players.

On Wednesday the US signed a pact with four out of the five Central American nations, giving them duty free access to the US markets.  This will benefit US consumers with lower prices, except in specific areas that the Bush administration continues to uphold protectionist tariffs—sugar, textiles, and various other agricultural products.

The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), will cover Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador.   Costa Rica refused to sign on when it was discovered that the US was demanding unimpeded access to Central American markets in telecommunications and insurance—the two areas where US corporations have acted as economic predators in Latin America, buying up smaller companies and raising prices.  The administration thought it better to sign now with the four nations so as to make it appear as if the new pact is a done deal.  The US will continue to try and persuade Costa Rica to sign on before the package is presented to Congress.  Since this is a fast track deal, Congress can only say yes or no.  The hypocrisy of the US trading position, in demanding the continuation of special protections was obvious to other Latin American countries.  It was the issue that put a wringer in the talks earlier this year.   US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick  said he believed the agreement represented the best deal they could get.  He called the CAFTA a “milestone” along the way to the administration's ultimate goal of establishing a 34-nation Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.  Indeed, it was.

It was also a crafty political move since it diverts the public’s attention from the bad reputation gained by NAFTA. The political Left, supporting high priced union labor in this country is incensed over the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs, contributing to huge trade deficits with Mexico and China.  Even conservatives are concerned about the potential loss of critical manufacturing in the US – which may leave us unprepared for self-sufficiency during the next war.  Neither have the free trade promises of NAFTA solved Mexico’s problems.  Many of the companies that moved to Mexico for cheap labor have now jumped ship and gone to China.  NAFTA certainly has not lessened the drive of millions of Mexicans to migrate illegally across the US/Mexican border. 

 

EU CONSTITUTION PUT ON HOLD FOR ANOTHER YEAR

In a dramatic show down of defense of national interests versus global government, smaller EU nations refused to be railroaded into signing on to a new EU constitution that would have given controlling powers to the EU’s four biggest states - Germany, France, Britain and Italy.   The convention adjourned “till a future time” rather than admit final defeat.  The new constitutional proposal, which attempts to integrate many new Eastern European members into the EU attempts got into trouble in its attempt to spread the electoral powers around, taking from the old main line states and giving them to the smaller newcomers.  The delegates at the EU convention were facing the same conflicts our founding fathers faced during the Constitutional Convention—whether or not to apportion electoral power according to population or by geography. 

Spain and Poland, the fifth and sixth largest countries were apportioned higher voting rights inside four EU councils than their actual populations merited.  Germany and France want to maintain their majorities on the councils so as to have a defacto veto power.  Tony Blair, even though favoring the new Constitution, was forced to defend a host of British policies which preserve their rights to have the final say on a range of issues from foreign policy to taxation.

Other states were incensed that the EU was not sanctioning France and Germany for going over the limits of deficit spending after the EU had sanctioned other smaller states for doing the same thing.  The Netherlands, which had been holding the line on deficits was incensed that France and Germany were getting a free ride.

My prediction is that European wrangling will continue until Helmut Kohl’s stern warning at a former period of EU crisis is finally realized.  The globalist German Chancellor, made a speech in Leuven, Belgium in February 1996 in which he said: “The policy of European integration is, in reality, a question of war and peace in the 21st century.”  The British press was furious with Kohl’s “war talk"   No one could figure out why he was claiming a sentiment of war.  What Kohl meant, of course, was that if the EU refused to come together and yield national sovereignty, the globalist leadership would give them a world war that would force it upon them.  I believe it is coming to that. 

 

ISRAEL:  PM SHARON INTENT ON MAKING UNILATERAL AND LETHAL CONCESSIONS

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday that Israel will take “unilateral steps to establish a makeshift border, including relocating Jewish settlements, if Palestinians do not make moves toward peace within a few months.”  The US State Department condemned this approach, though I believe they are secretly behind it.  The US and the EU are both calling for Sharon to halt construction on the security fence being built more or less along the Green Line – the old line of demarcation between Israel and Jordanian controlled occupied territory prior to the Six Day war, when Israel won back this territory, part of which was originally ceded to Israel as part of the UN partition of 1948. 

Sharon claims that Israel is going to speed up construction of the controversial security fence so as to act as a more easily defensible border with the Palestinians.  In the future all access of the Palestinians in the West Bank will be controlled by this fence. The expensive barrier system is more than a fence.  It is a system of trenches, guard towers, razor wire and triple fencing.  A 90-mile section of the barrier has been completed in the northern part of Israel, but the most controversial sections involve Jerusalem, which has a large Arab population, and other Jewish settlements which desperately want to be included within the fence.  The latest section revealed describes a 228-mile southern barrier that traverses part of the West Bank and would, according to the pro-Palestinian UN, “isolate 274,000 Palestinians in tiny enclaves and block 400,000 others from their fields, jobs, schools and hospitals.”  This is only partially true.  Sharon claims to provide access and dedicated roads for Palestinian transit.  But these are huge breeches in security according to Israeli military sources.  They will allow Palestinians to transport weapons and explosives between Gaza and the West Bank uninhibited.

Sharon has much more in mind, and none of it is pleasing to his right-wing base of support in Israel.  Even though his unilateral actions do not give any resolution to the “right of return” issue which is so problematic, I’m convinced Sharon intends to give the Palestinians a de facto sovereign state—just as Bush wants.  By going ahead with the fence, even without security guarantees of the Palestinians to stop terrorism, he is unilaterally shrinking the size of Israel to a permanently small and less defensible size.  Incredibly, he is doing this in the name of security, so that right wing backlash will be muted.   It will now give him the excuse to dismantle large and prosperous communities of Jews left outside the fence.  Sharon is violating one of the “red lines” he promised never to cross.

Dan Diker, writing for the Institute for Contemporary Affairs set out summary arguments of why the US and Israeli government proposals are lethal to Israeli security: “Despite Israel’s repeated goodwill gestures and the prime minister’s recent public statements indicating his intention to take unilateral steps to improve the humanitarian situation among the Palestinians, senior Israeli security officials warn that such moves could create a terrorist ‘wonderland,’ enabling them to ‘rest, rearm, and upgrade.’  Israeli gestures in the absence of Palestinian security measures have had proven lethal consequences for Israeli civilians and soldiers alike. Improving the economic situation of the Palestinians is important, but the precipitous removal of security measures can cost lives. This point should be remembered before Israel is asked again to undertake similar risks in the future.”

But nothing seems to affect Sharon’s secret agenda.  Incredibly this week, for the first time, he gave the first hints he would withdraw support for the crucial Israeli settlements in the Gaza strip.  “It's clear that we won't be able to remain in Gaza forever.”  Sharon said.  According to Arutz-7 Sharon “plans to give the PA six months, after which time, if nothing changes, he will begin withdrawing from all of Gaza - a move which will involve the uprooting and dismantling of 18 Jewish communities, some of which are more than 30 years old, and in which live close to 8,000 people.”   I have been to those communities.  The house some of the largest greenhouses in Israel and produce Kosher grown specialty foods exported to Jewish markets in all parts of Europe.  They are also some of the best and most faithful Jews I have met in Israel.  Hardships really do build character. 

The first real showdown between Sharon and his right-wing constituency will probably occur in Migron—a Jerusalem suburb some 5 miles distant that Sharon has secretly schedule for military intervention and removal, bypassing the normal public hearings.  Again, according to Arutz-7, “Preparations are being made for 5,000 Yesha-supporters to arrive in Migron in case of an attempted evacuation - but it appears that the efforts to block the traumatic uprooting have already begun. “If they succeed in uprooting it,”  Yesha leader Wallerstein said, “this will really cause a tremendous shock wave: It will be the first time that a community of this size, with babies born there and with lots of government permits, will be uprooted.  The only thing that it can be compared to is the destruction of Yamit [a small city in Sinai that was evacuated and demolished in honor of the peace agreement with Egypt in 1982].  For a right-wing government to dare to do such a thing would be a social-national shock of the first degree.”
Wallerstein continued, “Migron is symbol of the desire to uproot Jews from Judea and Samaria, straight and simple.  This is how we must view it.  It is obvious that if Migron is to be uprooted, there is certainly no intention to allow Psagot, Ofrah, Beit El and Shiloh to remain in place, as they are even further from Jerusalem and with more Arabs around them.  The destruction of Migron, Heaven forbid, is the beginning of a clear trend to take Jews out of their homes in the Land of Israel.”  This will cost the Sharon government a good portion of its right-wing of support.  Sharon doesn’t seem to care.  He tried to build a “unity” government with the Left-wing Labor Party and other “Peace Now” factions before.  He only accepted his own right-wing partners when the Left refused to join.  The sooner the Israeli right realizes Sharon has betrayed them, the better.

 

LIBYA AND IRAN: ARE THEY REALLY GIVING UP WMD?

Both Iran and Libya this week have announced their intent to give up or limit programs to develop WMD, in particular nuclear weapons.  Iran’s agreement to come into further compliance with international non-proliferation treaties (by signing an International Atomic Energy Agency surprise inspection protocol) was not nearly as dramatic as the Libyan announcement that it will be giving up all efforts to develop WMD and the means of delivering them.  This agreement came, according to State Dept. Sources, after nine months of secret negotiations between the US, Britain and Libya. 

The Bush administration and globalist media pundits were quick to link this latest success with the US invasion of Iraq, claiming that Moammar Gadhafy feared a similar invasion of Libya if he did not comply with US demands.  The US is eager to demonstrate that its interventionist policies are having a positive effect on world peace.  This is dubious on two counts. First, the US continues to downplay, cover for, and even aid Russian and Chinese rearmament efforts, where the big danger lies. Second, we have no assurance that Libya’s sudden change of heart is legitimate, even if they submit to inspections.  

Both Libya and Iran are client states of Russia and China, and are linked strongly with their axis of deception.  As long as that linkage remains intact, a couple of different deceptions are possible, even while the smaller nations are pretending to be in compliance with these new disarmament protocols.  For instance, Russia and China could have simply told Libya to give up its indigenous nuclear/biological/chemical program for now, with the understanding that Russia would supply additional whole WMD systems at a future time.   One of the prime advantages of this maneuver is that it allows the international community to exert pressure on the US to force Israel to give up its nuclear weapons, as a demonstration of uniform policy enforcement.  Alternatively, Libya could have already prepared significant secret facilities to hide its ongoing weapons development program, and could be intending only to reveal token dismantled facilities to satisfy international inspections. 

How probable is the possibility of effective Libyan deception given the capability of US surveillance to detect clandestine NBC facilities?  Quite good, actually – not necessarily because of the ineffectiveness of US intelligence, but because of the ongoing continually covers for arms treaty violations by these two predator nations as well as their client states.  North Korea has long been a recipient of this collusion.  The US, despite outward protestations against North Korea’s nuclear weapons development, has long protected that nation’s mission as chief proliferation purveyor collusion that exists between the US and Russia/China axis.  As part of this collusion, the US around the world (on behalf of Russia and China).

Libya itself has been the recipient of US “look the other way” policies as well.  The CIA has shipped a variety of arms and explosives (and who knows what else) to Libya with the help of undercover agents such as Edwin Wilson, whose betrayal by his CIA bosses and subsequent conviction in court was recently overturned.  If the US has had long-term secret dealings with Gadhafy, the entire Libyan agreement to disarm could be part of a dramatic ploy to make it appear as if US policies of intervention are as benevolent as they claim.   One key indicator of this ongoing collusion is the fact that US defense firms have been holding secret talks with Libya for some time already.  The US, in return for this so-called disarmament agreement, is planning on modernizing Libyan artillery systems, armor and helicopters, just as they have been with Egypt.  Notice that Egypt, despite receiving billions in US military aid and technology transfers is still a hostile adversary of Israel.  I suspect that Libya, if sincere in relinquishing their WMD, has cut a deal with the US making it a recipient of future aid like Egypt. 

 

ISRAEL:  NEW FENCE WILL LEAD TO A PROVISIONAL PALESTINIAN STATE

I had predicted, as soon as the Sharon government announced it was building a fence of separation, that this fence would soon become a boundary, creating a de facto Palestinian state and instantly reducing the true territory of Israel to a small indefensible enclave.  Now, this purpose has been confirmed by none other than Henry Kissinger, with whom all Israeli politicians, whether left or right, meet before they go talk to the President.  The Hindu Times quoted Kissinger on 22 December as saying, “The Israeli security fence, that is under construction in the West Bank, should be accepted by America and its allies as it could lead to a Palestinian State even without a final agreement.”   I believe that is precisely what was intended when the project was started.  The wall was designed as a way to use continued Palestinian terrorism to force a reduction of Israeli borders on its own people.  The Israeli right is being betrayed by their own “conservative” Sharon government.

 

MY CHRISTMAS PERSPECTIVE ON WORLD AFFAIRS

Writing another World Affairs Brief during Christmas week left me wondering if I shouldn’t try to find at least some “good news” to present my readers for a change.  Truthfully, I have to tell you that on the national and international scene, there is no good news.  None at all.  The reason is simple.  Because of the pervasive control evil forces have on virtually all governments, the appearance of any good news is either an outright ruse meant to pacify conservatives (like the recent symbolic-but-legally-worthless partial birth abortion ban) or merely a temporary win that will be quickly overthrown since insider control of government pervades all branches of government.  This type of control is evident in other “showcase democracies” in Europe and Israel.

Two current American court rulings will serve to illustrate what I’m talking about.  First, a federal appeals court ruled last week that the president couldn’t arbitrarily designate American citizens arrested in the US as “enemy combatants,” leading many civil libertarians to rejoice.  But instead of ruling that this is a violation of a host of Constitutional protections, as it is, the court merely stated that the designation was outside the executive power, giving a broad hint that an act of Congress would satisfy the courts (very telling).  Well, making such a designation also happens to be outside the constitutional purview of Congress.  No branch of government can take away civil rights granted by the Constitution.  Watch for either the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court in its minimal restraint of executive power, or for Congress to pass an “enemy combatant” designation.

                In a second ruling this week, a federal court ruled that the Pentagon could not force US soldiers to take the anthrax vaccine because it was “experimental.” They neglected to recognize that all vaccines are experimental since all are allowed to be put into use without long-term human testing and the normal FDA approval process.  In addition, the law the courts pointed to gives the President the ability to simply sign a waver to bypass the “informed consent” requirements of the law.  No one should have that power.  While the Pentagon claims they will abide by the ruling (temporarily) and cease forcing this very dangerous vaccine on our troops, pending appeal, they will not remove the dozens of legal sanctions imposed on those principled military personnel who have already been court-martialed for refusing the vaccine.  After allowing the Pentagon to propagandize the public for a few days on how “essential” the anthrax vaccine is for our troops, I expect the president to sign the waver.  If the vaccine were really essential and safe, then there should be no reason for the military not to allow each soldier to make an informed choice.  This won’t happen.  I guarantee it.

These are just two recent examples among mountains of evidence as to the pervasive control of evil forces in the world and the continual loss of personal liberties.  Not only do I not believe that there is any truly “good news” in world affairs today, I don’t believe these secret combinations of evil can be overcome through peaceful or democratic means.  Those of us who understand the problem and are willing to take action are a very tiny minority.  The Powers That Be (PTB) are expert at keeping the rest of the good people in the world from awakening to their growing loss of liberty, and even more expert at thwarting any real attempts of effective resistance to their control.  If this is true, how can we avoid being overcome with discouragement?

I don’t believe the answer lies in relying on false optimism or blindly avoiding bad news.  I want to live my life dealing with what is real, not surrounding myself with illusions of false hope.  But that doesn’t mean we are relegated to morbid pessimism and defeat.  While we all need to learn to live with whatever problems life throws at us – that’s part of life’s test – we must do so trusting that God still has the final say as to how each of our lives are to be impacted specifically by the general world crisis. 

None of us will get through what’s coming completely unscathed, but neither will the Lord allow us all to be defeated.  And even in temporal defeat, we needn’t be defeated spiritually.  If called upon to go down, even to death or imprisonment, we must do so standing on principles, not compromising.  If we are blessed to survive, it will be, in part, because we have listened to the subtle divine promptings of conscience prompting us to prepare for trouble in advance of the storm.  Wise and judicious preparation in advance of a crisis, coupled with living so as to merit the full blessings of God’s protection, can make all the difference in how we and our families weather the crises ahead. 

Moreover, the growing loss of liberties we are experiencing can be a source of additional strength, for both us and our children, as we rise to the challenges we face.  Certainly, sensing that we may not win this battle in the physical sense does not relieve any of us of the responsibility to warn and influence others, nor to fight back politically.  It may also require the preparation of contingencies, such as the storage of a supply of food and other necessities, the creation of a secure shelter in the home for weathering certain threats, even the establishment of a well planned retreat for when the crisis comes to your door.  It all depends on how the Lord inspires you.  There’s no single answer for all, but all of us will need help from others, so it is wise to build informal networks of like-minded people.  In following your own conscience, be open to the full range of promptings that may come.  Beware of putting selective restrictions on what you think you can receive from the Lord. Above all, the critical analyses I share with you each week should help my readers resist the natural tendency to rely on the hand of government in times of crisis.  Hopefully these insights also serve as a reminder that our ultimate destiny lies in the hands of God.

That is why the Christmas season is more to me than a “joyous season” of light-minded celebrations.   I do enjoy the festive spirit, its music, its color, and the homey, country atmosphere our own family has created which brings us peace amid the world’s rampant commercialization of the season.  For us, it is also a time to reflect upon what liberties we still yet have, and to express thanks that God is still out there helping to build a remnant of worthy people suitable to His future purposes.  In this spirit of growing watchfulness, coupled with thankfulness for the Lord’s guiding hand, may I wish you all a meaningful Christmas and a New Year filled with opportunities to further your destiny in God’s plan.