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September 4, 2006
September 11, 2006
September 18&25, 2006
Whole Body Health
.In a shocking tribute to political correctness, two border agents face 20 years in prison for doing their duty and an illegal alien who committed felonies is free, says the head of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC).
Senior Agents Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos and Jose A. Compean are accused of shooting a suspect who was running away. The suspect escaped to Mexico but returned to testify against the agents after being given immunity on drug-smuggling charges, said NBPC President R.J. Bonner.
The agents had followed long-established Border Patrol policies in the incident, said Bonner. In addition, according to Bonner, exonerating evidence was withheld during the March trial of Ramos and Compean.
Two of the 12 jurors who originally convicted the agents told The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario, Calif., recently that they were pressured by prosecutors to return guilty verdicts. Other jurors sought a quick verdict because spring break was a week away and they wanted to avoid long deliberations.
Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila had been wounded while fleeing agents along the Rio Grande near El Paso, Tex. The agents said he pointed what appeared to be a gun at them as they tried to arrest him. More than 800 pounds of marijuana worth $1 million was found near the van he abandoned at the river's edge.
Aldrete-Davila is now suing the federal government for $5 million, saying his civil rights were violated.
"This thing stinks to high heaven," Bonner told a Washington newspaper. "I am outraged and at a loss to explain why there were so many irregularities in this case. The only thing that is clear is that the prosecutors pointed their guns at the wrong guys, the good guys, and they let the bad guy walk. Now they want to send these agents to prison for doing their job. That offends me, and I believe most Americans would agree."
Spotted in his van near the Rio Grande, records show Ramos gave chase while Compean circled around to head off the suspect. When Aldrete-Davila jumped out of the van and ran south toward the river, he was confronted by Compean, who was thrown to the ground as the two men fought. Ramos said he saw Compean on the ground and chased Aldrete-Davila to the river, where the suspect suddenly turned and pointed what appeared to be a gun.
"I shot, but I didn't think he was hit because he kept running into the brush and then disappeared into it," Ramos said. "Later, we all watched as he jumped into a van waiting for him. He seemed fine. It didn't look like he had been hit at all."
From Mexico, Aldrete-Davila called a Border Patrol agent in Arizona to say he was "forming a hunting party" to return to the United States and get revenge and the call was reported to Homeland Security. An investigator from the Office of Homeland Security tracked down Aldrete-Davila in Mexico and offered immunity in exchange for his testimony.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Kanof, who prosecuted the case, claimed it was a violation of Border Patrol policy for agents to pursue fleeing suspects.
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The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith has had its eye on AFP correspondent Christopher Bollyn for a long time. In light of the recent attack on bollyn, in his own front yard, by officers of his hometown police department in Hoffman Estates, Ill., it is fitting to outline what we know about past ADL efforts to undermine Bollyn. What follows is Michael Collins Piper's abbreviated account of a previous ADL campaign against both Bollyn and Piper, demonstrating that the ADL maintains intimate contact with police officials in suburban Chicago where the attack on Bollyn took place. As Piper notes, this certainly raises the question as to whether the thugs who attacked Bollyn had been "advised" by the ADL about Bollyn.
For the first five months of the year 2000 the otherwise quiet Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, Ill., was wracked by a stormy debate over censorship, centering around my book Final Judgment, which charges Israeli involvement in the assassination of President John f. Kennedy.
The frenzy began when a local library patron, Christopher Bollyn, tried to donate a copy to the Schaumburg Township district Library (STDL). Trained in Middle East studies, Bollyn is fluent in Hebrew and Arabic, among other languages. In addition, his late mother was one of the library's founders, his wife was a volunteer at the library, and Bollyn himself had worked at the library as a young man. Despite all this, the library rejected the donation.
However, Bollyn attended a library board meeting to press the matter, and, at that time, pointed out that several library directors were partisans of Israel. He charged that the book was rejected because of the Israeli lobby's fervent objections to the book.
Already involved behind the scenes, the Chicago office of the ADL publicly stepped into the picture, with ADL spokesman Richard Hirschhaut attacking Bollyn.
"We believe this is a cynical ploy, an attempt to create a First Amendment issue as a subterfuge for an effort to exploit the goodwill and fair-mindedness of the public library system," said Hirschhaut. "The library should not be forced to put itself in a position of being a warehouse or central address for every bigot with an agenda."
Hirschhaut had previously been based in the San Francisco office of the ADL at the very time - seven years previously - that the ADL came under intense public scrutiny for its improper involvement with at least one member of the San Francisco Police Department. Following that scandal, in which Hirshaut was under criminal investigation for his involvement in the ADL-connected police scandal, Hirschhaut was moved to Chicago.
In fact, Hirschhaut and the San Francisco ADL office were keeping tabs on Bollyn as far back as the early 1990s when Bollyn, then a college student in the San Francisco Bay area, was leading protests against the first U.S. war against Iraq, which was being promoted by the Israeli lobby.
In any case, the brouhaha between Bollyn and the ADL and the Schaumburg Library attracted the attentionof the media. No less than five area newspapers and the PBS affiliate reported on the controversy. The mess dragged on for some five months, with bollyn insisting that the library accept the copy of Final Judgment.
In response, the library appointed a special three-member "tribunal" to examine Final Judgement and determine whether it was "appropriate" for inclusion in the library. Heading the tribunal was Uri Toch, the library's official translator of Hebrew, which is the state language of Israel. Toch and his tribunal declared the book "poorly written"and essentially called it a piece of garbage but finally consented to permit the book to be accepted by the library to avoid being accused of censorship.
At one point, Toch tried to get Bollyn arrested after Bollyn called the library and asked Toch, in the Israeli state language, where Toch had lived in Israel. Toch called the local police crying that he felt "threatened."
By this juncture, I was personally tired of the attacks by the ADL on Bollyn - whom I had never even met in person and wtih whom I had never even spoken on the telephone - and I accepted Bollyn's invitation to come to the Schaumburg-Hoffman Estates area and speak publicly at the library where the Israeli librarian and the ADL had worked to suppress by book. Some 150 people turned out for the event - including a local police officer who happened to have been a reader of The Spotlight newspaper by which I was employed.
The officer advised me, confidentially, that the ADL had contacted the Schaumburg Police Department to "brief" them about me and about Bollyn. In response to the ADL briefing the Schaumburg police chief at the time, Richard Casler, sent out word that one of the "top Nazis in America" (me) was coming to town and that this Nazi bigwig had invited "his followers" to come to a rally. To preserve the peace and prevent Bollyn and me from instigating another holocaust, perhaps, Casler ordered extra officers on duty.
When I learned of this "tough cop's" toadying to the ADL, I called his office, but Casler wouldn't come to the phone. He sent his deputy, Capt. Tom Ostermann, who refused to either admit or deny the chief had been in touch with the ADL. When Ostermann became exasperated and said he was "just a hard-working cop," I told him I thought the Schaumburg police would do the public a much better service by watching out for drug dealers rather than chasing down "a fat guy with glasses whose only crime was to write a book."
The big problem is that the ADL's contacts with local law enforcement
all over America have intensified. The ADL's web site on the Internet
brags of its close "cooperation" with local police.
The ADL brags of "advising" police departments about
"gangs" and in techniques of fighting "terrorism."
Our police departments are being made adjuncts of the ADL's efforts
to suppress dissent in America. Outspoken journalists such as
Bollyn are the frontline targets. Don't let it happen in your
town.
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For years now, groups like Morris Dee's Southern Poverty Law center and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith have been bragging about how close they are to law enforcement agencies at all levels across the United states. Their agenda has been clear: to gag outspoken activists, independent journalists and politically incorrect scholars. This has been well documented by such writers as AFP's own Michael Collins Piper, who in his latest book The Judas Goats: The Enemy Within, details how these groups have worked for the past quarter-century to infiltrate and manipulate police to shut down those who might speak out on such issues as Israel's influence in Washington and the role pro-Israeli think tanks have played in starting wars.
The assault on freedom of thought has been made worse by the increasing militarization of police forces, which are creating intelligence units that maintain files on writers, thinkers and other advocates of free speech in America, and which are deploying tactical units that look more like paramilitary forces than peace officers.
This is all making for a highly volatile and explosive mix.
Neither the left nor the right nor anyone else has been immune from this pernicious program. Suddenly, anyone who stands up for American's constitutional rights can now be a target. From Ward Churchill to Noam Chomsky to Pete McCloskey to Pat Buchanan, forthright individuals on all points of the political spectrum have come under increasing pressure from the Thought Police in the United States.
Now comes the news of the recent arrest of AFP correspondent Christopher Bollyn. It is looking more and more likely that Bollyn has been a victim of the convergence of the police state and the powers behind political correctness.
The manhandling of Bollyn for the crime of calling 911 to report a suspicious vehicle cruising his neighborhood and for trying to protect his family is merely the latest manifestation of all of this. Across the country, there is a growing number of people who are afraid that they may end up on some "enemies list" due to a group they belong to or because of something they believe, or don't believe. And while, today, it seems that outspoken critic af Israel are getting some of the worst treatment, tomorrow opponents of immigration policy or third party members or Second Amendment advocates - or anyone, really - could become targets of an organized campaign of harassment, intimidation and violence at the hands of U.S. law enforcement officers.
All Americans, whatever their political views, should be outraged
over their police officers being used as a blunt instrument to
silence critics of the establishment. Contact your local police
and advise them that they're making a Faustian deal when they
join with groups such as the SPLC or the ADL. Any threat to the
First Amendment is a threat to you. If the Thought Police can
keep watch over independent journalists and controversial scholars
today, they can come for you tomorrow.
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Fed up with inaction by Congress and the White House, 550 bills dealing with illegal aliens have been introduced in state legislatures this year. Seventy-seven new laws have been enacted, according to the National conference of State Legislatures (NSCL). This does not take into account an unknown number of ordinances introduced and enacted by localities. All in all, more than 30 states have enacted laws or cracked down on illegal immigrants, according to a recent mainstream newspaper report.
The new local and state laws will be a boon to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Lawyers Guild and other left-wing legal groups. The laws will be the targets of the ACLU and other groups, according to Ann Wilson of the NCSL.
The ACLU and the others, according to Miss Wilson, will challenge on the basis of a 1986 federal law that prohibits states from enacting stricter criminal and civil penalties for illegal immigration than those adopted by Congress. "I believe they will be tested in court," she said.
State legislation dealing with immigration has included measures on employment of illegal aliens, education, drivers licenses, law enforcement, legal services and trafficking.
A Colorado law enacted in June prohibits awarding state contracts to business that knowingly employ illegal immigrants. A Louisiana law approved in June subjects businesses that have state contracts and more than 10 employees to fines if they don't fire workers known to be undocumented. A Georgia bill enacted in April has a phased-in requirement that public employers and government contractors and subcontractors verify information on newly hired workers through a federal program.
"State and local politicians and the grass-roots in those
states are up in arms over Washington's conspicuous lack of leadership."
John Keeley, spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies,
told USA Today, "Immigration...is a driving factor
for the three biggest budget items states face: education, health
care and criminal justice."
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Agents from Communist China seem determined to exploit America's porous borders to smuggle hundreds of shoulder-fired surface-to-air (SAM) missiles and thousands of AK-47 fully automatic assault rifles into the United States.
Two recent cases clearly illustrate how the Chinese are getting bolder and bolder.
Last year, Chinese agents were caught attempting to smuggle 200 shoulder-fired SAM missiles into the United States. They were also accused of trying to sell bundles of counterfeit $100 bills. In April 2006, Chao Tung Wo, 51, and Yi Qing Chen were charged in Los Angeles with smuggling Chinese anti-aircraft missiles into the United States.
Italian authorities also seized a container full of weapons bound for the United States, ostensibly from Saudi Arabia. The arsenal was discovered during a search of a ship registered to an unidentified former Soviet state, according to the Italian newspaper Il Mattino. The container was filled with 70 AK-47 assault rifles, plastic explosives and launch pads for rockets.
"Are we totally insane and oblivious to the dangers that are ahead of us?" asked Ted I. Gunderson, a retired FBI senior special agent-in-charge and a counter-terrorism expert. "This weaponry is not the tools of common criminals. It is equipment intended and built for only one thing: warfare."
The Chinese have a great deal of control over most of America's ports and are capable of smuggling nearly anything into the United States. From their facilities in Freeport, Bahamas, the Chinese control "security" to make certain that containers aboard merchant vessels, many operated by the Chinese state-owned COSCO shipping company, are safe before being allowed into East Coast ports in the United States. The Chinese company, which provides this"security" is Hutchison-Whampoa which has close ties to the Chinese military and also controls ports at both ends of the Panama Canal.
The Chinese-built QW-2 missiles, similar to the U.S. stingers, are produced by the military-owned Xinsshidai Co. The deal was arranged in China by "Gen. Wang," believed to be Wang Pun, head of the Chinese weapons manufacturer. Poly Group. Poly Group, along with another Chinese weapons maker, Norinco, was responsible in 1996 for smuggling 1,000 AK-47s and more SAMs into the United States through Oakland, Calif. Port facilities. Wang is the son-in0law of the late Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping.
AFP has received reports that Chinese transport ships regularly stop at Mexican ports, where their cargoes can be transported by truck into the United States with only minor scrutiny thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement.
As recently reported by AFP the Chinese are also trying to
acquire an inland or "dry" port at the decommissioned
Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Tex. Then, with links to
the texas ports of Houston and Corpus Christi. This would eliminate
the need to truck materials from Mexico.
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As a medical doctor, I've seen first-hand how bureaucratic red tape interferes with the doctor-patient relationship and drives costs higher. The current system of third-party payers takes decision-making away from doctors, leaving patients feeling rushed and worsening the quality of care. Yet health insurance premiums and drug costs keep rising. Clearly a new approach is needed. Congress needs to craft innovative legislation that makes health care more affordable without raising taxes or increasing the deficit. It also needs to repeal bad laws that keep health care costs higher than necessary.
We should remember that HMOs did not arise because of free-market demand, but rather because of government mandates. The HMO Act of 1973 requires all but the smallest employers to offer their employees HMO coverage, and the tax code allows businesses - but not individuals - to deduct the cost of health insurance premiums. The result is the illogical coupling of employment and health insurance, which often leaves the unemployed without needed catastrophic coverage.
While many in Congress are happy to criticize HMOs today, the public never hears how the present system was imposed upon the American people by federal law. As usual, government intervention in the private market failed to deliver the promised benefits and caused unintended consequences, but Congress never blames itself for the problems created by bad laws.
Instead, we are told more government - in the form of "universal coverage" - is the answer. But government already is involved in roughly two-thirds of all health care spending, through Medicare, Medicaid and other programs.
For decades, the U.S. healthcare system was the envy of the entire world. Not coincidentally, there was far less government involvement in medicine during this time.
America had the finest doctors and hospitals. Patients enjoyed high quality, affordable medical care. Thousands of private charities provided health services for the poor. Doctors focused on treating patients, without the red tape and threat of lawsuits that plague the profession today. Most Americans paid cash for basic services, and had insurance only for major illnesses and accidents. This meant both doctors and patients had an incentive to keep costs down, as the patient was directly responsible for payment, rather than an HMO or government program.
The lesson is clear: when government and other third parties get involved, health care cost spiral. The answer is not a system of outright socialized medicine, but rather a system that encourages everyone - doctors, hospitals, patients and drug companies - to keep costs down. As long as "somebody else" is paying the bill, the bill will be too high.
The following are bills Congress should pass to reduce health care costs and leave more money in the pockets of families:
H.R. 3075 provides truly comprehensive health care reform by allowing families to claim a tax credit for the rising cost of health insurance premiums. With many families now spending close to $1,000 or even more for their montjly premiums, they need real tax relief - including a dollar-for-dollar credit for every cent they spend on health care premiums - to make medical care more affordable.
H.R. 3076 is specifically designed to address the medical malpractice crisis that threatens to drive thousands of American doctors - especially obstetricians - out of business. The bull provides a dollar-for-dollar tax credit that permits consumers to purchase. "Negative outcomes" insurance prior to undergoing surgery or other serious medial treatments. Negative outcomes insurance is a novel approach that guarantees those harmed receive fair compensation, while reducing the burden of costly malpractice litigation on the health care system. Patients receive this insurance payout without having to endure lengthy lawsuits, and without having to give away a large portion of their award to a trial lawyer. This also drastically reduces the costs imposed on physicians and hospitals by malpractice litigation. Under H.R. 3076 individuals can purchase negative outcomes insurance at essentially no cost.
H.R. 3077 makes it more affordable for parents to provide health care for their children. It creates a $500 per child tax credit for medical expenses and prescription drugs that are not reimbursed by insurance. It also creates a $3,000 tax credit for dependent children with terminal illnesses, cancer or disabilities. Parents, who are struggling to pay for their children's medical care, especially when those children have serious health problems or special needs, need every extra dollar.
H.R. 3078 is commonsense, compassionate legislation for those
suffering from cancer or other terminal illnesses. The sad reality
is that many patients battling serious illnesses will never collect
Social Security benefits - yet they continue to pay for medical
care, travel and family matters. H.R. 3078 waives the employee
portion of Social Security payroll taxes (or self-employment taxes)
for individuals with documented serious illnesses or cancer. It
also suspends Social Security taxes for primary care-givers with
a sick spouse or child. There is no justification or excuse for
collecting Social Security taxes from sick individuals who literally
are fighting for their lives.
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Indiscriminate bombing by Israeli planes has released thousands of tons of heavy fuel oil from Lebanon into the Mediterranean Sea, threatening not only that war-torn Middle East country but other countries that the sea touches.
In addition to turning the white beaches of Lebanon black, the oil has reached Syrian waters north of Lebanon. The governments of Cyprus, Turkey and Greece are on alert as the oil continues to spread along Mediterranean coastlines.
Up to 15,000 tons of heavy fuel oil pouted into the seas when Israeli jet bombers struck a power plant south of Beirut on July 13. Two days later the jets returned to bomb the plant again. The fuel tanks ignited and burned for weeks, with thousands of tons of oil spilling out into the Mediterranean.
Both the UN and European Union have dispatched experts to Lebanon to assess the extent of the oil spill. It was not until Aug. 2, nearly three weeks after the last bombing, that Israel provided aerial photos of the damage and spreading oil spill. Israel's continuing naval blockade, however, has made it difficult for clean-up crews to get into the region.
Experts say the spill is a crisis that surpasses even the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989. The oil spill extends 93 miles in length and more than eight miles wide at some points.
"The Exxon Valdez treatment of the spill started 72 hours after the spill," Saffar said. Experts say cleanup will take more than a year and cost more than $150 million.
The most volatile elements of the fuel oil are the first to evaporate and have sent toxins into the air around Beirut, where the people are already trying to recover from the war. Greasy gray film is now showing up on cars and windows near the coast.
It's just a matter of time, experts warn, before Lebanese coastal
residents begin suffering from headaches and nausea. The Lebanese
government has warmed people not to eat seafood until the extent
of the danger is determined. "The turtles are hit, the dolphins
are hit, the corals are hit." Saffar said.
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The case of the Israeli criminal Kobi Alexander is the "tip of the 9-11 iceberg." While Alexander's crimes, through which he became immensely wealthy, are now evident, they are but a very small piece of a much larger Zionist criminal network - connected to the 9-11 terror attacks - which remains hidden.
Alexander, former head of the Israel-based Comverse Technology, was, until his crimes were discovered one of the highest paid executives in the United States. In the year 2000, for example, he reportedly earned some $102.5 million, with $93 million coming from the "exercise of options." We now know that most of Alexander's money was made through the fraudulent "exercise of options."
Comverse Technology, the U.S.-based "parent company" of an older and much bigger Israel-based company with the same name, is the owner of the Verint, Ulticom, Starhome, Mercom and Startel companies. The key positions in these companies are all held by Israeli nationals.
Alexander was recently allowed to flee the United states after he and two other former Comverse executives were charged with securities, mail and wire fraud by U.S. prosecutors in Brooklyn, N.Y. A warrant has been issued for his arrest. Alexander's lawyer, Robert Morvillo, said he believed that Alexander and his family were on vacation in Israel. Alexander, an Israeli citizen and a former military officer, wired $57 million to an account in Israel at the end of July and was evidently allowed to flee the United States.
"Given Alexander's stature and military service," the Times reported, quoting unnamed law professors. "Israel might be reluctant to readily hand him over." One might reasonably ask, "What does the 54-year old Alexander's military service have to do with Israel refusing to extradite him for crimes committed in the United states?"
While Alexander is obviously connected with Israel's military intelligence apparatus and George Soros through the mutually owned investment fund ComSor, what is not widely reported in his company's close links with Odigo, the Israeli-run instant messaging company that received and conveyed urgent warning messages about the imminent terror attacks on the World Trade Center several hours before the first plane hit.
The Times certainly must be well aware of the personal and business connection between Alexander and Odigo since they did an extensive interview with Avner and Maskit Ronen for their Sunday magazine in September 2000. The Ronens, both with military backgrounds, "upt down few roots," during their first years in New York city, the Times reported.
They made no friends outside the office and had no taste at all for networking at Silicon Alley parties," the NYT Magazine wrote. "They sought neither drivers licenses not a local physician." the bizarre photograph in the article showed two silhouetted figures hidden in the dark. These were the Ronens, Israeli military officers on a mission in New York.
There is ample evidence that many Israelis were forewarned of the attacks through the Israeli instant messaging service called Odigo. This story, which presents the clearest evidence of Israeli prior knowledge of theattacks, was reported only very briefly in the U.S. media - and then completely forgotten.
According to the news reports, at least two Israel-based employees of Odigo reported having received warnings of an imminent attack in New York city hours before the first plane hit the WTC.
Odigo, an Israeli-owned company had its U.S. headquarters only two blocks from the World Trade Center, yet Odigo failed to pass the warning it had received on to the authorities in New York, a move that would have saved thousands of lives.
Two weeks after 9-11, Alex Diamandis, Odigo's vice president, said, "The messages said something big was going to happen in a certain amount of time, and it did - almost to the minute.
"It was possible that the attack warning was broadcast to other Odigo members, but the company has not received reports of other recipients of the message.' Diamandis said.
The Internet address of the sender of the warning was reportedly given to the FBI. Two months later it was reported that the FBI was investigation the matter. There have been no further media reports about the Odigo warning of 9-11.
As AFP has preciously reported, Odigo, like Comverse and other Israel-based software companies, is headquarted in Herzliya, Israel, the suburb of Tel Aviv where Israeli military intelligence headquarters are located. Typically, with these Israeli-intelligence-linked outfits, the company's research and development, and any manufacturing, such as the "black box" computer surveillance equipment produced by Comverse, is all done in Israel. The U.S. offices merely function as distribution, marketing and financial centers.
In the case of Comverse, for example, the real parent company was Alexander's Tel Aviv-based Efrat Future Technology Ltd., which carried out "all research, development, and manufacturing" for Comverse, according to a 1992 article in The Jerusalem Post.
Shortly after 9-11, Odigo was completely taken over by Comverse Technology, which had been part owner of Odigo since early 2000, if not earlier. Shortly after 9-11, five executives from Comverse were reported to have profited by more than $267 million from "insider trading."
Avner Ronen, the "founder" of Odigo, was vice president
of business development of Comverse Technology in October 2005.
This indicates the Ronen and Alexander have been close business
partners since early 2000.
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Many readers have praised me for my courage in broaching taboo
subjects and stating obvious truths. Others denounce me for 
"being unpatriotic and
distrusting our government."
One reader, Susan Hartman, wrote to me that I was obviously in the pay of Islamic jihadists and that she had reported me to the FBI.
Despite the lack of evidence to support their belief, a number of readers remain confident that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that America narrowly missed being annihilated. These readers know for a fact that Hussein had WMD because "the president would know, and he wouldn't lie."
In other words, whatever Bush says is true, and all who doubt him are unpatriotic. "You are with us or against us."
The facts be damned. There are a large number of Susan Hartmans in the body politic. A group of scientists, engineers and university professors are trying to start a debate about the collapse of the three World Trade Center buildings. I reported one of their findings:
There is an inconsistency between the speed with which the buildings collapsed and the "pancaking theory" used to explain the collapse. Another way of putting the problem is that there seems to be a massive energy deficit in the explanation that the buildings fell as a result of gravitational energy. There simply was not sufficient gravitational energy to produce the results.
For reporting a scientific finding, I was called a "conspiracy theorist." Only in America is scientific analysis seen as conspiracy theory and government lies as truth.
Applications of the laws of physics and scientific calculations can be reviewed and checked by other scientists. Scientists, like the rest of us, can make mistakes. Questions raised about the collapse of the WTC buildings are not engaged, however, but ignored.
The 9-11 scholars' findings seem to be in sync with public opinion. Polls show that more than one-third and as much as one-half of the American public does not believe the government's 9-11 story.
The public doesn't believe the John F. Kennedy assassination story, either.
Nevertheless, experts who point out problems in the official story are still called "conspiracy theorists," even though a large percentage of the people share their doubts.
I think the reason so many Americans do not believe the Kennedy story told by the Warren Commission and the 9-11 story told by the 9-11 Commission is not because Americans are knowledgeable about ballistics or physics, or know how to do energy calculations, but because the stories contain too many unusual happenings, too many oddities.
In the Kennedy case, doubts are raised by such things as an improbable bullet trajectory, the against-all-procedures absence of Secret Service agents from the rear and sides of Kennedy's limo, the inexplicable access of an unauthorized armed civilian, Jack Ruby, who was able to assassinate Oswald inside the jail before Oswald could be questioned.
Online at insidebayarea.com there is a report that two scientists, Pat Grant and Erik Randich, at the Forensic Science Center of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, have discredited the reliability of the "neutron activation" analysis, which was used to "prove" that all the recovered bullet fragments came from Oswald's shots. Courts no longer accept this as evidence, and the FBI no longer uses the analysis that was employed to close the Oswald case.
Any one of these things would be an oddity. The combination of oddities becomes inexplicable, a statistical impossibility.
The same with the explanation of 9-11. Powerfully constructed buildings do not collapse when there is no source of the required energy to do the job. A large 757 hits the Pentagon but leaves a small hole, and there is no sign of wings, engines, tail or fuselage. Every air control and military procedure fails, and hijacked airliners are not intercepted by jet fighters. The alleged hijackers' names apparently are not on the passenger lists, and some of the alleged hijackers have been found alive and well in Saudi Arabia.
Dr. Thomas R. Olmstead used the Freedom of Information Act to get a copy of the autopsy list of American Airlines flight 77, and he reports that there are no Arabic names on the list.
My point is a simple one. Attentive people, even if they are not scientifically literate, can sense when there are too many oddities for an explanation to be believable. If deception is sensed, there is a receptive audience when experts or filmmakers speak. Denouncing inconvenient facts as "conspiracy theories" is a way of suppressing debate and investigation.
This itself is telling. If the official explanations are safe, their proponents should welcome the opportunity to show again and again that the explanations can stand all challenges. Instead, the second a challenge shows its head, it is branded a "conspiracy theory." That tells me that the official explanations can stand no challenge.
Don't ask me who killed Kennedy and why, and don't ask me who was behind the 9-11 attack or what brought the three WTC buildings down.
My position is a simple one: The official accounts are too
improbable to be believable. I won't believe them until the government
can explain where the energy came from to bring down the three
WTC buildings. With the demise
of the "single bullet" theory, there seems to be no
verification of Oswald's magical shooting.
It seems to me that the real conspiracy theories are the explanations that are overweighted with improbabilities. Readers ask me what can we dowe can do very little, as we have lost control over our government. Elections, even if not stolen, change very little. Government got free of our control when we forgot the teaching of our Founding Fathers that government is always the greatest threat to our liberty.
Nationally syndicated columnist, Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D., a former editor at The Wall Street Journal, is the author of several books. He has been associated with the Hoover Institution, and the Institute for Political Economy and from 1981 to 1982 served as assistant secretary of the treasury for economic policy.
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
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The deliberate bombing of civilians has long been a war crime under the Geneva Conventions but Israel's illegal use of "cluster bombs" seems to be making this atrocity "acceptable." In the nuclear age, do we want the targeting of civilian populations to be viewed as legal?
Meanwhile, President Bush told a begging Israel that U.S. loan guarantees would be extended although Israel still has much taxpayer aid in the bank and has violated an agreement not to use American-made weapons to kill civilians.
While Israel's cluster bombs - which spray out deadly "bombs" over a wide area - killed hundreds of innocents during the invasion of Lebanon, more are dying from unexploded bombs that are part of the landscape of south Lebanon.
The UN Mine Action Coordination Center in southern Lebanon said it has found unexploded American-made cluster bombs in nearly 300 locations across the region, Israel had agreed that U.S.-made cluster bombs would not be used against civilian populations. Human rights groups also complained that cluster weapons had been found across Lebanon and were responsible for many civilian deaths.
Chris Clark of the UN agency said hundreds of unexploded cluster bombs have been discovered and he expects to find many more. Post-invasion casualties are high, he said. We are finding many cluster bombs in the rubble - they just blend in," he said
Typical of the victims is Hassan Tehini, 10, who suffered massive abdominal wounds inflicted by what he and two cousins thought was a small ball, unearthed from the rubble in their home and perfectly suited for playing catch. It was a bomb. Hassan's guts were hanging out." said a neighbor.
The U.S. State Department, as usual, promised to "investigate" the complaints. Israel has a long history of such atrocities. In 1978, 1979 and 1981, the State department notified congress that Israel "may have violated" agreements by using weapons for purposes other than defense. But there were no penalties imposed on Israel.
In 1982, the Reagan administration suspended sales of cluster bombs to Israel for six years after a congressional investigation found that Israel had violated agreements on their use during its invasion of Lebanon.
During Bush's first term, the State Department investigated whether Israel had violated agreements by using U.S.-made Apache Helicopters in assassinating Palestinian leaders. State department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid being fired, said officials had concluded that Israel had violated the agreement. But the officials said, the finding was quashed at a more senior level.
Israel has asked the United states to extend a $9 billion package of loan guarantees to 2011. Bush promptly said yes. But Adi Rivlin, head of government debt management at the Israeli finance ministry, told Reuters that Israel had used only half of the U.S. loan guarantees granted in 2003.
Bush also announced $180 million in new humanitarian aid to Lebanon to help the destroyed nation recover from the invasion by Israel that was bankrolled by the United States.
Instead of penalizing Israel for using American-made cluster
bombs to kill civilians, Bush rewarded Israel with more aid. This
amounts to support for these atrocities.
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The two authors of a controversial study on the influence of the Israeli lobby on the U.S. government stuck by their guns at aNational Press Club briefing on Aug. 28. John Mearsheimer and Stephen M.Walt maintain that the clout of the Special interest group hurts American national interests, and paradoxical as it might seem. Israel's national interests also. They argued that the Bush administration's Knee-jerk support for Israel's invasion of Lebanon confirmed their thesis. Mearsheimer said the administration's backing of Israel in the conflict against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon harmed U.S. interests in several ways. The bloody battle strengthened Hezbollah's standing in Lebanon and throughout the Arab and Muslim world, said Mearsheimer. Shelling of Beirut and other cities heightened anti-Israeli and anti-American feelings, fostering recruitment for anti-West groups. In addition, the U.S. stance in the conflict strengthened Iran's ties to Hezbollah, gave Tehran a reason to meddle in Iraq and supplied Tehran with an incentive to expedite its nuclear program. |
Beirut, Lebanon: U.S. pastor Jesse Jackson visited the southern part of Beirut in Lebanon where entire neighborhoods were obliterated by repeated Israeli airstrikes. Many innocent civilians lost their lives in the attacks. |
Their original analysis, published in The London Review of Books in March 2006 was an attack on the distorting power of Pro-Israel interest groups, think tanks, campaign donors and public officials which biases U.S. policy in favor of the Jewish state and against its Arab neighbors.
In the original article, the authors observed that "This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the U.S. been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the U.S. provides."
That article sparked a heated debate. "It wasn't what
we said" that sparked a firestorm. Walt said at the press
conference. "It was the fact that two card-carrying members
of the American intellectual establishment finally pointed out
the elephant in the room."
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To explain the unanticipated free-fall collapses of the twin towers at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, mainstream experts offer a three-stage argument an airplane impact weakened each structure, an intense fire thermally weakened structural components that may have suffered damage to fireproofing materials, causing bucklin failures, which, in turn, allowed the upper floors to pancake onto the floors below.
I find this theory just about as satisfying as the fantastic conspiracy theory that "19 young Arabs acting at the behest of Islamist extremists headquartered in distant Afghanistan" caused 9-11.
The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms, but its blinkered narrowness and lack of breadth is the paramount defect unshared by its principal scientific rival - controlled demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapses of WTC 1 (North Tower), WTC 2 (South Tower), and the much-overlooked collapse of the 47-story WTC Building 7 at 5:21 p.m. on that fateful day.
The scientific controversy over the initial structural weakening has two parts: what caused the original tower damage and did that damage "severely" weaken the structures? Photos show a stable, motionless North Tower after the damage suffered at 8:46 a.m. and the South Tower after its 9:03 a.m. impact. If we focus on the North Tower, examination of photos reveals arguably "minor" rather than "severe" damage in the North Tower and it perimeter columns.
As many as 45 exterior columns between floors 94 and 98 on the northeast (impact) side of the North Tower were fractured - separated from each other - yet there is no direct evidence of "severe" structural weakening. None of the upper sections of the broken perimeter columns visibly sags or buckles toward its counterpart column below. We can infer this because of the aluminum covers on the columns: each seam uniformly aligns properly across the tower, forming a horizontal "dashed line" in the facade from beveled end to end. Despite an impact hole, gaps in perimeter columns, and missing parts of floors 95 to 98 at the opening, the aluminum facade shows no evidence of vertical displacement in the columns, suggestive of little or no wider floor buckling at the perimeter.
The aluminum covers attached to the columns also aligned vertically after impact, that is, separated columns continued to visually remain "plumb" (true vertical), lining up top to bottom around the aperture, implying no horizontal displacement of the columns. Photographic evidence for the northeast side of the North Tower showed no wider secondary structural impact beyond the opening itself. Of course, there was smoke pouring out of the upper floors.
PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE
Photos do not allow us to peer far into the interior of the building; in fact the hole is black, with no flames visible. We know that the structural core and its steel were incredibly strong (claimed 600% redundancy) making it unlikely that the core was "severely" damaged at impact. There were 47 core columns connected to each other by steel beams within an overall rectangular core floor area of approximately 87 feet by 137 feet. Each column had a rectangular cross section of approximately 36 inches by 14 inches at the base with 4-inch thick steel all around. Each floor was extremely strong, a grid of steel, contrary to claims of a lightweight "truss" system.
Those who support the official account like Thomas Eagar, professor of materials engineering and engineering systems at MIT, usually argue that the collapse must be explained by the heat from the fires because the loss of loadbearing capacity from the holes in the towers was too small. The transfer of load would have been within the capacity of the towers. Since steel used in building must be able to bear five times its normal load, Eagar points out, the steel in the towers could have collapsed only if heated to the point where it lost 80 percent of its strength around 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit. Eagar believes that this is what happened, though the fires did not appear to be extensive and intense enough, quickly billowing black smoke and relatively few flames.
While some experts claim that airliner impact severely weakened the entire structural system, evidence is lacking. The perimeters of floors 94 to 98 did not appear severely weakened, much less the entire structural system. The criminal code requires the crime scene evidence be saved for forensic analysis but FEMA had it destroyed before anyone could seriously investigate it.
FEMA was in position to take command because it had arrived the day before the attacks at New York's Pier 29 to conduct a war game exercise. "Tripod II" - quite a coincidence. The authorities apparently considered the rubble quite valuable. New York city officials had every debris truck tracked on GPS and had one truck driver who took an unauthorized lunch fired.
The preliminary NIST response claims that "the wall section above the impact zone moved downward" on WTC 1 but offers no evidence. It offers photographic evidence, however, for a "hanging floor slab" on the 82nd floor of the South Tower at 9:55 a.m. This looks minor though because there is no sag on adjacent floors and the integrity of the structure looks very much intact. The fire looks weak too, yet the South Tower collapsed only four minutes later. This would be quite a puzzle without a demolition theory.
About a dozen of the fragmented ends of exterior columns in the North Tower hole were bent but the bends faced the "wrong way" because they pointed toward the outside of the tower. This fact is troublesome for the official theory that a plane crash created the hole and subsequent explosion between floors 94 and 98. The laws of physics imply that a high-speed airplane with fuel-filled wings breaking through thin perimeter columns would deflect the shattered ends of the columns inward, if deflected in any direction, certainly not bend them outward toward the exterior.
A possible response would be that, well, yes, an airliner craxh would bend a column inward rather than outward, if bent at all, but the subsequent force of a jet fuel blast would act in the opposite direction any inward bends caused by the plane impact would straighten toward vertical or even reverse the bent steel columns toward the exterior under blast pressure. However, such proposed steel "reversal theory" (first bend inward by collision, then bend outward by explosion) suffers two major handicaps:
" No "inward-bending columns" were observed
and it would be reversed by subsequent explosion, and
" The hypothesis is ad hoc and lacks simplicity, both scientific
negatives.
Occam's razor - a principle stating that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible - would suggest that the outward bends in the perimeter columns were caused by explosions from inside the tower rather than bends caused by airliner impact from outside.
Also supporting this theory is the fact that the uniformly neat ends of the blown perimeter columns are consistent with the linear shaped charges demolition experts use to slice steel as thick as 10 inches. The hypothesis of linear shaped charges also explains the perfectly formed crosses found in the rubble (crucifix-shaped fragments of core column structures), as well as the rather-neatly shorn steel everywhere.
HOLE IN THE WTC
The engineering establishment's theory has further difficulties. It is well known that the hole in the west wing of the Pentagon, less than 18 feet in diameter, was too small to accommodate a Boeing 757, but the North Tower's hole wasn't big enough for a Boeing 767 either, the alleged wide body airliner used on American Airlines Flight 11. A Boeing 767 has a wingspan of 155 feet, yet the maximum distance across the hole in the North Tower was about 115 feet.. Aircraft impact holes tend to be three times the size of the aircraft, reflecting the fact that fuel-laden airliners flying into buildings send things smashing about in a big way.
The small size of the holes in both towers casts doubt on the airliner-impact hypothesis and favors professional demolition again. There were no reports of plane parts, especially wings, shorn off in the collision and bounced to the ground on the northeast side of the tower, to my knowledge, though FEMA reported a few small pieces to the south at Church Street.
Adding to the suspicious nature of the small aperture in WTC 1 is that some vertical gaps in the columns on the left side of the northeast hole were too short, probably less than three feet high. Not much of a jumbo jet could pass through such an opening, especially since a fuel-laden plane would not minimize its frontal area. The engines are a special problem because each engine is enormous and dense, consisting mainly to tempered steel and weighing 5 tons to 6 tons, depending upon the model. No engine was recovered in the rubble yet no hydrocarbon fire could possibly vaporize it.
The hole in the North Tower also is suspicious because it did not even have a continuous opening at the perimeter, but instead contained substantial WTC material just left of center. This material appears integral to that area, so it did not move much, suggesting minimal displacement and not clean penetration by a jumbo jet. These huge airliners weigh 82 tons empty and have a maximum takeoff weight of up to 193 tons.
In the case of the South Tower, an engine from United Airlines Flight 175 has not been recovered despite the fact that the flight trajectory of the video plane implied that the right engine would miss the South Tower. Photos showing minor engine parts on the ground are unconvincing.
Further contradicting the official account, the beveled edge of the southeast side of the south tower was completely intact upon initial impact. The government never produced a jet engine yet claimed it recovered the passport of alleged hijacker Satam al Suqami unharmed by a fiery crash and catastrophic collapse of the North Tower.
The government has not produced voice or flight data recorders in the New York attack either, so-called black boxes, a fact unprecedented in the aviation history of major domestic crashes.
Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D. is professor emeritus at Texas A&M
University and dormer director of the Criminal Justice Center
at the National Center for Policy Analysis headquartered in Dallas,
Tex. He served as chief economist for the Department of Labor
during 2001 under George W. Bush.
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In the great crusade of our time for truth over lies and propaganda, victory comes in a series of small battles that ultimately will win the war. And there is good news to report here: Despite our limited resources, we are winning the battle of ideas and, more specifically, for fact over fiction in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World trade Center and the Pentagon. With this issue of American Free Press, we are mourning the five-year anniversary of that terrible day. From the start, despite our limited resources, AFP began raising deep, probing questions about the official government account that 19 radical Muslims, at the behest of one man who lives in a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan, hijacked four airplanes. By now, we all know the official story: Two of those jetliners were flown into the World Trade center and another was crashed into the Pentagon. A fourth was headed for Washington, but a courageous group of passengers prevented another tragedy and forced the hijackers to crash the plane into the ground in Pennsylvania. AFP was the first national newspaper to publicly question the veracity of the federal version of events. Over the years, we have published hundreds of reports, investigation some of the most controversial aspects of Sept. 11, including the role Israeli agents operating in the United States played. As time went by more and more people - many of whom are prominent scholars and activists - have come forward to volunteer for the fight for truth. |
 This photograph shows the flight recorder found at the scene in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, where it is said United Flight 93 crashed after being hijacted on September 11, 2001. Patriotic fervor aside, much evidence has been presented to suggest the plane was shot down, not crashed by a goup of passengers. |
Take Paul craig Roberts, a former assistant secretary of the treasury in the Reagan administration. This week, Roberts details some of the unanswered questions surrounding the collapse of the World Trade Center. To bolster his position, he notes a growing number of Americans do not even believe the official theory of 9-11 - polls show that one-third to 50% of Americans remain skeptical of the government version.
Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D. professor emeritus at Texas A&M, is another man of letters to appear in the pages of AFP questioning 9-11. Reynolds was chief economist at the department of Labor in President bush's first term - hardly a "bush hater." Reynolds poles holes in the official explanation of how the World Trade Towers collapsed in what has been called a "pancaking" effect. The absence of physical evidence of any jetliners around the WTC, he writes, should compel people to question the official description. But the most damning proof is the hole in the North Tower of the WTC, it was not even big enough to accommodate a wide-body airliner like a Boeing 767.
These experts, as Roberts points out, have been called "unpatriotic"
for doubting the government. Over the years, we at American
Free Press have been called much worse. However, in the real
America, it is a patriotic duty to criticize your leaders and
government when they are wrong. The ruth is our major weapon in
this war; the fight must go on.
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Expanded to100 pages and now in big, bound magazine format: AFP's best reporting on the Sept. 11 tragedies
The wide popularity and widespread circulation of AFP's 50 Unanswered Questions About 9-11 inspired us to expand our newspaper-style report to a magazine format, add 50 more "unanswered questions" and add dozens of pages of exclusive information NEVER INCLUDED in any of the eight newsprint editions produced so far.
In AFP's NEW Debunking 9-11, you'll get never-before published commentaries from William Rodriguez, the Trade Center's "last man out," and Ellen Mariani, crusading wife of one of the victims killed on 9-11, investigative reporter Christopher Bollyn, Col. Donn de Grand Pre, Greg Szymanski and more.
GROUNDBREAKING COVERAGE
You'll also get all of AFP's groundbreaking coverage of the events from the beginning: the spies operating in New York; the many theories put forth by independent searchers who reject the government's explanation of many of the events of Sept. 11; alternative theories as to why the twin towers collapsed; detailed information from a dozen sources presenting evidence of foreknowledge by the government and foreign intelligence agencies of the events; scientific debate over what really happened at the Pentagon on Sept. 11 and theories as to the downing of Flight 93 over Pennsylvania. There are also articles on the advance planning of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars as premeditated (albeit failed) resource grabs and the faking of the bin Laden videos. We've also added a lot of new photographs of the events and packaged it in a four-color glossy cover with glue-bound spine - not saddle stitched. Includes high-quality black-and-white photography - more than 80 photographs!
This is THE LAST WORD on the events of Sept. 11 from independent, courageous journalists, lawyers, professionals, survivors and loved ones who lost family members on 9-11. Nowhere on the planet will you find such a report.
Produced by and available exclusively from American Free Press. Expect delivery in 2-3 weeks from the time your order is processed.
Price: One copy is $19.95. Two copies are $36. Three copies
are $51. Four copies are $64. Five copies are $75. Six or more
copies are $13 each. Inside the U.S. add 5% of order total for
S&H. Outside the U.S. add 15% of order total for S&H.
Call 1-888-699-6397 toll free today to charge your purchase to
Visa or MasterCard.
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Since the fighting in Lebanon ended it has been increasingly clear that Israel has been unwilling to make important concessions to guarantee a lasting peace. Israel continues to argue about the size of the proposed UN force intended for south Lebanon, insisting it will keep its troops in the country until that force numbers 15,000 and is also placed on the border between Lebanon and Syria. That hard-line position runs contrary to the view of countries like France and Italy which contend that a force of 9,000 would be sufficient to guard a buffer zone in south Lebanon.
As for Israel's demand that the UN force also be placed along the border with Syria that is not a requirement in the UN resolution dealing with the crisis and has been dismissed by Syria, Lebanon, France and Italy. They say it is not part of the UN mandate.
Syria has already warned that such a move would stip up even more trouble in the region. Syrian officials believe this is an Israeli tactic devised to undermine a peace agreement.
While those are some of the issues pointing to Israel's role in provoking the situation, there are other issues that are even more troubling.
One of those issues has been Israel's unwillingness to lift the air and sea blockade of Lebanon.
At the onset of the cease-fire, the blockade prevented a speedy humanitarian relief effort and delayed international efforts to deal with a massive oil spill caused by the Israel's bombing of a major oil storage facility. Experts have argued that Israel know when it bombed the facility that the outcome would be an environmental hazard. That was indeed the result and there is now an oil slick covering most of the beautiful Lebanese coastline.
The damage to wildlife, the fishing industry and to beaches has been immense. For years to come fish stocks in the region will have to be tested for cancerous bacteria. More importantly, Israel hampered international clean-up plans by refusing to permit aerial reconnaissance of the coastline to assess the damage.
American Free Press first reported on this environmental catastrophe in the Aug. 21 edition.
For the Lebanese, the pollution issue and Israel's cynical refusal to allow an immediate cleanup was another humiliation and infringement of their sovereignty.
Since then there has been growing resentment toward the United States and the United Nations on part of Lebanon. Some of the bitterness toward the UN relates to its inaction over 34 days while Israel destroyed the civilian infrastructure. Worse still was an incident which involved 18 Lebanese villagers who were refused shelter at a UN post. Those villagers were killed a short time later when an Israeli pilot, using a guided missile, deliberately targeted the minibus in which they were traveling.
Another issue that was sparked fierce anti-UN sentiment has been the insistence of the UN representative to the region, Terje Larsen, that Hezbollah must be disarmed in accordance with UN Resolution 1559. Most Lebanese, and countries prepared to send troops to the region as part of a UN force, agree that the UN peace mandate does not require the disarming of Hezbullah. Nevertheless, Larsen has continued to take the Israeli line, leading many people to accuse him of bias. In an interview televised throughout the Middle East, Hezbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah accused Larsen of serving "Israel first and foremost."
Critics of the UN have also questioned why the organization has yet to initiate an investigation into Israel's use of cluster munitions in civilian areas. When the cease-fire began, Israel categorically denied using cluster bombs. However, as AFP's analysis notes on page 14, the evidence is now irrefutable. So far, 12 children have been killed because they lifted bombs that formed part of cluster munitions. Those munitions were supplied to Israel by the U.S. military, which has also used them in densely populated regions of Iraq. The international Criminal court has condemned the use of armaments such as cluster bombs in civilian zones, pointing out that they are indiscriminate weapons.
Another outstanding issue is whether Israel has used phosphorous bombs against civilian targets. Lebanese President Emile Lahoud contends that the Israeli military did. Human rights groups are currently investigation the matter.
If it can be proven that Israel used munitions such as cluster
bombs and phosphorus, the military and the government could be
prosecuted for war crimes.
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President Bush's top crony,
Karl Rove, traveled to Los Angeles to pay tribute to an advocacy
group for illegal aliens, the National council of La Raza. In
Spanish, "la raza" means "the race." In addition
to paying tribute to La Raza, Bush handed over millions of tax
dollars to this anti-U.S. gang.
According to Rep. Charles Norwood (R-Ga.), La Raza received $15.2 million in federal grants last year and more than $30 million since 1996. Undisclosed amounts went to get-out-the-vote efforts on behalf of illegal aliens. The Department of Education handed over more than $8 million to the group for a nationwide charter school initiative.
Among the charter schools is La Academia Semillas del Pueblo in Los Angeles, which teaches "Aztec" math and the Mexican indigenous language of Nahuatl. The separatist principal of the school told a sympathetic interviewer:
"We don't want to drink from a white water fountain, we have our own wells and our natural reservoirs and our way of collecting rain...and ultimately, the white way, the American way, the neo-liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction."
Other taxpayer-subsidized charter schools sponsored by La Raza include:
" Aztlan Academy in Tucson, Ariz. Its success rests on
its "ability to integrate a meaningful Chicano studies program
into their lives, language and academics, as a means of developing
their intellects as well as their pride and self-esteem,"
according to La Raza. The school's name is a mythical reference
to a stretch of land possibly in what is now the U.S. Southwest,
which Latinos claim as their rightful homeland and seek to reconquer
for Mexico.
" The Delores Huerta Preparatory High School in Pueblo, Colo.,
is named after an agitator who praised illegal alien marchers
and said in a hate-filled tirade that "We didn't cross the
borders, the borders crossed us." She railed that "Republicans
hate Latinos." The school's "education" program
reflects her views.
" Academia Cesar Chavez Charter School in St. Paul, Minn.,
which features the Mexican flag prominently on the front page
of its web site, Louis Mendoza a professor and member of its board,
had the school lobby for the federal Dream Act, which provides
in-state tuition discounts to illegal aliens not available to
legal nonresidents.
The White House claims La Raza is a "moderate" mainstream
civil rights group. This adds up only if you use Aztec math.
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Globalists and one-world promoters never seem to tire of coming up with ways to undermine the sovereignty of the United States. The most recent attempt comes in the form of the misnamed "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP)." In reality, this new "partnership" will likely make us far less secure and certainly less prosperous.
According to the U.S. government web site dedicated to the project, the SPP is neither a treaty mor a formal agreement. Rather, it is a "dialogue" launched by the heads of state of Canada, Mexico and the United states at a summit in Waco, Tex., in March 2005.
What is a "dialogue"? We don't know. What we do might be one of the most significant developments in recent history is non-existent. Congress has had no role at all in a "dialogue" that many see as a plan for a North American union.
According to the SPP web site, this "dialogue" will create new supra-national organizations to "coordinate" border security, health policy, economic and trade policy and energy policy between the governments of Mexico, Canada and the United states. As such, it is but an extension of NAFTA- and CAFTA-like agreements that have far less to do with the free movement of goods and services that they do with government coordination and management of international trade.
Critics of NAFTA and CAFTA warned at the time that the agreements were actually a move toward more government control over international trade and in eventual merging of North America into a border-free areal. Proponents of these agreements dismissed this as preposterous and conspiratorial. Now we see that the criticisms appear to be justified.
Let's examine just a couple of the many troubling statements on the SPP's U.S. government web site:
"We affirm our commitment to strengthen regulatory cooperation...and to have our central regulatory agencies complete a trilateral regulatory cooperation framework by 2007."
Though the Bush administration insists that the SPP does not undermine U.S. sovereignty, how else can one take statements like this? How can establishing a "trilateral regulatory cooperation" not undermine our national sovereignty?
The web site also states SPP's goal to "improve the health of our indigenous people through targeted bilateral and/or trilateral activities, including in health promotion, health education, disease prevention and research." Who can read this and not see massive foreign aid transferred from the U.S. taxpayers to foreign governments and well-connected private companies?
Also alarming are SPP pledges to "work toward the identification and adoption of the best practices relating to the registration of medicinal products." That sounds like the much-criticized Codex Alimentarius, which seeks to radically limit Americans' health freedom.
Even more troubling are reports that under this new "partnership," a massive highway is being planned to stretch from canada into Mexico, through the state of Texas. This is likely to cost the U.S. taxpayer untold billions of dollars, will require eminent domain takings on an almost unimaginable scale, and will make the United States fore vulnerable to those who seek to enter our country to do us harm.
This all adds up to not only more and bigger government, but to the establishment of an unelected mega-government. As the SPP web site itself admits. "The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America represents a broad and ambitious agenda."
I hope my collegues in congress and American citizens will
join me in opposing any "broad and ambitious effort to undermine
the security and sovereignty of the United States.
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in recent months, as part of a broad program sponsored by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg teams of undercover investigators have been dispatched to five states in what gun roups say is a highly orchestrated ruse to trick gun dealers into making illegal sales. Second Amendment groups charge that Bloomberg is attempting through civil courts to impose his extreme anti-gun views throughout the nation.
Agents were sent to gun shops in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, {Pennsylvania and Ohio to make illegal, or so-called "straw purchases." One agent would show interest in a firearm and the other would make the purchase.
Bloomberg claims that the shops were targeted because of the large number of guns involved in crimes committed in New York City between 1994 and 2001. These firearms, he said, were traced back to specific gun sellers. Bloomberg argues that federal law prohibits licensed dealers from selling firearms to someone when the seller has a reasonable belief that the weapon is being sold to someone other than the true buyer.
In the five states the agents were able to make "straw purchases" at 15 stores. In Virginia where there are 4,000 federally licensed gun dealers, the New York officers were able to make buys in five shops.
Harold "Webb" Babcock Jr., owner for 30 years of Webb's Sporting Goods in Madison Heights, Va., was one of the five. Babcock explained to AFP how a handgun was purchased in his shop.
A man and woman came into the shop, according to Babcock. The woman was looking at purchasing a handgun, but it was the man from New York who expressed interest in the transaction., he said. The woman, who displayed a Virginia drivers license and a voter registration card, indicated she wanted to buy the gun. As per the law, she was required to fill out the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives form. A call was then made by Webb to the state's "instant check" system, which is linked to the FBI's national file repository, to determine if the buyer has a criminal or mental record that would not allow the transaction.
The system temporarily rejected the sale. This reportedly happens frequently due to technical glitches or because the person buying the gun has an identity similar to someone who would be banned. Approval for the sale, however came in and Webb called the woman.
The woman returned to the store and indicated she did not have the money with her to pay for it. At that point, the man said he would pay for it. The couple were informed correctly by Webb that the woman, the approved buyer, would have to pay for the gun, so the man gave her the money and she made the purchase.
Now, Webb and 14 other dealers in the five states hit by Bloomberg's team of investigators face lawsuits in New York city seeking monetary damages. If convicted, the sellers would be monitored by a special "master" and they would be required to submit to mandatory training.
Webb told AFP that in the 30 years he has been selling firearms he has been visited "a number of times" by federal agents, who have found only "a couple" of errors" in the records.
In another case, attorney Michael Cole, who is representing his brother's business, Cole's Gun Shop in south Boston, Va., said the government of New York has already "essentially rejected" a settlement of the lawsuit.
He added that if any of the dealers have settled out of court it is not because they believe they did anything wrong but because they are overwhelmed by the cost of defending themselves against the unlimited resources of Bloomberg and the city of New York.
The city reportedly offered to settle lawsuits if dealers agree to pay $10,000, which would supposedly be returned to them after three years if they make no further "illegal sales," submit to a special master selected by the city to monitor their sales and take mandatory training in the proper sake of firearms.
Bloomberg's office said that two Georgia dealers had agreed
to the settlement.
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The Bush administration and the British government are under increasing pressure from the Israelis to conduct an illegal air strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, according to a number of reports in Europe's largest newspapers.
In London, The Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Telegraph have reported that war clouds are spreading as Iran continues its nuclear development and Israel reacts to it.
According to The Sunday Telegraph Israel has appointed Maj. Gen. Elyezer Shkedy, commander of the Israeli air force, to direct military action against Tehran. Meanwhile, the Telegraph reports that Britain is holding secret talks "at which senior defense chiefs and government officials will consider the consequences of an attack on Iran."
The Pentagon is also drawing up plans for an attack. U.S. military ground forces are already bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in dozens of other deployments abroad.
Still, irresponsible air strikes against Iran's nuclear sites, which would inevitably result in massive, insoluble geopolitical, military, energy and economic problems, are planned by Bush administration numbskulls.
Israel, as usual, is counting on U.S. backingand it is making it obvious that if there is no strike on Iran it will act on its own.
In a recent visit to the United States, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned "friend and foe alike" that Israel is prepared to "take on any country or combination of countries" to protect itself.
The Israelis refer to the "Iran Front," The Sunday Telegraph reports. "Israel is becoming extremely concerned now with what they see as Iran's delaying tactics," an Israeli-Iran analyst told the newspaper. "The [Israeli] planners think negotiations are going nowhere, and Iran is becoming a major danger for Israel. Now they are getting ready for living with a nuclear Iran or letting the military take care of it."
According to the British publication "Gen. Shkedy will coordinate the intelligence gathered by Israel's foreign spy agency Mossad and military sources, in order to draw up battle plans. . . . He will command the campaign from a hot seat' in the Israeli army's headquarters in Tel Aviv."
Uri Dromi, a former air force colonel and analyst, told The Sunday Telegraph: "It's natural that Shkedy is nominated in this role, because the air force is Israel's only force that can reach and sustain a military operation against Iran. . . .Everyone is playing with dates and time frames . . . but the list of options is becoming shorter. I think we have one year open [to launch military action]."
Israel reportedly has an arsenal of at least 200 nuclear warheads and as many as 400.
The Telegraph reported wishfully:
It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran's ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is inevitable' if Tehran's leaders fail to comply with United Nations' demands to freeze their uranium enrichment program..
Tactical Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from U.S. Navy ships and submarines in the gulf would, it is believed, target Iran's air defense systems at the nuclear installations.
That would enable attacks by B2 Stealth bombers equipped with eight 4,500-pound enhanced BLU-28 satellite-guided bunker busting bombs, flying from Diego Garcia, the isolated U.S. Navy base in the Indian Ocean, RAF [Royal Air Force] base Fairford in Gloucestershire and Whiteman USAF base in Missouri.
It is understood that any direct British involvement in an
attack would be limited but may extend to the use of the RAF's
highly secret airborne warning aircraft. The belief in some areas
of Whitehall is that an attack is now all but inevitable.
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On Sept. 7, the third day of the new fall semester at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, Steven E. Jones, professor of physics and 9-11 researcher, was suddenly banned by university authorities from teaching the classes he has taught for 21 years, Jones was unexpectedly suspended with pay after speaking on a radio show in which he had been repeatedly asked to comment about the motivation of the neo-conservatives behind the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Jones, a soft-spoken physicist who specializes in metal-catalyzed fusion and solar energy, joined the 9-11 research after being intrigued by the unexplained collapse of the 47-story WTC 7 and reading the August 2002 report in American Free Press that molten iron had been found in the rubble of the three collapsed WTC towers.
As AFP reported in the summer of 2002, "literally molten steel" had been found, more than a month after the collapse, at the bases of the collapsed towers, where their load-bearing central support columns connected to the bedrock. "Such persistent and intense residual heat, 20 feet below the surface, could explain how these crucial structural supports failed," AFP reported at the time.
Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction of Flushing, N.Y., told this reporter he had seen pools of molten steel at the World Trade Center, where his company was contracted to remove debris. Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Ind. (CDI) of Phoenix, Maryland, wrote the clean-up plan and confirmed the presence of molten metal at the site.
"Yes," Loizeaux said. "Hot spots of molten steel in the basements." These incredibly hot areas were found "at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven basement levels." Loizeaux said.
The molten steel was found "three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed," he said. Loizeaux also confirmed that molten iron had been found in the rubble of WTC 7, which had not been hit by an airplane but collapsed mysteriously in the late afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001.
In 2005, because no explanations were provided in the official 9-11 reports, Jones began investigation the collapse of WTC 7 and the large amounts of molten iron seen falling from the burning South Tower.
Last summer, after obtaining pieces of the hardened molten fragments from the WTC, Jones and other scientists at BYU conducted extensive laboratory tests and found that the molten metal was primarily composed of iron - with traces of structural steel. From this evidence Jones concluded that thermite, or a similar aluminothermic process, was used to slice the central core columns and bring down the twin towers.
Jones, along with two other physicists and a geologist at BYU, conducted energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and electron microprobe analyses on the samples.
The previously molten metal samples were predominately iron, with very little chromium, Jones said. Along with uncommon chemical elements in abundance such as fluorine and manganese. Aluminum and sulfur were also found, which he said would be expected from thermate reactions. Thermate is thermite, which is powdered aluminum and ferrous oxide, with 2% sulfur added to the mixture to increase the steel-cutting effectiveness of the reaction.
"The results," Jones says in a presentation he recently gave at Idaho State University, " coupled with visual evidence at the scene such as the flowing yellow-hot liquid metal still red after falling about 500 feet, provide compelling evidence that thermite reaction compounds were used, meaning thermite was deliberately placed in both WTC Towers and WTC 7."
Jone's presentation and research is online at journalof911studies.com .
THE RADIO TRAP
On Sept. 5, Doug Fabrizio executive producer of Radio West on the University of Utah's public radio station invited Jones to come on his one-hour program to discuss his 9-11 research,
Before Jones could even discuss his research, however Fabrizio was quizzing him on the "neo-conservative motivation" for the attack, and repeatedly prodded him to comment on who might be behind the attacks - if not 19 Arab hijackers with box cutters.
Because Jones is a physicist and is not engaged in the political background of "false flag" terrorism attacks, he answered Fabrizio's question by citing author Webster Tarpley's analysis that individuals such as Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, who are linked to the "international banking cartel," have been named as possible suspects. Jones was careful to say that these were not his ideas, but Tarpley's and that these were only suspects that Tarpley had named.
Jones is generally reluctant to discuss the political implications of his findings, and his comments about Wolfowitz and Perle on the radio program created quite a "buzz on campus," The Deseret Morning News reported.
After interviewing Jones for 20 minutes, Fabrizio said goodbye to Jones and turned the show over to a discussion of conspiracy theories with two Jewish professors, Robert Goldberg from the University of Utah and Gary Fine from Northwestern. Goldberg is the author of a book that purports to refute conspiracy theories of all types.
The first caller was a William Tumpowsky, chairman of the Jewish Community Relations Council and board member f the local Israel-fund raising organization, the United Jewish Federation. Tumpowsky charged that Jones was using code language to make anti-Semitic allegations. Goldberg supported this accusation.
[Previously, in his book Enemies Within, Goldberg attacked AFP correspondent Michael collins Piper for daring to allege that Ameican Zionists, in league with Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad, played a key role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Goldber's book title is not to be confused with the similar title of Piper's new book - The Judas Goats: The Enemy Within - which demonstrates how Zionist operatives have infiltrated the American nationalist movement - Ed.]
Starting from this outrageous allegation, Fabrizio continued the hostile discussion with Goldberg and Fine, with frequent allegations that the now-absent physics professor was nothing more than an anti-Semite indulging in conspiracy fantasies. The evidence contained in Jones's important research was not even discussed.
Within two days, the authorities at BYU apparently caved to Jewish pressure and put Jones on paid leave. Students who had already begun physics courses with Jones will be taught by other faculty members for the rest of the semester as university administrators review his research.
Repeated calls to BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins about the banning of Jones from the classroom were not returned.
"I'm not sure we did it the right way," Fabrizio said after he accepted responsibility for the radio program that sparked the sacking of Jones.
Asked why he had pressed Jones to make a statement about who was behind the attacks, Fabrizio said, "I was interested in what motivated the science." This is, however, a less than honest answer because Jones always stresses in his presentations that it is the unexplained collapse of WTC 7 and the presence of molten iron in the rubble that motivate his investigation.
The American Association of University Professors criticized BYU for placing Jones on paid leave for his comments on the radio program. AAUP general secretary Roger Bowen called BYU's decision "distressing" and said Jones shouldn't be removed from teaching classes for statements made outside the classroom.
"Academic freedom also protects extramural utterances, that is, statements made by faculty outside the classroom when they speak as citizens." Bowen told The Desert Morning News.. "It's very clear there never should be official retribution for faculty who exercise their rights as citizens, with the very careful disclaimer they are not speaking on behalf of the university."
The Foundation for Individual rights in Education joined the criticism of the BYU decision against Jones.
"BYU is literally the example we use of a university that
does not promise strong free speech or academic freedom protections,"
FIRE president Greg Lukianoff said.
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With the November elections looming, politics is taking priority over sensible policy. It appears congressional leaders have no intention of addressing the issue of illegal immigration this year, preferring not to tackle such a thorny problem for fear of angering voters one way or another.
But this is a mistake. The American people want something done about illegal immigration now - not next year. All sides in the immigration debate agree that the current. "Don't ask, don't tell," policy cannot continue.
That's why I am joining several of my colleagues in demanding that the Senate vote this month on a border security bill already passed by the House earlier this year. I truly believe border security is the most important issue for millions of Americans.
Both the Bush administration and congressional leadership have promised to spend the next two months addressing national security issues. But real national security cannot be achieved unless and until our borders are physically secured. It's as simple as that . All the talk about fighting terror and making America safer is meaningless without border security. It makes no sense to seek terrorists abroad if our own front door is left unlocked.
Although the border security bill already passed by the House is a good start, Congress needs to pass broader legislation this year based on the following simple points:
First, physically secure our borders and coastlines. We must have control over who enters our country before we even begin to consider complicated immigration reform proposals.
Second, enforce visa rules on those already in the country. Immigration officials must track visa holders and deport individuals who overstay their visas or otherwise violate U.S. law. This is especially important when we recall that some of the 9/11 terrorists had expired visas.
Third, reject amnesty. If we reward lawbreakers who enter this country illegally with citizenship, then any new laws Congress might pass likewise can be ignored. Reform must begin with a new mentality that immigration laws will be enforced.
Fourth, end welfare-state incentives for illegals. Americans are quick to welcome immigrants who simply wish to work hand and make a better life for themselves. But taxpayers cannot continue to pay when illegal immigrants use hospitals, clinics, schools, roads, and social services.
Fifth, end birthright citizenship. As long as illegal immigrants know their children born here will be citizens, the perverse incentive to sneak into this country remains strong. True citizenship involves more than the mere location of one's birth.
Finally, completely overhaul the legal immigration process. The current system is incoherent and unfair. Legal immigrants from all countries should face the same rules and waiting periods.
If we keep these points in mind, immigration reform does not
need to be complicated or expensive. It does, however, need to
happen this year.
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National average scores on college entrance exams plunged 7 points - the largest drop in 31 years - for the high school class of 2006. The number of students who took the SAT test was down by 9,600 to 1.47 million.
Participation rates were especially low among students who said they were poor. But more students reported family incomes of $80,000 or more, reported College Board, the test operator, in Washington Aug. 29. Participation among blacks and Hispanics dropped significantly.
Test-takers averaged a 2-point drop in math and a 5-point drop in reading. The College Board dismissed fatigue as a factor. Its analysis showed no differences in mistakes made early or later in the three hours and 45 minutes allowed
The new report is the latest in numerous measurements in recent years indication a "dumbing down" of America's youth. When Ivy League seniors on 2002 were given the same questions used in testing high school seniors in 19955, the public school children of half a century ago had much higher scores than the 2002 college students.
In that same era, newspapers flourished. Almost all adults read several newspapers every day. Today, the industry's own studies sadly show that fewer than half of adults - 49 percent - read even one newspaper a day. There were 1,800 daily newspapers in American then; now there are fewer than 1,200.
Many experts cite the obvious: television, junk food, video games and the Internet. Before television children read books and romped outdoors. Now, many lie vapid in front of the idiot box, eating junk food and getting fat.
A recent study in London found that children, while growing up, are constantly bombarded with media that lacks morals or educational value. Trading books and outdoor activity for video games and the Internet has softened the minds of today's youth.
A leading childhood expert described most television, video games and many Internet web sites as "toxic" influences on juvenile minds.
Numerous studies have shown a clear link between television, video games and childhood aggression.
"It's up to parents to be parents and turn off the television,"
said one father of two adolescent girls. "If we're waiting
for government to step up the plate and start teaching our kids,
we're looking in the wrong direction."
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Earlier this year a young mother contacted the Vaccine Risk Awareness Network to report her child's severe vaccine reaction. Her baby went into anaphylactic shock immediately after being vaccinated. He had to be injected with anaphylactic to counteract the reaction, and was rushed to the local hospital. She was still in shock over what had happened to her child when she called me a week after it happened. We talked at length about her son's reaction to a big dose of vaccines - specifically six vaccines given all at once.
The six vaccines packed into four shots and injected into her 18-month-old toddler also contained four live virus vaccines - chickenpox, measles, mumps & rubella (MMR) vaccines - as well as hepatitis B and meningococcal C vaccines. First he was injected with chickenpox vaccine which immediately raised a hive on his skin, then the nurse quickly injected him with three more needles in separate locations. By the time she had injected all the vaccines, he was salivation, pointing to his neck and playing with his tongue - then his eyes started to roll back at which point she injected him with the epinephrine.
The mother wanted to know what long-term health effects the anaphylactic reaction would have on her child. Might he go on to suffer some long-term damage that wasn't yet obvious? What about the behavior changes she was noticing already? In one week he had shifted from a gentle, easy-going baby to an angry and aggressive child. Had the vaccines and the reaction affected the dramatic change in his personality? What about autism and the link to the MMR vaccine?
Susan, the mother, talked about her initial ambivalence about taking him in for the shots which she had put off a number of times, feeling uneasy and unsure about them. But the health unit kept hounding her, and eventually she agreed to take her child in. Her right to informed consent was clearly violated as she was not given any information about possible vaccine reactions. She was not even informed what vaccines her child was getting. She didn't know that he was slated to get chickenpox vaccine or that such a vaccine existed until the nurse injected it into her child. She had definitely not wanted the MMR vaccine for him and thought she was taking him in to get the meningococcal C and hepatitis B vaccines. She didn't know that her child was at zero risk for hepatitis B or that it primarily afflicts sex trade workers and intravenous drug users or that it has a long and nasty track record of triggering autoimmune diseases.
Susan's experience was a shattering, life-altering event. I shared with her my own anguish when My youngest daughter suffered a severe reaction to MMR vaccine. Against my own better intuition. I'd allowed a fear-mongering doctor to convince me that my baby could die without the vaccine. Susan said if only she had understood the vaccine paradigm in the context of other prevalent negative paradigms in our society. It might have helped her to listen to her intuition and not so easily have given up her child to the system. Medical betrayal is devastating for parents, who have trusted the system, only to have their precious child nearly killed or maimed for life by a vaccine reaction.
As paradigms go, the military-medical-industrial-corporate systems are the most powerful manmade forces on the planet. They exert their power through fear, manipulation and intimidation. They are based on the dominator paradigm, pervasive in societies that value competition and aggression and support systems in which the strong rule the weak.
Vaccination is the primary tool used by the dominant medical system to exert its power over parents with young children. It indoctrinates families into the allopathic drug based paradigm with the intention of creating lifelong dependency and need for its drugs. The "war on disease" is a military model of domination over the microbial world and vaccines are the primary weapon. Unfortunately the vast majority remains unaware that the diseases we so fear had long declined before mass vaccination programs. The current epidemic of chronic neurological and immune system disorders is in fact rooted in and spawned by the vaccine paradigm.
ALUMINUM HYDROXIDE
Recent studies showing the destruction of neurons and immune cells by aluminum and mercury in vaccines inch us a bit close to understanding the widespread and pervasive damage mas vaccination programs have on human health.
In a recent article titled "Vaccines Show Sinister Side," journalist Pieta Woolley wrote: "Two dozen once-jittery mice at UBC are telling the truth postmortem, the world's governments may soon be facing one hell of a lawsuit."
Vancouver neuroscientist Chris Shaw had just dropped a bomb on monopoly medicine's favorite myth - the safety of vaccines. You could just feel the collective hackles of the vaccine establishment go straight up. And it was a double whammy. Shaw's research team has linked a common vaccine ingredient used since the early 1900s to symptoms of neurological damage. And it seems no one has done any meaningful safety research in the many decades aluminum adjuvants have been injected into coultless milions of people. Sound familiar? Shades of the thimerosal scandal?
Adjuvants refer to substances that enhance the action of the main ingredient, in this case the vaccine.
Shaw's line of research into Gulf War Syndrome, Parkinson's, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ((ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease), and Alzheimer's led his research team to study the neurotoxic effects of vaccine ingredients. Because gulf War Syndrome looks a lot like ALS, the neuroscientists felt they had a chance to isolate a possible cause. All troops sent to the Gulf were vaccinated with aluminum hydroxide containing vaccines as were those not deployed to war. According to Shaw, both groups developed similar symptoms at a similar rate.
But when Shaw started searching the published scientific literature for studies on the safety of aluminum hydroxide, he couldn't find any that reached beyond a few weeks. Even a meta-analysis of a broad base of existing research did not produce any studies proving that it's safe in the long term to inject aluminum adjuvants into adults or children, let alone infants.
To test the link theory, Shaw and his four-scientist team from the University of British Columbia and Louisiana State University embarked on basic research the should have been done decades ago. The set up a six-month study and found that mice injected with the aluminum adjuvant suffered neurological damage. They found "statistically significant increases in anxiety (38%); memory deficits (41 times the errors as in the control group); and an allergic skin reaction (20%). Tissue samples after the mice were sacrificed showed neurological cells were dying. Inside the mice's brains, in a part that controls movement, 35% of the cells were destroying themselves."
Aluminum hydroxide heightens immune response to vaccines, yet the "overall role of adjuvants on the immune system response remains surprisingly unclear," says Shaw. "Considering that aluminum adjuvants have been used for over 80 years, the notion that they might never have been rigorously tested in humans or animals for nervous system toxicity seemed difficult to accept. This is suspicious. Either this link is known by industry and it was never made public, or industry was never made to do these studies.....I'm not sure which is scarier."
In a candid comment that must have left vaccine officials frothing, Shaw said: "No one in my lab wants to get vaccinated - this totally creeped us out. We weren't out there to poke holes in vaccines. But all of a sudden, oh my God - we've got neuron death!"
Shaw then refers to Dr. Mehl Madrona, who writes, "the vaccine-adjuvant complex can interfere with the development and integration of the immune, nervous, endocrine and other body systems leading to profound neurological damage."
Shaw says, "This range of disturbance may arise because adjuvants may not only be immune system potentiators, but under some conditions may be immune system suppressors as well. Immune suppression could leave the body exposed to other infections."
Shaw's team plans to repeat the study and expand it. This is good news because the public needs to grasp what happens on the cellular level when toxic vaccine components are injected into living organisms.
Perhaps this will bring us closer to understanding the big picture of vaccine damage. Vaccine activists have been calling for this type of research for decades, but whether it will shift the entrenched vaccine paradigm with its stranglehold dominance over public health policies is another matter.
Special thanks for this article goes to the Vaccine risk
Awareness Network. For more information, contact VRAN at P.O.
Box 169, Winlaw, BC, Canada V0F 2J0 or call 1-250-355-2525. Edda
West is the coordinator for VRAN
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Monsanto was quite happy to recruit young Kirk Azevedo to sell
their genetically engineered cotton. Azevedo had grown up on
a California farm and had worked in
several jobs monitoring and testing pesticides and herbicides.
Azevedo was bright, ambitious, handsome and idealistic - the perfect
candidate to project the company's "Save the world through
genetic engineering " image.
It was that image, in fact, that convinced Azevedo to take the job in 1996. "When I was contacted by the headhunter from Monsanto, I began to study the company, namely the work of their CEO, Robert Shapiro," said Azevedo.
Azevedo was thoroughly impressed with Shapiro's promise of a golden future through genetically modified (GM) crops. "He described how we would reduce the inprocess waste from manufacturing turn our fields into factories and produce anything from lifesaving drugs to insect-resistant plants. It was fascinating to me," Azevedo said."I can do something to help the world...."
He left his job and accepted a position at Monsanto, rising quickly to become the facilitator for GM cotton sales in California and Arizona. He would often repeat Shapiro's vision to customers, researchers, even fellow employees. After about three months, he visited Monsanto's St. Louis headquarters for the first time for new employee training. There, to, he took the opportunity to let his colleagues know how enthusiastic he was about Monsanto's technology that was going to reduce waste, decrease poverty and help the world. Soon after the meeting his world was shaken.
"A vice president pulled me aside," recalled Azevedo. He told me something like, "Wait a second. What Robert Shapiro says is one thing. But what we do is something else. We are here to make money. He is the front man who tells a story. We don't even understand what he is saying.'"
Azevedo felt let down. "I went in there with the idea of helping and healing and came out with Oh, I guess it is just another profit-oriented company.'" He returned to California, still holding out hopes that the new technology could make a difference.
Azevedo was developing the market in the West for two types of GM cotton.
Bt cotton was engineered with a gene from a soil bacterium, Bacillus thruingiensis. Organic farmers use the natural form as an insecticide, spraying it occasionally during times of high pest infestation. Monsanto engineers, however, isolated and then altered the gene that produces the Bt-toxin, and inserted it into the DNA of the cotton plant. Every cell of their Bt cotton produces a toxic protein.
The other variety was Roundup Ready© cotton. It contains another bacterial gene that enables the plant to survive an otherwise toxic dose of Monsanto's Roundup© herbicide. Since the patent on Roundup's main active ingredient, glyphosate, was due to expire in 2000, the company was planning to sell Roundup Ready seeds that were bundled with their Roundup herbicide, effectively extending their brand's dominance in the herbicide market.
In the summer of 1996, Azevedo spoke with a Monsanto scientist who was doing come tests on roundup Ready cotton. Using a "Western blot" analysis, the scientist was able to identify different proteins by their molecular weight. He told Azevedo that the GM cotton not only contained the intended protein produced by the Roundup Ready gene, but also extra proteins that were no normally produced in the plant. These unknown proteins had been created during the gene insertion process.
He know that particle bombardment can cause unpredictable changes and mutations in the DNA, which might result in new types of proteins.
The scientist dismissed these newly created proteins in the cotton plant as unimportant background noise, but Azevedo wasn't convinced. Proteins can have allergenic or toxic properties, but no one at Monsanto had done a safety assessment on them. "I was afraid at that time that someof these proteins may be toxic." He was particularly concerned that the rogue proteins "might possibly lead to mad cow or some other prion-type diseases."
When Azevedo tried to share his concerns with the scientist, he realized, "He had no idea what I was talking about; he had not even heard of prions. And this was at a time when Europe had a great concern about mad cow disease and it was just before the Noble Prize was won by Stanley Prusiner for his discovery of prion proteins."
Azevedo said: "These Monsanto scientists are very knowledgeable about traditional products, like chemicals, herbicides and pesticides, but they don't understand the possible harmful outcomes of genetic engineering, such as patho-physiology or prion proteins. So I am explaining to him about the potential untoward effects of these foreign proteins, but he just did not understand."
At this time, roundup Ready cotton varieties were just being introduced into other regions but were still being field-tested in California. California varieties had not yet been commercialized. But Azevedo came to find out that Monsanto was feeding the cotton plants used in its test plots to cattle.
"I took great issue with this," he said. "I had worked for Abbot Laboratories doing research, doing test plots using Bt sprays from bacteria. We would never take a test plot and put it into the food supply, even with somewhat benign chemistries. We would always destroy the test plot material and not let anything into the food supply. Now we entered into a new era of genetic engineering. The standard was not the same as with pesticides. It was much lower, even though it probably should have been much higher."
Azevedo complained to the Ph.D. in charge of the test plot about feeding the experimental plants to cows. The scientist replied, "Well that's what we're doing everywhere else., and that's what we're doing here." He refused to destroy the plants.
He then approached California Agriculture Commissioners. "These local Ag commissioners are traditionally responsible for test plots and to make sure text plot designs protect people and the environment," he said. But Azevedo got nowhere. "Once again, even at the Ag commissioner level, they were dealing with a new technology that was beyond their comprehension."
Azevedo continued to try to blow the whistle on what he thought could be devastating to the health of consumers.
He said he spoke to many Ag commissioners and to people at the University of California. However, he found no one who would get the connection that proteins might be pathogenic, or that there might be untoward effects associated with these foreign proteins that we knew we were producing.
"They didn't even want to talk about it really, " he said. You'd kind of see a blank stare when speaking to them on this level. That led me to say I am not going to be part of this company anymore. I'm not going to be part of this disaster, from a moral perspective."
Azevedo gave his two-week notice in early January 1998.
It turns out Azevedo was correct that the damage done to DNA due to the process of creating a genetically modified organism is far more extensive than previously thought. GM crops routinely create unintended proteins, alter existing protein levels or even change the components and shape of the protein that is created by the inserted gene.
Azevedo's concerns about a GM crop producing a harmful misfolded protein remain well founded, and have been echoed by scientists as one of the many possible dangers that are not being evaluated by the biotech industry's superficial safety assessments.
BM cotton has provided ample reports of unpredicted side effects. In April 2006, more than 70 Indian shepherds reported that 25% of their herds died within five to seven days of continuous grazing on Bt cotton plants. Hundreds of Indian agricultural laborers reported allergic reactions from Bt cotton. Some cotton harvesters have been hospitalized and many laborers in cotton gin factories take antihistamines each day before work.
Ironically, California's assembly, which has done nothing to
protect the state from possible losses due to GM crop contamination,
passed as bill on Aug. 24, 2006, that prohibits other counties
and cities from creating BM-free zones.
Jeffrey Smith's forthcoming book, Genetic Roulette, documents
more than 60 health risks of GM foods in easy-to-read two page
spreads, and demonstrates how current safety assessments are not
competent to protect consumers from the dangers. Dr. Kirk Azevedo
has a chiropractic office in Cambria, California. Thanks for this
article go to Crusador Enterprises, a grassroots organization
that supports a coalition of activists around the world that are
deeply concerned about important health issues. For more information
on Crusader and its health magazine contact the group at P.O.
Box 618205, Orlando, Fla. 32861-8205, or call toll free at 800-593-6273
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People who take a popular medication to fight clinical depression
are twice as likely to become prone to violence than those who
took nothing at all, according to a new study of patients in Britain.
British researchers from Cardiff University in Britain and the
Cochrane Centre looked at a group of patients who were taking
the antidepressant drug Paxil, made by GlaxoSmithKline, and compared
the results with another set that had been taking a placebo. What
they found shocked them, but reinforced the belief held by many
health experts that these drugs are highly addictive and extremely
dangerous.
Paxil is part of a class of drugs known as selective serotonin
reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which many people say actually make
symptoms associated with depression even worse.
The researchers found that 60 out of 9,219 people taking Paxil
- 0.65 percent - related experiencing what they described as a
hostility event. This was juxtaposed with 20 patients out of 6,455
who had been taking placebo.
In 2004, The Food and Drug Administration studied SSRIs and concluded
that they led to higher risks of suicide and potential violence
among teens and adults. The findings resulted not in the drug
being pulled off the market, but instead a black box warning label
being put on several SSRI drugs.
This finding helps explain why school shootings are almost always
conducted by children who are taking anti-depressants, said Mike
Adams on his alternative health and news web site Newstarget.com
We also know that SSRIs cause children to disconnect from reality.
When you combine that with a propensity for violence, you create
a dangerous recipe for school shootings and other adolescent violence.
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