February 6, 2006
February 13, 2006
February 20, 2006
February 27, 2006
ORMOND BEACH, Florida - An alarmingly high percentage of U.S. military personnel who have served in Iraq have been afflicted by a variety of health problems commonly known as Gulf War Syndrome. Exposure to uranium spread through the use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons is thought to be the primary cause of the high rate of chronic ailments and mortality among Gulf War vets.
While initial casualties from the first U.S. invasion of Iraq were light, long-term casualties from the 1991 war ultimately exceeded 30 percent, according to Terrell E. Arnold, former Chairman of the Department of International Studies at the National War College. The long-term casualty rate from the current war in Iraq, Arnold says, is likely to be much higher.
Official statistics of killed and wounded from the 15-year long war against Iraq do not reflect the veterans whose service-related injuries only become apparent after they return from Iraq. The official death rate of those killed and wounded in Iraq does not include these vets, many of whom suffer slow and painful deaths as a direct result of their service. Dustin Brim was one of them.
Lori Brim lost Dustin, her only child, when he died at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington at the age of 22 on Sept. 24, 2004, after a six-month battle with what was eventually diagnosed as Non-Hodgkins Diffuse Large Cell B Type Lymphoma. When Mrs. Brim asked the doctors how her young, healthy, strong son had contracted cancer all they would say was "bad luck."
Her caseworker and nurses at the hospital were more forthcoming with information. At different times during the six months nurses would take Mrs. Brim aside and urge her off the record to do some research on DU.
Asked whose idea it was for Dustin to join the Army in summer 2002, Mrs. Brim said, "It was mine."
As a single mother, Mrs. Brim had approached an Army recruiter out of concern for the well-being of her son. She thought the Army would be good for her son by giving him some discipline and direction.
Dustin had not wanted to join the Army, his mother said. But Dustin was never meant to be in a war zone, she added. The U.S. Army recruiter had promised her, that as her only child, he would not be sent to war.
Mechanically inclined, Dustin became an Army mechanic, an E-4 specialist serving in the 1st Maintenance Company under the 541st Maintenance Battalion from Fort Riley, Kan., and was deployed to Iraq in August 2003.
Dustin's work in Iraq involved working on disabled Army vehicles, including tanks, which his unit repaired and retrieved, or if damaged beyond repair, destroyed with explosives on the spot. Most of these vehicles, having been in the battlefield, would have been heavily laden with DU and other toxins.
Dr. Doug Rokke, former director of the U.S. Army's Depleted Uranium Project, said that mechanics like Dustin are not properly prepared or protected to be working on DU contaminated vehicles.
Mrs. Brim said that her son had not even been equipped with a pair of gloves, let alone a mask or protective garb. The Army's failure to inform and instruct its personnel about the dangers of DU exposure is one of Rokke's main concerns.
At Christmas 2003, Dustin surprised his parents with a visit home. It was the last time Mrs. Brim would see her son in a healthy condition. A photo of Dustin taken in Iraq in February 2004 shows him smiling and strong.
In early March, however, Dustin began to complain of abdominal pains. He went to the doctors on his base 11 times during the month complaining of severe pain and constipation that lasted for weeks. He was sent back to his job and told to "work it out."
During the last two weeks of March, he wrote to his mother telling her that his pain was unbearable.
On March 31 he passed out from pain and breathlessness. His sergeant happened to be with him and took him to the doctors who thought he had gall bladder problems and sent him to the hospital in Baghdad. The next day, April 1, was Dustin's 22nd birthday. After being assessed and heavily drugged, the doctors allowed him to call home to tell his mother that he had cancer.
In Baghdad, the doctors had discovered that Dustin had a huge cancerous tumor on his esophagus, which severely restricted his breathing, a collapsed lung, the loss of a kidney, numerous blood clots and a tumor progressing on his liver. The doctors could not believe that Dustin had been turned away so many times for medical help and still manage to endure as long as he did in his magnitude of pain while carrying an 80-pound pack on his back, his mother said. Dustin was flown to the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, and then to Walter Reed Hospital.
"The story of Dustin Brim is just one more avoidable tragedy of our insane use of uranium munitions," Rokke said.
"When I lost Dustin, I lost myself," Mrs. Brim said.
"This is something that should not have happened. There is
something going on but no one wants to talk about it on the record.
I am sharing my son's story with you in the hope that perhaps
it will make a difference."
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Last week I mailed each of my congressional colleagues a copy of a speech outlining my views on the lobbying and ethics scandals engulfing Washington. I'm afraid many of them won't like my conclusion: to reduce corruption in government, we must make government less powerful - and hence less interesting to lobbyists.
I find it hard to believe that changing the congressional ethics rules or placing new restrictions on lobbyists will do much good. After all, we already have laws against bribery, theft and fraud. We already have ethics rules in Congress. We already have campaign finance reform. We already require campaigns and lobbyists to register with the federal government and disclose expenditures. We already require federal employees, including the president and members of congress, to take an oath of office. None of it is working, so why should we think more rules, regulations or laws will change anything?
Lobbying, whether we like it or not, is constitutionally protected. The First Amendment unequivocally recognizes the right of Americans to "petition the government for a redress of grievances." We can't deal with corruption in government by ignoring the Constitution.
I don't believe the problem is corrupt lobbyists or even corrupt politicians per se. The fundamental problem, in my view, is the very culture of Washington. Our political system has become nothing more than a means of distribution government largesse, through tax dollars confiscated from the American people - always in the name of democracy. The federal budget is so enormous that it loses all meaning. What's another million or so for some pet project, in an annual budget of $2.4 trillion? No one questions the principle that a majority electorate should be allowed to rule the country, dictate rights and redistribute wealth.
It's no wonder a system of runaway lobbying and special interests has developed.
When we consider the enormous entitlement and welfare system in place, and couple that with a military-industrial complex that feeds off perpetual war and encourages an interventionist foreign policy, the possibilities for corruption are endless. We shouldn't wonder why there is such a powerful motivation to learn the tricks of the lobbying trade - and why dormer members of Congress and their aides become such high-priced commodities.
The dependency on government generated by welfare-ism and warfare-ism, made possible by our shift from a republican to a democratic system of government, is the real scandal of the ages. If we merely tinker with current attitudes about the role of the federal government in our lives, it won't do much to solve the ethics crisis. True reform is impossible without addressing the immorality of wealth redistribution.
After all, criminals by definition ignore laws, unethical people
ignore the rules of ethics. Changing the rules or the players
is merely a band-aid if we don't change the nature of the game
itself.
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The following is a translation of an audiotape purportedly made by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, which was broadcast Jan. 19 on the Middle Eastern TV station al Jazeera. Only select portions of this tape have been published in U.S. newspapers. AFP is making this available to readers so they can see for themselves what was related in its entirety.
My message to your is about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the way to end it. I had not intended to speak to you about this issue, because, for us, this issue is already decided: Diamonds cut diamonds.
Praise be to God, our conditions are always improving, becoming better, while yours are just the opposite.
However, what prompted me to speak are the repeated lies of your President Bush in his comment on the outcome of U.S. opinion polls, which indicated that the overwhelming majority of you want U.S. forces out of Iraq. But he has objected to this and has said that the withdrawal of troops would sent the wrong message to the enemy.
Bush said, it is better to fight them on their soil than have them fighting us on our soil.
In my response to these lies, I say: The war in Iraq is raging and operations in Afghanistan are increasing and in our favor, praise be to God.
The Pentagon figures indicate a rise in the number of your dead and wounded, let alone the huge material losses.
To go back to where I started, I say, the results of the poll make sense to sane people while Bush's objections to them are wrong.
Reality shows that the war against America and its allies has not remained confined to Iraq, as he claims. In fact, Iraq has become a point of attraction and recruitment.
On the other hand, the mujahideen, praise be to God, have managed to breach all the security measures adopted by the unjust nations of the coalition time and again.
Evidence of this is shown in the bombings you have seen in the capitals of the most important European countries in this aggressive coalition.
THREATENS ATTACKS ON U.S.
As for the delay in carrying out similar operations in the United States, this was not due to a failure to breach your security measures. Operations are in preparation and you will see them on your own soil once the preparations are finished, God willing.
Based upon the above, we see that Bush's argument is wrong.
However, the argument that he has avoided, which is clear in the results of opinion polls on troop withdrawals, is that it is better not to fight Muslims on their land and for Muslims not to fight U.S. citizens on American land.
We do not object to a long-term truce with you on the basis of fair conditions that we respect. We are a nation to which God has disallowed treachery and lying.
In this truce, both parties will enjoy security and stability. We will rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, which were destroyed by wars.
There is no flaw in this solution other than to prevent the
flow of hundreds of billions of dollars to the influential people
and war merchants in America, who supported Bush's election campaign
with billions of dollars.
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A new call for the impeachment of President Bush comes from a national organization that says its First Amendment rights are being violated by the White House. "We seek to create a political situation where the Bush administration's program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking the United states is reversed," the group said in a statement issued Jan. 23.
The Washington-based World Can't wait group said it applied for a permit to protest bush during his State of the Union address on Jan.32 at a site adjacent to the Capitol. For many years, demonstrators have been allowed to gather at such sites to support or oppose administration policies.
After weeks of negotiation, the best site the administration offered was more than a mile from the Capitol, well outside audio or visual contact. The administration's rationale is "national security" Wherever Bush travels, demonstrators are kept out of sight.
"George bush is squeezing the life out of the right to dissent," said Travis Morales of World Can't wait. "Stated event by staged event, fake town meeting by fake town meeting, protest by protest, this president has demonstrated his hostility to free expressions of public disagreement with his disastrous program of torture, illegitimate war, massive spying and indefinite detention without charges. We think it's time for George Bush to step down."
"The administration wants dissent in the United States to become invisible to the world," said James Klimaski, the group's general counsel. "I don't understand why the people around the president are do fearful of bush seeing people dissent from his policies. Are they afraid he will breakdown and cry?"
Rev. Deborah Lake, of the group's steering committee, emphasized the peaceful nature of the planned protest.
"We're here to make a joyful noise unto the Lord,"
Rev. Lake said. "George Bush has led our nation into grave
dangers, both at home and abroad, and we want to raise our voices...to
show the president and Congress that the spirit of dissent in
America is alive and well and feisty.
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While President George W. Bush has been forced to publicly defend giving the National Security Agency (NSA) authority to spy within the United States, it is unlikely he will ever be able to reveal the true scope of this massive spy network's operations inside this country and across the globe.
The NSA is one of the most secret organizations on the planet
and was established in 1952 by President Harry Truman under a
still classified presidential directive. It has been argued it
is even more secretive than the CIA. Its very existence was denied
until 1957 and since then its mission has never been made public.
The spy agency uses a global electronic spy system called Echelon that has yet to be acknowledged by any U.S. administration, despite mountains of evidence including a mention of it in recently declassified national security documents.
Its headquarters are at Fort Meade, Md., 30 miles outside Washington.
At this location, it has not only some of the most sophisticated
intercept and encryption technology ever created but also many
of the best minds money
can buy.
The NSA uses part of its massive budget, known to be in the billions of dollars, to recruit the most brilliant mathematicians, technicians and linguists who provide a range of skills.
For example, mathematicians devise powerful encryption codes to protect sensitive communications from all levels of the U.S. government and the military. Those same mathematicians also invent ways to break the codes of foreign powers on which we regularly spy.
NSA technicians try to keep one step ahead of digital technologies, constantly designing new devices for intercepting global communications. As a result, the agency has the most up-to-date supercomputers, satellites, undersea "sniffers" to seek out and hack into fiber-optic cables, and a host of ground radar stations.
Linguists are employed to listen to critical intercepted communications, analyze and identify the most relevant sections of them and then translate them for the president and parts of the intelligence community. Foreign communications constantly reach NSA linguists and analysts reportedly span more than 100 languages.
Until 1975, the NSA had managed to operate under the radar of the public, the media and Congress. But in that year, the NSA was thrust into the spotlight when the Church Committee, headed by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho), discovered that the NSA had been spying on U.S. citizens for more than two decades.
It wasn't until January 1998 that the NSA again came under public scrutiny. A report by the European Parliament claimed the NSA was "routinely" intercepting all email, faxes and telephone communications by Europeans.
The report told EU citizens, and especially EU companies, to use encryption methods to foil the NSA, which had been accused of engaging in industrial espionage.
The French government weighed in with a charge that the NSA was using its technology to spy on EU companies in order to pass their secrets to American competitors. A German parliamentarian claimed the spying cost EU businesses $20 billion in lost contracts.
British journalist Duncan Campbell, a respected authority on the role of the NSA in Europe, provided EU investigators with evidence that NSA spying had cost a French company a contract in Brazil and that European Airbus had lost a $6 billion contract to Boeing. Campbell also presented evidence that Microsoft, IBM and a major American chipmaker were among several U.S. corporations helping the NSA with its data interception capabilities.
But the EU report's most explosive findings were related to the top secret program known as Echelon, the NSA's global electronic spy network and Britain's role in it. Echelon was originally set up at the start of the Cold War to eavesdrop on telephone communications between Soviet bloc nations.
But, according to the EU report, it was later directed at individuals and companies.
Even though the NSA was headquartered at Fort Meade, the report noted that the agency's electronic tentacles stretched across a world-wide network supported by Britain and its partners, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Each of those nations was a vital link in the Echelon global listening chain with Britain's listening center at GCHQ Cheltenham the most significant link beyond U.S. shores.
Echelon's vast array of supercomputers at major centers, supported by smaller listening stations worldwide, were capable of intercepting millions of electronic communications every day. At Fort Meade an Echelon dictionary's "key words" were constantly updated and circulated within the network so that interconnected computers could sift through millions upon millions of pieces of data every day.
If a word like jihad or the name of an explosive compound was used by someone, somewhere in the world the chances were the Echelon system would detect it, isolate it and find out who was using the word.
Once the existence of Echelon was out of the bag in Europe, there was public uproar with Britain declaring it had not used the system to spy on Europeans.
Concern was also raised in the United States that the NSA was spying on American citizens. However, several prominent members of Congress quickly pointed out that the agency routinely abided by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, established after the Church Committee hearings, which forbade eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant from a secret federal court.
Controversy subsided somewhat in the United States and also in Europe following the 9-11 attacks. However, with recent allegations that Bush breached the law by permitting the NSA to spy inside the United States without court warrants, the role of the NSA is back in the spotlight - something the agency cannot be happy about.
There is also a risk, given Europe's anger over the CIA's rendition policy, that the debate about the NSA's use of Echelon in Europe could be re-ignited and could hamper the British role in the program, which is critical to the network's global workings.
Additionally, some critics in the United States may be more inclined to wonder if the NSA spies on Europeans on behalf of the British wouldn't the British use their Echelon capability to target U.S. citizens, thus providing legal cover for the NSA?
Echelon is so interlinked that if U.S. citizens regularly had their emails, faxes and phone calls intercepted, it would be almost impossible for a congressional oversight committee to determine who did the spying - NSA or the British or the Australians or the New Zealanders.
A president's assurance that the NSA can be trusted may not be enough to keep it free from increasing public and congressional scrutiny.
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.Supporters of the First Amendment are celebrating a significant victory in Denver where police were forced to release documents showing years of Secret spying on activists, grassroots groups, protesters and other innocent citizens.
Stephen and Vicki Nash, members of CopWatch, sued members of the police department in the District Court of Denver (Case No. 05V4500) and Judge Catherine Lemon angrily ordered city police to release the documents. She said there was no need to withhold the documents.
In accordance with the ruling, hundreds of pages of files and other documents on targets of snooping were released by police on Jan. 27. These related to more than a decade of surveillance on U.S. groups.
For years, Denver police had spied on individuals and groups, infiltrating organizations and noting auto tag numbers. Their snooping produced piles of written reports.
One detective was allowed to take several boxes of spy files to his home as personal property.
The findings accuse Capt. Vincent DiManna of producing a document on police procedures that falsely claimed the department was following federal guidelines. In one of the more outrageous aspects of the case, it appeared that the former head of the Denver Police Department's intelligence bureau had lied to the police chief and the mayor and told them they were complying with all state and federal guidelines when snooping on citizens.
Police kept files on more than 200 organization and 3,200 individuals. Among individual spy victims were the Nashes, American Indian activist Russel Means and University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill.
Police spied on a funeral service in Laramie for the wife of Rev. Pete Peters, an outspoken critic of the United Nations, and even went so far as to collect the license plate numbers of mourners among other people.
The police department claimed that the files contained "sensitive information" that should remain secret in the name "of the public interest."
The court concluded that "defendants" blanket policy of denying every request for disclosure of files is an abuse of the discretion conferred by the Criminal Justice records Act. Rather than a proper exercise of it...Review of the voluminous submission from defendants to the court reveals that most of the documents...are devoid of sensitive content and some are devoid of any substantive content at all. Moreover, the descriptions of the documents and the asserted grounds for not disclosing them often bear little resemblance to the documents themselves."
In addition, the judge wrote that the police should be obligated to pay for all court costs and attorney fees. Judge Lemon noted: "The defendants blanket denial of every request for files...constitutes arbitrary and capricious denial of plaintiffs' rights...There is no legal justification for these actions."
"With Denver police so embarrassed by their spy scandal, police in other jurisdictions are likely to abandon their own snoop patrols." said the FDFA's Rick Adams, the popular radio talkshow host of Uncensored Radio Free America. "But we must be forever on the alert."
Adams can be heard weeknights from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. central
time on the Republic Broadcasting Network on the Internet at rbnlive.com
or on 5.050 short wave frequency.
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In sleepy towns across the country, longtime residents are witnessing a sea change in way of life as more and more aliens from Mexico and central America take up residence. While many of these foreigners are simply seeking a better job or a quiet life, the surge in population has also brought increased violence, criminal activity and incidents of indecency to once-quiet neighborhoods. Police are often overwhelmed, social services snowed under, and locals feel harassed, intimidated and terrorized. In some cases, murder and mayhem are now rampant.
Take one town in upstate New York. Residents of the village of Brewster in New York's Putnam County, north of New York city, say they have been harassed by criminals from Guatemala, who are among the tens of thousands of non-Mexican illegal aliens regularly crossing the Mexican border into the United States.
In one of the more-publicized cases, a local woman, Mary Nagle, was murdered by a Guatemalan illegal in Rockland county.
But sometimes it is smaller incidences that can really bring locals' blood to a boil.
Eight Guatelmalan illegal aliens were recently arrested by the Putnam County sheriff's Department for trespassing at Brewster central School.
Joseph Sabatella, superintendent of the Brewster school, called the sheriff's office after he saw eight individuals, who could not speak English and obviously were no students, playing soccer in the school parking lot while classes were in session.
In most schools today, all non-students or non-staff who do not have permission to be on the grounds are banned from school property, for safety reasons. "No trespassing" signs were posted around the school property.
All eight of the Guatemalans were arrested by sheriff's deputies, but a local court allowed seven to be released on the condition that they appear later in immigration court in Pennsylvania. There is no news as to whether the seven actually showed up for the hearing, but many locals believe they simply moved to another town.
The eighth Guatemalan, identified as Juan Jimenez. Was held on $3,000 bond because he was unable to provide his residence to the court. The court placed a detainer warrant on him, and he was turned over to immigration officials in Pennsylvania, where deportation proceedings were undertaken.
In another case, at a recent party for young students that was held at the school, officials said the children and teachers were harassed by a group of Guatemalans, who drove by the school in a truck, one of whom exposed himself and urinated in front of the kids.
Several meetings of concerned citizens have been held in Brewster and surrounding communities to protest these types of incidences.
"Police are just unable to deal with them, and we are all very concerned," a resident of Brewster, who asked not to be identified for fear of being harassed, told American Free Press. "This illegal alien situation is getting totally out of control when we are afraid to go out onto the streets due to these people harassing us."
Similar situations are threatening small towns across the country.
As an example, in central Virginia, where many illegal aliens work as day laborers in apple orchards, a local man and his wife said they encountered a carload of Mexicans or Central Americans leaving the parking lot of a shopping center. He said he was nearby blocked in by the car, which parked across the entrance. One of the male passengers got out and urinated in front of everyone attempting to get into the shopping center.
"I guess we are just expected to ignore things like that,"
the local told AFP. "I certainly wouldn't do something lke
that in his country, and I find it very objectionable for them
to do it in ours. If they want to come here because life is better,
which is what we are being told by those who want to extend them
the welcome mat, I don't think we Americans are expecting too
much that they help us keep it that way.
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Gen. Sir Michael Rose, former adjutant general of the British army and commander of the United Nations force in Bosnia, has publicly called for the impeachment of Prime Minister Tony Blair over the disastrous Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, which he calls "a blunder of enormous strategic significance.
His reasons are similar to those voiced by Americans demanding the impeachment of President George Bush over the ill-advised and illegal invasion of Iraq.
"Britain has been led into war on false pretenses," Rose wrote in a recent edition of The Guardian of London. "Now it is clear that Parliament was misled by Mr. Blair either wittingly or unwittingly. Parliament should also call on him for a full explanation as to why he went to war."
"Finally a senior military commander has spoken of the idiocy of the war in Iraq," Robin Stringer, a retired British infantry captain who served in Iraq in 2004, wrote in the paper the next day. "Gen. Rose has spoken for me and countless other officers and soldiers whom I served alongside. We wondered what on earth we were doing risking both our lives and those of our men every day; we knew there was no justification for war.
"Some may believe this should be immaterial to a soldier; that we should never ask questions," Stringer wrote. "But every soldier needs justification for his risk; bravery comes not just from comradeship, but from a belief in a cause. When young soldiers are being killed, an army needs justification - nut just for their deaths, but for those who are left scarred on the ground."
"It is not a sufficient excuse for Mr. Blair to say that he acted in good faith and that his decisions were based on the intelligence he had been given," Rose said. Blair has the "clear responsibility" to validate the intelligence, the former commander of Britain's Special forces, the SAS, said.
"Most importantly a clear justification for the war in Iraq was never sufficiently made by Tony Blair - for the Intelligence he presented was always embarrassingly patchy and inconsistent," he wrote.
The British prime minister's "unequivocal statement to the House of Commons that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction that could be used within 45 minutes was made without being properly validated - for it was decided in Washington and London to launch the invasion of Iraq early, on the basis of the flimsy evidence available," Rose said, without asking UN weapons inspectors in Iraq to investigate the factual basis of the allegations.
"No intelligence can ever be taken at face value," Rose wrote. :Indeed it is negligent so to do."
Military commanders who "understand better than most the consequences of engaging in war," have a responsibility to point out "when political strategies are flawed or inadequately resourced," Rose said.
"Since they might also have to ask their soldiers to sacrifice their lives, they must be assured that a war is just, legal and the last resort available," he wrote. "Yet three years ago this country was somehow led by the prime minister into war in Iraq where few, if any, of these requirements were met.
"During the build-up to war and since, most of the electorate of this country [Britain] have consistently opposed the decision to invade," Rose wrote. "People have seen their political wishes ignored for reasons now proved false. But there has been no attempt in Parliament to call Mr. Blair personally to account for what has transpired to be a blunder of enormous strategic significance.
No one can undo the decision to go to war. But the impeachment
of Mr. Blair is now something I believe must happen if we are
to rekindle interest in the democratic process," Rose wrote.
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What would happen if Israeli warhawks launched an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities? This week, American Free Press takes a look at a new study by an international terrorism expert, which warns that bombing the Persian country would likely drag the United States into a drawnout and bloody clash of civilizations. AFP predicted it almost a year ago, but are neo-cons that crazy?
A new study by an international terrorism expert warns that a military attack launched by the Israelis on Iran's nuclear facilities would certainly escalate to involve the United States, Iraq and Lebanon, as well as Persian Gulf states.
In its early stages, it would result in many thousands of civilian and military casualties.
In an in-depth report for the Oxford Research Group, titled "Iran: Consequences of a War," Prof. Paul Rodgers writes that Israel has bought [or has been given—Ed.] all the necessary weapons from the United States for such an attack, including long-range fighters and a large supply of so-called "bunker-buster bombs," capable of penetrating hardened underground bunkers.
The targets of such an attack would initially be the Tehran nuclear reactor, as well as a radioisotope facility and a range of laboratories and other facilities, all of them in heavily populated areas.
If the newest reactor at Bushehr were to be targeted after it comes on line later this year, such an attack could lead to a Chernobyl-type disaster with radioactive clouds rising over most gulf countries.
According to Rodgers, if the United States is drawn into such an attack with the aim of setting back Iran's nuclear program, the British could also find themselves dragged into the affair by being asked to provide bases for the refueling of U.S. aircraft as happened when F-111s were used to bomb the Libyan capital of Tripoli in 1986.
If bombings were launched this year against Iran they would, claims the Oxford report, be launched simultaneously in order to kill as many of the technical staff as possible at the various nuclear sites. Iran would be unable to prevent such an air assault because of its lack of a functioning anti-missile and anti-aircraft arsenal.
Some experts dispute this aspect of the report, however, due to recent high-tech weapons purchases Iran has made from North Korea, China and Russia.
In the past decade, it is known that Iran has acquired hundreds of medium-range missiles from China and North Korea and an unknown number of long-range Sunburst cruise missiles from Ukraine, which, it is believed, could be used to sink U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf.
Israeli hawks in Tel Aviv and their allies in Washington want Americans to believe that Iran is a major threat to U.S. and Israeli interests in the Middle East.
The Israelis and their neo-con backers had hoped a successful invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would undermine the clerical leadership in Iran and lead to its overthrow by an emerging democratic movement led by the youth of the country. To the dismay of Washington and Tel Aviv, however, the war in Iraq has failed to achieve that goal, and the power of the religious leadership in Iran has grown significantly.
The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran stands in the way of Israeli
hegemony in the Middle East. Israeli hardliners have convinced
many Americans that they should be the only Middle East country
with nuclear weapons. It is estimated that the Israeli nuclear
arsenal contains as many as
400 nukes.
In order to plan for an attack on Iran, recent reports indicate Israel has been buying long-range versions of American-made F-15 and F-16 aircraft. Beginning in 2003, the Israeli air force purchased 102 F-16s and 500 bunkerbuster bombs.
Efforts are also under way to equip Israeli submarines, including ones given to Israel by Germany, and naval surface vessels with cruise missiles that could reach Iran.
The Oxford Report points to an alarming trend: in the past two years, there has been the appearance of a strengthening of the relationship between the Israeli defense forces and the U.S. Army's Training and Doctrine Command.
The report warns: "Although not commonly covered in the western media, this relationship is well known in the Middle East and would contribute to an assumption that any Israeli attack on Iran would be undertaken with the knowledge, approval and assistance of the United States. It is certainly the case that an Israeli air attack on Iran would involve flights through airspace currently dominated by the United States."
Rodgers also makes the point in his report that close links
between Israel and the United States are far more widely recognized
in the Middle East than in the United States and in Europe. Therefore,
any Israeli action would
be seen as a joint operation with "Israel acting as surrogate
and doing so with direct U.S. support."
He speculates that this would mean that Iranian retaliation would be directed at U.S. interests in the gulf and at U.S. forces in Iraq. Hezbollah, regarded as the most formidable terrorist organization on the planet, would be encouraged by Tehran to launch attacks on Israel from Lebanon and to coordinate strikes against U.S. targets across the Persian Gulf, in Iraq and in the continental U.S. While Israel would enjoy a short-term advantage over Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, there would be long-term consequences for both Israeli and U.S. interests.
It would be costly in terms of lives, money and influence. Perhaps the most troubling outcome, says Rodgers, would be the likelihood of a prolonged military confrontation, which would probably spread to other gulf nations.
Any attack on Iran by Israel, he says, no matter how small, would surely escalate to involve the United States and its bogged-down forces in Iraq.
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American Free Press is busily engaged in the annual ritual of hunting down the Bilderberg Group, which will hope to meet in secret this spring. When the last rock is turned over and their location and meeting times unearthed, AFP readers will be the first in America to know.
Some sources believe Bilderberg will meet near Innsbruck, Austria, as it did in 1988. Others think somewhere in North America, as Bilderberg has a number of times over the years. Adding weight to this theory is that it is North America's "turn" to host Bilderberg.
Typically, the power elite meets in Europe for three years, then in North America. The last Bilderberg meeting on this side of the pond was in Chantilly, Va., in 2002.
Uncovering the secretive group of international financiers and political leaders is a difficult annual challenge. A year ago, the precise location and date in Germany were finally uncovered by journalist and AFP collaborator Danny Estulin of Spain. AFP Managing Editor Christopher J. Petherick had to call this sleuth in the middle of the night and tell him to "grab his other pair of socks" and head to Dulles Airport in northern Virginia.
In 2000, when yours truly was with the now defunct Spotlight, it was positively determined that Bilderberg would meet in the area of Brussels, Belgium, June 1-3. But the precise location was unclear.
I was standing at the Men's Bar in the National Press Club, bag packed and waiting for the shuttle bus to Dulles, when the break came. An old friend who was involved in international commerce and who was personally acquainted with many Bilderberg luminaries, had, as usual, been helping in the search.
He called me with the precise location. I then called the news office and the front page of the newspaper was taken apart and put together again to reflect the breaking news.
This old Bilderberg hound is hoping we don't have to cut it that close this year. But it gets tougher every year and I'm keeping a week's supply of clean shirts on hand at all times.
INSIDE BILDERBERG
And although I'm not usually such a shameless self-promoter, I would recommend that every AFP reader purchase my book, Jim Tucker's Bilderberg Diary. In this 280-page book I recount the adventures I have had tracking down Bilderberg and crashing their party every year (almost) for the past 25 years.
I've also included dozens of exclusive photos snapped by me and my colleagues of the meetings and which few—if any—other Americans besides the readers of this paper and The Spotlight have ever seen. I think you'll especially like the photo with me and Maggie Thatcher, who agreed to a private meeting with me after she realized Bilderberg was more than, "tea and crumpet" party. She came out publicly against Bilderberg after that and was the victim of a Bilderberg campaign to have her defeated in her re-election bid as Britain's prime minster.
Bilderberg doesn't like it when "their own" expose the group. There's lots more in the book but I wouldn't want to ruin all the surprises for you. By the way, the proceeds from the purchase of the book will go to help fund my travel expenses and the other costs AFP incurs bringing you these exclusive Bilderberg reports.
Jim Tucker's Bilderberg Diary: One Reporter's 25-Year Battle to Shine the Light on the World Shadow Government is available from AFP, 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100, Washington, D.C. 20003. Or call 1-888-699-NEWS. Get your copy for just $18 (reg. $24.95) if you mention "Jim Tucker sent me."
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As debate heats up over whether the world's petroleum supply is finite, fueling higher domestic prices for gasoline and heating fuel, there has been for quite some time now disagreement among scientists over the origins of oil. Are we nearing the dreaded Peak Oil that everyone is talking about these days? Or could there conceivably be a virtually endless supply of "black gold"? All of this has been going on under the radar of the mainstream media, which has failed to inform the American people about this critical new energy research.
There are basically two theories on the origin of oil, the biogenic theory and the abiogenic theory. The prevailing theory claims that oil is an organic "fossil fuel" deposited in finite quantities near the planet's surface. But is it possible that some so-called fossil fuels are actually made without fossils? According to some scientists, natural processes in the Earth's magma are continuously generating petroleum.
The idea that heated organic material results in petroleum has been around for hundreds of years. In 1757, Russian scientist M.V. Lomonosov wrote:
"Rock oil originates as tiny bodies of animals buried in the sediments which, under the influence of increased temperature and pressure acting during an unimaginably long period of time, transform into rock oil." But others disagree.
Says researcher Russell Hemley of the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Geophysical Laboratory in D.C.:
"Experiments point to the possibility of an inorganic source of hydrocarbons at great depth in the Earth—that is, hydrocarbons that come from simple reactions between water and rock and not just from the decomposition of living organisms."
Regardless of where petroleum comes from, there is little doubt that coal is a true fossil fuel. There have been observations that the bottoms of bogs in the British Isles are well on their way to becoming lignite, the lowest grade of coal, and they are all younger than the Younger Dryas (YD) glaciation—about 10,000 years old.
The YD was the most significant rapid climate change event that occurred during the last deglaciation of the North Atlantic region. Previous ice core studies have focused on the abrupt termination of this event because this transition marks the end of the last major climate reorganization during the deglaciation.
Many of the gas-bearing formations in the Gulf of Mexico are built from Mississippi River sediments that are geologically very young. Still this does not tell us definitively whether they are of biological origin or not.
The so-called inorganic or abiogenic oil idea has been getting more attention lately, at a time when it seems energy and petroleum are on everyone's mind, with oil more expensive than ever and many people fearing future shortages.
However, scientists from the minority inorganic oil camp, promoting diverse ideas, have a way to go if they want to overturn the dominant theory of organic petroleum genesis. Actually most scientists agree that inorganic petroleum exists. They just differ widely in their ideas on how it forms and how widespread it is versus organic petroleum.
By the mid-20th century, the organic model was pervasive, given a big boost by modern chemistry, paleontology and geology. Barry Katz, who is a petroleum geologist at Chevron, points to a 1936 paper by Alfred Treibs, in which Treibs showed that chemical compounds in oil called porphyrins have the same chemical structure as chlorophyll, thus seeming to link at least some petroleum to plant materials.
Oleanane, a "biomarker" compound involved in the evolution of flowering plants, is present in Tertiary and Upper Cretaceous rocks and oil, suggesting that higher plants were somehow converted into this oil.
Other biomarkers appear to point to an algal origin for many deposits of oil, according to Marcio R. Mello of High Resolution Technology and Petroleum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Mello says geologists have linked biomarkers to the specific environments in which petroleum formed.
The organic camp leans toward the belief that oil comes from source rocks resembling oil shale. Oil shale contains a waxy substance called kerogen, consisting of long-chain polymers. It is believed organic material deposited in shale from plant life as it forms becomes this kerogen material on reaching about 100 degrees centigrade, a process referred to by oil geologists as diagenesis. When further heated, according to the theory, the kerogen is converted into crude oil or gas, depending on how much hydrogen it happens to contain.
This process is called catagenesis. This involves breaking the kerogen down into shorter-chain molecules. The inorganic camp follows a different model:
They think hydrocarbons start off as simple compounds such as methane, a common natural gas, and then "chain up" the ladder through a cooling process.
Thomas Gold, the late Cornell University astronomer, suggested that methane migrates upward from the mantle, where it transforms into more complex hydrocarbons and then accumulates in igneous rocks. The evidence of biomarkers, he argued, is mainly from microorganisms interacting with the petroleum along its migration route.
With the support of the Swedish government in the 1980s, Gold drilled a deep well into the 32-mile-diamerter Siljan Ring, the site of an ancient meteorite impact, believed to be 368 million years old. The granite here has been shattered, perhaps to a depth of 20 miles. If Gold's hypothesis about the origin of methane is correct, methane might be found seeping up through this wound in the Earth's outer layer. Further, the shattered granite might prove to be a gigantic reservoir of methane.
After three years and the expenditure of $40 million, however, drilling at the Siljan Ring was terminated. The drill penetrated to 3 miles before it got stuck. No significant methane had been found.
Gold maintained that the drilling stopped just short of an apparent reservoir at 4.5 miles, probably located by seismic methods. Another, deeper hole would vindicate him, he believed. The drillers did find an assortment of hydrocarbons that could have been deposited by upward-seeping methane.
Also, tons of micrometer-sized grains of magnetite were taken out of the hole. Gold opined that these grains were synthesized by bacteria subsisting upon upwardly seeping methane at a depth of over 3 miles.
In addition, Russian drillers on the Kola Peninsula report the existence of mysterious circulating fluids as far down as 7.5 miles.
Despite the problems and disappointments at the first hole, some Swedish investors seem ready to finance a second hole at the Siljan Ring.
Alexander Kitchka, a geologist at the National Academy of Sciences in the Ukraine, says that outside North America, scientists are working on hybrid ideas that combine mantle derived hydrogen with biologically derived carbon to explain the origins of oil.
Alexei Milkov, a Russian petroleum geologist with BP in Houston, Texas, who was educated in Russia, notes that the success of Russian petroleum exploration did not come from the inorganic model. He adds that the subject of petroleum's origins is more widely discussed in the former Soviet Union than elsewhere.
"When I talk with practicing Russian geologists, they often ask my views on the abiogenic origin of petroleum," Milkov says. "This never happens in the United States, where organic is accepted fully and without scientific questioning."
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It's official. There are now two correspondents for American Free Press on the air Monday through Friday. If you're not tuning in, now is the time to do so. You can hear both Greg Szymanski and Michael collins Piper every day on the Republic Broadcasting Network, the fastest-growing independent patriotic alternative network on radio and the Internet.
Szymanski's program airs from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. (CST) and Piper's program airs from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. (CST).
This is the first time that Piper has ever done a radio show of his own, although he's been a guest on hundreds of radio programs over the last 25 years.
"It was a real honor when John Stadmiller and the good folks at RBN asked me to come onboard," said Piper. "They know that my work is considered quite 'controversial' since I tend to write and speak about topics that offend the sensibilities of the Israeli lobby, but RBN is an open forum that believers in the First Amendment."
Both Szymanski and Piper accept calls from listeners and are offering a variety of guest that will certainly be of interest to AFP readers. The call-in number is 1-800-313-9443.
You can access RBN on the Internet at www.rbnlive.com and listen to the programming via the Internet, or you can also tune in on shortwave. Szymanski's program can be heard at 11.915 shortwave frequency whereas Piper's later broadcast at 5.050 on shortwave.
The Republic Broadcasting Network is accessible on C-band satellite, Galaxy 1R, Transponder 17, 7.92 Narrowband Audio, Horizonal Polarity, 133 degrees.
If you need further information as to how to tune in to RBN, feel free to call their office toll free: 1-800-724-2719 or 9512) 246-9549.
Note that RBn offers many other fine talk programs on a regular basis above and beyond the programs featuring Szymanski and Piper. Other host familiar to AFP readers include retired police offiver and outspoken constitutionalist Jack McLamb and Rick Adams, who is a spokesman for the Foundatioon to Defend the First Amendment, a fitting avocation for a no-holds-barred radio personality such as Adams.
Another highlight of RBN's programming is the National Intel Report with Stadtmiller, the founder of RBN. Stadmiller's daily broadcast follows Szymanski's at 5 p.m. CST, preceding Piper's.
You can tune in to RBN as early as 6 a.m. (CST) and listen all day and into the night with some of the best pro-American voices on the air today. You'll hear about new books, videos, health products, investment tips and a wide variety of news and information that you won't get on any other radio station anywhere.
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The Sangean ATS-505 (#1201, $175) is available from First Amendment Books, 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100, Washington, D.C. 20003. There is no charge for shipping and handling. All who purchase this radio in the next 30 days will receive free of charge a copy of Passport to Worldband Radio, the #1 shortwave reference guide. Includes info on shortwave stations around the globe, shortwave equipment and more, 592 pages. Call FAB toll free at 1-888-699-NEWS to charge to Visa or MasterCard.
Julia Foster is the office manager for American
Free Press and a part-time freelance writer. She lives in Calvert
County, Marland with her husband gene, who is a Second Amendment
rights activist.
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Supreme Court nominations, congressional ethics scandals and insider politics dominated the Washington headliners in recent weeks. But perhaps the most important story, in terms of its impact on average Americans, has gone virtually unreported.
Later this month our Treasury once again will hit the "debt dealing" a figure based on federal law that limits the amount of money the federal government can borrow. The total amount of federal debt as of this month is a staggering $8.2 trillion, a number that is almost incomprehensible. The effects of this debt, however, will be felt by all of us in the form of inflation, higher interest rates and a weakened U.S. economy.
New Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke faces a difficult dilemma. Our overseas creditors, particularly Asian central banks, already hold billions of U.S. dollars and are losing their appetite for lending us more money. They are wary of our enormous federal deficits and reckless economic policies. Ask yourself a simple question: Would you loan the U.S. government money, given its spending habits? It's clear we can't go on borrowing $1.8 billion every day to finance the government.
The simplest way for the Fed to overcome these fears and maintain worldwide enthusiasm for the dollar is to raise interest rates and stop putting new dollars into circulation. But the Greenspan "boom" was based on the opposite approach. By cutting interest rates to the bone and vastly increasing the money supply. Greenspan made Americans feel rich - first with the stock market bubble of the 1990s, and later with the housing bubble that is only mow starting to burst.
Greenspan was brilliant at making debt feel like wealth, but Bermanke inherits a very difficult situation. To maintain the value of the dollar, he must put the brakes on the money supply and raise the cost of borrowing. Such tough action is unlikely, however, given Bernanke's troubling public statements about the benefits of government printing presses.
For years the Federal Reserve Bank and Congress have maintained a cozy relationship. The Fed, by pumping more and more money into the economy, has allowed Congress to spend wildly beyond the amount collected each year by the Treasury.
Congress loves deficit spending, because new programs are always politically popular and tax hikes are always unpopular. In return, congress has maintained a completely hands-off approach toward the Fed system, allowing Breenspan free reign to "run the economy" with tremendous deference from both the public and the press.
The results are not pretty. True inflation, correctly measured by the amount of money and credit available, has skyrocketed in the last 15 years. At the same time, federal deficits have exploded. Congress is addicted to spending, and the Fed is happy to supply the fix by providing easy money.
As economist Addison Wiggin states, however, "The Grand Experiment with paper money is running its inevitable course. Bernanke's biggest challenge is the challenge of central banking itself. You can control some things, but not everything. In the Fed's case, it can control the quantity of money or the quality of it, but not both at the same time."
All of these factors make it likely the U.S. dollar will continue to decline in value, perhaps precipitously, in the coming decade.
Will it take an economic depression before the American public, finally holds the political class accountable for its reckless borrowing, spending and counterfeiting?
For more on the banking and the Federal Reserve
System order AFP's special reports "Billions for the Bankers"
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Legislation has been introduced to repeal permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with China by two senators who said unfair trade practices have fueled a skyrocketing U.S. trade deficit. The legislation (S.295) would impose a 27.5 percent tariff across the board on Chinese imports and has strong support in Congress, legislators said.
Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) And Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) cited practices including piracy, currency manipulation, violation of its own labor laws and barriers to prevent U.S. products from entering the Chinese market.
"There's nothing normal or fair about any of these methods." Dorgan said.
"This is drastic in the sense of politics, but I think it's necessary in the sense of business," graham said, adding that PNTR status should only be granted to China on an annual basis subject to progress on reforms.
Congress granted China PNTR status in 2000, paving the way for the most populous nation to enter the World Trade Organization.
The Chinese "manipulate their currency to get an economic
advantage over the world, not just the United States and the world
is telling China, ‘end your manipulation practices and allow
your currency to go to its market value'." Graham said.
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The Bush administration released a proposed 2007 budget last week that increases federal spending to a staggering $2.77 trillion, a sum that is four times larger than the Reagan-era budgets of the early 1980s. With a public angry about useless earmarks and bridges to nowhere, and a Republican congressional delegation promising to restore some small measure of fiscal discipline, it's troubling that the administration chooses to ignore economic reality and increase spending without regard to revenues and deficits.
Consider these sobering facts:
• With a 7 percent rate of growth, federal spending will
double in just 14 years.
• Federal spending has grown twice as fast under Bush than
Clinton, averaging 6 percent and 7 percent increases compared
to the 3 percent and 4 percent increases of the 1990s.
• The biggest increases in federal spending under bush are
not related to the war on terror or homeland security. Education
spending for example, grew a whopping 137 percent between 2001
and 1005.
• The Projected deficit for 2006 is $423 billion, $100 billion
more than 2005. The real 2006 deficit, including the $5 billion
per week we spend in Iraq, will be much, much higher.
• The administration will ask for at least $120 billion in
so-called "off budget" funds for Iraq and Afghanistan
over the nest year, perpetuation the deception that war spending
somehow doesn't count toward the budget deficit.
• The new Medicare prescription drug benefit will cost at
least $30 billion in 2006, and is projected to cost $1.2 trillion
over the coming decade. The program creates an unfunded liability
twice the size of future Social security obligations.
There has been a great deal of talk in Washington about scandals lately, but few seem to understand that enormous federal budgets provide the mother's milk for every backroom deal, questionable earmark and sleazy lobbying trick.
Like many of my Republican colleagues who curiously vote for enormous budget bills, I campaign on a simple promise that I will work to make government smaller. This means I cannot vote for any budget that increases spending over previous years. In fact, I would have a hard time voting for any budget that did not slash federal spending by at least 25 percent, especially when we consider that the federal budget in 1990 was far less than half that it is today. Did anyone really think the federal government was not big enough must 16 years ago?
Neither political party wants to address the fundamental yet unspoken issues inherent in any budget proposal: What is the proper role for government in our society? Are these ever-growing entitlement and military expenditures really consistent with a free country? Do the proposed expenditures, and the resulting taxes, make us more free or less free? Should the government of the marketplace provide medical care? Should the U.S. military be used to remake whole nations? Are the programs, agencies, and departments funded in the budget proposal constitutional? Are they effective? Could they even operate with a smaller budget? Would the public even notice if certain items were eliminated altogether?
These are the kinds of questions the American people should
ask, even If Congress lacks the courage to apply any principles
whatsoever to the budget process.
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