March 7 & 14, 2005

• War Tax Resistance Grows  
• Saddam Denied Basic Right to Fair Trial  
• Your Privacy Bought and Sold  
• Congress Bows to Globalists; Alters Tax Code  

Whole Body Health

• VIOXX: Deadly Painkiller will return with Official FDA OK  
• Can Chelation Therapy Help Reverse Symptoms of Autism?  

March 21, 2005

• Dump Free Trade; State Legislatures Strike Back Against Trade Deals  
• Israel Boycotts Peace Conference; Mainstream Media Mum on Meeting  
• Army Theorists Crafted Model of 9-11 Attack Back in 1976  
• Debunking The ‘9-11 Debunkers'  
• Bush Offers Porous Border For More Hispanic Votes  

March 28, 2005

• POWs Held In USSR: MIAs Were Abandoned by U.S. Government  
• New Questions About Real Identity of 9-11 Hijackers  
• Has America Become The New Jerusalem?  
• Yes, America, Deficits Do Make You Poorer  

Increasing numbers of Americans say the U.S. government is involved in immoral and illegal wars around the world and are refusing to support this with their tax money. The invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the indiscriminate killing of civilians, for example, are outlawed by international law.

"Of every tax dollar paid, more than 50 cents goes to pay for past, present and future military expenses. The military budget for the Department of Defense alone for 2005 will be close to $500 billion. Our payment of federal taxes enables the government to carry on a continuing program of illegal military activities," wrote Glen Milner, a member of Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, Wash., in a recent opinion piece in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

"International laws and agreements support and encourage citizens to resist their government when it is engaged in illegal acts," Milner added.

Under international laws, those who facilitate illegal wars and war crimes could actually be morally - if not legally - accountable, say proponents of resisting war taxes. Principle IV of the Nuremberg Principles states: "The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

For example, a 1996 ruling by the International Court of Justice regarding the threat or use of nuclear weapons could be interpreted to mean that the United States' deployment of depleted uranium weapons is illegal. The humanitarian measure prohibits the use of weapons or methods of warfare that are directed against civilians or cannot discriminate between military targets and civilians; cause unnecessary suffering to combatants; violate the territory of neutral states; cause long-term and widespread damage to the environment or use poisonous substances.

Most war tax resisters redirect their withheld federal tax funds to outfits such as the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign Escrow Account in Seattle. This way, the money is still on hand, if they should ever be forced to fork it over. Though getting a notice from the Internal Revenue Service is likely, jail is uncommon for war tax resisters. Still, there are no guarantees.

IRS public affairs officer Ken Vargas of the Austin, Texas, office of the IRS explains the collections office sends out "soft notices" first, followed by "harder notices" later. Vargas says the IRS doesn't keep a handy record of war tax resisters. He insists "normal collection procedures" apply to all subjects, regardless of whether they write letters stating their war tax resistance. In fact, the tax reform act of 1998 makes it illegal for the IRS to designate tax protesters as a special class.

Susan Quinlan, a Bay Area organizer for the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, pegs the number of war tax resisters who have seriously faced jail time at less than 20 over the past 50 years. It doesn't necessarily have to be your income tax that you use for protesting, either.

One of the first federal taxes to spark opposition was the federal phone tax. This tax has been in existence since 1914. Originally introduced as a "temporary" tax, after 76 years Congress made it permanent and set its level at 3 percent of your phone bill. Protesters simply include a note saying that they refuse to pay their federal excise tax for conscientious purposes and pay the rest.

Resistance to the telephone tax has a long and distinguished history, and most phone companies will put up no fight to customers who will not pay it. Perhaps they're just as happy not to serve as unpaid tax collectors for the feds.

In any event, tax resister groups estimate that tens of thousands of Americans don't pay their income taxes in order to protest U.S.-backed war efforts around the world. And, they say, that number is growing every year.
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There is an old saying in the legal profession that everybody deserves a fair trial. But that is easier said than done when it comes to the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. After being captured over a year ago by American forces, Saddam has been held in a military detention center without charges being filed and without access to legal counsel even though his family has hired over 20 lawyers, including several Americans.

But what good are lawyers if you're not allowed to talk with them? What good is a defense team if the prosecution never presents its case?

In fact, Saddam has never been afforded any of the rights normally mandated by the Geneva Conventions, these technicalities being ignored by
the U.S. government since he has never been officially categorized as a prisoner of war.

The American government claims Saddam is nothing but a terrorist and can rot in jail until hell freezes over. Some more objective observers, however, contend he either should be given prisoner of war status or immediately released since the invasion of Iraq was a violation of U.S. law.

But if you think the American government is going to let something so insignificant as U.S. laws stand in the way of Saddam's eventual execution, think again. Most people believe there is no doubt that Saddam will eventually be killed or will rot in jail and that everything in between is merely legal gamesmanship, a plan set up by the Bush administration to make it appear that Saddam is receiving at least a semblance of justice.

There are many reasons why the American government wants Saddam out of the picture quickly, one being a long and drawn out defense might expose the sordid details of how America actually backed Saddam in the war against Iran and the other atrocities committed against his own people.

In other words, when it served American interests, Saddam was allowed to play dirty. But when U.S. interests were no longer served, he needed to be removed.

So now he sits in jail, the only question being how can he be removed without too much ill will being spread across the world.

It would be an international nightmare to just shoot him in front of a firing squad. And it would be too cumbersome to give him prisoner of war status since that would bring up complicated issues of whether the United States actually violated the law by attacking Iraq.

So the Bush administration decides to skirt laws and international conventions and to violate humanitarian principles of law by creating a bogus Iraqi tribunal to hear Saddam's case, while at the same time giving him no ability to defend himself.

And if it wasn't for international human rights lawyer Curtis Doebbler, perhaps no one would ever be able to make any sense about what is going on with Saddam and the "kangaroo court" gathered in Baghdad.

Doebbler, an American citizen and respected human rights attorney, has been hired by Saddam's family to represent the former dictator. He is one of the lead attorneys in an international group numbering more than 20, who are trying to piece together a defense even though the prosecution has never officially presented charges.

Doebbler has acted all over the world as an expert consultant and teacher/trainer in the field of internal human rights law. His clients have included an estimated two million internally displaced persons in the Khartoum State, approximately 3,500 Ethiopian refugees in the Sudan, dozens of political activists in the Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Peru, Afghanistan as well as hundreds of other clients from numerous countries .

From his headquarters in Jordan, Doebbler answered questions from American Free Press to update the latest aspects of Saddam's case:

"As this case arose in the aftermath of one of the most serious violations of human rights to take place in recent times, the violation of the right to life of 26 million Iraqis by the act of aggression carried out against them by the United States, a country whose nationality I hold, there is a special responsibility to act," said Doebbler.

"Many of my colleagues around the world as well as in the United States respect the fact that every individual has the right to legal representation and the right to a fair trial," he said. "Unfortunately, I have received both explicit and implicit threats from members of the U.S. military and some other individuals who do not understand this. I have also been several times harassed by the Israeli immigration and IDF authorities who do not like my work either as the representative of Mr. Saddam Hussein or as a professor of law at An-Najah National University in Palestine.

"If human rights are to become a reality and if we are to defend the rule of law from the violent and in recent times unprecedented attack that that has been launched against human rights by the Bush administration and its allies,
individuals must have the courage to stand up against injustice," he said.

AFP asked Doebbler when the last time he visited Saddam and if he could relate what kind of mental and physical condition he was in.

"We have not been allowed to visit him in an appropriate manner that allows the facilitation of his defense," he said. "The single visit of one of the lawyers took place on Dec. 16, 2004. This visit, however, was conducted with guards present and it was impossible to discuss the details of the case with our client."

Asked when formal court proceedings would begin, Doebbler responded:

"The lawyers have been provided neither the charges nor the evidence nor access to their client. For more than one year Mr. Saddam Hussein continues to be denied access to lawyers of his choosing with the view to facilitating his defense and several other due process rights that international
humanitarian and human rights law require be respected. Furthermore, he is threatened with trial before an incompetent court that is neither independent nor impartial. These violations constitute irreparable violations of his right to fair trial."

Doebbler told AFP that former Attorney General Ramsey Clarke is supporting the efforts of the legal team, but he also has not been able to have contact with Saddam in order to mount a proper defense.

"At the moment, we are simply instructed by the family," said Doebbler. "However, Mr. Clark is in contact with the lawyers working on this case, including myself."
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United States trade policies and the resulting steep job and revenue losses, and the erosion of national sovereignty, are wreaking so much havoc around the country that state officials are more motivated than ever to put their protests in writing.

The Indiana state Senate on Feb. 22 voted 25-24 in favor of Senate Concurrent Resolution 16, calling on the U.S. Congress to declare a general moratorium on all trade deals.

This close full-Senate vote followed a 9-0 vote by the Senate Committee on Commerce and Transportation to send SCR 16 to the entire Indiana Senate. The resolution is pending before the 100-member state House. Meanwhile, similar resolutions have been taken up by the Utah and New Jersey state legislatures.

So Sorry, Sadie: Free trade cost Sadie Howell (and millions of others) her job. The plant at which she worked for 29 years closed and high-talled it to Mexico.

Indiana's resolution is more general in its rebuttal of U.S. trade policies, while Utah's and New Jersey's are more specific. Only Utah's has passed both legislative chambers. In Indiana, the text of SCR 16 states in its opening paragraph:

"A concurrent resolution urging the Congress of the United States to place a moratorium on new free trade agreements, to review current free trade agreements and policies of the United States, to investigate and review participation of the United States with international trade organizations, and to ensure that the agreements, policies and participation are in the best interests of the citizens of Indiana and the United States."

So Indiana's wording, like that of Utah, suggests these protests are not necessarily ironclad—there is room left for "review" to "ensure" such trade agreements are in the "best interests" of the citizenry.

Still, SCR 16, which is relatively brief, drives home the point that Indiana lost "approximately 102,000 manufacturing jobs" between January 2000 and January 2004, and that "manufacturing results in three to seven jobs created for each manufacturing job."

The resolution adds that ". . . free trade agreements and policies of the United States with other nations have severely affected United States manufacturing industries and the workers the industries employ."

SCR 16, in an apparent reference to the World Trade Organization that the United States government helped create and joined in 1994, notes that " . . . participation by the United States in international trade organizations may imperil the success of United States manufacturing."

SCR 16 also states " . . . foreign nations such as China have engaged in a wide range of unfair trading practices, including the manipulation of currency, subsidization of industries and the dumping of below-cost subsidized products into the United States market."

Indiana's resolution summarizes that ". . . U.S. manufacturers cannot compete with foreign companies who pay a fraction of the salaries paid to U.S. manufacturing employees, provide no health benefits to their workers, do not have to comply with safety and environmental regulations, pay no pensions and receive government subsidies. . . ."

Indiana state Sen. Timothy Lanane, a Democrat from Anderson, played a key role in authoring SCR 16. In a press release from his office, Lanane said that testimony he heard in committee meetings indicated that current trade policies also allow foreign interests to "violate U.S. patent protections".

Sen. Allie Craycraft (D-Selma) co-authored SCR 16, which is to be sent to President Bush and congressional leaders.

UTAH AGAINST FTAA

Both chambers of the Utah legislature passed a resolution that more specifically calls on the U.S. government to say "no" to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, which would expand the highly controversial 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement — now covering
Canada, the U.S. and Mexico — throughout the Western Hemisphere.

S.R. 1 initially was OK'd on Jan. 25 by Utah's Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee. Passed 21-7 by the full state Senate on Feb. 7, the resolution "urges the United States Congress to oppose any agreement for the United States to enter into a Free Trade Area of the Americas."

On Feb. 18, the Utah House passed H.R. 9, a similar resolution,
by a 61-8 vote.

There may be equivocation in the Senate version. It states that the Utah Senate "urges that the United States not enter into the FTAA until the nation has had more experience and greater understanding of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization."

S.R. 1 also:

• Refers to the U.S. as a "world leader in pushing for free trade, which is a hallmark of our capitalistic society. . ."

• Says "free trade only thrives when there is a level playing field of government regulations between trading partners
. . ."

• Says manufacturing jobs "have plunged from 19.3 million in 1980 to only about 14.6 million today, in large part because of these types of trade issues . . ."

• ". . . The United States consistently bows to the wishes of the WTO, only proving the words of Texas Rep. Ron Paul to be prophetic: ‘The most important reason why we should get [out of the WTO] is to maintain our nation's sovereignty. We should never deliver to any international governing body the authority to dictate what our laws should be.'"

• ". . . Both the WTO and NAFTA, through the use of trade tribunals, now claim the sovereign authority to overrule decisions of American courts and make awards to foreign businesses for violations of trade agreements."

In New Jersey, an anti-FTAA measure, A.C.R. 210, reportedly was introduced in the state Assembly in October of 2004 with a couple of co-sponsors. It passed the Assembly's Labor Committee and reportedly is awaiting action by the speaker of the Assembly to schedule it for a floor vote.

The Business Roundtable, an elite lobbying group for transnational interests, recently released a white paper calling 2005 the most important year since 1963 for passing more trade deals.

The Roundtable is a staunch supporter of NAFTA, the 1994 GATT-WTO agreement and is fighting hard for passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the FTAA this year.

Amid claims by the Roundtable that established and proposed trade deals promise "open markets" for U.S. exports and more "economic growth," the state of Indiana and its neighbor, Michigan, have been among the hardest hit in terms of job losses. Indeed, much of the nation is reeling from massive industrial and high-tech job losses.

Opponents of these transnational trade deals insist that NAFTA, GATT-WTO, CAFTA and FTAA proposals not only ensure that America's best jobs and its tax base will be among the nation's top exports, but also that national borders would be diluted or erased under the FTAA, which would economically and politically merge the Western Hemisphere into a European Union-style super state with a resulting unregulated migration of people from one nation to another in this "age of terrorism," creating a very perilous situation.
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By Christopher Bollyn

Unreported in the corporate controlled press, the Israeli boycott of the recent international Middle East peace summit in London illustrates
why the Israel-Palestine conflict remains stuck in a quagmire after 57 years and who is ultimately responsible.

Although Israel stayed away, its hard-line government dictated the conference agenda and terms of discussion. Foreign ministers and high-level delegations from 23 nations and six international organizations convened in
London on March 1 to try and advance the "peace process" between the Palestinians and Israelis. The attendees included the newly elected Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the European Union's (EU) foreign policy chief Javier Solana and World Bank president James D. Wolfensohn.
Representatives from the UN, EU, the United States and Russia — the "Quartet" members who drafted the current peace plan known as the "road map" — were also present for the one-day conference at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Center.

Despite the presence of so many high-level delegations, the international gathering, which Blair had originally hoped would be, or lead to, a peace conference, was unable to advance the peace process even one step because the chief antagonist of the conflict in Palestine, the Israeli government, simply boycotted the conference.

This, however, went unreported in the U.S. mainstream media.

"Israel refused to send anyone to the gathering," Rick Kelly reported on the web site wsws.org. "The Likud-Labour coalition government of Ariel Sharon opposed Blair's planned conference when he first floated it after Bush's reelection last November. As far as Israel was concerned, any discussion on its own obligations or on ‘final status' issues related to the road map, the future of East Jerusalem, the borders of any Palestinian state, or the right of return for refugees was illegitimate.

"With the Bush administration's full support, Sharon insisted that the only subject open for discussion was how to best whip the Palestinian Authority (PA) into line," Kelly wrote. "The British prime minister quickly altered the character of the assembly to meet these demands. It was not even possible to call the gathering a conference, only a meeting."

Sharon has always avoided international Middle East conferences, out of fear of being forced to withdraw from the occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza. Rather than comply with international law and UN resolutions calling for Israeli withdrawal, Sharon continues to obstruct peace efforts by demanding that the PA disarm groups resisting Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.

Rather than report that the Sharon government had boycotted the international conference, the controlled press in the United States shifted its focus to the question of Syria's military presence in Lebanon and U.S. demands for a complete Syrian withdrawal.

The Palestinians had protested, saying the conference would do nothing to press Israel to meet its obligations or fulfill existing commitments to ease the occupation or end the expansion of settlements.

"The London non-event on Palestine was a superb exercise in obfuscation," The Dawn wrote. "Boycotted by Israel, the meeting did not even make a passing reference to the real issue — the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories."

Palestinian personal income has fallen by 40 percent in the past few years and nearly half the Palestinians live "below the poverty line." More than 600,000 Palestinians in the occupied territories "cannot even afford the basic necessities for subsistence," according to a recent World Bank report titled "Palestinian Economic Crisis."

It should be noted that the changes, demanded by the Israeli government, to the conference's final declaration were made before the foreign ministers and delegates had even convened on March 1.

The final declaration was drawn up in advance in close consultation with the Sharon government. Sharon's closest adviser, Dov Weisglass, reportedly met twice with aides to Blair in the two weeks prior to the meeting and forced several changes to the prepared text.

Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper reported that Weisglass had visited London the week before the conference and asked that the Palestinian commitment to security be strengthened in the document.

The original draft had stated that Palestinian reform should be met by "reciprocal action by Israel in relation to its own commitments." Sharon, however, objected to this and had the statement changed so that the conference participants merely "urged and expected" Israeli action.

"Dutifully, Mr. Blair supported Mr. Sharon's Gaza disengagement plan, but neither he nor Miss Rice regretted Israel's boycott of the conference," The Dawn reported.

"Instead, they laid emphasis on reforms and for the Palestinian Authority to act against those responsible for the recent Tel Aviv bombing. The real issues — the right of return for Palestinian refugees, halting settlement activity, dismantling settlements already built, condemning the Israeli massacre in Jenin, the blowing up of Palestinian houses, and giving a date for the withdrawal of Israeli troops—were not even discussed," it wrote.

When the conference opened, the drastic changes to the agenda demanded by Israel had reduced Blair's original peace conference to a mere "meeting." It is not "a peace conference," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said, "nor will it deal with the final status issues in the road map but we believe it is a vital practical step towards restarting the road map process."

Consequently, none of the real underlying issues of the conflict in Palestine were discussed. As demanded by Israel, Palestinian President Abbas was issued a list of demands for political, security, and economic reform, designed to demonstrate the PA's readiness to suppress resistance to the Israeli occupation.

"That the Israeli government could dictate the terms of an international meeting that it boycotted speaks volumes as to the real nature of the relationship between London, Tel Aviv, and Washington," reporter Kelly noted.
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Believe it or not - private companies are keeping detailed files on you which the federal government has access to and - even worse - there is currently nothing you can do about it.

The recent disclosure that criminals stole personal data on 145,000 Americans highlighted once again the dangers facing all us in this era of Big brother technology. The stolen data was in one of the hundreds of databases of ChoicePoint, a company that AFP has confirmed possesses more than 15 billion files containing personal details on every living American. Many files can trace tack family connections for generations. ChoicePoint also holds databases on the populations of many European nations and on Latin American counties that include Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Costa Rica and Colombia.

According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office, computer criminals hacked into a ChoicePoint database in October 2004 but disclosure of the crime was withheld from the public so as not to impede investigations.

By January this year, it became imperative for ChoicePoint to warn 145,000 people in 50 states that their identities could be stolen. The decision to go public followed the discovery that, before the end of 2004, 750 people had their bank accounts, social security numbers and identities seriously compromised. In Florida, 10,000 consumers received notification that they were victims of the security intrusion.

Politicians in Florida were angry that ChoicePoint possessed so much information on ordinary citizens and that the company's computers could be so easily accessed by organized crime.

Ironically, those same politicians omitted the fact that, between 2001 and 2002, the state of Florida made $27 million by selling driver and vehicle records to ChoicePoint and one of its competitors.

ChoicePoint's other connection to Florida is equally controversial and relates to tis role in the 2000 presidential election when it was hired by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to deal with a potential "scrub list" of 173,000 names to be knocked off the Florida registry.

At the start of 2000 ChoicePoint handed Harris a list of 8,000 "ex-felons" to be excised from the voter list. It later turned out that none of those on the choice Point list was guilty of either felonies or misdemeanors. ChoicePoint admitted the error, blamed it on the state of Texas from where it said it had received the list and the 8,000 names were returned to the electoral registry.

As revealed in AFP's Part 1 investigation of ChoicePoint, published in the Feb. 28 issue, it is a company worth at least $4.1 billion because it holds more than 15 billion files on U.S. citizens and registered aliens, as well as billions of other files on the citizens of other countries.

While it owes much of its success to its corporate strategy of gigantism, its most important benefactor has been the federal government, which helped propel it to the front of the "data product/mass screening" industry by allowing it and its competitors to become a shadow intelligence community. In that role, ChoicePoint supplied, and continues to supply, federal agencies with information. It also assists the FBI and other intelligence agencies, including the NSA and CIA, in counter terrorism and foreign intelligence investigations.

Since 1997, ChoicePoint has expanded its electronic, information-gathering and storage capabilities by purchasing companies with a diverse range of hi-tech skills. When one looks at the expertise provided by some of its corporate acquisitions, one could easily see how ChoicePoint built massive databases and created a wide range of information services. The companies bought by ChoicePoint include the following:

Bti Employee Screening Services, Inc., and employee pre-screening service; National Data Retrieval, Inc., a provider of public records information; Identico Systems, LLC., a customer identity verification company; Bridger Systems, Ind., a U.S.A. Patriot Act compliance company; Application Profiles, Inc., a background check company; Tyler-Mc Lennon, Inc., a background screening company; Washington Document Services, Inc., a court retrieval service; DBT Online, Inc., a public record services provider; L&S Report Services, Inc., a provider of police records; CDB Infotek, Inc., a seller of public records; Pinkerton's, Inc., a preemployment screening company; Total eData corp., an email database company; Insurity Solutions, Inc., an insurance rating company, and RRS Police Records-Management, Inc., a source for police reports and related services.

Those companies were among more than 40 acquired by ChoicePoint. The strategy was simple: acquire the skills and databases of major competitors to create a unique, exclusive data retrieval service.

The company growth was such that between 1997 and 2000 it had a unique relationship with agencies of the federal government and, at the same time, it expanded its operations overseas.

An example of its success was a Department of Transport funding requisition for $3.5 million to pay for access to ChoicPoint's online services during the period June 20, 2002 to Sept. 30, 2002.

But it was the Department of Justice (DOD) that proved to be ChoicePoint's best benefactor, paying large sums for short-term access to ChoicePoint databases. On Sept. 25, 2001, a DOJ Procurement division order for "supplies and services" allocated $11 million to pay ChoicePoint for the fiscal year 2001-2002.

There were several things made clear by DOJ documents concerning ChoicePoint made public under the Freedom of Information Act.

First, the DOJ had clearly entered into a major arrangement with a private company without any political oversight or public debate about the character of that company and how it acquired its information on American citizens. It was also clear the DOJ, as this AFP investigation will later show, and its departments and agencies, got unfettered access to the types of information the federal government was restricted by law from holding on American citizens.

In order to circumvent the law, the DOJ bought the information from the private sector so that it could not be accused of permitting its staff to actively seek out such data.

DOJ staff could conduct searches related to the following categories in a person's life: Financial status, education, employment, felony check, misdemeanor check, motor vehicle record, workers compensation history, military record, state or civil litigation, SSN verification, professional credentials.

Most of the documents obtained by AFP related to activities for the year 2000 and 2001. However, the sheer scope and volume of the information possessed in ChoicPoint databases in 2000 and 2001 makes if difficult to imagine just how far more reaching its resources and data screening methods are now today and how much more information it possesses n every aspect of life in the United states and abroad.
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the World Trade Organization (WTO), which the United States joined in 1994, has been disastrous for American sovereignty. A tax bill passed last year provides a vivid example of just how blatantly congress is surrendering our sovereignty to quasi-governmental bodies like the WTO.

For years, high-tax Europe has objected to how we tax American companies on their overseas earnings. The EU took its dispute to the WTO grievance board, which voted in favor of the Europeans. The WTO ruling was clear: Congress must change American law to comply with European rules.

Make no mistake about it: WTO ministers tell Congress to change American laws, and Congress complies. In fact, congressional leaders obediently scrambled to make sure the corporate tax bill passed before a WTO deadline. Thousands and thousands of bills languish in committees, yet a bill ordered by the WTO was pushed to the front of the line.

Americans should expect to see more of the laws we live under being dictated by international bodies. Later this year, all European Union countries will unify their food supplement laws to conform with rules established by a United Nations commission. This commission, called Codex Alimentarius, calls for strict control of dietary supplements.

Under the Codex rules, Europeans will need a doctor's prescription to obtain even basic vitamins.

Thanks to the WTO, Americans may find their Supplements similarly restricted in an attempt to harmonize the regulatory playing field between the U.S. and Europe. After all, this is the new reality in the WTO era: no nation may enjoy and "unfair" trade or regulatory environment.

This affront to our national sovereignty was of course predictable when we joined the WTO. A congressional Research Service report was quite clear about the consequences of our membership: "As a member of the WTO, the United states does commit to act in accordance with the rules of the multi-lateral body. It is legally obligated to insure that national laws do not conflict with WTO rules."

Our membership in the WTO is unconstitutional which is to say illegal. The constitution grants Congress, and Congress alone, the authority to regulate trade. Congress cannot cede that authority to the WTO or any other international body, nor can the president legally sign any treaty that purports to do so. Then Congress in essence transfers its authority over trade matters to the WTO, it acts illegally.

Fortunately, Congress has an opportunity this year to withdraw our membership in the WTO. When the United States first joined the organization in 1994, a rushed lame-duck Congress inserted a 5-year review clause to garner some last-minute votes. This clause allows members of congress to bring a resolution every 5 years calling for a vote on our continued membership.

I plan to join other House colleagues this year in demanding withdrawal from the WTO.

Our sovereignty is a precious national asset and the American people are tired of watching Congress sell out one constitutional principle after another.

Ron Paul, a medical doctor, is a Republican member of the U.S. Congress who represents the 14th district of Texas. Often called "Dr. No" because he bucks his party establishment, refusing to support policies contrary to traditional constitutional principles. Paul was the Libertarian presidential candidate in 1984. Call his office toll free at 1-888-322-1414 or visit his website at www.ronpaul.org
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Imagine a horror movie - crawling with a cast of characters, mad scientists, greedy powerful influence peddlers, corrupt politicians and a seemingly endless trail of bodies p that keeps getting scarier and scarier with each new terrifying revelation. But his is not grade B Hollywood fiction; it's the sad, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction tale of the painkiller Vioxx and its Cox-2 inhibiting ilk.

After years of cover-ups, more than 10,000 victims debilitated by heart attacks and strokes and 60,000 deaths, Merck finally pulled the plug on its $30 billion dollar moneymaking drug.

But it didn't end there.

Even though Vioxx has reportedly killed as many Americans as died in the Vietnam War, an FDA advisory panel has voted 17-15 to allow Vioxx to return to the market with full FDA safety approval.

Dr. Alastair J.J. Wood, associate dean of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and chair of the Panel, voted against Vioxx. "It's more like saying a little more than half the pilots at Hartsfield think a plane is safe to take off, and a little less than half say it's not. Is that a vote of safety?"

And it's not just Vioxx. All COXIBS (Cox-2 inhibitor drugs, Vioxx, Bextra, etc.) cause dangerous side effects that result in sudden death, heart attacks and strokes.

The National cancer Institute said patients in a clinical trial taking the highest doses of Celebrex, 800 milligrams, had a 3.4 times greater risk of cardiovascular problems compared with a placebo. For patients in the trial taking 400 milligrams of Celebrex, the risk was 2.5 times greater.

Doctors were being encouraged to give as much as double the maximum dose on Celebrex's FDA-approved label. Nevertheless, the FDA advisory panel voted 31-1 to recommend keeping Celebrex on the market.

We don't know that any of the Cox-2 inhibitors are perfectly safe," said Dr. Eric Topol, chairman of cardiovascular medicine and chief academic officer of the Cleveland Clinic.

"These (Cox-2 drugs) are weapons of mass destruction. Keeping them on the market defies common sense," said Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, M.S. director of Public Citizen's Health research Group.

In testimony before the FDA's Arthritis and drug Safety Advisory Committees Concerning the Dangers of Cox-2 Drugs, Wolfe revealed Pfizer, the world's biggest drug maker, with makes Celebrex and Bextra, withheld the results of a placebo-controlled study that found increased cardiovascular risks for Celebrex.

Wolfe concluded, "Celebrex and Bextra are making an important contribution to the estimated 100,000 deaths and 2.1 million serious injuries a year from adverse drug reactions."

The Cox-2 enzyme creates protective fatty acids in your body. Blocking this enzyme with Cox-2 inhibitor drugs deprives you of these protective fatty acids. This increases your risk of suffering fatal heart attacks and other cardiovascular "events."

Vioxx and other NSAIDs work like Frankenstein's monsters by unnaturally manipulating prostaglandins - with side effects that can lead to death.

Omega-3 fats are precursors to natural mediators of inflammation called protaglandins that lead to health and life. There are numerous nutrients, etc., that relieve pain by fixing the problem rather than masking the symptoms and making everything worse, but the big pharmaceuticals and their lapdog bureaucrats ridicule and persecute anyone and anything that stands in the way of their profits.

The FDA admits every prescription drug is unsafe. Every drug on the market has unintended side effects. Cox-2 Drugs also damage bones, inhibit bone healing and may contribute to osteoporosis.

The market for analgesics is over $10 billion per year.

Aggressive drug pushers spend about $3.8 billion each year in direct-to-consumer advertising. More than $1.5 billion was spent in 2003 to hype Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra on television, in print ads and in pitches to doctors. Their whoppers reaped $5.3 billion in sales.
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Dr. James Adams, a chemical engineering professor at Arizona State University, who has an autistic Child has applied for approval for a clinical evaluation of a form of chelation as a treatment for autism. This is the first step in the process of establishing the validity of this therapy which has already benefitted thousands of autistic children. The next step will require the cooperation of the FDA in the form of approval of a clinic trial.

The study would utilize DMSA (dimercaptosuccinic acid) as the chelating agent. DMSA, a derivative of succinic acid, is effective in removing mercury with positive benefits to autistic children. Unlike EDTA, a chelator approved for the removal of heavy metals. DMSA is not blocked by the blood-brain barrier. Therefore it is able to remove mercury from that important organ.

Meanwhile Dr. Boyd Haley, chairman of the Department of Chemistry of the University of Kentucky is developing new chelating agents which, hopefully, will be even better at crossing the blood-brain barrier than DMSA.

If Adams and Haley are successful, the treatment of autism will experience a quantum leap out of the psychiatric morass in which it has languished since it was first discovered as an exclusively American disease in 1941.

Presently autism is a label describing a communication/behavioral disorder of unknown cause. It has been the province of psychiatry for many years. However a review of the literature by Dr. Sally Bernard published in 2001 reported that the diagnostic criteria for autism were the same as those for mercury toxicity. Biochemical research on the effects of mercury on neurons, enzymes and neurotransmitters by Haley and others during the last 15 years has established mechanisms which explain how autism occurs.

It is hoped that the authorities at Arizona State University and the FDA will move promptly to approve a clinic trial. This research proposal is based on sound scientific reasoning. The need for a rational treatment of autism is overwhelming.

There is no doubt that mercury is a developmental toxicant. CDC literature admits to this fact. Furthermore the CED, EPA, and FDA have all established safe limits for the ingestion of mercury between 0.1 and 0.4 micrograms per kilogram per day. In addition the EPA recently reported over 300,000 infants are at risk for neurological damage every year because mothers in the United States have high levels of mercury in their bodies.

It has been found that children with autism have high levels of mercury in their bodies and only limited ability to excrete it. The severity of the disease correlates with mercury levels. Furthermore the victims generally improve when the mercury is removed.

DMSA CHELATION

Many physicians have successfully treated thousands of autistic children with the relatively benign substance, DMSA. But it is not part of the "standard of care" which physicians use as a bulwark against the depredations of the legal profession.

This treatment is an important advancement in the state of the art. Those who were involved in its development deserve the gratitude of us all. It promises to remove burdens from families with autistic children, take a load off the elementary school system and curtail, to some extent, national costs of medical care.

It seems clear that we are all contaminated with varying amounts of the dangerously neurotoxic substance, mercury. It enters our bodies with the air we breathe and the fish we eat. Mercury containing fillings in our teeth and mercury preservatives in vaccines add to the load.

It is extremely likely that mercury could be a hidden cause of many diseases. It strikes at weak links in the central nervous system, for example the nerves that control the heart. High concentrations of mercury have been found in the hearts of athletes who have died suddenly and unexpectedly of heart disease.

Mercury also affects the brain. It has been in the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients. It caused this writer's teeth to loosen and an abnormally large number of cavities to appear.

Considering these facts, the existence of an approved therapy for removal of mercury cold pave the way for advancements in medicine, which would have, as an objective, the cure of diseases rather than the treatment of symptoms with drugs.
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The laundry list of terrorist warnings handed to the Bush administration prior to 9/11 makes the president and others look like "bumbling idiots or a bunch of conniving criminals" responsible for the mass murders at the WTC Twin Towers, the Pentagon, Pennsylvania and in Afghanistan and Iraq.

These are the harsh words of Timothy McNiven, an outspoken critic of the President's handling of 9-11 and a 29-year U.S. Defense Department operative still under contract with the government.

He says not only did the Bush administration purposely ignore Al Qaeda in the months preceding the 9/11 attacks, but the situation is even more disturbing, considering his military unit way back n 1976 devised a mock terrorist attack of the twin towers exactly like what occurred on 9/11.

McNiven, who first went public in an affidavit included in a 9/11-related federal conspiracy (RICO) lawsuit filed against Bush and others in 2004, claims his unit was ordered to create the "perfect terrorist plan" using commercial airliners as weapons and the twin towers as their target.

The publicized version of the study commissioned by Congress, was to identify security lapses and submit corrective measures to lawmakers. However, McNiven claims the real purpose of the study was to brainstorm how to pull off the perfect terrorist attack using the exact same 9/11 scenario.

The study, commissioned to C-Battery 2/81st Field Artillery, U.S. Army, stationed in Strasbourg, Germany in 1976, specifically devised the scenario of the twin towers being leveled by Middle Eastern terrorists using commercial airliners and even plastic box cutters to bypass security.

To silence critics, McNiven has successfully passed a credible lie detector test regarding his participation in the study as well as other specific orders given to him by his superiors in case of a real attack on the twin towers.

The head of the 1976 mock terrorist plan was Lt. Michael Teague of Long Island, who McNiven says was given specific orders by higher-ups in the military to use the twin towers as the terrorist target.

McNiven said he has been unable to contact Teague, but was interested in his opinion now that "the 9/11 attacks happened the way we planned them in 1976."

"I remember Lt. Teague changed the scenario of the supposed study from a 100 story building to the twin towers," recalled McNiven, emphasizing that Teague was acting on specific orders from unknown superiors.

"He then said he thought it was very strange to be asked to devise a plan to blow up your own home town. But as I watched the twin towers really collapse on the morning of September 11, I realized I was watching the very same thing we devised in 1976."

Since that ominous realization, McNiven has devoted his life to alerting the American public about the similarities between 9/11 and the 1976 study, without much success, his story basically being ignored by politicians and the mainstream media.

"Why am I doing this? Why have I spent every waking hour trying to bring this story to the American people?" asked McNiven. He claims he still is following a strange direct military order given to him more than 25 years ago.

"During the course of the terrorist plan we were devising, I made the statement to Lt. Teague that if the WTC was ever attacked like we planned, I'd go public. I was then physically assaulted and told never to reveal anything we were doing regarding the twin towers."

However, about a week later, a strange turn of events occurred. For no apparent reason, McNiven claims, his superiors completely changed their minds.

"I was given the direct order that if the twin towers were ever attacked the way we discussed in the 1976 study, I was to do everything in my power to bring the similarities to the attention of the American people.
"I have no idea why they changed their minds, but I was then emphatically told that this order was never to be rescinded - never - because those who would rescind it, would be the very same people who turned against the American people."

Besides taking a lie detector to verify his story, McNiven has made public a detailed list of about 40 names of those individuals who took part in the mock terrorist plan, including Col. Robert Morrison, Maj. Joe Dipiero, Sgt. Middleton, Sgt. Arroyo and many others.

"There were also people from the Defense Department and the CIA who were monitoring the study, but I wasn't able to get their names," he added.

Some of McNiven's most recent assignments with the Defense Department include work on the Northwest Drug Task Force and various other drug smuggling and weapons trafficking cases.
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By Christopher Bollyn

Popular Mechanics (PM) magazine has thrown down the gauntlet and challenged honest scientist and researchers with its recent article "Debunking 9-11 Lies." The article's support of the official version of events and the author's undisclosed connection with the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) raise serious concerns about the government's misuse of the media to disseminate propaganda.

The March issue of PM, with its cover story on 9-11, is a rather clumsy attempt to discredit the large and growing body of credible evidence that the official version of 9-11 is a hoax.

The fact, revealed by American Free Press that Benjamin Chertoff, the senior researcher for PM and its article about 9-11 is a "cousin" of the new head of DHS, Michael Chertoff, raises a host of questions about government control of the "free press' for propaganda purposes.

PM chose not disclose the pertinent fact that the "senior researcher" of its "debunking" article of "9-11 myths" is related to the new secretary of DHS. However, because 9-11 was the event that brought about the creation of the massive security department, this relationship should have been brought to the reader's attention.

Because AFP exposed the relationship, when PM's 25-year-old senior researcher Benjamin Chertoff was interviewed by Art Bell on Clear Channel's Coast to Coast AM radio network on March 5, the subject could not be avoided.

Bell and Benjamin Chertoff, however, tried to minimize the significance of the Chertoff connection. Benjamin Chertoff continued to deny the relationship, saying he still does not know how he is related to Michael Chertoff, although his mother, the former Judith Chertoff, told AFP, without hesitation, that he is "a cousin."

Benjamin Chertoff said that because of the AFP discovery, he had contacted his father, Larry Chertoff, to discuss his relationship to Michael Chertoff. He told Bell, however, and his listening audience, that he still didn't know haw he is related to Secretary Chertoff and suggested that the relationship is that of a "distant cousin" and goes back to family ties from Byelorussia.

Bell added that the relationship might be something like a "14 millionth cousin."

Bell's employer, Clear Channel communications, the parent company of the Coast to Coast AM radio network, is based in San Antonio, Texas, and is headed by I. Lowry Mays and his sons, generous supporters of President George W. Bush and the Republican Party.

The day before Bell interviewed Benjamin Chertoff's relationship with the secretary of DHS, and other key questions pertaining to 9-11, would be discussed on the program. Bell read portions of the open letter on the air but failed to ask Benjamin chertoff the key questions during the four-hour interview. Nor did Bell mention American Free Press by name.

Because the PM article supports the FEMA-sponsored study that secondary fires ignited by burning jet fuel cause the collapse of the twin towers, AFP asked how fires judged by firefighters to be manageable could have caused the complete collapse of the towers and the 47-story WTC7.

AFP also asked if Benjamin Chertoff could explain why the high-rise Windsor Building in Madrid, Spain, survived a 24-hour inferno with extreme temperatures, without collapsing on Feb.12?

Bell did not raise and these questions and repeatedly referred to 9-11 researchers as "wing nuts."

The first caller asked if Benjamin Chertoff would explain the AFP discovery of pools of "molten steel" found in the basement level of the twin towers and at the base of WTC7 - weeks after the collapse. Bell promised to raise this question when Chertoff came on the air, but did not.

Regarding the unexplained collapse of Larry Silverstein's WTC7, Benjamin Chertoff's article presents as "fact" a "working hypothesis" put forward by Shyam Sunder, the Indian-raised acting deputy director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Information from the yet unpublished NIST study of 9-11 was provided to PM for the article.

"With the benefit of more time and resources, NIST researchers now support the working hypothesis that WTC7 was far more compromised by falling debris that the FEMA report indicated," Benjamin Chertoff wrote.

"The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7" Sunder told PM. "On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom - approximately 10 stories - about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out."

AFP asked Dr. Gene Corley, executive director of the FEMA-sponsored engineering study of the WTC done after the collapse, if there was any evidence that 25 percent of the south face of WTC 7 was "scooped out."

"No," Corley said. There are "no photographs or engineering evidence to confirm Sunder's claim about extensive damage to WTC 7, Corley said. Although a firefighter had reported some damage to the south face, it was "not reliable information" for the engineering study, Corley said. "So we did not use it."

Independent 9-11 researchers, like Eric Hufschmid and Phil Jayhan, have pointed out to AFP that PM is ignoring the fact that these "kinks" appeared several seconds into the collapse of WTC 7.

The PM article contains a number of intentional distortions, which seem designed to discredit independent 9-11 research as a whole. For example, when it discusses the NORAD interceptors that failed to intercept the errant aircraft of 9-11, PM wrote:

"In the decade before 9-11, NORAD intercepted only one civilian plane over North America."

PM's ource, NORAD spokesman Maj. Douglas Martin, however, told Associated Press in August 2002 that NORAD had "67 scrambles" from September 2000 to June 2001.

The PM article suggests that credible 9-11 researchers say, "Flight 93 was shot down by a mysterious white jet." None of the researchers says this. The question is who was flying the white jet seen by several eyewitnesses before and after an explosion was heard in a reclaimed mine near Shanksville, Penn. The crater that resulted is said to have been caused by the crash of Flight 93. However, no parts of an airplane were seen in or around the crater.

Intentional distortions such as these occur throughout the PM article and present a challenge to honest scientists and 9-11 researchers. In several cases research done by this writer was cited without credit to the author or American Free Press.

END NOTE: CHRISTOPHER Bollyn will host a public discussion of Painful Questions by Eric Hufschmid and present newly discovered evidence of the eents of 9-11 - and the cover-up - in the Rasmussen Room of Schaumburg Township District Library, near Chicago, Illinois, on March 26, 2005 from 2 to 5 p.m. Independent researcher Phil Jayhan and Dr. Gene Corley, leader of the FEMA WTC report, have been invited to participate.
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Congress expresses outrage over vote pandering scheme

President Bush is hearing a bipartisan howl from congress for toadying for Hispanic support by leaving the Mexican border easily vulnerable to terrorists and illegal aliens. They expressed outrage that while Congress authorized hiring 2,000 more border Patrol agents, his budget calls for adding only 210. That, in addition to proposing fro illegal aliens here, is a cynical move to woo Hispanic support at the expense of national security, they charge.

"There isn't a divide, and should not be a divide, on the question of terrorism and the potential for an attack on the American people," said Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Tex.), ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee's panel on immigration and border control.

New agents are particularly important because of the increasing flow of "OTM" - "other than Mexican" - illegal aliens crossing the southern border, Rep. Jackson-Lee said, and called for the administration to change its position.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), one of the most outspoken advocates of border control, said Bush's toadying to Hispanics can have a political price tag.

Democrats "can attack him, because the one thing the president had to offer during that last election was he was perceived as bing stronger when it came to national security, national defense, than was kerry," Tancredo said, referring to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the Democratic Nominee.

Numerous polls show the American public heavily favors strong border controls and opposes amnesty for illegal aliens.
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A recently released report by the Pentagon reveals, and confirms, what American Free Press, and populist, America-first publications have been reporting for nearly three decades.

American POWs and MIAs from World War II, the Korean War and the Cold War were sent to the USSR, where they were imprisoned. Called "The Gulag Study," it concludes: "Americans including American servicemen, were imprisoned in the former Soviet Union."

According to the study's executive summary, "The Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies even transferred some of these Americans from satellite states such as the German Democratic Republic [more commonly known as East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall] to the Soviet Union, where they were detained."

The summary continues, "However, despite our extensive efforts, we have not yet acquired definitive, verifiable transfers or the ultimate fates of those whose lives were directly affected by them."

In other words, and more bluntly, the Pentagon has not been able to determine just how many hundreds of U.S. servicemen were shipped to Soviet gulags and if they died there.

The great tragedy here, felt by this reporter who has covered extensively this issue for nearly 30 years, is that "The Gulag Study" really reveals nothing; it just confirms that Americans were held in Soviet concentration camps.

For all of those years, the U.S. government has had in its possession information that Americans were being held but did nothing to save them.

The National Alliance of Families, which is still fighting to get the U.S. government to determine the fate of these Americans, which might also include American servicemen from the Vietnam War, is furious.

Upon learning of "The Gulag Study" the alliance released this comment: "Volumes of documentation unearthed over the last 50 years by family members and researchers convinced us long ago," (but) "official Pentagon policy dismissed not only our conclusions, but the conclusions of their own
investigators."

The Alliance points to a 1993 Pentagon report, "The Transfer of U.S. Korean War POWs to the Soviet Union," as one example.

There are many reports, too numerous to recount here. As an example, the late Air Force Col. O'Wighton Delk Simpson (ret.) revealed to this reporter in the 1970s that American POWs by the hundreds were transferred from Chinese to Soviet control during the Korean War.

While serving as an Air Force attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Hong Kong, Simpson learned from a Russian, who had escaped communist enslavement in Manchuria, that he had personally witnessed hundreds of American servicemen from the Korean War being transferred by the Chinese to the Soviets at the Chinese-Russian border crossing point at Manchoulai.

The man, whom Simpson found very credible, said that the Americans were lined up on a platform by the railroad tracks while the undercarriages of the engine and cars were changed for the train to be able to travel on the different gauge tracks of the Soviet rail system.

Simpson had filed a high priority report to his superiors, but that was the last he heard of it, although it later became known that the report reached the hands of then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.

Simpson's original report was finally retrieved from the dark hole where it had been tossed through the efforts of a member of the National Security Council (NSC) during the administration of President Ronald Reagan.

Just several years ago, Simpson found himself seated across the table at dinner in Florida with a former member of the NSC staff, who had been assigned to it during the Eisenhower administration. The man revealed that he had discussed the matter with Eisenhower himself, and it was concluded that nothing short of a war could retrieve the men from their captivity. As a result, nothing was ever done.

Another credible report surfaced two decades later, when this writer learned that in a congressional study of Chinese drug trafficking a witness revealed that he had witnessed American POWs from Korea working as laborers in a tractor factory in China.

The man, who had been a bodyguard for Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung, was credible, but the congressional committee wasn't interested in POWs and MIAs, so the revelation was ignored.

It remained ignored until the late 1980s when it was brought to the attention of Reagan's NSC. A staff member claimed that the man could not be located. With the help of a contact within the office of the president of Taiwan, where the man was reported to have settled, the man was eventually located.

He confirmed what he had reported to the committee, that he had seen the American POWs in the factory. These findings were turned over to Reagan's NSC staff by this writer and ultimately were ignored, just like every other report the government has received from non-governmental researchers.

In addition to Korea, there have been numerous reports of American POWs held by the Germans during World War II. They had supposedly been "liberated" by Soviet forces and were sent off into the gulags with German POWs, never to be heard from again.

This is the same fate of dozens of American servicemen who disappeared behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

Over the years articles about these missing Americans, including reports that they had been seen in captivity, were reported by the now defunct Spotlight and American Free Press. However, just like the reports of POW sightings, these newspaper accounts were ignored, too.

This reporter has even written articles about Americans being held by the Marxists just after World War I. They were captured by Bolsheviks while fighting against them in a secret U.S. military expedition to Archangel in support of efforts to keep the communists from taking power.

It is too much, perhaps, to expect that any of these Americans held under severe circumstances could have survived brutal captivity following World War II and probably Korea. But at the very least they are owed the return
of their remains to America, where their own government has written them off.

Norman Case, executive secretary of the Pentagon's Defense Prisoner of War and Missing Personnel Office's Joint Commission Support Directorate, had this to say about the study's findings:

"I'm not comfortable with any hard and fast numbers. Our job is to try to find these Americans or their remains and bring them home."

Case continued: "We've been in business for 12 or 13 years. . . . We've kept these reports on the burner of unsolved issues."

However, critics cynically note: Obviously, it was the back burner.
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He sat silent for years, keeping a secret Americans were dying to hear. Not able to talk, there were days he cried uncontrollably, days he pounded his fists on the table like a madman, wondering if he could have prevented so many people from dying the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. For years, he tossed and turned, cursing himself for letting Mohammad Atta and Abdul-azziz Alomari, two of the alleged 19 hijackers, slip through his fingers at 5:40 a.m. on 9-11.

There's an old saying that "a moment can change a lifetime." And the moment that changed         Atta             Alomari     U.S. Airways ticket agent Michael Tuohey's life was when he says he was face to face with the two purported hijackers, one being Atta, the man the federal government claims was the ringleader of the entire operation.

But there are major discrepancies to the story that have yet to be explained by federal authorities and are still perplexing to Tuohey. The following relates the unanswered questions that form the basis of the government's explanation of what happened on that day.

Tuohey's brief encounter took place at the U.S. Airways ticket and baggage check-in at the airport in Portland, Maine. Working the ticket counter as he did most every morning for 37 years, he remembered two clean-shaven Arab-looking businessmen with tickets in hand approaching his workstation, both looking elegant and wearing suits and ties.

He remembers they were running late for their flight as they presented prepaid, one-way tickets from Portland to Boston and then onto Los Angeles on Flight 11. Looking back, he recalls nothing unusual about the alleged hijackers, saying both appeared calm, and the younger Alomari acting happy-go-lucky.

"Not like you'd expect from someone knowing he is going to die," recalls Tuohey, now retired and living near Portland. "There are certain things in my job you are trained to look for that red-flags danger. One is adult males with a one-way ticket paying in cash.

"If they had paid in cash, we probably would have run them through security, checked their bags, and they might have never gotten on the flight," he said. "I can't tell you how many nights I have seen their faces in my dreams and how many nights I second-guessed myself for not stopping them."

Asked why he waited so long to tell his story, which came to public attention on national television as well as in an article in The Portland Press-Herald he added: "No one really ever asked. However, looking back, I probably wasn't ready to face the public since I had asked the FBI to keep my name out of the papers. Thank God they kept their word."

Behind the emotions and the human interest Tuohey's story evokes, there is an ulterior motive behind those now questioning him about his encounter with Atta and Alomari. Those now asking questions are hoping his eyewitness accounts and recollections help clear up a controversy brewing over the only airport surveillance photo ever released of Atta and Alomari.

The government claims the surveillance photo released in the Portland airport conclusively shows them walking through the security clearance gate about 100 yards away from where Tuohey checked the pair's tickets and bags. Critics, however, contend that the government altered the photos since they were not a clear match of other independent mug shots released of Atta and Alomari.

These same critics claim Atta and Alomari never boarded the 19-seat airplane. This, they claim, is just another small piece of the larger 9-11 government conspiracy puzzle.

And now since Tuohey was one of the last to see the alleged hijackers before the controversial surveillance photos were taken, his words are being dissected and interpreted, perhaps misinterpreted, with the obvious goal of trying to establish if Atta and Alomari actually boarded Flight 11.

"I know about the conspiracy theories and about the surveillance camera shots released, but all I can tell you is what I saw. I'll tell you what I told the FBI agents when I was interviewed on 9-11," said Tuohey. "I believe the two men in front of me on 9-11 were Atta and Alomari. I have no reason to believe otherwise. They looked like the same two guys that were in the mug shots shown to me by the FBI agents the same morning."

As for details, Tuohey is very precise about the appearance, demeanor and attitudes of the alleged hijackers even after four years when memories fade and prior visions become cloudy.

"You don't forget something like this," he added. "I remember looking into Atta's eyes like it was yesterday. He spoke good English, and the other one never spoke. Looking back, they appeared to have rehearsed the proper way to act and the proper things to say. Atta appeared to understand everything I said.

"When I asked how many bags they were checking in, Atta simply said ‘two.' He then asked for a one-stop boarding pass, which means he wouldn't be again checked at Logan if I gave it to him," he said.

"It was customary back then to give one-stop boarding passes on connector flights, but I never did it, because I figured I worked for U.S. Airways and not for American, which was their connector flight," Tuohey added. "When I didn't give it to him, he became noticeably agitated. But he stopped short of making a scene and hurriedly left in order to catch his flight."

One of the major inconsistencies between Tuohey's description of their appearance and the surveillance photo released was that the two men in the photo were dressed casually in shirts without suits and ties, and there was no white shawl over Alomari's head.

"They left my workstation in suits and ties. I didn't see them take their coats off," recalls Tuohey. "Atta left carrying a small duffel bag and the other had a very small bag. I guess they could have placed the jackets, ties and shawl in Atta's bag. I just don't know."

Asked if a surveillance camera was posted by his workstation, he said he was told by the FBI on 9-11 that the video camera had been out of order for several weeks and no other pictures were available.

"I had worked there a long time and never knew the cameras were broken until I was told by the agents," said Tuohey, adding they were installed by airport officials and not U.S. Airways.

To shed light on Tuohey's vivid recollections, an independent 9-11 researcher, who prefers to remain anonymous due to prior government harassment, added these important details after numerous interviews and countless hours of researching the two hijackers' movements in and around Portland prior to 9-11:

"Atta and Alomari were conveniently captured on video cameras at three different locations in Portland the night before 9-11. Yet none of the stills taken from those locations, Jetport Gas, the ATM machine and Wal-Mart, were clear enough, as posted on the FBI web site, to confirm that they were the same two men whose FBI mug shots were displayed prominently on the major networks for weeks along with the other 17 hijackers.

"The Portland Press Herald article that came out back in October of 2001, the first publication to print the now famous Atta and Alomari surveillance photo, was also too fuzzy to make the confirmation that they were the same two men.

"When I interviewed ‘Jerry,' the attendant at Jetport Gas in early 2002 who saw the hijackers, he told me that the ‘second one could not have been the Alomari the FBI showed on TV because he was too tall.' He also told me that ‘they spoke such poor English that I had to give them directions to Wal-Mart three times.' This clearly contradicts Tuohey's statements that Atta spoke perfect English.

"The eyewitness quoted in the original Portland Press Herald article, who put Atta and Alomari on the 19-seater to Logan, was Jane Eisenberg of Cape Elizabeth, Maine. I interviewed Ms. Eisenberg around the same time as Jerry, and she told me when asked if she could confirm if the two men she saw on the 19-seater were the same two men the FBI was displaying all over the major networks, ‘No, I cannot.'

"And remember, it was the FBI who told Tuohey the camera he worked under every day hadn't worked for some time. They knew that, but a guy who worked directly under it every day didn't know?

"Also, a friend of Tuohey's, who took that flight to Boston, was quoted as saying, he recalled seeing the two leaving the plane in Boston in suit coats and ties.

"Like Tuohey mentioned, Alomari also wore a shawl of some type that is missing in the famous photo. Although he assumed they must have placed these articles of clothing in their carry-on bags, his friend on the plane didn't mention them dressing up again on the flight.

It should be mentioned that the short distance between Tuohey's workstation and the security check-in, the size of Alomari's carry-on piece and the fact that they were running late for the flight, make it very suspicious that they would first take off their jackets and ties before boarding.
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Some say America is "the new Babylon."However, a powerful new book documents - in cold, hard facts - the shocking assertion that Zionist power in the U.S. has reached such a zenith that America can rightly be called - as the book's title suggests - The New Jerusalem.

The author of this hard-hitting, no-holds-barred expose is Michael Collins Piper, the longtime AFP correspondent, whose earlier study of the origins of the Iraq war. The High Priests of War, and his book on the JFK assassination conspiracy, Final Judgement, are considered by many to be standard works of the topics.

Now, in The New Jerusalem, Piper has assembled - between two covers - solid data and information on Zionist power in America. Not a rehash of "old new" about historical intrigue or oft-told tales you've read time and again, this book is unlike anything in print anywhere in the United States (or the world) today.

Not only is there included a detailed overview of some 200 powerful Zionist fortunes in America today, but there is also a special examination of Zionist names in the famed Forbes 400 list ( the first ever such detailed accounting yet published).

The New Jerusalem also assembles, in easy-to-read format, hundreds of facts - not opinions or speculation - compiled from the pages of hard-to-find books and other materials from exclusively pro-Zionist sources.

200 Powerful Families You've Never Heard of...

The New Jerusalem is the first book ever to assemble the names and factual details relating to some 200 wealthy and powerful Zionist families in America, most of whom you've never heard of. They are the "inner circle" of the Zionist elite in America. This isn't the so-called "Committee of 300" that some authors talk about. This isn't a list of members of the Trilateral Commission or the Bilderberg group or the Council on Foreign Relations. Instead, this is a list of millionaire and billionaire families who constitute a power elite all their own in America today. (And don't bother checking: You won't find the list on the Internet.)

Here's our one historic Union Station in Washington, D.C. where hundreds of thousands of U.S. tourists arrive each year to take in the sights and sounds of our nations's capital...

This was Union Station on June 3, 1998 during a week-long 50th anniversary celebration of the birth of a foreign nation - Israel...

Outside...our Stars & Strips, then the Star of David (the centerpiece of the Israeli state flag) shooting off fireworks and then - prominently hung as large as Old Glory - the Israeli state flag!

Inside the grand hall, greeting new arrivals...more Israeli flages boldly and audaciously displayed.

Confronted with all of these symbols of Israel - and Zionist power in America - someone might reasonably pause to ask...Is America the New Jerusalem?

"What country is this? Whose Country is this?

Michael Collins Piper's new book, THE NEW JERUSALEM, addresses that provocative question.

The most thorough, straight-forward, fact-filled, comprehensive overview of what is by far the most controversial topic today - a sensitive subject many Americans whisper about, but which people worldwide otherwise openly discuss: Zionist Power in America.

Get a copy for a contribution of only $25...available exclusively from AFP...Call 1-888-699-6397 toll free and charge to Visa or MasterCard.
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Most Americans are vaguely aware that Congress has run up huge deficits in recent years, but the numbers involved are so large that it's hard to grasp what our government's indebtedness really means to us as individuals. The total federal debt is quickly approaching $8 trillion, courtesy of an administration that borrows roughly $1 billion every day to pay its bills.

Ultimately, the U.S. government will either repay its debts or default on them. We need only look at the Argentine debt crisis of 2001 fr and example of what happens when a government fails to make even minimum payments to creditors. The Argentine economy virtually collapsed, and the value of her money tumbled. This is something most Americans cannot fathom, especially a political class that mistakenly thinks it can't happen here.

Repaying trillions of dollars will not be easy, however. Interest payments alone already consume nearly 10 percent of the annual federal budget, and Congress shows no sign of abating its spending appetite anytime soon. In fact, present spending rates will produce single-year deficits of $1 trillion in coming years unless the public finally gets fed up and demands an end to it.

When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has three choices: It can raise taxes, print money or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans.

Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers. The federal government still consumes more of the private economy than it ever has except during World War II, despite the administration's anti-tax rhetoric.

Deficits mean more monetary inflation. Deficit spending necessitates the creation of more fiat dollars by the Federal Reserve to keep the government afloat. Congress knows it can always fall back on the Fed money machine, which of course encourages more deficit spending. It's a vicious cycle that ultimately makes every dollar you have worth less.

Deficits mean more borrowing overseas, which threatens U.S. sovereignty. Never before has the American economy depended so much on the actions of foreign governments and central banks. China and other foreign creditors could in essence wage economic war against us simply by dumping their huge holdings of U.S. dollars, driving the value of those dollars sharply downward and severely damaging our economy. Every dollar the federal government borrows makes us less secure as a nation, by making America beholden to interests outside our borders.

The economic situation today is reminiscent of the 1970s. The economic malaise of that era resulted from the profligacy of the 1960s, when Congress wildly expanded the welfare state and fought an expensive war in southeast Asia. Large federal deficits led to stagflation, a combination of high price inflation, high interest rates, high unemployment, and stagnant economic growth.

I fear that today's economic fundamentals are worse than the 1970s: federal deficits are higher, the supply of fiat dollars is much greater, and personal savings rates are much lower. If the federal government won't stop spending, borrowing, printing and taxing, we may find ourselves in far worse shape that 30 years ago. (See more at www.ronpaul.org)
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