Steven Gaal

Angela Merkel has called for the surrender of key national powers (TO BANKERS....as QUIGLEY THOUGHT)

The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences."

-- Quote from Caroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope, Chapter 20

What Caroll Quigley predicted all coming true right before your eyes.

http://educationforu...8163&hl=quigley

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TOUCHE

Merkel calls for eurozone countries to surrender key tax-and-spend powers

Prescription aimed at rescuing the single currency is one that other member nations may find hard to swallow

• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 November 2012 16.06 GMT Ian Traynor in Brussels
  Merkel calls for eurozone countries to surrender key tax-and-spend powers
  Prescription aimed at rescuing the single currency is one that other member nations may find hard to swallow
  

Angela Merkel called for a centralisation in Brussels of national powers in areas of fiscal and budgetary policies. Photograph: John Thys/AFP/Getty

Angela Merkel has called for the surrender of key national powers over tax-and-spend policies to Brussels by the 17 countries in the eurozone within three years in order to rescue and shore up the embattled single currency.

In a rare landmark policy speech on Wednesday to the European parliament in Brussels, the German chancellor voiced Berlin's absolute determination to stand by the euro and to strengthen the EU through greater integration of policymaking. But her commitment came with a price tag that many others in the eurozone may find hard to swallow.

Merkel called for a major centralisation in Brussels of sovereign national powers in sensitive areas of fiscal, budgetary and economic policies, arguing that action already taken during three years of euro crisis had only left the job half-done. "Stronger economic policy co-ordination will also perhaps be needed in areas that affect the core of national sovereignty. I'm thinking of sensitive policy areas such as labour market and tax policy," the chancellor said. "We need solutions creating a sensible balance between the necessary new intervention rights at the European level and the scope for action of the member states and their parliaments. The European institutions must be strengthened to allow them to correct mistakes and breaches of the rules effectively."

She added that eurozone governments should strike "binding and feasible reform contracts" with the European commission, which then could be partly financed from a new eurozone budget.

The latter ideas were floated last month at an EU summit but no agreement was reached. Merkel said that she wanted her proposals agreed at another Brussels summit next month and that the blueprint for a more solid, stable and more tightly controlled monetary union should be implemented "in the next two to three years".

Merkel also called for greater harmonisation in regulation of the financial markets across Europe and supported the contested idea of making the European Central Bank in Frankfurt the new supervisor of the eurozone's banking sector.

But she made plain, despite strong criticism from France, Italy, and Spain, that she was in no hurry to see the new banking supervisor established.

Stressing the need for "quality before speed", she said: "It's important that we take great care to clarify the complex legal issues, because I want a banking supervisor worthy of the name."

EU officials involved in drafting the new supervisory framework admit that the Germans are working hard to slow the policy down and will be able to continue to throw up obstacles over the next 12-18 months.

Merkel said eurozone governments had made a good start to compelling greater fiscal rigour in the single currency area by pushing ahead with their fiscal pact, the treaty vetoed by David Cameron last December. But the pact did not go far enough.

"I can well imagine going further," said Merkel, "by for example giving the European level real rights to intervene in national budgets when the agreed ceilings [for eurozone deficit and debt levels] are not observed."

Merkel's demand for stronger policing powers for Brussels and for the surrender of national budgetary prerogatives will run into strong resistance in France and in other countries such as the Netherlands.

The German leader also said the European treaties might need to be re-opened and renegotiated to establish the new stiffer eurozone regime. Many countries, led by France, also oppose opening the treaties as that could trigger referendums in several countries.

Merkel dismissed fears that her proposals for a much more integrated eurozone would split the EU between the 17 single currencies and the 10 others outside it. But she added there would need to be new forms of political organisation to legitimise the moves being considered, such as only having MEPs from eurozone countries in the European parliament voting on policies only affecting the single currency area.

Ecuador Coup Attempt Engineered by the CIA

By Nil Nikandrov

Global Research, October 05, 2010

Strategic Culture Foundation 3 October 2010

Ecuador’s police forces played the key role in the coup attempt which shattered the country on September 30. The passing of a law affecting the police officers’ bonuses and job benefits became a pretext for the rebellion which erupted in the capital city of Quito and the Guayquil seaport town. Actually, the law was not supposed to entail pay reductions, but those who masterminded the coup managed to convince the police that it would and thus provoked the uprising.

The subsequent developments followed the traditional Latin American pattern: rebels created bases, set up roadblocks, and had all flights to and from Ecuador suspended. The country’s air force counting scores of US-trained officers partially sided with the police, while pilots from Venezuela who served in Ecuador in the framework of the military cooperation program were isolated. President Rafael Correa barely escaped death when he approached the police barracks to explain the reforms personally: shooting was audible around, he was sprayed with tear gas, and, moreover, several combat grenades exploded nearby. The president and his bodyguards took refuge in a military hospital which was promptly besieged by the rebel police forces and armed civilians evidently furnished by the opposition. The siege continued for several hours until special forces arrived and escorted Correa to the presidential palace.

Over the past several years the police of Ecuador was courted by the US Embassy which no doubt had its own interests in mind. Money from funds run by the FBI, the CIA, the DEA, and other US agencies was routinely poured into bonuses for the police top brass and operatives, equipment for various police divisions, etc. The cooperation became so cordial that occasionally the US intelligence community used Ecuador’s police and army intelligence service to keep under surveillance the country’s politicians, journalists, and others regarded as potential opponents of the US. Ecuador’s intelligence services rushed information to their US partners during the crisis that hit the country’s relations with Columbia after the latter bombed FARC camps in the territory of the former, leaving their own government blind to details of the situation.

The January, 2007 advent of Correa’s patriotic administration largely put an end to the abnormal arrangement as the Ecuadorian government started to regain control over the country’s agencies. Among other things, Correa forbade them to maintain unofficial ties with the US Embassy or get on its payroll. The efforts predictably angered Washington which, in one instance, demonstratively demanded that the Ecuadorian drug enforcement agency return the computers formerly supplied to it by DEA. The relations between Ecuador and the US saw another chill when Correa closed the US airbase in Mante. In response, Washington slammed Quito over its friendship with Venezuela and Nicaragua, diapproval of Plan Colombia, and the implementation of an original model of socialism.

The success of the operation which led to the ouster of president Manuel Zelaya in Honduras inspired the US hawks to put similar schemes to works elsewhere in Latin America, Washington’s eventual goal being to isolate Hugo Chavez and remove his allies from power across the region. The US Administration reckoned that Ecuador was the easiest target on its political hit list. Correa’s reforms meet with staunch resistance mounted by the local oligarchy, pro-US elites, and the army officers corps zombied in the notorious School of the Americas to fight communism which under present-day conditions circulates as a bracket term for whatever political movements Washington frowns upon.

The subversive activity targeting president Correa is coordinated by Heather Hodges who was appointed as the US ambassador to Ecuador in August, 2008.She did a job in Guatemala during the reign of its bloody dictator Rios Montt and served as deputy director of the US State Department’s Cuban division which is known to be tightly interwoven with the CIA. Mrs. Hodges also worked with USAID in several countries and served as the US ambassador to Moldova where her mission was to alienate the country’s leadership from Russia and to organize a color revolution with the help of pro-western NGOs and the energetic youths from the US Peace Corps. At the moment her trainees are employed by the CIA stations in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

US Secretary of State H. Clinton visited Quito last June to assess the situation from within and to probe into the possibility of reorienting president Correa from Chavez to the US, but failed to exact any concessions from the Ecuadorian leader. As a result, Hodges was instructed to launch the operation aimed at weakening Correa’s positions and – in the longer run – toppling him. USAID alone made a $40 mln financial infusion into the cause, former president Lucio being the key figure in the plot. Gutierrez’s disastrous presidency ended with his escape from the country. Following an amnesty, he challenged Correa in the 2009 presidential race which he explainably lost.

According to the coup blueprint drafted by the CIA, Gutierrez was to announce the removal of “dictator” Correa and the transfer of authority to a provisional government in a televised address. The plan additionally included the disbandment of Ecuadorian parliament and the organization of snap elections. The conspirators, however, were dispersed by the defenders of the legitimate president and failed to clear Gutierrez’s access to TV. Besides, the Indian organizations from the PACHAKUTIK group chose not to partake. The coup therefore collapsed.

Currently Ecuador is under emergency rule. Correa plans to purge the country’s law enforcement agencies and to find out who – including the army officers – was involved. Charges are already being pressed against Gutierrez and his Sociedad Patriotica.

Causes of the unrest in Ecuador and the steps necessary to prevent the recurrence of coups in Latin America were analyzed during the UNASUR emergency meeting which convened in Buenos Aires on October 1. Attention should be paid to the fact that Washington chose not to condemn the perpetrators of the coup in Ecuador.

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related content:

1. 
   Coup d’état continues in Ecuador
   Chaos broke out in Ecuador when members of the nation’s military and national police forces turned to violence to protest a new law that reduces their pay and benefits.
   The coup d’état has not ended and it has not failed, argued author and lawyer Eva Golinger, who is in Caracas, Venezuela.…
   
2. Ecuador: A third US sponsored coup d’etat against a member state of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA)
   UPDATE: 4:30pm, Police forces involved in coup in Ecuador against President Rafael Correa are violently repressing the people in the streets of Quito attempting to rescue President Correa, who remains sequestered by coup forces. Governments throughout Latin America have condemned the coup in Ecuador, but the US State Department merely said Washington was “monitoring the situation in Ecuador”.…
   

Drug traffickers infiltrate Ecuador security forces

Posted on March 22, 2012 • Filed under: Colombia, Crime, Drug Activity, Ecuador, Mexico, Organized Crime, Police/Military Activity

The arrest of Juan Carlos Calle Serna is not an isolated event. Official figures indicate that their ties are linked to criminal cases dating, for example, 2009. On 2 October of that year, drug agents staged a raid in four provinces, seized 3.8 tons of cocaine and arrested two soldiers: one sergeant and a former Army intelligence agent who was a researcher for links to drug trafficking. Read Article

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Ecuador's President Says CIA is Using Drug Profits to Destabilize His Country

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message2045030/pg1

LEFTY OBAMA ?

_{Honduras // Paraguay // Ecuador COUPS}

_{Everything Old Is New Again}

_{The Washington Post Ignores Coups in Article on Threats to Latin American Democracy}

_{Written by Keane Bhatt, Manufacturing Contempt}

_{Tuesday, 31 July 2012 13:22}

_{Source: NACLA}

_{On Sunday, July 22, The Washington Post published “Latin America’s new authoritarians,” in which its author, Juan Forero, carries on the newspaper’s longstanding practice of selective and hyperbolic criticisms of the hemisphere’s governments. Forero intends to shed light on “a new kind of authoritarian leader…rising in several countries: democratically elected presidents who are ruling in increasingly undemocratic ways.”}

_{One may recall the Post’s strained attempts to illustrate this trend, like an April 19 editorial that accused President Cristina Kirchner of Argentina of practicing “autocratic populism” simply for pushing to re-nationalize the Spanish oil company Repsol YPF with overwhelming public support. The newspaper was later ridiculed for a June 20 editorial, which introduced the democratically elected president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, as a “small-time South American autocrat” in its opening sentence and accused him of “wallowing” in “anti-American slanders and paranoia” as he decides whether to provide WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with political asylum.}

_{Forero’s feature—published as a news article, not an opinion piece—nevertheless contains the kind of strong, unsubstantiated opinions that characterize the Post’s editorials. He asserts, for example, that “charismatic populists are posing the most serious challenge to democratic institutions in Latin America since the 1980s.” Forero is referring to countries like Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela, the last of which, according to his article, is a “growing, alarming” threat to the region, “led by a captivating, messianic leader with an ample oil-fueled coffer under his control, [who] is determined to see smaller countries copy its model.”}

_{Unsurprisingly, Forero remains silent on the advent of a different model that’s being applied in smaller countries: the parliamentary coup. These coups replace elected governments with de facto ones while providing a specious imprimatur of legality. President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, the parliamentary coup’s most recent victim, described the trend: “You can call this a coup d’etat 2.0, a parliamentary coup or an express coup—many names for the same thing, a coup that is different than what we saw in the 1970s: there are no tanks or dead in the streets, and they are very careful to try to give the entire thing some kind of legal legitimacy.” Lugo traces this pattern back to 2009, saying that “[t]he laboratory for all of this was three years ago in Honduras. And here in Paraguay it was perfected.” Even so, in Forero’s account of “creeping authoritarianism” in the region, it’s as if two prominent examples of this phenomenon—the Honduran coup and last month’s illegitimate ouster of Lugo—never happened.}

_*

_{The circumstances behind the parliamentary coup in Honduras are as follows: President Manuel Zelaya arranged for a non-binding referendum to be held in June 2009, to probe the interest of citizens to set up a constituent assembly to redraft the constitution in November of that year. When the head of the military balked at Zelaya’s order to distribute materials in advance of the plebescite, Zelaya fired him. The Honduran Supreme Court ruled that this was illegal, and the military subsequently kidnapped him at gunpoint and spirited him out of the country. Economist Mark Weisbrot, one of the keenest observers of the Honduran ouster, cut through a smokescreen of procedural trivialities:}

_{Supporters of the coup argue that the president violated the law by attempting to go ahead with the referendum after the Supreme Court ruled against it. This is a legal question; it may be true, or it may be that the Supreme Court had no legal basis for its ruling. But it is irrelevant to what has happened: the military is not the arbiter of a constitutional dispute between the various branches of government. This is especially true in this case, in that the proposed referendum was a non-binding and merely consultative plebiscite. It would not have changed any law nor affected the structure of power; it was merely a poll of the electorate. Therefore, the military cannot claim that it acted to prevent any irreparable harm. This is a military coup carried out for political purposes.}

_{In the case of Paraguay, the elected president, Fernando Lugo, faced impeachment in June after a violent land dispute left six police officers and 11 peasant farmers dead (although there is no evidence that Lugo was responsible for the police actions). Lugo fired his interior minister and proposed an investigation into the incident, but the rightwing opposition pressed for his removal under the vague indictment of “poor performance of duties,” and granted Lugo only one day to prepare a two-hour rebuttal. Weisbrot noted that this was “a clear violation of Article 17 of Paraguay’s constitution, which provides for the right to an adequate defense.”}

_{The particulars, however, are less relevant than the fact that the impeachment’s rationale could have been anything at all. A State Department cable released by WikiLeaks predicted last month’s events, reporting in 2009 that opposition leaders had been eager to “[c]apitalize on any Lugo mis-steps” because their “dream scenario involves legally impeaching Lugo, even if on spurious grounds.” This would “assure their own political supremacy.”}

_*

_{Surely the forcible overthrow of elected leaders is a far more serious challenge to democratic institutions than the rise of “charismatic populists.” Given the rightwing accomplishments in Honduras and Paraguay of subverting the most basic of democratic protocols, it’s absurd for Forero to ignore these events in favor of detailing the “new authoritarianism” of leaders who he admits are “democratically elected,” who “do not assassinate opposition figures or declare martial law,” and who preside over republics with “active news media, political opposition and civil society organizations.”}

_{Meanwhile, Honduras has experienced both the assassination of opposition figures and virtual martial law; credible reports estimate that state security forces have killed hundreds of civilians in three short years. In comparison, Forero’s gravest charges against Venezuela and Ecuador are “arbitrary arrests.” Similarly, Forero’s article raises alarms over Correa’s lawsuit against newspaper editors for libel but makes no mention that over 20 journalistsimpunity in Honduras since the coup. Exaggerations also abound, as with Forero’s contention that the Venezuelan government manages a “vast state media apparatus.” This claim is similar to a canard of Jackson Diehl, The Washington Post’s deputy editorial page editor, who in 2010 decried “the regime’s domination of the media.” The truth, however, is that in over a decade, state television has never captured even 10% of Venezuela’s audience. have been murdered with}

_*

_{More insidious than the Post’s selective, exaggerated coverage is its thesis that the United States is “looking the other way” in the face of the “growing threat to hard-won democratic gains” in the hemisphere. Forero quotes Santiago Canton of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, who contends that “a country that just doesn’t act is the United States,” permitting “things to happen that shouldn’t be permitted.” Forero and Canton decline to consider that the United States—characterized in the article as one of the “most vibrant and influential” democracies in the hemisphere—is actually a proactive interloper that has sought to undermine the democracies of sovereign countries like Venezuela in 2002 and Haiti in 2010. At present, the United States stymies democratic processes in Honduras by providing $50 million a year to the illegitimate regime’s notoriously repressive police and military. This is an example not of U.S. standoffishness but of ongoing material support to an authoritarian regime.}

_{In fact, the long-term success of the parliamentary coup would have been impossible without U.S. support in 2009. While there is no direct evidence that the United States played an active role in overthrowing Zelaya, Washington never called for his unconditional restitution (nor has it done so in the case of Lugo). And when the repressive military dictatorship that succeeded Zelaya carried out a fraudulent election marred by violence, the United States provided decisive backing for it. In the lead-up to this sham, a State Department official offered the following justification to Time Magazine: “[T]he elections are going to take place either way, and the international community needs to come to terms with that fact.”}

_{Washington also provided its blessing for the dictatorship’s elections through the National Democratic Institute, an organization largely financed by Congress that monitors voting processes as a part of its charge to “support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide.” NDI sent election observers to Honduras, whereas election observers from the European Union, Organization of American States, the United Nations, and the Carter Center abstained from monitoring an inherently undemocratic charade. NDI cloaked this political decision in the disingenuous language of neutrality. It acknowledged the potential criticism that “holding these elections under current conditions would legitimize a coup d’etat and establish a precedent that could be used to unseat elected governments elsewhere,” but stated that the purpose of its election mission “was not to take a position on these larger political issues nor should its presence in Honduras be viewed as such.” When NDI reported on the “generally peaceful and orderly” nature of the vote, the U.S. press took its cue, and days later, a New York Times editorial began its first sentence as follows: “There is wide agreement that last week’s presidential election in Honduras, won by the conservative leader Porfirio Lobo, was clean and fair.” The success of Coup 2.0 was now all but guaranteed.}

_*

_{Buried in the middle of Forero’s piece is likely the real reason behind the newspaper’s inconsistent treatment of the various governments in the hemisphere. The Washington Post scrutinizes Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua because “[a]ll vocally oppose the Obama administration, favor state intervention in the economy and have moved to strengthen alliances with Washington’s adversaries, among them Cuba, Iran and Russia.”}

_{In one sentence, the Post reveals its firm allegiance to the priorities of the U.S. government and international investors, not to the principle that sovereign states have a right to manage their domestic and international affairs. The Post doesn’t criticize massive state interventions in the U.S. economy, nor does it question the prerogative of the United States to strengthen its military ties to dictatorships like Saudi Arabia—the Post is critical only when left governments in Latin America pursue policies with similar independence. These democratically elected governments have stayed in power precisely because they have brought widespread benefits to their poor majorities through greater economic sovereignty and democratic social reform—even if it means upsetting powerful investors or Washington.}

_*

_{Lugo, after being deposed, publicly recommended that “if one wants to support the democratic processes here, then the best you can do is to start following what is going on here. If the media reports on Paraguay, then that helps our democracy the most.” If The Washington Post is sincere in its concern for democracy in Latin America, it has much room for improvement—Forero’s article never once mentions the word “Paraguay.”}

_{Keane Bhatt is an activist in Washington, D.C. He has worked in the United States and Latin America on a variety of campaigns related to community development and social justice. His analyses and opinions have appeared in a range of outlets, including NPR, The Nation, The St. Petersburg Times, CNN En Español, Truthout, and Upside Down World. He is the author of the new NACLA blog “Manufacturing Contempt,” which takes a critical look at the U.S. press and its portrayal of the hemisphere.}

One Thing Wrong and A Lot of Things Right

Posted by John-Michael P. Talboo

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2012/11/one-thing-wrong-and-lot-of-things-right.html

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The beam that fell too fast...

Posted by ScootleRoyale

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2010/09/beam-that-fell-too-fast.html

GAPING HOLE IN VESYEY STREET FACE OF BUILDING 6 BEFORE THE EITHER TOWER FELL

Ken Holden, who is involved with the organizing of demolition, excavation and debris removal operations at Ground Zero, later will tell the 9/11 Commission, “Underground, it was still so hot that molten metal dripped down the sides of the wall from [WTC] Building 6.” [9/11 Commission, 4/1/2003]

LEFTY OBAMA ?

CIA Allegedly Using Drug Money to Overthrow Ecuador President Rafael Correa

Matías Rojas

Infowars.com

November 8, 2012

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is using drug money to fund Rafael Correa’s opposition in the coming 2013 Ecuadorian elections, intelligence sources have revealed to Chilean independent media. The accusations do not stand alone. In October, former UK diplomat Craig Murray said that the CIA had tripled its budget to destabilize the government of Ecuador.

The allegations were made public by President Rafael Correa on November 3rd on national television, just days after his official visit to Chile to meet with President Sebastian Piñera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDtUUPpTTVg&feature=player_embedded

For translation, click on the CC (captions) widget, choose Spanish, then select Translate and English (or preferred language).

Correa reaffirmed information that appeared in an article written by Chilean independent media outlet Panoramas News, revealing that the CIA and DEA stations in Chile were running a narcotics trafficking network through that country with the full knowledge of Chilean authorities and police.

One of the sources quoted by Chilean media, a former police officer in the Policia de Investigaciones (PDI) by the name of Fernando Ulloa, said that 300 kilograms of cocaine were entering Chile monthly under the escort of members of his own institution, the Carabineros, and the Chilean Army. In May 2011, Fernando Ulloa met with then Chilean Minister of Interior Rodrigo Hinzpeter in La Moneda to inform him about the drug network. After more than one year, the Piñera’s government had done nothing to investigate the case.

The scandal resurfaced again after 10 Chilean cops were detained with links to a minor drug smuggling ring, not connected to the one Ulloa was exposing. Although Chilean television was more open to talk about police corruption, Ulloa was only interviewed by two TV networks,

The links to US intelligence emerged after an anonymous source from the Agencia Nacional de Inteligencia (ANI) told Panoramas News that the smuggling of 300 kilos of cocaine was in fact a highly sensitive CIA/DEA operation that would help to raise money to topple the government of Ecuador. The operation is similar to the one carried out by the Agency in Central America during the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980’s, the source said.

The director of Panoramas News, journalist Patricio Mery Bell, was planning to hand over the information to Rafael Correa while the Ecuadorian President was visiting Chile, but he was strangely accused of beating a woman after she stole his cell-phone. The cell-phone memory contained a video testimony of Mery’s intelligence source, destined to be passed to Correa, but it ended up in the hands of the police after the mysterious incident.

Once he was in Ecuador, President Rafael Correa connected the dots and decided to go public with the information. He quoted Murray’s early warnings about the CIA’s intent to “fund, bribe or blackmail media and officials”, originally written in the former diplomat’s own blog, adding that the Agency was dealing drugs just as Oliver North had done during the Contra support effort.

In an interview with NTN24, journalist Patricio Mery added more details to the case, relating the cover-up of the CIA drug dealing operation to the deaths of two different people in the last seven years: former soldier Fabian Vega, who was found hung in the northern city of Calama in 2005, and young citizen Nestor Madariaga Juantok, found death with two bullets in the port of Valparaiso in 2006. Both were ruled as suicides.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFhem4EBrZc&feature=player_embedded

For translation, click on the CC (captions) widget, choose Spanish, then select Translate and English (or preferred language).

Mery also gave the name of the alleged CIA liaison with the Chilean Navy, former captain Jesus Saez Luna, who is now being held in a penitentiary after he mysteriously escaped from Navy custody. Saez Luna was described in his arrest as the biggest drug dealer of the coastal city of Viña del Mar, with networks in Santiago de Chile and the Bio-Bio southern region of the country. Known as “El Marino”, the former captain utilized “military intelligence” tactics to avoid detection by police, according to the Chilean newspaper La Segunda.

The case is being depicted as “Chile-Contras”, in reference to the history of CIA narcotics trafficking in Nicaragua. This is just another example of how drug money is used to fund covert operations, such as the ones we have seen in Syria, with whole guerrilla armies and opposition forces being financed to overthrow countries that aren’t part of the Anglo-American establishment and don’t bow to American corporate interests.

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Ecuador: Chilean Journalist Reports CIA In Operation to Prevent Correa’s reelection

Posted on November 4, 2012

===========================

Elmercurio.com.ec reported that President Rafael Correa, picked up a complaint filed by a Chilean journalist on alleged operation of Central Intelligence Agency U.S. (CIA) to destabilize his government and prevent his reelection. In his usual Saturday report, released yesterday but recorded on Friday, the president said that this claim coincides with another presented a few days ago by a former diplomat English.

“You have to be very attentive” to these complaints that point to avoid another “suelazo (fall to the ground)” of “the oligarchy and the empire (U.S.)” by the recent re-election of President Hugo Chavez, Correa said. He recalled that a week ago the complaint was met British former Ambassador Craig Murray, who warned that the CIA will invest more than $ 80 million to try that Correa is not reelected in the elections of February.

According to the Ecuadorian president, that money would go to “buy journalists, making a fuss, to destabilize the government of Correa” and prevent his reelection.

Correa said another complaint in the same tone appeared this week when the Chilean journalist Patricio Mery Bell warned of an alleged international plot to destabilize the Government of Ecuador and restore U.S. hegemony in the region

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According to Chilean journalist, the CIA has prepared an operation to destabilize the regime.

El presidente, Rafael Correa, recogió una denuncia presentada por un periodista chileno sobre una supuesta operación de la Agencia Central de Inteligencia de Estados Unidos (CIA) para desestabilizar su Gobierno y evitar su reelección. The president, Rafael Correa, picked up a complaint filed by a Chilean journalist on alleged operation of Central Intelligence Agency U.S. (CIA) to destabilize his government and prevent his reelection.

En su habitual informe de los sábados, emitido ayer pero grabado el viernes, el mandatario dijo que esa denuncia coincide con otra presentada hace algunos días por un exdiplomático inglés. In his usual Saturday report, released yesterday but recorded on Friday, the president said that this claim coincides with another presented a few days ago by a former diplomat English.

“Hay que estar muy atentos” a estas denuncias que apuntarían a evitar otro “suelazo (caída al suelo)” de “la oligarquía y el imperio (EE.UU.)” por la reciente reelección del presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez, señaló Correa. "You have to be very attentive" to these complaints that point to avoid another "suelazo (fall to the ground)" of "the oligarchy and the empire (U.S.)" by the recent re-election of President Hugo Chavez, Correa said .

Recordó que hace una semana se conoció la denuncia del exembajador británico Craig Murray, quien advirtió que la CIA invertirá más de 80 millones de dólares para intentar que Correa no sea reelegido en los comicios de febrero próximo. He recalled that a week ago the complaint was met British former Ambassador Craig Murray, who warned that the CIA will invest more than $ 80 million to try that Correa is not reelected in the elections of February.

Según el mandatario ecuatoriano, ese dinero estaría destinado a “comprar periodistas, hacer escándalo, desestabilizar al Gobierno de Correa” e impedir su reelección. According to the Ecuadorian president, that money would go to "buy journalists, making a fuss, to destabilize the government of Correa" and prevent his reelection.

Correa dijo que otra denuncia en el mismo tono apareció esta semana cuando el periodista chileno Patricio Mery Bell advirtió de un supuesto complot internacional para desestabilizar al Gobierno de Ecuador y recuperar la hegemonía de EE.UU. Correa said another complaint in the same tone appeared this week when the Chilean journalist Patricio Mery Bell warned of an alleged international plot to destabilize the Government of Ecuador and restore U.S. hegemony en la región. in the region.

Mery Bell, señaló el presidente ecuatoriano, ha sido detenido por la supuesta agresión a una mujer que, según Correa, sería “una trampa, porque había denunciado manejos ilegales, entre ellos de droga” por parte de la CIA y del Departamento Antinarcóticos (DEA), “para tratar de desestabilizar al Gobierno ecuatoriano”. Mery Bell said the Ecuadorian president, has been arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman who, according to Correa, would be "a trap, because he had denounced illegal dealings, including drug" by the CIA and the Narcotics Squad (DEA ), "to try to destabilize the government of Ecuador."

Correa, además, mostró un video preparado por su equipo de comunicación en el que destacó un despacho del portal informativo Panorama News sobre “la curiosa detención” de Bell. Correa also showed a video prepared by his communications team in an office that highlighted the information portal Panorama News about "the curious arrest" of Bell.

Además reprodujo parte del artículo: “Según esta fuente, la internación de cerca de 300 kilos mensuales de cocaína, es parte de una operación de alto nivel dirigida y monitoreada desde las estaciones de la CIA y la DEA de la embajada norteamericana para obtener fondos para financiar operaciones encubiertas que no son fiscalizadas o controladas por el Congreso de EE.UU.”. Also reproduced from the article: "According to this source, the internment of nearly 300 kilos of cocaine per month, is part of a high-level operation directed and monitored from the stations of the CIA and the DEA of the U.S. Embassy to raise funds for finance covert operations are not controlled or monitored by the U.S. Congress. " El objetivo, señala el reporte, es “desestabilizar al Gobierno del Ecuador…”. The goal, says the report, is "to destabilize the government of Ecuador ...". QUITO.- (EFE) QUITO. - (EFE)

Oficialismo apunta a control del Legislativo Oficialismo Legislative control targets

El presidente, Rafael Correa, aseguró que en los comicios de febrero próximo el oficialismo debe apuntar a alcanzar el control de la Asamblea Nacional legislativa y obtener la elección de una “mayoría contundente” de legisladores. The president, Rafael Correa, said that in the upcoming February elections the ruling should aim to achieve the control of the National Assembly legislative election and get an "overwhelming majority" of lawmakers.

Al hablar, según precisó, como líder máximo de AP, el mandatario dijo: “Tenemos no sólo que ganar la Presidencia, sino una mayoría contundente en la Asamblea para continuar con nuestra revolución”. Speaking, as stated, as supreme leader of AP, the president said: "We have not only to win the presidency, but an overwhelming majority in the Assembly to continue our revolution."

Aseguró que esta vez no permitirá que AP proponga candidatos a la Legislatura que luego se retiran del movimiento y se pasan a la oposición, como ha sucedido con unos ocho asambleístas que en principio eran aliados suyos. He said that this time will not allow AP propose candidates for the Legislature to then withdraw the motion and passed to the opposition, as has happened with about eight assemblymen who were initially allies.

Por eso, reveló que una comisión de AP, en la que él mismo participa, revisa “prolijamente” las listas de candidatos a asambleístas. So, revealed that a committee of AP, in which he participates, check "neatly" lists of candidates for assembly.

Pese a que AP es el grupo parlamentario con el mayor número de legisladores, Correa aseguró que la falta de una mayoría oficialista en la Asamblea “ha impedido grandemente el avance de la revolución, el avance de la legislación”. Although AP is the parliamentary group with the largest number of lawmakers, Correa said that the lack of a government majority in the Assembly "has greatly impeded the progress of the revolution, the advance of the legislation."

“Ese es el gran desafío para los próximos cuatro años: una mayoría contundente en la Asamblea”, apuntó. "That is the great challenge for the next four years: an overwhelming majority in the Assembly," he said. (EFE) (EFE)

Detalles Details

- Correa recordó la trama “Irán-Contras” o “Irangate”, que involucró a un exasesor de EE.UU. - Correa recalled the plot "Iran-Contra" or "Irangate", involving a U.S. exasesor en la venta ilegal de armas a Irán y la financiación a la contrarrevolución en Nicaragua. in the illegal sale of arms to Iran and funding to the contras in Nicaragua.

- El presidente dijo que por no tener mayoría total no se han aprobado leyes importantes, como la de comunicación, establecida en la Constitución y ratificada en consulta popular. - The president said that having no overall majority have not passed important legislation, such as communication, established in the Constitution, ratified in referendum.

=============================

• LEFTY OBAMA ?
  
• Paraguay: CIA behind the Coup
  July 4, 2012 by AnonAF
  

THERE is such confidence between Federico Franco, the coup President now installed in Paraguay, and the United States embassy in the country, that Franco was there discussing the overthrow of President Fernando Lugo as early as 2009. This was revealed in a Wikileaks document in which an intelligence official refers to a conversation with Franco, then the Vice Presi

Paraguay: US makes gains from coup against Lugo

Federico Fuentes

Whether Paraguay’s infamously right-wing local oligarchy and its parties that seized an opportunity to bring left-leaning President Fernando Lugo down by itself, or whether the push came from the United States government, is yet to be confirmed.

The US was involved in the overthrow of many governments in Latin America in 20th century in a bid to sure up its domination of the region.

The US also supported a 2009 coup that overthrew elected Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, who had raised the minimum wage paid by US corporations in the textile industry and blocked privatisations. In the past decade, it has also been implicated in failed coup attempts against elected governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.

However, whether the key movers were the Paraguayan oligarchs or US forces is a secondary consideration. The US state and US corporations operate through local intermediaries — the Paraguayan oligarchy — and have made no effort to conceal their intentions to use the recent coup to advance their agenda.

The coup has provided the US with a golden opportunity to work to reverse its declining influence in the region — and send a clear message to those willing to challenge its interests.

Paraguay is nestled between South America’s two largest economies — Argentina and Brazil — and its membership of regional integration bodies such as the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) and the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) gives it strategic importance for US interests.

By removing Lugo via an illegitimate coup only nine months out from elections, the US and its allies sent a message that, having lost the ability to keep control through formal democratic means, they are willing to use others.

The coup also gave the US an opportunity to escalate its military presence in the region.

The same day Lugo was impeached by Congress, a delegation of Paraguayan politicians, led by the head of the parliamentary defence committee and opposition member Jose Lopez Chavez, met with US military chiefs to negotiate the establishment of a US military base in the Chaco region.

Lopez Chavez said another topic of discussions was restarting US military “humanitarian assistance” programs in Paraguay, which had been halted by Lugo in 2009.

The Paraguayan oligarchy has made clear its intentions of allowing the US to turn the country into a base for military operations, with its sights set on Latin America’s radical governments.

As Lopez Chavez explained after a meeting in August last year with 21 US generals, the hope was that a US base would help Paraguay “liberate itself from the pressures, the threats from Bolivia, and even more so the threats that are constantly emerging from the Bolivarianism of Hugo Chavez.”

In June, US General Douglas M Fraser, head of the US Southern Command, also singled out Venezuela and Bolivia as potential hotspots for “geopolitical turbulence” that could affect US interests in the region.

Those that have been campaigning in support of Latin America’s turbulent process of transition face the urgent task of exposing the role of US imperialism, its corporations and its allies in Paraguay’s, and their bid to stop the process of regional integration across Latin America.

There is also a need to support the Paraguayan resistance to the coup and redoubling our solidarity with the anti-imperialist Bolivarian Alliance of the People’s of Our America (ALBA) led by Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.

Velvet Coup

John Cherian

Ousted President Fernando Lugo in the capital, Asuncion, on June 12. The recent violence over land disputes triggered his impeachment.

The ouster of the Paraguayan President, Fernando Lugo, in a legislative coup in the third week of June came as a surprise. Neither the citizens of the country nor the governments of the region were prepared for such a scenario. President Lugo was all set to demit office next year after the completion of a constitutionally mandated five-year term. During a visit to New Delhi in May this year, he had told this correspondent that he had absolutely no plans of changing the country’s Constitution in order to seek a second term.

The event that triggered the present crisis in the landlocked Latin American country was a clash between landless peasants and the police in mid-June. Seventeen people – six police officers and 11 farmers – died in the incident.

The country’s legislature, comprising the Lower House and the Senate, was quick to pass resolutions impeaching the President on charges of “malfeasance”, including complicity in the killings over the land dispute. The other charges levelled against him included earlier instances of encouragement of squatters to take over big farms and his alleged failure to act decisively against the Paraguayan People’s Army, a small left-wing guerilla group. The impeachment charges against Lugo presented in the legislature included the statement: “The constant confrontation and struggle of social classes, which as a final result brought about the massacre between compatriots, is an unprecedented development in the annals of history from independence till today.”

The impeachment proceedings went ahead despite Lugo describing the loss of lives as “unfortunate”. He had promptly sacked the chief of the police force and the Interior Minister, both of whom were personally close to him. The country’s Supreme Court and also the Superior Court of Electoral Justice ruled that the impeachment did not violate the Constitution. The judgments have ruled out the possibility of the presidency being restored to Lugo.

The bloody violence erupted when the police moved in to force 150 peasants out of a 2,000-hectare farm in a remote reserved forest area called Curuguaty near the border with Brazil. The farm was owned by a prominent politician belonging to the right-wing Colorado Party, which had monopolised power for most of the last century. The peasant organisations in the area claimed that the forest land was illegally acquired during the days the country was under a dictatorship. They had demanded that the land be redistributed among needy peasant families who tilled the land.

Alfredo Stroessner, who ruled with an iron hand for 35 years, routinely parcelled out land to senior military officials, civilian supporters and foreign corporations. Peasants were forcibly evicted from the land they had occupied for generations.

The agrarian situation got further complicated with the introduction of soya farming in the eastern part of the country. The soya farming sector is dominated by big Brazilian companies.

This correspondent had asked President Lugo about the criticisms regarding the slow pace of land reforms. He had explained that comprehensive land reforms were impossible as there were too many claimants to the land. Decades of corrupt authoritarian rule had left every single piece of available land with duplicate or triplicate titles of ownership. But from recent events, it is obvious that the landless are getting restive and, in many areas, were taking the law into their own hands and seizing land belonging to the elite. Among Latin American countries, inequality in land distribution is the highest in Paraguay. Two per cent of the population controls over 77 per cent of the land, while small farmers, who constitute 44 per cent of the population, own just 5 per cent of the arable land.

Many left-wing groups felt that President Lugo had given in to pressure from the elite, sacrificing his reforms policy and, instead, focussing on attracting transnational investment in the farming sector. The country has been enjoying spectacular growth rates owing to the worldwide demand for soya. Paraguay is the world’s fifth largest soya producer.

Lugo, who was known as the “Bishop of the Poor” during his days in the Catholic Church, had come to power with the support of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, representing the wealthy landed elite. The party’s aim in supporting Lugo was to defeat its traditional rivals, the Colorado Party. But on assuming the presidency, Lugo gave many of the top jobs to his left-wing supporters. The honeymoon with the Liberals was short-lived, and Lugo was left without a legislative majority from the outset of his presidency. At the fag end of his term, the legislature has chosen to impeach him.

New President

Vice-President Frederico Franco, a right-wing politician belonging to the Liberal Party, was promptly elevated to the presidency. Franco constituted a new Cabinet comprising mainly representatives from the two traditional parties – the Colorado and the Liberals. Paraguay was under the authoritarian rule of the Colorado Party for 62 years. The one-party rule ended only in 1989.

In one of his first pronouncements after becoming President, Franco said that the removal of Lugo had saved the country from becoming a “pro-Chavez satellite”. The right-wing parties in Paraguay were not happy with Lugo’s decision to support Venezuela’s full membership of the regional grouping Mercosur (Common Southern Market). Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, who was in Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, as part of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) delegation, described Lugo’s removal as a “new type of coup”.

Venezuela has recalled its Ambassador and suspended oil shipments to Paraguay. “For us, the President of Paraguay is still Fernando Lugo. We do not recognise this new government,” said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Argentina and Ecuador have all pulled out their envoys after the “coup”. Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico are among the countries that have recalled their Ambassadors from Asuncion for consultations.

Brazil, which is Paraguay’s most important neighbour, condemned the “summary impeachment”. It has indicated that sanctions could be implemented, but, so far, it has not broken diplomatic relations, unlike most of Paraguay’s other neighbours. Brazil has a big stake in the Paraguayan economy, including the joint ownership of the Itaipu dam located on the border with the two countries. It is one of the biggest hydroelectric projects in the world.

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador said that the region “cannot gloss over this legalistic nonsense”. UNASUR has a “democracy clause” in its Constitution. Paraguay could be expelled from the 12-member grouping if it is found guilty of violating this clause. Many leaders of the region are comparing the events in Paraguay to the coup that overthrew Manuel Zelaya in Honduras three years ago. The Barack Obama administration in the United States had supported the military coup in Honduras. Washington has not yet made its position clear on Paraguay, but it has no love lost for the left-wing leaders of the region. The U.S. had more than doubled the military aid to the Paraguayan military last year ostensibly to combat drug trafficking.

Horacio Cartes, a leading Senator belonging to the Colorado Party and a frontrunner in the presidential election scheduled to be held next year, led the move to impeach Lugo. WikiLeaks published a confidential U.S. State Department memo which described Cartes as the man responsible for “80 per cent of the money laundering in Paraguay” on behalf of the drug traffickers. The U.S. has strong ties with the Colorado Party. Five successive U.S. administrations had supported Stroessner despite his brutal ways because he was an avowed anti-communist.

President Evo Morales of Bolivia said the coup in Paraguay “was gestated by neoliberals in collaboration with local landowners and the empire”, a reference to the U.S. Canada, Germany and Spain have already recognised the new government in Paraguay.

UNASUR and the Organisation of American States (OAS) also had special meetings to discuss the situation in Paraguay. The OAS general secretary, Jose Miguel Insulza, has “voiced” the doubts of the international community over whether the events leading to the dismissal of the Paraguayan President had not violated “universal principles of due process and legitimate law”.

The ousted President is also not taking things lying down. In the last week of June, Lugo announced that he was rallying his supporters domestically and lobbying for support internationally. He has announced the creation of a parallel Cabinet in order to resist what he termed “a parliamentary coup”. His supporters have formed a “national front for the defence of democracy”.

Marches are being held regularly in Asuncion and elsewhere to protest against the impeachment of the President. Paraguay has already been suspended from Mercosur.

The regional grouping had expressed the “most energetic condemnation of the rupture of the democratic order – and for not having respected due process”.

A Progressive President of Paraguay Was Never in the CIA’s Cards

Wayne Madsen

The recent «institutional coup» against President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay reflects a long-standing desire by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to prevent any candidate not reflecting the policies of Paraguay’s entrenched oligarchy from ever attaining the presidency of that nation.

According to a formerly SECRET CIA Directorate of Intelligence’s Office of African and Latin American Analysis research paper, uncovered from the U.S. National Archives and dated August 1985, the CIA never planned for a non-member of the conservative Colorado Party from ever succeeding long-time Paraguayan dictator General Alfredo Stroessner.

The Paraguayan dictator, who ruled Paraguay from 1954 to 1989 with the backing of the CIA and the Pentagon, was one of America’s staunchest Latin American allies. Stroessner, a Colorado Party stalwart, supported the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 and sent Paraguayan military officer to the infamous School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia for training. Stroessner also participated in Operation CONDOR, Henry Kissinger’s brainchild that saw Paraguay, along with six other Latin American nations – Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay — coordinate cross-border state terror and assassination operations against leftist officials and labor and student leaders, and even offered to send Paraguayan troops to fight with the United States in South Vietnam.

After Stroessner was ousted in a bloody military coup in 1989 over fears he was grooming one of his two sons as his successor. Stroessner was ousted by Colorado Party member General Andres Rodriqguez, who ruled until 1993. Rodriguez was succeeded by a series of Colorado Party politicians – Juan Carlos Wasmosy, Raul Cubas, Luis Gonzalez, and Nicanor Duarte, until Lugo, the Marxist «liberation theology» former Roman Catholic bishop, was elected president in 2008. The leader of the Patriotic Alliance for Change, Lugo was the first non-Colorado Party member to serve as president since 1948.

Lugo was ousted in a politicized impeachment process engineered by the Colorado Party and supported by Vice President Federico Franco of the very much misnamed Authentic Radical Liberal Party, which is neither «radical» nor «liberal» but represents Paraguay’s business elite and is a member of Liberal International, which includes other pro-business «liberals» such as British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats, in coalition with Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, and German Free Democratic Party of Guido Westerwelle, who serves in right-wing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet as foreign minister

The CIA research paper, titled «Paraguay: Potential Successors to Stoessner,»states that in 1985, «the 72-year-old President Alfred [sic] Stroessner is not expected to leave office anytime soon». In fact, Stroessner was ousted in a coup some three and a half years after the CIA’s faulty prognostication. However, the CIA did anticipate that Stroessner’s eventual successors would only come from the ranks of the corrupt Colorado Party.

The CIA document states «leading contenders, in our judgment, include Supreme Court Chief Justice and traditionalist Colorado politician Luis Argana; veteran traditionalist Colorado leaders Edgar Insfran and Juan Manuel Frutos; the Defense Minister, Maj. Gen. Gaspar Martinez; and a respected senior military officer, Gen. Gerardo Johannsen».

The CIA gave all these Colorado politicians a clean bill of health by stating, «any of these men would be likely to maintain Paraguay’s pro-West foreign policy». In the CIA’s world, any leader, no matter how blood thirsty and dictatorial, was fine as long as they remained pro-Western. It is the same construct that was used by the Obama administration to drive from power Manuel Zelaya of Honduras and Lugo and be replaced by more pro-Western leaders. And the same «institutional coup» template is being used to stage a constitutional crisis in El Salvador between the ARENA right-wing opposition-dominated Supreme Court and the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation (FMLN) party of President Mauricio Funes.

And the CIA’s document predicted to ascension to power post-Stroessner of General Rodriguez, who ousted Stroessner in 1989. The document states: «A likely key power broker during a transition would be Maj. Gen. Andres Rodriguez, an Army corps commander whose power is second only to Stroessner’s». That sentence is followed by a redaction, sometimes an indicator that a named individual has an intelligence asset relationship with the CIA. The paragraph continues, «Because of his notoriety, we believe he [Rodriguez] would operate behind the scenes in a transition, rather than seek the presidency». The document iterates that if Rodriguez were to assume power in a political vacuum situation it «might lead Rodriguez to seize power and impose a tough authoritarian government» and that «relations between such a regime and the United States would probably be subject to strains over human rights and drug trafficking». In fact, after Rodriguez seized power in 1989 from Stroessner in a textbook Latin American coup, bereft of a succession struggle, Washington maintained good relations with Paraguay.

The CIA clearly favored Chief Justice Argana as an eventual successor to Stroessner based solely on «his ability to avoid antagonizing military leaders as he has risen in the [Colorado] party ranks». The CIA analysts pointed out that Argana, according to U.S. embassy officials in Asuncion, the Paraguayan capital, was not considered «honest,» pointing to his past links with General Rodriguez.

The CIA also appeared to favor the chief of the powerful Rural Welfare Institute [the former Land Reform Agency], Senator Juan Manuel Frutos, the son of a former president. He was described as «tenaciously anti-Communist,» a pre-requisite for American support. It was the controversial issue of land reform and providing arable land to Paraguay’s poor campesinos that sparked the institutional coup against Lugo. Paraguay’s wealthy landowners, most Colorado Party supporters, are averse to any kind of land reform that would see the nation’s landless peasants provided with useful acreage for growing crops and thus competing with the monopolistic landowners.

The CIA sounded a discordant note on Defense Minister Gaspar Martinez, reporting that the U.S. embassy had reported in 1983 that Martinez had «amassed large sums of money». The remainder of the paragraph on Martinez’s money is redacted.

However, a clue to what was redacted may be found in a letter, dated March 5, 1985, from the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, Charles Rangel of New York, to CIA director William J. Casey. The letter states: «The Washington Post of February 27, 1985, reports that your agency has provided Senators Alphonse M. D’Amato and Arlen Specter with a report alleging the involvement of the notorious Nazi war criminal, Josef Mengele, in the narcotics traffic in Paraguay around 1970. Would you kindly provide this Committee with that report?»

The CIA paid little heed to the Paraguayan opposition parties, including the Liberal Party and the Radical Liberal Party, authorized «opposition» parties with little organization, manpower, or finances. The illegal National Accord of four opposition parties – the Christian Democrats, Authentic Radical Liberals, the Popular Colorado Movement, and the Revolutionary Febrerista Party – were also seen as weak and suffering from years in exile, mainly in Argentina. In hindsight, weakness by the exiled opposition, including current President Franco’s Authentic Radical Liberals, made them ripe for co-option by agencies like the CIA.

A 1983 Spanish-language broadcast by Radio Moscow, translated into English by the CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service, appears to provide more realistic intelligence about the situation in Paraguay than can be found in the CIA’s own intelligence report on the country. The Radio Moscow report was on the following issue: Director of Paraguayan Communist Party’s bulletin Adelante, on torture carried out by Stroessner regime. Says that CIA agents are training Paraguayan police personnel on various methods of torture».

Considering today’s penchant of the United States for torture, it can also be assumed that the clock will soon be set back in Paraguay to the CIA’s «good old days.

LEFTY OBAMA ?

Covert US Op: The Paraguayan Coup

By Bill Van Auken

Global Research, July 03, 2012

World Socialist Web Site 3 July 2012

The so-called constitutional coup that ousted Paraguay’s elected President Fernando Lugo on June 22 is another indication of the mounting class tensions that are gripping Latin America and the world as a whole, making democratic forms of rule under capitalism ever more unsustainable.

There is every reason to believe that the hurried impeachment of Lugo—forced through both houses of the Paraguayan parliament in barely 30 hours after he was charged by the two traditional parties of the country’s ruling oligarchy—was carried out with the indispensable complicity of US imperialism.

A former Catholic cleric and proponent of Liberation Theology, Lugo was elected in 2008, promising to combat corruption and promote “socially responsible capitalism.”

Without any party of his own, he came into office on the back of a coalition that joined a combination of left-nationalist groups, peasant and indigenous associations with the Liberal Party, a right-wing instrument of the Paraguayan oligarchy, which had been tolerated as a tame opposition under the 35-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. It was Lugo’s vice president, Liberal Party leader Fernando Franco, who donned the presidential sash after supporting the impeachment of his former running mate.

Committed to the defense of private property and with all the real levers of power remaining in the hands of the Liberals and Stroessner’s Colorados, who ruled the country for six decades before the 2008 election, Lugo was able to carry out little in the way of reforms, while he adapted himself continuously to Paraguayan reaction.

Nonetheless, the ruling oligarchy as well as the transnational agricultural interests found his presidency intolerable, fearing that it was generating false expectations among the masses of Paraguayan workers and oppressed. In particular there was concern that masses of landless peasants, receiving nothing in the way of genuine agrarian reform from the government, would take matters into their own hands. In a country where 2 percent of the population controls more than 75 percent of the land, and where much of this land was expropriated from its owners and handed out to favored Colorado politicians under the Stroessner dictatorship, there is ample reason for such fear.

The principal pretext for the impeachment was a massacre unleashed by Paraguayan security forces as they attempted to evict some 100 peasant farmers occupying the land of a wealthy former Stroessner-era Colorado politician. Eleven peasants and six policemen were killed, while scores more were wounded and arrested. The right-wing parties in the Paraguayan Congress blamed Lugo not for gunning down peasants, but for failing to carry out more thorough repression.

The parallels between the June 2012 coup in Paraguay and the June 2009 coup that toppled the elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, are obvious. In both cases, the political representatives of oligarchical ruling classes threw out presidents who had postured as “lefts,” bitterly opposing even the paltriest reforms as intolerable infringements upon their wealth and power. And in both cases legal and constitutional statutes were twisted to serve wholly antidemocratic ends.

While in Zelaya’s case, troops stormed the presidential palace and hustled the pajama-clad president onto an aircraft that flew him into exile, such methods proved unnecessary in the case of Lugo, who meekly and publicly accepted his impeachment, only joining protests after the fact. In Paraguay as in Honduras, however, the real violence will undoubtedly unfold in the aftermath of the coup, directed against the country’s workers, peasants and students.

The social structures of the two countries also share much in common, with Paraguay the second poorest country in South America and Honduras the second poorest country in Central America and with social inequality driven to unprecedented levels, in large measure due to the penetration of transnational capital.

And both countries have been the focus of attention of the US military and intelligence apparatus, which shares intimate connections with its local counterparts. Security forces in both countries have been trained and advised by the Pentagon and would not support the overthrow of an existing government without its approval.

In Honduras, Washington has installed its largest military base in Latin America. And, in the period leading up to Lugo’s removal from office, US generals were reportedly involved in negotiations for securing a strategic base with the same right-wing politicians who organized Lugo’s impeachment.

In August of last year, ABC Color, Paraguay’s main right-wing daily, reported that Deputy Jose Lopez Chavez, the head of the Commission on Defense of the lower house of the Paraguayan Congress, reported meeting with a group of US generals visiting the country to discuss the installation of an American base in Paraguay’s thinly populated Chaco region. Lopez Chavez is a leader of a dissident faction of the Colorado Party headed by former coup leader and retired general Lino Oviedo and one of the organizers of the parliamentary coup.

While Lugo had sought to placate Washington and allowed US special forces troops into the country to train Paraguayan troops in “counter-terrorism” tactics and “advanced military operations in urban terrain,” he balked at a large-scale exercise proposed by the Pentagon for 2010. A secret US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks reports that embassy officials had sought to “vigorously engage” government ministers and Paraguayan military commanders to force acceptance of the operation, known as “New Horizon.” The cable accused Lugo of getting “cold feet” and of seeking to curry favor with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in order to get a better deal on oil imports.

Other secret cables dating back to 2009 released by WikiLeaks carry titles such as “Paraguayan pols plot parliamentary putsch” and “Lugo impeachment rumors are back.” They indicate that the US embassy was intimately familiar with—and undoubtedly secretly involved in—the conspiracies being hatched by the Paraguayan right.

The Paraguayan coup, following the coup in Honduras and the expanding US involvement in the “drug war” in Mexico and Central America, is another indication that with American capitalism confronting powerful economic rivals in China and Europe, the Obama administration is turning ever more openly to counterrevolutionary conspiracies and military force in the drive to reassert US hegemony in Latin America.

The events in both Paraguay and Honduras have proven once again that working people in Latin America cannot defeat imperialist intervention and the oppression by native ruling classes outside of the independent political mobilization of the working class in struggle for socialism. In both countries, counterrevolutionary operations were facilitated by the political subordination of the workers, peasants and oppressed to capitalist politicians—Lugo and Zelaya—who were in turn under the thumb of right-wing bourgeois parties.

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Paraguay: Coup at heart of struggle over Latin America

By Federico Fuentes

Global Research, July 18, 2012

Green Left Weekly 15 July 2012

The June 22 coup carried out against Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo was an important blow to progressive movements across Latin America.

The struggle against the coup is far from over, but learning the lessons of the coup are important. This requires placing the coup in the context of the turbulent process of change occurring in Latin America

Latin America is in a period of transition. It is characterised, on the one hand, by the decline of United States influence. This is particularly the case with the unravelling of the neoliberal model implanted that was more firmly implanted more firmly in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s than in any other region of the South.

On the other hand, left and progressive forces have made significant advances, including winning government in some cases.

This has been accompanied by a growing process of political and economic integration of the region.

Rise of the new left

A key factor is the rise of radical governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. With the backing of mass movements, these governments have raised the banner of “21st-century socialism”.

Today, these forces have united in the anti-imperialist Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA).

All of these processes remain in flux and the fate of each is linked to the others. The only certainty is that events in Paraguay have dramatically raised the level of turbulence in the region.

Lugo’s 2008 election in Paraguay did not represent the rise of a socialist to power. But it did mark Paraguay as the seventh country to join what many commentators have dubbed the “pink tide” sweeping through South America.

Starting with Hugo Chavez’s election in Venezuela in 1998, a variety of radical and moderate left candidates have also been elected in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and Uruguay.

The politics of these “pink tide” governments have ranged from radical anti-imperialism to moderate reformism. But each, in their own way, reflected the growing popular mood against US-imposed neoliberalism, and for greater national sovereignty and regional integration.

They also represented, at least, a partial fracture in political systems that benefited US corporate interests based on a extremely limited electoral democracy where the power of the ruling elite was never in question.

The significance of Lugo, a pro-poor former priest, was not his radical discourse or the far-reaching nature of the reforms that were demanded of his administration. Neither factors featured in his election campaign.

It lay in the fact that his election marked the end of 130 years of uninterrupted control of the presidency by direct representatives of Paraguay’s oligarchy.

It is through this oligarchy, maintained in power through a reign of terror, that foreign imperialist powers have maintained their domination over Paraguay.

Independent path

The last time Paraguay was not directly ruled by foreign powers and their local allies was about 200 years ago, shortly after Paraguay gained independence from Spain in 1811.

For the next few decades, Paraguay underwent arguably the most profound democratic revolution of any Latin American country during this post-independence period.

Unlike elsewhere in the region, where local oligarchies ensured formal political independence was accompanied by continued foreign subjugation, Paraguay’s government withdrew from global markets and pursued a policy of internal development.

The government’s program included state control over land, protection of newly developed industries, and using the nation’s wealth to fund education and other social programs.

By the 1860s, Paraguay was the most developed economy in the region. It could boast the lowest poverty and highest education levels of any neighbouring country.

But the price inflicted on Paraguay for choosing this path was devastating.

Imperialist attacks

In 1864, the local oligarchies in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, backed by Britain, unleashed the War of the Triple Alliance. It is estimated that 80-90% of the male population was exterminated in the war.

Through a campaign of terror, the triple alliance installed a pliant local oligarchy in power. This allowed Paraguay to re-enter the global market, subjugated to imperialist interests.

For the next 130 years, representatives of the large landowning oligarchy maintained control over the Paraguayan state. In return for ruling in the interests of foreign powers, the oligarchs were given free reign to use the state to enrich themselves and repress dissent. The most infamous phase was the 35-years-long military dictatorship under Alfredo Stroessner, which began in 1954.

Paraguay’s shift from military dictatorship to formal democracy in 1989 did not threaten the ruling elites. Stroessner’s Colorado Party held onto power until Lugo’s election in 2008.

Rather, the transition to formal democracy was driven by the negative impact on US neoliberal plans of holding on to one of Latin America’s longest surviving, and last remaining, dictators.

Neoliberalism

In Paraguay, the rise of neoliberal policies had four important consequences.

The first was the violent uprooting of Paraguay’s mostly rural population to make way for large multinational corporations, who sought to turn the country into one big soy plantation.

The second was Paraguay’s conversion into an energy exporter through the creation of the two largest hydroelectric dams in the world. Most of the electricity supplies Argentine and Brazilian-based industries.

The third impact of neoliberalism was the creation of a tiny sector of super-exploitative maquiladoras (free trade manufacturing zones).

The fourth structural change was the emergence of large belts of impoverished urban communities. It was made up of those pushed off their land, whose numbers greatly surpassed that of the tiny amount of jobs offered in the maquiladoras.

Many chose to emigrate and send back remittances, which became the main source of income for 10-15% of Paraguayan families.

It was precisely from these sectors poor farmers and impoverished urban sectors that opposition to neoliberalism and corruption emerged.

However, Paraguay never experienced the same level of class struggle as many other South American countries, where social movements succeeded in overthrowing presidents.

Meanwhile, left-wing parties remained fragmented and largely irrelevant.

Within this vacuum emerged Lugo, a moderately progressive priest who maintained links with campesino (peasant) groups.

As an outsider candidate for the 2008 elections, Lugo presented these sectors with an opportunity to break the decades’ long rule of the Colorado Party.

However, to win, Lugo had to rely on an alliance with the other main traditional party, the Liberals.

In return for supporting Lugo, the Liberals were given the right to chose his vice-presidential candidate: Francisco Franco, the man who now been installed as president in the coup.

The fragmentation of left forces, which contesting the election with 11 separate lists, and the important clientalist networks that the Liberals had built up, ensured their candidates made up the overwhelming bulk of Lugo’s parliamentary bench.

The limitations this imposed were immediately obvious after his victory. The Liberals spearheaded by Franco moving to oppose any progressive policy pursued by Lugo.

Ultimately, their votes were crucial in Lugo’s final downfall.

Re-establishing complete control

By removing Lugo, Paraguay’s oligarchy has re-established complete control over all branches of the Paraguayan state. It has set about reversing the small gains made under Lugo.

Within a week of Lugo falling, US oil company Crescent Global Oil — whose oil exploration contract had been terminated by the Lugo government — had met with Franco. After the meeting, it announced plans to invest US$10 million within 60 days to begin oil exploration in the Chaco region.

Another transnational that has benefited from the illegitimate coup is Rio Tinto Alcan (RTA), a Canadian-based division of the British-Australian mining company, Rio Tinto.

Several Liberal ministers in Lugo’s cabinet had been supportive of RTA’s bid to establish an aluminium plant in Paraguay in return for receiving cheap electricity from Paraguay’s huge hydroelectric dams (the main cost in producing aluminium).

The deal, however, was opposed by Lugo and his vice-minister for mines and energy.

With both gone, and an RTA lobbyist appointed vice-minister of industry, the Franco government is moving full steam ahead to sign an agreement that would provide RTA with electricity at a subsidised rate.

Transnational soy companies will also benefit via the approval of certain transgenic products which had been blocked by members of Lugo’s government.

It is true that none of these moves amounted to a radical transformation of Paraguay’s economy. In many cases, business continued as usual for foreign and local capitalist interests.

But Lugo’s election was much less a result of the rise of a powerful left as it was a sign of the beginning of the demise of the political status quo that for so long had benefitted US imperialism and its local allies. It was also a further impetus to the broader process of regional integration in South America.

It reflected the start of a process of transition in Paraguay, one which would inevitably be turbulent given the interests affected and whose ultimately fate would be determined by class struggle.

Lugo constantly vacillated and sought to conciliate with the old elites. But the left in his government were able to use the spaces won in the state to carry out progressive policies and bring the left out of obscurity.

From its position in the state, the left was responsible for placing hurdles in the path of multinationals. They spearheaded other popular measures, such as the introduction of a free public health system, the renegotiation of a better deal for Paraguay regarding revenue received by the state for the two hydroelectric dams and a variety of social programs.

Although the Lugo government did not initiate a radical agrarian reform program, the simple fact it carried out a census of land ownership exposed the extreme inequality in Paraguay. It was a move tantamount to “communism” for large-landowners accustomed to protecting their land at gunpoint.

For Paraguay’s poor, it represented the possibility that someone other than the local oligarchy could run the country — and push their interests.

All these elements contributed to converting Paraguay’s marginalised left into a real force in politics.

To ignore this and only focus on Lugo’s failures is to miss the point. Today, the left and Paraguay’s poor majority are in a stronger position than before Lugo’s election, in part due to their presence in the state.

Unfortunately, the lack of a mass political force uniting the left inside and outside the state, capable of stopping the coup, has led to a new turning point in the turbulent transition process in Paraguay and Latin America as whole.

A new turning point

The first important feature of this new period in Paraguay is the emergence of the Front for the Defence of Democracy, a broad coalition of left parties and social movements that is fighting the illegitimate government in the streets.

Whether they will be able to reverse the coup remains to be seen.

Many on the left see the possibility of creating a new political force out of this movement that can fight in the streets and at the next elections. However, this time the fight could be with a clear political program, and with the benefits of learning from Lugo’s errors.

Ultimately though, the future course of this development will be determined by the Paraguayan masses. Solidarity activists should follow these developments closely, learning from the unfolding process and offering any solidarity we can.

The main solidarity we can offer though is to alert the world to another, extremely dangerous development in Latin America after the successful 2009 US-backed coup in Honduras which should be of grave concern to all.

[Read more articles by Federico Fuentes. With Michael Fox and Roger Burbach, Fuentes is the co-author of the forthcoming book Latin America Turbulent Transitions: The Future of Twenty-First Century Socialism. It will be released in January next year by Zed Books. He also co-authored with Marta Harnecker a book in Spanish on the Paraguayan Left, focusing on the Movement Towards Socialism Party (P-MAS).]

there is no visible damage to WTC 6 in the Biggart photos taken during the first collapse // END COLBY

Gee that damage to building is proof to me. Gaal

===============================

the image in the 1^st was taken in the afternoon the shadows are pointing east,

NOPE AM PHOTO. NO REAL SHADOWS TO SEE . Was the dust cleared up by the PM ???

NO DUST IN STREET > GOLLY I think the paragraph in the Jack White study is in English.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Biggart photo looks like damage.

=======================================

SEPT 12 - February 2002: Witnesses See Molten Metal in the Remains at Ground Zero

In the weeks and months after 9/11, numerous individuals report seeing molten metal in the remains of the World Trade Center:

Ken Holden, who is involved with the organizing of demolition, excavation and debris removal operations at Ground Zero, later will tell the 9/11 Commission, “Underground, it was still so hot that molten metal dripped down the sides of the wall from [WTC] Building 6.” [9/11 Commission, 4/1/2003]

William Langewiesche, the only journalist to have unrestricted access to Ground Zero during the cleanup operation, describes, “in the early days, the streams of molten metal that leaked from the hot cores and flowed down broken walls inside the foundation hole.” [Langewiesche, 2002, pp. 32]

Leslie Robertson, one of the structural engineers responsible for the design of the WTC, describes fires still burning and molten steel still running 21 days after the attacks. [sEAU News, 10/2001 ]

Alison Geyh, who heads a team of scientists studying the potential health effects of 9/11, reports: “Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense. In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel.” [Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine, 2001]

Ron Burger, a public health advisor who arrives at Ground Zero on September 12, says that “feeling the heat” and “seeing the molten steel” there reminds him of a volcano. [National Environmental Health Association, 9/2003, pp. 40 ]

Paramedic Lee Turner arrives at the World Trade Center site on September 12 as a member of a federal urban search and rescue squad. While at Ground Zero, he goes “down crumpled stairwells to the subway, five levels below ground.” There he reportedly sees, “in the darkness a distant, pinkish glow—molten metal dripping from a beam.” [uS News and World Report, 9/12/2002]

According to a member of New York Air National Guard’s 109th Air Wing, who is at Ground Zero from September 22 to October 6: “One fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers’ remains. Firemen sprayed water to cool the debris down but the heat remained intense enough at the surface to melt their boots.” [National Guard Magazine, 12/2001]

New York firefighters recall “heat so intense they encountered rivers of molten steel.” [New York Post, 3/3/2004]

As late as five months after the attacks, in February 2002, firefighter Joe O’Toole sees a steel beam being lifted from deep underground at Ground Zero, which, he says, “was dripping from the molten steel.” [Knight Ridder, 5/29/2002]

Steven E. Jones, a physics professor from Utah, later will claim this molten metal is “direct evidence for the use of high-temperature explosives, such as thermite,” used to deliberately bring down the WTC towers. [MSNBC, 11/16/2005] He will say that without explosives, a falling building would have “insufficient directed energy to result in melting of large quantities of metal.” [Deseret Morning News, 11/10/2005] There is no mention whatsoever of the molten metal in the official reports by FEMA, NIST, or the 9/11 Commission. [Federal Emergency Management Agency, 5/1/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004; National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005 ] But Dr. Frank Gayle, who leads the steel forensics aspects of NIST’s investigation of the WTC collapses, is quoted as saying: “Your gut reaction would be the jet fuel is what made the fire so very intense, a lot of people figured that’s what melted the steel. Indeed it didn’t, the steel did not melt.” [ABC News 7 (New York), 2/7/2004] As well as the reports of molten metal, data collected by NASA in the days after 9/11 finds dozens of “hot spots” (some over 1,300 degrees) at Ground Zero (see September 16-23, 2001).

And I’m worried about you patients; // END COLBY

LEN ONLY WORRIES ABOUT HIMSELF (COLBY TRIBUTE BELOW)

Will "experimental" software patches affect the Ohio vote?

by Bob Fitrakis and Gerry Bello

October 31, 2012 Why did the Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted's office, in an end run around Ohio election law, have "experimental" software patches installed on vote counting tabulators in up to 39 Ohio counties? Voting rights activists are concerned that these uncertified and untested software patches may alter the election results.

During the 2004 presidential election, the Free Press reported that election officials observed technicians from the ES&S voting machine company and Triad computer maintenance company installing uncertified and untested software patches on voting machines in 44 Ohio counties prior to the election. Software patches are usually installed to "update" or change existing software. These software patch updates were considered suspect by election protection activists, in light of all the voting machine anomalies found during the 2004 election in Ohio.

The Free Press has learned that Election Systems and Solutions (ES&S) installed the software patches that will affect 4,041,056 registered voters, including those in metropolitan Columbus and Cleveland (click here for spread sheet from verifiedvoting.org).

A call to the Ohio Secretary of State's office concerning the software patches was not returned by publication deadline. Previously, the Free Press requests for public records, including voting machine vendor contracts, have been stonewalled by Office Secretary of State John Husted's office through his public records officer Chris Shea. Through other channels, the Free Press has obtained and has posted the possibly illegal full contract online here (see page 17).

The contract calls for ES & S technicians and county poll workers to "enter custom codes and interfaces" to the standard election reporting software just as was done with the controversial 2004 Ohio presidential election.

Last minute software patches may be deemed "experimental" because that designation does not require certification and testing. Uncertified and untested software for electronic voting systems are presumably illegal under Ohio law. All election systems hardware and software must be tested and certified by the state before being put into use, according to Ohio Revised Code 3506.05. By unilaterally deeming this new software "experimental," Secretary of State Husted was able to have the software installed without any review, inspection or certification by anyone. ES & S, for their part, knows that this software will not be subject to the minimal legally required testing as stated in the contract on page 21 (Section 6.1).

The contract specifically states that this software has not been and need not be reviewed by any testing authority at the state or federal level. Yet, it is installed on voting machines that will tabulate and report official election results, which Ohio law forbids. Based on the Free Press reading of the contract, this software is fully developed, being referred as versions 2.0.7.0 and 3.0.1.0. Thus the only thing making this software "experimental" is the fact that it has never been independently certified or tested.

In preparation for the upcoming general election in late April, the Free Press began requesting public records from all 88 counties in Ohio in order to build a broad database of every vendor and piece of equipment used in the state of Ohio. Aside from some minor delays, all 88 county jurisdictions have complied.

However, the office of the Ohio Secretary of State however, has not complied with any requests for lists of equipment, contracts with vendors, schedules of payment and even the identities of the vendors. The Free Press' public records requests, under ORC 149.43 (The Public Records Act) have been ignored by Chris Shea, presumably acting on behalf of Secretary of State Jon Husted. Now that the Free Press has obtained the contract, it seems clear that the secretary of state's office was hiding these last minute "experimental" uncertified software installations.

On page 19 of the contract, terms require the various county boards of elections to purchase additional software from ES & S if they are not compatible with this new "experimental" statewide tabulation and reporting system. This unfunded mandate clause illegally bypasses individual counties rights to make their own purchasing determinations.

The controversial software will create simple .csv files like those produced by spreadsheet programs for input into the statewide tabulation system. According to the terms of the contract, data security is the responsibility of each local board of elections: "…each county will be responsible for the implementation of any security protocols" (see page 21 of the contract).

Most county boards of elections do not have their own IT departments and are reliant on private partisan contractors to maintain and program the electronic voting systems. These piecemeal implementations of security protocols would also be untested and uncertified.

Voting rights activists believe this whole scheme may create a host of new avenues of attack on the integrity of the electronic vote counting system. The untested and uncertified "experimental" software itself may be malware. Public trust in the electronic vote counting system has emerged as the key issue in the Ohio presidential election.

The Free Press will be updating this breaking story as more information is obtained and analyzed, so stay tuned. The story for now is that the Secretary of State in the key swing state in the 2012 presidential has installed "experimental" uncertified and untested software to count a large portion of the Ohio vote.

--

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I see DEBRIS ON TOP OF HOLE . NO PROOF HOLE CAUSED BY DEBRIS. RE your post #7

Killtown Interviews 9/11 Rescue Worker Who Saw Explosions Inside WTC 6 Lobby Submitted by dz on Sat, 02/11/2006 - 5:09pm

9/11 Rescuer Saw Explosions Inside WTC 6 Lobby

Be sure to head over to Killtown's blog and check the whole interview out. Also, you can see a 14MB hi-res overhead scan of the damage to building 6 and ground zero by downloading this image here.

Thanks Killtown for the heads up, and this amazing interview!

• Desertpeace
  THE UNSETTLING TRUTHS ABOUT PALESTINE
  November 5, 2012 at 07:26
  
  *
  Professor Falk was appointed in 2008 to a six year term in his present position. That means he has been telling the unsettling truth about Israeli behaviour for four years now, with another two to go. Repeatedly, he has documented Israeli violations of international law and its relentless disregard for Palestinian human rights. For instance:
  
  • In 2008 he documented the “desperate plight of civilians in Gaza”;
    
  • In 2009 he described Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip as a “war crime of the greatest magnitude”;
    
  • In 2010 he documented Israel’s array of apartheid policies;
    
  • In 2011 he documented Israeli policies in Jerusalem and labelled them “ethnic cleansing”; and
    
  • In this latest report for the year 2012, he has concentrated on two subjects: (See report below)
    

  In defence of UN Palestine rapporteur Richard Falk

  By Lawrence Davidson

  Richard Falk is the present United Nations special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories. His job is to monitor the human rights situation in the territories, with particular reference to international law, and report back to both the United Nations General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council. He is Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and well qualified for his UN post.

  Telling unsettling truths

  Professor Falk was appointed in 2008 to a six year term in his present position. That means he has been telling the unsettling truth about Israeli behaviour for four years now, with another two to go. Repeatedly, he has documented Israeli violations of international law and its relentless disregard for Palestinian human rights. For instance:

  • In 2008 he documented the “desperate plight of civilians in Gaza”;
    
  • In 2009 he described Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip as a “war crime of the greatest magnitude”;
    
  • In 2010 he documented Israel’s array of apartheid policies;
    
  • In 2011 he documented Israeli policies in Jerusalem and labelled them “ethnic cleansing”; and
    
  • In this latest report for the year 2012, he has concentrated on two subjects:
    

  – Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners which, he concludes, is so bad as to warrant investigation by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It should be noted that Israel does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ. However, condemnation by this organization would, within the context of growing awareness of Zionist crimes, help further educate public opinion.

  – Falk documents the assistance given to Israel’s expansion of colonies on the Palestinian West Bank by a number of multinational corporations, including Motorola, Hewlett-Packard and Caterpillar Inc. This assistance may be profitable, but it is also manifestly illegal. The chief executives and board members of these companies stand in violation of international laws, including provisions of the Geneva Conventions. Since no nation, nor the UN itself, seems ready to prosecute them, Professor Falk has recommended a boycott of the guilty firms “in an effort to take infractions of international law seriously”.

  Reactions

  In a sane world this work would make Richard Falk a universally acclaimed defender of justice. But ours is not a sane world. And so you get the following sort of responses from both Israel and its supporters:

  Karaen Peretz, the spokeswomen for the Israeli Mission at the United Nations, found Professor Falk’s latest report “grossly biased”. This is a sort of response used by someone who cannot dispute the evidence and so must resort to attacking the character of the one presenting the evidence. Peretz also asserted that “Israel is deeply committed to advancing human rights and firmly believes that this cause will be better served without Falk and his distasteful sideshow. While he spends pages attacking Israel, Falk fails to mention even once the horrific human rights violations and ongoing terrorist attacks by Hamas.”

  Actually, this is not true. Back in 2008 Falk requested that his mandate from the UN Human Rights Council be extended to cover infringements of human rights by Palestinian governments just so he would not be seen as partisan. Subsequently, Mahmoud Abbas’s pseudo Palestinian Authority called for Falk’s resignation. In this job, you just can’t win.

  In any case, Falk’s documenting of Israel’s crimes puts the lie to Peretz’s claim that Israel is “deeply committed to advancing human rights” and that documentation cannot be dismissed as a “sideshow”. Relative to 64 years of ethnic cleansing, it is the militarily insignificant missiles out of Gaza that are the “sideshow”. And, can we honestly assume that Ms Peretz’s attitude towards Professor Falk would turn for the better if in this report he had mentioned Hamas “even once”?

  Then there is United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice. She echoed Peretz by describing Falk as being “highly biased”. Well, what sort of attitude is one suppose to have toward overwhelming evidence persisting over many years? Isn’t one supposed to be “biased” in favour of such evidence? To ignore it doesn’t make you balanced or fair. It makes you either corrupt or in a deep state of denial.

  Ms Rice goes on to say that “Mr Falk’s recommendations do nothing to further a peaceful settlement … and indeed poison the environment for peace”. These are pretty strong words, but if considered critically they make little sense.

  First of all, Falk’s mandate requires him to reveal the facts about human rights violations in the Palestinian territories. It makes no reference to “furthering a peaceful settlement”. That is what the US government claims to be doing. And its record in this regard is pitiful.

  Second, just why should conclusively documenting practices that may well be standing in the way of a settlement, be equated with “poisoning the environment for peace”? That doesn’t add up at all.

  There are many other spokespeople who have reacted negatively to Falk’s latest report, ranging from the Canada’s foreign affairs minister to representatives of the companies caught on the wrong side of the law. And, remarkably, they all sing the same song: Falk is biased, ad nauseum. They can do no better because they cannot refute the professor”s evidence. Thus, all of these well positioned, well paid representatives of nations and multinational businesses are reduced to sounding like lawyers defending the mafia.

  Conclusion

  Professor Falk’s experience should serve as a warning to both those who would, on the one hand, make a career out of being a spokespersons for governments or companies, and on the other, those who would dedicate themselves to “speaking truth to power”. Taking on the role of the former is the equivalent of selling your soul to leadership whose sense of right and wrong goes no further than their own local interests. Taking on the role of the latter is to face seemingly endless frustration for, as Noam Chomsky once noted, power already knows the truth and doesn’t care one jot for it.

  Yet, for those who would travel down this latter road, Richard Falk is as good a role model as can be found. Having dedicated himself to the role of truth teller he is to be commended for his devotion to justice and sheer durability. He is a hero who, hopefully, will have his praises sung long after Ms Peretz and Ms Rice are deservedly forgotten.

Perhaps true perhaps not but Fitrakis is a proven xxxx and the evidence indicates "Solamere Capital Partners...[has NO] connection to the manufacture and distribution of voting machines. // END COLBY

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Solamere Capital Partners issue is purposeful obfuscation and confusion by Colby.

Romney CLAN/Friends into electronic voting.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Late last month, Gerry Bello and Bob Fitrakis at FreePress.org broke the story of the Mitt Romney/Bain Capital investment team involved in H.I.G. Capital which, in July of 2011, completed a "strategic investment" to take over a fair share of the Austin-based e-voting machine company Hart Intercivic. (BRADBLOG)

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBV-AntiTrust-Letter.pdf SEE PAGES 3-4 On Hart Intercivic

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

BLACKBOXVOTING

- COLORADO SETS THE STAGE FOR A BOGUS ELECTION -

...

Colorado election integrity and transparency is now officially out the window, with a series of corruption protection rules and new laws.

1. Let's begin with the unflappable Donetta Davidson, who collaborated with convicted embezzler Jeffrey Dean(1) to remove voter privacy, through a contract specification that required him to redo his absentee mail software in order to embed a method to tie voted ballots to the voters. This shifty business, which now includes all absentee ballots cast on Hart eSlate machines, has led to a blockade on ALL Colorado election accounting records (see #4, below).

2. Next, in a move that has most of us scratching our heads, Colorado Sec. State Gessler proposed new rules in December 2011 to remove requirements for continuous video surveillance.(2) Though billed as "cost saving," note that most video surveillance nowadays is simply piped into digital files stored on a Web site. Since cameras are already installed, there is no significant cost savings in allowing non-continuous surveillance.

3. Sec. State Gessler also decided to reduce the number of seals on voting machines,(2) to the chagrin of election integrity groups like Voter Action, whose investigations and litigation demonstrated vulnerabilities requiring the seals in the first place. The "cost savings" in this measure can be counted in pennies.

4. A number of protective accounting measures crucial for evaluating election tampering have been taken off the table though a new law to block election-related public records examination.

Donetta Davidson led the lobbying for this law. Davidson had become a commissioner of the U.S. Election Assistence Commission, then took a step down to take over the Colorado Clerks Association. In this capacity she led a fight to block the media and citizens from examining the ballots. And no wonder: She knew that due to changes made under her administration, private companies had marks embedded on the ballots enabling them to harvest data tying votes to voters.

Thanks to a lawsuit by Colorado citizen Marilyn Marks, of The Citizen Center, sponsored and assisted by Black Box Voting, the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed right to examine ballots. Marks was shocked when she discovered that identifying marks on the ballots allowed her to immediately associate every voted ballot with the voter who cast it. Marks, The Citizen Center, (and Black Box Voting) are now involved in litigation to permanently prohibit this harvesting of personal political information. In the interim, Sec. State Gessler has required that the identifiers be removed for November 2012 only.

With ballot examination affirmed to be in the public domain, Davidson's next move was to block ballot examination until after all remedies had expired. Using her clout, she lobbied successfully for the removal of ballots -- AND OTHER CRUCIAL ELECTION RECORDS, SUCH AS POLL LISTS -- from any access by election watchdogs until 45 days after the election.(3)

One telltale sign of election tampering is when thousands more votes than voters show up. But in Colorado, neither the media nor the public will be allowed to examine the poll lists or the list of names for voters said to have voted absentee, until too late to do anything about discrepancies.

5. And then there is the matter of alleged Romney ties to the second-biggest voting machine manufacturer in America. These connections are being minimized by Internet outlets like Snopes, but the straight truth is that Hart Intercivic, the firm that supplies two-thirds of Colorado counties with their voting machines, is now owned by a spin-off of Bain & Company (H.I.G. Capital).(4)

A majority of Hart's directors are now H.I.G. guys, and the directors of H.I.G. are Romney bundlers and donors who don't hedge their bets by donating to any other presidential candidate.

This isn't the first time Romney has had his buddies in charge of crucial election processes this year. Some weeks after the misreported figures in the Iowa caucus, which incorrectly cited Romney as the winner, Black Box Voting uncovered that Romney staffers had been brought in to run the Iowa Caucus, and the Nevada Caucus too. Besides heading Romney campaign functions, these guys were associated with an odious Colorado political firm which narrowly escaped prosecution for maliciously misleading political ads.(5)

And the Romney affiliation with Hart Intercivic doesn't rule out his buddies -- or Obama's buddies -- or George Soros -- or the Chinese, for that matter -- owning the other companies. Election Systems & Software (ES&S) does not reveal who its owners are, and we don't know who owns Dominion either. ES&S directly handles voting machines in three Colorado counties; it co-produces elections on the old Diebold equipment with Dominion, with ES&S supplying technicians in some U.S. locations and Dominion in others. Dominion owns Sequoia Voting Systems (or does it? No one seems to be quite sure...), used in large metro Denver County and in Pueblo.(6) Confused? American elections are now so far removed from the hands of the people that self-governance is just a memory.

6. Romney's business buddies owning Colorado's main voting machine company demonstrates, at the very least, an appearance of impropriety, but it carries with it something more: Actual opportunity to alter results.

Unlike most Diebold voting machine locations, whose county technicians set up each election using voting company software, Hart has its customers send files directly to Texas, where its programmers and technicians have their way with the files, sending them back to the counties to put in their voting machines. This centralized control point does in fact enable tampering with results from a remote location. Paper ballots? Well, not all Colorado counties even have them, but thanks to Donetta Davidson and her cronies, they are off limits for human examination and will be interpreted only by the Hart machines.

The Hart system has built-in secret functions in its system, discovered by researchers in the Everest Study commissioned by then-Ohio Sec. State Jennifer Bruner. "Undocumented functions" are accessed through the registry, geek territory for most of us but accessible by any administrator. Voting systems are supposed to be certified and they are not supposed to contain "undocumented functions" accessible through sophisticated built-in back doors into the registry. These are certainly not accidental and not even the researchers for the EVEREST study were able to determine what these functions do.(7)

7. Loosey-goosey absentee system combines with obstruction of observation: Half of all ballots in Colorado are likely to be cast absentee, due to the implementation of not only no-fault absentee, but active promotion of "permanent" absentee status by Donetta Davidson's Colorado Clerks Assocation. With "permanent absentee" they send ballots even if they were not requested, and following a tussle, they also send ballots to people who didn't request them who haven't voted for years. Seems like a prescription for insider-driven absentee fraud (where an elections worker exploits names of inactive voters to insert ballots into the pool).

It also seems like it would at least be a good idea to allow extra careful observation of the whole absentee process, to authenticate the ID numbers of voters in whose name ballots are being cast.

Unfortunately, this is not the case.

"We used to stand beside the workers and look to see if the person reading an ID number and the person typing the ID number into the system were doing it properly," [Mary] Eberle said. [Eberle was a watcher for the American Constitution Party who is also a member of the watchdog group Citizen Center] "We could see how well they matched the signatures on a ballot envelope with the voter signature on file in [the state's registered voter database]. Well, we can't do that anymore..." (8)

According to The Colorado Independent: Marty Neilson, Republican Party election watcher, walked out of the Boulder County Clerk's building in disgust as workers there tabulated primary voting results the last week of June. Neilson said she couldn't see anything of substance and felt like she was participating in a sham exercise in oversight.

"[Clerk Hillary Hall] kept us behind [solid] walls and behind glass walls," Neilson told the Colorado Independent. "We are there to view the whole process, which is what the statutes say we're supposed to do, from the time the [election workers] get the ballots to the time they verify the signatures and then count the votes. But it was a charade. I left because why stay? There was no reason to be there."

* * * * *

The core of a true democratic system is the concept of self-governance. If the public is not allowed to see and authenticate essential parts of the election (who can vote - voter list; who did vote - poll lists; the counting of the vote; and chain of custody) -- if the public is left standing in the dark while insiders control the levers of operation and accounting, you don't have self-government at all.

What you are left with is the government choosing itself.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES

(1) Jeff Dean involvement in vote by mail software: http://www.bbvforums...0328/81241.html

Colorado demand to tie votes to voters:

(full transcript: http://www.blackboxv...4kim-v-dean.pdf - 1,007 KB) ; Page 19: ..."okay, if this voter showed up in the subsequent upload, then I need to ... tell them ... what ballot number he was assigned so they can pull it [the voted ballot] back out. It was a fundamental change in the way the program worked. Q When you say Colorado was told that, do you know who told them that the program was capable of doing that?

A Jeff [Dean]

More: http://www.bbvforums.../133/80503.html

(2) Denver Post; Posted: 12/07/2011 02:19:33 PM MST; Updated: 12/07/2011 03:52:07 PM MST; By Sara Burnett

http://www.denverpos...ews/ci_19490338

"Among the changes being considered:

- Eliminate the requirement that video security surveillance of areas where election software is used be "continuous." Video surveillance is required for 60 days prior and 30 days after an election.

- Eliminate requirement that a county clerk or election judge who suspects tampering report it to the Secretary of State. Instead, such investigations would be handled at the county level.

- Reduce the number of tamper-proof seals that must be placed on seams of cases that hold the equipment's electronic components.

(3) New law to restrict access to election records http://www.centerpos...2&story_id=1701

(4) Romney ties to Hart Intercivic: http://truth-out.org...own-your-e-vote

(5) Former Romney staffers run Iowa, Nevada caucuses: http://www.bbvforums...es/8/81900.html

(6) Map of voting machines in Colorado: http://www.verifiedvoting.org

(7) Hart use of registry for undocumented functions: http://www.bbvdocs.o...VEREST-Hart.pdf

"18.3.2 Windows Registry Misuse

The Windows registry is a operating system service that maintains configuration parameters for applications installed on the computer. The Hart system makes extensive use of the registry to enable/disable features of the system. While in general the use of the registry is not a problem, Hart uses it to enable critical functions and security sensitive operations. Issues arise because anyone with the appropriate privileges on the computer can read and change the registry. Thus an attacker without any Hart system passwords or hardware tokens can affect the security and behavior of the system.

"...An interesting characteristic of the registry use in the Hart software is that it (generally) periodically checks registry entries, rather that just checking them at start-up. This has the consequence that triggered features can be turned on and off without restarting the software.

"We found references to many dozens or more of registry entries used by the Hart EMS applications. We were only able to investigate a small number of these. The vast majority of registry entries are undocumented, and their purpose is often unclear.

(8) Blocking meaningful observation of absentee processing: http://coloradoindep...hor/johntomasic

The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody.

#####################

For full map of voting systems in USA by vendor, see page 3 of this document:

http://www.blackboxv...rust-Letter.pdf

The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody.

LOOKS LIKE HOLE ,NOT DEBRIS AREA (Gaal)

http://www.whale.to/...ding6cnncol.jpg (after clicking, click again to enlarge)

CRATER EMPTY DEBRIS UP AND OUTWARD (an explosion) (Jack White)

DEATHANDTAXES BLOG

There was a pre-9/11 military intelligence program called “Able Danger” in Afghanistan, which Shaffer served in as an intelligence agency officer. Shaffer and other witnesses involved allege that this program uncovered information about Atta as a potential security threat. But most importantly, it was a program which was left out of the 9/11 commission report in 2004.

Shaffer had reported Atta as a potential threat to Dr. Philip Zelikow, the then executive director of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, and Zelikow had expressed concern while they were still abroad. But back in the States and after the attacks, Zelikow told Shaffer “We don’t need you to come in. We have all the information on ‘Able Danger’ we need. Thank you anyway.”

The “Able Danger” information was left out of the 9/11 reports, and the evidence is has been bought (with nearly $50,000 in tax dollars) and torched.

+++++++++++++++++ Booklist

A nonfiction book that frequently reads like an adventure novel, this account of the author’s intelligence operations in post-9/11 Afghanistan should definitely strike a chord with readers. Shaffer was an intelligence operative from an early age, joining army counterintelligence in the early 1980s at the age of 19. By 1991, he was running HUMINT, the army’s clandestine human-intelligence program. Prior to 2001, he was working on an operation called Able Danger, which, according Shaffer, uncovered some of the 9/11 terrorists a full year before the attacks, although—again, according to Shaffer—the government blocked attempts to act upon the information. He saw the same sort of thing happen again in Afghanistan, when red tape and inept policies hindered efforts to fight the Taliban. This is almost two books in one: a rousing chronicle of the author’s experiences on foreign soil and an examination of a bloated bureaucracy that is in desperate need of retooling. Shaffer adopts a mostly objective tone, although there are moments when his personal views sneak through (the phrase “Bush administration lunacy,” for example). Although no coauthor is listed, the book reads like it was transcribed from taped interviews (see the occasional oddly constructed paragraph where it looks like someone stuck in parenthetical explanations of things the author was saying). All in all, a fascinating, eye-opening book. --David Pitt

_{Now we have CIA arming FSA in a a non-MSM limited hangout. So whats the big deal ?? Cause Libya hub-hub leads to AQ rat lines to Syria ( pointed out in this thread). So the politics of Libya hubbub is a cover for CIA/AQ connections in Syria. As we speak State Dept is pulling away from current Anti -Assad Syrian movement. If however this leaves AQ in charge in Syria and Romney wins we have the greatist of all political charges....who lost China ?,who lost Cuba ? ,who lost Vietnam ?,who lost Iran ? ..WHO LOST SYRIA ???? ...the muslim from Africa who hates America}

_#########

_{"tonegotiate a weapons transfer in an effort to get SA-7 missiles out of the hands of Libya-based extremists." (to give to AQ in Syria,GAAL IMHO)}

WHO DO YOU THINK OWNS THE REGIONAL BANKS THAT CONTROL FED ??

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world

http://educationforu...ey

The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy. Superconnected companies are red, very connected companies are yellow. The size of the dot represents revenue. [click on above link]

====================

GRIFFIN

The theory that Kennedy was getting ready to issue Silver Certificates is without evidence or logic.

The CCLI makes this additional claim in its report:

The Christian Common Law Institute has exhaustively researched this matter through the Federal Register and Library of Congress. We can now safely conclude that this Executive Order has never been repealed, amended, or superseded by any subsequent Executive Order. In simple terms, it is still valid.

This is not supported by the facts. The power granted to the Secretary of Treasury to issue Silver Certificates was rescinded on September 9, 1987, by Executive Order 12608, signed by President Reagan. The official purpose of the Order was stated as "Elimination of unnecessary Executive orders and technical amendments to others." It did not affect EO 11110 directly but did affect the parent EO 10289 - along with 62 other executive orders. That is how paragraph (j) was amended to remove the power in question. This Order can be found in its entirety in the Federal Register 52 FR 34617.

REAGAN got rid of silver certificates

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

COLBY AND ROMNEY AGREE THAT THE FEDERAL RESERVE IS GOOD !!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8rf0x0bzmg&feature=player_embedded

Shortly after the first printing, the Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency saw copies of the book and insisted on censoring passages they deemed sensitive.Operation Dark Heart wiki

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

NSA/Pentagon Want to Suppress Lt. Col Anthony Shaffer's Book "Operation Dark Heart"

By Truth Excavator

September 12, 2010 at 00:37:54

Scott Shane of the New York Times reports:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BprbL4fT3CI&feature=player_embedded
  
• video given before
  
• explosion in WTC 6 before towers fell
  
• video 4:17 customs vault looted before TOWERS FELL,found empty ,open
  
• Colby photo post # 7 doesnt support his idea in a conclusive manner. Debris fell on pre-exploded building WTC 6.
  
• ########### BOYLLYN ##################
  
• Timing confirmed
  I contacted the archives of CNN during the summer of 2002 to inquire about the precise time of their video footage of a huge dust cloud coming from a mysterious blast that appeared to have occurred at the U.S. Customs House (WTC 6) at about 9:03 a.m. -- the same minute that the second plane struck the South Tower on 9-11. The raw video material has precise time markings, which they provided.
  As I reported in 2002, CNN confirmed that the mysterious blast had occurred at precisely the same moment that the second plane struck the South Tower:
  I contacted CNN to determine exactly when the footage was filmed. CNN's Public Affairs Department confirmed that the explosion shown in the footage occurred immediately after the second plane had crashed into the South Tower. When asked if the footage was taken at 9:04 a.m., the CNN archivist who could not give his last name, said, "That's correct." When asked if CNN could offer any explanation about what might have caused the blast that clearly reached 550 feet, soaring higher than the 47-story WTC 7 in the foreground, the archivist said, "We can't figure it out."
  The U.S. Customs House building, also known as WTC 6, primarily housed the offices of some 760 employees of the Customs Service, a department of the U.S. Treasury. A number of other federal agencies reportedly had offices in the building, including the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Labor, and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms, although the agencies failed to return calls about the matter. A spokesman for the Export-Import Bank of the U.S., which had an office with 4 employees on the 6th floor of the Customs House did confirm the time of the explosion and said the employees had survived and been relocated to another location in the city. One private company, Eastco Building Services, Inc., reportedly leased space in the building.
  Some 800 workers from WTC 6 were safely evacuated within 12 minutes of the first plane hitting the North Tower at about 8:46 a.m., according to a Washington Post article by Stephen Barr, "Knowing the Drill Saved Lives at New York's Customs House" dated 18 September 2001. The Barr piece is the only known article published about WTC 6, however, Barr failed to mention the explosion that apparently devastated the building just minutes after the workers had escaped with their lives.
  

^{The Fed was given the authority to conduct the nation’s monetary policy with the power to control the supply and price of money. It has three ways to do it – through open market operations, the discount rate it charges member banks, and the reserve requirement percentage of member banks assets it requires them to hold and not loan out. The Board of Governors is responsible for handling the discount rate and reserve requirements while the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is in charge of the open market operations of buying or selling bonds explained further below. Using these tools, the Fed is able to influence the supply and demand for money and thus directly control the federal funds short-term rate that’s always fixed unless the Fed wishes to raise or lower it. Longer rates are controlled by the powerful institutional traders in the bond market.}

^{The FOMC and How It Works}

^{The Federal Open Market Committee is really key to the whole process of money creation or contraction. It consists of 12 members – seven members of the Board of Fed Governors, the president of the New York Fed Bank (the most important one of all) and four of the remaining 11 Reserve Bank presidents who serve one year terms on a rotating basis. The FOMC holds eight regularly scheduled meetings a year to assess economic conditions and decide how loose or tight it wants monetary policy to be to further its stated goal of sustainable economic growth and price stability.}

^{The FOMC literally has the power to create money out of nothing. It does it in a four step process:}

^{Step 1 – The FOMC first approves the purchase of US government bonds on the open market.}

^{Step 2 – The New York Fed bank buys them from sellers (financial markets always have an equal number of buyers and sellers).}

^{Step 3 – The Fed pays for its purchases with electronic credits to the sellers’ banks, which, in turn, credit the sellers’ bank accounts. These credits are literally created out of nothing.}

^{Step 4 – The banks receiving the credits can then use them as reserves to enable them to loan out as much as 10 times their amount (if their reserve requirement is 10%) through the magic (only banks have) of fractional reserve banking and, of course, collect interest on all of it. What a business, and it’s all legal. Imagine how rich we might all be if we as private individuals could do the same thing. Borrow a million from the Fed and like magic it becomes 10 times as much, and we get to collect interest on all but the 10% of it we must hold in reserve. This is the magic of fractional reserve banking money creation and explains how powerful an economic stimulus it is when the Fed wants to enhance economic growth.}

^{When the Fed wishes to contract the economy by reducing the money supply, it simply reverses the above process. Instead of buying bonds, it sells them so that money moves out of the buyers’ bank accounts instead of into them. Bank loans must then be reduced by 10 times if the reserve requirement is 10%.}

^{How the Fed Harms the Public Interest}

^{The Federal Reserve System exists only to serve its owners and member banks and in doing so is hostile to the public interest. That’s because it’s a banking cartel with the power to restrict competition for greater profits gained at our expense. It goes from our pockets to theirs, and the public loses in at least four ways:}

^{One – Through the invisible tax of inflation that results from the dilution of purchasing power caused by newly created money entering the system reducing the value of dollars already there. The Greenspan Fed was especially expansive, never was held to account for its excess and was able to pass a serious problem it created on to a future Fed chairman and society to deal with. The man we now lionize as a monetary magician began sensibly. From 1982, before he arrived in 1987, until 1992, the money supply increased on average by 8% a year. But from 1992 – 2002, the printing press worked overtime in sync with the deregulation and growth of global markets expanding the currency by more than 12% a year. It became even more extreme post 9/11 and since 2002 grew at a 15% rate. It now has more than doubled in less than a decade. It appears that the new Fed chairman has taken note and has begun reducing the rate of money expansion as he continues raising the federal funds rate to whatever level he has in mind.}

^{Currency traders as well apparently have taken note of the rate of money supply expansion overall. Except for a respite in 2005, it’s quite likely the dollar weakness since 2002 is the result of the excess amount of them created for the Bush administration’s profligate spending to fund its endless wars and reckless tax cuts for the rich. The problem is further compounded as from 1964 to the present debt service has grown from 9% to 16.5% of the federal budget and rising; the current account deficit has gone from a 1% surplus to an almost 7% deficit; and federal indebtedness has grown by 40% just since 2001 and financed in large part by “the kindness of (foreign) strangers” that may be growing restive. Furthermore, since March, 2006, the Fed stopped publishing the M-3 aggregate of the total amount of dollars in circulation. With that transparency gone, big buyers of US Treasuries now have to calculate the value of the dollar based on speculation and uncertainty rather than hard data – not a way to inspire trust in the financial markets that function best in an atmosphere of openness and clarity.}

^{Two – The public also loses because the banking cartel is able to practice usury – from it’s power over a flexible currency to artificially move rates up or down to any level it chooses which many small lenders in a truly free and open market can’t do. In addition, the cartel’s market dominance forces most borrowers (especially smaller ones less able to issue their own debt instruments) to come to them for loans which it’s then able to make using what should be the peoples’ money available to them at the lowest possible cost from many highly government regulated small lenders competing for customers.}

^{Three - Through the taxes, we, the public, must pay to cover the interest on the huge national debt (now over $8.4 trillion) accumulated from the money the Fed printed and loaned to the government. As mentioned earlier, that now totals an annualized amount exceeding two-thirds of a trillion dollars and increasing daily. It’s made the bankers rich, ordinary people poorer, and the public none the wiser it’s been fleeced big time.}

^{Four - Compounding the above abuse, the cartel is able to get the public to bail out the system with more of its tax dollars. It happens whenever any of the too-big-to-fail banks need financial help to survive. The same is true for big corporations like Chrysler or Lockheed, large investment firms or hedge funds like Long-Term Capital Management or even countries like Mexico. It’s also true when a single bank goes out of business and depositors must be compensated or more seriously in the wake of a systemic financial meltdown like the one that wiped out many savings and loan banks in the 1980s. Whether it’s a single bank or many dozens at a time, public tax dollars are used to save the system or just pick up the tab to repay depositors insured against losses through government insurance protection up to a stipulated amount per account.}

^{How Would Adam Smith Have Reacted to the Federal Reserve System}

^{This concentration of banking cartel wealth and power is the opposite of what Adam Smith, the ideological godfather of free market capitalism, advocated in his writings including his seminal work The Wealth of Nations. Smith wrote about an “invisible hand” that he said worked best in a free market with many small businesses competing locally against each other. He strongly opposed the concentrated mercantilism of his day (what there was of it) which now would be the equivalent of today’s giant transnational corporations and the banking cartel with the power to restrict competition, maintain higher prices than otherwise possible and earn greater profits as a result at the public’s expense.}

^{The kind of banking cartel that exists today is precisely what Smith would have condemned. But having a central bank is not in itself a bad thing provided the bank is government owned, controlled and operated for the public welfare. There’s only a problem when through subterfuge the bank is set up to appear government owned and run but is, in fact, for private profit the way ours is and most others as well. And in the US, to make the arrangement work, a mostly publicly appointed governing authority runs the System acting as a shill for its private for-profit banking cartel members that wanted it in the first place and got a corrupted Congress to give it to them. To work, the cartel needs the cover it gets from its partnership with government, but it’s through that arrangement that it harms the public interest for its own private gain.}

^{And that goes to the heart of the problem: that the Congress elected to serve the people instead betrayed them by creating an all-powerful banking cartel and gave it the authority to practice fractional reserve banking with the power to get free money by creating it out of nothing. It then allowed its members a near-monopoly right to set the rates of interest they wish to charge borrowers. The whole process amounts to a legally sanctioned heist by the powerful banks working in league with government for its own gain. It’s also part of a more extensive government arranged process to transfer wealth from the people to the pockets of large corporations and the rich and doing it while those being harmed are unaware it’s even happening.}

^{Another Way the Federal Reserve System Harms the Public}

^{The Fed harms the public welfare in one other important way, and again most people are none the wiser about it. Supposedly the Federal Reserve System was established to stabilize the economy, smooth out the business cycle, maintain a healthy rate of sustainable growth while holding prices steady and benefitting everyone. So how well has it done its job? Since its creation in 1913, and with them in charge, we had the crashes of 1921 and the most important and remembered one in 1929. That was followed by The Great Depression that lasted until the onset of WW II that noted conservative economist Milton Friedman explained was caused and exacerbated because the Federal Reserve oddly decided to reduce the money supply at a time of economic contraction instead of increasing it. We then had recessions in 1953, 1957, 1969, 1975, 1981, 1990 and 2001. We also had inflation beginning in the 1960s which became quite severe through much of the 1970s and early 1980s. And we had a major banking crisis in the 1980s at which time more banks and savings and loan associations failed than ever before in our history. It happened in the wake of financial market deregulation when banks were allowed to pursue their own interests without government oversight to check their willingness to assume excess risk or stop them from trying to get away with deliberate fraud.}

^{Along with the economic stability the Fed never achieved, we’ve also had soaring consumer debt; record high federal budget and trade deficits; a high level of personal bankruptcies and rising mortgage loan delinquencies; interest on a mounting national debt that’s a large and rising percentage of the federal budget; the loss of our manufacturing base and it’s high-paying jobs with good benefits because they’re being exported to low wage countries; an economy in which services now account for nearly 80% of all business that provide mostly lower paying, less skilled jobs with few or no benefits; and a widening income and wealth gap that continues to harm lower and middle income earners to benefit the rich and well-off privileged few and a government that encourages it.}

^{Sum it all up and the conclusion is clear. The one thing the Fed failed to accomplish above all else was what it was established to do in the first place. But it’s much worse than that if we understand a cartel’s real motives. It’s not to serve the public interest. It’s to abuse it because that’s how it benefits most. It’s able to do it with its legally sanctioned concentrated power and a friendly government in league with it as partners or facilitators. It’s from that cozy hidden from view arrangement that it’s able to get away with the grandest of grand thefts.}

^{A Needed Solution to A Huge Problem}

^{From the information presented above, it’s clear that the Federal Reserve System was established through stealth and deceit by a handful of corrupted politicians in service to their powerful banking and Wall Street allies. They did it to defraud the public and without them being any the wiser about what, in fact, had been done or how harmful it was to be to their welfare and interests. Those in the Congress and President Wilson (a man trained in the law, one-time practicing attorney, former esteemed academic and president of Princeton University) either knew or should have known that the act he and they approved establishing the Fed was in direct violation of the Constitution they were sworn to uphold. They didn’t, they broke the law, and the public paid dearly for their crime ever since to this day.}

^{So what recourse is left, and can people be mobilized to pursue it. There’s only one sensible and just solution to undo the damage done to so many for so long – abolish the Federal Reserve System and restore the power it now has to the federal government working for the public welfare. Take it back from the powerful banking cartel working against it and never allow it to be in its hands again. That alone is the only way. The great German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht would have agreed and once said it was “easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up (one).”}

^{Freeing us from the these powerful “Money Changers” would have enormous benefits for everyone. It would establish a prudent policy of money creation that would minimize our most unfair tax – inflation which is caused by private for-profit bankers manipulating the nation’s money supply to enhance their profits. It would stabilize the economy and smooth out the extremes in the business cycle exacerbated by the cartel working for its benefit and against ours. It would lower the cost of money for borrowers because it would end the monopoly power the cartel now has to set the rates it chooses by opening the market to more competition. It would reduce the growing and oppressive national debt freed eventually from the extra money supply growth needed to pay it off. It would lower the public’s tax burden as less revenue would be needed for debt service. It would be a momentous step toward reducing and hopefully one day eliminating the overwhelming power of all predatory corporate giants preying on us so they can grow and prosper. It might even discourage wars which are only fought for wealth and power – never for glory or to make the world safe for democracy or other false motives. Without a powerful corporate banking cartel and other industry giants that feed on the human misery they create, there would be less of a reason to pursue any. Try to imagine that kind of world and a government working for the public welfare instead of harming it as it now must do in service to capital. That world is possible, and responsible people need to work for it as the one we now have has failed and must be changed before it’s too late.}

^{A View of the World Created by the Interests of Capital and Our Government That Supports It}

^{It’s the ugly, corrupted world of neoliberal “free market” capitalism controlled by giant corporations; that benefits the privileged few alone causing great human misery and despair; a despotic world that can’t endure nor must we allow it to much longer; one with endless wars for power and profit; where people are commodities to be used as needed and discarded like trash when they’re not; with no concern for preserving an ecology able to sustain us and won’t much longer because we’re destroying it and ourselves for profit; where essential human needs don’t matter under an economic model only valuing private gain; where democracy is incompatible with predatory capitalism; one no one should want to live in or ever have to; one we must change or perish. In the language of capital, that’s the bottom line. Only a mass movement of committed people can change that world. It must or we all will.}

^{Unless we can move from our failed economic model to a better alternative, it will end on its own one day by one means or other. But it may be a denouement no one would wish for – it’s own self-destruction taking all else with it either by nuclear holocaust or an environment so inhospitable it won’t support our ability to live in it. Our only chance is to work for change while there’s still time.}

^{A Vision of A Different Kind of World}

^{History proves a better world is possible when committed people work hard enough for it. It’s how slavery was ended; workers won the right to organize and bargain collectively; women gained equal suffrage to men, control of their own bodies, and more rights and status in the work force; blacks and other minorities won important civil rights; and politicians once enacted important social legislation if only out of fear of what might happen if they didn’t.}

^{Thomas Jefferson explained the “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” It’s also the price to keep our hard won social gains. For the past generation those gains have eroded while we weren’t paying attention and only mass people action can regain them. The goal should be for a world of caring and sharing; where peoples’ lives improve because we all work together for it; one at peace and not with endless wars to benefit the rich and powerful at our expense; where all essential human needs are met because governments work for the common good to assure it; with real participatory democracy where the public and elected officials work together to keep it strong and vibrant; with no oppressive corporate giants or banking cartels because the law won’t allow any; where ecological nurturing and preservation are central; with clean air, water and soil and food that’s fit and safe to eat; a much simpler world, more locally based than today’s where notions like globalization aren’t even in the vocabulary; one based on social equity and justice for all with government, law enforcement and the courts working to assure it stays that way; one we all want to live in and hope some day we can; one we want to pass on to future generations; one we can’t afford not to have because the alternative may be no world at all.}

^{We may now be at a key watershed moment where our fate hangs in the balance. We can either work together for a better, sustainable world or likely become the first species in it ever to destroy itself. If it happens, we’ll likely take most others with us and not leave much behind for the few hearty ones that remain. We no longer have the luxury of debate for the kind of world we need to survive. The giant banks and corporations won’t give it to us nor will a hostile government allied with them. It’s up to us to go for it or likely perish if we fail. A good beginning would be by driving the Federal Reserve “money changers” out of our temple and the corporate giants with them. A better world is possible if we remember and live by political theorist Antonio Gramsci’s inspirational words about “the optimism of the will.” With it, organized people can find a way to beat organized money.}

^{########################################################}

^{Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.}

WOW! NSA spying = Able Danger

In a moment of reflective clarity, it suddenly hit me why the public (and even private) investigations into the sudden disbanding of the Able Danger unit was so vehemently opposed by the Department of Defense: Able Danger was not really disbanded; it is still operating!

OK, to be less sensationalist, while the Able Danger unit itself was disbanded, the technology and practices of the unit were absorbed into the National Security Agency (NSA). There, the scope of operations was expanded to monitor not just foreign communications and public domain data, as Able Danger was said to have done, but also to monitor ALL communications within the US, as reported by whistleblowers within the NSA.

The investigation into the Able Danger unit of the past was stonewalled because it would inevitably lead to exposing the illegal activities being conducted today. I suspect hearings into Able Danger will not be opposed anymore, since NSA spying is already exposed.

Able Danger was a Defense Intelligence Agency operation that tracked Mohammed Atta and several other 9/11 conspirators in the years before the attack, revealed by (now muzzled) whistleblowers in late 2005. The best compilation of information about Able Danger is from History Commons at www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=ableDanger

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a participant in Able Danger, has a book "Operation Dark Heart: Spycraft and Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan -- and the Path to Victory." The Pentagon forced censorship of parts of it before it was published (since he had a security clearance that allowed for the censorship of his writing).

KOS BLOG

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

FOR THE RECORD

FTR #423 I’ve Got a Secret: Update on 9/11 and Related Subjects

Lis­ten:

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RealAu­dio

Bring­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion of 9/11 and related mat­ters up to date, this pro­gram takes its name from an old TV quiz show titled, “I’ve Got a Secret.” Begin­ning with con­fir­ma­tion of the direct White House role in facil­i­tat­ing the escape from the United States of mem­bers of the Saudi elite (includ­ing Bin Laden fam­ily mem­bers impli­cated in ter­ror­ist mat­ters), the broad­cast dis­cusses the many attempts by the Bush admin­is­tra­tion to sup­press infor­ma­tion about the 9/11 attacks. The well-publicized Bush admin­is­tra­tion sup­pres­sion of (a sec­tion of) a con­gres­sional report on the attacks has helped to obscure infor­ma­tion about a Saudi gov­ern­men­tal role in the attacks. Part of the alleged Saudi gov­ern­men­tal role (in the attacks) entails Saudi intel­li­gence oper­a­tives’ par­tic­i­pa­tion in the con­spir­acy. In addi­tion, Bush is cen­sor­ing infor­ma­tion about how much fore­warn­ing his admin­is­tra­tion had received about the attacks, as well as con­tin­ued sup­pres­sion of doc­u­men­ta­tion of ter­ror­ist fund­ing con­duits. Much of the sec­ond side of the pro­gram con­sists of an update of the Al Taqwa/Nada Man­age­ment con­nec­tions, includ­ing fur­ther infor­ma­tion about an Al Taqwa/Saddam Hus­sein link.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Excerpts from a Van­ity Fair arti­cle detail­ing the Bush efforts to evac­u­ate the Bin Ladens from the US; the descrip­tion fea­tures sec­tions of a very impor­tant Wall Street Jour­nal arti­cle that came out a week after the orig­i­nal broad­cast) that fur­ther doc­u­ments the Al Taqwa/Al Qaeda link; US cor­po­ra­tions’ smug­gling of high-tech equip­ment to Sad­dam Hus­sein through Ger­man and South Korean inter­me­di­aries; those inter­me­di­ary com­pa­nies’ use of the term “our com­mon enemy ” to refer to the United States; Al Taqwa links to a Saudi allegedly con­nected to Al Qaeda fund­ing; an Al Taqwa scheme to laun­der assets plun­dered from Kuwait in 1991; Al Gore’s attempts to pre­vail on the Saudis to stop fund­ing terrorism.

1. Updat­ing and devel­op­ing a topic dis­cussed in FTRs 337, 347, the broad­cast details the evac­u­a­tion from the United States of mem­bers of the Bin Laden fam­ily in the imme­di­ate after­math of 9/11. For the first time, it has been con­firmed that the upper ech­e­lons of the Bush admin­is­tra­tion were involved in the deci­sion to evac­u­ate the Bin Ladens at a time when the vast major­ity of Amer­i­cans could not fly.

(“White House Approved Depar­ture of Saudis After Sept. 11, Ex-Aide Says ” by Eric Licht­blau; The New York Times; 9/4/2003; p. A15.)

2.

(Idem.)

3. As will be dis­cussed below, at least two of the Bin Laden fam­ily evac­uees appear to be involved with the Al Qaeda milieu.

(Idem.)

4.

(Idem.)

5.

(Idem.)

6. Although it was not directly accessed in the orig­i­nal broad­cast, the Van­ity Fair arti­cle ref­er­enced in the above New York Times story is excerpted here for the lis­ten­ers’ scrutiny. Abdul­lah and Khalil Bin Laden were the two mem­bers of the Al Qaeda-linked fam­ily alluded to by Sen­a­tor Schumer.

(“Sav­ing the Saudis ” by Craig Unger; Van­ity Fair; October/2003; p. 165.)

7.

(Idem.)

8. Abdul­lah Bin Laden is linked to the WAMY, which in turn over­laps Al Qaeda, the GOP’s Repub­li­can eth­nic out­reach orga­ni­za­tion and the Al Taqwa milieu

(Ibid.; p. 175.)

9. In addi­tion, Khalil bin Laden has inter­ests in the tri-border area.

(Ibid.; p. 176.)

10.

(Idem.)

11. Among the points appar­ently con­tained in the deleted por­tion of the con­gres­sional report on the 9/11 attacks is infor­ma­tion impli­cat­ing the Saudi gov­ern­ment in the conspiracy.

(“Report Says Saudis Aided 9/11 Hijack­ers ” [Chron­i­cle News Ser­vices]; The San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle; 8/2/2003; p. A1.)

12. Bush him­self was respon­si­ble for the refusal to declas­sify the report.

( “Bush Refuses to Declas­sify Saudi Sec­tion of Report ” by David John­ston and Dou­glas Jehl; The New York Times; 7/30/2003; p. A1.)

13. Accord­ing to some ana­lysts, the clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion may impli­cate Saudi intel­li­gence oper­a­tives in the machi­na­tions in, and around, 9/11.

(“Report on 9/11 Sug­gests a Role by Saudi Spies ” by James Risen and David John­ston; The New York Times; 8/2/2003; p. 1.)

14.

(Idem.)

15. Beyond the 28 pages of clas­si­fied mate­r­ial in the con­gres­sional report on 9/11, the Bush admin­is­tra­tion is actively cov­er­ing up the extent to which it ignored intel­li­gence warn­ings fore­shad­ow­ing the attacks.

(“U.S. Clamps Secrecy on Warn­ings Before 9/11 ” Marie Cocco; News­day; 8/7/2003; p. 1.)

16.

(Idem.)

17.

(Idem.)

18. A recent Vil­lage Voice arti­cle high­lighted some of the warnings.

(“Bush’s 9–11 Secrets ” [ “Mondo Wash­ing­ton ”] by James Ridge­way; The Vil­lage Voice; 7/31/2003.)

19.

(Idem.)

20. Per­haps the most reveal­ing of the Bush administration’s attempts at play­ing “I’ve Got a Secret ” is its refusal to allow infor­ma­tion about the fund­ing sources of Al Qaeda into the pub­lic domain. It is the infor­ma­tion uncov­ered as a result of “Oper­a­tion Green Quest ” that con­nects the milieux of Al Taqwa, Al Qaeda, the GOP and ele­ments of the Under­ground Reich.

(“Gov’t Won’t Release Ter­ror Financ­ing List’ by Ken Guggen­heim [AP]; p. 1.)

21.

(Idem.)

22. Fur­ther under­scor­ing the Al Taqwa/Al Qaeda link dis­cussed above, a recent depo­si­tion by a for­mer FBI agent con­nects Youssef Nada and Ali Galeb Him­mat (of Al Taqwa) with alleged fund­ing of ter­ror­ists, includ­ing Al Qaeda.

(“Saudi-backed Char­i­ties ‘Aided ter­ror­ists”’ by Mar­i­anne Brun-Rovet and Edward Alden; The Finan­cial Times; 8/21/2003; p. 2.)

23.

(Idem.)

24.

(Idem.)

25. This descrip­tion fea­tures impor­tant sup­ple­men­tal infor­ma­tion from an arti­cle in The Wall Street Jour­nal that came out after the broad­cast was recorded. Fur­ther cement­ing the alle­ga­tions con­cern­ing Abdul­lah bin Laden and the milieus of Al Taqwa and Al Qaeda, the arti­cle sets forth appar­ent con­nec­tions between Mr. Biheiri and these same interests.

(“U.S. Details an Alleged Terror-Financing Web ” by Glenn R. Simp­son; Wall Street Jour­nal; 9/15/2003; p. A5.)

26.

(Idem.)

27. Among the fig­ures impli­cated in the web of intrigues dis­cussed above is Yaqub Mirza.

(Idem.)

28. Sup­ple­ment­ing infor­ma­tion pre­sented in FTRs 413, 417, the broad­cast sets forth doc­u­men­ta­tion of an alleged scheme on the part of Al Taqwa to laun­der assets seized by Sad­dam Hus­sein after his inva­sion of Kuwait.

(“Sad­dam Hus­sein Can Tap Bil­lions in Dol­lars, Gold, Dia­monds ” by Jay Bushin­sky; San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle; 8/16/2003; p. A7.)

29.

(Idem.)

30.

(Idem.)

31.

(Idem.)

32.