Steven Gaal

New Studies: ‘Conspiracy Theorists’ Sane; Government Dupes Crazy, HostileCharles Burris http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/new-studies-conspiracy-theorists-sane-government-dupes-crazy-hostile/ Dr. Kevin Barrett reports that recent academic studies by psychologists and social scientists demonstrate these findings: “New studies: ‘Conspiracy theorists’ sane; government dupes crazy, hostile.” This information substantiates Jacob G. Hornberger’s observations in “JFK and the Deferentials” and those of Lance deHaven-Smith in his book, Conspiracy Theory in America, published earlier this year. Dr. Smith is a widely published scholar in peer-reviewed academic journals and is Professor in the Reubin O’ D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University in Tallahassee. DeHaven-Smith has appeared on Good Morning America, the Today Show, NBC Nightly News, CBS Nightly News, the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and other national TV and radio shows. 7:25 pm on December 6, 2013

Cuban 5 tribute to Mandela By Workers World staff on December 6, 2013 Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro Just after an extended period of time in lockdown, one of the Cuban Five political prisoners inside the U.S., Hero of the Republic of Cuba Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, dedicated this short message to the memory of Nelson Mandela. Those who dedicated unlimited resources to erase and rewrite the history of Nelson Mandela, those who had him on their list of “dangerous terrorists,” today will suffer from collective amnesia. Those in the city of Miami who denied him homage because he embraced Fidel and thanked Cuba for its aid to Africa, today will have to sit in embarrassed silence. The Cuban Five will continue facing every day our unfair imprisonment, until the end, inspired by his example of unwavering loyalty and strength. Eternal glory to the great Nelson Mandela! Gerardo Hernández Nordelo United States Penitentiary, Victorville California, Dec. 5

Former President Explains The Threat Posed By Edward Snowden Posted on December 5, 2013 by stevengoddard “When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.” — Thomas Jefferson

Poverty skyrockets in Ireland as the ruling elite gets richer http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/poverty-skyrockets-in-ireland-as-the-ruling-elite-gets-richer/ ========================= By Dermot Quinn and Emily Doyle 6 December 2013 Sixteen percent of the Republic of Ireland‘s population, 734,120 people, now live in poverty. Since the financial and economic crisis engulfed the country in 2008 there has been a huge redistribution of wealth from the working class and poorer sections of society to the very wealthy ruling elite. Successive austerity budgets introduced by the ruling Fine Gael/Labour coalition and the previous government led by Fiana Fail have impoverished whole sections of society who depend on social protection. To alleviate some of the worst aspects of the vicious social spending cuts introduced in the last five consecutive budgets, a huge number of impoverished families have turned to relief from one or other of the 40 religious charities, even though state funding to charities has been cut by over 30 percent. The Dublin Archdiocese charity Crosscare is now involved in supplying food to 10 different charities throughout Dublin, which is distributed to the growing number of poor and homeless in the city. Diarmuid Martin, the archbishop of Dublin, last week appealed for food from shops and large food outlets, stating that “demand for basic items is outstripping supply.” The charity expects to have distributed 750 tonnes of food by the end of this year, 50 percent more than last year. The Catholic charity Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVP) is now making 400,000 home visits a year to families who are struggling to survive as poverty increases. SVP Vice-President Tom MacSweeney stated, “The families we visit are not just those on social welfare, they include people in low-paid employment, the self-employed and people in employment with debts that they cannot handle. The cumulative impact of austerity measures to date on individuals, families and communities has been devastating.” The increasing gap between the super-rich and the majority of the population is rooted in the crisis-ridden capitalist system, in which the working class has borne the brunt of bailing out the banks after the financial and housing crash of 2008. In total, the spending cuts and tax hikes implemented amount to more than 20 percent of Ireland‘s economic output. The most recent figures from the Central Statistics Office show that without social welfare and other state support, 50.7 percent of the population would be at risk of dire poverty. In an attempt to boost profits, the government with the collaboration of the unions has played a leading role in facilitating a long-term strategy by employers to depress wages. Since national wage bargaining was ended indefinitely in 2009, a significant minority of employers have cut basic pay levels while requiring employees to work extra hours with no additional pay. The result is that those in low-paid or insecure employment earn a wage that is not adequate to cover the basic costs of living for themselves and their families. The number of people earning less than €11,000 a year has continued to grow since 2011 to a staggering 733,000 people. This means that almost three quarters of a million people in employment are experiencing “at risk of poverty” conditions. With youth unemployment having remained at 30 percent for the last four years, the majority of the half a million people who have emigrated since the recession began are young people. The slashing of dole rates for those under 26 in the October budget has created a reserve army of young people now being forced to work on “jobbridge” schemes for as little as €50 (US$68) a week. Cuts to supports like child benefit, household benefits, medical cards and education as well as the property tax have left many families with little or no disposable income. A 500 percent increase in prescription charges over recent years and the fact that over 10,000 people have been cut off the medical card this year have left thousands of older people living in fear and struggling to survive. The youngest suffer too, as five children a week become homeless while the number of families becoming homeless has doubled in the past year. At the beginning of November there was widespread anger over the treatment by the Health Service Executive (HSE) of a child from Cork, which exemplified how health service cuts are forcing young families into poverty. Jackie and Ray Connolly were refused a renewal of a medical card for their five-year-old daughter Katie, who suffers from Down’s syndrome, asthma, juvenile arthritis and a heart condition. Katie’s mother Jackie had already suffered a pay cut earlier in the year and was facing mounting care costs for her daughter. The family organised a protest outside Cork city hall on November 9,, which was attended by around 40 other children with Down’s syndrome and their parents who have lost their discretionary medical cards in recent months. “Katie needs her medical card to access community care services within the HSE, so what are we to do now?” Jackie asked. “If Katie does not see a doctor her condition could worsen. She has a compromised immune system and is susceptible to various ailments.” The Irish Examiner reported in October that there were now more than 1,000 people a month losing their discretionary medical cards, with a total drop of nearly 10,000 in the first eight months of the year. The cards entitle their holders to free health care services. The government plans to make a further €666 million in cuts to the health service and €230 million to the social care budget in 2014, as part of the €2.5 billion (1.5 percent of GDP) cuts introduced in the 2014 budget. According to an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report, published on November 21, Ireland has experienced the worst drop in health spending per capita across the European Union. The drop in health spending between 2009 and 2011 was 6.6 percent, second only to Greece with 11.1 percent. By contrast, the wealthiest 10 percent have never had it so good. This section of the population have actually grown their wealth by 8 percent since 2008. They sit on top of a divided and crisis-ridden society, with one eye on the state and political establishment that genuflects before its every need. According to the 2013 Sunday Times Rich List, the number of Irish billionaires has doubled since the economic crash. The richest 300 of the country’s billionaires and multi-millionaires saw their wealth grow by almost 6.3 percent, or €3.9 billion, last year. The wealth attained by the wealthy elite in Ireland has now grown to a staggering €66 billion. Another review of the wealth of the super-rich in 2013 in the Irish Independent revealed that there are just 105 people with net assets of €100 million each. Denis O’Brien, owner of Telecom, is the richest billionaire on the list with a net worth of €3.8 billion. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With permission Source: WSWS

(AUSTERITY Hows that working UK ??,Gaal) Food poverty in UK has reached level of 'public health emergency', warn experts published by Tom Sullivan on Wed, 2013-12-04 20:30 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hunger in Britain has reached the level of a “public health emergency” and the Government may be covering up the extent to which austerity and welfare cuts are adding to the problem, leading experts have said. In a letter to the British Medical Journal, a group of doctors and senior academics from the Medical Research Council and two leading universities said that the effect of Government policies on vulnerable people’s ability to afford food needed to be “urgently” monitored. A surge in the number of people requiring emergency food aid, a decrease in the amount of calories consumed by British families, and a doubling of the number of malnutrition cases seen at English hospitals represent “all the signs of a public health emergency that could go unrecognised until it is too late to take preventative action,” they write. Despite mounting evidence for a growing food poverty crisis in the UK, ministers maintain there is “no robust evidence” of a link between sweeping welfare reforms and a rise in the use of food banks. However, publication of research into the phenomenon, commissioned by the Government itself, has been delayed, amid speculation that the findings may prove embarrassing for ministers. “Because the Government has delayed the publication of research it commissioned into the rise of emergency food aid in the UK, we can only speculate that the cause is related to the rising cost of living and increasingly austere welfare reforms,” the public health experts write. Source and full story: The Independent (UK), 4 December 2013 ================================ RELATED http://www.salon.com/2013/12/04/austerity_is_americanizing_european_labor_markets/ ============================= http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/30/europe-austerity-eu-prophets-suffering-growth ============================= http://euobserver.com/justice/122338 Spain’s new €600,000 fine for civil disobedience

Mon, 12/2/2013 - by Carl Gibson and Steve Horn Serbia’s Srdja Popovic is known by many as a leading architect of regime changes in Eastern Europe and elsewhere since the late-1990s, and as one of the co-founders of Otpor!, the U.S.-funded Serbian activist group which overthrew Slobodan Milošević in 2000. Lesser known, an exclusive Occupy.com investigation reveals that Popovic and the Otpor! offshoot CANVAS (Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies) have also maintained close ties with a Goldman Sachs executive and the private intelligence firmStratfor (Strategic Forecasting, Inc.), as well as the U.S. government. Popovic’s wife also worked at Stratfor for a year. These revelations come in the aftermath of thousands of new emails released by Wikileaks' “Global Intelligence Files.” The emails reveal Popovic worked closely with Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based private firm that gathers intelligence on geopolitical events and activists forclients ranging from the American Petroleum Institute and Archer Daniels Midland to Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Northrop Grumman, Intel and Coca-Cola. Referred to in emails under the moniker “SR501,” Popovic was first approached by Stratfor in 2007 to give a lecture in the firm's office about events transpiring in Eastern Europe, according to a Stratfor source who asked to remain confidential for this story. In one of the emails, Popovic forwarded information about activists harmed or killed by the U.S.-armed Bahraini government, obtained from the Bahrain Center for Human Rights during the regime’s crackdown on pro-democracy activists in fall 2011. Popovic also penned a blueprint for Stratfor on how to unseat the now-deceased Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in September 2010. Stratfor’s Global Activist Connector Using his celebrated activist status, Popovic opened many doors for Stratfor to meet with activists globally. In turn, the information Stratfor intended to gain from Popovic’s contacts would serve as “actionable intelligence”—the firm billed itself as a “Shadow CIA”—for its corporate clients. Popovic passed information to Stratfor about on-the-ground activist events in countries around the world, ranging from the Philippines,Libya, Tunisia, Vietnam, Iran, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Tibet, Zimbabwe, Poland and Belarus, Georgia, Bahrain, Venezuela and Malaysia. Often, the emails reveal, Popovic passed on the information to Stratfor without the consent of the activists and likely without the activists ever knowing that their emails were being shuttled to the private security firm. In the U.S., this investigation's co-author, Carl Gibson (representing US Uncut), and the Yes Men’s Andy Bichlbaum had a meeting with Popovic shortly after their two respective groups used a media hoax to play a prank on General Electric, ridiculing the company over itsnon-payment of U.S. taxes. The pair gave Popovic information about both groups’ plans for the coming year and news later came out that Stratfor closely monitored the Yes Men’s activities. (The blow photograph taken by Bichlbaum in April 2011 shows Popovic (L) and US Uncut’s Carl Gibson.) During the Arab Spring, in Egypt in January 2011, Popovic received an interview invitation for an appearance on CNN. The first people he turned to for talking points were Stratfor employees, who provided him with five talking points to lead with. Stratfor said Popovic’s main use for the firm was his vast array of grassroots activist contacts around the world. “A little reminder that the main utility in this contact is his ability to connect us to the troublemakers around the world that he is in touch with. His own ability to discern situation on the ground may be limited, he mainly has initial contact with an asset and then lets them do their own thing,” reads a May 2010 email written by former Stratfor Eurasia Analyst Marko Papic. “He does himself have information that may be useful from time to time. But, the idea is to gather a network of contacts through CANVAS, contacts that we can then contact independently.” Popovic was so well-received by Stratfor that he even got his wife, Marijah, a job there. She worked for a year from March 2010 through March 2011 as the weekend open source intelligence analyst at Stratfor. The other candidate for the job, Jelena Tancic, also worked for CANVAS. “The Canvas guy [Popovic] is a friend/source [for Stratfor], and recommended her to us,” Stratfor’s Vice President of Analysis Scott Stewart said in a March 2010 email, leaving out that the two were dating at the time. Popovic and his wife grew so close to Stratfor, in fact, that Popovic invited numerous members of the Stratfor staff to their wedding in Belgrade, Serbia. ================================================== http://12160.info/forum/topics/another-stratfor-manufactured-revolutionary

LEFTY OBAMA ?? Obama pardons two Thanksgiving turkeys, while leaving thousands of American prisoners to rot http://www.blacklistednews.com/Obama_pardons_two_Thanksgiving_turkeys%2C_while_leaving_thousands_of_American_prisoners_to_rot/30733/0/8/8/Y/M.html ======================================================================== But at least Popcorn and Caramel are off the hook. Gobble, gobble. President Obama pardons “Popcorn” the turkey. (Source: Carolyn Kaster, AP) Yesterday, in a lighthearted White House photo-op, President Barack Obama granted executive pardons to two turkeys: “Popcorn” and “Caramel.” “Popcorn, you have a full reprieve from cranberry sauce and stuffing. We wish you well,” said Obama. Noting that Popcorn was one of 80 birds that competed for a pardon from the royal dinner table, Obama chuckled, “It was, quite literally, the Hunger Games.” While this little contest and mock ceremony must endear him to his supporters, it serves as a painful reminder of an important duty that President Obama has been shamefully neglecting. As President of the United States, he is the only person in the world who is capable of granting pardons to the multitudes of Americans unjustly imprisoned and branded criminals by the ravenous federal legal system. As of this date, Barack Obama has only granted 39 pardons in 5 years, and one commuted sentence. All of the pardons were granted to people sentenced to less than 10 years in prison, according to Wikipedia. And most, if not all, of the pardons were granted to people who already served their sentences and have been released. This number is disgraceful. A responsible president could find 1,000 federal prisoners to pardon per year without breaking a sweat. A president dedicated to justice could pardon tens thousands of current prisoners and far more who have served their time and are living with the burden of federal convictions. Yes, that would be a drastic departure from the status quo and would require the president to publicly admit that there are a lot of federal laws that are absolutely unjust. To understand who should be pardoned, we must look at who is imprisoned. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 1,571,013 prisoners in state and federal prisons in 2012. This tally does not account for prisoners locked in city, county, and juvenile jails; a statistic that is not nationally tracked and would hike the total number several-fold if included. Despite this, the United States of America remains the number one jailer in the world, far eclipsing any other developed nation. It has not always been this way. Federal prison populations have skyrocketed almost 790 percent in only 3 decades. The Feds have raised their number of prisoners from about 25,000 inmates in 1980 to 219,000 in 2012. (Source: The Sentencing Project) In short, the “land of the free” has become an incarceration nation. It does not take much objectivity to admit that the USA is suffering from a major problem. This problem stems from an abundance of laws criminalizing non-violent, victimless behavior. Adding on oppressive “mandatory minimum” sentencing requirements and the result is the biggest, most well-stocked prison system on earth. Around half of the prisoners in the federal system are locked up because of the War on Drugs. Increases in sentences contributed to half of the prison population growth between 1998 and 2010, according to a study by the Urban Institute. There are plenty of human faces to go with these statistics. Plenty of real stories of oppressive prison sentences caused by activities that should not even be illegal. Weldon Angelos, of Utah, was sentenced to 55 years in federal prison for selling marijuana, even prompting the judge to call the sentence ”unjust, cruel, and irrational.” Grandmother Shirley Womble is serving 25 years in federal prison for bookkeeping at an auto dealership that was implicated in the sale of marijuana. Kenneth Harvey strapped a vial of cocaine to his leg on an airplane, and now is serving life in federal prison without the possibility of parole. First-time offender Danielle Metz is serving a triple-life sentence in federal prison for her involvement with her husband’s drug dealing. Barbara Scrivner is serving 30 years in federal prison for making a one-time drug delivery in a desperate attempt to make ends meet for her family while her husband was in prison. Serving life without parole in federal prison, “Deadhead” Timothy Tyler rots in prison for selling drugs at a Grateful Dead concert. Chris Williams is serving 5 years in federal prison for operating a cannabis greenhouse that was legal and licensed in his home state of Montana. In a federal prison in Kentucky, former U.S. marine William Dekle has served over twenty years of a double-life sentence related to a non-violent marijuana offense. And this hasn’t even begun to scratch the surface. An encyclopedia of injustice could be written on non-violent offenders of victimless “crimes” that have had their lives destroyed by the federal government. Bear in mind that the average prison sentence handed to people convicted of murder and non-negligent manslaughter is nearly 20.7 years [1]. Rapists get even less. The average sentence handed to a convicted rapist is 9.8 years. For crimes of sexual assault, the average sentence is 6.0 years, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics [2]. Yet all these people who have committed no violent acts, and harmed no one, are accounting for half of U.S. prisoners and often being dealt harsher sentences than violent rapists and murderers. And lets not forget to mention the 35 year sentence thrown at PFC Bradley Manning, who had the nerve to blow the whistle on U.S. military. Or wanted fugitive Edward Snowden, who exposed the tyranny of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) dragnet domestic spying program to the American public and could face a harsh sentence if caught. While Obama makes jokes about granting pardons to animals, thousands of people’s lives are depending on him for clemency. Of all the wasteful things toward which the the president has devoted gross amounts of resources, his pathetic effort towards righting the countless injustices in the federal injustice system is very telling.

Is Russian leadership more Christian than the United States? Is the Russian Government more Christian than George Bush or Obama ever hoped the United States to be? The answer is yes, and not only is it true, but thanks to born again Christians, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, Christian influence in matters of State is rapidly on the rise. Let's look at the facts. Today, in the New York Times, Vladimir Putin invoked God quiet emphatically and certainly intentionally. He wrote "We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal." Earlier this year Barack Obama skipped Church on Christmas Day while the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, on January 6, 2013, attended mid-night mass services celebrating the Russian Orthodox Christmas in grand splendor in the traditional Vigil liturgy in Saint Christ the Saviour Cathedral in the presence of 4,000 people, including Patriarch Kirill. The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas following the old Julian calendar, which is 13 days "behind" the Gregorian calendar. While Russian leaders were attending Church services, half way around the world in America, Chicago Tribune, writing about Obama's troubles finding a Church for his family, said "But as his (Obama) fellow Christians around the world attended Christmas services on Wednesday and Thursday, the president-elect and his family remained sequestered at their vacation compound on the windward coast of Oahu. His lack of attendance at formal religious services showcased a dilemma faced by Obama, who is between churches and often expresses concern about bringing the disruption of his security detail into the lives of others." According to the same report President Barack Obama has not attended a public church service since before being elected. The Madonna Files - The brand new Prophetic novel about how the mysterious rise of religion in Russia has led to the coming conflict between Ruusia and the United States. Buy it today! So what you say? Well, today Russia is investing $100 million to rebuild Christian churches throughout the country. Money to rebuild theses churches is coming from Russian tax payers. This would be impossible in the US of course. Imagine the US Media's reaction if President Obama decided to invest $100 million dollars of US tax payer dollars to rebuild Catholic Churches. In the US there would be outrage yet Russia citizens are supportive of the investment. Russia's turn to Christianity is a virtually unknown phenomenon in the United States. Most Christian leaders are oblivious to what is happening in Russia. Pastor Robertson or Pastor Hagee still believe Russia is an atheist and communist country and these prominent End-Times Christian pastors are rasing money and rattling their sabers to go to war against the Godless state. But the reality is Russia is indeed rebuilding Churches with tax payer funds. MinistryValues.com, in another piece, wrote "In addition to the formal exchange of wishes and thanks with the Patriarchate of Moscow, the Russian government gave the Christian Church a dramatic Christmas gift. Meeting with the patriarch at the Danilov Monastery, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that the government would provide almost $100 million US dollars (RUB 2 billion) to restore holy sites, monasteries and churches destroyed during last century's atheist drive by the Soviet Union against religion. He also said that the Novodevichy Convent, one of most beautiful and important in the country, would be given back to the Patriarchate. Putin Emphasizes "Love for Spiritual Values" Kisses religious Icons, Keeps Miracle Cross with him Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedeve go to Church frequently, kiss precious icons of the Virgin Mary and seek political and moral counsel from the Russian Orthodox Clergy. Furthermore, to the surprise of many Americans, particularly Evangelical Christians, Vladimir Putin wears a Christian cross with him at all times. From a Larry King Live interview Putin told Larry King: "I was surprised completely when one of the workers, just muddling through those ashes of the remnants, found that cross intact. And the house fell, that was a surprise, a revelation, and therefore I always now keep it with me. " Vladimir Putin has frequently praised the Christian Russian Orthodox Church for "educating citizens in a spirit of patriotism and love of country, passing on love for spiritual values and history." For his part, Kirill said that he hoped that the Lord would help Putin "in performing the high task God gave him." The patriarch also praised the prime minister for the way he managed the economic crisis, which has had a greater impact in Russia than elsewhere in the world. Christian influence penetrates the Russian Military Interfax of Moscow reported Patriarch Kirill head of Moscow and All Russia Orthodox Church in a speech to Strategic Missile Forces Academy in Moscow said "that in last ten years many garrison churches and Sunday schools have opened in secret military towns of Russia" Patriarch Kirill Patriarch at a special ceremony awarded the Special Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN) a pennant with the image of the Holy Great Martyr Barbara, the heavenly protector of the branch. The Patriarch conveyed the award to Lieutenant General Andrey Shvaichenko, RVSN Commander, at the Peter the Great Strategic Missile Forces Academy in Moscow on Tuesday when opening the conference dedicated the Academy’s jubilee. Infax reported also that the Patriarch, speaking of Russia's nuclear asresanl "is convinced “such dangerous weapon can be given only to clean hands –hands of people with clear mind, ardent love to Motherland, responsibility for their work before God and people.” He believes it is not by chance that systematic cooperation of the Russian Church with the Russian Armed Forces started with the Strategic Missile Forces in early 1990s. Not a big tent in Russia - Restrictions on Evangelical Christians Funding to restore Christian sites and the return of properties seized from the Church in Soviet times are but the latest gift of the Kremlin to the Patriarchate. This year, the Russia Justice Ministry will present plans to amend the laws on "Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organisations", which, if approved, would severely restrict the activities of certain religious communities, like Evangelical Christians. In addition, the authorities plan to add religious education in public schools as well as chaplains paid by the state to the armed forces. It also appears possible that the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow will be granted the right to vet parliamentary bills before they go to the Duma. Is the Russian Government building a more Christian society? Perhaps. But try telling that to your buddies at Church this Sunday. Also Read about the New Russian Public Holiday Marking the adoption of Christianity in Russia click here (CLICK) http://ministryvalues.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=787&Itemid=214

to·tal·i·tar·i·an tōˌtaliˈte(ə)rēən/ adjective adjective: totalitarian 1. of or relating to a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state. "a totalitarian regime" synonyms: autocratic, undemocratic, one-party, dictatorial, tyrannical, despotic, fascist, oppressive, repressive, illiberal; More authoritarian, autarchic, absolute, absolutist; dystopian "a totalitarian regime" antonyms: democratic noun noun: totalitarian; plural noun: totalitarians 1.1 EVAN BURTON 1.2 a person advocating a totalitarian system of government. synonyms: autocratic, undemocratic, one-party, dictatorial, tyrannical, despotic, fascist, oppressive, repressive, illiberal; More authoritarian, autarchic, absolute, absolutist; dystopian "a totalitarian regime"

http://www.globalresearch.ca/iraq-today-americas-genocidal-legacy/5356592 America came to Iraq to stay. Contingents of US forces remain. America’s embassy cost over a billion dollars to build. It’s the world’s largest. It’s inside Baghdad’s Green Zone. It includes 21 buildings. Extraordinary security measures protect them. They’re on 104 acres of land. It’s the equivalent of 80 football fields. Democracy is verboten. So-called liberation is a convenient illusion. Iraq was ravaged and destroyed. Daily violence rages out-of-control. Unemployment, poverty and human misery are extreme. An epidemic of birth defects, cancer and other war related diseases plague the country. So do tens of thousands of US and other Western private military contractors, advisors and security personnel. At issue is controlling the region’s oil, gas, other strategic resources as well as economic policy and politics. America’s imperial legacy reflects destroying the cradle of civilization. Pre-1990 Iraq no longer exists. Charnel house conditions replaced it. Over two decades of war, sanctions, and occupation wrecked Iraq’s ecosystem. Scores of pollutants contaminate vast parts of country’s soil and water. They include depleted and enriched uranium, benzene and other harmful chemicals, toxic metals, oil, bacteria and other poisons. One hundred Paul Bremer orders raped Iraq. They turned it into a cutthroat free-market laboratory. Inside the bubble is paradise. Outside is hell. Basic services for the vast majority of Iraqis don’t exist. Pillaging on the grandest of grand scales continues. Iraq remains a virtual US colony. Its sovereign independence is gone. Gideon Polya maintains body count numbers. War related deaths come from violence, starvation, preventable diseases, poverty and neglect. Apocalyptic conditions follow. Polya defines avoidable mortality as “the difference between actual deaths in a country and (those) expected for a peaceful, decently governed (one) with the same demographics.” On the 10th anniversary of Washington’s invasion, he said Iraqi deaths from sanctions, violence, and violently-imposed deprivation since 1990 totaled 4.6 million. Extinguishing human lives on this massive a scale constitutes genocide. Article II of the Genocide Convention defines it as including “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; ( Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; © Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” In stark contrast to “science-based estimates,” said Polya, imperial liars and complicit media scoundrels lowball numbers disgracefully. They practically ignore daily violence and horrific conditions. Millions of internally and externally displaced refugees don’t matter. Washington’s full responsibility gets no coverage. Some of the greatest ever crimes of war and against humanity are airbrushed from history. They continue daily out of sight and mind. No end game suggests relief. Puppet Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki serves at America’s pleasure. His tenure began in May 2006. His longevity reflects his subservience. On November 1, he arrived in Washington. He did so hat in hand. Oval office photos with Obama followed. Earlier ones showed him with Bush. A duplicitous joint statement said in part: “In their meeting today at the White House, President Obama and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki reaffirmed the strategic partnership between the United States and the Republic of Iraq and pledged to advance common interests to support a stable, secure, and prosperous Iraq and Middle East.” “Since most US forces redeployed nearby in the region, both countries “entered a new phase of their relationship, based on mutual respect and a shared commitment to build a strategic partnership between two sovereign nations.” “They recalled the thousands of Americans and Iraqis who have given their lives in our common fight against terrorism and extremism in Iraq.” “The President and Prime Minister renewed their determination to honor the memory and sacrifice of those killed by strengthening our joint long-term strategic partnership across the fields covered by the SFA, including security, diplomacy, trade, education, energy, culture, science, and justice.” Obama calls Iraq an emerging democracy. Bush said its future reflects a “beacon of democracy.” Reality reveals otherwise. High-minded rhetoric rings hollow. Iraq is a failed state. It’s totally dysfunctional. Basic services and security don’t exist. Corruption and daily violence are out-of-control. Hopes for eventual stability and prosperity are ill-founded. Destroying the cradle of civilization created a blank slate. Iraq, Inc. replaced it. Chicago School fundamentalism rules run things. US corporations got first dibs. Bremer orders institutionalized plunder. Occupation harshness persists. Today’s Iraq reflects everything wrong with imperial wars, colonization, and predatory capitalist ruthlessness. Ordinary Iraqis are entirely shut out. They’re on their own, out of luck, sink or swim. Survival is their problem. Shock and awe, invasion, occupation, and rapid transformation from what was to what is killed millions. Survivors struggle to get by. Doing so isn’t easy. Many don’t make it. Puppet governance masquerades as legitimate. America calls the shots on what matters most. Maliki and other stooges do it bidding. Failure assures replicating Saddam’s fate. White House photo-ops reward subservience. George Bush said America came to Iraq “to plant seeds of democracy.” Ghoulish dystopia reflects today’s reality. Iraq is a violent dysfunctional wasteland. Nightmarish conditions exist. Washington bears full responsibility. Multiple car bombings occur almost daily. July was the bloodiest month since 2008. Violence killed over 1,000. Over 2,300 others were wounded. Maliki’s response is severe repression. Thousands of suspected regime opponents are imprisoned uncharged. Torture and other forms of abuse follow. Mass arrests continue. According to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Iraq and Afghanistan are America’s most expensive wars by far. No one knows when they’ll end. No one can determine their final cost. From what’s known to date, up to $6 trillion may be spent. Costs go way beyond combat. Externalities include longterm medical care, disability and survivor benefits, interest on debt related to war and occupation, as well as other social, economic and political costs. War doesn’t come cheap. Multiple ones are hugely expensive. Waging them one after another sacrifices other budget priorities. Most US resources go for militarism, aggression, corporate handouts, and homeland police state harshness. Social America is being destroyed. It’s to maintain what demands condemnation. Bipartisan complicity is turning the nation into a dystopian backwater. It’s being thirdworldized. Perhaps it’ll end up like Iraq. October exceeded July’s violence. Deadly car bombings killed over 1,000. Thousands more were wounded. Fear, human misery and deprivation grip the country. Normalcy is nonexistent. Bloodshed, insecurity, and extreme repression reflect daily life. Obama wants Maliki to crack down harder. New York Times editors march in lockstep with America’s imperial agenda. They supported the Gulf war, years of genocidal sanctions, Bush’s shock and awe lawlessness, and occupation that followed. They’ve done so unapologetically. On November 1, they headlined “Can Iraq Be Saved?” Maliki came to Washington looking for help. Times editors blame him for ongoing turmoil. True enough for complicity with America. Times editors pointed fingers the wrong way. Bush and Obama administrations bear full responsibility. Maliki does what he’s told. According to Times editors, Iraq might be safer with more US troops on the ground. Their arrival instigated what’s now ongoing. “(T)here is no reason to trust Maliki unless he adopts a more inclusive approach to governing and ensures that next April’s election will be fair and democratic,” they said. Reality is polar opposite. America deplores democracy. Iraq has none for sure. Ordinary people have no say. America decides who runs things. Strings are pulled in Washington. Maliki’s in charge as long as he remembers who’s boss. Don’t expect Times editors to explain. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net . His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour\ http://www.dailycensored.com/iraq-today-americas-genocidal-legacy/

YOUR CITED TEACHING TO COUNTER WHAT IS BELIEVED BY RIGHT WINGERS. To right wingers Howard Zinn a commie. Communism for Kids: Teaching “A People’s History of the United States” to 10 Year Olds http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/communism-for-kids-teaching-a-peoples-history-of-the-united-states-to-10-year-olds/

Suppressing the Truth on Syria: Mother Agnes Mariam and Britain’s Proclaimed “Antiwar Movement” Here’s what it looks like when a respected reporter tweets about his blackmail note to an established anti-war organization regarding the organization’s upcoming conference in a tweet on November 15: jeremy scahill ✔ @jeremyscahill Suivre I've informed organizers of @STWuk that I will not participate in their conference if Mother Agnes is on the platform. 10:39 AM - 15 Nov 2013 The reporter is Jeremy Scahill, who was booked as the keynote speaker and to show his film “Dirty Wars” (based on his book “Dirty Wars”) at the November 30 International Anti-War Conference in London, put on by Stop the War Coalition (STWuk), which was first organized in 2001 in opposition to an American attack on Iraq. More than 12 years later, the coalition notes dryly on its webpage for the conference, “We need more effective anti war resistance internationally. This conference is a chance to analyse, build links and lay plans.” Scahill’s threat to boycott the conference soon became moot the following day, when the dreaded Mother Agnes withdrew from participation. Her letter read, in part: “It has come to my attention that my participation in your conference has become a matter of serious contention, even prompting some other speakers to consider withdrawing. This is apparently due to a campaign of cruel and unsubstantiated accusations which seek to work against my efforts and those of the Musalaha (Reconciliation) Initiative in Syria. “The basis of our work toward peace is reconciliation and forgiveness. This means extending an olive branch to some who may initially refuse it, and accepting an olive branch from others who are despised, even by our friends…. “Some may feel that an injustice will be done if I speak at your conference. Others may think that injustice will be done if I do not. Because my participation in your conference may be used by some to distract from your valuable efforts towards peace, non-violence and reconciliation, I believe it best to withdraw from participation.” Why did Stop the War invitation to nun working to stop war raise objections? Push comes to shove, and Mother Agnes is an apparent pushover. She’s also not flogging a movie. And the abuse she’s suffered online was as real as the pressure on Scahilll and others to have nothing to do with her. It’s hard to find any evidence that Mother Agnes has committed anything worse than what others consider thought-crimes and politically incorrect observations, some of which are actually correct. Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross is a Carmelite nun and mother superior of the Monastery of James the Mutilated in Qara, Syria, which has a community of three monks and twelve nuns. Born in Lebanon in a refugee camp 61 years ago, she is Palestinian on her father’s side and has worked in Syria for about 20 years. She is the spokesperson for the Catholic Information Center in Beirut, where the Musalaha Initiative also has its office. Mother Agnes became a nun at 19, after several years in the late 1960s as a self-styled “hippie,” traveling to Europe, India and Tibet. Unlike others with an equally public profile, Mother Agnes has no Wikipedia page. In June 2012, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire praised Mother Agnes as a peacemaker: “In her community her voice has been clear, pure and loud. And it should be so in the West. Like many people in Syria she has been placed in life threatening situations, but for the sake of peace she has chosen to risk her own existence for the safety and security of others. She has spoken out against the lack of truth in our media regarding Syria and about the terror and chaos which a ‘third force’ seems to be spreading across the country. Her words confront and challenge us because they do not mirror the picture of events in Syria we have built up in our minds over many months of reading our newspapers and watching the news on our televisions. Much of the terror has been imported, we learn from her. She can tell us about the thousands of Christian refugees, forced to flee their homes by an imported Islamist extreme.” What makes her controversial to people around Stop the War Coalition is their perception of her as a supporter of the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. Clear reasoning behind this perception is hard to come by. The reality for Christians in Syria is that their choice of friends is limited: the government represses them along with everyone else, but some rebel groups have taken to massacring Christians. With rebel groups numbering 1,000 or more, none is likely to be a reliable protector. Mother Agnes’s heretical view of the Damascus chemical attack In August 2013, when the world learned of the still murky chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb, Mother Agnes questioned the prevailing western view that the Assad government carried out the attack. She prepared a 50-page report questioning the authenticity of videos of the aftermath and submitted her findings to the United Nations Human Rights Council. As the New York Times of September 21 reported: “When Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, wanted to bolster his argument that rebels had carried out the poison gas attacks near Damascus on Aug. 21, he pointed to the work of a 61-year-old Lebanese-born nun who had concluded that the horrifying videos showing hundreds of dead and choking victims, including many children, had been fabricated ahead of time to provide a pretext for foreign intervention. “’Mr. Lavrov is an intelligent person,’ said the nun, Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross, with a wide smile in a recent interview in this Lebanese mountain town. ‘He will never stick his name to someone who is saying stupidities.’” Taking a position on the chemical attacks that is supportive of the Assad government has led to intensified criticism of Mother Agnes as an Assad pawn. French reporters have written a book accusing her of conspiring with the government to kill another French reporter in 2012. She has sued the authors for libel. The Syrian uprising started with peaceful protests in March 2011, but soon turned violent. Mother Agnes accuses the West of fomenting the violence to create a pretext for military intervention and re-ordering Syria. In November 2011, she wrote an open letter to President Assad, challenging the government over its treatment of hospital patients and prisoners, as reported in Vatican Insider in November 2011: “Dear Mr. President, I have lived and worked in Syria since 1994, and I have learned to esteem the unique position Syria holds in the world of culture and of religions. But I am shocked to learn from Amnesty International that in the hospitals run by the government the wounded suffer discrimination and maltreatment because of their ideology. And I am saddened to find that, in the prisons, there are people there who have never been tried in court, or even accused of anything…. I ask for a serious inquiry into the hospitals and prisons, under the supervision of the International Red Cross, together with the creation of a committee to accelerate the exercise of justice.” In late October, Mother Agnes, through the Musalaha Initiative, was involved in establishing a cease-fire and evacuating some 5,400 civilians from Moadamiya, a rebel-held city near Damascus. Mother Agnes is currently on a six-week speaking tour in North America, largely ignored by most media. In Cleveland on November 14, she received a special peace award from the mayor, a congressman, and a senator. The tour ends December 4. Jeremy Scahill has yet to explain his own behavior, but columnist Neil Clark, writing for Russia Today, blames “liberal hawks and neo-cons” for silencing the nun because: “Mother Agnes’ testimony reveals that the so-called ‘War on Terror’ is a sham – that in Syria, the western countries and their regional allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, are on the same side as the extremist Islamic terror groups that we are told are our greatest enemies.”

It is not always easy to obtain information on the foundations which have sustained NSA's international operations. Take the San Jacinto Foundation, for example. In the past, San Jacinto has not only funded important portions of NSA's international program, but it has also given huge sums of money to the program budget of the ISC. In particular, it has been overly generous in supporting The Student, an ISC publication printed in five languages and distributed all over the world as an anti-communist weapon. One other interesting fact about the San Jacinto Foundation is that, like the J. Frederick Brown Foundation, it has contributed to the CIA-suspect American Friends of the Middle East. No one at NSA, or ISC for that matter, appears to have the vaguest notion of what the San Jacinto Foundation is, who is on its board of directors or where its money comes from. San Jacinto has also apparently managed to avoid the reporting procedures required by law of all tax-exempt foundations. No records for it have been entered at the district office of the Internal Revenue Service in Austin, or with the secretary of the State of Texas, or with the county clerk. San Jacinto's mailing address is the offices of F.G. O'Conner in the San Jacinto Building in downtown Houston. Mr. O'Conner is the secretary of the foundation. When asked by Ramparts' peripatetic reporter for some information about the foundation, Mr. O'Conner, a graying, distinguished-looking man in his sixties replied, it is a private, closed foundation, never had any publicity and doesn't want any.

Confirming PD SCOTT ========================= PD Scott in Dallas Conspiracy quoted Stephen Birmingham that Empire Trust maintained ,"something like a private CIA around the world to protect their investments.."(Our Crowd,Harper and Row ,1967,p.378). However there was no documentation in said book. John Crichton Army Reserve intelligence officer was part of Empire Trust. Crichton's claim to fame was hiring Ilya Mamantov to mistranslate Marina in an incriminating fashion her husband. I did find a second intelligence officer connected to Empire Trust. At the National American Bank in New Orleans was director Leon Tujague (who gave LHO first job and LHO also had problematic Social Security number at age 15/half),director Clem A. Shert (Oswald family attorney) and later President of said bank, director Seymour Weiss a Lansky associate and director Ernest Carrere former Navy intelligence officer. Carrere was director of Louisiana Land and Exploration Co. which was owned by Empire Trust. Carrere was also John Mecoms Jr. attorney. John Mecom SR & JR (mob) were friends with DeMohrenschildt. John Mecom Sr was part of the CIA connected San Jacinto Foundation which was one of the first groups to ask JFK to come to Dallas. That Carrere was Naval intelligence and connected to Empire Trust bolsters Birmingham's claim that Empire Trust had its own private CIA. Empire Trust whose leading shareholders were the inter-related familes of Kuhn,Loeb,Lehman and Bronfman. The Kuhn, Loeb-Morgan alliance, maintain close relationships with the House of Rothschild, said Rothschild's controlled the First National Bank Of Houston. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ END NOTES HAYDEL, ROGER J. IRS 1040A reflected income from Jahncke Service, Inc., and National American Bank, New Orleans. http://www.maryferre...bsPageId=515373 ############################

Whatreallyhappened website Dzhokhar, the bombing suspect who got the whole city panicking, had time to tweet on the run... Spent Wednesday as typical student - Worked out at gym, slept in dorm

RELATED TO BOSTON ??????? Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch who, like Zakaev, was granted political asylum in this country, although the Russian authorities want him on numerous charges. Moscow has often accused Berezovsky of funding Chechen rebels in the past. March 29, 2013 5:52 pm Boris Berezovsky: A death in exile By Neil Buckley Russian tycoon was mired in debt and depression but contradictory messages raise questions about his death http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e472f0d4-985c-11e2-867f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2R0i5sOmS

For The Record Mickey Mauschwitz: The Reactionary Politics of Walt Disney Lis­ten (MP3): Side 1 | Side 2 In both cin­ema and tele­vi­sion, Dis­ney estab­lished him­self as an Amer­i­can icon, and the merged cor­po­ra­tion he left behind after his death is one of the giants of the media world. The real­ity behind Disney’s civic and polit­i­cal life is very dif­fer­ent from the benev­o­lent illu­sions pro­jected onto big and small screens around the world. In fact, Dis­ney was one of the pri­mary fig­ures in the Hol­ly­wood black­list­ing era and had a long pro­fes­sional asso­ci­a­tion with fas­cist, anti-Semitic and orga­nized crime elements. FTR #301

Updating JFK, RFK Assassination Investigations Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ April 13, 2013 Daniel Bur­ros COMMENT: Our long jour­ney in polit­i­cal research began with the inves­ti­ga­tion into the assas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kennedy. That killing was a coup d’etat, fol­lowed in time with the mur­ders of Mar­tin Luther King and JFK’s brother Robert at the hands of the same inter­ests. A cou­ple of recent sto­ries touch on aspects of the investigation. A New York Times obit­u­ary for McClandlish Phillips notes his work expos­ing the Jew­ish back­ground of Daniel Bur­ros, leader of a New York Ku Klux Klan chap­ter and a mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Nazi Party. The obit­u­ary (pre­dictably) fails to note that Bur­ros’ name, address and tele­phone num­ber were in the sup­posed “leftist/communist” Lee Har­vey Oswald’s address book at the time of his arrest. (So were the name, address and tele­phone num­ber of George Lin­coln Rock­well, the fuhrer of the Amer­i­can Nazi Party, who was shot to death in 1967.) Bur­ros is alleged to have com­mit­ted sui­cide fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of Phillips’ story. As we have noted in AFA #13 (among other pro­grams), Bur­ros allegedly killed him­self at the home of Roy Frankhouser, a Penn­syl­va­nia KKK leader and him­self a con­tract agent for the CIA. As Frankhouser noted, com­ment­ing on Bur­ros’ death: “Bad case of sui­cide. Three bullets. . . .” The con­nec­tions between the Amer­i­can Nazi Party milieu and the 544 Camp Street/531 Lafayette Place milieu that fig­ured in Jim Garrison’s inves­ti­ga­tion are cov­ered in FTR #188. Garrison’s thor­ough vin­di­ca­tion by the House Select Com­mit­tee on Assas­si­na­tions is cov­ered in FTR #190. Grant Cooper and Sirhan We’ve cov­ered the reopen­ing of the RFK assas­si­na­tion inves­ti­ga­tion in past posts. Suf­fice it to say that Sirhan was a patsy and an appar­ent mind-control job. Many inves­ti­ga­tors feel that Robert Kennedy’s actual assas­sin was Amer­i­can Nazi Thane Eugene Cesar. In a recent post updat­ing the RFK killing, Russ Baker notes that Sirhan’s first attor­ney func­tioned more like a pros­e­cu­tor, rail­road­ing Sirhan into prison. More impor­tantly, attor­ney Grant Cooper was under indict­ment at the time in a case involv­ing Johnny Roselli, one of the Mafia fig­ures involved with the CIA’s anti-Castro efforts and believed by many to have been part of the mob ele­ment involved with the JFK assassination. “McCan­dlish Phillips, Who Exposed a Jew­ish Klans­man, Is Dead at 85″ by Mar­galit Fox; The New York Times; 4/10/2013. EXCERPT: McCan­dlish Phillips, a for­mer reporter for The New York Times who wrote one of the most famous arti­cles in the newspaper’s his­tory — expos­ing the Ortho­dox Jew­ish back­ground of a senior Ku Klux Klan offi­cial — before for­sak­ing jour­nal­ism to spread the Gospel, died on Tues­day in Man­hat­tan. He was 85. . . . . . . Mr. Phillips’s most renowned arti­cle appeared on Page 1 on Sun­day, Oct. 31, 1965, under the head­line “State Klan Leader Hides Secret of Jew­ish Ori­gin.” It was a rig­or­ously reported pro­file of Daniel Bur­ros, a 28-year-old Queens man who was the Grand Dragon of the New York State Ku Klux Klan, a chief orga­nizer of the national Klan and a for­mer national sec­re­tary of the Amer­i­can Nazi Party. . . . . . . . The arti­cle remains a case study in a reporter’s per­se­ver­ance in the face of intim­i­da­tion. It is also a case study in the severe, unin­tended con­se­quences that the air­ing of fiercely guarded truths can have for the guardian: despite threat­en­ing to kill Mr. Phillips if the arti­cle went to press, Mr. Bur­ros, in the end, killed only himself. . . . “RFK Assas­si­na­tion Legal Case Update” by Russ Baker; WhoWhat­Why; 4/5/2013. EXCERPT: . . . . Although Sirhan pled guilty at his orig­i­nal trial in 1969, Pep­per con­tends that Sirhan was betrayed by a lead mem­ber of his orig­i­nal legal team, Grant Cooper, who Pep­per notes was him­self under fed­eral indict­ment at the time for ille­gally pos­sess­ing grand jury pro­ceed­ings in another famous case, involv­ing card cheat­ing at the Bev­erly Hills Friar’s Club. Cooper, who faced pos­si­ble jail time for that, ended up being let off with a $1000 fine. Intrigu­ingly, his client in the Friar’s affair, John Roselli, was an orga­nized crime fig­ure with CIA ties often named as a pos­si­ble con­spir­a­tor in the death of Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy. The defense had Sirhan admit guilt and sought to por­tray him as both men­tally defi­cient and act­ing on impulse. Pep­per notes that the attorney’s per­sonal vul­ner­a­bil­ity was known to the judge and pros­e­cu­tion, and that they nev­er­the­less said noth­ing while Sirhan’s real inter­ests were not rep­re­sented, and excul­pa­tory evi­dence was sup­pressed. Although Sirhan con­fessed to shoot­ing at Robert Kennedy, he later said that he could remem­ber noth­ing at all of that tragic day. . . . . . . If Sirhan had been rep­re­sented by capa­ble attor­neys deter­mined to learn the truth about the polit­i­cally fraught sec­ond mur­der of a Kennedy brother in five years, things might have turned out dif­fer­ently. Instead, his attor­neys per­suaded Sirhan to plead guilty in hopes of avoid­ing the death penalty; Sirhan put up no resis­tance to this strat­egy since, as he would later reveal, he had zero recall of what hap­pened on the night of the shoot­ing. He was sen­tenced to the death penalty any­way, though sev­eral years later the sen­tence was com­muted to life in prison after Cal­i­for­nia abol­ished the death penalty. Pep­per, in his recent fil­ing, directs much of his out­rage at attor­ney Grant Cooper: As a mat­ter of record he accepted, with­out even the most per­func­tory exam­i­na­tion or chal­lenge, all of the State’s bal­lis­tic evi­dence…. As a result, defense Coun­sel Cooper’s indict­ment [for ille­gally pos­sess­ing grand jury pro­ceed­ings in another case] went away. He was rewarded for obtain­ing the guilty plea and death penalty sentence…. Indeed, here’s what Cooper said in his clos­ing remarks: “Now, let me state at the out­set that I want this to sink in if any­thing sinks in—we are not here to free a guilty man. We tell you as we always have, that he is guilty of hav­ing killed Sen­a­tor Kennedy….we expect that under the evi­dence in this case, whether Mr. Sirhan likes it or not, under the facts of this case, he deserves to spend the rest of his life in the pen­i­ten­tiary….Don’t we know from dozens and dozens of wit­nesses that this defen­dant pulled the trig­ger that killed Sen­a­tor Kennedy?…there is no ques­tion about that.”…“I wouldn’t want Sirhan Sirhan to be turned loose as he is dan­ger­ous, espe­cially when the psy­chi­a­trists tell us that he is going to get worse and he is get­ting worse. There is a good Sirhan and a bad Sirhan and the bad Sirhan is nasty… we as lawyers owe the oblig­a­tion to do what we think is right to the fullest extent of our abil­ity but we also owe an oblig­a­tion to soci­ety. And, I, for one, am not going to ask you to do oth­er­wise than to bring in a ver­dict of guilty in the sec­ond degree.” It takes a moment to real­ize that this is not the pros­e­cu­tor, but the defense lawyer. No won­der most of us take for granted that Sirhan Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy—and acted alone. . . .

LEFTY OBAMA ?? 10 Facts About US Withdrawal from Afghanistan This is an ongoing project that is continuously updated. We also want to solicit your input to help us determine how we can expand this resource. If you have any particular questions about US withdrawal from Afghanistan, or if you would like any additional points addressed, send us an email at info [at] justforeignpolicy [dot] com. Fact 1: It is not the case that all US troops will be removed from Afghanistan at the end of 2014. In June 2011, President Obama announced his plan to begin the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. But the president did not say that all US troops would leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014. What he did say was 10,000 troops would be removed by the end of the summer 2011, with 23,000 additional troops leaving at the end of the summer of 2012. After that, according to the President: our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security. Notice that the President did not say that our mission in Afghanistan will end by 2014, only that it will cease to be a "combat" mission and become a "support" mission. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has since confirmed that President Obama never said US troops would be completely withdrawn by the end of 2014. What you should be asking yourself is, "what is a support mission?", "how many troops will be required for it?", and "how long will it last?" We will get to these questions shortly. First, it's important to highlight one thing: Fact 2: There is currently no end date for the war in Afghanistan. Nowhere in the President's June 2011 speech did he mention a deadline for the full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, and no date for full withdrawal has been specified since then. In fact, the Strategic Partnership Agreement, which was struck between the United States and Afghanistan in June 2012, provides for a US military presence after 2014, although the magnitude of the presence was not specified. On November 15, 2012, it was reported that Afghanistan and the United States had begun negotiations for a bilateral security agreement, which will govern the US military presence in Afghanistan post-2014, including how many troops are left in Afghanistan, and for how long. Fact 3: There is no set plan for removing the remaining 68,000 troops left in Afghanisan. Not only are there currently twice as many US troops in Afghanistan today as there were when President Obama took office, but the administration has yet to outline a specific plan for removing the 68,000 troops that remain, except that most of them will be removed by the end of 2014. A decision about a scheduled for the removal of these troops will not be made until after a decision is made about the number of residual troops the US will leave in Afghanistan post-2014. However, it has been reported that General John Allen wants to keep over 60,000 US troops until the fall of 2013. Three options were being considered in March 2012: The drawdown plan said to be favored by Vice President Joe Biden would drawdown troops rapidly, to perhaps 20,000, by the end of 2013. A more gradual drawdown plan calls for removing 10,000 troops by the end of December 2012, leaving 58,000 troops. An additional 10,000 to 20,000 would be removed by June 2013, leaving between 48,000 and 38,000 troops in Afghanistan, still more than were in the country when President Obama took office. Military commanders are said to favor delaying further cuts until the end of 2013, including Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, who was the second-in-command of US forces in Afghanistan until June 2012 and is now the Director of the Joint Staff. Fact 4: Reports indicate that the Pentagon wants to keep between 6,000 and 20,000 US troops in Afghanistan until at least 2024. On November 12, 2012, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters that the Obama administration would come to a decision within the next few weeks about the magnitude of the US post-2014 military presence in Afghanistan. Panetta would not comment on the troop levels being considered. Since then, it has been reported that General John Allen, head of the ISAF, has submitted three plans for an enduring US presence in Afghanistan: With 6,000 troops, the focus of the US mission would be on counterterrorism missions, and logistical and training support for Afghan forces would be limited; With 10,000 troops, the US could expand training and logistical support from the 6,000 troop plan; With 20,000 troops, US convential forces could be used to patrol certain areas. All of these options include troop commitments smaller than the 25,000 troops the Pentagon is said to have favored since Obama's drawdown announcement. However, just days after General Allen's recommendations made news, the Wall Street Journal reported that President Obama requested three additional proposals in which troop levels did not exceed 10,000. The plans sumbitted by the Pentagon included: A 3,000 troop option, which Pentagon officials strongly warned against; A 6,000 troop option, assumed to be the same as the 6,000 troop option described above; A 9,000 troop option, assumed to be similiar to the 10,000 troop option above. Out of these three options, the Pentagon is said to favor the 9,000 troop option, while the White House is said to favor the 6,000 troop option. Keep in mind that there were only 34,000 troops there when Obama took office. If 20,000 troops are kept in Afghanistan after 2014, that means that the net withdrawal would be a mere 14,000 troops. Furthermore, before 2007, troop levels were at roughly 20,000 or less. So leaving 20,000 troops in Afghanistan would be to merely return to 2006 troop levels. Leaving 9,000 or 10,000 troops would be a return to 2003 troop levels. If the Pentagon gets its way, the US will be at war in Afghanistan for at least 12 additional years--that's one more year than we've been at war to this point. That means that we wouldn't even be at the half-way mark today, let alone nearing the end! Fact 5: The "support" mission will not necessarily be small, nor will it be free of combat missions. A "support" mission sure sounds more reassuring than a combat mission, right? Sounds like only a few troops will remain behind to support the Afghan security forces? Any close reading of the US public position on its post-2014 mission in Afghanistan immediately dispells such consoling thoughts. Just look at the plans General John Allen has proposed for the US enduring presence, listed above. Each of the Pentagon's proposals include a counterinsurgency element. In fact, the 6,000 troop plan, which the White House is said to favor, prioritizes direct counterinsurgency missions over logistical support and training for the Afghan security forces, even though it is supposedly for the latter reason that US officials claim an enduring presence is necessary. Meanwhile, the plan involving the largest amount of troops adds a patrol capacity, which is clearly a combat, not a support, capacity. It is likely that a combat capacity is emphasized in the Pentagon's plans due to a recognition that the Afghan security forces, even after a decade of training, are far from ready to take over security for the country. Further, the US "support" mission in Iraq serves as an example and a warning for the continued US military presence in Afghanistan. The combat mission in Iraq supposedly ended in August 2010, at which point troop levels were brought down to 50,000. In October 2011, over a year later, there were still about 45,000 troops left in Iraq. Furthermore, these supposedly non-combat troops would engage in combat missions and were described as having a "combat capacity" by administration officials, including former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in which they engage in "targeted counterterrorism operations" and work and fight alongside Iraqi security forces. In light of this, "support" seems to be nothing more than a euphemism for extended combat. Per a previous agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, all US troops were supposed to leave Iraq at the end of 2011. That didn't stop the Obama administration from trying to pressure the Iraqi government to extend the deadline, allowing the US to leave up to 10,000 troops indefinitely. Fortunately, this plan has been abandoned, and all but about 150 US troops attached to the US Embassy left on time. But a similar fight over keeping to a deadline for withdrawal may erupt in the future over Afghanistan--whenever a deadline is, in fact, established. Fact 6: Obama's "surge" is not over. In September 2012, it was widely reported that Obama's "troop surge" in Afghanistan was over, leaving 68,000 troops in the country. But when President Obama took office, there were only roughly 34,000 US troops in Afghanistan. In two "surges", Obama added to this figure over 66,000 additional troops. By reducing the US troop presence by 33,000, his drawdown plan has removed only half the number of troops that he sent to Afghanistan, not all. Fact 7: There are less than 100 al Qaeda left in Afghanistan--but there are over 600,000 Afghan and international forces there to fight them. In June 2010, Leon Panetta said that there were less than 100 members of al Qaeda left in Afghanistan. According to the latest Brookings Institute Afghanistan Index, there are about 108,000 international troops in Afghanistan under NATO and Operation Enduring Freedom; 344,108 Afghan Security Forces; 90,000 private Defense Department contractors; and 2,000 private contractors training the Afghan Army. Additionally, there are 150,000 Pakistani troops on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. That's a grand total of 694,108 versus 100. Seems a bit overkill. Fact 8: The lack of a timetable for withdrawal is a key obstacle in peace negotiations with the Taliban. Taliban spokesmen have made it quite clear that peace requires a willingness by the US to leave; but the US military has done just the opposite through its negotiations with the Afghan government to keep tens of thousands of US troops in Afghanistan indefinitely. Fact 9: There is elite support for an expedited withdrawal. Elite groups ranging from the Afghanistan Study Group, which was endorsed by a large number of national security and Middle East experts, to the New York Times have come out in support of an accelerated US military withdrawal from--and oppose an extended military stay in--Afghanistan. Congress has also expressed support for a quicker withdrawal. On November 30, 2011, the US Senate adopted a measure by voice vote in favor of an accelerated US military withdrawl from Afghanistan. In May 2012, 90 Members of Congress joined Rep. Barbara Lee in calling upon President Obama to expedite the withdrawal. And in November 2012, the Senate voted 62-33 in favor of a measure that calls upon President Obama to continue withdrawing US troops at a steady pace, to end all regular US combat missions in Afghanistan no later than December 31, 2014, and to "take all possible steps" to end such operations earlier. Fact 10: There is popular support for ending the war now. Although polls of American public opinion on US withdrawal from Afghanistan tend to conflate the withdrawal of all "combat" troops with the withdrawal of all troops, majorities are still shown to oppose an indefinite US military presence in Afghanistan. A March 2012 Gallop poll reported 50% of Americans in favor of withdrawing all US troops before 2014, with an additional 24% favoring a full withdrawal by the end of 2014. An October 2012 Pew poll found an even greater majority in favor of a quick withdrawal: 60% of Americans said they wanted US troops removed from Afghanistan as soon as possible, while only 35% support leaving US troops there "until the situation stabalizes." What is perhaps most interesting about some of these polls is that they seem to reflect a general confusion over President Obama's plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Pew poll, for example, reported that 73% of Democrats supported a quick withdrawal from Afghanistan instead of waiting. Yet, 66% of Democrats say that President Obama is handling the removal of US troops "about right." Also interestingly, the Pew poll reported 25% of Republicans said that President Obama is removing troops too slowly. ################### ################### http://www.salon.com/2013/02/22/conflicting_reports_on_afghanistan_troop_withdrawal/ German official says up to 10,000 U.S. troops will remain through 2014, when Obama had said all troops would leave By Associated Press (a KOOK/LOON SOURCE)

Tsarnaev Mother says FBI was in contact with Son for years James Φοίνιξ Comment by James Φοίνιξ 4 hours ago Mother Of Boston Bombing Suspects Says FBI Has Been Watching Her Son For ... Business Insider ‎- 43 minutes ago In an interview with Russia Today Friday, Tsarnaeva said that Tamerlan Tsarnaev got involved in "religious politics" five years ago, and that the ... 'They were set up, FBI followed them for years'- Tsarnaev brothers' mother to RT ############################## ############################## Was the FBI Monitoring Boston Bombing Suspects for Years? —By Hannah Levintova | Fri Apr. 19, 2013 4:39 PM PDT An FBI agent in Boston, April 15, 2012. Jeremiah Robinson/ZUMA Press The mother of both Boston bombing suspects claimed today that the men drew the attention of law enforcement long before the bombings. Zubeidat Tsarnaeva told Russia Today that her sons told her the FBI was monitoring them for three to five years, ever since Tamerlan had grown more interested in Islam. She also said the bureau had warned her about her son's use of extremist websites: FBI was scared of my eldest son. They always told me that he is a leader. He talks about Islam a lot. They were talking to my son. They called me officially and they told me that my son is an excellent boy and they have no problem with him. At the same time, they were telling that he is getting information in really extreme... sites, so they were very, very afraid of him. Tsarnaeva's defense of her son aside, the possibility of FBI surveillance in this case is not outlandish: As Mother Jones' 2011 investigation, Terrorists for the FBI, showed, the bureau—which has made counterterrorism its top priority since 9/11—has assembled a roster of some 15,000 domestic informants, many tasked with keeping tabs on Muslim communities. On Friday afternoon, the FBI admitted they had in fact interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev two years ago and found nothing incriminating, CBS news reports. The agency conducted the interview at the request of a so-far unnamed foreign government, CBS says, to see if the elder Tsarnaev had any extremist ties—but their search turned up none.

Long answer: He's an obscure barrister whose writings appear in Veterans Today and sites associated with David Icke and Alex Jones. He claims to be an “Adjunct Professor... at American Military University” an obscure online diploma mill but is not listed in their faculty index* so noooooo! Short answer: no * http://www.amu.apus....stname/s?page=9 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THE BOOK HE IS PUBLISHING WOULD BE THE BEST WAY TO JUDGE HIM. NEED TO WAIT> SAVILE LOOKING AT MUCH INTERNET INFO WAS CLOSE TO THE PRINCE. +++++++++++++++++ SEEMS HE WAS PART OF THIS ORGANIZATION AT SOME POINT (powerbase.info) Perhaps Shrimpton's biography on the American Military University website might explain this convoluted peregrination. This states that under the "late, great Lt-Gen Vernon Walters, former Deputy Director of the CIA [...] he learnt the art of acting as a back-channel between governments and intelligence agencies."[25]Could this sort of connection have predated his aquaintance with Walters? He is a member of United Kingdom National Defence Association UKNDA), which seems to contain a selection of senior military and political figures engaged in trying to increase the budgets for their Armed Services.[26] Shrimpton is co-chairman of the Bruges Group[27] along with Honorary President: Baroness Thatcher, Vice-President: Lord Lamont of Lerwick , Co-Chairman: Dr. Brian Hindley, Director: Robert Oulds. Former Chairmen have included Lord Harris of High Cross and Professor Kenneth Minogue.

OPENYOURMIND WHITEWITCH BLOGGER I'm sure anyone who has tried to explain that Natural healthcare makes more sense than Pharmaceutical Healthcare has been faced with this bullcrap, I know I have.. QuackWatch This guy is something else.. I sent him an email about 2 years ago but I never got a response.. Guess he couldn't answer when the facts were handed to him on a plate.. Well, here's the thing.. That MD after his name, well.. He's not really entitled to have that there. He's one of the unqualified Doctors who signs off on fraudulent research papers (as described in the thread about how unsafe drugs pass the FDA), he says he testifies as an expert, but this guy never even fully qualified as a doctor, and he also had to give up his medical license.. Read more about the head Quack himself here The next time someone tries to say, "Oh but Quackwatch says...", politely remind them that the guy who runs Quackwatch is himself a Quack, a failed MD who tried and failed to take some Chiropractors to court, was told to cease and desist, but couldn't leave it alone.. He is not a reliable source of information if he is willing to misrepresent himself to those who use his site for reference. He is unable to answer simple questions when they are put to him, because the evidence shows that the majority of pharmaceutical drugs are useless, while the evidence is mounting that natural and preventative healthcare is better.. And he even engages in fraud by taking exorbitant fees for his "expert testimony" in court. This is a man who was Officially Declared by the US Court System, in a PUBLISHED Appeals Court Decision (NCAHF v King Bio), to be "Biased, and unworthy of credibility." Would you trust him?? I rest my case

Du Bain had business with HILLIARD Du Bain friend of Henry Kissinger Adnan Khashoggi had business with Henry Kissinger ############################### Dekkers in business with HILLIARD Myron DuBain in business with Adnan Khashoggi 2012, Sander Hicks, 'Slingshot to the Juggernaut', p. 85: "In the mid-2000s, when we were still friends, Battuello often bragged that she was a financial researcher who had been trained inside a “CIA bank.” She had cut her teeth at the United California Ban (UCB), right after former CIA director John McCone served as chairman. “UCB had been on the brink of collapse, under the weight of highly irregular loans,” Battuello told me then. UCB had been known as John McCone’s “piggy bank,” and, with businessman Myron DuBain on the board, it allegedly “attempted to recover monies looted and missing” by Saudi arms dealers, like Adnan Khashoggi and former CIA personnel." ######################################## AZIMA IN BUSINESS WITH HILLIARD #################################### AZIMA WORKS WITH OLIVER NORTH IN COVERT INTELL OPERATIONS. Azima, an Iranian whose family was close to the Shah, owns a cargo airline in Miami and Kansas City, Global International Air, which was part of Oliver North's logistical network, shipping arms—including 23 tons of TOW missiles to Iran—to the Ayatollah, as well as other Iran Contra swag left behind by El-Batrawi’s cargo airline. Azima's relationship with the CIA goes back to the 1970's. He supplied air and logistical support to EATSCO (Egyptian American Transport and Services Corporation) a company owned by former CIA agents Thomas Clines, Theodore Shackley, and Richard Secord, which was prominently involved in the activities of former CIA agent Edwin Wilson. ######################################### Adnan Khashoggi works with Oliver North in deep covert intell operations. Herald-Tribune: Sarasota family had 'many connections' to 9/11 terror attacks Posted by Orangutan. on Wed, 04/17/2013 - 6:42pm Herald Tribune - Sarasota Florida By Michael Pollick Published: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 The Al-Hijji family abruptly left this home at 4224 Escondito Circle in Prestancia, Sarasota at least a week before the attacks on Sept. 11,2001. - HERALD-TRIBUNE ARCHIVE Contrary to previous statements made by the FBI to the news media, a family living in the south Sarasota neighborhood of Prestancia had “many connections” to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to newly released FBI documents. The family, Anoud and Abdulazziz al-Hijji, had links to 9/11 hijackers — including Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, who trained at a Venice flight school in preparation for the assault on New York and Washington, D.C., that killed 2,996. Anoud al-Hijji is the daughter of Esam Ghazzawi, a powerful Saudi businessman with long ties to the Saudi royal family. The al-Hijjis have denied any involvement or relationship with the 9/11 hijackers. But the family abruptly left the Prestancia home that they had lived in for six years roughly a week before the 9/11 attacks, leaving behind clothes, food, children's toys and other living essentials. In the newly declassified documents, the FBI's Southwest Florida Domestic Security Task Force reported that the exit was done “quickly and suddenly.” The family left no forwarding address at the time, according to Realtors and property managers who were interviewed by the federal agency. After being alerted to the family's hasty exit by nearby residents and investigating the circumstances and participants, the FBI said it concluded that the family had no connection to the terrorists. “At no time did the FBI develop evidence that connected the family members to any of the 9/11 hijackers,” Steven E. Ibison, the FBI special agent in charge of the agency's Tampa field office, said in a Sept. 15, 2011, statement made in response to media questioning about the al-Hijjis at that time. But portions of the FBI documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by BrowardBulldog — a journalism organization led by former Miami Herald reporter Dan Christensen, who has been investigating the attacks — seem to directly contradict those statements. “Further investigation of the (name deleted) family revealed many connections between the (name deleted) and individuals associated with the terror attacks on 9/11/2001,” a portion of declassified FBI documents state. The agency redacted many of the names in the 31 pages released under exemptions that protect people's names in law enforcement records. But it is clear who the subjects are because the documents specifically cite the al-Hijjis' residence, which was 4224 Escondito Circle in Sarasota's “Estates at Prestancia” development at the time FBI agents were investigating. Though the FBI stands by its statements, the documents renew questions — previously raised by former Florida governor and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham and others — that the U.S. has not fully disclosed the extent of its knowledge about links between the 9/11 attacks and Saudi officials. A majority of the terrorists who orchestrated and participated in the attacks were Saudis. The story of the Prestancia home came to the fore again this week because of a story by BrowardBulldog. Christensen and his organization has been litigating with the federal government in an effort to obtain classified FBI reports that illustrate the relationship between the al-Hijjis and the 9/11 terrorists. Abdulazziz al-Hijji could not be reached for comment, but in email correspondence with The (London) Daily Telegraph a year ago, he strongly denied any involvement in 9/11. “I have neither relation nor association with any of those bad people/criminals and the awful crime they did,” al-Hijji wrote. Revelations Among the more explosive revelations in the BrowardBulldog story is that an unidentified “family member” — purportedly of the al-Hijji family — was a flight student at Venice's Huffman Aviation, according to the FBI documents marked “secret” but with the word since crossed through. Huffman gained notoriety in the wake of 9/11 as the place where suicide hijackers Atta and al-Shehhi learned to fly. Those two men were in the cockpits when jets slammed into the World Trade Center towers. The story also references documents detailing a third person on a redacted FBI list as having “lived with flight students at Huffman Aviation” and being “arrested numerous times by the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office.” The BrowardBulldog noted that the recently released FBI documents disclosed nothing about Wissam Hammoud, an al-Hijji friend who is now serving a 21-year prison sentence for weapons violations and for attempting to kill a federal agent. Hammoud, 47, and an “international terrorist associate,” according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, told investigators after his 2004 arrest that al-Hijji may have known some of the hijackers and that he considered Osama Bin Laden “a hero.” Though he acknowledged knowing Hammoud well, al-Hijji denied knowing 9/11 participants or revering Bin Laden in an interview with Christensen last year, the BrowardBulldog reported. Hammoud was arrested in Sarasota County during July 1995 for driving with a suspended license, according to County Clerk of the Court records. He was subsequently given probation and the case was closed. Questions Though much about the allegations and evidence connecting the home in Prestancia to the 9/11 attacks is not new, the matter has lingered because of a lack of closure. Questions remain, too, for Pat Gallagher, who was among the Prestancia residents who contacted the FBI in the aftermath of the terror attacks after “suspicious activity” — the agency's phrase — at the al-Hijji residence at Escondito Circle, including the family's sudden exit. Though the house has since been sold twice, at the time it was owned by Ghazzawi, an importer and exporter whose circles included the Bin Laden Group. Ghazzawi's influence also extends to his children. His 42-year-old son, Adel, is a board member of the New York-based think tank EastWest Institute, which counts the likes of Michael Chertoff, a director of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush and co-author of the Patriot Act, and retired Gen. James L. Jones, a former national security adviser to President Barack Obama, among its members. The younger Ghazzawi operates Conektas, a firm in the United Arab Emirates that helps multinational companies establish businesses in the Middle East. Abdulazziz al-Hijji was completing undergraduate work at the University of South Florida when he lived in the Ghazzawi house. He went on to receive a bachelor's in computer science. FBI records indicate that he took a job after graduation with the Saudi oil concern Aramco in London, though he no longer appears to be working there, BrowardBulldog reported. Interviewed by the FBI, Anoud al-Hijji said the family's flight was a “regularly scheduled departure.” But the FBI conducted a substantial investigation centered on the al-Hijji household. Six weeks after 9/11, agents found that Prestancia's digital scan system had picked up at least two license plates registered to Atta and Ziad Jarrah, another 9/11 terrorist, who had allegedly visited the Escondito Circle house in the months leading up to the attacks. The men purportedly identified themselves to security guards. But the declassified FBI records say the agency “appears not to have obtained the vehicle entry records of the gated community.” Graham — the former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee and chairman of the joint congressional inquiry into U.S. intelligence gathering surrounding the terrorist attacks — said he remains convinced that the federal government at several levels has failed to divulge all it knows about 9/11 and its Saudi connections. He contends that 28 pages of a final report to Congress were censored because they dealt with the Saudi role in 9/11. Ties The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have had a special and mutually beneficial relationship since 1957, when the Saudi king made a state visit to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. King Saud visited the U.S. with an entourage of at least 60, one of whom appears to have been Esam Ghazzawi's father, Abbas. At the time, Eisenhower agreed to sell Saudi Arabia up to $500 million worth of weapons in exchange for permission to maintain an airbase in Saudi territory. The deal did not gel overnight. Abbas Ghazzawi apparently worked on it, after flying into New York from Madrid on Jan. 25, 1957, according to a passenger list kept by U.S. officials. The elder Ghazzawi was accompanied by three other Saudis, including a man who would later serve as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S., Faisal al-Hegelan. The Ghazzawi family's ties to America grew stronger years later when, in 1970, 17-year-old Esam Ghazzawi married American Deborah G. Browning. Their first child, Adel, was born that year on Nov. 19. The family later established what has been a long presence in Southwest Florida, through the purchase of a pair of bayfront lots on Longboat Key's Putter Lane. Neighbors had little interaction with the man they referred to as “the Arab.” “That's what we called him,” said former neighbor Betty Blair. “We didn't know his name. All we knew was his kids were in camp so he came for the summer. Two little boys.” Esam and Deborah Ghazzawi bought the Prestancia home in September 1995, records show. Five months earlier, Anoud Ghazzawi married al-Hijji. He was 19 and she was 17, their Sarasota County marriage license shows. While here, they made an effort to blend in, driving popular cars like a Volkswagen Beetle, a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Chevy Tahoe. But they did not stay completely under the collective radar. FBI documents reference a dispute with the Prestancia Community Association over unpaid homeowner dues. The Ghazzawis were frequent visitors to the al-Hijji household, neighbors, acquaintances and an attorney familiar with the case said. Carla DiBello knew the al-Hijjis and met Esam Ghazzawi on several occasions. “I remember him being very eccentric. He loved going to big dinners and always had a lot of security,” said DiBello, who now lives in Beverly Hills and is in charge of developing business for Kim Kardashian Productions. As for how Esam Ghazzawi made his living, “all I know about him was that he worked for the King of Saudi from what Anoud told me, but she was always very secretive about what her dad did for them,” DiBello said. Ghazzawi is still active in business in the Middle East, and sits on the board of the London subsidiary of EIRAD, which makes connections for global firms. When United Parcel Service wanted to do business in Saudi Arabia, for instance, EIRAD became its handler. When the al-Hijjis left Southwest Florida for Saudi Arabia “on or about 08/27/2001,” according to the FBI documents, they flew first to Washington, where they met Esam Ghazzawi. When Ghazzawi left the U.S., Adel Ghazzawi apparently took over the family's affairs here. It was Adel, then 30 and an American citizen, who tried to get a Prestancia lien lifted so the house could be sold. The lien came after the series of brushes with Prestancia's community association. “The HOA had great difficulties with them,” said Jone Weist, at that time property manager for much of Prestancia. “It was nothing criminal, but this is not a neighborhood where you let the grass grow for a month.” Problems mounted when the family departed in 2001, leaving a large mound of garbage at the curb. Eventually, a foreclosure lawsuit was filed. When not helping his family, Adel Ghazzawi worked with Conektas, a company that “assists multinationals in developing synergistic relationships with credible partners to successfully penetrate and establish solid businesses in the Middle East region.” “Adel has a vast wealth of business, family and personal relationships within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” his biography reads. On the EastWest website, Ghazzawi says he has raised more than $1 billion for Middle Eastern projects. The family ultimately settled the homeowner case and sold the house in September 2003 for $440,000, to Joel Schemmel, records show. Schemmel has since sold the property, according to the county. Documents Because Floridians made up his former political constituency and many of the 9/11 terrorists lived in the Sunshine State just prior to the attacks, Graham has made it a personal mission to delve into the connections between the attacks and Saudi Arabia. Graham, 76, says that neither he, nor his staff, ever received any information regarding the alleged activities in Prestancia from the FBI or other law enforcement. The FBI contends there is a good reason for that. “At no time did the FBI develop evidence that connected the family members to any of the 9/11 hijackers,” Ibison said in 2011. Now, despite the documents from their files, the agency is standing by its assessment. “What Ibison said back then, that is the conclusion, knowing everything we know today,” David Couvertier, an FBI spokesman, said Tuesday. “The Bulldog is getting information that was already taken into consideration.” But Graham is unswayed. In an interview Tuesday, Graham said he is “extremely pleased” with the FBI's release of new documents. “Basically, they said they had conducted an investigation and hadn't found anything,” Graham said. “Now we know that as far back as April of 2002, they had a statement in their files written by a responsible law enforcement official, who I cannot name, saying there were many connections between the hijackers and this family in Sarasota.” “There are more than those 30-some pages of documents which would indicate that the public statements of the FBI are not accurate,” Graham said. Full Article: http://www.heraldtri...732?p=all&tc... CLICK HERE to read newly released documents about possible Sarasota connection to 9/11 hijackers. +++++++++++++++++++++++ The FBI has a credibility problem The typical FBI message amounts to trust us even if there is no reason to do so. The FBI has never explained to the public why the UBLU obstructed the investigation into al-Hazmi and al-MIhdhar. The FBI has continuously promoted Dina Corsi who played a key role in preventing criminal agents from being involved in the search for them. She has never had to explain her conduct to the public. Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar tie into Graham's linkage of high level Saudi support. Evidently it was just a huge coincidence that the UBLU protected two guys who lived with FBI informant Abdussattar Shaikh. Nobody at the FBI has to explain any of this. Instead a spokesman issues an authoritative statement and that is good enough. It is definitely good enough for most US "journalists" who evidently have no curiosity about this story at all. That definitely includes Steve Coll who refers to the al-Hazmi/al-Mihdhar issue as an unforced error. Kurt Eichenwald in 500 Days praises the CIA for warning the Bush administration but he has zero to say about CIA/FBI obstruction. Think about it this way. Imagine if we were to learn the CIA and FBI knew the ID of two Boston Marathon bombers months ago but continually prevented agents from pursuing leads. When the public finds out an FBI spokesman says "There is no substance to these allegations. We had no idea." And then the US media says "Good enough for us. Who are we to question the intelligence community?" The same media then goes on and on about how much they care about the victims even though they were unwilling to do the one thing they had the capacity to do and that is get answers as to how and why people were murdered. ########################### <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=complete_911_timeline_6921#complete_911_timeline_6921" title="View in context">August 27, 2001: Saudi Family Flees Residence Linked to 9/11 Hijackers A Saudi family abruptly moves out of a Sarasota, Florida, residence linked to individuals who will later be accused of being among the 9/11 hijackers. The residence is owned by a Saudi couple, Esam Ghazzawi and his American-born wife, Deborah, and is occupied by Esam’s daughter, Anoud, and her husband, Abdulaziz al-Hijji. An unnamed counterterrorism officer will, in 2012, describe, “The car registration numbers of vehicles that had passed through the Prestancia community’s North Gate in the months before 9/11, coupled with the identification documents shown by incoming drivers on request, showed that Mohamed Atta and several of his fellow hijackers [Marwan al-Shehhi, Walid al-Shehri, and Ziad Jarrah]—and another Saudi terror suspect still at large [Adnan Shukrijumah]—had visited 4224 Escondito Circle on multiple occasions.” The counterterrorism officer will also say that “link analysis… tracked phone calls—based on dates, times, and length of phone conversations to and from the Escondito house—dating back more than a year before 9/11. And the phone traffic also connected with the 9/11 terrorists—though less directly than the gate logs did.” [Broward Bulldog, 3/12/2012] According to the Broward Bulldog, “The counterterrorism agent said Ghazzawi and al-Hijji had been on a watch list at the FBI and that a US agency involved in tracking terrorist funds was interested in both men even before 9/11.” [Broward Bulldog, 9/8/2011] Residence Hastily Abandoned - A suspicious neighbor, Patrick Gallagher, will email the FBI on the day of the 9/11 attacks, but apparently the FBI will not investigate until about a month later, after Larry Berberich, senior administrator and security officer of the Prestancia gated community, contacts local law enforcement. According to Berberich and the counterterrorism officer: “[T]here was mail on the table, dirty diapers in one of the bathrooms… all the toiletries still in place… all their clothes hanging in the closet… TVs… opulent furniture, equal or greater in value than the house… the pool running, with toys in it. The beds were made… fruit on the counter… the refrigerator full of food.… It was like they went grocery shopping. Like they went out to a movie.… [but] the safe was open in the master bedroom, with nothing in it, not a paper clip.… A computer was still there. A computer plug in another room, and the line still there. Looked like they’d taken [another] computer and left the cord.” [Broward Bulldog, 9/8/2011] The family also leaves three vehicles and “huge piles of trash in front of the… home.” [Broward Bulldog, 9/13/2011] Terrorism Links Alleged by FBI Informant - In addition to the visitor logs and call records, FBI informant Wissam Taysir Hammoud will allege that al-Hijji has links to the 9/11 hijackers. In 2004, the FBI and the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office will interview Hammoud at the Hillsborough County Jail. Hammoud will tell them that al-Hijji introduced him to Adnan El Shukrijumah, that al-Hijji considered Osama bin Laden a “hero,” that al-Hijji may have known some of the 9/11 hijackers, that al-Hijji talked about “going to Afghanistan and becoming a freedom fighter,” and that al-Hijji tried to recruit him. At the time of the interview, Hammoud will be serving a 21-year sentence for attempted murder and weapons violations, and is classified as an “International Terrorist Associate” by the US Bureau of Prisons. [Broward Bulldog, 3/12/2012] Al-Hijji Professes Innocence - Responding to the allegations in email correspondence with the London Daily Telegraph in 2012, al-Hijji will acknowledge having been friends with Hammoud, but will say the other allegations against him are false: “I have neither relation nor association with any of those bad people/criminals and the awful crime they did,” he will say. “9/11 is a crime against the USA and all humankind, and I’m very saddened and oppressed by these false allegations.” [Broward Bulldog, 3/12/2012] FBI Repeatedly Denies 9/11 Links - Following news reporting on the events, the FBI will say in a prepared statement given to the Tampa Bay Times that the related leads “were resolved and determined not to be related to any threat nor connected to the 9/11 plot,” and that “[a]ll of the documentation pertaining to the 9/11 investigation was made available to the 9/11 Commission” and the Joint Inquiry. [Tampa Bay Times, 9/13/2011] And in a letter denying records requested under the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI will say, “At no time during the course of its investigation of the attacks, known as the PENTTBOM investigation, did the FBI develop credible evidence that connected the address at 4224 Escondito Circle, Sarasota, Florida to any of the 9/11 hijackers.” [Broward Bulldog, 2/20/2011] OOPS !!! Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Disputes FBI Statements - Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, will deny that the Joint Inquiry received information regarding the Saudis and the Escondito Circle address, and will press the FBI to provide the records it says it turned over. The FBI will delay turning these records over for several months, and when it finally does provide two classified documents from 2002 and 2003 to Graham, Graham will say, “An important investigative lead was not pursued and unsubstantiated statements were accepted as truth.” The Broward Bulldog will also report that Graham says, “[T]he agent suggested that another federal agency be asked to join the investigation, but that the idea was ‘rejected.’” Graham will attempt to interview this agent, but find he has been ordered by FBI headquarters not to talk [ Broward Bulldog, 2/20/2011] ####################### OOPS !! Florida al-Qaeda fugitive Esam Ghazzawi linked to BCCI and two dead Saudi Princes This follows up my posting yesterday, which examined the Miami Herald report Wednesday that the FBI had covered up the escape of a Saudi financier living in Florida who had hosted Mohamed Atta at his Sarasota villa in the months leading up to the 9/11 attacks. See, http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/595 Esam Ghazzawi, his daughter, Anoud, and her husband, Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii suddenly disappeared on August 30, 2001, leaving behind a million dollar, fully furnished Sarasota home, several automobiles, and their personal belongings. For ten years, the FBI withheld information from Congressional investigators and the public that Ghazzami has been visited by Atta and another hijacker, and phone records showed numerous calls to other figures involved in the 9/11 attack. Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/07/2395698/link-to-9... Ghazzawi linked to BCCI and two dead Saudi Princes Background checking since yesterday’s news account reveals evidence that Ghazzawi, who was on US government watch-lists along with his daughter and son-in-law, has a long history of association with Saudi financiers linked to terrorism and major global bank frauds in the 1980s and 1990s. He now lives openly in Jeddah and owns the posh Orient Restaurant in Khobar, KSA. Most intriguingly, he is mentioned in a 1997 London court document as having held funds for Prince Fahd bin Salman, a member of the Saudi Royal family who died suddenly at the age of 46 on July 24, 2001. Prince Fahd's father Salman is the governor of Riyadh and brother of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. The eldest of four brothers, and born in 1955, Prince Fahd acted as deputy governor of Riyadh's Eastern Region during the Gulf War of 1991. Little has ever been written about the death of Fahd, but his involvement with BCCI was noted several years earlier in connection with a law suit in London. Reprinted at: http://www.sauduction.com/issues/11 PRINCE FAHD BIN SALMAN'S DUBIOUS BANKING PRACTICES Private Eye reports: "Prince Fahd bin Salman, eldest son of ... Prince Salman, the governor of Riyadh ... a court case brought by the BCCI liquidators over the little matter of $397,000 owed to the rogue bank. Since 1994 the liquidators had been seeking repayment of this money under a guarantee given by the prince for the overdraft of an offshore company, Colchest Corporation N.V. In an unusual response, Prince Fahd sought to offset against this debt money held at another BCCI branch in the name of one Esam Ghazzawi, claiming that this was his money. The court of appeal rejected this suggestion on the basis that it was unclear who owned what in the Ghazzawi accounts." Prince Fahd’s death five weeks before Ghazzami suddenly fled his Sarasota home, barely 6 weeks before 9/11 might not in itself be more than coincidence. However, the unfolding story takes a particularly sinister turn when one realizes that Faud’s older brother, Prince Ahmed bin Salman died almost exactly a year later (November 17, 1958 – July 22, 2002), and his death has been labeled the first of a series of post-9/11 U.S. targeted killings of prominent figures identified as having had leading roles in the attacks. In his 2003 book Why America Slept, author Gerald Posner writes that Prince Ahmed bin Salman had had ties to al-Qaeda and had advance knowledge of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. When 9/11 figure Abu Zubaydeh was captured, Posner claims that he revealed to American interrogators the identity of a number of top al-Qaeda backers, including Prince Ahmed, and the head of the Pakistani Air Force, who died with his family and closest aides in a February 2003 mid-air transport plane explosion. To the timeline of events leading up to 9/11, including the 08/30/2001 flight of Ghazzawi and his family, we must now add the death five weeks earlier of Prince Faud and the death almost a year to the day of his older brother, Prince Ahmed. Their father is a co-director of the Saudi intelligence service along with Prince Turki bin Faisal, who suddenly resigned his 25 year commission as the Director of the Saudi General Intelligence agency and departed his long-time post in Washington suddenly on September 4, 2001. That is another important date that should put on anyone’s 9/11 timeline. It is now past time for the redacted material in the 9/11 Report about Saudi al-Qaeda finance to be released, and the case reopened to examine new evidence. ### OOPS !! adnan khashoggi BCCI http://www.fas.org/i...cci/11intel.htm Esam Ghazzawi and his American-born wife, Deborah, and is occupied by Esam’s daughter, Anoud, and her husband, Abdulaziz al-Hijji. An unnamed counterterrorism officer will, in 2012, describe, “The car registration numbers of vehicles that had passed through the Prestancia community’s North Gate in the months before 9/11, coupled with the identification documents shown by incoming drivers on request, showed that Mohamed Atta and several of his fellow hijackers [Marwan al-Shehhi, Walid al-Shehri, and Ziad Jarrah]—and another Saudi terror suspect still at large [Adnan Shukrijumah]—had visited 4224 Escondito Circle on multiple occasions. and to complete the circle Dekkers in business with HILLIARD Du Bain had business with HILLIARD Du Bain friend of Henry Kissinger Adnan Khashoggi had business with Henry Kissinger Myron DuBain in business with Adnan Khashoggi Adnan Khashoggi linked to BCCI HIJACKERS VISIT Esam Ghazzawi AND Esam Ghazzawi linked to BCCI HIJACKERS TRAIN WITH HILLARD/DEKKERS OOPS !! OOPS !! OOPS !! OPPS !! OOPS !! and OOPS !!! THE CIRCLE IS CLOSED.[*]^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ RELATED [*]http://norcaltruth.org/2011/09/30/saudi-royal-ties-to-911-hijackers-via-florida-saudi-family/ [*]http://norcaltruth.org/2012/03/15/msnbc-carries-florida-saudi-911-journalism/ [*]http://spitfirelist.com/for-the-record/ftr-730-interview-with-russ-baker-author-of-family-of-secrets/ [*]

Theorists Predict Food Riots, Civil Unrest By April 2013 Forecasting isn’t an exact science, but researches at the New England Complex Systems Institute may have come up with a formulaic approach that can help them to identify risk factors that contribute to political instability which may lead to riots and civil unrest similar to what we saw in the Middle East this year. Their model is so accurate that they reportedly wrote a letter to the United States warning of imminent danger just days before the mid east and north African riots broke out: On 13 December last year, the group wrote to the US government pointing out that global food prices were about to cross the threshold they had identified. Four days later, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia in protest at government policies, an event that triggered a wave of social unrest that continues to spread throughout the middle east today. http://www.technolog...og/arxiv/27083/ Using advanced complexity theory the researchers have come up with a number of indicators that can predict when a population reaches its breaking point. Specific details and assessments are provided in The Food Crises and Political Instability in North Africa and the Middle East http://arxiv.org/PS_...08...2455v1.pdf When the ability of the political system to provide security for the population breaks down, popular support disappears. Conditions of widespread threat to security are particularly present when food is inaccessible to the population at large. In this case, the underlying reason for support of the system is eliminated, and at the same time there is “nothing tolose,” i.e. even the threat of death does not deter actions that are taken in opposition to the political order. Any incident then triggers death-defying protests and other actions that disrupt the existing order. Widespread and extreme actions that jeopardize the leadership of the political system, or the political system itself, take place. All support for the system and allowance for its failings are lost. The loss of support occurs even if the political system is not directly responsible for the food security failure, as is the case if the primary responsibility lies in the global food supply system. Chart Explained: Time dependence of FAO Food Price Index from January 2004 to May 2011. Red dashed vertical lines correspond to beginning dates of “food riots” and protests associated with the major recent unrest in North Africa and the Middle East. The overall death toll is reported in parentheses. Blue vertical line indicates the date, December 13, 2010, on which we submitted a report tothe U.S. government, warning of the link between food prices, social unrest and political instability. Inset shows FAO Food Price Index from 1990 to 2011. The group, led by researcher Marco Lagi, is now warning that their thresholds are about to be broken again. And, this time the implications may be much more serious than before... Continue At: http://www.shtfplan....mp...3_08242011 ~The beginning of wisdom is the awe of God ~" Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein~

ACLU PART OF ISSUE Monday, April 15, 2013 FBI 'entrapment' tactics questioned in web of phony terror plots and paid informants Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034325_FBI_entrapment_terror_plots. (NaturalNews) Dave Williams might have made some bad choices in his life that ultimately led to some jail time. But his greatest "crime," seems to have been manufactured by an overzealous federal agency looking to make some sort of "progress" in the war on terror. Williams, who grew up poor in the small, gritty New York town of Newburgh, had already served time on a drug rap when he and three other local men <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-fake-terror-plots?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038">were arrested in May 2009 on charges they plotted to blow up Jewish synagogues and purchase anti-aircraft missiles to shoot down military planes. Oddly enough, however, the weapons didn't come from some deep, dark terrorist organization. No, they were provided by none other than the F.B.I. who, through a paid informant, set up a so-called "terror" plot they themselves were then able to take down - and take credit for busting up. Lawyers for Williams and his three "co-conspirators" agree that, were it not for the F.B.I. creating this so-called plot out of thin air, none of the men would be in jail and, in fact, there would have been no plot at all. It seems, on the surface at least, to be a classic case of entrapment, and some of the legal experts who have examined the facts of the case are shaking their heads. "The target, the motive, the ideology and the plot were all led by the FBI," Karen Greenberg, a law professor at Fordham University in New York, who specializes in studying the new FBI tactics, told the London Guardian newspaper. "We have as close to a legal entrapment case as I have ever seen," adds Susanne Brody, who is representing another Newburgh defendant, Onta Williams. The sting of the "Newburgh Four" is not unique. Instead of responding to, or attempting to thwart, actual terrorist plots, the F.B.I. seems to be manufacturing cases. The agency is busy sending informants into Muslim communities to talk of radical Islam and to see who bites on the bait. Even the judge in this case, Colleen McMahon, said when the men were finally sentenced that "there would never have been any case of the government had not made one up." A similar circumstance involves five men accused of plotting to attack U.S. soldiers outside Fort Dix, N.J. "That case too involved dubious use of paid informants, an apparent over-reach of evidence and a plot that seemed suggested by the government," said the Guardian. But the F.B.I scheming hasn't ended with the Newburgh Four. Now, new charges have surfaced that the agency is using is outreach programs to "secretly collect and store information about activities protected by the First Amendment for intelligence purposes," the A.C.L.U. alleges. Among the activities the A.C.L.U. found in documents released by the F.B.I. under the Freedom of Information Act. Agents who attended Ramadan Iftar dinners under the guise of the FBI's mosque outreach program in San Francisco in 2007 and 2008 documented "participant names, conversations and presentations." In 2009, agents participating in a career day sponsored by an Assyrian community organization in San Jose, Calif., "detailed conversations with three community leaders and members about their opinions, backgrounds and charitable activities." Also in San Jose in 2007, agents identified each person by name and organization and "demographics" at a mosque outreach meeting attended by 50 people representing 27 Muslim community and religious organizations. These cases beg the question: Doesn't the F.B.I. have enough to do chasing down and preventing legitimate terrorism cases without manufacturing them? Sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-fake-terro... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/30/fbi-te... http://www.aclu.org/national-security/foia-documents-show-fbi-illegal...