November 5, 2007
November 12, 2007
November 19, 2007
November 26, 2007
There's no doubt but that the American public has had a bellyful of senseless , no-win, aggressive war. At last count, American troops are in 135 countries around the world—over 100,000 of them. There are thousands of mercenaries but the actual figure is classified.
Why? We are told that our people are there to bring "democracy" to the unenlightened. Although our country is in serious need of some of this wonderful political elixir, seeing that the administration's policies have never been submitted to the people or even to Congress, the charade goes on. It's a shame, but nevertheless a fact that "democracy" is distinguished by its absence in our present environment of pressure groups, lobbies and charlatans.
It is common knowledge that only about 30% of the public thinks the Bush-Cheney administration and Congress are doing their jobs.
Of course, we all know that they are doing a great job—for themselves, that is. Not for the people, the taxpayers, the cannon-fodder but for the military-industrial-banker complex.
Wars and rumors of wars are extremely profitable for the real rulers of this country and the media that support them.
Against all considerations of national interest and without a shred of constitutional authority, the Bush administration attacked Iraq, a highly civilized, independent, stable country with 6,000 years of proud history.
It is reported that over 800,000 innocent men, women and children have been killed, and at least one million wounded, an untold number of homes have been demolished, roads blown up, buildings destroyed. At least two million refugees have fled to neighboring countries.
Genocidal maniacs like Vice President Cheney and commentator Bill O'Reilly love the killing and devastation but normal Americans are appalled.
Figures on American casualties are hard to come by. The government admits to almost 4,000 deaths in the Iraqi disaster and there are at least ten times that number officially wounded. This does not count the thousands of servicemen who have suffered psychological damage after living in a hell of unending killing and mayhem for months and often being required to return to the carnage after a short stateside leave. These psychic wounds will stay with the victims for life.
Nor does it include the number of private mercenaries killed and wounded, which could be thousands. But our president and vice president and their Israeli and oil company advisors happily chortle, "Mission accomplished!" They have possession of and are now operating oil wells that produce some of the finest petroleum to be found anywhere, and we have cleared, the way for Israel to continue its expansion toward its goal of hegemony over the entire Mideast.
Then as if that was not blot enough on America's escutcheon, we stood by while Saddam Hussein was hanged—no doubt by assassins recruited by the CIA and paid for by the taxpayers. Never has there been so much obvious corruption in American public life. Now, we reap the whirlwind. Iraq is a swirling nest of anarchy and violence.
Now, American politicians are vying with one another to stop the violence they themselves have created by their indifference, even as the government constructs a $1 billion enclave inside Iraq that is to be used indefinitely by American and Israeli exploiters as a safe area they can occupy while stealing the guts out of the country. Favored profiteers who are on the inside track will make many millions of dollars by selling Iraqi oil and anything else that is not securely nailed down, including priceless historic artifacts dating to the earliest times of human civilization.
The operation has been so successful that now the crooks are prodding America to attack Iran. The media reeks with the war cries of cowardly "neo-con" Israel-firsters who literally demand war against Iran. Are there any good reasons that America should attack Iran?
No, not one, and you may be sure that the war mongers will not let even our worthless Congress debate the issue. But there are many reasons why, if the Bush administration succumbs to the shrill and bloody cries of the Israel-firsters, that it will be the worst mistake ever made by this country in its entire history.
True, if American bombs can kill enough Iranians, that country can be neutralized and Israel will establish control over the entire theater and those who presently live there will become Jewish serfs—like the Palestinians. "Mission accomplished."
This is the plan and all Americans with a shred of humanity must oppose it as strongly as we can before the war is started—unconstitutionally, illegally, criminally—by the Bush-Cheney administration.
The one and only answer is for America to return to its roots and once again adopt neutrality as our guiding light.
This was America's policy ever since the Founding Fathers and remained so until Woodrow Wilson. Since then, the wars fought have brought only culture distortion, death, destruction and debt to the people—although vast profits to the criminals who contrived them. With constant war, U.S. survival is impossible.
Willis A. Carto, the founder of LIBERTY LOBBY and its national weekly newspaper, The Spotlight, has devoted his entire career to the populist cause. The author of Populism vs. Plutocracy, Carto is responsible for the publication of hundreds of classic volumes considered "must" reading by populists and nationalists world wide. He is presently publisher of the historical journal, THE BARNES REVIEW. To get a sample copy inside the U.S., send $3 to TBR, P.O. Box 15877, Washington, D.C. 20003.
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
|Top|
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)
introduced House Resolution 333 - a scathing Articles of Impeachment
relating to the crimes of Vice President Richard B. Cheney - announcing
that he did so "in defense of the rights of the American
people to have a government that is honest and peaceful."
Kucinich further accused Cheney of "conduct of office destructive
to the founding purpose of our nation" when introducing the
measure last April.
However, the resolution has gone nowhere and does not appear to have any chance of doing so. There have been no hearings on the issue and only 21 Democrats support it. The Judiciary Committee failed to return calls to explain the delay. Kucinich, former mayor of Cleveland, accused the vice president of subverting the national security interests of the United States by setting the stage for the loss of more than 3,827 service members in Iraq and 442 in Afghanistan, the deaths of 650,000 Iraqi citizens since the U.S. invasion, $500 billion in war costs, the loss of military readiness back home due to over extension, the lose of U.S. credibility in world affairs, and the decades of likely blowback created by the invasions.
Kucinich further charged that "despite all the evidence to the contrary" and the fact that Cheney was "fully informed that no credible evidence existed of a working relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," the vice president systematically deceived the American people and Congress.
"It became obvious to me," said the congressman, "that this vice president, who was a driving force for taking the United States into a war against Iraq under false pretenses, is once again rattling the sabers of war against Iran with the same intent to drive America into another war, again based on false pretenses."
Meanwhile, Cheney continues to issue threats to Iran. On October 21, he told the Washington Institute for Near East Studies that the United States and other nations will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.
"Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions," Cheney said. "If Iran continues on its current course, the U.S. and other nations are prepared to impose serious consequences. We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."
Those words echo the deceitful rhetoric by Cheney and President Bush regarding Iraq's alleged "weaons of mass destruction" in the run-up to the U.S. attack.
On March 17, 2002, speaking of Iraq, Cheney said "We know they have biological and chemical weapons." Two days later he said, "We know they're pursuing nuclear weapons," and kept repeating the same. On March 24 he told CNN Late Edition, "We know he [Saddam] has got chemical and biological, and we know he's working on nuclear."
On "Meet the Press" on May 19, he said "We know Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," and on August 26, "There is no doubt he's amassing them against our friends, against our allies and against us." This was repeated on September 26. All were lies.
This vice president is a driving force in trying to create the circumstances to justify the United States' attack against Iran. And he not only deceived the people of the United States, and the Congress of the United States, he deceived the American media.
Kucinich cited the Articles of Impeachment that were introduced: Article I, that Richard Cheney had purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of armed forces.
Kucinich said that preceding the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the vice president had been fully informed that no legitimate evidence existed of weapons of mass destruction, saying "Despite all evidence to the contrary, the vice president actively and systematically sought to deceive the citizens and Congress about an alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, he said, "the vice president actively and systematically sought to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Preceding the invasion of Iraq, the vice president was fully informed that no credible evidence existed of a working relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, a fact articulated in several official documents," he said.
Kucinich further charged that "Cheney openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran, absent any real threat to the United States, and has done so with the United States's proven capability to carry out such threats, thus undermining the national security interests.
"Despite no evidence that Iran has the intention or the capability of attacking the United States, and despite the turmoil created by the United States's invasion of Iraq, the vice president has openly threatened aggression against Iran."
The articles of Impeachment concluded by pointing out that the deception that enabled the United States invasion altered the rules of diplomacy so that the vice president's recent belligerent actions toward Iran are destabilizing and counterproductive to the national security.
The congressman ended his remarks to the House by saying, "The justifications used to lead our nation to war have unquestionably been disproved. Brave soldiers and innocent civilians have lost their lives in a war the United States should never have initiated. The weight of the lies used to lead us into war has grown heavier with each death. Now is the time for Congress to examine the actions that led us into this war has grown heavier with each death. Now is the time for Congress to examine the actions that led us into this war, just as we must work to bring the troops home. This resolution is a very serious matter, and I will urge the Committee on Judiciary to investigate and carefully consider this resolution."
When asked why his impeachment is directed toward Cheney rather
Than bush, Kucinich replied that it is important to start with
the vice president because "If we were to start with the
president and pursue the articles of impeachment, Mr. Cheney would
then become president."
|Top|
How do we know if we win this war? Didn't our president already declare "Mission Accomplished" nearly six years ago? Then why are we in Iraq? Does it take six years for the greatest military power on earth to defeat a handful of insurgents? With the Iraqi people supposedly on our side, shouldn't they have been able to easily help us root out those nasty insurgents? In fact, shouldn't they by able to root out a few rogues by themselves? Maybe there is not as much Iraqi popular support for us being there as we're led to believe. Should we be involved in a war that has little support in America (70% want our troops back home) or in Iraq?
The fact is, like the other undeclared, illegal wars we've been in (Korea, Vietnam, and various other U.N. skirmishes), we don't have a clue what constitutes victory. We wouldn't know we won if we somehow did. When we enter a war for the right reasons, victory is a clear objective. The bad guys surrender and you conquer them.
When Iran, under Ayatollah Khomeini, took 50 Americans hostage for 444 days in the 1970s, we had every right to go to war with the intent of annexing Iran as the 51 state of the union or making a parking lot out of them. That would've set a clear reason and justification for war, a clear victory, and would have provided great incentive to keep any other nation form pestering America.
How long does it take us to show Iraq how to have a free society? Who showed us how to do it? Did somebody have to stay and occupy America until we learned how to be free? Either giving them a free society is not what's going on there, or we are wrong to try to push our form of society on somebody else who cannot adapt to it. Imagine trying to enforce freedom at gunpoint. "Be free like us or we'll kill you!" How can we make them free when WE'VE taken away their religious liberty (Islam is now the official state religion, not so under Saddam) and their right to bear arms (which they also had under the oppressive Saddam)?
What's the worry about getting a congressional declaration? Is someone afraid the public might no have supported having their sons and daughters killed to enforce a UN resolution against Saddam? It's easy to be pro-war when you aren't the one making the sacrifice.
It was Rep. Ron Paul who authored the declaration of war for Iraq to make it a lawful war, with congressional and citizen support. He got almost no support for it. That shows the Congress and president (and other GOP candidates) have no problem deciding to kill your children to accomplish their desires. Yet some of you will support the same people who would just as soon kill your own sons to meet their goals.
An odd thing about this war is that, under the guise of fighting terrorism, American citizens have lost many of their Constitutional protections. We are now subjected to unconstitutional surveillance as if we are guilty before proven innocent. Our phones are tapped our emails read and our banking records monitored. All without a warrant, despite the fact that it;s easy for them to obtain a warrant when one is remotely necessary.
If anyone (even you or I) is declared an "enemy combatant" (which can be arbitrary declared by the president) you lose your right to habeas corpus, leaning the charges, a speedy jury trial, evidence, appeal, conviction, representation and the presumption of innocence. You can be arrested without cause or charges given and imprisoned for an indeterminate amount of time. Those are the tactics of the Soviet gulag or Red China. How comfortable will you feel with these powers in the hands of President Hillary? Why in the world should we willingly give up our freedoms so those nasty terrorist don't take them from us? Why don't all you war-on-Iraq supporters give me all your money before some criminal steals it? It's the same logic.
You may feel strongly enough that we need to just "kill them Ayrab Islamofascists," that you're glad we're doing it even without a Constitutional declaration. Well, if our side can skirt the Constitution to get our will done, we have no moral ground to find fault with the liberals for doing the same thing. We have no justification to complain about rogue judges making law from the bench, or finding rights to privacy that allow abortion, if we advocate skirting the Constitution ourselves.
Those of you who favor war with Iraq without a declaration,
are equally guilty of abortion on demand. You allow the principle
to be violated. If you support the current war on Iraq, you should
be quiet about abortion and sodomy. You've forfeited your right
to complain about the liberals by adopting their ungodly, immoral
practices yourself.
|Top|
Mass. Rep. thinks
your tax dollars should be spent protecting the rights of men
who like to wear women's clothes to work.Would you hire a man who wears a dress to work in your store or business? Some left-wing wackos in Congress are pushing legislation to force you to do so. There would be no exceptions: the man in a dress could be a sales clerk in the toy department right next to Santa Claus.
The House Education and Labor committee is considering legislation that would ban job discrimination on the basis of "sexual orientation." Originally, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, included gender identity. But when Democrats concluded that it couldn't pass with that included, the transgender provision was dropped.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a self-avowed homosexual and co-author of the bill, added the transgender provision, arguing that discrimination against men in dresses is a serious problem. But, on being told that it would kill the bill, he agreed to drop the provision so the rest of the bill could survive, saying the transgender provision could be added later as separate legislation.
Despite the political reality, homosexual, lesbian and transgender
groups were outraged, and lobbied House Democrats to oppose the
bill unless transvestites were included. "No ENDA without
genda," they cried. "We stood together and said we would
rather have no ENDA than a bill that left some of us behind,"
the National Center for Transgender Equality told its members.
So Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Frank's co-sponsor of the original
bill, said she would add the transgender provision as an amendment
When the House takes up the measure.
|Top|
There's no doubt but that the American pubic has had a bellyful of senseless, no-win, aggressive war. At last count, American troops are in 135 countries around the world - over 100,000 of them. There are thousands of mercenaries but the actual figure is classified.
Why we are told that our people are there to bring "democracy" to the unenlightened.
Although our country is in serious need of some of this wonderful political elixir, seeing that the administration's policies have never been submitted to the people or even to Congress, the charade goes on. It's a shame, but nevertheless a fact that "democracy" is distinguished by its absence in our present environment of pressure groups, lobbies and charlatans.
It is common knowledge that only about 30% of the public thinks the Bush-Cheney administration and Congress are doing their jobs.
Of course, we all know that they are doing a great job - for themselves, that is. Not for the people, the taxpayers, the cannon-fodder but for the military-industrial-banker complex.
Wars and rumors of wars are extremely profitable for the real rulers of this country and the media that support them.
Against all considerations of national interest and without a shred of constitutional authority, the Bush administration attacked Iraq, a highly civilized, independent, stable country with 6,000 years of proud history. It is reported that over 800,000 innocent men, women and children have been killed, and at least one million wounded, an untold number of homes have been demolished, roads blown up, buildings destroyed. At least two million refugees have fled to neighboring countries.
Genocidal maniacs like Vice President Cheney and commentator Bill O'Beilly love the love the killing and devastation but normal Americans are appalled.
Figures on American casualties are hard to come by. The government admits to almost 4,000 deaths in the Iraqi disaster and there are at least ten times that number officially wounded. This does not count the thousands of servicemen who have suffered psychological damage after living in a hell of unending killing and mayhem for months and often being required to return to the carnage after a short stateside leave. These psychic wounds will stay with the victims for life.
Nor does it include the number of private mercenaries killed and wounded, which could be thousands.
But our president and vice president and their Israeli and oil company advisors happily chortle, "Mission accomplished!" They have possession of and are now operating oil wells that produce some of the finest petroleum to be found anywhere, and we have cleared, the way for Israel to continue its expansion toward its goal of hegemony over the entire Mideast.
Than as if that was not blot enough on America's escutcheon, we stood by while Saddam Hussein was hanged - no doubt by assassins recruited by the CIA and paid for by taxpayers. Never has there been so much obvious corruption in American public life.
Now, we reap the whirlwind. Iraq is a swirling nest of anarchy and violence. Now, American politicians are vying with one another to stop the violence they themselves have created by their indifference, even as the government constructs a $1 billion enclave inside Iraq that is to be used indefinitely by American and Israeli exploiters as a safe area they can occupy while stealing the guts out of the country. Favored profiteers who are on the inside track will make many millions of dollars by selling Iraqi oil and anything else that is not securely nailed down, including priceless historic artifacts dating to the earliest times of human civilization.
The operation has been so successful that now the crooks are prodding America to attack Iran. The media reeks with the war cries of cowardly "neo-con" Israel-firsters who literally demand war against Iran.
Are there any good reasons that America should attack Iran?
No, not one, and you may be sure that the war mongers will not let even our worthless Congress debate the issue.
But there are many reasons why, if the Bush administration succumbs to the shrill and bloody cries of the Israel-firsters, that it will be the worst mistake ever made by this country in its entire history.
True, if American bombs can kill enough Iranians, that country can be neutralized and Israel will establish control over the entire theater and those who presently live there will become Jewish serfs - like the Palestinians. "Mission accomplished.
This is the plan and all Americans with a shred of humanity must oppose it as strongly as we can before the war is started - unconstitutionally, illegally, criminally - by the Bush administration.
The one and only answer is for America to return to its roots and once again adopt neutrality as our guiding light. This was America's policy ever since the Founding Fathers and remained so until Woodrow Wilson. Since then, the wars fought have brought only culture distortion, death, destruction and debt to the people - although vast profits to the criminals who contrived them.
With constant war, U.S. survival is impossible.
|Top|
This news article is copyrighted and cannot be reproduced here. However, It can be read on the Internet at:
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/071015_iraq.htm
|Top|
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
However—in open and deviantly proud defiance of American tradition—the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith and other private Jewish pressure groups loyal to a foreign nation—Israel—have achieved special influence in the public arena and are thus able to go beyond the purview of the First Amendment in time and again attempting to suppress (often successfully) the rights of Americans outlined in the First Amendment.
Although the ADL has a strong hold over government officials, it is not a government agency, and, as such, its activities are therefore not restricted by the First Amendment, which prohibits government interference with your freedom.
In fact, the ADL uses the First Amendment as a shield, saying its activities (working to suppress the freedoms of those with whom they disagree) are protected by the amendment.
For years, using threats, blackmail, economic boycott and sheer force, coupled with the manipulation of law enforcement, the ADL and other un-American elements have trampled not only the First Amendment, but also other Bill of Rights provisions, as part of the ADL's demand that its own constituents be the final arbiters of what is "acceptable" public discussion.
Ironically, in Orange County, California, of all places, the ADL's insidious influence has been felt on more than one occasion.
In the heyday of the Goldwater-Reagan era of Republican politics, Orange County was considered the undisputed number one bastion of traditional American conservatism, old-fashioned nationalism and patriotism and devotion to the U.S. Constitution. Critics scoffed that Orange County was a virtual "Conservative Paradise."
Times have changed. At least thrice during last ten years Orange County has been a focal point for ADL power politics, with this intelligence and propaganda conduit for Israel's clandestine services agency, the Mossad flexing its virtually unchallenged clout, working to suppress freedom of speech on American soil.
The most recent Orange outrage took place on the weekend of Oct. 12-14 at the Irvine Marriott Hotel where the first-ever No More Wars for Israel Conference was scheduled to be held, co-sponsored by the Nationalist Forum and the Crescent and Cross Solidarity Movement, assisted by American Free Press and the Washington, D.C.-based FOUNDATION TO DEFEND THE FIRST AMENDMENT (FDFA); see the insert this week.
Roughly 100 participants from across the country booked into the Marriott and there were indications as many as 100 additional participants would arrive from the local area. Organizers kept the location under wraps until the last minute—and for a good reason: they had learned that numerous Orange County hotels had been contacted and were warned against allowing the conference to be held at any of those venues.
A Marriott representative told Joe Fields—on-site organizer in Orange County—that someone claiming to be with the Irvine Police Department had contacted the hotel, warning that a "hate group" was behind the conference, providing a list of possible "suspects" who might be involved in the conference.
It is not known whether this purported police spokesman was acting on behalf of the police department or whether he was a "dirty cop" inside the police department acting on behalf of the ADL, which has (as we shall see) an ugly history of infiltrating police agencies.
Whatever the truth, during the previous several weeks the ADL had utilized its website to announce an impending "anti-Semitic conference" in Orange County posted at the ADL's so-called Law Enforcement Agency Resource Network (LEARN) link.
For years, through LEARN, the ADL has worked to infiltrate not only federal law enforcement (evidenced by its long-time intertwinement with elements in the FBI) but also at the local level, a point explored in this author's work, The Judas Goats.
Shocking revelations about ADL infiltration of local police agencies in California (and elsewhere) emerged in 1993 when it was discovered police officers in California had been providing classified law enforcement files to the ADL.
This came to public attention after—ironically—both the San Francisco Police Department and the Los Angeles Police Department organized raids on ADL offices in their cities to determine if any of their files had been illegally procured by theADL with the illicit cooperation of police officers who—either willingly or having been compromised by the ADL—had provided such material to the foreign pressure group. Obviously, some honest lawmen objected to the ADL's activities and were working to bring the ADL to heel.
The resulting scandal —also described in The Judas Goats—unveiled extensive illegal domestic spying by ADL on law-abiding Americans whose only crime was to raise criticism of U.S. support for Israel—was actually reported in detail in daily newspapers in San Francisco and Los Angeles and even referenced on ABC News, perhaps the first time in history anything negative about the ADL was ever described to a mass audience.
It was also revealed that a San Diego County deputy sheriff, Tim Carroll, had a long-standing relationship with the ADL, doing "favors" for the ADL that, in turn, among other things, treated Carroll to at least one all expenses paid junket to the Middle East.
So ADL infiltration of California law enforcement was both deep and wide-ranging. San Francisco District Attorney, Arlo Smith, was actually preparing criminal charges against the ADL, but pressure from the Jewish community forced him to back off. However, former Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-Calif.) spearheaded a civil lawsuit against the ADL on behalf of several plaintiffs who had been victimized by the ADL and forced the ADL into an out-of-court settlement to the tune of $150,000.
The aforementioned Washington-based Foundation to Defend the First Amendment—which later provided support to the No More Wars for Israel Conference—made available critical funding and research for McCloskey's efforts.
But, as the record demonstrates, the ADL's tentacles inside California law enforcement also clearly extended into Orange County long before the No More Wars for Israel Conference.
On March 22, 1995, a SWAT-team raided the Escondido, California home of Willis Carto, founder of Liberty Lobby, the populist institution that published the weekly Spotlight newspaper. Although Carto's home was in neighboring San Diego County, the raid was actually carried out primarily by the office of the Costa Mesa Police Department in Orange County but was directed—through the Costa Mesa police—by a known police collaborator of the ADL, the aforementioned San Diego deputy sheriff, Tim Carroll.
The raid—based on perjurious statements given to the police—was part of a then-ongoing scheme to destroy Liberty Lobby being orchestrated by one Andrew E. Allen, a wealthy Californian with a history of involvement in intrigues of the CIA and Israel's Mossad in regions as diverse as Afghanistan and Burma.
And despite claims by the ADL and the Costa Mesa Police that the fruits of the raid (which included the seizure of Carto's personal and business files) were certain to result in a criminal prosecution of Carto and Liberty Lobby, no charges were ever brought since no crime had been committed, despite the false claims by the CIA asset and his minions who were scheming to destroy Liberty Lobby.
Unfortunately, the campaign against Liberty Lobby by the ADL and its fellow conspirators continued, resulting in the destruction in 2001 of the populist institution by a corrupt federal judge, S.Martin Teel, known to have been involved in the infamous Inslaw scandal in intrigues linked to Israel's Mossad. (See The New Jerusalem for further details.)
And it should be noted that it was an Orange County judge, Robert Polis, who lent his support to the initial courtroom effort that culminating in the 2001 ruling that destroyed Liberty Lobby.
But this was not the end of the ADL's Orange County outrages. In the summer of 1997 and well into the following year, the ADL engaged in a bitter campaign against an Orange County college board trustee, Steve Frogue, who had invited this author to speak at a forum on the JFK assassination at Saddleback College to discuss the book, Final Judgment, which charges Israel's Mossad played a role in the JFK assassination because of JFK's efforts to prevent Israel from building nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
The controversy made the front page of The Los Angeles Times and was mentioned in newspapers all across the country that shared the ADL's outrage that an author would dare to suggest Israeli complicity in the crime of the century.
After the forum was announced, the ADL orchestrated some 300 phone calls to the college board of trustees, demanding the forum be canceled, which indeed it was.
In short, a heavy-handed effort by a well-organized network purporting to represent the interests of a group said to constitute less than 3% of the population denied the rest of the community (97% of the population) the right to hear opinions contrary to the ADL propaganda line.
Fortunately, the editors of the college newspaper defied the ADL, rejecting its effort to undermine the First Amendment, and invited this author to a round-table forum within the office of the campus newspaper.
The ADL was shocked that college students dared to challenge the ADL's authority to determine what is—and is not—acceptable public discussion.
All of this considered, it's probably no surprise that—this past month—the corrupt activities of the ADL in Orange County came full circle with ADL pressure on the Irvine Marriott hotel to scuttle the No More Wars for Israel Conference.
Although the organizers had signed a contract with Marriot over a month before—in which no deposit (either cash or credit) was stipulated—one day before the conference was scheduled to kick off, the hotel abruptly changed the rules and suddenly told the organizers the conference could not be held unless a $20,000 credit deposit was made. Ironically, the organizers had chosen the Marriott specifically because another hotel had requested such a deposit, while the Marriott had not.
However, without warning—even as conference organizers worked to assemble a deposit—Marriott management and a host of armed security, pushed their way into the room where the conference organizers were assembled and told them there would be no No MoreWars for Israel Conference at the hotel.
The organizers quickly redirected their attention to finding a lecture hall elsewhere, but Mark Glenn of the Crescent and Cross Solidarity Movement, discovered in no short time that every hotel he contacted would have nothing to do with the conference. The pressure on Orange County hotels by the ADL was that wide ranging, that intense.
Fortunately, another location—a nearby church—was obtained and the conference took place. And it was a success at that.
Many would-be participants (from the local area) arrived at the hotel and were told by the Marriot—this was a lie—that "The organizers canceled the conference."
As a result of this fraud, many people left, not knowing the conference was underway just a few minutes away.
This record of ADL pressure politics is a warning to all Americans. But the ADL's attack on the First Amendment is just the beginning. For years theADL has worked to dislodge the Second Amendment protecting the right to keep and bear arms. And in the wake of 9/11, the ADL was a prime mover behind the Patriot Act, a measure running roughshod over numerous Bill of Rights protections in the name of "fighting terrorism" and enforcing "homeland security."
All of this is part of a much bigger plan to diminish American sovereignty to advance the goal of an ancient dream of global domination some call the NWO.
However, it becomes clearer every day that the dream of "world government" is in reality a nonsensical and perverted nightmare desired by no one with common sense.
A journalist specializing in media critique, Michael Collins Piper is the author of Final Judgment, the controversial "underground bestseller" documenting the collaboration of Israeli intelligence in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He is also the author of The High Priests of War, The New Jerusalem, Dirty Secrets and The Judas Goats: The Enemy Within. All are available from AFP. He has lectured on these topics in places as diverse as Malaysia, Japan, Canada, Moscow and Abu Dhabi.
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
|Top|
AS CONGRESS PREPARES TO CONSIDER another catch-all spending bill, a new report shows lawmakers never read such bills or know what's in them.
Under both Republican and Democratic leadership, Congress passed 1,000-page conference reports with only a few hours or even minutes for review.
"These monster spending bills are the scariest things you never read," Rafael DeGennaro, head of ReadtheBill.org, which authored the report, told a Washington press conference October 30.
"No human reads these 1,000-page behemoths before they become the law of the land."
The "Monsters From Congress" report examined 13 case studies of omnibus appropriations bills passed by Congress during 1982-2004. The members had a combined 65 hours before floor debate began to read all 13 conference reports, which contained a total of 12,113 pages.
Under House rules, members are supposed to have a minimum of three calendar days to read any one bill before it is brought up on the floor for debate. But this rule is routinely waived.
Senators had a combined total of 196 hours to read all 13 conference reports. For only one out of the 13 bills did senators have more than 24 hours of reading time before the floor debate began.
The report contains more than 70 quotes from House members and senators who admitted they had not read the bills they were about to vote on. This includes quotes from senior members of the House and Senate appropriations committees.
"No human can read such a monster bill," said DeGennaro. "No human should ever write one again."
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
|Top|
The new wave of sanctions imposed by the State Department and Treasury on Iran's Revolutionary Guard and Defense Ministry are likely to have as little economic impact as the U.S. sanctions already in place. They could, however, represent a last ditch effort by the White House to bring Iran to heel before a "shock and awe" attack is ordered against Iran's nuclear and military facilities.
The reality is that the new sanctions do not have the backing of Russia and China. As for the EU, it has not given its wholehearted support to the latest U.S. move.
Behind closed doors in the corridors of power in Brussels and Strasbourg, diplomats have expressed disapproval and alarm at White House policy on the Middle East. The EU needs Iran if it is to achieve a goal of reducing its dependence on Russian oil and gas. To that end, it has had talks with the Iranians about the viability of a gas pipeline. EU leaders see a pipeline as a necessary move, fearing that in the event of a new Cold War, Russia could turn off the energy taps and use natural resources as a powerful diplomatic tool.
Iran's considerable oil and gas reserves have made it a valuable international trading partner for all but the U.S. Any move by Washington against Iran that could hurt Russia and China economically would be viewed in Moscow and Beijing with concern. Russia's disapproval of the latest sanctions was evident in a comment by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, that President Bush was like a man "running around with a razor blade in his hand."
Nevertheless, Condoleezza Rice and the Treasury have hailed the latest sanctions, and the decision to brand the IRGC—Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps—a terrorist organization, as another powerful step in hurting Iran economically and forcing it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
The Bush administration strategy appears to be predicated on several assertions that may not necessarily hold true. First, it believes that the Iranian leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is already so unpopular at home that any damage to his country's economy will generate protests on the streets and force him out of office. History demonstrates, however, that sanctions rarely have the kind of political impact they are intended to have.
In many instances, unpopular leaders have used sanctions to boost their approval ratings by making those who imposed the sanctions the real enemies of their people.
One of the most glaring examples of the failure of sanctions over five decades is Cuba, that sits just off the U.S. coastline.
There is also the fact these new sanctions lack global backing and cannot therefore be effective. Iran will still have business partners in China and Russia and will be able to exploit the international black market economy.
The irony of the U.S. move is that it has been forced to go it alone with these sanctions even though there is little international dispute about the risks if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, or that it has been meddling in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. It may be that the U.S. has ignored what other countries realize and that is that only a serious international coalition opposed to Iran's role in Iraq and its efforts to go nuclear can have any hope of success, and going it alone is pointless.
The result could that this latest strategy will only serve to embolden Iran's leadership. That could have serious consequences for Iran and global security. In 2008, when it becomes evident to George Bush and Dick Cheney that their Iran policy failed, they may opt for preemptive strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, or encourage Israel to undertake the strikes. As a result, Iran's nuclear ambitions would be set back for five years but the price of oil would go sky high and Iran would retaliate. It would probably unleash Hezbollah to attack Israel and use Shia militias in Iraq to turn on the U.S. military.
In an ensuing tit-for-tat Israel could use the opportunity to invade Lebanon again and in Iraq the US military could find itself in the middle of a widening conflict without the manpower to respond.
As things stand now, this new batch of sanctions targets the Iranian Defense Ministry, the IRGC and its special operations Quds force, as well as three leading Iranian banks, which the U.S. Treasury claims have been funding Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shia militias in Iraq and Hamas in Gaza.
The banks are all state-owned and include Bank Saderat, Bank Mellat and Bank Melli. The aim of the sanctions is to deter international companies from doing business with the banks. Twenty Iranian companies closely aligned to the IRGC have also been identified as targets but they will still be able to conduct business with Russia, China and Arab states.
The U.S. set its sights on the IRGC because it is one of the most powerful parts of the Iranian military apparatus. Numbering around 130,000 personnel, it has 105,000 soldiers organized into one marine brigade, six mechanized divisions and six infantry divisions. It also has its own air force, navy and missile units.
But it is the elite Quds force that has most concerned the U.S. military in Iraq because it has equipped and trained Shia militias and insurgents in the use of improvised explosive devices that have caused untold U.S. casualties.
The Quds force was founded during the Iran-Iraq war and one of its early leaders was the current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It lost approximately one million soldiers during that conflict. It has since become a smaller, elite force designed to train Islamic movements such as Shia militias in Iraq, Hezbollah and Hamas. It even trained Iraqi Kurds to fight Saddam Hussein's army.
It is believed Quds helped Hezbollah develop the tactics that halted the Israeli army's push into Lebanon in 2006. It is unlikely sanctions of the kind now introduced will have any serious impact on the Quds or the IRGC, both of which have powerful allies at all levels of the Iranian government.
While Russia and China remain opposed to these latest U.S. moves and the EU remains lukewarm about U.S. Middle East policy, Dick Cheney and George Bush will probably plot other strategies for dealing with Iran.
Privately, George Bush has made it clear he will not leave office without ensuring Iran has no means of building a nuclear weapon. One has to ask if these latest sanctions represent his penultimate move before he authorizes stealth bombers to attack Iran's nuclear and military facilities.
Former British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, has said that a year ago he would not have envisaged an attack on Iran, given that it would generate a "gargantuan mess." But, now that he has seen what he calls the "horror" of Iraq, he says he can easily conceive of an attack on Iran.
Richard Walker is the nom de plume of a former mainstream news producer who now writes for AFP so he can expose the kinds of subjects that he was forbidden to cover in the controlled press.
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
|Top|
Pennsylvania, because it's a populous
Eastern commonwealth, is said to be a key state for stopping the
real ID act. And longtime activist Aaron Bolinger is calling on
concerned citizens, especially military veterans to Sound the
alarm about this 2005 federal law that wold create the nation's
first national identification and tracking system on individual
Americans.
Converting drivers licenses into a formal national ID could be the most likely means of introducing - for the first time in American history - mandatory Soviet-style national "papers" that would be needed to board a plane, go to a nuclear power plant, enter federal buildings etc. some, including late film maker and constitutional Activist Aaron Russo, also said not having a Real ID could someday prohibit Americans from opening bank accounts.
Pennsylvania's executive branch is working with L-1 Identity Solutions to develop Real ID-compliant driver's licenses before the Legislature has even decided whether the state would participate in the Real ID Act in the first place, Bolinger cautioned during an Oct. 25 national conference call.
Assisted in Pennsylvania by 25-year Navy veteran Jim Compton, Bolinger believes the government's current idea is to "convert driver's licenses into multinational passports.
Bolinger, legislative director of the National Veterans Committee on Constitutional Affairs, told American Free Press Oct. 23 that the growing effort among the states to oppose the Real ID Act - another nefarious recommendation from the national 9/11 Commission - is particularly promising because at least four states have passed laws against Real ID, not just resolutions, which - while useful as a means to call attention to an issue - often lack "teeth" compared to laws.
Maine, New Hampshire, Montana and South Carolina have passed actual laws against real ID.
In Pennsylvania, House bill 1351 is dormant in the Intergovernmental affairs committee. Veterans and others in Pennsylvania need to demand that their legislators "run with the bill," exclaimed Bolinger, in order to get it out of committee and into the full House. The committee is chaired by Rep. W. Curtis Thomas, who appears to be preventing the bill from moving. The bill has been there since May 24.
A classic case of politics making for strange bedfellows, HB 1351 is co-sponsored by two legislators who reportedly do not agree on anything - except the need to stop Real ID. They are conservative Republican Samuel Rohrer and liberal Democrat Babette Josephs. Moreover, Bolinger himself, a conservative minister, has found himself working at times with the anti-Christian American Civil Liberties Union to oppose the Real ID Act.
"It's unconstitutional and an invasion of individual privacy. It will not help fight terrorism at all. It's gathering information under a false pretense," is how retired Lt. Col. Stan Jones described the Real ID concept to AFP. He's national coordinator for Bolinger's group. Notably, veterans across the nation are encouraged to call Jones at 406-570-5080 for guidance and information on this issue.
Bolinger is working to get various vets' groups involved.
"We have a model resolution already drafted, that could be introduced into local American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Vietnam veterans of America chapters," Bolinger noted.
He said during the conference call that citizens everywhere should ask questions when visiting their state driver's license bureaus, such as what's on the strip on the back of the license, if the bureaus keep copies of the license photos they take, and where the data and/or photos are stored. "I'm concerned about the data that would be loaded on that (Real ID) drivers license and who will get access to that data," Bolinger said.
HB 1351 would prevent the federal government from collecting biometric data (fingerprints, iris scans, palm prints, voice data, DNA etc) on Pennsylvania citizens and allow the state attorney general and governor to challenge the Real ID Act in federal court. A reading of the bill by AFP, however, revealed that it needs to be tweaked to omit clauses that say Pennsylvania ma accept the Real ID Act if certain conditions are met by the federal government.
The bill also is intended to ensure the economic privacy of Pennsylvanians.
The real ID Act, initially intended to be implemented in May 2008, has been set back by citizen opposition, skeptical state legislators and other factors, some say its final implementation is years off. However, Bolinger noted that the DHS deadline for the states to announce their Real ID status could come as soon as February 2008.
The DHS, also created under the advisement of the 9/11 Commission, is writing the regulations for the states to adhere to, so they can create Ids that comply with the Real ID Act.
To contact any state senator or representative in Pennsylvania on HB 1351, call 717-787-2372 for the House; or 717-787-7163 for the Senate. Ask for legislators by name through this switchboard.
About 16 states have taken some kind of action against the
Real ID Act. Another group, Legislators Against real ID, led by
Missouri State Rep. Jim Guest, has been rallying several sates
to oppose a national ID system.
|Top|
I spent about 30 years working in commercial agribusiness. My main job was to purchase ingredients, mainly grain, for flour mills and animal feed mills. As a part of my job, I was forced to understand the food supply system, its strengths and weaknesses. Over the years, I became aware of some things that nearly all Americans are completely unaware of. I am going to make a list of statements and then you will see where I'm going.
Only one percent of the U.S. population grows all of the food for all Americans.
Nearly all Americans know essentially nothing about where the food they eat every day comes from. How it gets from the ground to them. And they don't want to know about it. It's cheap, as close as their local store, and of high quality.
The bulk of the food we eat comes from grain. Although they raise a lot of fruits and vegetables in California, Arizona, Florida, Oregon and Washington, those things don't compose the main part of the average diet. Half of what a meat animal is raised on is grain so when you eat meat you are really eating grain. And, of course, we eat grain directly as bread, bagels doughnuts, pasta, etc. Milk comes from cows that eat grain. A lot of grain. And the grain they eat is not produced where the cows are located.
The loin's share of grain produced in the U.S. is done in a concentrated part of the Mideast. The grain is moved to the coasts (where 70% of the population live) by only two railroads.
Nothing is stored for very long in a supermarket. One day grain travels by rail from Kansas to Seattle to a flour mill. The next day the flour mill makes the flour and sends it to a bakery. The next day the bakery makes it into bread (and other baked things) and the next day it is at the store where it is purchased that day. Nobody stores anything. The grain is produced and stored in the Midwest and shipped daily in two railroad pipelines to the rest of America where the people live.
Up until the 1980s there was a system that stored a lot of grain in elevators around the country. At one time, a whole year's harvest of grain was stored that way. But now, nothing is stored. We produce what we consume each year and store practically none of it. There is no contingency plan.
If a drought such as has lingered over other parts of the U.S. were to move over the grain-producing states in the Midwest where few people live, it would seriously damage the food supply, and the apples of Washington, the lettuce of California, the grapefruit of Florida and the peanuts of Georgia won't make up the difference because grain is the staff of life and most of it is grown in the Midwest.
In order for riots to break out, the whole food supply doesn't have to be wiped out - just threatened sufficiently. It takes two or three months to raise grain, et people want to eat at least once a day, usually more than that.
So, basically, we have in place a recipe for a disaster that will dwarf any other localized disasters imaginable. The important thing to note is that there is no solution for this event. There is n contingency plan for this. People living in certain parts of the U.S. will fare better than others, but those who live in big cities, where most of the U.S. population live, are done for.
Anyway, I have no agenda of my own concerning this. I just thought I'd share it with someone who appears to have an idea of what might likely cause this scenario to occur. The only people who know about this are those who are involved in the production and distribution of the food supply and there are very, very few of them number-wise. And most of them haven't put two and two together yet, either.
It's likely too late for the government to do anything to prepare
for such an event , so it probably won't do any good to try to
lobby them for a solution. I guess if they hopped right on it
they could store up enough grain to be ready but they won't. They're
more concerned with urban political issues and helping (or invading)
other countries than they are about preserving the security of
their own food supply. I guess the people who cold make it happen
have bunkers or something they can hide in when the "stuff"
hits the fan.
|Top|
This news article is copyrighted and cannot be reproduced here. However, it can be read on the Internet at:
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/071023_bush.htm
|Top|
The most rabid of the neocon attack dogs surround Rudy Giuliani's Republican presidential campaign, which signals dark days ahead if he makes it to the White House. Concerned Americans watching how events in the Middle East could affect the well-being of the U.S. and entire world will recognize names such as Norman Podhoretz, Daniel Pipes, Steven Emerson and Martin Kramer, who can are among the most dangerous men in history. The power they wield in shaping public opinion and thus in mobilizing public policy in certain directions has all the subtlety of a sledge hammer wrapped in velvet.
They are all influential Jewish intellectuals, Trotskyites and disciples of "total war for Israel's benefit" madness with first-class tickets to virtually every mainstream media outlet. They are all recently appointed top advisors to Giuliani's presidential campaign. Whether these appointments are Giuliani's say of signaling to the elite that he is putty in the hands of the Zionist lobby or whether he has already been picked to become the next president and that these men are in effect a "transition team" who will serve as his advisors once he is elected will probably never be known by anyone outside the realms of heaven or hell.
What is beyond dispute, however, is that these men have been instrumental in propagandizing gullible Americans into supporting the wars in the Middle East since long before 9-11. Giuliani has been beating the drums for continued (and expanded) war in the Middle East. If elected, the close proximity of all these characters in one small space will be as dangerous as a lit match in a storage shed full of TNT. Giuliani as president may prove to be even more dangerous than George Bush.
Anyone doubting the madness that has afflicted the minds of these men should consider just a few items they have left for the world to see.
Normon Podhoretz is longtime editor of Commentary Magazine. It is one of the biggest Judeo-centric publications in America and is joined at the hip with one of the most powerful organized Jewish groups in the world, the American Jewish Committee. A "reformed" Trotskyite, Podhoretz learned the art of shape-shifting from militant Bolshevist Marxism to militant Zionist Marxism from Irving Kristol, considered "the Godfather" of the neo-conservative movement and a die-hard proponent of total war for Israel's benefit. Podhoretz has maintained many overt and covert connections with the Bush administration, both as a recent guest to the White House (where he urged the would-be dictator to bomb Iran) as well as being father-in-law to Elliot Abrams, key architect in providing false intelligence to the American people concerning Iraq's "WMD" program. One of Podhoretz's claims to fame has been the constant shrill barking of the misnomer "Islamo-fascism" that he and his cohorts have used in propagandizing gullible Americans into supporting never-ending war in the Middle east for Israel's gain. A brief but accurate insight into the mind of Podhoretz is easily attained by looking at just a few of his well-known statements.
For example: "Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be understood if they are regarded as self-contained wars in their own right. Instead we have to see them as fronts or theaters that have been opened up in the early stages of a protracted global struggle...."
Speaking of what would take place in the event of America going to war against Iran for Israel's benefit (as he "prayed" would happen), Podhoretz says "There would be a vast increase in the price of oil, with catastrophic consequences for every economy in the world, very much including our own, and the worldwide outcry against the inevitable civilian casualties would make the anti-Americanism of today look like a love-fest.
Daniel Pipes is another well-known who made a name for himself long before 9-11 in trying to propagandize Americans in favor of perpetual war against the Muslim world. One of Pipe's claims to fame has been his repeated characterization of Middle Easterners as backwards, dirty, inherently violent and criminal in nature, uncivilized and untamable, all done in the interest of further propelling Americans into supporting war against the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. His support for Israel has been unequivocal. When the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City took place in 1995, Pipes said it was undoubtedly the work of Muslim terrorists, saying the United States was "under attack" and that Islamic fundamentalists "are targeting us." Four months before 9-11, Pipes said al Qaeda was "planning new attacks on the U.S." facilitated by Iran.
Pipes, along with Emerson and Kramer, are famous for starting
up a network of spies throughout America's colleges entitled "Campus
Watch" The program operates along the same lines as other
subversive Zionist groups such as the ADL and JDL where university
professors are monitored for their "unacceptable" positions
on Israel. Kramer was recently quoted saying "Academic colleagues,
get used to it....You are being watched.... those obscure articles
will be harvested.... Your syllabi will be scrutinized.... Your
web sites will be visited late at night." Pipes and his cohorts
have praised the evisceration of the bill of rights through the
Patriot act and on several occasions have publicly called for
increased power on the part of the government in spying on American
citizens, betraying their affection for totalitarian methods and
policies.
|Top|
Let me simplify . . . and not just
to be rhetorical: A coup has occurred. I woke up the other day
realizing, coming out of sleep, that a coup has occurred. It's
not just a question that a coup lies ahead with the next 9-11.
That's the next coup that completes the first.
The last five years have seen a steady assault on every fundamental of our Constitution . . . what the rest of the world looked at for the last 200 years as a model and experiment to the rest of the world—in checks and balances, limited government, Bill of Rights, individual rights protected from majority infringement by the Congress, an independent judiciary, the possibility of impeachment.
There have been violations of these principles by many presidents before. Most of the specific things that Bush has done in the way of illegal surveillance and other matters were done under my boss Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War: the use of CIA, FBI, NSA against Americans.
All these violations were impeachable had they been found out at the time but in nearly every case the violations were not found out until the president was out of office so we didn't have the exact challenge that we have today.
That was true with the first term of Nixon and certainly of Johnson, Kennedy and others. They were impeachable. They weren't found out in time. But I think it was not their intention, in the crisis situations that they felt justified their actions, to change our form of government.
It is increasingly clear with each new book and each new leak that comes out, that Richard Cheney and his now chief of staff David Addington have had precisely that in mind since at least the early 1970s. Not just since 1992, not since 2001, but they have believed in executive government, single-branch government under an executive president—elected or not—with unrestrained powers. They did not believe in restraint.
When I say this, I'm not saying they are traitors. I don't think they have in mind allegiance to some foreign power or have a desire to help a foreign power. I believe they have in their own minds a love of this country and what they think is best for this country—but what they think is best is directly and consciously at odds with what the Founders of this country and the Framers of the Constitution thought.
They believe we need a different kind of government now, an executive government essentially, rule by decree, which is what we're getting with ‘signing statements.'
Signing statements are talked about as line-item vetoes which is one way of describing them which are unconstitutional in themselves, but in other ways are just saying the president says: ‘I decide what I enforce. I decide what the law is. I legislate.'
It's the same with the military commissions, courts that are under the entire control of the executive branch, essentially of the president—a concentration of legislative, judicial, and executive powers in one branch, which is precisely what the founders meant to avert, and tried to avert and did avert to the best of their ability in the Constitution."
Now I'm appealing to that as a crisis right now not just because it is a break in tradition but because I believe in my heart and from my experience that on this point the Founders had it right. It's not just ‘our way of doing things'— it was a crucial perception on the corruption of power to anybody, including Americans.
On procedures and institutions that might possibly keep that power under control because the alternative was what we have just seen, wars like Vietnam, wars like Iraq, wars like the one coming.
That brings me to the second point. This executive branch, under specifically Bush and Cheney, despite opposition even from most of the rest of the branch, even of the cabinet, clearly intends a war against Iran, which, even by imperialist standards, violates standards in other words which were accepted not only by nearly everyone in the executive branch but most of the leaders in Congress.
The interests of the empire, the need for hegemony, our right to control and our need to control the oil of the Middle East and many other places. That is consensual in our establishment. …
But even by those standards, an attack on Iran is insane. And I say that quietly, I don't mean it to be heard as rhetoric. Of course it's not only aggression and a violation of international law, a supreme international crime, but it is by imperial standards, insane in terms of the consequences.
Does that make it impossible? No, it obviously doesn't; it doesn't even make it unlikely.
That is because two things come together that with the acceptance for various reasons of the Congress—Democrats and Republicans—and the public and the media, we have freed the White House — the president and the vice president—from virtually any restraint by Congress, courts, media, public, whatever.
And on the other hand, the people who have this unrestrained power are crazy. Not entirely, but they have crazy beliefs.
And the question is what then, can we do about this?
We are heading toward an insane operation. It is not certain. But it is likely.… I want to try to be realistic myself here, to encourage us to do what we must do, what is needed to be done with the full recognition of the reality. Nothing is impossible.
What I'm talking about in the way of a police state, in the way of an attack on Iran, is not certain. Nothing is certain, actually. However, I think it is probable, more likely than not, that in the next 15, 16 months of this administration we will see an attack on Iran. Probably. Whatever we do.
And . . . we will not succeed in moving Congress, probably, and Congress probably will not stop the president from doing this. And that's where we're heading. That's a very ugly, ugly prospect.
However, I think it's up to us to work to increase that small, perhaps—anyway not large—possibility and probability to avert this within the next 15 months, aside from the effort that we have to make for the rest of our lives.
Getting back the constitutional government and improving it will take a long time. And I think if we don't get started now, it won't be started under the next administration.
Getting out of Iraq will take a long time. Averting Iran and averting a further coup in the face of a 9-11, another attack, is for right now, it can't be put off. It will take a kind of political and moral courage of which we have seen very little.
We have a really unusual concentration here and in this audience, of people who have in fact changed their lives, changed their position, lost their friends to a large extent, risked and experienced being called terrible names, ‘traitor,' ‘weak on terrorism'—names that politicians will do anything to avoid being called.
How do we get more people in the government and in the public at large to change their lives now in a crisis in a critical way? How do we get Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for example? What kinds of pressures, what kinds of influences can be brought to bear to get Congress to do their jobs? It isn't just doing their jobs. Getting them to obey their oaths of office.
I took an oath many times, an oath of office as a Marine lieutenant, as an official in the Defense Department, as an official in the State Department as a Foreign Service officer. A number of times I took an oath of office which is the same oath of office taken by every member of Congress and every official in the United States and every officer in the armed services.
And that oath is not to a commander in chief, which is not even mentioned. It is not to a Fuehrer. It is not even to superior officers. The oath is precisely to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States.
Now that is an oath I violated every day for years in the Defense Department without realizing it when I kept my mouth shut when I knew the public was being lied into a war as they were lied into Iraq, as they are being lied into war in Iran.
I knew that I had the documents that proved it, and I did not put it out then. I was not obeying my oath, which I eventually came to do.
I've often said that Lt. Ehren Watada—who still faces trial for refusing to obey orders to deploy to Iraq which he correctly perceives to be an unconstitutional and aggressive war—is the single officer in the United States armed services who is taking seriously the matter of upholding his oath.
The president is clearly violating that oath, of course. All the personnel under him who understand what is going on — and there are myriad — are violating their oaths. And that's the standard that I think we should be asking of people.
On the Democratic side, on the political side, I think we should be demanding of our Democratic leaders in the House and Senate—and frankly of the Republicans —that it is not their highest single absolute priority to be reelected or to maintain a Democratic majority so that Pelosi can still be speaker of the House and Reid can be in the Senate, or to increase that majority.
I'm not going to say that for politicians they should ignore that, or that they should do something else entirely, or that they should not worry about that. Of course that will be and should be a major concern of theirs, but they're acting like it's their sole concern. Which is business as usual. "We have a majority, let's not lose it, let's keep it. Let's keep those chairmanships."
Exactly what have those chairmanships done for us to save the Constitution in the last couple of years?
I am shocked by the Republicans today that I read about in The Washington Post who threatened a filibuster if we … get back habeas corpus. The ruling out of habeas corpus with the help of the Democrats did not get us back to George the First it got us back to before King John 700 years ago in terms of counter-revolution.
I think we've got to somehow get home to them in Congress that this is the time for them to uphold the oath, to preserve the Constitution, which is worth struggling for in part because it's only with the power that the Constitution gives Congress responding to the public, only with that can we protect the world from madmen in power in the White House who intend an attack on Iran.
And the current generation of American generals and others who realize that this will be a catastrophe have not shown themselves —they might be people who in their past lives risked their bodies and their lives in Vietnam or elsewhere, like Colin Powell, and would not risk their career or their relations with the president to the slightest degree.
That has to change. And it's the example of people like those up here who somehow brought home to our representatives that they as humans and as citizens have the power to do likewise and find in themselves the courage to protect this country and protect the world. Thank you."
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
|Top|
EVERY DAY, DEMOCRATS in Congress rise up to accuse Vice President Dick Cheney of impeach able war crimes. But when Republicans tried to get a debate going on Articles of Impeachment offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), pictured right, Democrats ran for cover.
When Kucinich asked for floor debate on his impeachment measure, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said they would not take up the impeachment of Mr. Cheney or Mr. Bush. Republicans shocked the House by supporting a debate on impeachment.
"We're going to give them their day in court," said Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.).
In the middle of a vote to table (reject) a vote, Republicans began voting against it. The motion failed, opening the door for a debate. Democrats then countered with a resolution referring the matter to the Judiciary Committee, where it has long languished without action. The referral passed, 218 to194.
The House Republican Conference later sent out an email with a mug shot of Kucinich under the headline: "The New Direction of the New Majority."
It cited the 251-162 vote in favor of a debate, but did not
note that 165 yes votes came from Republicans.
|Top|
San Francisco architect Richard Gage sees the National Institute of Standards and Technology's current position on 9-11 as an absurd "smoke and mirrors" show that further reveals that NIST never inquired about how the World Trade Center's twin towers were destroyed on 9/11/01, and that NIST admits to not having any answers on what actually caused the "global collapse."
NIST's latest position on the towers is spelled out in a recent letter sent by NIST to Gage, former Underwriter's Laboratories scientist Kevin Ryan, 9-11 surviving family members Bill Doyle and Bob McIlvaine, former Brigham Young University physicist Steven Jones, and the group Scholars for 9-11 Truth and Justice. The letter was in response to a request by Gage and the others for corrections to NIST's infamous 10,000-page report on the towers.
NIST denied their requests for changes. The letter states: "We are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse. . . ."
NIST stated that it found "no corroborating evidence to suggest that explosives were used to bring down the buildings." But in the next sentence the letter says: "NIST did not conduct tests for explosive residue and as noted above, such tests would not necessarily have been conclusive."
Gage, a leading member of the growing group Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth, told AFP that NIST, in its response to requests for corrections: "Acknowledges that they don't have a plausible explanation as to how the buildings could have collapsed at virtually free-fall speed, due to only gravitational forces, crushing tons of structural steel that was designed to resist that load."
He added: "Those columns had to have been removed a fraction of a second prior to each floor coming down," which could only be done with explosives in a coordinated demolition, as Gage recently explained in a detailed presentation at New York City's Cooper Union and at nearby Webster Hall.
He added that it's amazing that the towers came down "through the path of greatest resistance without tipping over," and yet NIST spent 10,000 pages in its major report (2005) only covering the events leading up to the collapse.
"NIST stopped its entire 10,000-page analysis at the point of initiation of collapse," exclaimed Gage, who pointed out that NIST did not calculate the weight of the buildings' mass versus the resistance that the dozens of floors below the jet impacts would have provided against a potential collapse.
"And it's a simple calculation," Gage told AFP. Gage pointed out that NIST doesn't even attempt to go beyond the point of collapse initiation because they cannot explain the varied evidence of explosives being used at the WTC, including the lateral ejection of massive steel beams that were blown up to 500 feet away from the towers.
Tremendous force would be needed to do that. And Prof. Jones announced in March 2007 that he found the chemical signature of the incendiary thermate in WTC building materials. Ryan, who was fired from his UL job after raising concerns over serious flaws in NIST's inquiry, has noted in scientific papers and speeches that fireproofed structural steel easily withstands relatively brief jet-fuel fires and neither melts nor collapses in such an environment.
Gage said there are about 100 cases around the world of high-rise steel framed buildings burning much hotter for at least five hours, and indeed up to 18 hours, without collapsing.
Yet the WTC south tower, which was hit by something second, fell first in just 52 minutes. The north tower fell later after burning just 102 minutes. And the south tower was just nicked by the plane.
Gage has been a practicing architect for 20 years and has worked on most types of building construction including numerous fire-proofed steel framed buildings. He became interested in the 9-11 WTC high-rise "collapses" after hearing the startling conclusions of 9-11 researcher David Ray Griffin. (See AFP's insert this week, page B-4, for a new 9-11 video from Griffin.)
Gage told AFP an appeal is being filed regarding the NIST response to the Request for Correction sent to NIST by Gage and other experts.
What became the World Trade Center was initiated in 1960 by a Lower Manhattan association created and chaired by David Rockefeller. The 110-story north and south towers were part of the WTC complex consisting of seven buildings on 16 acres. At 1,368 and 1,362 feet, the north and south towers were the world's tallest buildings for a short time, snatching the title from the Empire State Building.
The other five WTC complex buildings were constructed throughout the 1970s and '80s.WTC 7, being the last in 1985, was, of course, the one that fell into its own footprint in the exact manner of a controlled demolition on 9/11/01, but which was never even hit by a plane that day and only suffered relatively minor fires.
While the cataclysmic nature of the twin towers' destruction and the precise collapse of WTC 7 all point to an organized inside attack on the complex, even more startling is the fact that an intense six-floor fire on the 11th story of the north tower erupted on Feb. 13, 1975 and burned for more than three hours, hot enough to prompt Capt. Harold Kull of NYFD Engine No. 6 to tell The New York Times, "It was like fighting a blowtorch."
The fire, estimated to exceed 700 degrees Celsius, was hot enough to blow out windows on the 11th floor's east side, from which flames were seen shooting out. None of the steel trusses were even replaced; at no time could the entire building have collapsed.
As Gage, Prof. Jones and many others interviewed by AFP have noted, Americans are supposed to believe that the heat from burning jet fuel was hot enough to not only weaken structural steel but bring about a "global collapse" of both towers. As noted, the north tower on 9-11 burned for less than two hours, and the other tower was destroyed after burning for less than an hour. There is no solid evidence that the fires exceeded 500 degrees Fahrenheit for any length of time.
So, hot fires not only have failed to bring down other steel-framed, high-rise buildings; fire specifically failed to bring down the north tower itself in 1975. And WTC designers built the towers to withstand the impact of jet airliners comparable in size to commercial jets used today.
The inclusion of this design characteristic was prompted in part by the events of July 28, 1945, when a B-25 bomber flew into the Empire State Building, igniting a high octane jet-fuel fire that killed 14 and caused considerable physical damage, but it didn't even come close to bringing down the building.
AFP correspondent Mark Anderson can be reached at truthhound2@yahoo.com. Look for additional reports from Mark in upcoming AFP issues on domestic issues of vital import.
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 2000
|Top|
As Turkey's quest to join the EU evaporates, it is gradually turning its back on the West in favor of strategic partnerships with Iran and Syria who have voiced support for a Turkish invasion of Iraq. Such an invasion could come at any time despite U.S. pleas for restraint when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Washington.
He was warned by Bush administration figures that an invasion of Iraq could lead to a wider conflict that would benefit America's enemies in the region. At the same time, his top general, Yasar Buyukanit, told journalists in the Turkish capital, Ankara, that Turkey was a great state and did not need anyone's approval to invade Iraq.
Buyukanit said the U.S. had only been consulted about Turkish plans in order to avoid the possibility of "friendly fire" between U.S. and Turkish soldiers once an invasion began. As far as he was concerned, invasion plans were merely awaiting approval.
Iran has cleverly stoked Turkish anger toward the U.S. by persuading the Turks that America has not done enough to stop Kurdish guerrillas from the PKK—Kurdistan Workers Party—attacking Turkey from mountains bordering northern Iraq and Turkey. Iran shares Turkey's disdain for the PKK, which has also carried out attacks inside Iran.
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has admitted his government has held meetings with the Turks to discuss a bilateral approach to combating the PKK threat.
In a call to the Turkish prime minister, he said Iran fully understood Turkey's concern with the continued threat from inside Iraq. He complained that the United States was playing a double game by covertly supporting Kurdish insurgents to create disharmony among states in the region.
In a move that further angered D.C., Iran brought Syria into the mix by encouraging it to reach out to Turkey over the PKK issue. Syria's foreign minister, Walid Mouallem, lost no time issuing a statement that his country backed Turkey's right to strike back at PKK terrorists who threatened not only Turkey and Iran but Syria.
For some time, these three countries have kept a close eye on other events in Iraq, especially U.S. moves to incorporate the oil rich city of Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Regional Government, which is closely tied to the U.S.
Washington wants the Kurds to control the massive oil reserves in northern Iraq, fearing they could fall under the jurisdiction of a future Iraqi Shiite government with close links to Iran.
The Bush administration will go to any lengths to achieve this goal even if it means dividing Iraq into three regions—Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and the Shiites mostly in the south. While Iran is concerned about Kirkuk being transferred to the Kurds, so too, is Turkey, which has warned the U.S. that Kirkuk would provide Kurds with the means to create a powerful state on its borders with the power to reach out to millions of disgruntled Kurds residing in Turkey and Iran.
All in all, Iran has cleverly courted Turkey by identifying Turkish concerns with issues that conflict with U.S. and Western policy in the region. But it is not just on that level that the two nations have grown closer together. They have become serious trading partners with trade levels between the two now above the $7 billion mark and expected to reach over $15 billion in 2008/2009.
Turkey has also been negotiating to have natural gas piped from Iran into Europe, making European countries less dependent on Russian supplies from the Caspian. That would help make Turkey a bigger regional player.
Perhaps, it was only a matter of time before Turkey, facing EU rejection and a drift from decades of secular rule, would turn its eyes east to the Muslim world in an effort to become a big player. An indication this was happening was the developing Iran relationship, which had previously been one of enmity going back to the days of the Ottoman Empire when Turks limited the spread of what was then the Persian (now Iran) rule of the Safavi dynasty.
A sure sign the U.S. is worried about Turkey's alliance with Iran was the November 10 visit to Ankara by the Saudi King Abdullah Aziz, a close ally of the United States. His visit to Turkey last year was the first by a Saudi rule for more than four decades. The irony of his two visits was not lost on historians who pointed out that Saudi Arabia had been at the apex of the Arab revolt that led to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, yet now a Saudi king was coming to plead for Turkey's help in moderating Iranian influence, which the Saudis, like the U.S. and Israel, regarded as pernicious.
Even though his visit appealed to Washington, it nevertheless cemented Turkey's assertion it was a major player in the Islamic world. It also demonstrated that the Saudis supported Turkey's drift from secularism to better relations with Islam. Abdullah cautiously voiced his fears that Turkey could unwittingly become a means for Iran to expand Shiite influence inside Iraq at the expense of the Sunnis, whom the Saudis support. But he was careful not to be seen to be dictating to Turkey.
In order to conceal the fact Iran was the primary reason for his state visit, he advocated changes in rules governing the numbers of Turkish pilgrims permitted to attend the yearly religious hajj in Mecca, which is controlled by Saudi Arabia. Last year, almost half a million Turkish Muslims applied to make the pilgrimage, but the Saudis officially insisted on allowing only 70,000. With applications for next year's hajj expected to be close to one million, the Saudi ruler promised to negotiate a higher quota.
But the introduction of a religious issue did not obscure the fact that King Abdullah's trip was made at the behest of the U.S. and Israel, who have been leading an international clamor for the total isolation of Iran. In a sign that Turkey was not prepared to take that path, the country's president, Abdul Gul, a devout Muslim, said Turkey's greatest asset was that it could serve as a bridge between Europe and the East. In other words, it did not serve one master. He added that his nation was an important part of the Muslim world and "the revered traditions of the East."
That was exactly what Iran and Syria wanted to hear. The Saudis must now sit back and watch U.S. policy vis-a-vis Kurdish northern Iraq, worried that if it conflicts with Turkish interests, the Turks will draw even closer to Iran and Syria.
Richard Walker is the nom de plume of a former mainstream news producer who now writes for AFP so he can expose the kinds of subjects that he was forbidden to cover in the controlled press.
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
|Top|
There is serious doubt that he was the "lone gunman," but, after serving 35 years of a 53-year sentence in a Maryland prison for the 1972 attempted murder of Alabama Gov. George Wallace, "lone nut" Arthur H. Bremer has been released for "good behavior."
Bremer is being monitored and can leave the state only with written permission. He must stay away from all local, state, federal or foreign officials and any political candidates.
Wallace was an independent candidate for president when shot and was speaking at a rally in Laurel, Md. The incident forced him to drop out of the race, eventually won by GOP incumbent Richard Nixon.
Alabama State Trooper Captain E. C. Dothard, Wallace campaign volunteer Dora Thompson, and Nick Zarvos, a Secret Service agent, were also wounded.
"Hey, George! Hey, George," said Bremer as he lurked with a pistol in his jacket pocket. Wallace had jumped from behind an 800-pound bulletproof podium and was shaking hands with admirers following his speech.
"Come over here, George," Bremer said, and when the governor got there with his hand out, the 21-year-old busboy-dropout opened fire. Wallace was critically wounded by five .38-caliber slugs to the chest and abdomen. One bullet lodged near his spine and paralyzed him for life. He was confined to a wheelchair until he died in September 1998.
But investigators say Bremer could not have fired all the shots. Bremer carried a Smith & Wesson Model 37 "Air Weight"—a five-shot, snub-nosed revolver. Investigators say it was impossible for Arthur Bremer to have been the only shooter.
Wallace sustained a total of nine wounds (two of which were "enter and exit" type through his right arm, and one of these went into his chest) from the slugs that hit him. One slug each in three more people made a total of 12 wounds. However, not one news agency reported that Bremer could not have fired more than five times.
The world was told only that he carried a .38-caliber handgun but nothing about its limited capacity and was left to assume that the weapon was capable of firing enough shots to make all the hits.
Newsweek magazine at the time used diagrams to show that bullets would have had to enter Wallace from three directions: his right side, his front and from behind his left shoulder. It was obvious that one man, firing straight ahead, and even with enough ammunition, could not do that in the three seconds Bremer had before being subdued.
Also, with the odd trajectories presented by Newsweek, the bullet paths do not trace to a single firing position, and instead require at least one more shooter to be both behind and somewhat above Wallace. There were other guns at the plaza that day.
The Washington Post reported, "At least two Prince George's policemen were stationed on the shopping center rooftop, surveying for potential snipers."
One of these rooftop policemen—or someone posing as an officer—might well have been the source of these shots from above. Such a ploy is not unusual in organized political assassinations.
In 1971, Los Angeles TV newsman Ted Charach, with the help of a retired ballistics expert, proved that none of the eight shots fired from the .22 caliber revolver of Jordanian Sirhan Sirhan even hit Sen. Robert Kennedy, let alone killed him in 1968. So who killed Bobby Kennedy?
For some people, knowing the habits of the insider assassins, that question is not nearly so difficult to answer as it once was. When famed Los Angeles Medical Examiner Thomas Naguchi did the autopsy on JFK's body, he discovered the unmentionable. RFK had two bullet holes behind the right ear that included powder burns.
Naguchi reported that the evidence showed that the gun would have to have been placed next to RFK's head and the trigger pulled from 1-3 inches away. Yet no witness could place Sirhan closer than four feet from Kennedy.
In 1968, Wallace had mounted an independent campaign that won 10 million votes in the general election. By 1972, due much to America's opposition to the non-ending war in Vietnam, Wallace's mostly blue-collar support was now nearly matched by that of white-collar supporters, and he was threatening to get 20 million votes in November.
This was horrifying to the two major parties but particularly to the Republican-Nixon camp because most of the Wallace votes were being siphoned from the so-called conservative side rather than the blatantly liberal Democrats of Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.).
Should Wallace produce this kind of support, neither major candidate would have had a majority in the Electoral College. If the election were thrown into the House, it would have guaranteed McGovern's election.
In May 1974, two years after the shooting, it was reported that Martha Mitchell visited George Wallace in Montgomery. She told him that her husband, former Nixon Attorney General John Mitchell, who also served time for the Watergate affair, had confessed to her that Chuck Colson, known as Nixon's "hatchet man," had met with Arthur Bremer four days before the assassination attempt.
Bremer told his brother that others were involved and that he was paid by them.
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
|Top|
Before the doors could open for business Nov. 14, the home offices of NORFED, producers of the Liberty Dollar in Evansville, Ind. were raided by a dozen agents from the FBI and IRS.
For six hours armed agents took all the gold, silver, platinum
and almost two tons of "Ron Paul Dollars" that had just
been delivered the previous week. According to founder and director
Bernard von NotHaus, they also
took all the files and computers and froze the company's bank
accounts.
"We have no money, we have no products and we have no records to even know what was ordered or what you are owed," von NotHaus wrote to his account holders. "We have nothing but the will to push forward and overcome this massive assault on our liberty and our right to have real money as defined by the U.S. Constitution. We should not be defrauded by the fake government money."
In addition, all the gold and silver that backs up the paper certificates and digital currency held in the vault at Sunshine Mint has been confiscated. Even the dies for minting the Gold and Silver Libertys were grabbed in an obvious effort to destroy this association and steal the assets from its thousands of members across the country.
NORFED was started in 1998 with the basic idea of providing gold- and silver-backed currency for Americans and the long-term dream of "replacing the fiat fed notes one dollar at a time."
In addition to producing one-ounce coins of both gold and silver, its members could trade paper notes redeemable in specie on demand.
Last year the attack upon NORFED was begun when federal officials and mint spokesmen accused the group of "defrauding the public." Edmond C. Moy, director of the U.S. mint, had acknowledged in a letter to a U.S. senator that the paper certificates did not violate 18 USC Sec. 486 and were not illegal. But the FBI and IRS took all the paper currency, too.
Suspecting the possibility of such drastic action by the government, NORFED has always urged its members to possess the coin. Of the $20 million in Liberty Dollars, only about $1 million is in paper or digital form, according to von NotHaus.
NORFED officials expressed regret to its members that recent orders may never be filled because of a lack of records and urged all to "band together in a class action suit" to get their assets returned.
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute
- as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645
Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
|Top|
If you think that the United States is run by a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) elite, think again. The reality is very much otherwise, according to an old-line American magazine that did, indeed, once rank as a voice of the so-called "WASP" establishment.
Vanity Fair - the stylish monthly now owned bu the billionaire Zionist Newhouse family - has just published its annual list of the 100 most powerful people in America, what Vanity Fair calls "the New Establishment."
What this amazing list reveals is a reality that many will find hard to accept: America's "New Establishment" is overwhelmingly dominated by Jewish figures or those who are on the payroll of or dependent upon Jewish families and financial interests that bankroll the powerful Israeli lobby in America. That conclusion - however :offensive" or "controversial" in the eyes of some people - is inescapable.
Based on Vanity Fair's listing from the position of 1-100, persons known to be Jewish occupy 53% of the power positions. However, there are actually 106 names on the list (with two names listed side by side in the five places) and with the additional names (four of the six being Jewish), there are 57 individuals known to be Jewish listed.
So depending upon how one calculates, either 53% (or 54% including all those listed) of the most powerful members of "the New Establishment" - as perceived by Vanity Fair - are Jewish. And it should be noted that Vanity Fair's assessment of who constitutes "the New establishment" is one that critics would be hard-pressed to dispute.
The fact that a Jewish-owned publication has published the names of these Jewish power brokers (without specifically citing their ethnic and religions heritage) is interesting, especially since Israel's prestigious newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, on Oct. 11, 2007, heralded publication of the list, saying in a headline that "Jewish power dominates at the Vanity Fair list. The reporter for the Post, Nathan Burstein, noted.
It's a list of "the world's most powerful people," 100 of the bankers and media moguls, publishers and image makers who shape the lives of billions. It's an exclusive, insular club, one whose influence stretches around the globe but is concentrated strategically in the highest corridors of power. More than half its members, at least by one count are Jewish.
It's a list, in other words, that would have made earlier generations of Jews jump out of their skins, calling attention, as it does, to their disproportionate influence in finance and the media.
Making matters worse, in the eyes of many, would no doubt be the identity of the group behind the list - not a pack of fringe anti-Semites but one of the most mainstream, glamorous publications on the newsstands. The list would seem to conform to all the traditional stereotypes about areas of Jewish overrepresentation.
Although the "mainstream" media in the United States has failed to note the Jewish predominance on the list - which can correctly be called predominance, since Jewish people are said to be less than even 3% of the American population - the news about the list has been commented upon in American Jewish community publications.
Joseph Aaron, editor of The Chicago Jewish News said that his readers should "feel very, very good about" the news that their co-religionists are so powerful in America. In the Vanity Fair list, which is reproduced here and annotated with factual details regarding those names on the list, AFP has indicated the Jewish names in boldface, although it is possible that there are other Jewish names on the list, but there is no firm research available confirming it. Also, note, for example, that media baron Rupert Murdoch - who appears at number one on the list - is not included here as being Jewish for the reason that reports that his mother was Jewish have never been fully confirmed, although it has long been a article of faith on the Internet - perhaps in error - that Murdoch is Jewish.
Whatever his ethnic antecedents, Murdoch has been a front-line supporter of Israel and the global Zionist cause - no surprise considering the fact that his primary financial backers in his rise to power were the powerful Rothschild, Bronfman and Oppenheimer families - all very definitely Jewish. (An account of the rise of Murdoch and his media intrigues appear in The Judas Goats.)
Since the release of the list, several Internet sources have alleged that several other names on the list (that are not indicated here as being Jewish) are Jewish; however, AFP's research does not indicate that this is so. The bottom line is that the preponderance of the names are indisputably Jewish, whether the disputed names are or are not.
Also significant is that the roughly 45-50% of the names on the list that are not definitely known to be Jewish or that are clearly non-Jewish are the names of individuals who are directly beholden to Jewish families and financial interests for their own power and privilege. Rupert Murdoch is perhaps the most prominent among this group.
Secondly, in this realm, is Warren Buffett - listed at No. 6. Buffet is not Jewish, but he has long been in partnership with the Rothschild family and is a primary of the powerful Washington Post-Newsweek media combine.
Although the Post is best known as the fiefdom of the American-based Jewish Meyer-Graham family, the evidence indicates that primary behind-the-scenes investors behind the influential Post empire have always operated in the sphere of Rothschild-connected banking interests operating on American soil. The Meyer/Grahams, themselves, are related to the powerful San Francisco-based billionaire Jewish heirs of the Levi Strauss clothing kingdom.
Seventeen of those listed are either actors, entertainers and television and news media personalities who - while now wealthy as a consequence of their fame - owe their fame and wealth to the patronage of the owners of the mass media which made these 17 figures household names: for example, individuals such as Fox News agitator Bill O'Reilly and Steven Colbert, among others.
Three listed - Pinault, listed at 29, and Gagosian and Pigosi - listed at 84 and 86 - are figures in the art world, which is known to be dominated by Jewish interests.
Eight others, such as Bernard Arnault (listed at 8), Giorgio Armani (listed at 37), Miuccia Prada (at 44),Karl Lagerfeld (at 52), Martha Stewart (at 54), Oscar de la Renta (at 53) Siego Della Valle (at 63) and Dontaella Versace (at 81) are figures in the fashion and perfume industries - both of which are totally dependent on garment manufacturing (dominated almost exclusively by Jewish families and financial interests) and on department store distribution and the advertising industry, but of which are likewise dominated by the same elements.
Two of those listed - Bill Clinton and his former vice president Al Gore - are only politicians - note the clarification "only" both of whom were installed in their positions of power through the Patronage of Zionist financial interests. For his own part, Gore's daughter, Karenna, has married the great-great grandson of Jewish plutocrat Jacob Schiff, a satellite of the powerful Rothschild family. Informed students of history know that Schiff was instrumental in financing the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.
Several others are officers of media giants dominated by Jewish financial interests, acting as well-paid "fronts" for the controllers behind the scenes. For example, Richard Parsons, an African-American, is listed at 18th place, but he is no more than a front man at Time-Warner.
And as those who know the history of Time-Warner are well aware, that media empire has been dominated since at least the late 1960, of elements linked to the organized crime syndicate of Jewish gangster, Meyer Lansky (who worked closely with Israel's Mossad) and to the Lansky-connected liquor empire of Sam Bronfman, longtime chief of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), and his son, Edgar Bronfman, who recently retired as head of the WJC.
It has been widely asserted that the idea that Jewish families
and financial interests were very powerful was "an old wives'
tale," a ridiculous anti-Semitic canard with no basis in
reality," said to be the product of a "discredited czarist
forgery." However, the new Vanity Fair assessment
suggests otherwise and seems to confirm the theme of this author's
work, The New Jerusalem, which had already documented in
detail what Vanity Fair has now confirmed: "Zionist
power in America."
|Top|
President Bush shocked the world when he implied that not siding with the U.S. in its "war on terror" and allowing Iran to go ahead with her plans of enriching uranium would "lead to WWIII." The implicit threat was as subtle as Bush's speech immediately following the attacks of 9-11 in which he said "You're either with us or with the terrorists," making it clear that there were only tow options available to the world's people - either get out of the way and let the Israeli-American war machine destroy at will whomever it pleases or add your nation's name to the list of countries thereafter scheduled to receive the beast's wrath.
Now President Vladimir Putin has evidently committed Russia to military action if Iran is attacked. An American attack on Iran will be viewed by Moscow as an attack on Russia, Putin warned.
Putin visited Iran although no Russian or soviet leader has visited the Islamic nation since Stalin. Putin met with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, although neither man is known for meeting with leaders for closed talks. According to The Asia Times, Khamenei agreed to meet with Putin because Russia "may hold the ultimate solution" to the issue of Iran's nuclear program and Bush's drive toward initiating a nuclear strike. According to the Iranian state news agency INA, the supreme leader, after stressing that his nation will not be bullied into giving up its right to nuclear power and that the Iranian civilian nuclear program would continue, said to Putin "We will ponder your words and proposal."
All parties are being tight-lipped about this latest development, other than the usual rhetoric. Perhaps a game of chance is being played. Or perhaps the American/Israeli alliance has backed itself and the rest of the world into a dangerous corner and now realizes it must find a graceful way out of this self-made predicament.
Russia is providing Iran with the technical know-how, equipment and material for the construction of her nuclear facilities. The two nations are also part of an economic cooperative among the states bordering the Caspian Sea that recently held a meeting and adopted certain protocols as to how the oil and natural gas resources of that region were going to be developed.
Implicit and explicit in the protocols of this cooperative is that the nations agree that the development of nuclear power is a right and that the five countries making up the group must cooperate in maintaining "security and stability" in the Caspian region and prevent foreign intrusions. Russia has deep economic interests in Iran's oil and gas industries and is opposed to any action on her southern neighbor, whether military or in the form of new UN sanctions. In a recent interview, Putin compared Bush and his actions to a "maniac with a razor" running around threatening people.
In addition, Putin and the present leadership making up the power structure in Russia know that the New World Order - in the form of the American/Israeli alliance - have their sights set on his nation and its vast natural resources just as much as they do on other recalcitrant nations that assert their independence and sovereignty. Iraq was destroyed for that reason and this is why other nations such as Iran and Syria are on the list as well.
And just to make sure that all the players understand that she means business and is not just some toothless old bear unable to take care of her own affairs, russia has resumed much of her Dold War-era military posture. Long range bomber flights are taking place, she is supplying nations such as Iran and Syria with her latest and most technologically-advanced missile systems and has pulled out of several treaties aimed at troop reductions that could threaten Europe. She has claimed the Arctic sea floor for her oen exploration and, flush with cash, is investing in modernizing her military for any possible conflict with what George Bush's father called "The New World Order" in his state-of-the-union address 1989.
Initially most countries, including Middle Eastern nations such as Iran and Syria, were sympathetic to what took place in America on 9-11 and were willing to cooperate. Now, however, six years after the attack and all that has been learned concerning American and Israeli foreknowledge of 9-11, the lies that were concocted to justify destroying Iraq and the obvious intent of the Zionist hydra in continuing its rampage upon the world, things have changed drastically. Not only has the U.S. lost most of the world's support, but now certain nations feel threatened to the point that they are making aggressive moves, both in terms of rhetoric and military maneuvers, and one of those nations is Russia.
Putin is not a stupid man and it can be assumed thathe has used his library card a few times, done some research and learned of things such as the "clean break" document and "The Project for a New America Century" that speak clearly of American/Israeli hegemony, both in the Middle east and throughout the world. He sees the American/Israeli alliance camping out on Russia's eastern flank in the form of former Soviet nations that have since joined NATO and that America wants to park nuclear missiles in those countries aimed at the Russian people.
Now, thanks to Bush and his Neocon/warmongering handlers -
whose sole allegiance is to a nation that has bled Americans of
billions of dollars and the chance of a peaceful future - America
again stands on the brink of war with a nuclear-armed Russia.
It a conflict that, along with the present war against 1.5 billion
Muslims worldwide, the United states cannot win.
|Top|