Steven Gaal

I normally agree with Taibbi but I don’t unquestioningly accept everything he says. You do know he is fervently anti-truther, don’t you? He cited few sources to support his claims about GS. In at least one case when he did he exaggerated the extent to which it supported his theory. Yes there was a chapter entitled John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Great Crash, 1929 titled "In Goldman Sachs We Trust," but only 5 of its 22 pages deal with the company. The notion that the famed economist blamed Goldman any more than other major firms seems to be an exaggeration. Likewise Taibbi produce little if any evidence they involved in any of the other “bubbles” more than other firms. But there’s a major difference between Taibbi and you he doesn’t direct an inordinate amount of attention to real or imagined villains from one specific ethic, racial or religious group. I already addressed the article in my previous post it only cited three men who currently hold positions of power who worked for GS: Karel van Miert – dead, his obit in the same paper labeled him the “Eurocrat who took on big business as Competition Commissioner” and indicated “When he left the Commission he joined the boards of 15 organisations across 10 industries, among them Anglo-American plc, Philips Lighting BV, Vivendi Universal, RWE, Agfa-Gevaert NV, and Goldman Sachs”. So GS was one of 15 companies whose boards he sat on AFTER holding a position of power. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/karel-van-miert-eurocrat-who-took-on-big-business-as-competition-commissioner-1743574.html Otmar Issing – Like van Miert he worked for numerous agencies and institutions over a long career and only started working for GS after serving in key positions https://www.ifk-cfs.de/fileadmin/downloads/Staff/President/20111021_CV_Issing_englisch.pdf?PHPSESSID=62864c2f957fdeff9d65cc3bc4fab3b5 Mario Draghi – see previous post Petros Christodoulou - see previous post Lucas Papadernos – never worked for GS, see previous post Antonio Borges (France) – uuh Portugal, but hey its hard to keep those Asian countries straight. EX-Director of the European Department of the International Monetary Fund, spent 8 years at GS serving as “Vice Chairman” of its international division. In addition to serving as a university professor and dean and working various government agencies: He was a board member of Citibank Portugal, Petrogal-Petroleos de Portugal, Vista Alegre Group, Paribas, Sonae and Cimpor-Cimentos de Portugal. He is currently on the Boards of Jerónimo Martins and Sonae.com and is a member of the Supervisory Board of CNP Assurances. He chairs the Audit Committees of Banco Santander Portugal and Banco Santander de Negocios Portugal. He is on the Advisory Boards of several European and US corporations and foundations and is Chairman of the European Corporate Governance Institute. http://www.ecgi.org/members_directory/member.php?member_id=5 Peter Sutherland – “Attorney General of Ireland in the 1980s and another former EU Competition Commissioner” was also involve in the WTO in the 1990s and served as its Director-General and “Chairman of the Advisory Council to the Director General of the World Trade Organisation that produced the Report on the Future of the World Trade Organisation published in 2005”. GS is hardly the only company is/was involved with and he only seems to have joined its board AFTER his government service. “He is non-executive Chairman of Goldman Sachs International (a registered UK broker-dealer, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs). Until June 2009 he was non-executive chairman of BP being replaced by Carl-Henric Svanberg formely chief executive officer of Ericsson. Sutherland was a director of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group until he was asked to leave the board when it had to be taken over by the UK government to avoid bankruptcy. He also formerly served on the board of ABB.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-6264091.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutherland#Attorney_General_and_politics ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVOoOVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV This man speaks of Brazil "castration" years ago...NOW EU castration led by.... The Goldman Saching of Europe Mike Carey I don't want to sound alarmist but it looks like Goldman Sachs has taken over Europe. The continent has succumbed to the dictates of global finance, there was no choice. The bankers are holding us all to ransom and have done since the beginning of the GFC in 2008. The German government's reaction to its disastrous bond auction a week or so ago, gives a big clue to the real multibillion dollar game being played out in boardrooms from New York to Frankfurt. The most powerful and resilient economy in Europe couldn't get a bid for 35% of its 10 year bonds on offer. Observers say it was a warning from bankers, on both sides of the Atlantic, do as we say or else! Germany, through its Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, had been at the forefront demanding that banks share any sovereign bailout losses that eventuate from the European Stability Mechanism, to be up and running next year. The failed German bond auction was the bank's curt reply and Schaeuble backed down. Right from the start of the European crisis, the banks have been pulling the strings. Remember when the former Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou announced a plebiscite, to get popular buy-in for his austerity plan and the markets went bananas and he was excoriated. The markets and the banks, not the Greek people, passed judgement and he had to go. Across the Ionian Sea, former Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi hadn't done enough to satisfy the self-serving screen jockeys and they turned their weapons, their bond traders, lap dog ratings agencies and share market speculators on Italy. Berlusconi was rumoured to be resigning and the bourse rallied. No, he wasn't going and it fell away again with a promise that it would rocket when he finally and inevitably bowed to massive financial pressure to resign. As night follows day, he was replaced by a euphemism, a technocrat. Nowhere was there much talk about voter's wishes or rights. All this might have been ameliorated if not avoided had the Obama Administration brought the bankers to heel three years ago by jailing a dozen or so, now it's too late! But of course that was never going to happen when the President's own economic team was drawn from or had strong links with Goldman Sachs. With Summers, Rubin, Geithner and Emanuel it was Wall St. on the Potomac. That's probably why, in 2008, Goldman Sachs was too big to prosecute. It received more subsidies and bailout funds than any other investment bank. How did Goldman Sachs thank the American people for their largesse? By using billions in taxpayer money to enrich itself and reward its top executives who received, it's reported, mind boggling wage increases and bonuses of $18 billion in 2009, $16 billion in 2010 and $10 billion in 2011. At the same time, Goldman Sachs offloaded billions in worthless securities helping destroy the global economy. The firm misled investors about the true nature of this worthless junk and hid the fact that it was betting against these same securities. In just one such deal Goldman Sachs is reported to have raked in $2 billion. Scroll back to 2002. Goldman Sachs covertly bought 2.3 billion Euros in Greek debt, converted it into yen and dollars, and then immediately sold it back to Greece at a supposed loss. Goldman Sachs had struck a secret deal with the then, free-market government to conceal its massive budget deficit. Goldman's confected loss was Greece's imaginary gain just to meet Europe's requirement that its deficit never surpass 3 % of GDP. Now, it's reported that Goldman made a $250 million fee on the deal and a motza on credit default swap insurance sold to Greek bond holders against the country going bust. Apparently this only became known to Prime Minister, George Papandreou and his Socialist government when they came into office and investors demanded monster interest rates to lend more money to roll over this debt. So who is going to save Europe, and by extension us? The new president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Mario Draghi knows the turf well. He was after all, the London based Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs International and a member of Goldman Sachs' Management Committee. Fronting the European Parliament's finance committee, he was quick to point out that between 2002 and 2005 his role did not involve selling financial instruments but was largely advisory. Mario Draghi has also held board level positions or higher at the World Bank, the Bank of Italy, the Bank for International Settlements, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank. He has emphasized many times that it's not the ECB's role to act as lender of last resort to countries but Draghi is perfectly happy to promise banks unlimited liquidity. While everybody was urging him to buy government bonds to steady the ship he stressed the ECB's bond buying would be limited and temporary. Indeed anything else would be illegal under European law. According to the November 28th Wall Street Journal, "The ECB has long worried that buying government bonds in big enough amounts to bring down countries' borrowing costs would make it easier for national politicians to delay the budget austerity and economic overhauls that are needed." So take your medicine, suckers! Mario Monti, Italy's new prime minister was appointed by the markets, not elected by the people. And guess what? Before that he was a member of Goldman Sachs Board of International Advisers and a member of the European Commission, one of the EU's governing organizations. Monti is European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, a US organization that advances American interests and a founding member of the Spinelli group created to foster EU integration. In Greece, an unelected banker was installed as a newly minted Prime Minister there too. From 1994 to 2002, Lucas Papademos was Governor of the Bank of Greece at the time Goldman Sachs was helping camouflage the country's deficit. If he didn't know what was going on, he should have. From 2002-2010, he was Vice President of the European Central Bank and is also a member of America's Trilateral Commission. And while the PM was not employed by Goldman Sachs, the Chairman of Greece's Public Debt Management Agency, Petros Christodoulos, was a trader in the bank's London operation. Everybody agrees that the simplest remedy for Europe's woes would be for the ECB to buy enough Spanish and Italian debt to keep interest rates at a reasonable level. ECB President Draghi refuses to move until, observers say, the crisis is so bad he can impose the sort of package that would gladden the heart of any true neo-liberal. Public assets privatized, unions subjugated, social safety nets rent and sovereignty surrendered to unelected technocrats. On Thursday, Mario Draghi presaged this attack on Europe's social democracy by calling for a "new fiscal compact" and now President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have dutifully moved to re-shape the treaty governing the continent's economic governance. I saw this belt tightening austerity in the eighties as the IMF dictated to Brazil what it should cut to repay its debt to a consortium of US and European banks and the World Bank. It took years of pain for the powerhouse of Latin America to recover from this economic castration. Last week I heard a financial commentator describe the current situation as the market picking off the weakest prey as each of the PIIGS countries come under sustained attack. The predatory nature of the beast may see austerity plans introduced, European banks bailed out but still we are likely to end with the Second Great Depression, we had to have. Had to have? There is no other way now to cleanse the system, to throw the money lenders out of the temple. Mike Carey is a Walkley Award-winning journalist and producer who was executive producer of SBS Dateline for eight years. He has worked for the ABC, SBS and Al Jazeera living in South-East Asia and Brazil.

Why did you post this here? VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVooooooooVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ==== 911 ==== 911911911911911911911911911911911911911911911911911911911 ==== 911 ===== The link just below is key. link http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl.php ====================================o============================= link http://theaussiedigger.com/site/?p=11440 Pearl Harbour Anniversary Posted on AUSSIE DIGGER BLOG December 8, 2011 by Keith Did FDR Provoke Pearl Harbor? On Dec. 8, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt took the rostrum before a joint session of Congress to ask for a declaration of war on Japan. A day earlier, at dawn, carrier-based Japanese aircraft had launched a sneak attack devastating the U.S. battle fleet at Pearl Harbor. Said ex-President Herbert Hoover, Republican statesman of the day, We have only one job to do now, and that is to defeat Japan. But to friends, the Chief sent another message: You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bit". =============VVVVVVVVV by Patrick J. Buchanan, via antiwar.com On Dec. 8, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt took the rostrum before a joint session of Congress to ask for a declaration of war on Japan. A day earlier, at dawn, carrier-based Japanese aircraft had launched a sneak attack devastating the U.S. battle fleet at Pearl Harbor. Said ex-President Herbert Hoover, Republican statesman of the day, We have only one job to do now, and that is to defeat Japan. But to friends, the Chief sent another message: You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bit. Today, 70 years after Pearl Harbor, a remarkable secret history, written from 1943 to 1963, has come to light. It is Hoovers explanation of what happened before, during and after the world war that may prove yet the death knell of the West. Edited by historian George Nash, Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoovers History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath is a searing indictment of FDR and the men around him as politicians who lied prodigiously about their desire to keep America out of war, even as they took one deliberate step after another to take us into war. Yet the book is no polemic. The 50-page run-up to the war in the Pacific uses memoirs and documents from all sides to prove Hoovers indictment. And perhaps the best way to show the power of this book is the way Hoover does it chronologically, painstakingly, week by week. Consider Japans situation in the summer of 1941. Bogged down in a four-year war in China she could neither win nor end, having moved into French Indochina, Japan saw herself as near the end of her tether. Inside the government was a powerful faction led by Prime Minister Prince Fumimaro Konoye that desperately did not want a war with the United States. The pro-Anglo-Saxon camp included the navy, whose officers had fought alongside the U.S. and Royal navies in World War I, while the war party was centered on the army, Gen. Hideki Tojo and Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, a bitter anti-American. On July 18, 1941, Konoye ousted Matsuoka, replacing him with the pro-Anglo-Saxon Adm. Teijiro Toyoda. The U.S. response: On July 25, we froze all Japanese assets in the United States, ending all exports and imports, and denying Japan the oil upon which the nation and empire depended. Stunned, Konoye still pursued his peace policy by winning secret support from the navy and army to meet FDR on the U.S. side of the Pacific to hear and respond to U.S. demands. U.S. Ambassador Joseph Grew implored Washington not to ignore Konoyes offer, that the prince had convinced him an agreement could be reached on Japanese withdrawal from Indochina and South and Central China. Out of fear of Maos armies and Stalins Russia, Tokyo wanted to hold a buffer in North China. On Aug. 28, Japans ambassador in Washington presented FDR a personal letter from Konoye imploring him to meet. Tokyo begged us to keep Konoyes offer secret, as the revelation of a Japanese prime ministers offering to cross the Pacific to talk to an American president could imperil his government. On Sept. 3, the Konoye letter was leaked to the Herald-Tribune. On Sept. 6, Konoye met again at a three-hour dinner with Grew to tell him Japan now agreed with the four principles the Americans were demanding as the basis for peace. No response. On Sept. 29, Grew sent what Hoover describes as a prayer to the president not to let this chance for peace pass by. On Sept. 30, Grew wrote Washington, Konoyes warship is ready waiting to take him to Honolulu, Alaska, or anyplace designated by the president. No response. On Oct. 16, Konoyes cabinet fell. In November, the U.S. intercepted two new offers from Tokyo: a Plan A for an end to the China war and occupation of Indochina and, if that were rejected, a Plan B, a modus vivendi where neither side would make any new move. When presented, these, too, were rejected out of hand. At a Nov. 25 meeting of FDRs war council, Secretary of War Henry Stimsons notes speak of the prevailing consensus: The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into … firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves. We can wipe the Japanese off the map in three months, wrote Navy Secretary Frank Knox. As Grew had predicted, Japan, a hara-kiri nation, proved more likely to fling herself into national suicide for honor than to allow herself to be humiliated Out of the war that arose from the refusal to meet Prince Konoye came scores of thousands of U.S. dead, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the fall of China to Mao Zedong, U.S. wars in Korea and Vietnam, and the rise of a new arrogant China that shows little respect for the great superpower of yesterday. If you would know the history that made our world, spend a week with Mr. Hoovers book. VVVVVVVVVVVVVVooooooooooooVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVoooooooooooooooooooooooooooVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/COINTELPRO/cointelpro.php "[Your information is] too precise, too complete to be believed. The questionnaire plus the other information you brought spell out in detail exactly where, when, how, and by whom we are to be attacked. If anything, it sounds like a trap." FBI response to the top British spy, Dusko Popov (code named "Tricycle") on August 10, 1941, dismissing Popov's report of the complete Japanese plan for the attack on Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor: The Verdict Of History by Gordon Prange, appendix 7 published in 1986. Based on records from the JOINT CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, Nov 15, 1945 to May 31, 1946. A Man Most Ordinary (the story of Clifton Stewart) Golly,Mr. Stewart helped this happen. Radio interview with Clifton Stewart who served as a radio intelligence officer in WW2 and who intercepted the Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor weeks in advance. He reported it to the US Government, but of course Roosevelt did nothing, because he needed that attack on Pearl Harbor to trick the US into the war against Hitler. link Pearl Harbor, Mother of All Conspiracies, the book <--click here to buy paperback (424 explosive pages) or ebook. You have read the webpage - now get the whole story! This webpage is about 10 percent of the first chapter with many of the most startling revelations only in the book. "Mother of All Conspiracies is a sensational book that will change the face of America!" Professor Robert Kelso "Very late on a cold, dark night in December, a British emissary was driven through the dreary streets of Washington. Inside his diplomatic pouch he carried a secret message marked Most Urgent Personal and Secret to the President. It was a triple priority message from the British Admiralty in London that the United States of America was going to be attacked at Pearl Harbor on December 7th. Lord Halifax was swiftly shown in to the White House and conferred with Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt's hopes soared; his long-laid plans were about to be fulfilled. It was December 5th, 1941 PEARL HARBOR MOTHER OF ALL CONSPIRACIES link http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl.php =================================OOOOOOOO========================================= "...everything that the Japanese were planning to do was known to the United States..." ARMY BOARD, 1944 70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the September 10th, 1945 Issue of TIME Magazine Today is the 70th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks of Dec 7, 1941. During a visit to a local antique store, I came across a relic of an issue of Time magazine for $6.00. Dated September 10th, 1945, I quickly looked inside to see what I would find. What a score! I felt like I was reading the 9/11 Commission Report, or at least a summary of it. I could not help but think of all the similarities between Pearl Harbor and ............

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Why am I not surprised the villain of MATT TAIBBI latest paranoid CT is the only Jewish run major financial firm? What's past is prologue Although the phrase is now commonly used to mean what's stated above, as the phrase was originally used in The Tempest, Act 2, Scene I, it means that all that has happened before that time, the "past," has led Antonio and Sebastian to this opportunity to do what they are about to do, commit murder. In the context of the preceding and next lines, "(And by that destiny) to perform an act, Whereof what's past is prologue; what to come, In yours and my discharge" Antonio is in essence rationalizing to Sebastian, and the audience, that he and Sebastian are fated to act by all that has led up to that moment, the past has set the stage for their next act, as a prologue does in a play. Therefore, this phrase might be better used in situations where people are attempting to rationalize wicked acts based on the past. It can also be taken to mean that everything up until now has merely set the stage for Antonio and Sebastian to make their own destinies; in this context it does not indicate that their future acts are fated, but rather that everything up to that point was merely like a prologue, not the important story. THE PAST.......................... in Rolling Stone magazine. One of the best comprehensive profiles of Government Sachs done to date. Speaking of GS, they sure must be busy today, now that Bernanke is about to be impeached and take the fall for all their machinations. GREAT ARTICLE BY MATT TAIBBI link http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++========================++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ THE IMPORTANT NOW............. link http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511 link http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/is-the-sec-covering-up-wall-street-crimes-20110817 VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo* Goldman Sachs political influence in EU growing Mario Monti (Italy) is just the latest politician with ties to Goldman Sachs. There are also Karel van Miert (Belgium), Otmar Issing (Germany), Mario Draghi (EU Central Bank), Petros Christodoulou (Greece), Lucas Papadernos (Greece), Antonio Borges (France), Peter Sutherland (Ireland). Read more in the following article: link http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-6264091.html

A Man Most Ordinary (the story of Clifton Stewart) Mr Stewart was recruited by the British Military for his radio operating skills. link http://www.cbc.ca/maritimemagazine/2011/05/17/a-man-most-ordinary-the-story-of-clifton-stewart/

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVooooVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVo Yes the Bankers to RULE..... Bankers have seized Europe: Goldman Sachs Has Taken Over by Paul Craig Roberts On November 25, two days after a failed German government bond auction in which Germany was unable to sell 35% of its offerings of 10-year bonds, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble said that Germany might retreat from its demands that the private banks that hold the troubled sovereign debt from Greece, Italy, and Spain must accept part of the cost of their bailout by writing off some of the debt. The private banks want to avoid any losses either by forcing the Greek, Italian, and Spanish governments to make good on the bonds by imposing extreme austerity on their citizens, or by having the European Central Bank print euros with which to buy the sovereign debt from the private banks. Printing money to make good on debt is contrary to the ECBs charter and especially frightens Germans, because of the Weimar experience with hyperinflation. Obviously, the German government got the message from the orchestrated failed bond auction. As I wrote at the time, there is no reason for Germany, with its relatively low debt to GDP ratio compared to the troubled countries, not to be able to sell its bonds. If Germanys creditworthiness is in doubt, how can Germany be expected to bail out other countries? Evidence that Germanys failed bond auction was orchestrated is provided by troubled Italys successful bond auction two days later. Strange, isnt it. Italy, the largest EU country that requires a bailout of its debt, can still sell its bonds, but Germany, which requires no bailout and which is expected to bear a disproportionate cost of Italys, Greeces and Spains bailout, could not sell its bonds. In my opinion, the failed German bond auction was orchestrated by the US Treasury, by the European Central Bank and EU authorities, and by the private banks that own the troubled sovereign debt. My opinion is based on the following facts. Goldman Sachs and US banks have guaranteed perhaps one trillion dollars or more of European sovereign debt by selling swaps or insurance against which they have not reserved. The fees the US banks received for guaranteeing the values of European sovereign debt instruments simply went into profits and executive bonuses. This, of course, is what ruined the American insurance giant, AIG, leading to the TARP bailout at US taxpayer expense and Goldman Sachs enormous profits. If any of the European sovereign debt fails, US financial institutions that issued swaps or unfunded guarantees against the debt are on the hook for large sums that they do not have. The reputation of the US financial system probably could not survive its default on the swaps it has issued. Therefore, the failure of European sovereign debt would renew the financial crisis in the US, requiring a new round of bailouts and/or a new round of Federal Reserve quantitative easing, that is, the printing of money in order to make good on irresponsible financial instruments, the issue of which enriched a tiny number of executives. Certainly, President Obama does not want to go into an election year facing this prospect of high profile US financial failure. So, without any doubt, the US Treasury wants Germany out of the way of a European bailout. The private French, German, and Dutch banks, which appear to hold most of the troubled sovereign debt, dont want any losses. Either their balance sheets, already ruined by Wall Streets fraudulent derivatives, cannot stand further losses or they fear the drop in their share prices from lowered earnings due to write-downs of bad sovereign debts. In other words, for these banks big money is involved, which provides an enormous incentive to get the German government out of the way of their profit statements. The European Central Bank does not like being a lesser entity than the US Federal Reserve and the UKs Bank of England. The ECB wants the power to be able to undertake quantitative easing on its own. The ECB is frustrated by the restrictions put on its powers by the conditions that Germany required in order to give up its own currency and the German central banks control over the countrys money supply. The EU authorities want more unity, by which is meant less sovereignty of the member countries of the EU. Germany, being the most powerful member of the EU, is in the way of the power that the EU authorities desire to wield. Thus, the Germans bond auction failure, an orchestrated event to punish Germany and to warn the German government not to obstruct unity or loss of individual country sovereignty. Germany, which has been browbeat since its defeat in World War II, has been made constitutionally incapable of strong leadership. Any sign of German leadership is quickly quelled by dredging up remembrances of the Third Reich. As a consequence, Germany has been pushed into an European Union that intends to destroy the political sovereignty of the member governments, just as Abe Lincoln destroyed the sovereignty of the American states. Who will rule the New Europe? Obviously, the private European banks and Goldman Sachs. The new president of the European Central Bank is Mario Draghi. This person was Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs International and a member of Goldman Sachs Management Committee. Draghi was also Italian Executive Director of the World Bank, Governor of the Bank of Italy, a member of the governing council of the European Central Bank, a member of the board of directors of the Bank for International Settlements, and a member of the boards of governors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank, and Chairman of the Financial Stability Board. Obviously, Draghi is going to protect the power of bankers. Italys new prime minister, who was appointed not elected, was a member of Goldman Sachs Board of International Advisers. Mario Monti was appointed to the European Commission, one of the governing organizations of the EU. Monti is European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, a US organization that advances American hegemony over the world. Monti is a member of the Bilderberg group and a founding member of the Spinelli group, an organization created in September 2010 to facilitate integration within the EU. Just as an unelected banker was installed as prime minister of Italy, an unelected banker was installed as prime minister of Greece. Obviously, they are intended to produce the bankers solution to the sovereign debt crisis. Greeces new appointed prime minister, Lucas Papademos, was Governor of the Bank of Greece. From 2002-2010. He was Vice President of the European Central Bank. He, also, is a member of Americas Trilateral Commission. Jacques Delors, a founder of the European Union, promised the British Trade Union Congress in 1988 that the European Commission would require governments to introduce pro-labor legislation. Instead, we find the banker-controlled European Commission demanding that European labor bail out the private banks by accepting lower pay, fewer social services, and a later retirement. The European Union, just like everything else, is merely another scheme to concentrate wealth in a few hands at the expense of European citizens, who are destined, like Americans, to be the serfs of the 21st century. VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVooooooooVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV ======================oooooooo====================== = related = _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Monday, 5 December 2011 Goldman Sachs & Hive Consciousness "Once inside the machine One can merge intelligence" Inherit the Disease The current Governor of the Bank of Canada is a Goldman Sachs disciple Contributor: "YYC" link http://yayacanada.blogspot.com/2011/12/goldman-sachs-hive-consciousness.html (to see hyperlinks in article) VIDEO: link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpg76VjTa58 How to take advantage of a slump if you've got dollars to begin with, and oh yes, Goldman Sachs rules the world. Trader Alessio Rastani explains how Goldman Sachs rule the world, not the governments. He explains how the Eurozone crash will wipe out the savings of millions. Here's another video link that provides the names of current key banking figures and country leaders who came out of Goldman Sachs. Forget the Freemasonry stuff - it doesn't matter that these guys like to wear white gloves and cross-dress in silly aprons with roses on them to bond with other males, most of whom have alcohol problems and don't have a clue what their most wealthy members are up to - and just pay attention to the fact that this is a financial corporation that has trained and sent out disciples everywhere to manipulate global markets. If you read French, a European journalists' club article offers more details. If you don't, here's a Google translation. The current Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, is a Goldman Sachs disciple, and has of course had his way smoothed by establishment publications like Time Magazine and the blatantly conservative Reader's Digest who named him "Most Trusted Canadian" just in case you had any doubts. Readers Digest, by the way, is now owned by Ripplewood Holdings founded by Tim Collins, a Bilderberg darling, as is Stephen Harper and other Canadians (Last year, the meeting was in Greece. Now, Greece is burning). At least one Goldman Sachs representative is on the Steering Cttee of the Bilderberg group. Carney is also the new Chair of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) in charge of global financial institutions, his predecessor having been Mario Draghi, now president of the European Central Bank, and a former Goldman Sachs Vice Chair and Managing Director. Draghi is also a fellow of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard from which Michael Ignatieff was dispatched to destroy Canada's federal Liberal Party. These guys, no matter what their nationality, mostly studied at Yale, Oxford, Princeton, Harvard or a combination. It's an incestuous club at the helm. There oughta be a law, eh? Yet despite (or because of) the collective wisdom of their hive minds* and hands-on ministration, things are not looking good: Wealth gap hits 30-year high "The social contract is starting to unravel in many countries," Gurría said. "This study dispels the assumptions that the benefits of economic growth will automatically trickle down to the disadvantaged and that greater inequality fosters greater social mobility." Canada is predicted to fare no better than anywhere else. But nevermind, there's always a pollster to ask the Right questions and show that Canadians are generally pleased with the way things are going. The spokesman for Nanos Research drops a strong hint of a probable highly suggestive preamble to his company's questionnaire: "The fact that Canada has the strongest economic performance of any G7 country would not have gone unnoticed by Canadians" People are being led to think that it's Canada making an impact on the world, when really it's Goldman Sachs. Sane people screen their phone calls to avoid market surveys and sales pitches, so it's not difficult to guess the overall acuity of the respondents to assess doublespeak. Speaking of same, take a look at Harper on the subject of global governance and Canadian sovereignty (video). Say, why do you suppose Harper is learning to speak Spanish? Once the North American Union becomes obvious to all, will he be rewarded by being appointed Governor of the new Bank of North America? * One indication of their loss of individuality is in the way they all dress in dark suits, shiny dark shoes, white shirts and red or blue ties - and the people they kill off don't. media coverup VVVVVVVVVVVV0000VVVVVVVVVVVVVVV link

I hope they pass it and use it and start arresting Americans without due process and put people in jail and then we can have a revolution too. VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVoioioioiVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV* Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom Martin Luther King, Jr. May 4, 1966 The year 1966 brought with it the first public challenge to the philosophy and strategy of nonviolence from within the ranks of the civil rights movement. Resolutions of self-defense and Black Power sounded forth from our friends and brothers. At the same time riots erupted in several major cities. Inevitably a like was made between the two phenomena though movement leadership continued to deny any implications of violence in the concept of Black Power. The nation’s press heralded these incidents as an end of the Negro’s reliance on nonviolence as a means of achieving freedom. Articles appeared on "The Plot to Get Whitey," and, "Must Negroes fight back?" and one had the impression that a serious movement was underway to lead the Negro to freedom through the use of violence. Indeed, there was much talk of violence. It was the same talk we have heard on the fringes of the nonviolent movement for the past ten years. It was the talk of fearful men, saying that they would not join the nonviolent movement because they would not remain nonviolent if attacked. Now the climate had shifted so that it was even more popular to talk of violence, but in spite of the talk of violence there emerged no action in this direction. One reporter pointed out in a recent New Yorker article, that the fact that Beckwith, Price, Rainey, and Collie Leroy Wilkins remain alive is a living testimony to the fact that the Negro remains nonviolent. And if this is not enough, a mere check of the statistics of casualties in the recent riots shows that a vast majority of persons killed in riots are Negroes. All the reports of sniping in Los Angeles’s expressways did not produce a single casualty. The young demented white student at the University of Texas has shown what damage a sniper can do when he is serious. In fact, this one young man killed more people in one day than all the Negroes have killed in all the riots in all the cities since the Harlem riots of 1964. This must raise a serious question about the violent intent of the Negro, for certainly there are many ex-GI’s within our ghettos, and no small percentage of those recent migrants from the South have demonstrated some proficiency hunting squirrels and rabbits. I can only conclude that the Negro, even in his bitterest moments, is not intent on killing white men to be free. This does not mean that the Negro is a saint who abhors violence. Unfortunately, a check of the hospitals in any Negro community on any Saturday night will make you painfully aware of the violence within the Negro community. Hundreds of victims of shootings and cutting lie bleeding in the emergency rooms, but there is seldom if ever a white person who is the victim of Negro hostility. I have talked with many persons in the ghettos of the North who argue eloquently for the use of violence. But I observed none of them in the mobs that rioted in Chicago. I have heard the street-corner preachers in Harlem and in Chicago’s Washington Park, but in spite of the bitterness preached and the hatred espoused, none of them has ever been able to start a riot. So far, only the police through their fears and prejudice have goaded our people to riot. And once the riot starts, only the police or the National Guard have been able to put an end to them. This demonstrates that there violent eruptions are unplanned, uncontrollable, temper tantrums brought on by the long-neglected poverty, humiliation, oppression and exploitation. Violence as a strategy for social change in America is nonexistent. All the sound and fury seems but the posturing of cowards whose bold talk produces no action and signifies nothing. I am convinced that for practical as well as moral reasons, nonviolence offers the only road to freedom for my people. In violent warfare, one must be prepared to face ruthlessly the fact that there will be casualties by the thousands. In Vietnam, the United States has evidently decided that it is willing to slaughter millions, sacrifice some two hundred thousand men and twenty billion dollars a year to secure the freedom of some fourteen million Vietnamese. This is to fight a war on Asian soil, where Asians are in the majority. Anyone leading a violent conflict must be willing to make a similar assessment regarding the possible casualties to a minority population confronting a well-armed, wealthy majority with a fanatical right wing that is capable of exterminating the entire black population and which would not hesitate such an attempt if the survival of the white Western materialism were at stake. Arguments that the American Negro is a part of a world which is two-thirds colored and that there will come a day when the oppressed people of color will rise together to throw off the yoke of white oppression are at least fifty years away from being relevant. There is no colored nation, including China, which now shows even the potential of leading a revolution of color in any international proportion. Ghana, Zambia, Tanzania and Nigeria are fighting their own battles for survival against poverty, illiteracy and the subversive influence of neocolonialism, so that they offer no hope to Angola, Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, and much less to the American Negro. The hard cold facts of racial life in the world today indicated that the hope of the people of color in the world may well rest on the American Negro and his ability to reform the structures of racist imperialism from within and thereby turn the technology and wealth of the West to the task of liberating the world from want. This is no time for romantic illusions about freedom and empty philosophical debate. This is a time for action. What is needed is a strategy for change, a tactical program which will bring the Negro into the mainstream of American life as quickly as possible. So far, this has only been offered by the nonviolent movement. Our record of achievement through nonviolent action is already remarkable. The dramatic social changes which have been made across the South are unmatched in the annals of history. Montgomery, Albany, Birmingham and Selena have paved the way for untold progress. Even more remarkable is the fact that this progress occurred with a minimum of human sacrifice and loss of life. Not a single person has been killed in a nonviolent demonstration. The bombings of the 16th Street Baptist Church occurred several months after demonstrations stopped. Rev. James Reeb, Mrs. Viola Liuzzo and Jimmie Lee Jackson were all murdered at night following demonstrations. And fewer people have been killed in ten years of action across the South than were killed in three nights of rioting in Watts. No similar changes have occurred without infinitely more suffering, whether it be Gandhi’s drive for independence in India or any African nation’s struggle for independence. The Question of Self-Defense There are many people who very honestly raise the question of self-defense. This must be placed in perspective. It goes without saying that people will protect their homes. This is a right guaranteed by the Constitution and respected even in the worst areas of the South. But the mere protection of one’s home and person against assault by lawless night riders does not provide any positive approach to the fears and conditions which produce violence. There must be some program for establishing law. Our experience in places like Savannah and Macon, Georgia, has been that a drive which registers Negroes to vote can do more to provide protection of the law and respect for Negroes by even racist sheriffs than anything we have seen. In a nonviolent demonstration, self-defense must be approached from quite another perspective. One must remember that the cause of the demonstration is some exploitation or form of oppression that has made it necessary for men of courage and good will do demonstrate against evil. For example, a demonstration against the evil of de facto school segregation is based on the awareness that a child’s mind is crippled daily by inadequate educational opportunity. The demonstrator agrees that is better for him to suffer publicly for a short time to end the crippling evil of school segregation than to have generation after generation of children suffer in ignorance. In such a demonstration, the point is made that schools are inadequate. This is the evil to which one seeks to point; anything else detracts from that point and interferes with confrontation of the primary evil against which one demonstrates. Of course, no one wants to suffer and be hurt. But it is more important to get at the cause than to be safe. It is better to shed a little blood from a blow on the head or a rock thrown by an angry mob than to have children by the thousands grow up reading at a fifth- or sixth-grade reading level. It is always amusing to me when a Negro man says that he can’t demonstrate with us because if someone hit him he would fight back. Here is a man whose children are being plagued by rats and roaches, whose wife is robbed daily at overpriced ghetto food stores, who himself is working for about two-thirds the pay of a white person doing a similar job and with similar skills, and in spite of all this daily suffering it takes someone spitting on him and calling him a n to make him want to fight. Conditions are such for Negroes in America that all Negroes ought to be fighting aggressively. It is as ridiculous for a Negro to raise the question of self-defense in relation to nonviolence as it is for a soldier on the battlefield to say his is not going to take any risks. He is there because he believes that the freedom of his country is worth the risk of his life. The same is true of the nonviolent demonstrator. He sees the misery of his people so clearly that he volunteers to suffer in their behalf and put an end to their plight. Furthermore, it is extremely dangerous to organize a movement around self-defense. The line between defensive violence and aggressive or retaliatory violence is a fine line indeed. When violence is tolerated even as a means of self-defense there is a grave danger that in the fervor of emotion the main fight will be lost over the question of self-defense. When my home was bombed in 1955 in Montgomery, many men wanted to retaliate, to place an armed guard on my home. But the issue there was not my life, but whether Negroes would achieve first-class treatment on the city’s buses. Had we become distracted by the question of my safety we would have lost the moral offensive and sunk to the level of our oppressors. I must continue by faith or it is too great a burden to bear and violence, even in self-defense, creates more problems than it solves. Only a refusal to hate or kill can put an end to the chain of violence in the world and lead us toward a community where men can live together without fear. Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives. Strategy for Change The American racial revolution has been a revolution to "get in" rather than to overthrow. We want to share in the American economy, the housing market, the educational system and the social opportunities. The goal itself indicates that a social change in America must be nonviolent. If one is in search of a better job, it does not help to burn down the factory. If one needs more adequate education, shooting the principal will not help, or if housing is the goal, only building and construction will produce that end. To destroy anything, person or property, can’t bring us closer to the goal that we seek. The nonviolent strategy has been to dramatize the evils of our society in such a way that pressure is brought to bear against those evils by the forces of good will in the community and change is produced. The student sit-ins of 1960 are a classic illustration of this method. Students were denied the right to eat at a lunch counter, so they deliberately sat down to protest their denial. They were arrested, but this made their parents mad and so they began to close their charge accounts. The students continued to sit in, and this further embarrassed the city, scared away many white shoppers and soon produced an economic threat to the business life of the city. Amid this type of pressure, it is not hard to get people to agree to change. So far, we have had the Constitution backing most of the demands for change, and this has made our work easier, since we could be sure that the federal courts would usually back up our demonstrations legally. Now we are approaching areas where the voice of the Constitution is not clear. We have left the realm of constitutional rights and we are entering the area of human rights. The Constitution assured the right to vote, but there is no such assurance of the right to adequate housing, or the right to an adequate income. And yet, in a nation which has a gross national product of 750 billion dollars a year, it is morally right to insist that every person has a decent house, an adequate education and enough money to provide basic necessities for one’s family. Achievement of these goals will be a lot more difficult and require much more discipline, understanding, organization and sacrifice. It so happens that Negroes live in the central city of the major cities of the United States. These cities control the electoral votes of the large states of our nation. This means that though we are only ten percent of the nation’s population, we are located in such a key position geographically—the cities of the North and black belts of the South—that we are able to lead a political and moral coalition which can direct the course of the nation. Our position depends a lot on more than political power, however. It depends on our ability to marshal moral power as well. As soon as we lose the moral offensive, we are left with only our ten percent of the power of the nation. This is hardly enough to produce any meaningful changes, even within our own communities, for the lines of power control the economy as well and once the flow of money is cut off, progress ceases. The past three years have demonstrated the power of a committed, morally sound minority to lead the nation. It was the coalition molded through the Birmingham movement which allied the forces of the churches, labor and the academic communities of the nation behind the liberal causes of our time. All of the liberal legislation of the past session of Congress can be credited to this coalition. Even the presence of a vital peace movement and the campus protest against the war in Vietnam can be traced back to the nonviolent movement led by the Negro. Prior to Birmingham, our campuses were still in a state of shock over the McCarthy era and Congress was caught in the perennial deadlock of southern Democrats and Midwestern Republicans. Negroes put the country on the move against the enemies of poverty, slums and inadequate education. Techniques of the Future When Negroes marched, so did the nation. The power of the nonviolent march is indeed a mystery. It is always surprising that a few hundred Negroes marching can produce such a reaction across the nation. When marches are carefully organized around well-defined issues, they represent the power with Victor Hugo phrased as the most powerful force in the world, "an idea whose time has come." Marching feet announce that time has come for a given idea. When the idea is a sound one, the cause is a just one, and the demonstration a righteous one, change will be forthcoming. But if any of these conditions are not present, the power for change is missing also. A thousand people demonstrating for the right to use heroin would have little effect. By the same token, a group of ten thousand marching in anger against a police station and cussing out the chief of police will do very little to bring respect, dignity and unbiased law enforcement. Such a demonstration would only produce fear and bring about an addition of forces to the station and more oppressive methods by the police. Marches must continue in the future, and they must be the kind of marches that bring about the desired result. But the march is not a "one shot" victory-producing method. One march is seldom successful, and as my good friend Kenneth Clark points out in Dark Ghetto, it can serve merely to let off steam and siphon off the energy which is necessary to produce change. However, when marching is seen as a part of a program to dramatize an evil, to mobilize the forces of good will, and to generate pressure and power for change, marches will continue to be effective. Our experience is that marches must continue over a period of thirty to forty-five days to produce any meaningful results. They must also be of sufficient size to produce some inconvenience to the forces in power or they go unnoticed. In other words, they must demand the attention of the press, for it is the press which interprets the issue to the community at large and thereby sets in motion the machinery for change. Along with the march as a weapon for change in our nonviolent arsenal must be listed the boycott. Basic to the philosophy of nonviolence is the refusal to cooperate with evil. There is nothing quite so effective as a refusal to cooperate economically with the forces and institutions which perpetuate evil in our communities. In the past six months simply by refusing to purchase products from companies which do not hire Negroes in meaningful numbers and in all job categories, the Ministers of Chicago under SCLC’s Operation Breadbasket have increased the income of the Negro community by more than two million dollars annually. In Atlanta the Negroes’ earning power has been increased by more than twenty million dollars annually over the past three years through a carefully disciplined program of selective buying and negotiations by the Negro minister. This is nonviolence at its peak of power, when it cuts into the profit margin of a business in order to bring about a more just distribution of jobs and opportunities for Negro wage earners and consumers. But again, the boycott must be sustained over a period of several weeks and months to assure results. This means continuous education of the community in order that support can be maintained. People will work together and sacrifice if they understand clearly why and how this sacrifice will bring about change. We can never assume that anyone understands. It is our job to keep people informed and aware. Our most powerful nonviolent weapon is, as would be expected, also our most demanding, that is organization. To produce change, people must be organized to work together in units of power. These units might be political, as in the case of voters’ leagues and political parties; they may be economic units such as groups of tenants who join forces to form a tenant union or to organize a rent strike; or they may be laboring units of persons who are seeking employment and wage increases. More and more, the civil rights movement will become engaged in the task of organizing people into permanent groups to protect their own interests and to produce change in their behalf. This is a tedious task which may take years, but the results are more permanent and meaningful. In the future we will be called upon to organize the unemployed, to unionize the business within the ghetto, to bring tenants together into collective bargaining units and establish cooperatives for purposes of building viable financial institutions within the ghetto that can be controlled by Negroes themselves. There is no easy way to create a world where men and women can live together, where each has his own job and house and where all children receive as much education as their minds can absorb. But if such a world is created in our lifetime, it will be done in the United States by Negroes and white people of good will. It will be accomplished by persons who have the courage to put an end to suffering by willingly suffering themselves rather than inflict suffering upon others. It will be done by rejecting the racism, materialism and violence that has characterized Western civilization and especially by working toward a world of brotherhood, cooperation and peace.

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VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVooooooooVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV Bye,Bye American Rights.....long,long,time ago is today.No angel born in hell, Could break that Satan's spell. A long, long time ago. I can still remember How that music used to make me smile. An' I knew if I had my chance, That I could make those people dance. And maybe they'd be happy for a while. But February made me shiver, With every paper I'd deliver. Bad news on the doorstep. I couldn't take one more step. I can't remember if I cried, When I read about his widowed bride, But something touched me deep inside, The day the music died. So, bye, bye, Miss American Pie. Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. An' them good ol' boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye. Singin' "This'll be the day that I die. This'll be the day that I die." Did you write the book of love? And do you have faith in God above, If the Bible tells you so? Now do you believe in rock and roll? Can music save your mortal soul? And can you teach me how to dance real slow? Well, I know that you're in love with him. 'Cause I saw you dancin' in the gym. You both kicked off your shoes. Man, I dig those rhythm and blues. I was a lonely, teenage broncin' buck, With a pink carnation and a pickup truck. But I knew I was out of luck, The day the music died. I started singing, "Bye, bye, Miss American Pie." Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye." Singing, "This'll be the day that I die. This'll be the day that I die." Now, for ten years we've been on our own. And moss grows fat on a rolling stone. But that's not how it used to be. When the Jester sang for the King and Queen, In a coat he borrowed from James Dean, In a voice that came from you and me. Oh, and while the King was looking down, The Jester stol' his thorny crown. The courtroom was adjourned, No verdict was returned. And while Lenin read a book on Marx, The quartet practiced in the park. And we sang dirges in the dark. The day the music died. We were singin', "Bye, bye, Miss American Pie." Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye. Singing, "This'll be the day that I die. This'll be the day that I die." Helter skelter in a summer swelter, The birds flew off with a fallout shelter. Eight miles high and fallin' fast. It landed foul on the grass, The players tried for a forward pass, With the Jester on the sidelines in a cast. Now the half-time air was sweet perfume, While Sergeants played a marching tune, We all got up to dance, Oh, but we never got the chance. Find more similar lyrics on http://mp3lyrics.com/No 'Cause the players tried to take the field, The marching band refused to yield. Do you recall what was revealed, The day the music died? We started singin' "Bye, bye, Miss American Pie." Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye. Singing, "This'll be the day that I die. This'll be the day that I die." Oh, and there we were all in one place. A generation lost in space, With no time left to start again. So come on Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. Jack Flash sat on a candlestick. 'Cause fire is the devil's only friend. Oh, and as I watched him on the stage, My hands were clenched in fists of rage. No angel born in hell, Could break that Satan's spell. And as the flames climbed high into the night, To light the sacrificial rite, I saw Satan laughing with delight, The day the music died. He was singing, "Bye, bye, Miss American Pie." Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye. Singing, "This'll be the day that I die. This'll be the day that I die." I met a girl who sang the blues, And I asked her for some happy news. But she just smiled and turned away. I went down to the sacred store, Where I'd heard the music years before, But the man there said the music wouldn't play. And in the streets the children screamed. The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed. But not a word was spoken. The church bells all were broken. And the three men I admire most, The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, They caught the last train for the Coast. The day the music died. And they were singing, "Bye, bye, Miss American Pie." Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye. Singing, "This'll be the day that I die. This'll be the day that I die." They were singing, "Bye, bye, Miss American Pie." Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye. Singing, "This'll be the day that I die. This'll be the day that I die."

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVovvvvvvvvoVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV link http://www.bobtuskin.com/2011/12/02/the-entire-united-states-is-now-a-war-zone-s-1867-passes-the-senate-with-massive-support/ The entire United States is now a war zone: S.1867 passes the Senate with massive support Commentary, News // Dec 2 2011 By Madison Ruppert Editor of End the Lie An official US Navy photograph of detainees at Camp X-Ray at the Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. If our government makes the call, this could be the horrific reality for countless American citizensfor untold years or even decades (Credit: U.S. Navy/Shane T. McCoy) This is one of the most tragic events I have written about since establishing End the Lie over eight months ago: the horrendous bill that would turn all of America into a battlefield and subject American citizens to indefinite military detention without charge or trial has passed the Senate. To make matters even worse, only seven of our so-called representatives voted against the bill, proving once and for all (if anyone had any doubt remaining) that our government does not work for us in any way, shape, or form. S.1867, or the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year of 2012, passed with a resounding 93-7 vote. That’s right, 93 of our Senators voted to literally eviscerate what little rights were still protected after the PATRIOT Act was hastily pushed in the wake of the tragic events of September 11th, 2001. The NDAA cuts Pentagon spending by $43 billion from last year’s budget, a number so insignificant when compared to the $662 billion still (officially) allocated, it is almost laughable. The bill also contained an amendment which enacts strict new sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank and any entities that do business with it, a move which will likely have brutal repercussions for the Iranian people – just like the sanctions on Iraq did. Not a single Senator voted against this amendment, which was voted on soon before the entirety of S.1867 was passed, despite the hollow threats of a veto from the Obama White House. Based simply on historical precedent, I trust Obama’s promises as much as I trust the homeless man who told me he was John F. Kennedy. I wish that I could believe that the Obama administration would strike down this horrific bill but I would be quite ignorant and naïve if I did so. Furthermore, the White House’s official statement doesn’t even say that they will veto the bill. In fact, it says, “the President’s senior advisers [will] recommend a veto.” As Glenn Greenwald points out, the objection isn’t even about opposing the detention of accused terrorists without a trial, instead it is the contention that, “whether an accused Terrorist is put in military detention rather than civilian custody is for the President alone to decide.” Obama’s opposition has nothing to do with the rule of law or protecting Americans, in fact, Senator Levin disclosed and Dave Kopel reported that, “it was the Obama administration which told Congress to remove the language in the original bill which exempted American citizens and lawful residents from the detention power”. As I have detailed in two past articles entitled Do not be deceived: S.1867 is the most dangerous bill since the PATRIOT Act and S.1253 will allow indefinite military detention of American civilians without charge or trial, the assurances that this will not be used on American citizensare hollow, evidenced by the fact that the Feinstein amendment to S.1867, amendment number 1126, which, according to the official Senate Democrats page, was an attempt at “prohibiting military authority to indefinitely detain US citizens” was rejected with a 45-55 vote. Let’s examine some of the attempts to convince the American people that this will not change anything and that we will still be protected under law. Florida’s Republican Senator Marco Antonio said, “In particular, some folks are concerned about the language in section 1031 that says that this includes ‘any person committing a belligerent act or directly supported such hostilities of such enemy forces.’ This language clearly and unequivocally refers back to al-Qaida, the Taliban, or its affiliates. Thus, not only would any person in question need to be involved with al-Qaida, the Taliban, or its surrogates, but that person must also engage in a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror in order to be detained under this provision.” While this might sound reassuring to some, one must realize that the government can interpret just about anything as engaging “in a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror”. Consider the fact that the Homeland Security Police Institute’s report published earlier this year partly focused on combating the “spread of the [terrorist] entity’s narrative” which sets the stage for the government being able to declare that spreading the narrative amounts to “a deliberate and substantial act that directly supports their efforts against us in the war on terror”. At the time I wrote: Part of these domestic efforts highlighted in the report is combating the “spread of the [terrorist] entity’s narrative” but never addressed is why exactly extremist groups have the ability to spread their narrative. A frightening conclusion that can be drawn from the focus on the “spread of the entity’s narrative” is that such claims could be used to justify limiting the American right to free speech. It would be very easy to justify eliminating free speech if much of the United States was convinced of the danger of spreading terrorist narrative. The report doesn’t specifically explain what the narrative is or why it is so dangerous, but one could assume that any anti-government, anti-war, anti-corporatist and pro-human rights speech could be squeezed under this umbrella. Essentially, anything that criticizes or questions the United States could easily be demonized because it is allegedly spreading “the entity’s narrative”. This raises an important question: could my work and the work of others devoted to exposing the fraud that is the “war on terror” and the intimate links between our government and the terrorist entities they are supposedly fighting be considered to be supporting these entities? Unfortunately, the only conclusion I can come to is that it is possible for the following reasons: 1) The Department of Defense actually put a question on an examination saying that protests are an act of “low-level terrorism” (which they later deleted after the ACLU sent a letter demanding it be removed). 2) Anti-war activists and websites are deemed worthy of being treated as terrorists and being listed on terrorist watchlists. 3) We likely will never even be told how exactly the government is interpreting S.1867. In the case of the PATRIOT Act (which is overwhelmingly used in cases that are unrelated to terrorism in every way), there is in fact a secret interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, as revealed by Senator Ron Wyden back in May. In October, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit (read the PDF here) in an attempt to force the government to reveal the details of the secret interpretation of the PATRIOT Act. As of now, we still do not know how the PATRIOT Act is interpreted by the government, meaning that we have no idea how it is actually being used. I do not believe that it would be reasonable to make the assumption that S.1867 would be interpreted in a straightforward manner, meaning that all of the assurances being made by Senators are worthless. Glenn Greenwald verifies this in writing the following as an update to the post previously quoted in this article, “Any doubt about whether this bill permits the military detention of U.S. citizens was dispelled entirely today when an amendment offered by Dianne Feinstein — to confine military detention to those apprehended “abroad,” i.e., off U.S. soil — failed by a vote of 45-55.” Furthermore, as I detailed in my previous coverage of S.1867, Senator Lindsey Graham clearly said, in absolutely no uncertain terms whatsoever, “In summary here, [section] 1032, the military custody provision, which has waivers and a lot of flexibility doesn’t apply to American citizens. [section] 1031, the statement of authority to detain does apply to American citizens, and it designates the world as the battlefield including the homeland.” The fact that the establishment media continues to peddle the blatant lie that is the claim that S.1867 will not be used on American citizens is beyond me. This is especially true when one considers the fact that lawyers for the Obama administrations reaffirmed that American citizens “are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida,” although we all know that no proof or trial is required to make that assertion. As evidenced by the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, no trial is needed for our illegitimate government to assassinate an American citizen. We can only assume that it is just a matter of time until American citizens are declared to be supporting al Qaeda and killed on American soil without so much as a single court hearing. More at EndtheLie.com - http://EndtheLie.com/2011/12/02/the-entire-united-states-is-now-a-war-zone-s-1867-passes-the-senate-with-massive-support/#ixzz1fP4ZSRVc

Part 1 link http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2011/08/tripoli-massacres.html Bad things about the rebels - Rebel Atrocity Videos - Anti-Black Racism Among Libyan Rebels - Refugees and Human Trafficking - Dernah and the al Qaeda Link - Al Qaeda's Flag Over Benghazi VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVooooooooooVVVVVVVVVVVV Part 2 The “Left” and Libya 29 11 2011 by ALEXANDER COCKBURN The last time we met Michael Bérubé on this site was back in 2007, and he was up to his neck in a rubbish dump, where I’d placed him, in the company of other promoters of the 2003 war on Iraq: where, I asked, are those parlor warriors now? Had any of them reconsidered their illusions… “… that all it would take was a brisk invasion and a new constitution, to put Iraq to rights? Have any of them, from Makiya through Hitchens to Berman and Bérubé had dark nights, asking themselves just how much responsibility they have for the heaps of dead in Iraq, for a plundered nation, for the American soldiers who died or were crippled in Iraq at their urging ? Sometimes I dream of them… like characters in a Beckett play, buried up to their necks in a rubbish dump on the edge of Baghdad, reciting their columns to each other as the local women turn over the corpses to see if one of them is her husband or her son.” Who’s this Bérubé, you ask. Well, for starters he’s the Paterno Family Professor in Literature and Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Pennsylvania State University. Penn State’s website informs us that “named professorships provide support for a focused area and are funded by gifts from individual donors,” which means that Bérubé has long been on Joe Paterno’s payroll – as things have turned out an ironic status for someone who’s spent a fair slice of his time barking and snapping his jaws at “the left” for innumerable failures stemming from moral equivocation and blindness to reality. Now that famed football coach Joe Paterno has been fired from Penn State for protecting one of his assistants, Jerry Sandusky, suspected of raping a ten-year old boy, amidst many other suspected assaults on youths under Sandusky’s supervision, we must await Bérubé’s assessment of how it feels to have been the kept man of this fallen idol. Does the title “Paterno Family Professor” remain ensconced on Bérubé’s formal letterhead? Down the years Bérubé has fostered a niche speciality in trashing what he’s pleased to call “the left,” somewhat in the manner of Todd Gitlin, who – perched on the credential of having once been an SDS president — wrote so many worthy articles bashing this same left in the Sixties and issuing stentorian warnings against any such lapses amid the youth of later epochs that eventually he parlayed his services to decorous establishment thinking into a professorship of journalism and sociology at Columbia University. Now Bérubé has launched an attack on the “left” for its anti-NATO conduct during the recent upheavals in Libya, during which the current National Transitional Council of Libya has been installed under the supervision of this same NATO. On this site this weekend David Gibbs deals capably with some of the major follies in Bérubé’s critique, but since the latter inscribes me in his roster of shame, I think a few comments are in order, starting with the obvious fact that Bérubé, eager to preserve his cred as thoughtful progressive critic of Left Excess, has had recourse to wholesale invention. The most obvious fact about what passes for the Left in the US and Europe regarding the entire Libyan saga was that it was only a few notches short of unanimity in endorsing the entire NATO-backed enterprise. What consistent voices were raised in questioning the premises and applications of the two Security Council resolutions enabling NATO, the factual basis for the reporting coming out of Libya that enabled the near 100 per cent agreement in the press that the UN resolutions justified NATO’s bombing campaign, to avoid “genocide” by Gadhafi “against his own people,” that the credentials and conduct of the rebels, later renamed “revolutionaries” were beyond reproach? Here at CounterPunch some of our contributors such as Vijay Prashad were, initially at least, enthusiastic supporters of the Benghazi rebels. Others, such as myself or Patrick Cockburn, in Libya for the UK Independent, or Diana Johnstone in Paris or Jean Bricmont in Brussels, or Tariq Ali (passim) were critical, raised questions concerning the stentorian pro-NATO chorus. This role is usually regarded as one of the mandates of left journalism. I do not recall CounterPunch as being part of a substantial chorus in this worthy enterprise. In fact I recall us as being among a mere handful on the left, more in concert with a libertarian site like antiwar.com. This is born out by scrutiny of Bérubé’s attack, which is markedly short on names and publications on which to lavish his reprobations of “the left” which, at least prior to the welcome rise of the Occupiers, has been a scrawny thing in recent years. On Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now one was far more likely to hear CIA-consultant Juan Cole issuing fervent support for the entire intervention than rather any vigorous interviewing of informed sources about what was actually happening on the ground in Libya. Failure as concerns Libya’s history this year belongs not to the virtually non-existent left, but to the entire political spectrum from progressives and the whole arc rightwards. A substantial measure of blame must be allocated here to the press, both here and in the U.K. Could it be that the press coverage of NATO’s Libyan onslaught was actually worse than the reporting on NATO’s attacks on the former Yugoslavia in the late 1990s, or on Iraq in the run-up to the 2003 invasion by the U.S.A. and its coalition partners? The answer is yes. In the case of both of the earlier NATO interventions, the debates pro and con were accompanied by many journalistic and official or semi-official investigations, most of them blatantly partisan, but some offering substantive claims about such issues as war crimes, weapons of mass destruction, the actual as opposed to self-proclaimed motives of the assailants, and kindred issues. Mark the contrast with the Libyan intervention. In less than a month, from mid-February to mid-March, we moved from vague allegations of Gaddafi’s supposed “genocide” or “crimes against humanity” to two separate votes in the U.N. Security Council, which permitted a NATO mission to establish a “no-fly” zone to protect civilians, this latter protection to be achieved by “all necessary measures.” By the time U.N. Security Council resolution 1973 had been voted through on March 17, France had already formally recognized the jerry-rigged rebel committee in Benghazi as the legitimate government of Libya. By the end of May, it was being openly stated by senior figures in the relevant NATO governments that “regime change” was the objective and the eviction of Gaddafi a sine qua non of the mission. Also, by late May, it was apparent that the rebels’ military capacities were modest in the extreme, that Ghadafi’s eviction was not going to be the overnight affair, confidently predicted in western capitals and in Benghazi, also that NATO’s bombardments were not having the requisite effect. In the crucial February 15 – March 17 time slot, there was no determined effort to investigate the charges against Ghadafi, leveled in the U.N. Security Council Resolutions and by NATO principals such as Obama and Clinton, the U.K.’s prime minister Cameron, or President Sarkozy and his foreign minister. The amazing vagueness of news stories of this – or indeed any – topic coming out of Libya has been conspicuous. Here, remember, we had a regime accused in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 of “widespread and systematic attacks … against the civilian population [that] may amount to crimes against humanity.” Yet since mid-February the reporting out of Libya displayed a striking lack of persuasive documentation of butcheries or abuses commensurate with the language lavished on the regime’s presumptive conduct. Time and again one read vague phrases like “thousands reportedly killed by Gaddafi’s mercenaries” or Gaddafi “massacring his own people,” delivered without the slightest effort to furnish supporting evidence. It was the secondhand allegation of massacres that drove both news coverage and U.N. activities – particularly in the early stage, when U.N. Resolution 1970 was adopted, calling for sanctions and the referral of Gaddafi’s closest circle to the International Criminal Court. News reports in mid-March, such as those by the McClatchy news chain’s reporters Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel and Shashank Bengali, contained no claims of anything approaching a “crime against humanity,” the allegation in Resolution 1973. Yet by February 23 the propaganda blitz was in full spate, with Clinton denouncing Gaddafi and with Reagan’s “mad dog of the Middle East” exhumed as the preferred way of describing the Libyan leader. The U.N. commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, started denouncing the Libyan government as early as February 18; U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon joined Pillay on February 21. The U.N. News Center reported that Ban was “outraged at press reports that the Libyan authorities have been firing at demonstrators from war planes and helicopters” (our italics). In these early days, no one who represented the Libyan government was permitted to address the council. Only defectors speaking on behalf of Libya were given the floor. Now, remember that on March 10 French President Sarkozy, a major player in NATO’s coalition of the willing against Libya, declared the Libyan National Transition Council the only legitimate representative of the Libyan people. So, Gaddafi was facing a formal armed insurrection – not a protest movement demanding “democracy” – led by a shadowy entity based in Benghazi. Seven days later, Resolution 1973 made clear that attempts to suppress this insurrection would elicit armed intervention by NATO. The political complexion and origins of the rebel leadership and its backers received only fleeting attention. Topics such as the rivalry between the French and Italian oil companies, or the input of other international oil majors, and major U.S. banks and financial institutions were rarely touched upon. The coverage of any fighting was often laughable. The press corps in Benghazi breathlessly described minor skirmishes involving a tank or two, or some armed vehicles, as mighty engagements. In fact, the mighty armies contending along the highway west of Benghazi would melt into the bleachers at a college baseball game. News stories suggest mobile warfare on the scale of the epic dramas of the Kursk salient or the battle for Stalingrad in World War Two. By the end of June the “no-fly zone” prompted some 12,000-plus NATO sorties. As with any bombing, civilians died. Since the beginning of NATO operations, a total of 12,887 sorties, including 4,850 strike sorties, were conducted up to June 27. A team of Russian doctors wrote to the president of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, as follows: “Today, 24 March, 2011, NATO aircraft and the U.S. all night and all morning bombed a suburb of Tripoli – Tajhura (where, in particular, is Libya’s Nuclear Research Center). Air Defense and Air Force facilities in Tajhura were destroyed back in the first 2 days of strikes and more active military facilities in the city remained, but today the object of bombing are barracks of the Libyan army, around which are densely populated residential areas, and, next to it, the largest of Libya’s Heart Centers. Civilians and the doctors could not assume that common residential quarters will be about to become destroyed, so none of the residents or hospital patients was evacuated. “Bombs and rockets struck residential houses and fell near the hospital. The glass of the Cardiac Center building was broken, and in the building of the maternity ward for pregnant women with heart disease a wall collapsed and part of the roof. This resulted in ten miscarriages whereby babies died, the women are in intensive care, doctors are fighting for their lives. Our colleagues and we are working seven days a week, to save people. This is a direct consequence of falling bombs and missiles in residential buildings, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries, which are operated and reviewed now by our doctors. Such a large number of wounded and killed, as during today, did not occur during the total of all the riots in Libya. And this is called ‘protecting’ the civilian population?” With the Libyan intervention, everything was out of proportion. Gaddafi was scarcely the acme of monstrosity conjured up by Obama or Mrs. Clinton or Sarkozy. In four decades, Libyans rose from being among the most wretched in Africa to considerable elevation in terms of social amenities. In a detailed fairly recent report (“The Situation of Children and Women in Libya,” UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Regional Office, November 2010), UNICEF noted that Libya had important socio-economic achievements to its credit. In 2009 it enjoyed: a buoyant growth rate, with GDP having risen from $27.3 billion in 1998 to $93.2 billion by 2009, according to the World Bank; high per capita income (estimated by the World Bank at $16,430);high literacy rates (95 per cent for males and 78 per cent for females, aged fifteen and above); high life expectancy at birth (74 years overall; 77 for females and 72 for males) and a consequent ranking of 55 out of 182 countries in terms of overall “Human Development” In terms of the distribution of oil revenues it would be instructive to compare Libya’s record to those of other oil-producing nations. Gaddafi’s alleged slaughter of his own people, and alleged ordering of mass rapes, formed the sharp edge of the interventionist crusade and of the Security Council resolutions, draped with the imprimatur of the collusive International Criminal Court. These charges were endlessly recycled by the press, without any serious attempt at verification. By mid-to-late June, human rights organizations were casting doubt on claims of mass rape and other abuses perpetrated by forces loyal to Gaddafi. An investigation by Amnesty International failed to find evidence for these human rights violations and in many cases has discredited or cast doubt on them. It also found indications that, on several occasions, the rebels in Benghazi appeared to have knowingly made false claims or manufactured evidence. The findings by the investigators were sharply at odds with the views of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who told a press conference that “we have information that there was a policy to rape in Libya those who were against the government. Apparently he [Colonel Gaddafi] used it to punish people.” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was “deeply concerned” that Gaddafi’s troops were participating in widespread rape in Libya. “Rape, physical intimidation, sexual harassment, and even so-called virginity tests have taken place in countries throughout the region,” she said. Donatella Rovera, senior crisis response adviser for Amnesty, who was in Libya for three months after the start of the uprising, said to Patrick Cockburn in late June that “we have not found any evidence or a single victim of rape, or a doctor who knew about somebody being raped.” She stressed this does not prove that mass rape did not occur, but there is no evidence to show that it did. Liesel Gerntholtz, head of women’s rights at Human Rights Watch, which also investigated the charge of mass rape, said, “We have not been able to find evidence.” In one instance, two captured pro-Gaddafi soldiers presented to the international media by the rebels claimed that [added] their officers, and later themselves, had raped a family with four daughters. Ms. Rovera says that when she and a colleague, both fluent in Arabic, interviewed the two detainees, one 17 years old and one 21, alone and in separate rooms, they changed their stories and gave differing accounts of what had happened. “They both said they had not participated in the rape and just heard about it,” she said. “They told different stories about whether or not the girls’ hands were tied, whether their parents were present, and about how they were dressed.” Seemingly the strongest evidence for mass rape appeared to come from a Libyan psychologist, Dr. Seham Sergewa, who says she distributed 70,000 questionnaires in rebel-controlled areas and along the Tunisian border, of which over 60,000 were returned. Some 259 women volunteered that they had been raped, of whom Dr. Sergewa said she interviewed 140 victims. Asked by Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s specialist on Libya, if it would be possible to meet any of these women, Dr. Sergewa replied that “she had lost contact with them,” and was unable to provide documentary evidence. The accusation that Viagra had been distributed to Gaddafi’s troops to encourage them to rape women in rebel areas first surfaced in March, after NATO had destroyed tanks advancing on Benghazi. Ms. Rovera says that rebels dealing with the foreign media in Benghazi started showing journalists packets of Viagra, claiming they came from burned-out tanks, though it is unclear why the packets were not charred. Rebels repeatedly charged that mercenary troops from Central and West Africa had been used against them. The Amnesty investigation found there was no evidence for this. “Those shown to journalists as foreign mercenaries were later quietly released,” says Ms. Rovera. “Most were sub-Saharan migrants working in Libya without documents.” Others were not so lucky and were lynched or executed. Ms. Rovera found two bodies of migrants in the Benghazi morgue, and others were dumped on the outskirts of the city. She says, “The politicians kept talking about mercenaries, which inflamed public opinion, and the myth has continued because they were released without publicity.” One story, to which credence was given by the foreign media early on in Benghazi, was that eight to ten government troops who refused to shoot protesters were executed by their own side. Their bodies were shown on TV. But Ms. Rovera, says there is strong evidence for a different explanation. She says amateur video shows them alive after they had been captured, suggesting it was the rebels who killed them. NATO intervention started on March 19 with air attacks to “protect” people in Benghazi from massacre by advancing pro-Gaddafi troops. There is no doubt that civilians did expect to be killed after threats of vengeance from Gaddafi. During the first days of the uprising in eastern Libya, security forces shot and killed demonstrators and people attending their funerals, but there is no proof of mass killing of civilians on the scale of Syria or Yemen. Most of the fighting during the first days of the uprising was in Benghazi, where 100 to 110 people were killed, and in the city of Baida to the east, where 59 to 64 were killed, says Amnesty. Most of these were probably protesters, though some may have obtained weapons. There is no evidence that aircraft or heavy anti-aircraft machine guns were used against crowds. Spent cartridges picked up after protesters were shot at came from Kalashnikovs or similar caliber weapons. The Amnesty findings confirmed a report by the International Crisis Group, which found that while the Gaddafi regime had a history of brutally repressing opponents, there was no question of “genocide.” The report adds that “much Western media coverage has from the outset presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the protest movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the regime’s security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed demonstrators who presented no security challenge.” With so many countries out of bounds, journalists flocked to Benghazi, in Libya, which can be reached from Egypt without a visa. Alternatively they went to Tripoli, where the government allows a carefully monitored press corps to operate under strict supervision. Having arrived in these two cities, the ways in which the journalists report diverged sharply. Everybody reporting out of Tripoli expressed understandable skepticism about what government minders seek to show them as regards civilian casualties caused by NATO air strikes or demonstrations of support for Gaddafi. By way of contrast, the foreign press corps in Benghazi, capital of the rebel-held territory, shows surprising credulity toward more subtle but equally self-serving stories from the rebel government or its sympathizers. The Libyan insurgents were adept at dealing with the press from an early stage, and this included skilful propaganda to put the blame for unexplained killings on the other side. It is a weakness of journalists that they give wide publicity to atrocities, evidence for which may be shaky when first revealed. But when the stories turn out to be untrue or exaggerated, they rate scarcely a mention. It is all credit to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that they have taken a skeptical attitude to atrocities until proven. Contrast this responsible attitude with that of Hillary Clinton or the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who blithely suggested that Gaddafi was using rape as a weapon of war to punish the rebels This systematic demonization of Gaddafi – a brutal despot he may be, but not a monster on the scale of Saddam Hussein – also made it difficult to negotiate a ceasefire with him. There is nothing particularly surprising about the rebels in Benghazi making things up or producing dubious witnesses to Gaddafi’s crimes. They were fighting a war against a despot whom they feared and hated, and they understandably used propaganda as a weapon of war. But it did show naivety on the part of the foreign media, who almost universally sympathize with the rebels, to the extent that they swallowed whole so many atrocity stories fed to them by the rebel authorities and their sympathizers. The only massacre by the Gaddafi regime, involving hundreds of victims, which is so far well attested is the killings at Abu Salim prison in Tripoli in 1996, when up to 1,200 prisoners died, according to a credible witness who survived. Battlefronts are always awash with rumors of impending massacre or rape, which spread rapidly among terrified people who may be the intended victims. Understandably enough, they do not want to wait around to find out how true these stories are. Earlier this year, Patrick Cockburn was in Ajdabiyah, a front-line town an hour and a half’s drive south of Benghazi, when he saw car loads of panic-stricken refugees fleeing up the road. They had just heard an entirely untrue report via al-Jazeera Arabic that pro-Gaddafi forces had broken through. Likewise, al-Jazeera was producing uncorroborated reports of hospitals being attacked, blood banks destroyed, women raped, and the injured executed. This toxic mixture of cheerleading and willful blindness persisted through to the end – though now stories do appear about the summary executions, revenge killings and mass imprisonments that are occurring. These are the real failures, to which Bérubé is indifferent, just as he is indifferent to and entirely ignorant of Libyan history, past and present. His mandate is to issue his pro-forma denunciation of “the left,” an excerise in data-free ranting. By way of an antidote I strongly recommend a fine piece in the London Review of Books by Hugh Roberts, who was the director of the International Crisis Group’s North Africa Project from 2002 to 2007 and from February to July 2011. Roberts is about to take up the post of Edward Keller Professor of North African and Middle Eastern History at Tufts University. A couple of samples: “The claim that the ‘international community’ had no choice but to intervene militarily and that the alternative was to do nothing is false. An active, practical, non-violent alternative was proposed, and deliberately rejected. The argument for a no-fly zone and then for a military intervention employing ‘all necessary measures’ was that only this could stop the regime’s repression and protect civilians. Yet many argued that the way to protect civilians was not to intensify the conflict by intervening on one side or the other, but to end it by securing a ceasefire followed by political negotiations. A number of proposals were put forward. The International Crisis Group, for instance, where I worked at the time, published a statement on 10 March arguing for a two-point initiative: (i) the formation of a contact group or committee drawn from Libya’s North African neighbours and other African states with a mandate to broker an immediate ceasefire; (ii) negotiations between the protagonists to be initiated by the contact group and aimed at replacing the current regime with a more accountable, representative and law-abiding government. This proposal was echoed by the African Union and was consistent with the views of many major non-African states – Russia, China, Brazil and India, not to mention Germany and Turkey. It was restated by the ICG in more detail (adding provision for the deployment under a UN mandate of an international peacekeeping force to secure the ceasefire) in an open letter to the UN Security Council on 16 March, the eve of the debate which concluded with the adoption of UNSC Resolution 1973. In short, before the Security Council voted to approve the military intervention, a worked-out proposal had been put forward which addressed the need to protect civilians by seeking a rapid end to the fighting, and set out the main elements of an orderly transition to a more legitimate form of government, one that would avoid the danger of an abrupt collapse into anarchy, with all it might mean for Tunisia’s revolution, the security of Libya’s other neighbours and the wider region. The imposition of a no-fly zone would be an act of war: as the US defense secretary, Robert Gates, told Congress on 2 March, it required the disabling of Libya’s air defences as an indispensable preliminary. In authorising this and ‘all necessary measures’, the Security Council was choosing war when no other policy had even been tried. Why? Resolution 1973 was passed in New York late in the evening of 17 March. The next day, Gaddafi, whose forces were camped on the southern edge of Benghazi, announced a ceasefire in conformity with Article 1 and proposed a political dialogue in line with Article 2. What the Security Council demanded and suggested, he provided in a matter of hours. His ceasefire was immediately rejected on behalf of the NTC by a senior rebel commander, Khalifa Haftar, and dismissed by Western governments. ‘We will judge him by his actions not his words,’ David Cameron declared, implying that Gaddafi was expected to deliver a complete ceasefire by himself: that is, not only order his troops to cease fire but ensure this ceasefire was maintained indefinitely despite the fact that the NTC was refusing to reciprocate. Cameron’s comment also took no account of the fact that Article 1 of Resolution 1973 did not of course place the burden of a ceasefire exclusively on Gaddafi. No sooner had Cameron covered for the NTC’s unmistakable violation of Resolution 1973 than Obama weighed in, insisting that for Gaddafi’s ceasefire to count for anything he would (in addition to sustaining it indefinitely, single-handed, irrespective of the NTC) have to withdraw his forces not only from Benghazi but also from Misrata and from the most important towns his troops had retaken from the rebellion, Ajdabiya in the east and Zawiya in the west – in other words, he had to accept strategic defeat in advance. These conditions, which were impossible for Gaddafi to accept, were absent from Article 1. (1) Demands the immediate establishment of a ceasefire and a complete end to violence and all attacks against, and abuses of, civilians;…” And here’s Roberts concerning the influential charge that Gadhafi had ordered the slaughtering of his fellow Libyans from the air, plus his conclusion: In the days that followed I made efforts to check the al-Jazeera story [about Ghadafi bombing Libyans] for myself. One source I consulted was the well-regarded blog Informed Comment, maintained and updated every day by Juan Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan. This carried a post on 21 February entitled ‘Qaddafi’s bombardments recall Mussolini’s’, which made the point that ‘in 1933-40, Italo Balbo championed aerial warfare as the best means to deal with uppity colonial populations.’ The post began: ‘The strafing and bombardment in Tripoli of civilian demonstrators by Muammar Gaddafi’s fighter jets on Monday …’, with the underlined words linking to an article by Sarah El Deeb and Maggie Michael for Associated Press published at 9 p.m. on 21 February. This article provided no corroboration of Cole’s claim that Gaddafi’s fighter jets (or any other aircraft) had strafed or bombed anyone in Tripoli or anywhere else. The same is true of every source indicated in the other items on Libya relaying the aerial onslaught story which Cole posted that same day. I was in Egypt for most of the time, but since many journalists visiting Libya were transiting through Cairo, I made a point of asking those I could get hold of what they had picked up in the field. None of them had found any corroboration of the story. I especially remember on 18 March asking the British North Africa expert Jon Marks, just back from an extended tour of Cyrenaica (taking in Ajdabiya, Benghazi, Brega, Derna and Ras Lanuf), what he had heard about the story. He told me that no one he had spoken to had mentioned it. Four days later, on 22 March, USA Today carried a striking article by Alan Kuperman, the author of The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention and coeditor of Gambling on Humanitarian Intervention. The article, ‘Five Things the US Should Consider in Libya’, provided a powerful critique of the Nato intervention as violating the conditions that needed to be observed for a humanitarian intervention to be justified or successful. But what interested me most was his statement that ‘despite ubiquitous cellphone cameras, there are no images of genocidal violence, a claim that smacks of rebel propaganda.’ So, four weeks on, I was not alone in finding no evidence for the aerial slaughter story. I subsequently discovered that the issue had come up more than a fortnight earlier, on 2 March, in hearings in the US Congress when Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were testifying. They told Congress that they had no confirmation of reports of aircraft controlled by Gaddafi firing on citizens…. The idea that Gaddafi represented nothing in Libyan society, that he was taking on his entire people and his people were all against him was another distortion of the facts. As we now know from the length of the war, the huge pro-Gaddafi demonstration in Tripoli on 1 July, the fierce resistance Gaddafi’s forces put up, the month it took the rebels to get anywhere at all at Bani Walid and the further month at Sirte, Gaddafi’s regime enjoyed a substantial measure of support, as the NTC did. Libyan society was divided and political division was in itself a hopeful development since it signified the end of the old political unanimity enjoined and maintained by the Jamahiriyya. In this light, the Western governments’ portrayal of ‘the Libyan people’ as uniformly ranged against Gaddafi had a sinister implication, precisely because it insinuated a new Western-sponsored unanimity back into Libyan life. This profoundly undemocratic idea followed naturally from the equally undemocratic idea that, in the absence of electoral consultation or even an opinion poll to ascertain the Libyans’ actual views, the British, French and American governments had the right and authority to determine who was part of the Libyan people and who wasn’t. No one supporting the Gaddafi regime counted. Because they were not part of ‘the Libyan people’ they could not be among the civilians to be protected, even if they were civilians as a matter of mere fact. And they were not protected; they were killed by Nato air strikes as well as by uncontrolled rebel units. The number of such civilian victims on the wrong side of the war must be many times the total death toll as of 21 February. But they don’t count, any more than the thousands of young men in Gaddafi’s army who innocently imagined that they too were part of ‘the Libyan people’ and were only doing their duty to the state counted when they were incinerated by Nato’s planes or extra-judicially executed en masse after capture, as in Sirte.

I never heard of an "senior Al-Qaeda educator" before. John Simkin is an educator. al-Qaeda leaders are terrorists. Bel Hadj is the commander of the military garrison of Tripoli who was captured by the CIA in Pakistan, renditioned Libya and tortured by Gadhafi's security, and after joining the revolution led the attack on Gadhafi's compound. How does that make him CIA or a CIA government? If they don't like the government they're getting, they can have another revolution, as they know how to do it, having done it. The USA also started their revolution with a central bank in Philadelphia. BK Revolutionary Program +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Bill Kelly If they don't like the government they're getting, they can have another revolution, as they know how to do it, having done it. END Bill Kelly Quote ========================================================== They would have to work against NATO. link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naivety ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From The Gaurdian (Mr.Smart) The ''rebels'' [sic] have good reason not to trust Belhaj. This ''rebel'' military leader is a CIA - Al-Qaeda ''asset'' Read the French newspaper Liberation 26th August 2011 for background information on Abdel Hakim Belhaj Better known as Abu Abd-Allah al-Sadiq / Salek Also read Global Research on this CIA asset. ''According to a portrait made by the Liberation, Abdel Hakim Belhaj is best known by the CIA as Abdallah al Salek, with which he worked as war cable of the mujahidinnes against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan and then arrested him in 2003 for his links to al Qaida in Afghanistan and Malaysia.'' http://beinternacional.eu/en/news/2108-velho-parceiro-da-al-qaida-governa-tripoli Abdelhakim Belhaj, le retour d’Al-Qaeda PORTRAITJihadiste de longue date, le nouveau gouverneur militaire de la capitale libyenne avait été capturé par la CIA. http://liberation.fr/monde/01012356209-abdelhakim-belhaj-le-retour-d-al-qaeda .

Bill, You post at least several times in several threads, as if you have a vested stake in this controversy which you seem not to accept as even potentially controversial. "We" do not KNOW it began with the self immolation of Bouazizi. How would it harm you to embrace a healthy skepticism in this controversy, how does it help you to be so insistent about the importance of Bouazizi in the origins of the overthrow of the Tunisian government? Why can Bouazizi not be only a catalyst fanning the flames of a fire ingited earlier by unknown actors? Is it not possible that Bouazizi was as described in the BBC piece I've quoted from? Tom, that the CIA is behind the Arab Spring is the leftest "media creation," and I am open to persuasion that anything or anybody other than Bouazizi started it, but having investigated I can't find any other alternative. I am also open to healthy skepticism and debate, but not with those who say the dictators were benevolent leaders who fought terrorism. As you say, I have a personal stake in these events and have been following the situation in Libya for over a decade now, but as with the USA and the CIA - and France and Italy, I was with Gadhafi until he started killing his people. I was working with Dr. Ben Barber, a member of the board of directors of the Gadhafi Charities Foundation and personal mentor to Saif - Dr. Saif of the London School of Economics, who wrote in his thesis that it is the right of the people to revolt - and the Gadhafis agreed to what we wanted, it was/is the US Navy and US government who is against us. And the US government and the CIA via Ed Wilson were behind Gadhafi, so those who came into the game after NATO started bombing Gadhafi's troops just want to yell "imperialist crusader agreessor," when in fact it isn't just USA, but NATO is France, Italy, UN and Arab League, who all can't be wrong. As for Mohamid Bouazizi, when the revolution in Tunisia finally made it into the mainstream news, and began to spread to other Arab countries - notably Egypt, it was apparent that Libya, boxed in by Tunisia and Egypt, could not be kept immune from the revolt, so I began my blog with the idea of just keeping track of the situation, and not endorsing either side - but it quickly became apparent that the dictators were wrong and the revolutionaries were right. In trying to determine the origins of the revolt I went back and looked at all of the media reports - and it was quite apparent that the USA, UK and especially France were not only in bed with Gadhafi and Mubarak, but also Ali, who as your report accurately reflects - was popular with a large segment of the population as was Mubarak and Gadhafi and the other dictators in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, and encouraged economic growth, but not enough. In Mid-December 2010 the women foreign minister of France and her family arrived in Tunisia for the holiday season as guests of Ali, and flying around in a private plain of an industrialist with economic interests in the country, and they were there when the revolt began - and she - the foreign minister of France, offered Ali extra teargas and anti-riot and military weapons that he could us on his own people. The origins of the revolt were basically economic - and the fact that Ali's security state - a women cop - slapped Bouazizi around - which motivated his suicidal action. Your article is correct - the common view was that Tunisia was stable and secure - and that view was certainly held in the CIA and USA, France, et al. - a view that was apparently wrong. Nobody saw this revolution coming, and it is now in its first full year and still going strong - four dictators down and more to go - and it is an event a Deep Political Event as big as the Cold War, Kennedy assassination or Vietnam, and deserves full attention and review. I was one of the few people who even bothered to read the article Steve posted because I read as much as possible about these events, especially if they reflect on Libya, and it is absurd to suggest that the CIA or western powers incited these revolutions by utilizing secret unknown snipers, when in fact ALL of the snipers in this revolution so far have been identified and are State Security Snipers, not revolutionaries, as most of the dissidents are unarmed. The Guardian article by Rachel Linn is interesting in that her speculation is right on - and a month before it begins. Here is the first article I can find on the origins of the revolution in Tunisia - which is generally acknowledged by everyone except ideological nitwits - as the spark that set off a Regional Revolution that even spread to the USA as the Occupy Wall Street movement - Witnessesreport rioting in Tunisian town http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE6BI06U20101219 Sun Dec 19, 2010 2:59pm GMT TUNIS (Reuters) - Police in a provincial city in Tunisia used tear gas late onSaturday to disperse hundreds of youths who smashed shop windows and damagedcars, witnesses told Reuters. There was no immediate comment from officials on thedisturbances. Riots are extremely rare for Tunisia, a north African countryof about 10 million people which is one of the most prosperous and stable inthe region. Witnesses said several hundred youths gathered in the city ofSidi Bouzid, about 200 km (125miles) south-west of the capital Tunis, late on Saturday. They were angered by an incident where a young man, MohamedBouazizi, had set fire to himself in protest after police confiscated the fruitand vegetables he was selling from a street stall, the witnesses said. "The violent clashes ended with the arrest of scores ofpeople," a witness, who requested anonymity, told Reuters. "(Therewas) breaking of shop windows and smashing of cars, while police fired teargas." Another witness, a relative of the man who set fire tohimself, said outbreaks of rioting had continued into Sunday. "People are angry at the case of Mohamed and thedeterioration of unemployment in the region," said Mahdi Said Horchani."Regional authorities have promised to intervene." He said Bouazizi was in a critical condition and had beentransferred to a hospital in Tunis. Footage posted on the Facebook social network site showedseveral hundred protesters outside the regional government headquarters, withlines of police blocking them from getting closer to the building. It did notshow any violence. Witnesses said hundreds of extra security forces had beenbrought into Sidi Bouzid on Sunday and had established a heavy presence on thestreets. Calls placed by Reuters seeking comment from Tunisianofficials went (unanswered). VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV0000VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVooooVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV============== Golly, maybe Ben Barber not a 'good guy' ???? ====Golly seems to love the Palestinian people,oops guess not.========================================================= The cyber-security perception management machinery was also put into high gear in the August 1 edtion of The Washington Times. A story by Ben Barber hyped the threat posed by Palestinian computer users who have launched a so-called "cyber-Jihad" against Israeli government and corporate computers. The article states that the U.S. government-funded firms RAND and iDefense are urging the United States to adopt the same cyber defenses as those usedin Israel. And the article gives us the potential next phase of the U.S. government's perception management campaign: Palestinian sites will start distributing viruses aimed at the United States -- one Palestinian site is blamed for distributing the Love Bug and Melissa viruses. If one remembers, however, Love Bug originated in the Philippines while Melissa came from Trenton, New Jersey. They are a long way off from Nablus and Ramallah on the West Bank. Even in pseudo cyber-war, the truth is the greatest casualty! link http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=69&contentid=233&page=2 ===================================================== BK QUOTE Here is the first article I can find on the origins of the revolution in Tunisia..... Sun Dec 19, 2010 2:59pm GMT END BILL KELLY QUOTE +======================= Golly,maybe revolutions appear like magic,opps guess not.BTW Bill I posted before,NO SLAP. The false slap story (by a "FEMALE") was a tactic PSY-op to incite the male muslim mind. She took his fruit/vegtable scale to police station and police didnt give it back. He was now out of work..then......you know the rest of the story.= August 2, 2010 12:46 PM ET State Department unhappy. CIA connected CPJ decries Tunisia media freedom. link http://cpj.org/blog/2010/08/circle-of-media-repression-widens-over-tunisias-hi.php +++++++++++++++ Australian State Department +++++++ Travel Advice for Tunisia - Australian Department of Foreign Affairs ... Aug 11, 2010 We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution in Tunisia because of the unsettled security situation, the risk of civil unrest and the threat of kidnapping and terrorist attack. We advise you to reconsider your need to travel to the areas ... +++++++++++++++++++++++++oooo++++++++++++++++++++++ Tuesday, August 17, 2010 Restrictions on trade with Libya spark riots in Tunisia link http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2010/af_tunisia0788_08_17.asp +++++++++++++++++++++++++++oooo+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Aug 2/2010 unemployment rates are estimated to be at least 30% overall, and more than 40% for youth between ages 18 and 25 Aug-2-2010 Tunisia – The Imprisonment of Fahem Boukadous (Part One of a series) August 2, 2010 tags: Adnan Hajji, Afef Benaceur, Bourguiba, Djemaa Hajji, El Hiwar Eltounsi, Fahem Boukadous, Gafsa, Metlaoui, Redeyef, Reporters Without Borders, Tunisia, UGTT, Union Generale Tunisienne de Travail, Zine Ben Ali (note: it has come to my attention that this little harmless blog is currently censored by the Tunisian government, meaning that the content is blocked by the authorities there. I am honored to learn this. Although difficult to substantiate, there is a good chance that it is a credible claim. As a result, I intend to write many more pieces on the situation in Tunisia – a country whose relative economic success in Africa is matched only by the seething repression of all forms of dissent by its unpopular government – a democracy in name, but dictatorship in fact – run by Zine Ben Ali, who was trained in a US police academy several decades ago. Ben Ali became Habib Bourguiba’s Minister of Interior and then, in what amounted to a `medical coup’ of sorts, overthrew Bourguiba, had him declared incompetent to rule, and took over. That was nearly a quarter century ago. – cheers, RJP) ___________________________________ other entries on Tunisia and on the 2008 events in Redeyef: - Part Two – Tunisia – The Imprisonment of Fahem Boukadous (Part Two of a series) - Part Three – Tunisia – The Imprisonment of Fahem Boukadous (Part Three of a series) - Part Four – Tunisia – The Imprisonment of Fahem Boukadous (Part Four of a series) - Redeyef: The Struggle For Dignity - Land Grab, Repression in Tunisia’s Phosphate Belt - Farhat Hached and the Struggle for Tunisian Independence - Amnesty International’s Assessment of the 2008 Social Protest Movement in the Gafsa Region of Tunisia - Tunisia: Videos on Political Repression (added Nov. 15, 2010) ___________________________________ “The only way that the [Tunisian] state deals with social problems is with police repression” ——————-Moktar Trifi, President of the Tunisian League of Human Rights———————— Who Is Fahem Boukadous? To most Americans with the exception of those few, for whatever Fahrem Boukadous - Tunisian political prisoner risks death from health treatment neglect from Tunisian authorities reason, who have an attachment to the North African country of Tunisia, the name Fahem Boukadous, so foreign to American ears, means nothing. It means a good deal more to `Reporters Without Borders‘ and to the US State Department that actually issued a statement (half way down the page) on his behalf, to the US intelligence agencies and military that have carefully followed the Spring, 2008 uprising in the Tunisian region of Gafsa – deemed the most extensive and militant social protest in that country’s history in the past quarter century. During the Gafsa protests (more, much more on this in later posts) Fahem Boukadous was there in the mining town of Redeyef at the center of the center of the social storm, reporting for the satelitte tv network El Hiwar Eltounsi on the events as they unfolded. Along with several other journalists, among them a young female journalist Zakregh Dhifaoui, Boukadous was indicted on conspiracy charges of “forming a criminal association liable to attack persons and their property” and “disseminating information liable to disturb the public order”. Many of the trials themselves seemed fixed. For example, residing judges refused to order medical examinations for defendants who claimed they had suffered torture at the hands of the local police. In Boukadous’ case, the heart of the matter is that he was merely doing his job – reporting on the events unfolding in Redeyef without government filters. This, in the eyes of the Ben Ali regime, with its long history of repression against dissent, was enough to send Boukadous to prison. When the arrest warrants were issued, Boukadous went underground, but was captured at a Tunisian hospital while receiving medical treatment for the chronic asthma from which he suffers. A few weeks ago, now two years after the fact, Boukadous was sentenced by a court in Gafsa to four years in prison. He now languishes in prison in Gafsa where his health is seriously deteriorating; Gafsa is located close to the edge of the Sahara some 250 miles southwest of Tunis. Summers there are difficult with temperatures frequently reaching about 120 degrees fahrenheit (50+ centigrade). About ten days ago (July 23, 2010) Boukadous apparently suffered a major asthma attack which was ignored by the Gafsa prison authorities, who refused to administer the oxygen Boukadous needed. Indeed he was actually denied medical attention at the time and was simply left in his cell to rot. According to a report that appeared on the `Reporters Without Borders’ website (published on July 28, 2010 – ie – just five days ago), it is only after his fellow inmates beat on the doors of their cells and shouted for help that the prison guards finally intervened. A doctor from the Gafsa Hospital arrives some forty minutes later. Boukadous had already slipped into critical condition. It was only through his timely intervention that Boukadous’ life was saved. Boukadous’ wife, Afef Benaceur, has been active on her husband’s behalf, drawing attention to his situation. Without outside pressure, it is unlikely that Fahem Boukadous will live to see the end of his sentence. He should be immediately released. The charges were trumped up in the first place. 2. Tunisia: A country divided…no economic miracle The events leading to the arrest, conviction and imprisonment of Tunisian journalist Fahem Boukarous began more than two and a half years ago. In a sense, his imprisonment is a kind of `collateral damage’ to an uprising against poverty, injustice, unemployment and degradation that exploded in the phosphate mining district centered around the city of Gafsa in Tunisia’s far west near the Algerian border. Boukarous was little more than a `messenger’ – relaying with journalist accuracy the scope of the social protest movement to his country and the broader world through Hiwar Eltounsi – the tv satellite network station he worked for. But his reporting, and those of other honest journalists who were able to penetrate the district blocked off for months by Tunisian security forces, stripped the veil off the myth of the happy little North African country in which economic progress, fueled by European tourism, was leading to a generalized prosperity. Instead what came through to anyone serious enough to watch and listen, is a country divided, divided between its super rich – a bevvy of families many of the related to the country’s president Zine Ben Ali on the one hand and the multitude of the Tunisian people living growing poverty. The division between the more prosperous northern section of the country around Tunis and the seriously economically and socially deprived south also reared its head. Any student of modern Tunisian history knows that again and again the calls for social justice, to make the Tunisian government live up to its promise of greater democracy and prosperity almost always have originated in the south, be it from the same Gafsa phosphate miners who took the last Tunisian president, Habib Bourguiba or the poor people from the coastal region of Gabes near the Libyan border who led the `food riots’ – demonstrations against the lifting of subsidies on bread in the early 1980s as part of the Tunisian response to IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programs. 3. The Good Women of Redeyef… On or about April 10, 2008, 30 women from the Tunisian mining town of Redeyef took to the streets, calling for the release of their husbands, fathers and sons, held in prison in the regional center, Gafsa. Some of them were widows whose husbands had died in the mines the families of which had received no benefits. Some were the mothers of the region’s unemployed youth, that some sources say had reached the 40% level. The men they were supporting had been jailed protesting the lack of job opportunities and what appeared to be the manipulation of job hiring practices at a local phosphate mine. Specifically, a number of the activists had just returned from Tunis where they had participated in a solidarity event organized by one of the many `Redeyef Support Committees’ which had sprung up all over the country. On April 4, 2008, a `day of solidarity’ was held in Tunis with some Redeyef trade unionists and activists in attendance. Returning home to Redeyef they were arrested along with dozens of others, among them Adnan Hajji, mentioned above, secretary of the local branch of the teachers’ union. In response and solidarity, the Gafsa area teachers’ union suspended classes and called a general strike that lasted three days. Belying the image of `passive’, `oppressed’ Muslim women so often portrayed in the European and US media, and fueled on by the righteous rage that comes from exploitation and injustice, the women marched to the jail to demand the release of their husbands. As they marched to the center of the town, hundreds of others joined them. The next day, as proof that protest actions can produce results, the Gafsa regional authorities released imprisoned activists to their waiting women-folk. Released prisoners and their wives then returned to Redeyef, their home town. Some 20,000 residents of this city of 37,000 turned out to greet them, more than half of Redeyef’s population. And there amidst the crowds, Adnan Hajji, a local teacher spoke to the crowds. He would emerge, at that moment, as one of the key leaders of the social protest movement which was then at its height. Amidst miners union banners and people carrying signs with slogans like “the people’s wealth goes to build palaces, while we live in tents’, `we are going on strike for the right to work’, Hajji addressed the crowd. His words resonated with the multitudes listening. `We, here, are the people; we will fight until either we win or die’. `What we are fighting for are basic rights for ourselves, our families, our youth.’ `What we have here,’ he went on, is the culmination of many years of poverty, destitution and injustice’. `The company is stealing the wealth that we have created through our labor and put it in the hands of a few wealthy individuals at the expense of the people.’ A spontaneous and popular movement which would keep struggling despite repression and censorship had taken shape. 4. Six months of sustained protests in Gafsa region… The event which was to trigger six months of militant social protest against the Tunisian government of Zine Ben Ali and the state run phosphate company that runs all of the mines, the Compagnie Phosphate de Gafsa – CPG (The Gafsa Phosphate Company), seemed innocuous enough. On January 5, 2008, the CPG published a list, the results of a public examination for the recruitment of 80 new employees at its phosphate mines. But the list was considered fraudulent, ‘cooked’ in such a way that the position went to people `with connections’ – family connections that is – with members of the shrinking miner’s union, a branch of the Union Generale Tunisienne de Travail (UGTT). The suspicion abounded that the union and the company had struck a deal, excluding all but a short list of applicants. In a region where youth unemployment is estimated by a number of sources to be as high as 40%, the results were seen not only as unfair, but more as intolerable. Almost immediately thereafter, the spark of rebellion exploded into something larger and broader than the issue of who did or didn’t pass CPG’s exam. It quickly expanded into a regional social movement for jobs, social programs and against the neglect and injustice which has characterized the Ben Ali’s approach to the region for decades. At the heart of this rebellion were the region’s long neglected youth, women, many local educators and finally, forced by the flow of events, the local union itself. During the early months of 2008, demonstrations for jobs took place at least once a week, with participants filling the streets of Redeyef in peaceful, organized and disciplined protest to the economic and social conditions of the region. As the movement built over January and February, support committees sprung up in the major coastal cities of Tunis, Sousse, Sfax as well as in France which hosts a large Tunisian community as well. The goal of this protest movement was to enter into direct negotiations with the Ben Ali government to procure a commitment from the central government for jobs, better social programs. Some results followed by savage repression Interestingly enough, these first demonstrations did produce some results. In April, both he regional Gafsa area authorities and the central government in Tunis committed themselves, or so it seemed, to address some of the grievances. Promises were made. Unfortunately, in retrospect, the Tunisian government had something else in mind and that their willingness to listen and negotiate over the grievances was simply a tactical maneuver to buy time in order to organize a crippling blow to the movement, which in essence, was nothing more than a reform movement which had been peaceful and despite everything, at least until this point, respectful of the central government. From all descriptions of the events,the crackdown was far worse than the people of Redeyef anticipated. Just when it appeared that some agreement had been reached, and the protests started to ebb, the government opened up a savage wave of repression whose goal was to `decapitate’ (lovely word) the movement’s leadership and pulverize the movement. It was meant to be an example – as such crackdowns almost always are – to others in the country who might have economic and social grievances – as to the price that people would have to pay from calling openly for justice. The crackdown was unleashed. The government accused the movement’s leadership of trying to organize a coup. . It included a massive wave of arrests of several hundred, including children as young as five and six years of age, widespread torture and other forms of repression. In June, the repression reached its peak as the Tunisian police open fired on a crowd in Redeyef, one that was not even demonstrating, but simply coming and going in the town’s market place. Two people died; one of them was a young man originally from Redeyef, who had found employment on the island of Djerba. He had come back home to give his first paycheck to his ailing family, was not a part of any political action or group, just happened to be in the wrong place – central Redeyef – when the police open fired and was killed. Another was mortally wounded and died later in a hospital in Sfax, on the coast. At this point, with people in Redeyef being machine gunned from armored personnel carriers and tanks by their own government, a massive movement to simply empty out the city, and migrate across the border to nearby Algeria began. `If the government wants to occupy Redeyef,’ they said, `they can have it.’ It turns out that Ben Ali was more even more threatened by a mass exodus of Tunisians from Redeyef to the Algerian border than he was even of the social movement itself. The exodus undercut his claims that Tunisia is `an economic miracle’…and that the conditions of life are so bad in this part of the country that the whole social fabric of life had collapsed. Not good for tourism or investment alas. Fearing the negative publicity that such a migration would entail if it reached the international media, the Ben Ali government sent troops to the border, not to keep people from getting in, but to stop the residents of the Gafsa region, their movement and their hopes crushed by their own countrymen from leaving! Fleeing Redeyefites were threatened with being charged with high treason, for trying to emigrate. It took the intervention of some of the protest leaders themselves – some of whom would later be sentenced to long prison terms for their role in the protests – to convince many of those fleeing, to stay…and live to fight another day. 5. Root causes of the Protests…History of The Gafsa Phosphate Company (Compagnie Phosphate de Gafsa) The phosphate mines of the Gafsa region of Tunisia were first discovered in1897 by one Philippe Thomas, a veterinarian, local prison warden and amateur geologist. A number of towns, which previously did not exist, were created to service the mine, among them Redeyef, Oum Laarayes, Metlaoui, and El Mdhilla. From the outset of the mining era at the turn of the 20th century until the present the Gafsa mining belt has suffered from the kinds of abuses not uncommon to mining towns the world over: brutal land grab from the indigenous population; intensive exploitation of natural resources; dangerous working conditions and along with it high accident and mortality rates; economic activities that produced nothing short of huge amounts of pollutant wastes; environmental degradation. A system that breeds despair and revolt… The workforce itself is based largely on patronage, clan and family ties that have excluded many. The work includes low wages, very little job security and the management positions are often manned by foreigners, especially from France. It is a system set up to breed despair and revolt. It should not be surprising that, time and again (1930s, 1970s, 2008), it is from the workers in these Gafsa region mines – along with the communities in which they live – that some of the most militant and best organized movements of protest and social change have erupted and spread throughout the country. In the 1930s it was both the economic practices of French colonialism that were opposed. The role of the Gafsa miners, and more generally, the Tunisian working class, in the struggle against French colonialism has hardly been appreciated. Then in the 1970s, the miners and their union rose up against Bourguiba’s drift towards authoritarianism. It was their efforts, in tandem with the democratic elements in the cities, that forced Bourguiba – kicking and screaming one might add – to open to Tunisia to more of a multi-party democracy with greater press freedoms. And now, as recently as 2008, the conditions of life in the Gafsa region – inexcusably neglected by Ben Ali and his government – have led to the current uprising – and that does appear to be the correct word that describes these events, which like previous episodes includes both economic (jobs, regional development) and political (end to the pervasive repression, more freedom of expression and real democracy – not the charade that currently exists). And once again, in their own way, the good women of Redeyef are fighting for more than their own self interest, but for what one might call `the humanization’ of the whole country. Not a pretty picture and one that compares with the mines here in Colorado at the turn of the 20th century. Virtually all of these practices, which came into force during the colonial period, have continued after Tunisian independence in March 1956. Indeed it is rather impressive the degree to which economic structures and practices first developed and instituted in the French colonial period have held fast in the post-independence period. Other than the mines, the region offers little employment opportunities. Indeed, phosphate mining is the only show in town. On the edge of the Sahara (not quite full desert but close), the possibilities for agriculture are slim and while the Tunisian coast has a large and developed tourism infrastructure that supports some 7 million foreign visitors a year, mostly from Europe, the interior areas around Gafsa are rather barren and dry. For the people living there, the mines are the only source of sustenance, the only possibility of employment in spite of the poor working conditions and low wages. ___________________________________________________________ Indeed it is rather impressive the degree to which economic structures and practices first developed and instituted in the French colonial period have held fast in the post-independence period. ___________________________________________________________ After independence, the CPG – (Gafsa Phosphate Company) – became a state owned industry run by the government in Tunis. In 1996 it was merged with Tunisian Chemical Group. Looking at the Tunsian phosphate industry on paper, it looks to be a success story, hiding its human consequences behind typically deceptive economic indicators. Tunisia is one of the world’s leading producers of phosphates, mineral fertilizers and refined phosphate products.. Compagnie des Phosphates de Gafsa (CPG) has been active in mining for more than a century. Mineral production itself under Tunisan auspices is now more than half a century old. CPG operates seven open cast quarries and one underground mine. The phosphatic field holds an important position within the Tunisian economy both in labour level and in trade balance worldwide. The Tunisian phosphate industry is fifth amongst the international operators in the field. Natural phosphate and its by-products (Phosacid, DAP, TSP, DCP…) are exported to 50 countries in 5 continents. In 2002, phosphates were Tunisia’s third largest export commodity, greater than hydrocarbons which ranked fifth. Together, Tunisia’s phosphates, base metals and petroleum products provide most of the country’s foreign earnings with phosphates alone accounting for 13% of the total value of national exports. Overall, the mineral industries contribute around 4% of gnp Annual production of merchant phosphate in 2007 reached 8 millions, placing Tunisia the fifth in the world for phosphate production. Not only that, Tunisia has been more successful than many peripheral countries in the global economy in that it has successfully developed a more profitable refining component. After having been exporting all its phosphate rock production during the first fifty years of its activity, Tunisia entered successfully into phosphoric acid and mineral fertilizers production and developed this new activity so that Tunisia is now processing refining more than 80% of its phosphate production. GCT owns 4 industrial sites located in Sfax and M’dhilla (for TSP), Gabes (for Phosphoric Acid, DAP, DCP and AN) and Skhira (for Phosphoric Acid). A profitable, well run company, at least on paper, it has the potential for being an engine for Gafsa regional development. But just as many oil producing regions of oil producing countries don’t necessarily benefit materially from the wealth they extract, neither do the mining communities of the Gafsa region. Poverty, social problems with the predictable social unrest and rebellion all have a long history in the region. Those structural weaknesses were all exacerbated by, of all things, the modernization of the industry. But as it is a state owned and run company, it is even more inexcusable to so little of its profits gets recycled back to the Gafsa region. Although the modernization of the Gafsa mines began before CPG merged with Tunisian Chemical group in 1996, since then, the mines have been significantly modernized. Deep shaft underground mining has been largely replaced by mechanized open pit mining involving heavy machinery Fatalities have been reduced But as a result of this modernization, as elsewhere where similar changes have been institutionalized, 75% of the mining work force has been laid off, with no opportunities for alternative employment in the region. Mines that used to employ up to 20,000 workers now offer employment to around 5000; those jobs that do remain are `the envy of the region’ but they are precious few and far between and depending on the source, the unemployment rates are estimated to be at least 30% overall, and more than 40% for youth between ages 18 and 25. Again, as elsewhere, modernization has included a high degree of sub-contracting. The mines employ poorly paid sub-contractors to do a fair amount of the work with low salaries and no job security. Again, the consequence of modernization of the Gafsa mining region is not atypical. Mechanization has led to increased productivity and profits on the one hand, but a dramatically shrinking mining workforce on the other. The company’s profits soar…as does unemployment in the mines. Another Factor: Hiring Outside of the Redeyef Region Another factor complicating the situation is that the state run mining company these past years has gone out of its way to hire men (it is almost exclusively men) from outside of the Redeyef region to work in the mine. Employees are recruited from as far away as Sfax, Sousse and Tunis. This only aggravates the local unemployment situation. It is meant, in large measure, to dilute the organizing skills and militant traditions of the families that have worked in the mines for generations. It also helped fuel a great deal of animosity among locals who have the impression – with some justification – of being systemiatically excluded from finding jobs in the mines. Gafsa’s Story… Not Unique Gafsa’s story has been repeated worldwide, including here in the USA, to some extent. For example, the 1985-2005 modernization of the Appalachia coal industry in the USA, accomplished through the proliferation of strip mining (surface and mountain top removal mining) increased mining production by 22% while the number of jobs decreased by 55%. More profits, smaller work force, a ton of environmental problems that are, once again, poorly regulated. (Nation Magazine – April 15, 2010 – Cracking Big Coal -) Likewise, modernization of the Gafsa phosphate region has brought profit to the owners, but poverty and despair to the region. Global tale – this is the Tunisian version. Fahem Boukadous’ `crime’ was simply to have reported honestly on this social crisis, but by so doing he burst the myth that Zini Ben Ali’s government has been spreading that Tunisia is an island of prosperity and social calm, `an economic miracle’. But,there is no economic miracle but more of a Potemkin village economy based on tourism; and if there is `social calm’ – it is the calm of repression a held together by one of the most repressive governments anywhere, and I might add, once again long supported financially and politically by the United States government. But more on how all that works, later.

see ============================= link http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2011/11/unpopular-cia-government-in-libya.html ============================V======================================== ++++++++++++++++++++ some of the link below ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ A senior Al-Qaeda asset/educator/leader previously operating in Afghanistan and Iraq but who currently acts under the name of Bel Hadj as the Commander in Chief for the NTC as well as military dictator of Tripoli. On March 19, 2011, two days after the adoption of UN resolution 1973, this NTC/Al-Qaeda/LIFG rebel council announced the creation of a new central bank and a new oil company. Starting a “revolution” with the creation of new central bank may be a possible “first” in world history and casts the long shadow of as yet unidentified international financial actors over the war against Libya.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVooooVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV* reality or PSY-OP ?? link http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27839 ========================VVVVVVVV================================ Bill, Glen Greenwald is a very resonable man.....LINK http://www.salon.com/2011/11/26/wes_clark_and_the_neocon_dream/singleton/ ---------------------------------oooooooo-------------- also see link http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2006/09/10/7385/phase-ii-report-conclusion/ Report: Saddam and Al Qaeda Enemies, Not Collaborators

Bill, You post at least several times in several threads, as if you have a vested stake in this controversy which you seem not to accept as even potentially controversial. "We" do not KNOW it began with the self immolation of Bouazizi. How would it harm you to embrace a healthy skepticism in this controversy, how does it help you to be so insistent about the importance of Bouazizi in the origins of the overthrow of the Tunisian government? Why can Bouazizi not be only a catalyst fanning the flames of a fire ingited earlier by unknown actors? Is it not possible that Bouazizi was as described in the BBC piece I've quoted from? VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVooooVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV* TOM,the same media that tells the world that the WC is a good report ,tells the world the Arab Spring will help the common man in the Middle East. BK cant understand this equation Rami Nakhle = NED = CIA (and of course CIA=DALLAS). See below re Rami Nakhle . THANKS sg ==================================================oVo======================* Media Lies Used to Provide a Pretext for Another "Humanitarian War": Protest in Syria: Who Counts the Dead? link http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27785 by Julie Lévesque =========================================oooo============================================================ According to numerous reports from the Western media, human rights organisation, as well as the UN, countless peaceful civilians have been killed by the Syrian forces since the beginning of the unrest in the country in mid March. But where do the numbers come from? Many media reports on the alleged deadly repression by the Syrian government fail to mention the sources of their information, which are very often referred to solely as "human rights groups" or "activists": "Rights groups said Sunday that troops cracking down on pro-democracy protesters killed eight people in northern Idlib province and four more in central areas near Hama. (Syrian Forces Kill 12 as ICRC Head Visits Damascus, Voice of America, September 4, 2011.) These protests are an unprecedented challenge to President Bashar al-Assad and his family, which has ruled the country for more than 40 years. The cost has been high: at least 200 dead, according to human rights groups, and many cyber activists have been jailed. (Deborah Amos, Syrian Activist In Hiding Presses Mission From Abroad, NPR, April 22, 2011.) At least 75 people have been killed today in Syria during mass protests, local human rights activists told Amnesty International [...] Thirty were killed in the southern town of Izzra, 22 in Damascus, 18 in the Homs area and the rest in other towns and villages, activists said [...] (Scores killed in Syria as 'Great Friday' protests are attacked, Amnesty International, April 22, 2011.) Although the necessity to remain "anonymous" where dissent is said to be life threatening may under certain circumnstances be understandable, this stance inevitably raises suspicions: The "'numbers" can be used to demonize the government, as part of covert operations by any state or organisation looking for regime change in Damascus. It is no secret that the overthrow of the Syrian regime has been a long-sought goal by several foreign powers, including the U.S. and Israel. The reliance of the mainstream media on information emanating from anonymous groups provides a biased understanding of the Syrian protests, which in turn supports the broader objective of destabilizing the Syrian regime. When information from unknown sources pertaining to the death toll is published either by a mainstream media or a recognized human rights group, it is invariably picked up and considered as "factual evidence" by other news sources or think tanks, without further verification. Moreover, in the process the information is subject to further distortion. Here is an example of this phenomenon: Rights group Amnesty International said on Friday that it has recorded the names of 171 people killed since the first protesters died in Daraa on March 18. The group based its tally on information received from rights activists, lawyers and other sources and said the majority appeared to have been killed by live ammunition fired by the security forces. (Protesters killed in southern Syria, Al Jazeera, April 9, 2011.) The above news article is based on the following statement by Amnesty International: At least 171 people are believed to have been killed during three weeks of unrest in Syria, Amnesty International said today after at least eight more fatalities during protests. The death toll from today's clashes could rise significantly, according to reports from human rights activists in the country. Amnesty International has recorded the names, via information received from sources including human rights activists and lawyers, of 171 people killed. (Death toll rises amid fresh Syrian protests, Amnesty International, April 8, 2011.) The original information from Amnesty international (AI) is that 171 people are believed to have been killed, a statement showing that although it has recorded the names of 171 people killed, this information could not be confirmed. Al Jazeera fails to report this "uncertainty" and by doing so makes it a fact rather than an assumption, that 171 people were killed. Here is another example of blatant distortion: Despite a pledge to end its crackdown, Syrian security forces continued to suppress anti-regime protestors, killing at least eighteen on Thursday in the city of Homs (al-Jazeera). (Jonathan Masters, Assad's Broken Promises, Council on Foreign Relations, November 3, 2011.) This is an analysis from the Council on Foreign Relations, the famous and extremely powerful U.S. foreign policy think tank. It is based on the following article from Al Jazeera where the information related to the killing is markedly different: "Dozens of people have reportedly been killed in the flashpoint city of Homs, as Syrian security forces bombarded residential areas with tanks. The reported deaths occurred in the Bab Amro district of Homs on Thursday, the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an activist group monitoring the country's uprising, said. (Syria violence defies peace deal," Al Jazeera, November 4, 2011.) Al Jazeeras wording reportedly been killed and reported deaths shows the deaths have not been confirmed. The Qatari media also mentions that these claims come from one source only, namely from an activist group called Local Coordination Committees of Syria (LCC). The article from the CFR changed Al Jazeeras allegations into concrete facts. When it comes to counting the dead, the LCC is very often cited in the mainstream media as a source for reports on killings committed by the Syrian authorities, as we can see in the examples below: Another opposition group, the Local Coordination Committees, said it could not corroborate the Syrian Observatorys account of the military casualties, though it also called Monday one of the uprisings bloodier days, with at least 51 civilians killed. We dont have any confirmation of what theyre claiming, said Omar Idlibi, a spokesman for the Local Coordination Committees. (Nada Bakri and Rick Gladstone, Syria Faces New Threats as Opposition Seeks Allies, The New York Times, November 15, 2011.) According to the opposition network, the Local Coordination Committees, at least five people were killed during the military offensives -- three in the central province of Homs, one in the eastern border town of Tal Kalakh and one in Idleb along the Syrian-Turkish border. (Roula Hajjar, Syria: Activists report manhunt for defectors and protesters, Los Angeles Times, September 5, 2011.) Secret police opened fire and shot teargas to disperse more than 10,000 protesters in Deir Ezzour, in Syrias tribal east, an activist from the Syrian Revolution Coordinators Union (SRCU) told Al Jazeera. Ten protesters were wounded and around 40 were arrested, he said. The SRCU is the name given this week to one of Syria's grassroots opposition networks. The SRCU works alongside the Local Coordinating Committees (LCC), another grassroots opposition network. (Al Jazeera Live Blog Syria, June 3, 2011.) At least 2,200 people have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the unrest, by the United Nations count. An activist group, the Syrian Revolution Coordinating Union, said on Tuesday that 551 people were killed during Ramadan alone. The group said 130 others were killed on July 31, the eve of Ramadan, in an attack on the city of Hama, which was also the scene of a ferocious crackdown in 1982. On Tuesday, four people were killed in Hara and two others in Inkil, two towns in Daraa Province, according to the Local Coordination Committees, another group of activists who document demonstrations. (Nada Bakri, Syrian Security Forces Fire on Worshipers as Ramadan Ends, The New York Times, August 30, 2011.) The above article mentions a "UN count" as if it were an independent source of information. However, according to one of its reports, the UN also relies on the same sources of information, the LCC, and it mentions in a note that it is unable to confirm if the information given by the LCC is true: "At the time of writing, the mission had received more than 1,900 names and details of persons killed in the Syrian Arab Republic since mid-March 2011; all are said to be civilians [26] 26. This information is compiled by local coordinating committees active within the Syrian Arab Republic in documenting the names and details of victims. The mission is unable to verify independently this information." (United Nations, Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic - A/HRC/18/53, September 15, 2011.) What are the Local Coordination Committees (LCC)? According to the Christian Science Monitor, the LCC is part of the non-elected Syrian National Council (SNC). Even though most of its members are in exile and its members in Syria are unknown, the SNC is presented as the legitimate Syrian authority, and has been recognized by the National Transitional Council of Libya, another non-elected body recognized by Western powers as a "pro-democracy" representative of the Libyan people. "Syrian opposition leaders meeting Sunday in Turkey formally created the Syrian National Council, bringing together most of the disparate groups seeking to unseat Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The council includes the Local Coordination Committees, which has organized most of the protests across the country; the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood; and Kurdish groups; among others, the Associated Press reports. Almost half the members are from inside the country, according to the Washington Post, overcoming a key concern that the council would rely to (sic) heavily on exiles. (Ariel Zirulnick, Syrian oppositon groups formally unify, overcoming key hurdle, October 3, 2011.) The LCC are somewhat "anonymous". They refused a telephone interview, but agreed to answer some questions by email. They stated that for security reasons they could not reveal how many members the LCC includes, but claim 13 members of the LCC are in the SNC. We have enough people to run demonstrations on ground, for media and relief action. LCC Logo The members allegedly come from different backgrounds and are from all age groups; some are active inside Syria, the others outside the country. The LCC says that their members, in and outside Syria, have been threatened, arrested and tortured by the Syrian authorities. When asked how they became a source of information for the foreign media, the LCC says it is because they provide credible facts. And what is the ultimate goal of the LCC? Our goal is to change the regime in Syria, and as the first step, to end the mandate of the current President, who is now politically and legally responsible for the crimes committed by his regime against the Syrian people and a safe transfer of power in the country. Basically, the LCC wants regime change in Syria and it seems to be the major source of information for the western mainstream media and human rights organizations. This opposition group claims to provide credible facts, however there is no way to verify these facts. The so-called facts could well be propaganda intended to discredit the actual regime and galvanize public opinion in favour of the regime change the group aspires to implement. Although the LCC spokesperson refused to disclose the names of its members, some have appeared in the mainstream media. One of their members, or collaborator, is Rami Nakhle, a cyberactivist living in exile in Beirut, Lebanon. Today, after 98 days of protests, he is living in denial, says Rami Nakhle, a Syrian working in Beirut with the Local Coordination Committees, a clearinghouse for Syrian opposition protests and activities It has become clear to everybody that Bashar al-Assad cannot change. He doesnt realize that Syria has changed forever but hes still the same president we heard last time, in April. (Nicholas Blanford, Assad's speech may buy time, but not survival, The Christian Science Monitor, June 20, 2011) The activist has a privileged relationship with Al Jazeera, according to NPR: When the Arabic channel Al-Jazeera broadcasts the latest news, the images come from Nakhle's network. (Deborah Amos, Syrian Activist In Hiding Presses Mission From Abroad, April 22, 2011.) It should be noted that Al Jazeera played a key role in promoting the regime change in Libya. CyberDissidents.org, a website presented by the Bush Center as a Voice of Freedom Online, offers a brief portrait of Nakhle, which is not unlike the other portraits found in the mainstream press, which describe him solely as a cyber-dissident, as if he never had any other occupation: "Rami Nakhle is a 27 year cyber-dissident. His use of social media to spread information about the Syrian Revolution caught the attention of Syrian authorities, causing him to flee to Lebanon in January 2011. For the past three years, he has been working under the pseudonym Malath Aumran. Although the Syrian secret police have discovered his real identity, he continues to use this pseudonym to retain recognition from his online followers. Despite these threats from the Syrian government, Nakhle continues to work in hiding, continuing his campaign for freedom through Facebook, Twitter, and full-access interviews with prominent news sources like BBC and The New York Times. (CyberDissident Database) Portrait of Rami Nakhle on CyberDissident.org The U.S. government and NGOs doing CIA work, such as Freedom House, are major sponsors of cyber-dissidence: "Political dissidents from China, Iran, Russia, Egypt, Syria, Venezuela and Cuba will travel to Dallas to join with Fellows of the George W. Bush Institute, experts from Freedom House, Harvards Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the U.S. Government and other leaders in the field to discuss the successes and challenges of Internet-based political dissident movements around the world. The George W. Bush Institute today [March 30, 2010] announced it will co-host a conference on cyber dissidents with the human rights organization Freedom House on April 19, 2010. (George W. Bush Institute and Freedom House to Convene Freedom Activists, Human Rights and Internet Experts to Assess Global Cyber Dissident Movement," Business Wire, March 30, 2011) Rami Nakhle doesnt hide his interests in American organisations. On his Facebook page, he lists the following as interests: National Democratic Institute (NDI), chaired by Madeleine Albright, Human Rights Watch and the U.S. Embassy Damascus. Nakhles interest in these organisations clearly shows which side hes on, just like SCN member Radwan Ziadeh, former fellow of the National Endowment for Democracy, another organization well-known for its links with the CIA. In an interview with the Guardian, the cyberactivist claims to be harassed by the Syrian secret police, on his Facebook wall. It might be true, but it would be a rather unusual tactic for a secret police, which usually, as its name says, acts secretly. Such harassment is more likely to be black propaganda -- people opposed to the regime trying to make the Syrian authorities look bad. A kind of "cyber false flag" on Facebook, for everyone to see. The "Syrian uprising" seems to be a copy and paste of the "protest movement" in Libya, which was conducive to a NATO invasion and regime change. The mainstream press has once again one principal source of information the opposition groups. The media neglects military casualties and fails to report that armed gunmen, 17 000 according to a report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, are among the protesters. A non-elected body, the SNC, ironically is upheld as a democratic movement and is offered "credibility" as well as extensive mainstream media coverage. see link http://www.iiss.org/whats-new/iiss-voices/?blogpost=313 Global Research Articles by Julie Lévesque ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ==================================================== related link http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27839 Related

Unknown Snipers and Western backed "Regime Change" A Historical Review and Analysis by Gearóid Ó Colmáin (Global Research) ++++++++++++V++++++++++++++++++++ooo++++++++++++++++++++++V+++++++++++++ Unknown snipers played a pivotal role throughout the so-called « Arab Spring Revolutions » yet, in spite of reports of their presence in the mainstream media, surprisingly little attention has been paid to to their purpose and role. The Russian investigative journalist Nikolay Starikov has written a book which discusses the role of unknown snipers in the destabilization of countries targeted for regime change by the United States and its allies. The following article attempts to elucidate some historical examples of this technique with a view to providing a background within which to understand the current cover war on the people of Syria by death squads in the service of Western intelligence.[1] Romania 1989. In Susanne Brandstätter’s documentary ‘Checkmate: Strategy of a Revolution’ aired on Arte television station some years ago, Western intelligence officials revealed how death squads were used to destabilize Romania and turn its people against the head of state Nicolai Ceaucescu. Brandstätter’s film is a must see for anyone interested in how Western intelligence agencies, human rights groups and the corporate press collude in the systematic destruction of countries whose leadership conflicts with the interests of big capital and empire. Former secret agent with the French secret service, the DGSE(La Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure) Dominique Fonvielle, spoke candidly about the role of Western intelligence operatives in destabilizing the Romanian population. “how do you organize a revolution? I believe the first step is to locate oppositional forces in a given country. It is sufficient to have a highly developed intelligence service in order to determine which people are credible enough to have influence at their hands to destabilize the people to the disadvantage of the ruling regime”[2] This open and rare admission of Western sponsorship of terrorism was justified on the grounds of the “greater good” brought to Romania by free-market capitalism. It was necessary, according to the strategists of Romania’s “revolution”, for some people to die. Today, Romania remains one of the poorest countries in Europe. A report on Euractiv reads: “Most Romanians associate the last two decades with a continuous process of impoverishment and deteriorating living standards, according to Romania's Life Quality Research Institute, quoted by the Financiarul daily.” [3] The western intelligence officials interviewed in the documentary also revealed how the Western press played a central role in disinformation. For example, the victims of Western-backed snipers were photographed by presented to the world as evidence of a crazed dictator who was “killing his own people”. To this day, there is a Museum in the back streets of Timisoara Romania which promotes the myth of the “Romanian Revolution”. The Arte documentary was one of the rare occasions when the mainstream press revealed some of the dark secrets of Western liberal democracy. The documentary caused a scandal when it was aired in France, with the prestigious Le Monde Diplomatique discussing the moral dilemma of the West’s support of terror in its desire to spread ‘democracy’. Since the destruction of Libya and the ongoing cover war on Syria, Le Monde Diplomatique has stood safely on the side of political correction, condemning Bachar Al Assad for the crimes of the DGSE and the CIA. In its current edition, the front page article reads Ou est la gauche? Where is the left ? Certainly not in the pages of Le Monde Diplomatique ! Russia 1993 During Boris Yeltsin’s counter-revolution in Russia in 1993, when the Russian parliament was bombed resulting in the deaths of thousands of people, Yeltsin’s counter-revolutionaries made extensive use of snipers. According to many eye witness reports, snipers were seen shooting civilians from the building opposite the US embassy in Moscow. The snipers were attributed to the Soviet government by the international media.[4] Venezuela 2002 In 2002, the CIA attempted to overthrow Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, in a military coup. On the 11th of April 2002, an opposition March towards the presidential palace was organized by the US backed Venezuelan opposition. Snipers hidden in buildings near the palace opened fire on protestors killing 18. The Venezuelan and international media claimed that Chavez was “ killing his own people” thereby justifying the military coup presented as a humanitarian intervention. It was subsequently proved that the coup had been organized by the CIA but the identity of the snipers was never established. Thailand April 2010 On April 12th 2010, Christian Science Monitor published a detailed report of the riots in Thailand between “red-shirt” activists and the Thai government. The article headline read: ‘Thailand’s red shirt protests darken with unknown snipers, parade of coffins’. Like their counterparts in Tunisia, Thailand’s red shirts were calling for the resignation of the Thai prime minister. While a heavy-handed response by the Thai security forces to the protestors was indicated in the report, the government’s version of events was also reported: “Mr. Abhisit has used solemn televised addresses to tell his story. He has blamed rogue gunmen, or “terrorists,” for the intense violence (at least 21 people died and 800 were injured) and emphasized the need for a full investigation into the killings of both soldiers and protesters. State television has broadcast repeated images of soldiers coming under fire from bullets and explosives.” The CSM report went on to quote Thai military officials and unnamed Western diplomats: “military observers say Thai troops stumbled into a trap set by agents provocateurs with military expertise. By pinning down soldiers after dark and sparking chaotic battles with unarmed protesters, the unknown gunmen ensured heavy casualties on both sides. Some were caught on camera and seen by reporters, including this one. Snipers targeted military ground commanders, indicating a degree of advance planning and knowledge of Army movements, say Western diplomats briefed by Thai officials. While leaders of the demonstrations have disowned the use of firearms and say their struggle is nonviolent, it is unclear whether radicals in the movement knew of the trap. “You can’t claim to be a peaceful political movement and have an arsenal of weapons out the back if needed. You can’t have it both ways,” says a Western diplomat in regular contact with protest leaders [5] The CSM article also explores the possibility that the snipers could be rogue elements in the Thai military, agents provocateurs used to justify a crack down on democratic opposition. Thailand’s ruling elite is currently coming under pressure from a group called the Red Shirts.[6] Kyrgystan June 2010 Ethnic violence broke out in the Central Asian republic of Kirgystan in June 2010. It was widely reported that unknown snipers opened fire on members of the Uzbek minority in Kyrgystan. Eurasia.net reports: “In many Uzbek mahallas, inhabitants offer convincing testimony of gunmen targeting their neighborhoods from vantage points. Men barricaded into the Arygali Niyazov neighborhood, for example, testified to seeing gunmen on the upper floors of a nearby medical institute hostel with a view over the district's narrow streets. They said that during the height of the violence these gunmen were covering attackers and looters, assaulting their area with sniper fire. Men in other Uzbek neighborhoods tell similar stories . « Among the rumours and unconfirmed reports circulating in Kyrgyzstan after the 2010 violence were claims that water supplies to Uzbek areas were about to be poisoned. Such rumours had also been spread against the Ceaucescu regime in Romania during the CIA- backed coup in 1989. Eurasia.net goes on to claim that: “Many people are convinced that they’ve seen foreign mercenaries acting as snipers. These alleged foreign combatants are distinguished by their appearance – inhabitants report seeing black snipers and tall, blonde, female snipers from the Baltic states. The idea that English snipers have been roaming the streets of Osh shooting at Uzbeks is also popular. There’ve been no independent corroborations of such sightings by foreign journalists or representatives of international organizations.” [7] None of these reports have been independently investigated or corroborated. It is therefore impossible to draw any hard conclusions from these stories. Ethnic violence against Uzbek citizens in Kyrgyzstan occurred pari pasu with a popular revolt against the US-backed regime, which many analysts have attributed to the machinations of Moscow. The Bakiyev régime came to power in a CIA-backed people-power coup known to the world as the Tulip Revolution in 2005. Located to the West of China and bordering Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan hosts one of America’s biggest and most important military bases in Central Asia, the Manas Air Base, which is vital for the NATO occupation of neighbouring Afghanistan. Despite initial worries, US/Kyrgyz relations have remained good under the regime of President Roza Otunbayeva. This is not surprising as Otunbayeva had previously participated in the US-created Tulip Revolution in 2004, taking power as foreign minister. To date no proper investigation has been conducted into the origins of the ethnic violence that spread throughout the south of Kyryzstan in 2010, nor have the marauding gangs of unknown snipers been identified and apprehended. Given the geostrategic and geopolitical importance of Kyrgyzstan to both the United States and Russia, and the formers track-record of using death squads to divide and weaken countries so as to maintain US domination, US involvement in the dissemination of terrorism in Kyrgyzstan cannot be ruled out. One effective way of maintaining a grip on Central Asian countries would be to exacerbate ethnic tensions. In August 6th 2008, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that a US arms cache had been found in a house in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, which was being rented by two American citizens. The US embassy claimed the arms were being used for “anti-terrorism” exercises. However, this was not confirmed by Kyrgyz authorities. [8] Covert US military support to terrorist groups in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia proved to be an effective strategy in creating the conditions for “humanitarian” bombing in 1999. An effective means of keeping the government in Bishkek firmly on America’s side would be to insist on a US and European presence in the country to help “protect” the Uzbek minority. Military intervention similar to that in the former Yugoslavia by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe has already been advocated by the New York Times, whose misleading article on the riots on June 24th 2010 has the headline “Kyrgyzstan asks European Security Body for Police Teams”. The article is misleading as the headline contradicts the actual report which cites a Kyrgyz official stating: “A government spokesman said officials had discussed an outside police presence with the O.S.C.E., but said he could not confirm that a request for a deployment had been made.” There is no evidence in the article of any request by the Kyrgyz government for military intervention. In fact, the article presents much evidence to the contrary. However, before the reader has a chance to read the explanation of the Kyrgyz government, the New York Times’ writer presents the now all too horribly familiar narrative of oppressed peoples begging the West to come and bomb or occupy their country: “Ethnic Uzbeks in the south have clamored for international intervention. Many Uzbeks said they were attacked in their neighborhoods not only by civilian mobs, but also by the Kyrgyz military and police officers”[9] Only towards the end of the article do we find out that the Kyrgyz authorities blamed the US-backed dictator for fomenting ethnic violence in the country, through the use of Islamic jihadists in Uzbekistan. This policy of using ethnic tension to create an environment of fear in order to prop up an extremely unpopular dictatorship, the policy of using Islamic Jihadism as a political tool to create what former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Bzrezinski called “ an arc of crisis”, ties in well with the history of US involvement in Central Asia from the creation of Al Qaida in Afghanistan in 1978 to the present day. Again, the question persists, who were the “unknown snipers” terrorizing the Uzbek population, where did their weapons come from and who would benefit from ethnic conflict in Central Asia’s geopolitical hotspot? Tunisia January 2011 On January 16th 2011, CNN reported that ‘’armed gangs’’ were fighting Tunisian security forces. [10] Many of the murders committed throughout the Tunisian uprising were by “unknown snipers”. There were also videos posted on the internet showing Swedish nationals detained by Tunisian security forces. The men were clearly armed with sniper rifles. Russia Today aired the dramatic pictures.[11] In spite of articles by professor Michel Chossudovsky, William Engdahl and others showing how the uprisings in North Africa were following the patterns of US backed people-power coups rather than genuinely popular revolutions, left wing parties and organizations continued to believe the version of events presented to them by Al Jazeera and the mainstream press. Had the left taken a left from old Lenin’s book they would have transposed his comments on the February/March revolution in Russia thus: “The whole course of events in the January/February Revolution clearly shows that the British, French and American embassies, with their agents and “connections”,… directly organized a plot.. in conjunction with a section of the generals and army and Tunisian garrison officers, with the express object of deposing Ben Ali” What the left did not understand is that sometimes it is necessary for imperialism to overthrow some of its clients. A suitable successor to Ben Ali could always be found among the feudalists of the Muslim Brotherhood who now look likely to take power. In their revolutionary sloganeering and arrogant insistence that the events in Tunisia and Egypt were “spontaneous and popular uprisings” they committed what Lenin identified as the most dangerous sins in a revolution, namely, the substitution of the abstract for the concrete. In other words, left wing groups were simply fooled by the sophistication of the Western backed “Arab Spring” events. That is why the violence of the demonstrators and in particular the widespread use of snipers possibly linked to Western intelligence was the great unthought of the Tunisian uprising. The same techniques would be used in Libya a few weeks later, forcing the left to back track and modifiy its initial enthusiasm for the CIA’s “Arab Spring”. When we are talking about the" left" here, we are referring to genuine left wing parties, that is to say, parties who supported the Great People’s Socialist Libyan Arab Jamahirya in their long and brave fight against Western imperialism, not the infantile petty bourgeois dupes who supported NATO’s Benghazi terrorists. The blatant idiocy of such a stance should be crystal clear to anyone who understands global politics and class struggle. Egypt 2011 On October 20th 2011, the Telegraph newspaper published an article entitled, “Our brother died for a better Egypt”. According to the Telegraph, Mina Daniel, an anti-government activist in Cairo, had been ‘shot from an unknown sniper, wounding him fatally in the chest” Inexplicably, the article is no longer available on the Telegraph’s website for online perusal. But a google search for ‘Egypt, unknown sniper, Telegraph’ clearly shows the above quoted explanation for Mina Daniel’s death. So, who could these “unknown snipers’’ be? On February 6th Al Jazeera reported that Egyptian journalist Ahmad Mahmoud was shot by snipers as he attempted to cover classes between Egyptian security forces and protestors. Referring to statements made by Mahmoud’s wife Enas Abdel-Alim, the Al Jazeera article insinuates that Mahmoud may have been killed by Egyptian security forces: “Abdel-Alim said several eyewitnesses told her a uniformed police captain with Egypt's notorious Central Security forces yelled at her husband to stop filming. Before Mahmoud even had a chance to react, she said, a sniper shot him.” [12] While the Al Jazeera article advances the theory that the snipers were agents of the Mubarak regime, their role in the uprising still remains a mystery. Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based television stations owned by the Emir Hamid Bin Khalifa Al Thani, played a key role in provoking protests in Tunisia and Egypt before launching a campaign of unmitigated pro-NATO war propaganda and lies during the destruction of Libya. The Qatari channel been a central participant in the current covert war waged by NATO agencies and their clients against the Republic of Syria. Al Jazeera’s incessant disinformation against Libya and Syria resulted in the resignation of several prominent journalists such as Beirut station chief Ghassan Bin Jeddo[13] and senior Al Jazeera executive Wadah Khanfar who was forced to resign after a wikileaks cable revealed he was a co-operating with the Central Intelligence Agency.[14] Many people were killed during the US-backed colour revolution in Egypt. Although, the killings have been attributed to former US semi-client Hosni Mubarak, the involvement of Western intelligence cannot be ruled out. However, it should be pointed out that the role of unknown snipers in mass demonstrations remains complex and multi-faceted and therefore one should not jump to conclusions. For example, after the Bloody Sunday massacre(Domhnach na Fola) in Derry, Ireland 1972, where peaceful demonstrators were shot dead by the British army, British officials claimed that they had come under fire from snipers. But the 30 year long Bloody Sunday inquiry subsequently proved this to be false. But the question persists once more, who were the snipers in Egypt and whose purposes did they serve? Libya 2011 During the destabilization of Libya, a video was aired by Al Jazeera purporting to show peaceful “pro-democracy” demonstrators being fired upon by “Gaddafi’s forces”. The video was edited to convince the viewer that anti-Gaddafi demonstrators were being murdered by the security forces. However, the unedited version of the video is available on utube. It clearly shows pro-Gaddafi demonstrators with Green flags being fired upon by unknown snipers. The attribution of NATO-linked crimes to the security forces of the Libyan Jamahirya was a constant feature of the brutal media war waged against the Libyan people. [15] Syria 2011 The people of Syria have been beset by death squads and snipers since the outbreak of violence there in March. Hundreds of Syrian soldiers and security personnel have been murdered, tortured and mutilated by Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood militants. Yet the international media corporations continue to spread the pathetic lie that the deaths are the result Bachar Al Assad’s dictatorship. When I visited Syria in April of this year, I personally encountered merchants and citizens in Hama who told me they had seen armed terrorists roaming the streets of that once peaceful city, terrorizing the neighbourhood. I recall speaking to a fruit seller in the city of Hama who spoke about the horror he had witnessed that day. As he described the scenes of violence to me, my attention was arrested by a newspaper headline in English from the Washington Post shown on Syrian television: “CIA backs Syrian opposition”. The Central Intelligence Agency provides training and funding for groups who do the bidding of US imperialist interests. The history of the CIA shows that backing opposition forces means providing them with arms and finance, actions illegal under international law. A few days later, while at a hostel in the ancient, cultured city of Aleppo, I spoke to a Syrian business man and his family. The business man ran many hotels in the city and was pro-Assad. He told me that he used to watch Al Jazeera television but now had doubts about their honesty. As we conversed, the Al Jazeera television in the background showed scenes of Syrian soldiers beating and torturing protestors. “ Now if that is true, it is simply unacceptable” he said. It is sometimes impossible to verify whether the images shown on television are true or not. Many of the crimes attributed to the Syrian army have been committed by the armed gangs, such as the dumping of mutilated bodies into the river in Hama, presented to the world as more proof of the crimes of the Assad regime. There is a minority of innocent opponents of the Assad regime who believe everything they see and hear on Al Jazeera and the other pro-Western satellite stations. These people simply do not understand the intricacies of international politics. But the facts on the ground show that most people in Syria support the government. Syrians have access to all internet websites and international TV channels. They can watch BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, read the New York Times online or Le Monde before tuning into their own state media. In this respect, many Syrians are more informed about international politics than the average European or American. Most Europeans and American believe their own media. Few are capable of reading the Syrian press in original Arabic or watching Syrian television. The Western powers are the masters of discourse, who own the means of communication. The Arab Spring has been the most horrifying example of the wanton abuse of this power. Disinformation is effective in sowing the seeds of doubt among those who are seduced by Western propaganda. Syrian state media has disproved hundreds of Al Jazeera lies since the beginning of this conflict. Yet the western media has refused to even report the Syrian government’s position lest fair coverage of the other side of this story encourage a modicum of critical thought in the public mind. Conclusion. The use of mercenaries, death squads and snipers by Western intelligence agencies is well documented. No rational government attempting to stay in power would resort to unknown snipers to intimidate its opponents. Shooting at innocent protestors would be counterproductive in the face of unmitigated pressure from Western governments determined to install a client regime in Damascus. Shooting of unarmed protestors is only acceptable in dictatorships that enjoy the unconditional support of Western governments such as Bahrain, Honduras or Colombia. A government which is so massively supported by the population of Syria would not sabotage its own survival by setting snipers against the protests of a small minority. The opposition to the Syrian regime is, in fact, miniscule. Tear gas, mass arrests and other non lethal methods would be perfectly sufficient for a government wishing to control unarmed demonstrators. Snipers are used to create terror, fear and anti-regime propaganda. They are an integral feature of Western sponsored regime change. If one were to make a serious criticism of the Syrian government over the past few months, it is that they have failed to implement effective anti-terrorism measures in the country. The Syrian people want troops on the streets and the roofs of public buildings. In the weeks and months ahead, the Syrian armed forces will probably rely more and more on their Russian military specialists to strengthen the country's defenses as the Western crusade begun in Libya in March spreads to the Levant. There is no conclusive proof that the snipers murdering men, women and children in Syria are the agents of Western imperialism. But there is overwhelming proof that Western imperialism is attempting to destroy the Syrian state. As in Libya, they have never once mentioned the possibility of negotiations between the so-called opposition and the Syrian government. The West wants regime change and is determined to repeat the slaughter in Libya to achieve this geopolitical objective. It now looks likely that the cradle of civilization and science will be overrun by semi-literate barbarians as the terminal decline of the West plays itself out in the deserts of the East. Notes [1] http://nstarikov.ru/en/ [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l8qjX4SzBY&feature=related [3]http://www.euractiv.com/enlargement/romania-says-poverty-reduction-impossible-target-news-468172 [4]http://www.truthinmedia.org/Bulletins/tim98-3-10.html [5].http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/0412/Thailand-s-red-shirt-protests-darken-with-unknown-snipers-parade-of-coffins [6] http://www.activistpost.com/2010/12/thailand-stage-set-for-another-color.html [7] http://www.eurasianet.org/taxonomy/term/2813?page=6 [8http://kommersant.com/p1008364/r_500/U.S.-Kyrgyzstan_relations/ [9] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/world/asia/25kyrgyz.html [10]http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-16/world/tunisia.protests_1_troops-battle-unity-government-tunisia?_s=PM:WORLD [11]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIFxqXPQEQU&feature=related [12]http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/spotlight/anger-in-egypt/2011/02/201126201341479784.html [13] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4060180,00.html [14] http://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/01-828/ [15] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQtM-59jDAo&feature=player_embedded#!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXvvvvXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXo -------------------------------------------------------------------o Paper Ballot Election Results Flip in UT After 'Recount' Finds Original Tally 'Extremely' Wrong (X link http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x518202

link http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/senators-demand-military-lock-american-citizens-battlefield-they-define-being Senators Demand the Military Lock Up American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window ============================vvvv=======================================o ------------------------------------------------------------------------o While nearly all Americans head to family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself. Senators need to hear from you, on whether you think your front yard is part of a “battlefield” and if any president can send the military anywhere in the world to imprison civilians without charge or trial. The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself. The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing. I know it sounds incredible. New powers to use the military worldwide, even within the United States? Hasn’t anyone told the Senate that Osama bin Laden is dead, that the president is pulling all of the combat troops out of Iraq and trying to figure out how to get combat troops out of Afghanistan too? And American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now? The answer on why now is nothing more than election season politics. The White House, the Secretary of Defense, and the Attorney General have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act are harmful and counterproductive. The White House has even threatened a veto. But Senate politics has propelled this bad legislation to the Senate floor. But there is a way to stop this dangerous legislation. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is offering the Udall Amendment that will delete the harmful provisions and replace them with a requirement for an orderly Congressional review of detention power. The Udall Amendment will make sure that the bill matches up with American values. In support of this harmful bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained that the bill will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield” and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial “American citizen or not.” Another supporter, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also declared that the bill is needed because “America is part of the battlefield.” The solution is the Udall Amendment; a way for the Senate to say no to indefinite detention without charge or trial anywhere in the world where any president decides to use the military. Instead of simply going along with a bill that was drafted in secret and is being jammed through the Senate, the Udall Amendment deletes the provisions and sets up an orderly review of detention power. It tries to take the politics out and put American values back in. In response to proponents of the indefinite detention legislation who contend that the bill “applies to American citizens and designates the world as the battlefield,” and that the “heart of the issue is whether or not the United States is part of the battlefield,” Sen. Udall disagrees, and says that we can win this fight without worldwide war and worldwide indefinite detention. The senators pushing the indefinite detention proposal have made their goals very clear that they want an okay for a worldwide military battlefield, that even extends to your hometown. That is an extreme position that will forever change our country.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVooooVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVo Yes the Bankers to RULE..... Bankers have seized Europe: Goldman Sachs Has Taken Over by Paul Craig Roberts On November 25, two days after a failed German government bond auction in which Germany was unable to sell 35% of its offerings of 10-year bonds, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble said that Germany might retreat from its demands that the private banks that hold the troubled sovereign debt from Greece, Italy, and Spain must accept part of the cost of their bailout by writing off some of the debt. The private banks want to avoid any losses either by forcing the Greek, Italian, and Spanish governments to make good on the bonds by imposing extreme austerity on their citizens, or by having the European Central Bank print euros with which to buy the sovereign debt from the private banks. Printing money to make good on debt is contrary to the ECB’s charter and especially frightens Germans, because of the Weimar experience with hyperinflation. Obviously, the German government got the message from the orchestrated failed bond auction. As I wrote at the time, there is no reason for Germany, with its relatively low debt to GDP ratio compared to the troubled countries, not to be able to sell its bonds. If Germany’s creditworthiness is in doubt, how can Germany be expected to bail out other countries? Evidence that Germany’s failed bond auction was orchestrated is provided by troubled Italy’s successful bond auction two days later. Strange, isn’t it. Italy, the largest EU country that requires a bailout of its debt, can still sell its bonds, but Germany, which requires no bailout and which is expected to bear a disproportionate cost of Italy’s, Greece’s and Spain’s bailout, could not sell its bonds. In my opinion, the failed German bond auction was orchestrated by the US Treasury, by the European Central Bank and EU authorities, and by the private banks that own the troubled sovereign debt. My opinion is based on the following facts. Goldman Sachs and US banks have guaranteed perhaps one trillion dollars or more of European sovereign debt by selling swaps or insurance against which they have not reserved. The fees the US banks received for guaranteeing the values of European sovereign debt instruments simply went into profits and executive bonuses. This, of course, is what ruined the American insurance giant, AIG, leading to the TARP bailout at US taxpayer expense and Goldman Sachs’ enormous profits. If any of the European sovereign debt fails, US financial institutions that issued swaps or unfunded guarantees against the debt are on the hook for large sums that they do not have. The reputation of the US financial system probably could not survive its default on the swaps it has issued. Therefore, the failure of European sovereign debt would renew the financial crisis in the US, requiring a new round of bailouts and/or a new round of Federal Reserve “quantitative easing,” that is, the printing of money in order to make good on irresponsible financial instruments, the issue of which enriched a tiny number of executives. Certainly, President Obama does not want to go into an election year facing this prospect of high profile US financial failure. So, without any doubt, the US Treasury wants Germany out of the way of a European bailout. The private French, German, and Dutch banks, which appear to hold most of the troubled sovereign debt, don’t want any losses. Either their balance sheets, already ruined by Wall Street’s fraudulent derivatives, cannot stand further losses or they fear the drop in their share prices from lowered earnings due to write-downs of bad sovereign debts. In other words, for these banks big money is involved, which provides an enormous incentive to get the German government out of the way of their profit statements. The European Central Bank does not like being a lesser entity than the US Federal Reserve and the UK’s Bank of England. The ECB wants the power to be able to undertake “quantitative easing” on its own. The ECB is frustrated by the restrictions put on its powers by the conditions that Germany required in order to give up its own currency and the German central bank’s control over the country’s money supply. The EU authorities want more “unity,” by which is meant less sovereignty of the member countries of the EU. Germany, being the most powerful member of the EU, is in the way of the power that the EU authorities desire to wield. Thus, the Germans bond auction failure, an orchestrated event to punish Germany and to warn the German government not to obstruct “unity” or loss of individual country sovereignty. Germany, which has been browbeat since its defeat in World War II, has been made constitutionally incapable of strong leadership. Any sign of German leadership is quickly quelled by dredging up remembrances of the Third Reich. As a consequence, Germany has been pushed into an European Union that intends to destroy the political sovereignty of the member governments, just as Abe Lincoln destroyed the sovereignty of the American states. Who will rule the New Europe? Obviously, the private European banks and Goldman Sachs. The new president of the European Central Bank is Mario Draghi. This person was Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs International and a member of Goldman Sachs’ Management Committee. Draghi was also Italian Executive Director of the World Bank, Governor of the Bank of Italy, a member of the governing council of the European Central Bank, a member of the board of directors of the Bank for International Settlements, and a member of the boards of governors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank, and Chairman of the Financial Stability Board. Obviously, Draghi is going to protect the power of bankers. Italy’s new prime minister, who was appointed not elected, was a member of Goldman Sachs Board of International Advisers. Mario Monti was appointed to the European Commission, one of the governing organizations of the EU. Monti is European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, a US organization that advances American hegemony over the world. Monti is a member of the Bilderberg group and a founding member of the Spinelli group, an organization created in September 2010 to facilitate integration within the EU. Just as an unelected banker was installed as prime minister of Italy, an unelected banker was installed as prime minister of Greece. Obviously, they are intended to produce the bankers’ solution to the sovereign debt crisis. Greece’s new appointed prime minister, Lucas Papademos, was Governor of the Bank of Greece. From 2002-2010. He was Vice President of the European Central Bank. He, also, is a member of America’s Trilateral Commission. Jacques Delors, a founder of the European Union, promised the British Trade Union Congress in 1988 that the European Commission would require governments to introduce pro-labor legislation. Instead, we find the banker-controlled European Commission demanding that European labor bail out the private banks by accepting lower pay, fewer social services, and a later retirement. The European Union, just like everything else, is merely another scheme to concentrate wealth in a few hands at the expense of European citizens, who are destined, like Americans, to be the serfs of the 21st century.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXooooXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX if at first you dont succeed,lie,lie again ....... link http://www.dailytech.com/Climatologists+Trade+Tips+on+Destroying+Evidence+Evangelizing+Warming/article23368.htm

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV*o*VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV THIS just in. Related. link http://torrentfreak.com/feds-seize-130-domain-names-in-mass-crackdown-111125/ (also more below on topic) VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVUUUUVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV also see Commentary ON SOPA below Crusades To Censor And Control the Internet R.F. Goggin November 26, 2011 Seems everywhere I turn these days, there is some government or corporate entity in America out to try to dictate what I may or may not see or do – as I surf the Internet. One of the chief proponents or crusaders, for example, of what for the sake of my argument I will call the ‘Nannynet’, for lack of a better term, resides in the form of U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman. Is it my imagination perhaps, or is this Lieberman a fellow who seems to spend an inordinate amount of his time trying to establish governmental control over the everyday on-line lives of people going about their normal routines? Granted, there are indeed individuals (or even organized groups in this world), seeking bodily harm to others. Yet, wouldn’t this be a truism whether or not one happens to be connected to cyberspace? And although someone might harbor a desire to inflict some type of terrorism or injury upon another individual, such thoughts, or even aspirations, are hardly comparable (unless of course, you happen to be a Homeland Security official or a CIA operative) to committing some criminal transgression of any sort. If, by contrast, one were to come home from an aggravating day at the office, and then update their Facebook profile to say; “Man, I’d like to punch my supervisor out” or “I felt like killing my boss today”, have they committed any crime or act of potential terror? I wonder then for the sake of reason and sanity, if it would be out-of-order for me to take an opportunity to remind Mr. Lieberman that it is still a constitutional right of every American, at the least, to express themselves in public however they choose. Yes indeed, it is nothing less than a U.S. citizen’s freedom of speech in significant jeopardy, via the sorts of constricting legislation which Joe Lieberman or other equally powerful politicians are constantly seeking to enact. To promote censorship of websites or even blogs, in what seems to me to be a pretense of ‘national security’ – by blocking their publication altogether, is more akin to a job for George Orwell’s thought police, than of an elected representative of the American people. Is it not rather an all but impossible situation in any regard, for someone with half a brain not to conclude that Lieberman’s motivation to exert a form of ultimate government rule over the Internet, is chiefly influenced by his desire to exert his Jewish ethnicity while attempting to protect the State of Israel from those seeking to inflict injury upon it? Something, of course, which has nothing at all to do with a supposedly indiscriminate nature of the United States of America. One will forgive me, no doubt, for having no desire to waste text characters in this document citing for the reader exactly what liberty-restricting bills that Lieberman likes to propose to the Congress of the U.S. with regard to the Internet, or how it is precisely that the man has been badgering a company such as Google to censor their Youtube operation or their blog websites. If one is uninformed about such things, there is information aplenty to be had by virtue of the many alternative news sources, hard at work, who are genuinely trying to look out for folks as they make their way around the worldwide web. Instead, I would rather focus next on the entertainment and manufacturing industry in the United States, which is also in line to try to exert their control over your Internet experience. Companies of which, in fact, have people operating in Washington specifically to lobby one such as Joseph Lieberman toward their ‘special interests’. Here of course, I refer to extremely powerful corporations or conglomerates in most cases, responsible for such things such as the ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’, which was introduced as recently as October of 2011 into the U.S. Congress as bill H.R. 3261 by Representative Lamar Smith of Texas – among some twelve co-sponsors, or co-conspirators. I will leave it up to you to explain the difference between the two to me. This particular piece of potential legislation is supposedly a measure designed to protect intellectual property rights and to curb the on-line proliferation of counterfeit goods. ----------o------------------ U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act, Bill H.R. 3261 There are simply not enough words in my vocabulary to begin to explain the negative effects the passage of this legislation will have upon the Internet itself and/or the average American making use of the medium. Your freedom of choice to conduct yourself on-line as you please, will be dramatically curtailed, so that instead of consuming a commercial commodity on the Internet, as one might occasionally do, it is you rather who will become the commodity to be consumed. If I read the fine print of the details correctly, this bill being considered by the Congress would make anyone who would so much as offer a Youtube video (which happens to have been copyrighted in the past); such as a song by their favorite musical artist, for example, for streaming to their friends on Facebook or what have you – a dastardly, thieving felon. ‘Sopa’ as this ridiculous corporate power-grab being crafted behind the backs of Americans is called, would fundamentally alter the Internet beyond all current recognition and literally make it a tool in utter service to big business. Commercial competition and product innovation among the many, would be crushed and stifled – by the powerful few. This aspiring Congressional act, would block out countless websites; some which are currently very popular, by threatening legal actions against companies of which do business with or enable such sites to survive – such a Pay Pal’s monetary exchange services or Google’s search engine. Unless you are an individual who appreciates the excessive commercial interruptions on television these days, then you simply will not find Sopa to be a very interesting prospect to you, because what it entails in a nutshell, is basically the complete commercialization of the Internet. By default, an act of public censorship of any degree, is an inherently self-serving maneuver by those of who are performing it, designed to preserve or protect someone or something in a position of power or influence, or some status quo. Even the attack on America on 9/11 or subsequent ‘war on terror’, can’t begin change such certitude. And as far as the business community is concerned, there are methods enough currently in place for people or companies whose copyright or intellectual property has been infringed upon to take legal action. But, of course, the reason such avenues are insufficient to a big corporation or conglomerate is that they know there isn’t any money in it for them to try to stop a person from uploading or sharing a video, photo or news article. Indeed, it would probably cost them too dearly to make such an attempt. And so it is therefore that the powers that be, which include corrupt politicians in the pockets of mega-companies, need to find a way to change the ‘free’ flowing nature or culture of the Internet instead, to suit their ends. If it isn’t as plain as the nose on your face, Mr. Ordinary Joe, that the kind of greedy and selfish thinking of which I am presenting to you, absolutely must be challenged and soundly defeated, than suffice as to say, you Sir or Madam, are mere sheep in pen for those keen to manipulate you. If a governmental body anywhere on this planet attempts to dictate what an individual can say or do in cyberspace, then its clear to me, that in effect, that person will have lost this world’s latest and perhaps last rendition of basic human freedoms. The Internet is your medium – which mercifully still belongs to you, it’s high time to join those in the thick of the good fight for your on-line liberty, to take a stand, and to keep control of it. R.F. Goggin is the editor of The New World Reporter

Dear John, It will take hard thinking,new thinking,hard work......to change you must organize. link http://disquietreservations.blogspot.com/2011/11/9-final-ways-bankster-occupied-us.html

elites want cuts....... link http://www.rense.com/general95/bipart.htm

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXooooXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Simple question,If this is left,what is right ? link http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/10/now_obama_wants_to_kill_alt-we.php

related: link http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/25/is-britain-plotting-with-israel-to-attack-iran/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ============================== If Israel doesnt get help,no attack. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++= Bellum at Ricochet January 31st, 2012 Just up at Ricochet.com, a response to the latest chatter about the supposedly impending Israeli airstrike on Iran. Bellum senior editor Tristan Abbey writes: Everybody assumes it’s just a question of Israeli political will. There is something to that, since any operation would be extremely high-risk and we know that the Israelis value their servicemen’s lives extremely highly; after all, they traded 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for a single IDF soldier. But every sensible analysis of a putative strike comes down to flight path, logistics, and the probability of mission success. Overflight rights are tricky (and actually do matter in the real world), the logistics are near impossible (with Israel’s lack of aerial refueling capability), and the probability of mission success is extremely low (given Iran’s air defenses and the dispersed nature of its nuclear program). +++++++++++