Washington, D.C., September 4, 2010: “Late in August of this year, an important British MI6 agent was found dead in his London flat, stuffed in a bag and left to rot in his tub. Although this was not reported in the United States, it got a good deal of behind-the-scenes panic from various agencies here. This man, Gareth Williams, was a mathematical genius and had been working on top secret British and American projects for years. He was a constant guest up at Meade in the Puzzle Palace or the NSA. This agency snoops on everything and everybody, regardless of their orders. All of their top level information goes to help them empire build. Like the late and unlamented J. Edgar Hoover, the NSA has built up both national and international dossiers on just about everybody. I have it on the very best authority that the dead Williams was not privy to certain matters hereinafter mentioned but one of his friends was and the information got into his hands. Williams was a geek, or boffin as the British call them, and he took a dim view of setting off a nuclear device in downtown Manhattan to assist Israel in her domestic and area problems. The redoubtable Dr. Kushner, a specialist on Israel and a contract worker for various government agencies, has written a very clear, and very frightening, analysis of the current situation. First, read about the dead spy and then read on and find out why he was killed.”

CIA probes British spy murder as it emerges he was sent on frequent missions to Pentagon’s high-security listening post

August 27, 2010

by Charlotte Gill, Emily Andrews and Liz Hull
dailymail.co. UK

            The CIA was called in to help investigate the murder of an MI6 spy last night as it emerged he was sent on frequent secret missions to the United States. 

             American intelligence officers are poring over every detail of Gareth Williams’s work and personal life to see if the circumstances of his death endangered U.S. national security. 

            The Daily Mail can reveal that the 31-year-old codebreaker flew to the National Security Agency, the Pentagon’s listening post and the largest intelligence agency in the world, up to four times a year. He returned from his last trip to America only a few weeks before he was found dead. 

             Questions also remain over why his body lay undiscovered for up to a fortnight at his£400,000 flat in a Victorian townhouse in Pimlico, central London, half a mile from MI6 headquarters. 

            Mr Williams worked at the Government’s listening post, GCHQ in Cheltenham, but had been on secondment to MI6 for the past year and was due to return to GCHQ next Friday. 

            The body of the keen cyclist was found in a sports holdall in the bath on Monday afternoon. 

            But yesterday his former landlady in Cheltenham insisted he had not been off work, intensifying the mystery surrounding his death. 

            Security sources could not explain why some one holding such a sensitive post was able to go ‘missing’ for such a long time before police were called.

             Officers were last night examining the hard drive of a laptop computer found
in the flat.

             Landlady Jenny Elliott said: ‘He definitely wasn’t on annual leave as the security services woman who came to see me after they found his body told me that he wasn’t on holiday.

            ‘Why did no one notice? It’s disgraceful the police weren’t alerted earlier that he was missing. His murder is devastating and I just hope the person who did it is caught.

            Mrs Elliott, 71, who rented Mr Williams a self-contained flat attached to her home in Cheltenham, said he would often travel to America for weeks at a time three or four times a year either with a male colleague or on his own.

            His uncle, who lives in Anglesey, North Wales, where Mr Williams grew up, said: ‘He’d been making the trips for a couple of years.

            ‘I only found this out very recently and I do not know where in America he was staying or who he was working for out there, but I do know it was in relation to his job.

            ‘His last trip was this summer. He returned from the States just a couple of weeks or so before he died.’

            A U.S. intelligence source said there was ‘no panic’ yet within the National Security Agency and people who knew Mr Williams were still to be questioned.

            The source said: ‘The strong implication is that his death is not connectedto his intelligence work, though this could change at any time. They are understandably concerned about what has happened and are keeping a close eye on developments.’

            Mr Williams’s devastated parents Ian and Ellen have faced speculation over their son’s private life. 

            It has been reported that Mr Williams, who lived alone and did not have a partner,was a gay cross dresser and may have been killed by a gay lover.

            Police sources believe another theory is the spy’s killer may have planted a trail of clues to make it seem as though he was murdered by a gay lover.

            They said gay magazines and the phone numbers of gay escort men were found in the apartment near the agent’s body.

            Police have also asked a pathologist to check whether Mr Williams’s neck was broken, which would suggest a professional hit, the sources said.

            Those who know him say there is nothing to suggest that he may have been homosexual.

            Mrs Elliott, who rented her flat to him for ten years during his time at GCHQ, never saw him bring anyone – male or female – back to his home.

             Detectives are still trying to ascertainhow Mr Williams died. A postmortem
examination proved inconclusive and now they must wait for toxicology results to find out whether drugs, alcohol, poisoning or suffocation were the cause of death.

            Sources say he was not stabbed, shot, strangled or beaten. Scotland Yard is describing the death as ’suspicious and unexplained’.

            A former MI6 officer said that intelligence chiefs are furious that details of Mr Williams’s work as a spy had been leaked.

            Harry Ferguson said senior officials at the Secret Intelligence Service wanted to suppress any information about his work and to simply refer to him as a ‘civil servant’ when news of the murder was made public.

            ‘They hoped details of his role could all be kept covered up. It is a standard
process. Blurting it out has caused a lot of unnecessary embarrassment, risk and upheaval to the SIS.

            ‘If it had been managed properly it could have been kept quiet. He could simply have been described as a government worker or civil servant.

            ‘They are especially frustrated that it has emerged that not only was he was working in GCHQ, but also on secondment to MI6.’

            Mr Ferguson said secret service bosses feared that the ‘nightmare scenario’ had come true when the body was discovered.

            ‘One of the concerns about having such a high profile building as the SIS does is that, while staff can be protected when inside the building, there a significant risk that they could be followed home,’ he said.

            ‘It is the sort of thing that a small group of Islamists or other terror network would clearly be capable of doing.’

            He said the apparent ‘ritualistic’ scene at Mr Williams’ flat, with his mobile phone and SIM cards carefully laid out, also suggested it could have been carried out by a foreign agency to send a message.

The reclusive maths genius and rumours of cross-dressing and blackmail

            From a tender age, it was clear to his teachers at Morswyn primary school on Anglesey that there was something special about Gareth Williams.

            A talented pupil, he was fast-tracked through education, earning his maths GCSE aged nine while most of his contemporaries were still grappling with basic arithmetic.

            By 13 he had secured his A-levels and had a degree in maths by 17.

            He was known as ‘the maths genius’ by fellow pupils and possessed the ‘fastest brain’ his teachers had encountered. But his academic excellence came at a price.

            Forced to study with children several years older than himself, he found it hard to make friends and was last night described by former school mates as ‘socially naive’ and ‘introverted’.

             Detectives were last night investigating whether this shy, private side to his nature made him vulnerable to blackmail amid lurid claims that he was a secret cross-dresser.

            Geraint Williams, his maths teacher at secondary school, recalled how young Gareth was so clever that he sat his intermediate maths GCSE, gaining a grade B, while still at primary school, before being moved up to Bodedern Secondary School, Holyhead, a year ahead of his peers.

            Within months of his arrival he took his advanced GCSE, scoring an A grade, and received top marks in A-level maths and computer studies two years later, when he was 13.

            His teachers were initially at a loss at how best to educate him.Their solution was to move him up two years and enrol the youngster, then aged15, on a three-year maths degree course at his local university at Bangor, which heattained in just two years with first class honours.

             Teacher Mr Williams said: ‘I’d heard about this amazing pupil who had done his GCSE at primary school and got a B at intermediate level.

            ‘He took the higher level GCSE in a couple of months and got an A. It was a problem for us – what could we do with him? We got him to follow A-levels and he did A-level maths and computer science in the third-form. He achieved As in them.

            ‘That was a big problem because he was still only 13, so we contacted Bangor University and he followed the first year of maths degree course.’ 
             The teacher added: ‘He was the best logician and the pupil with the fastest brain I have ever met. You only had to say things once, that’s why he was so successful. He could understand things immediately. He was also extremely good with computer science.

            ‘Gareth was also a very nice lad, quiet and unassuming. It’s very sad.’

            After leaving Bangor University at 17, Mr Williams went on to study for a PhD at Manchester University before enrolling in postgraduate certificate at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, in 2000.

            He dropped out a year later, but last night friends speculated that he left after being taken on by the Secret Services, which traditionally recruit from Oxbridge.

            They said it was an open secret that Mr Williams worked at GCHQ, but added that any notion that the quiet, unassuming boy lead a James Bond spy lifestyle was laughable.

            One close friend, who attended primary school with Mr Williams, said: ‘Gareth was a super, super brain. Beyond intelligent, a very, very clever guy.

            ‘He was hand-picked while at Cambridge by the services, they want the cream of the crop and he certainly was that.

            ‘It was common knowledge that he worked at GCHQ, but any notion that he led a James Bond style lifestyle is rubbish.

            ‘Those kind of people have to be able to blend in, but Gareth wasn’t like that, he was very different.

            ‘He was introverted and found it difficult to make friends, but he was a lovely, lovely bloke. It is such a tragic waste of such a talented life.’
            The dead man’s parents, Ian, an engineer at Wylfa power station, and mother Ellen, who worked in education, were on holiday in America celebrating their joint 50th birthdays when news of their son’s death broke.Last night they were said to be ‘devastated’.

            Another former school friend, Dylan Parry, 34, said he was ‘dumfounded’ by the murder.

            ‘Gareth was the last person I would have believed would be involved in the murkier elements of life,’ said Mr Parry, of Holyhead. ‘He really was about as far from a James Bond figure as it’s possible to imagine.

            ‘Gareth was introverted and socially awkward. He wasn’t dashing or cavalier or a charmer, although he was extremely nice in a quiet way.

            ‘There has been a lot of speculation about his sexuality, but he was so introverted as to be asexual.‘

            He wasn’t able to form relationships because he was so obsessed with his maths studies.

            ‘We nicknamed him the maths genius because he was so clever. He was so naive, he was someone people could easily take advantage of.

            ‘I wouldn’t have thought he was a very good judge of character and it’s possible he got to know someone who wasn’t very safe. He was so innocent.’

Israel vs the United States and Iran

by Dr. Phillip L. Kushner

            The current opinion in some circles, mostly in the United States, is that at some point in the near future , the growing  imposition of devastating economic sanctions on Iran will hopefully convince its radical religious leaders to terminate their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Also, there is the growing hope that the CIA- funded Iranisn Green Movement will overthrow, a la the Ukrainian Orange Revolution’ and replace the Muslim fundamentalist  regime, or at the very least find the means to modify and secularize the regime’s ideological extremism. It is also possible that disrupting operations  now being implemented by the intelligence agencies of Israel, the United States, Great Britain, and other Western powers—programs designed to subvert the Iranian nuclear effort through physical sabotage and, upon occasion, the carefully engineered disappearances of nuclear scientists—will have derailed Iran’s progress towards achieving the capacity to produce nuclear weapons.

            It is now planned in Tel Aviv that senior Israeli officials, representing both their political and military establishments, will come to Washington for conferences both with their American counterparts and, eventually, with President Obama. These conversations, which have been carefully planned and scripted, will have the Israelis advising their American counterparts that they are planning an attack, nuclear or non-nuclear as the situation develops, on Iran because a nuclear Iran poses the ‘gravest threat since Hitler’ to the physical survival of the Jewish people. The Israelis will also state that they believe that  by launching a preemptive strike at all possible Iranian sites suspected of participation in their nuclear program they have a reasonable chance of delaying the Iranian nuclear program for at least three to five years,. Further, talking-point secret Israeli memos state: Israel will inform their American counterparts that Israel has no other choice than to launch this attack. They will not ask for permission for this attack, because it will soon be too late to ask for permission.

            Insofar as President Obama is concerned, the Israelis are considering the most important point of these interviews would be to discover as to what would be the circumstances under which President Obama would move to halt the Iranian projects. The primary point, then,  is to convince the Americans that only military force, i.e., heavy bombing raids, would be able to “totally obliterate Iran’s attempts to get a nuclear weapon and, further, to prevent them from rebuilding their infrastructure in the foreseeable future.” From the Israeli point of view, all of their future actions, which also include the use of their own nuclear weapons on Tehran depends entirely upon the answers, primarily of the President but also of the American military leadership..

            Also, in the possible event that the American President were to agree fully with Israeli wishes, i.e., to use American aircraft to obliterate the perceived Iranian threat by bombing specific, and even general, Iranian targets, could an Israeli-sponsored domestic American propaganda campaign to encourage sections of the American public, outside of the fully-cooperative Jewish community, to support such an American attack.

            At the present time, it is well-established that Israeli agents, Mossad and others, have inserted themselves into all the instruments of power and propaganda in the United States where they have sent any pertinent information to Israel and kept up a steady offensive against the minds, and wills, of the American people. Also, many of the more prominent American newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post are entirely Jewish-owned, the former is stated to be the most receptive to the needs of both Washington and Tel Aviv.

            Israel is fully prepared to take a chance on permanently alienating American affection in order to make a high-risk attempt at stopping Iran. If Iran retaliates against American troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, the consequences for Israel’s relationship with America’s military leadership could be catastrophic.

            It has been seriously discussed in Tel Aviv and in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, that probably the best way to compel the American public and through them, the President, to unilateral action,would not be to launch an attack on Tehran  but instead, attack America through a false-flag operation. This would consist of a believable attack, or attempted attack, on a major American target a la the 9/11 Saudi-supported attacks.

            The most current plan would be for a known militant Arab anti-Israel group, Hezbollah, to actually deliver an atomic device to the city of New York, or, alternatively, to Washington.

            The American Central Intelligence Agency, now seeking to reshape its negative image, would report to the Federal Bureau of Investigation the exact details of the arrival and placement of the bomb.

            The actual bomb would be genuine but would have a part that was malfunctioning, thus rendering the weapon impossible to detonate. The Arabs involved in this delivery would have in their number, a Yemeni Jew, such as the ones that instigated the 9/11 Saudi attacks, and this sleeper would carry numerous forged documents “proving” that Tehran was directly behind this planned attack.

            Revelation of these documents by the fully-supportive New York Times and Washington Post would immediately swing a significant bulk of the American public behind an immediate attack on Tehran with the purpose of neutralizing its atomic weapons capacity.

            This program is now on the table and undercover Israeli agents, posing as top-level Iranian operatives, have located a small group of Hizbollah in Lebanon who would be willing to deliver and prepare this device in New York or, as an alternative, Washington itself. Israeli intelligence feels that the use of Hizbollah personnel would entirely justify their obliterating Hizbollah-controlled territory in southern Lebanon that now house many thousands of long-range surface to surface missiles that could easily reach Tel Aviv and other vital Israeli targets.

            This action, which has already been planned in detail, would be conducted by Israel alone and would compliment the projected American attack on Tehran. Israel stresses the fact that both attacks must be simultaneous lest a forewarned  Hezbollah launch rocket attacks on Israel upon hearing of the American attack. Timing here is considered to be absolutely vital.  

            Both Israel and Hezbollah have accused UNIFIL of bias. Israel again accused them of failing to prevent, and even collaborating with, Hezbollah in its replenishment of military power. Hezbollah, in turn, said “certain contingents” of UNIFIL (i.e., the French)are spying for, if not assisting, Israel.

            Israel has long been a serious planning for a future invasion of Lebanon and such an assault would continue attacking until both Hezbollah’s membership and their system of tunnels and bunkers was completely destroyed, because Israel will never tolerate a “zone of invulnerability” occupied by a sworn enemy, or a double threat posed by Hezbollah’s rockets.

            In the event that Israeli military aircraft attack Tehran, there is the vital necessity that these Israeli military aircraft would be under great pressure to return to base at once because Israeli intelligence believes that Iran would immediately order Hezbollah to fire rockets at Israeli cities, and Israeli air-force resources would be needed to hunt Hezbollah rocket teams.

            Israel’s Northern Command, at his headquarters near the Lebanese border, is ordered that in the event of a unilateral Israeli or American strike on Iran, their mission would be to attack and completely destroy any and all identified Hezbollah rocket forces, by any and all means necessary, to include small nuclear devices that could destroy a number of square miles of what is called ‘terrorist territory’ and render it useless as any future base of attack against Israel. At the present time the Iranians are keeping their Hezbollah firm ally  in reserve until Iran can cross the nuclear threshold.

            During  the four years since the 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon Hezbollah has greatly increased its surface-to-surface missile capability, and an American/Israeli strike on Iran, would immediately provoke all-out retaliation by Iran’s Lebanese subsidiary, Hezbollah, which now possesses, by most Israeli/American intelligence estimates, as many as 45,000 surface-to-surface rockets—at least three times as many as it had in the summer of 2006, during the last round of fighting between the group and Israel. It is further known that  Russia has sent large numbers of longer range surface-to-surface missiles to Syria which has, in turn, shipped them to Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon. These missiles have the capacity to easily reach Tel Aviv and Israelis are very concerned that a massive rocket barrage deep into Israel could not only do serious damage to their infrastructure but could easily provoke a mass immigration of Israelis to other areas, thus depriving Israel of both civilian and military personnel it would certainly need in the event of increased Arab military actions against Israel.

            Even if Israel’s Northern Command successfully combated Hezbollah rocket attacks in the wake of an Israeli strike, which American experts have deemed to be “nearly impossible” political limitations would not allow Israel to make repeated sorties over Iran. “America, too, would look complicit in an Israeli attack, even if it had not been forewarned. The assumption—that Israel acts only with the full approval of the United States is a feature of life in the Middle East, and it is one the Israelis are taking into account. A serious danger here to Israeli attack plans would be if the United States got wind of the imminence of such an attack and demanded that Israel cease and desist in its actions. Would Israel then stop? Though highly unlikely, this is an unpleasant and unacceptable

            At this time, the Israelis have drawn up specific plans to bomb the uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz, the enrichment site at Qom, the nuclear-research center at Esfahan, and the Bushehr reactor, along with four other main sites of the Iranian nuclear program that have been identified by joint past and present Israeli-American aerial surveillance. 

            If Israeli aircraft succeed in destroying Iran’s centrifuges and warhead and missile plants, all well and good but even if  they fail to damage or destroy these targets ,such an attack is feared by American and other nations as risking a devastating change in the Middle East. Such an attack could initiate immediate reprisals such as a massed rocket attack by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon as well as other actions from neighboring Muslim states. 

            This could become a major diplomatic crisis for Barack Obama that will dwarf Afghanistan in significance and complexity; of rupturing relations between Jerusalem and Washington, which is Israel’s only meaningful ally; of inadvertently solidifying the somewhat tenuous rule of the mullahs in Tehran; of causing the international price of oil to spike to cataclysmic highs, launching the world economy into a period of turbulence not experienced since the autumn of 2008, or possibly since the oil shock of 1973; of seriously endangering Jewish groups around the world, and especially in the United States by making them the targets of Muslim-originated terror attacks and most certainly accelerating the growing immigration of many Israelis to what they felt might be much safer areas.

            An Israeli political and military consensus has now emerged that there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by December of 2010. (Of course, it is in the Israeli interest to let it be known that the country is considering military action, if for no other reason than to concentrate the attention of the Obama administration. The Netanyahu government is already intensifying its analytic efforts not just on Iran, but on a subject many Israelis have difficulty understanding: President Obama.

            The Israelis argue that Iran demands the urgent attention of the entire international community, and in particular the United States, with its unparalleled ability to project military force. This is the position of many moderate Arab leaders as well. if America allowed Iran to cross the nuclear threshold, the small Arab countries of the Gulf would have no choice but to leave the American orbit and ally themselves with Iran, out of self-protection. Several Arab leaders have suggested that America’s standing in the Middle East depends on its willingness to confront Iran. They argue, self-interestedly, that an aerial attack on a handful of Iranian facilities would not be as complicated or as messy as, say, invading Iraq. The basic question then is,why the Jewish state should trust the non-Jewish president of the United States to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold.

            For more than a year, these White House officials have parried the charge that their president is unwilling to face the potential consequences of a nuclear Iran, and they are frustrated by what they believe to be a caricature of his position. It is undeniably true, however, that the administration has appeared on occasion less than stalwart on the issue.

            The current French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, himself a Hungarian Jew,has criticized Obama as a purveyor of baseless hope. At the UN Security Council last September, Sarkozy said, “I support the extended hand of the Americans, but what good have proposals for dialogue brought the international community? More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe a UN member state off the map,” he said, referring to Israel. At Sarkozy’s demand, French UN forces in southern Lebanon are now “fully cooperative” with Israeli intelligence, passing to them any and all important information about current Hezbollah positions, personnel and residences.

            Obama administration officials, particularly in the Pentagon, have several times signaled unhappiness at the possibility of military preemption. In April, the undersecretary of defense for policy, Michele Flournoy, told reporters that military force against Iran was “off the table in the near term.” She later backtracked, but Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has also criticized the idea of attacking Iran. “Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing. Attacking them would also create the same kind of outcome,” he said in April. “In an area that’s so unstable right now, we just don’t need more of that.”

            One question no administration official seems eager to answer is this: what will the United States do if sanctions fail?

            In Israel, of course, officials expend enormous amounts of energy to understand President Obama, despite the assurances they have received from Emanuel, Ross, and others. Delegations from Netanyahu’s bureau, from the defense and foreign ministries, and from the Israeli intelligence community have been arriving in Washington lately with great regularity. As an alternative to cooperation by Obama, Israel, through her supporters and lobbyists in the United States are preparing to offer extensive financial and other incentives to political opponents of Obama, mostly the right-wing Republicans and American Christian groups and cults. Both of these groups are being cultivated currently with the idea that if Obama will not cooperate, the Republicans will in the future as they always have before. Also to consider is the current antipathy of American Jews for Netanyahu’s Likud Party, and these American Jews, who are, like the president they voted for in overwhelming numbers, generally supportive of a two-state solution, and dubious about Jewish settlement of the West Bank.

            Both Israeli and American intelligence agencies are of the firm belief that Iran is, at most, one to three years away from having a breakout nuclear capability, which is the capacity to assemble more than one missile-ready nuclear device.. The Iranian regime, by its own statements and actions, has made itself Israel’s most zealous foe; and the most crucial component of Israeli national-security doctrine, a tenet that dates back to the 1960s, when Israel developed its own nuclear capability as a response to the Jewish experience during the Holocaust, is that no regional adversary should be allowed to achieve nuclear parity with the reborn and still-besieged Jewish state. the Iranian desire for nuclear weapons and the regime’s theologically motivated desire to see the Jewish state purged from the Middle East

            If Iran crossed the nuclear threshold, the very idea of Israel as a Zionist entity would be endangered. Instead of a gathering-in of Jews as Zionists desire, there would be growing exodus of Jews for safer areas “

            Most critically if a Zionist Israel is no longer seen by its 6 million Jewish inhabitants and also by the approximately 7 millions of Jews resident outside of Israel that because of continuing threats from outside the country as no longer a natural safe haven for Jews then the entire concept of a Zionist haven/state is destroyed

            To understand why Israelis of different political dispositions see Iran as quite possibly the most crucial challenge they have faced in their 62-year history, one must keep in mind the near-sanctity, in the public’s mind, of Israel’s nuclear monopoly. The Israeli national narrative, in shorthand, begins with shoah, which is Hebrew for “calamity,” and ends with tkumah, “rebirth.” Israel’s nuclear arsenal symbolizes national rebirth, and something else as well: that Jews emerged from World War II having learned at least one lesson, about the price of powerlessness.

            If Israel is unable to change Obama’s mind, they will continue to threaten to take unilateral action against Iran by sending approximately one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran—by crossing Saudi Arabia, and along the border between Syria and Turkey, and, without consulting the Americans or in any way announcing their missions  by traveling directly through Iraq’s airspace, though it is crowded with American aircraft. (It’s so crowded, in fact, that the United States Central Command, whose area of responsibility is the greater Middle East, has already asked the Pentagon what to do should Israeli aircraft invade its airspace. According to multiple sources, the answer came back: do not shoot them down.)

            The first belief by Israeli military planners is that Israel would get only one try. Israeli planes would fly low over Saudi Arabia, bomb their targets in Iran, and return to Israel by flying again over Saudi territory, possibly even landing in the Saudi desert for refueling, according to a U.S. DIA analysis, with secret Saudi cooperation.

            Israel has been working through the United States to procure Saudi cooperation with an Israeli air strike against Tehran and other targets inside Iran.. The Saudis are treating this subject with great caution lest other Arab states learn of their putative cooperation in an Iranian attack with over flights of Saudi territory by Israeli military aircraft.

            The current American/Israeli military plans are for the Saudis to turn off their radar after they have been noticed by the American embassy that an Israeli attack is imminent and also to permit the Israeli aircraft to land in their country for refueling The Israelis are not concerned with any kind of Iranian aircraft resistance because their airfields have been pinpointed by American satellites and one of the attacking groups would use low-yield atomic rocketry on all the identified Iranian bases. It is obvious that when, not if, the Saudis part in this becomes public, it will create immense ill-will in neighboring Muslim states, an impression the Saudi government is most anxious not to deal with.  

            Israel has twice before successfully attacked and destroyed an enemy’s nuclear program. In 1981, Israeli warplanes bombed the Iraqi reactor at Osirak, halting—forever, as it turned out—Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions; and in 2007, Israeli planes destroyed a North Korean–built reactor in Syria. An attack on Iran, then, would be unprecedented only in scope and complexity.

            The reasoning offered by Israeli decision makers was uncomplicated: At the present moment, Israel possesses 135 nuclear weapons, most of them  mainly two-stage thermonuclear devices, capable of being delivered by missile, fighter-bomber, or submarine (two of which are currently positioned in the Persian Gulf). Netanyahu is worried about an entire complex of problems, not only that Iran, or one of its proxies, would, in all probability, destroy or severely damage Tel Aviv; like most Israeli leaders, he believes that if Iran gains possession of a nuclear weapon, it will use its new leverage to buttress its terrorist proxies in their attempts to make life difficult and dangerous; and that Israel’s status as a haven for Jews would be forever undermined, and with it, the entire raison d’être of the 100-year-old Zionist experiment.

            Another question Israeli planners struggle with: how will they know if their attacks have actually destroyed a significant number of centrifuges and other hard-to-replace parts of the clandestine Iranian program? Two strategists told me that Israel will have to dispatch commandos to finish the job, if necessary, and bring back proof of the destruction. The commandos—who, according to intelligence sources, may be launched from the autonomous Kurdish territory in northern Iraq—would be facing a treacherous challenge, but one military planner I spoke with said the army would have no choice but to send them.

             Netanyahu’s obvious course is to convince the United States  that Iran is not Israel’s problem alone; it is the world’s problem, and the world, led by the United States, is obligated to grapple with it, not Israel alone. It is well-known that Israel by itself could not hope to deal with a retaliation against it by Iran and other Arab states but that a confederation of other nations, led, of course, by the United States could defend Israel against her enemies. The Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu, does not place and credence in the current sanctions against Iran, even the ones initiated by the United States at Israel’s urgent request. Is it known that Netanayahu is not happy with President Obama’s reluctance to support an Israeli attack on Iran and has brought a great deal of political pressure to bear on the President by American Jewish political and business groups.    

Recently, the chief of Israeli military intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, paid a secret visit to Chicago to meet with Lester Crown, the billionaire whose family owns a significant portion of General Dynamics, the military contractor. Crown is one of Israel’s most prominent backers in the American Jewish community, and was one of Barack Obama’s earliest and most steadfast supporters. According to the highest level intelligence sources both in America and Israel, General Yadlin asked Crown to communicate Israel’s existential worries directly to President Obama. 

            Those close to him say that Netanyahu understands, however, that President Obama, with whom he has had a difficult and intermittently frigid relationship, believes that stringent sanctions, combined with various enticements to engage with the West, might still provide Iran with a face-saving method of standing down. 

            Israel’s current period of forbearance, in which Israel’s leadership waits to see if the West’s nonmilitary methods can stop Iran, will come to an end this December. Robert Gates, the American defense secretary, said in June at a meeting of NATO defense ministers that most intelligence estimates predict that Iran is one to three years away from building a nuclear weapon.

            One of the consistent aims of Israel is to pressure President Obama, who has said on a number of occasions that he finds the prospect of a nuclear Iran “unacceptable,” into executing a military strike against Iran’s known main weapons and uranium-enrichment facilities.

Barack Obama is steadfastly opposed to initiating new wars in the Middle East and an attack by U.S. forces on Iran is not a foreign-policy goal for him or his administration. The Israeli goal is to compel him by public, and private, pressure to order the American military into action against Iran

            Barack Obama has said any number of times that he would find a nuclear Iran “unacceptable.” His most stalwart comments on the subject have been discounted by some Israeli officials because they were made during his campaign for the presidency, while visiting Sderot, the town in southern Israel that had been the frequent target of rocket attacks by Hamas. “The world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” he said. “I will take no options off the table in dealing with this potential Iranian threat. And understand part of my reasoning here. A nuclear Iran would be a game-changing situation, not just in the Middle East, but around the world. Whatever remains of our nuclear nonproliferation framework, I think, would begin to disintegrate. You would have countries in the Middle East who would see the potential need to also obtain nuclear weapons.”

            But the Israelis are doubtful that a man who positioned himself as the antithesis of George W. Bush, author of invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, would launch a preemptive attack on a Muslim nation.

            If the Israelis reach the firm conclusion that Obama will not, under any circumstances, launch a strike on Iran, then the countdown will begin for a unilateral Israeli attack.

The Conversations with the Crow

                When the CIA discovered that their former Deputy Director of Clandestine Affairs, Robert  T. Crowley, had been talking with author Gregory Douglas, they became fearful (because of what Crowley knew) and outraged (because they knew Douglas would publish eventually) and made many efforts to silence Crowley, mostly by having dozens of FBI agents call or visit him at his Washington home and try to convince him to stop talking to Douglas, whom they considered to be an evil, loose cannon.

             Crowley did not listen to them (no one else ever does, either) and Douglas made through shorthand notes of each and every one of their many conversation. TBR News published most of these (some of the really vile ones were left out of the book but will be included on this site as a later addendum ) and the entire collection was later produced as an Ebook.

            Now, we reliably learn, various Washington alphabet agencies are trying to find a way to block the circulation of this highly negative, entertaining and dangerous work, so to show our solidarity with our beloved leaders and protectors, and our sincere appreciation for their corrupt and coercive actions, we are going to reprint the entire work, chapter by chapter. (The complete book can be obtained by going to:

http://www.shop.conversationswiththecrow.com/Conversations-with-the-Crow-CWC-GD01.htm

Here is the twenty-eighth  chapter

Conversaton No. 28

Date: Friday, July 26, 1996

Commenced:  11:50 AM CST

Concluded: 12:01 PM CST

GD: Hello, Robert. I hope I’m not interrupting your lunch or anything.

RTC: No, we already ate. I’ve been reading the Post for entertainment. And you?
GD: Same old routines. I’ll be looking for the material on non humans whenever you send it.

RTC: It’s all in a manila envelope, addressed and stamped. Greg will come by either this evening or tomorrow and I will have him drop it into the box near his home. It’s a bit too bulky for the local man on the route. You should have it in a week or so.

GD: Oh, no problem. I was thinking about the concept of alien life here and what a good write it would be but then, early this morning when dreams vanish and are replaced by reality,. I realized that I could never do anything with this. I mean it would be fascinating to read but even if you had documents signed by Clinton himself, no one would believe it.

RTC: OF course they would, Gregory. The public loves stories like that. The massive corruption here no one ever talks about and no one cares about but flying saucers, death rays and so on are always of interest. But given that, you would have to fight the establishment on this and I don’t mean the one here or in New York. All of these things,; like the Kennedy business, Pearl Harbor and so on have their cliques and you are an outsider. They won’t let you in, Gregory, and if you print something they don’t like, they will give you both the cold shoulder and the finger respectively. I don’t advise you to publish in this area for two reasons. The first would be that our people would come down on you if there was any chance the public would get wind of it and the second is that the conspiracy idiots would band together to chase you off.

GD: Well, the CIA, the FBI, the creeps in the National Archives, dozens of Jewish organizations, the German government and God knows who else are furious about the Mueller book project but they aren’t like the conspiracy fools. These people whisper to each other that I am evil and should be put in a nut house somewhere and kept silent but they would never, ever dare to do a hit piece on me in the media. That nut Gitta Sereny [1] did that for a while and then she was shut down very firmly.

RETC: How so?
GD: She published libels against me in various British papers and I got in touch with their editors with the result that the old goat got the sack. My God, she kept right on going, like that mechanical rabbit beating the drum. I finally had to deal very severely with her so eventually, she shut up.

RTC: Where is she from?

GD: She has a fake British accent but she’s a Hungarian Jew and part of the holocaust nonsense people. She claims to be an expert on the matter but she knows less than your wife. It’s so much fun to listen to these experts who know nothing. Of course, they’ve convinced some publisher they are experts and after a few sensational sort of books, they actually become experts. I’ve talked to so many of these recently that I’m getting tired of them. They have no idea what they’re talking about and they spend most of their time attacking other stupid writers that they ought to hold games in a stadium somewhere and let them hack away at each other with axes. So much for the fools. This alien business is interesting. The disappearance of so many people, on the other hand, can be found in the public FBI reports. And no one has bothered to put the figures together. Tens of thousands of Americans simply vanish every year. Given a few murders and so on, there are far too many to shove off on murderous child molesters or angry spouses or even the Mafia. They vanish and now we learn that there are non-humans wandering around. I wonder if there is any connection between the two subjects?

RTC:  Well, we have a section, as I have said, that is interested in such phenomenon but it isn’t that important. What with Doctors Gottleib and Cameron’s activities leaking out, we keep investigations into aliens and such like very quiet,

GD: People who turn into jelly when they die surely must be reported.

RTC: I really am not up on that, Gregory. I just picked up the report because it was interesting. I recalled the out of the body experiences we called remote viewing and all the money it cost the taxpayers. There are parts of the Company that are filled with lunatics. I recall once someone brought in a medium to try to second guess the Russians. Do you know how much we paid that silly cow? A hundred thousand dollars. She hit a few points right on but then we later decided she was a good guesser.

GD: Well, anyone can make stupid guesses and be right some of the time. The point is to be right all of the time.

RTC: Well, we have a staff of creative writers who prepare dire predictions for the President based solely what we want him to hear. That’s when we want to invade some country for the oil or to frost the Russians. Who is going to question us? Especially if they have no idea what we tell the Oval Office? It does work most of the time. And we have the Times and the Post to support our views. Getting something done for us or our friends is fairly easy. Anyone who challenges us gets the full court treatment.

GD: You run over him with a truck?
RTC: No, we make a fool out of them and laugh them off the stage. And be careful they don’t try to do that to you, Gregory.

GD: No, I am the one who makes fools out of them. You have to make a real savage attack on one of the front men for the others to back off. When I fry someone, they usually stay fried. I don’t want to tell my techniques but believe me, I have honed them to a razor edge and when I go after someone, they rarely are heard from again. But back to the aliens running around. You mentioned one case about the woman who wasn’t. Do you know of more?

RTC: Yes, there is much more in the report. I just mentioned the one that I recalled. Oh, they’re there but what they are or why they’re here we don’t know. I think if they were going to turn some death ray onto us, it would have happened by now.

GD: Well, one hopes.

RTC: Oh, and Lee [2] is wondering about something you said about Pearl Harbor. You upset these people, Gregory, with your questions and poking. He’s a court historian and court historians take their orders from above. But I suppose you know this by now.

GD: Oh, my yes, I’ve run into them along the way. Some official pays them to write a book supporting some officially approved theme or to attack someone who disputes it. There is no honor among thieves, Robert, none at all,

(Concluded at 12:01 PM CST)

Dramatis personae:

James Jesus Angleton: Once head of the CIA’s Counterintelligence division, later fired because of his obsessive and illegal behavior, tapping the phones of many important government officials in search of elusive Soviet spies. A good friend of Robert Crowley and a co-conspirator with him in the assassination of President Kennedy

James P. Atwood: (April 16, 1930-April 20, 1997) A CIA employee, located in Berlin, Atwood had a most interesting career. He worked for any other intelligence agency, domestic or foreign, that would pay him, was involved in selling surplus Russian atomic artillery shells to the Pakistan government and was also most successful in the manufacturing of counterfeit German dress daggers. Too talkative, Atwood eventually had a sudden, and fatal, “seizure” while lunching with CIA associates.

William Corson: A Marine Corps Colonel and President Carter’s representative to the CIA. A friend of Crowley and Kimmel, Corson was an intelligent man whose main failing was a frantic desire to be seen as an important person. This led to his making fictional or highly exaggerated claims.

John Costello: A British historian who was popular with revisionist circles. Died of AIDS on a trans-Atlantic flight to the United States.

James Critchfield: Former U.S. Army Colonel who worked for the CIA and organizaed the Cehlen Org. at Pullach, Germany. This organization was filled to the Plimsoll line with former Gestapo and SD personnel, many of whom were wanted for various purported crimes. He hired Heinrich Müller in 1948 and went on to represent the CIA in the Persian Gulf.

Robert T. Crowley: Once the deputy director of Clandestine Operations and head of the group that interacted with corporate America. A former West Point football player who was one of the founders of the original CIA. Crowley was involved at a very high level with many of the machinations of the CIA.

Gregory Douglas: A retired newspaperman, onetime friend of Heinrich Müller and latterly, of Robert Crowley. Inherited stacks of files from the former (along with many interesting works of art acquired during the war and even more papers from Robert Crowley.) Lives comfortably in a nice house overlooking the Mediterranean.

Reinhard Gehlen: A retired German general who had once been in charge of the intelligence for the German high command on Russian military activities. Fired by Hitler for incompetence, he was therefore naturally hired by first, the U.S. Army and then, as his level of incompetence rose, with the CIA. His Nazi-stuffed organizaion eventually became the current German Bundes Nachrichten Dienst.

Thomas K. Kimmel, Jr: A grandson of Admiral Husband Kimmel, Naval commander at Pearl Harbor who was scapegoated after the Japanese attack. Kimmel was a senior FBI official who knew both Gregory Douglas and Robert Crowley and made a number of attempts to discourage Crowley from talking with Douglas. He was singularly unsuccessful. Kimmel subsequently retired and lives in retirement in Florida

Willi Krichbaum: A Senior Colonel (Oberführer) in the SS, head of the wartime Secret Field Police of the German Army and Heinrich Müller’s standing deputy in the Gestapo. After the war, Krichbaum went to work for the Critchfield organization and was their chief recruiter and hired many of his former SS friends. Krichbaum put Critchfield in touch with Müller in 1948.

Heinrich Müller: A former military pilot in the Bavarian Army in WWI, Müller  became a political police officer in Munich and was later made the head of the Secret State Police or Gestapo. After the war, Müller escaped to Switzerland where he worked for Swiss intelligence as a specialist on Communist espionage and was hired by James Critchfield, head of the Gehlen Organization, in 1948. Müller subsequently was moved to Washington where he worked for the CIA until he retired.

Joseph Trento: A writer on intelligence subjects, Trento and his wife “assisted” both Crowley and Corson in writing a book on the Russian KGB. Trento believed that he would inherit all of Crowley’s extensive files but after Crowley’s death, he discovered that the files had been gutted and the most important, and sensitive, ones given to Gregory Douglas. Trento was not happy about this. Neither were his employers.

Frank Wisner: A Founding Father of the CIA who promised much to the Hungarian and then failed them. First, a raging lunatic who was removed from Langley, screaming, in a strait jacket and later, blowing off the top of his head with a shotgun.

Robert Wolfe: A retired librarian from the National Archives who worked closely with the CIA on covering up embarrassing historical material in the files of the Archives. A strong supporter of holocaust writers.

Note: We understand that a large collection of documents, assembled by Robert T. Crowley, will be offered to the public in the near future. Here is a listing of some of the documents which will be included:

DOCUMENT CATALOG

Catalog Number               Description of Contents                                                  __________________________________________________________________________________

1000 BH            Extensive file (1,205 pages) of reports on Operation PHOENIX. Final paper dated January, 1971, first document dated  October, 1967. Covers the setting up of Regional Interrogation Centers, staffing, torture techniques including electric shock, beatings, chemical injections. CIA agents involved and includes a listing of U.S. military units to include Military Police, CIC and Special Forces groups involved. After-action reports from various military units to include 9^th Infantry, showing the deliberate killing of all unarmed civilians located in areas suspected of harboring or supplying Viet Cong units. *

1002 BH            Medium file (223 pages)  concerning the fomenting of civil disobedience in Chile as the result of the Allende election in 1970. Included are pay vouchers for CIA bribery efforts with Chilean labor organization and student activist groups, U.S. military units involved in the final revolt, letter from  T. Karamessines, CIA Operations Director to Chile CIA Station Chief Paul Wimert, passing along a specific order from Nixon via Kissinger to kill Allende when the coup was successful. Communications to Pinochet with Nixon instructions to root out by force any remaining left wing leaders.

1003 BH                  Medium file (187 pages) of reports of CIA assets containing photographs of Soviet missile sites, airfields and other strategic sites taken from commercial aircraft. Detailed descriptions of targets attached to each picture or pictures.

1004 BH            Large file (1560 pages) of CIA reports on Canadian radio intelligence intercepts from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa (1958) and a list of suspected and identified Soviet agents or sympathizers in Canada, to include members of the Canadian Parliament and military.

1005 BH          Medium file (219 pages) of members of the German Bundeswehr in the employ of the CIA. The report covers the Innere Führung group plus members of the signals intelligence service. Another report, attached, covers CIA assets in German Foreign Office positions, in Germany and in diplomatic missions abroad.

1006:BH            Long file (1,287 pages) of events leading up to the killing of Josef Stalin in 1953 to include reports on contacts with L.P. Beria who planned to kill Stalin, believing himself to be the target for removal. Names of cut outs, CIA personnel in Finland and Denmark are noted as are original communications from Beria and agreements as to his standing down in the DDR and a list of MVD/KGB files on American informants from 1933 to present. A report on a blood-thinning agent to be made available to Beria to put into Stalin’s food plus twenty two reports from Soviet doctors on Stalin’s health, high blood pressure etc. A report on areas of cooperation between Beria’s people and CIA controllers in the event of a successful coup. *

1007 BH            Short list (125 pages) of CIA contacts with members of the American media to include press and television and book publishers. Names of contacts with bios are included as are a list of payments made and specific leaked material supplied. Also appended is a shorter list of foreign publications. Under date of August, 1989 with updates to 1992. Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, Bradlee of the same paper, Ted Koppel, Sam Donaldson and others are included.

1008 BH            A file of eighteen reports (total of 899 pages) documenting illegal activities on the part of members of the U.S. Congress. First report dated July 29, 1950 and final one September 15, 1992. Of especial note is a long file on Senator McCarthy dealing with homosexuality and alcoholism. Also an attached note concerning the Truman Administration’s use of McCarthy to remove targeted Communists. These reports contain copies of FBI surveillance reports, to include photographs and reference to tape recordings, dealing with sexual events with male and female prostitutes, drug use, bribery, and other matters.

1009 BH            A long multiple file (1,564 pages) dealing with the CIA part (Kermit Roosevelt) in overthrowing the populist Persian prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. Report from Dulles (John Foster) concerning a replacement, by force if necessary and to include a full copy of AJAX operation. Letters from AIOC on million dollar bribe paid directly to J.Angleton, head of SOG. Support of Shah requires exclusive contracts with specified western oil companies. Reports dated from May 1951 through August, 1953.

1010 BH            Medium file (419 pages) of telephone intercepts made by order of J.J. Angleton of the telephone conversations between RFK and one G.N. Bolshakov. Phone calls between 1962-1963 inclusive. Also copies of intercepted and inspected mail from RFK containing classified U.S. documents and sent to a cut-out identified as one used by Bolshakov, a Russian press (TASS) employee. Report on Bolshakov’s GRU connections.

1011 BH            Large file (988 pages) on 1961 Korean revolt of Kwangju revolt led by General Park Chung-hee and General Kin-Jong-pil. Reports on contacts maintained by CIA station in Japan to include payments made to both men, plans for the coup, lists of “undesirables” to be liquidated  Additional material on CIA connections with KCIA personnel and an agreement with them  to assassinate South Korean chief of state, Park, in 1979.

1012 BH            Small file (12 pages) of homosexual activities between FBI Director Hoover and his aide, Tolson. Surveillance pictures taken in San Francisco hotel and report by CIA agents involved. Report analyzed in 1962.

1013 BH             Long file (1,699 pages) on General Edward Lansdale. First report a study signed by DCI Dulles in  September of 1954 concerning a growing situation in former French Indo-China. There are reports by and about Lansdale starting with his attachment to the OPC in 1949-50 where he and Frank Wisner coordinated policy in neutralizing Communist influence in the Philippines.. Landsale was then sent to Saigon under diplomatic cover and many copies of his period reports are copied here. Very interesting background material including strong connections with the Catholic Church concerning Catholic Vietnamese and exchanges of intelligence information between the two entities.

1014 BH            Short file (78 pages) concerning  a Dr. Frank Olson. Olson was at the U.S. Army chemical warfare base at Ft. Detrick in Maryland and was involved with a Dr. Gottleib. Gottleib was working on a plan to introduce psychotic-inducing drugs into the water supply of the Soviet Embassy. Apparently he tested the drugs on CIA personnel first. Reports of psychotic behavior by Olson and more police and official reports on his defenstration by Gottleib’s associates. A cover-up was instituted and a number of in-house CIA memoranda attest to this. Also a discussion by Gottleib on various poisons and drugs he was experimenting with and another report of people who had died as a result of Gottleib’s various experiments and CIA efforts to neutralize any public knowledge of these. *

1015 BH            Medium file (457 pages) on CIA connections with the Columbian-based Medellín drug ring. Eight CIA internal reports, three DoS reports, one FBI report on CIA operative Milan Rodríguez and his connections with this drug ring. Receipts for CIA payments to Rodríguez of over $3 million in CIA funds,showing the routings of the money, cut-outs and payments. CIA reports on sabotaging  DEA investigations. A three-part study of the Nicaraguan Contras, also a CIA-organized and paid for organization.

1016 BH            A small file (159 pages) containing lists of known Nazi intelligence and scientific people recruited in Germany from 1946 onwards, initially by the U.S. Army and later by the CIA. A detailed list of the original names and positions of the persons involved plus their relocation information. Has three U.S. Army and one FBI report on the subject.

1017 BH            A small list (54 pages) of American business entities with “significant” connections to the CIA. Each business is listed along with relevant information on its owners/operators, previous and on going contacts with the CIA’s Robert Crowley, also a list of national advertising agencies with similar information. Much information about suppressed news stories and planted stories. *

[2] Bruce Lee, author of pro-Roosevelt work on Pearl Harbour and close friend of John Costello.

Washington, D.C., August 31, 2010: “Much in the news of late about acts of anti-Muslim activity here and there across this country, and others.

Condemned especially by Jewish groups who greatly fear that at some point, stirring up the public against ethnic groups might turn on them.

Black groups are similarly fearful.

Most of this is being stirred up by fanatics from the far right and promulgated by the three Republican lunatics: Beck, Palin and Limbaugh. Main-line Republicans affect horror but secretly giggle in their tea napkins at the thought of mass national rage boosting their strange candidates into public office…from where they can do even more damage to the national structure.

However, that having been said, militant Islam now poses a great danger to the rest of the world, thanks in part to the stupidity of the Bush administration in invading Muslim countries for fun and profit and also on the part of Israel who, according to Zionist rules, wants to evict all the non-Jewish Arabs from the Arabs ancestral homelands as part f the religious plan to Jewify all of the ancient Judea .

Some kind soul gave me a thick official U.S. Army analysis of the very critical situation in the Middle East that is a blockbuster. It will be published in our next edition and ought to cause as much trouble for the Zionists as they and their supporters are trying to create for the Muslims. Be patient, children, and you will have your bedtime story Wetting the bed after reading it is not part of the plan!”

Slavery, Terrorism and Islam:

by Dr. Peter Hammond

Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100%  system of life.  Islam has religious,  legal, political, economic, social, and military  components.  The religious component is a  beard for all of the other  components.

Islamization begins when there are sufficient  Muslims in a country to agitate for their  religious privileges.  When politically  correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse  societies agree to Muslim demands for their  religious privileges, some of the other  components tend to creep in as  well.

Here’s how it  works:  As long as the Muslim population  remains around or under 2% in any  given country, they will be for the most part  be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not  as a threat to other citizens.  This is the  case in:

United States — Muslim  0.6%
Australia — Muslim  1.5%
Canada — Muslim  1.9%
China — Muslim  1.8%
Italy — Muslim  1.5%
Norway — Muslim  1.8%

At 2% to 5%,  they begin to proselytize from other ethnic  minorities and disaffected groups, often with  major recruiting from the jails and among street  gangs.  This is happening  in:

Denmark — Muslim  2%
Germany — Muslim  3.7%
United Kingdom — Muslim  2.7%
Spain — Muslim  4%
Thailand — Muslim  4.6%

From 5% on,  they exercise an inordinate influence in  proportion to their percentage of the  population.  For example, they will push  for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food  preparation jobs for Muslims.  They will  increase pressure on supermarket chains to  feature halal on their shelves — along with  threats for failure to comply.  This is  occurring  in:

France  – Muslim  8%
Philippines —  5%
Sweden — Muslim  5%
Switzerland — Muslim  4.3%
The Netherlands — Muslim  5.5%
Trinidad & Tobago — Muslim  5.8%

At this point,  they will work to get the ruling government to  allow them to rule themselves (within their  ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law.   The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish  Sharia law over the entire  world.

When Muslims  approach 10% of the population, they tend to  increase lawlessness as a means of complaint  about their conditions.  In Paris, we are  already seeing car-burnings.  Any  non-Muslim action offends Islam and results in  uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam, with opposition to Mohammed cartoons  and films about Islam.  Such tensions are  seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections  in:

Guyana — Muslim  10%
India — Muslim  13.4%
Israel — Muslim  16%
Kenya — Muslim  10%
Russia — Muslim 15%

After reaching 20%, nations can expect  hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations,  sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian  churches and Jewish synagogues, such as  in:

Ethiopia — Muslim  32.8%

At 40%,  nations experience widespread massacres, chronic  terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare,  such as  in:

Bosnia — Muslim  40%
Chad — Muslim  53.1%
Lebanon — Muslim  59.7%
From 60%,  nations experience unfettered persecution of  non-believers of all other religions (including  non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic  cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a  weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels,  such as  in:

Albania — Muslim  70%
Malaysia — Muslim  60.4%
Qatar — Muslim  77.5%

Sudan — Muslim 70%

After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent  jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even  some genocide, as these nations drive out the  infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as  has been experienced and in some ways is  on-going  in:
Bangladesh — Muslim  83%
Egypt — Muslim  90%
Gaza — Muslim  98.7%
Indonesia — Muslim  86.1%
Iran — Muslim  98%
Iraq — Muslim  97%
Jordan — Muslim  92%
Morocco — Muslim  98.7%
Pakistan — Muslim  97%
Palestine — Muslim  99%
Syria — Muslim  90%
Tajikistan — Muslim  90%
Turkey — Muslim  99.8%
United Arab Emirates — Muslim  96%

100% will usher  in the peace of ‘Dar-es-Salaam’ — the Islamic  House of Peace.  Here there’s supposed to  be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the  Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is  the only word, such as  in:

Afghanistan — Muslim  100%
Saudi Arabia — Muslim  100%
Somalia — Muslim  100%
Yemen — Muslim 100%
Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in  these 100% states the most radical Muslims  intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their  blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for  a variety of  reasons.

‘Before I  was nine, I had learned the basic canon of Arab  life.  It was me against my brother; me and  my brother against our father; my family against  my cousins and the clan; the clan against the  tribe; the tribe against the world, and all of  us against the infidel. — Leon Uris, ‘The  Haj’
It is important  to understand that in some countries, with well  under 100% Muslim populations, such as France,  the minority Muslim populations live in ghettos,  within which they are 100% Muslim, and within  which they live by Sharia Law.  The  national police do not even enter  these ghettos.  There are no national  courts, nor schools, nor non-Muslim religious  facilities.

In such situations, Muslims do  not integrate into the community at large.   The children attend madrasses. They learn  only the Koran.  To even associate with an  infidel is a crime punishable with death.  Therefore, in some areas of certain nations,  Muslim Imams and extremists exercise more power  than the national average would  indicate.
Today’s  1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world’s  population.  But their birth rates dwarf  the birth rates of Christians, Hindus,  Buddhists, Jews, and all other believers.   Muslims will exceed 50% of the world’s  population by the end of this  century.

Well, boys  and girls, today we are letting the fox guard  the henhouse.  The wolves will be herding  the sheep!  Obama appoints two devout  Muslims to Homeland Security posts.   Doesn’t this make you feel safer  already?

Obama and  Janet Napolitano appoint Arif Alikhan, a devout  Muslim, as Assistant Secretary for Policy  Development.  DHS Secretary Janet  Napolitano swore in Kareem Shora, a devout  Muslim who was born in Damascus, Syria, as  ADC National Executive Director as a member of  the Homeland Security Advisory Council  (HSAC).

NOTE:  Has anyone ever heard  a new government official being identified as a  devout Catholic, a devout Jew or a devout  Protestant…?   Just wondering.

Devout Muslims being appointed to critical  Homeland Security positions?  Doesn’t this  make you feel safer already???  That should  make the US’ homeland much safer,  huh!!

Was it not  ”Devout Muslim men” that flew planes into U.S.  buildings 8 years ago?  Was it not a Devout  Muslim who killed 13 at Fort  Hood?

Also:  This is very  interesting and we all need to read it from  start to finish.  Maybe this is why our  American Muslims are so quiet and not speaking  out about any atrocities.  Can a good  Muslim be a good American?  This question  was forwarded to a friend who worked in Saudi  Arabia for 20 years.

The following is his  reply:

Theologically – no . . . Because his allegiance  is to Allah, The moon God of  Arabia

Religiously – no… Because no other religion is  accepted by His Allah except Islam (Quran,  2:256)(Koran)

Scripturally – no… Because his allegiance is to  the five Pillars of Islam and the  Quran.

Geographically – no… Because his allegiance is  to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer

five times  a  day.

Socially – no… Because his allegiance to Islam  forbids him to make friends with Christians or  Jews..

Politically – no…Because he must submit to the  mullahs (spiritual leaders), who teach  annihilation of Israel and destruction of  America, the great  Satan.

Domestically – no… Because he is instructed to  marry four Women and beat and scourge his wife  when she disobeys him (Quran  4:34)

Intellectually – no… Because he cannot accept  the American Constitution since it is based on  Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to  be  corrupt.

Philosophically – no… Because Islam, Muhammad,  and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion  and expression.  Democracy and Islam cannot  co-exist.  Every Muslim government is  either dictatorial or  autocratic.

Spiritually – no… Because when we declare ‘one  nation under God,’ the Christian’s God is loving  and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as  Heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in  The Quran’s 99 excellent  names.

Therefore, after much study and  deliberation….  Perhaps we should be very  suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. – -  -  They obviously cannot be both ‘good’  Muslims and good Americans.

Call it what you  wish, it’s still the truth.  You had better  believe it.  The more who understand this,  the better it will be for our country and our  future.  The religious war is bigger than  we know or understand.

Can a muslim be a good soldier???  Army  Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, opened fire at Ft. Hood  and Killed 13.  He is a good  Muslim!!!

Footnote: The Muslims have said  they will destroy us from  within.

Economy edges closer to stalling, government says

August 27, 2010

by Christopher S. Rugaber

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The economy turns out to be weaker than we thought, and the outlook for the rest of the year is now looking dimmer.

New figures issued Friday show the economy struggled this spring, growing at a meager 1.6 percent annual pace. The initial estimate was 2.4 percent, and even that was anemic. Analysts say the summer should be disappointing, too.

Shortly after the government’s revision, Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke said the Fed was ready to take additional steps to prevent a second recession, if the economy deteriorates further. But he stopped short of promising any action.

The Fed “will do all that it can to ensure continuation of the economic recovery,” he said.

Several economists said they expected the economy to keep growing slowly for the rest of the year. That would almost certainly not be enough to bring down the jobless rate, already at 9.5 percent, and unemployment could actually increase.

The performance is “very disappointing,” said Ethan Harris, an economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch. “Usually you get a bigger bounceback.”

In the first quarter of the year, the economy grew much faster, at a 3.7 percent pace. Since then, though, the housing market has slumped after the expiration of a homebuyer tax credit, and business spending and manufacturing activity are both cooling off.

Bernanke, speaking to a Fed conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., acknowledged the economy has slowed more than policymakers had anticipated and said it is “vulnerable to unexpected developments.”

He did say he expects growth will pick up next year. The central bank chairman also sought to reassure the financial markets that he has the tools needed to bolster the economy and will use them if business activity slows further.

Bernanke outlined several options, including having the Fed buy more securities, most likely government debt or mortgage investments, as a way to drive down interest rates on all sorts of debt and spur more spending that might get the economy going.

Bernanke made clear “he is willing to act to ensure that the recovery remains on the right path,” said Zach Pandl, an economist at Nomura Securities.

That reassured the financial markets, which rose sharply after the Fed chairman’s speech. The Dow Jones industrial average finished 164 points higher and back over 10,000, and broader markers registered solid gains.

Wall Street looked past a disappointing statement from computer chip maker Intel, which said it was cutting its sales forecast for the quarter after sensing weaker demand from customers in the U.S. and Europe. A little more than a month ago, Intel reported its biggest quarterly profit in a decade.

How much the government could help at this point is an open question. The Fed has already lowered its key short-term interest rate to nearly zero, but that has yet to rejuvenate the economy. The benefits of federal stimulus programs are fading, and Congress has declined to pass any major new aid.

Pakistan floods: people return home to find nothing left, nothing at all

The monsoon deluge turned mud houses in north-west Pakistan into a sodden mess

August 24, 2010

Saeed Shah in Drab Korona

The Guardian/UK

Sirajuddin stares at the shallow muddy pool of water. He had come to salvage whatever he could from his home. There is nothing, nothing at all.

“This was our house,” said 30-year-old Sirajuddin, pointing to the pool.

Before the great flood came at the end of July there were some 120 homes in the village of Drab Korona, in Charsadda district in north-west Pakistan. Today, only a mosque, two schools and the odd brick wall of other buildings have survived. The rest of the buildings were made mostly of mud. A torrent of freezing cold water, which eventually went roof-high, had come in the dead of night and by the next afternoon, almost everything was washed away.

The province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was the first hit by the monsoon deluge. While further south in the country, the floods continue to the eat up more land, in the north-west the waters have receded, removing the danger of drowning but leaving behind the threat of disease and a destitute population. Pakistan’s federal flood commission has reported that 178,484 homes were destroyed or damaged in this province alone.

With the flood waters gone, Drab Korona looks like a muddy refuse site, a jumble of battered remains encased in thick sludge. Strewn around are broken furniture, trucks, rafters that had been used to support houses … evidence that homes once stood here.

Sirajuddin had lived here with his wife and four children, and the families of his two brothers, in a three-room mud home set in a modest compound. That had gone and there was a just a trace of his all-important wheat store, where some ruined grain was lying in a heap.

They had bought the house six years ago for 140,000 rupees (£1,080), with money loaned and gifted from relatives. Before the floods, Sirajuddin used to make 4,000 rupees to 5,000 rupees (£31 to £38) a month as a labourer.

“We don’t have anything now, even to feed ourselves, so how can we remake this house?” said Sirajuddin, who is living in a tent in another part of Charsadda district. “Our relatives are giving us food but how long can they do that?”

Under a baking sun in sapping humidity, the village air is heavy with the gut-churning smell of rotting flesh, a stench that seems to come in waves. Most of the buffalos and other animals were drowned. Their carcasses lie putrefying somewhere under the slushy mess. Villagers who have returned to search for belongings complain of skin problems. The stagnant water and animal remains have turned Drab Korona into a breeding ground for germs.

A few metres away, Aman Gul, an 18-year-old dressed in a dark vest and traditional baggy trousers, had come to retrieve what he could. Both his home and his father’s village shop were washed away. It was a four-room mud house, which had been home to 17 people, including his grandparents. He had managed to find an electric fan and some duvets that were stored in a trunk. A bed, deposited on a pile of mud, marked the spot where the shop had stood.

In the hurry to get away on the morning of the flood, in water that was already neck high, two of Gul’s aunts, his mother’s sisters, had drowned. They had each been holding a child when the current took them away. Gul’s father managed to save the children. One of the aunts, Shahnaz, was carrying the family’s savings, 45,000 rupees (£350) in cash and 25 grams of gold. They found her body six days later, though there was no sign of valuables. In all, seven people from the village died.

“Only two of us can work in this family, my father and me,” said Gul, who has a job on a building site across the border in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where he makes 250 rupees a day (£2). “If we can get some money together, we will make one room, so at least we can live in our own place.”

Gul’s family are now living in a tent in a camp that has sprung up on the main Nowshera Road nearby, alongside the Flying Craft paper mill, a largely defunct factory that once used to provide much employment to the village. A dozen or so people are crowded into each tent there, on an exposed sitethat appears to receive little or no help from the authorities or aid organisations. There, they rely on the charity of townsfolk, who arrive by car with supplies of food to hand out, these days in the late afternoon before the breaking of the fast. Despite the calamity, all the adults in the camp are observing Ramadan. The north-west is a deeply religious region of the country.

Next to Drab Korona, the adjacent village of Fakirabad Majoki had been a marginally more prosperous settlement of about 1,000 houses, set on higher ground, where many of the homes were made from brick. But, to save money, locals had used mud rather than cement to bind the bricks, which simply dissolved in the flood, leaving mounds where walls had once stood, as if an earthquake had struck. Unlike, Drab Korona, now a wasteland, a few of the residents have drifted back to Fakirabad Majoki. A dozen old men knelt in prayer at the village mosque, which survived.

Farman Ali’s home has a surviving, but badly bowed, compound wall. But inside, the rooms are gone. He’s pitched a tent on his plot, where he and his seven children now live. It is better than sleeping on the side of the main road, where they had been staying. Over the last 25 years, Ali had slowly converted the original mud-built rooms into brick. Earlier this year, he took early retirement from a lowly job at the state electricity company. Now, the home is wiped out and has hasn’t started to receive his pension.

“We got out when the water had reached over our heads,” said Ali. “At least we’re alive. How we’ll live, I don’t know. We have faith in God. He will do something. Send some angel perhaps.”

Amid the fatalism of some, there is also burning anger, at the authorities, in particular the provincial government which is run by the secular Awami National Party. Charsadda district was the party’s base but in Fakirabad Majoki, residents spat expletives at the ANP, praising instead the mildly Islamist party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, which they said had come to their aid or at least shown concern.

“The ANP is not here, it doesn’t exist for us,” said Hameedullah, a 55-year-old villager. “Asfandyar [Wali Khan, the ANP leader] hasn’t come here, even to his own area. If I saw him, I would become a suicide bomber against him myself.”

According to a senior official in the Charsadda administration, Kamran Rehman Khan, the floods affected 74,000 families in the district, roughly 500,000 people, with 54,000 of those families now housed in schools or tents.

“The whole catastrophe is overwhelming,” said Khan. “Whatever we do, is not enough.”

The flooding began at the end of July, in the mountains of the north of Pakistan, caused by very heavy monsoon rain, with the flood waters moving southwards since then, inundating new areas of the southern province of Sindh this week.

Flood facts

• Pakistan estimates that 2.5%, or nearly $5bn, will be wiped off expected growth this year as a result of the floods. Growth will also be hit next year. Infrastructure damage will also have an adverse effect on GDP

• Some economists believe the inflation rate could spike to 25% in the short term

• President Asif Zardari says recovery will take at least three years

• Population affected: approximately 20 million in more than 11,000 villages

• Area affected: 100,000 sq km – almost the size of England

• Cultivated land affected: 2.6m acres. The floods have destroyed an estimated 23% of the current national crop, including much of the cotton crop, which is Pakistan’s major export driver

• Deaths: 1,539

• Houses damaged or destroyed: 1.2m

• Agriculture lost: 200bn rupee (£1.5bn)

• International aid pledged so far: $815m (£527m)

Anti-Latino Hate Crime is Spreading, Says Report

August 26, 2010

by Jamilah King

ColorLines

On the heels of a horrific anti-Muslim attack in New York City on Tuesday night, there’s new disturbing evidence that hate crimes are on the rise across the country for Latinos.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is reporting an upward tick in anti-Latino hate crimes, and apparently it’s a general trend that’s been in the works for years. Hate crimes against Latinos had already increased in each of the four years between 2003 to 2007, according to FBI statistics. After taking a slight dip last year, the trend seems to be picking up just as the national debate over immigration reform rages on.

SPLC cited some pretty startling examples. There’s the case in Maricopa County, Ariz., (home to Sheriff Joe Arpaio) where Juan Varela was killed and his brother was shot in the neck by Gary Thomas Kelley. According to the U.S. attorney’s office in Phoenix, Kelley pointed a gun at Valera and said, “Hurry up and go back to Mexico or you’re gonna die.” The dead man was a third-generation, native-born American, reports SPLC.

There’s also news that since April, there have been 11 assaults on Mexicans in the Staten Island City of Port Richmond. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that there have been 26 suspected hate crimes in the city this year, and of the 11 proven assaults, all but one is considered a bias-related crime carried out by the city’s black residents against Mexicans.

The report also takes great aims to place blame for the uptick squarely on the shoulders of politicians’ whose hefty anti-immigrant talk has severely driven anti-Latino sentiment. In one notorious, Texas Republican Reps. Louie Gohmert and Debbie Riddle warned the world of “terrorist babies.” Both men claimed pregnant terrorists were hatching a plan to sneak across the border and give birth to future terrorists who’d finish off a plan to “destroy our way of life.” FBI Director Tom Fuentes eventually took to CNN to debunk the rumor.

“There was never a credible report—or any report, for that matter …  to indicate that there was such a plan for these ‘terror babies’ to be born,” Fuentes said.

It’s clear that when it comes to the “Ground Zero mosque” debate and the furor over immigration reform, hot-headed political rhetoric has very real life and death consequences.

August 27, 2010  CommonDreams.org

Obama Boxed In by Generals on Afghanistan

by Ray McGovern

Just back from Afghanistan, Marine Commandant, Gen. James Conway held a news conference Tuesday to add his voice to the Pentagon campaign to disparage the July 2011 date President Barack Obama set for U.S. troops to begin leaving Afghanistan.

Conway claimed that intelligence intercepts suggest that this deadline has strengthened the conviction of those resisting the U.S.-led occupation that it is just a matter of time before most foreign forces leave.

Thus, Conway:

“In some ways … it’s probably giving our enemy sustenance. … We think he may be saying to himself … ‘Hey, you know, we only have to hold out for so long.’”

Conway, however, was quick to reassure supporters of the war in Afghanistan that Taliban morale is likely to drop when, “come the fall [of 2011] we’re still there hammering them like we have been.”

Conway began his press conference by adding a new measure to the refrain led by Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, that considerable time will be required before Afghan forces can take over from U.S. troops.

The Marine general said, “I honestly think it will be a few years before conditions on the ground are such that turnover will be possible for us,” adding, “When some American unit somewhere in Afghanistan will turn over responsibilities to Afghan forces in 2011, I do not think they will be Marines.”

President Obama and his generals have emphasized that any withdrawal will be “conditions based,” much as President George W. Bush did regarding Iraq. But setbacks in Afghanistan over the past several months — in particular, the failure of the large Marine campaign to secure Marja, a rural area of Helmand province — have made it abundantly clear that “conditions” are not likely to favor more than a token withdrawal next July.

On a June visit to Afghanistan, Joint Chiefs Chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen discussed the setbacks with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. Mullen admitted, “We underestimated some of the challenges” in Marja, which the Marines tried to clear in March, only to have Taliban fighters return.

“They’re coming back at night, the intimidation is still there,” said Mullen. Marja had been widely advertised by the Pentagon as the warm-up for driving the Taliban out of Kandahar beginning in June 2010.

The U.S. military postponed the campaign against Kandahar in May, and Mullen conceded that, “It’s going to take until the end of the year to know where we are” there.

Top Brass vs. President

The Obama administration’s reluctance to discipline senior generals for comments bordering on insubordination seems to have encouraged the generals to believe they can speak their mind with impunity about President Obama’s management of the Afghan conflict.

The exception to this rule was the extraordinary case of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan until he became the subject of a Rolling Stone article, “Runaway General,” in which McChrystal and his military inner circle were quoted as mocking Obama and the civilian leadership.

The title had an ironic twist since the derogatory comments enabled McChrystal to run away from the consequences of his stumbling war effort, by getting himself fired. After Marja and the abject failure of his campaign to win hearts and minds of most Afghans, McChrystal knew better than anyone that the war was hopeless.

Crusty old Marines like Gen. Conway do not run away — they no longer “fade away,” either. Scheduled to retire this fall after 40 years, he also isn’t angling for some big promotion. Nor is he inclined to sugarcoat military realities in order to calm political nerves in Washington and elsewhere in the country.

Conway has spoken out before against what he considered — legitimately, in my view — arrogant politicians trying to micromanage Marine offensives in ways that caused needless killing of his Marines. For instance, he objected to the Bush administration’s cavalier use of Marines to crush resistance in Fallujah, Iraq, in the spring of 2004. (See below for more detail on Conway’s experience in Fallujah.)

So Gen. Conway let loose at Tuesday’s press conference, pointing out “The President was talking to several audiences at the same time when he made his comments regarding July 2011.” Implication: The July 2011 date was pure politics; there was no military justification for the deadline then; and there is certainly no military justification for it now.

Conway may be insubordinate, but he is also correct about that.

Obama tried to have it both ways, giving the hawks in his administration the escalation they wanted while offering the doves in his political base a fixed date for beginning a troop withdrawal. Such cleverness can work sometimes in politics, but it won’t work in a difficult war like the one in Afghanistan.

However much Obama may have resented it, by last fall he had to admit to himself that he had been thoroughly outmaneuvered by high-profile generals. Take McChrystal, for example, who was well known to have run special operations assassination squads for five years in Iraq under the aegis of Vice President Dick Cheney. McChrystal also demonstrably lied about who killed football-star-turned-soldier Pat Tillman in Afghanistan.

And yet, Obama couldn’t say no, when Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Pentagon’s most famous “water-walker,” Gen. Petraeus, told the President to put McChrystal in charge of the war in Afghanistan.

Either from naiveté or hubris or a combination of both, Obama apparently felt he still could maintain some control over the situation through his persuasive skills. Instead, he found himself in a corner.

The Long Reassessment

During last year’s long review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, McChrystal’s recommendations for a major escalation of troops and an open-ended commitment for 10 years or more were leaked to the press. Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen also made a public case for a long-term commitment, as did Petraeus, who was chief of the Central Command.

Then, during a public presentation in London on Oct. 1, 2009, McChrystal himself said he could not support a presidential decision to fight the war primarily with drone aircraft and Special Forces, the more limited approach advocated by Vice President Joe Biden.

Instead of firing McChrystal then, Obama on Oct. 2 gave the general a 25-minute counseling session on Air Force One. He then told Pentagon leaders to stop their public advocacy of McChrystal’s proposals.

In the book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, author Jonathan Alter said the President was sending the Pentagon “an unmistakable message: Don’t toy with me.” Obama wasn’t going to let himself get backed into a corner, said Alter. Right.

Mullen and Gates were summoned to the White House, but all that emerged was a flaccid statement from Gates saying it was “imperative” that generals provide their advice “candidly but privately.” Mullen did tell the generals to knock off the public campaign for a substantial troop buildup in Afghanistan, and the leaks mostly stopped.

However, Obama had been softened up politically. By October 2009, with the reassessment on Afghanistan having dragged on for months, Obama came under attack from former Vice President Dick Cheney and others for supposedly “dithering.”

Yet, behind the scenes, other generals — former ones, with less personal stakes in the Afghan War — were resisting the push for major escalation.

James Jones, Obama’s national security adviser and a former four-star general, had been pushing back against McChrystal and other hawks. Undercutting the rationale for escalation, Jones told the press on Oct. 4, 2009:

“I don’t foresee the return of the Taliban. Afghanistan is not in imminent danger of falling. … The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.”

In early November, Obama also received cogent, sober advice from his ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, himself a former general who knew twice as much about Afghanistan as McChrystal and Petraeus put together. From 2002 to 2003, Eikenberry was responsible for training Afghan security forces. He then served 18 months (2005-2007) as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

In two highly sensitive cables of Nov. 6 and 9, 2009, (the texts of which were almost immediately leaked by an unknown U.S. official to the New York Times), Eikenberry declared, “I cannot support [the Defense Department's] recommendation for an immediate Presidential decision to deploy another 40,000 here.”

Damning McChrystal’s recommendations with faint (and condescending) praise, Eikenberry described them as “logical and compelling within his [McChrystal's] narrow mandate to define the needs for a military counterinsurgency campaign within Afghanistan.”

Eikenberry then went on to list a dozen compelling factors that would make adding more troops a fool’s errand — among them these three:

–Hamid Karzai was not and never would be “an adequate strategic partner;”

–”More troops won’t end the insurgency as long as Pakistan sanctuaries remain … and Pakistan views its strategic interests as best served by a weak neighbor;”

–”We overestimate the ability of Afghan security forces to take over … by 2013.”

(Who would be better qualified to make the judgment on security forces than the senior officer trying to build and train a fledgling, predominantly illiterate Afghan army from 2002 to 2003?)

Obama Bows to the Four-Stars

But Obama found himself outgunned politically by the pro-escalation crowd. Thanks in large measure to a fawning media, Gen. Petraeus and Gen. McChrystal enjoyed much higher public profiles that James Jones and Ambassador Eikenberry.

And, besides, if the U.S. and NATO failed to prevail in Afghanistan (whatever “prevail” might mean), the overly smart advisers in Obama’s White House thought they could blame the generals. After all, the President was giving them what they had demanded.

This kind of reasoning seemed to persuade Obama to dismiss the informed commentary of Ambassador Eikenberry and national security adviser Jones, as well as the views of Vice President Biden.  Whether Petraeus and McChrystal had it right or wrong, the politically smart ting to do would be to defer to them.

On Nov. 11, 2009, Veterans Day, Obama called his key advisers and generals together. According to Jonathan Alter, it was then that the President gave preliminary approval for 40,000 more troops to be sent to Afghanistan. But he wanted them in and out quickly.

The Pentagon was to prepare a “targeted” plan for protecting population centers, training Afghan security forces, and beginning a real — not a token — withdrawal within 18 months of the escalation.

Too Inexperienced & Too Clever by Half

Obama’s dilemma was how to project an image of strength in the fight against the Taliban and still avoid letting Afghanistan become an albatross around his neck in 2011-2012 as the next presidential election drew near.

In Obama’s calculation, the image of toughness was to come from giving the generals pretty much what they demanded to carry the fight to the Taliban. The albatross would be avoided, the President thought, by giving the generals a deadline — a date on which U.S. troops would start coming home. Such a deadline would also be helpful in appeasing what used to be called Obama’s base-more recently branded “the professional left.”

The dual message was crafted presumably with the help of the inept folks who led the long assessment with the wrong conclusions — functionaries like former CIA official Bruce Riedel and Ambassador Richard “we’ll-recognize-success-when-we-see-it” Holbrooke. Never ones to pick a fight with beribboned four-stars, they probably repeated their mantra: the military knows best.

Next stop for Obama in deciding how to massage the message was to consult with his own inside group of political wheeler-dealers — folks with long experience in Congress and in White House positions, such as chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, CIA Director Leon Panetta, former White House chief of staff John Podesta, and Joe Biden.

With the help of this brain trust, Obama settled on what he thought would be a win-win solution — for his administration, if not for U.S. troops.

In the formal meeting on Nov. 29, Obama would get the top brass on record buying into the escalation and timetable. In other words, he would turn the tables on the generals, boxing them in for a change. According to Alter, the dialogue went like this:

Obama: “David [Petraeus], tell me now. I want you to be honest with me. You can do this in 18 months?”

Petraeus: “Sir, I am confident we can train and hand over to the ANA (Afghan National Army) in that time frame.”

Obama: “If you can’t do the things you say you can in 18 months, then no one is going to suggest we stay, right?”

Petraeus: “Yes, sir, in agreement.”

Mullen: “Yes, sir.”

Obama then asked Defense Secretary Gates if he had any problems with the scenario, eliciting a response from Gates saying he was fine with the decision.

Obama: “I’m not asking you to change what you believe, but if you don’t agree with me that we can execute this, say so now. Tell me now.”

Mullen: “Fully support, sir.”

Petraeus: “Ditto.”

Am I the only one who finds that scene extraordinary?

Alter adds that as Biden walked with the President to the meeting, the Vice President asked if the new policy of beginning a significant withdrawal in 2011 was a direct Presidential order that could not be countermanded by the military. Obama said yes.

That response no doubt accounts for the assurance that Biden later gave at the end of an interview in his West Wing office: “In July 2011 you’re going to see a whole lot of people moving out [of Afghanistan]. Bet on it. Bet on it.”

I imagine that this is not the first foolish bet Joe Biden has made. How naïve for him and Obama to think that they had the generals boxed in and that the generals — along with their powerful allies — could not figure out some way to insist that a change in circumstance necessitated a longer time frame or additional resources.

The next two years are far more likely to witness a Donnybrook between the Pentagon and White House, as the security situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate and Petraeus — now commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, with his vaunted reputation riding on success — inevitably demands more troops.

Can Obama really believe that Petraeus will honor his Nov. 29 pledge; that when things go really bad in Afghanistan the beribboned general will say, “Shucks, I was wrong”; and then tuck tail, forfeiting any ambition he may harbor eventually to run for President?

With all due respect, President Obama and Vice President Biden, I wouldn’t bet on it.

Gen. Conway and Fallujah

We are likely to hear more from Gen. James Conway before he retires this fall. The Marine Commandant has been outspoken for over five years — and with very good reason since his Marines were often the ones bearing the brunt of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, at times taking casualties because of politically inspired orders that made no military sense.

After turning over command of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq in early September 2004, Conway let not a day pass before excoriating higher officials for misguided, counterproductive orders to attack the Iraqi Sunni stronghold of Fallujah in retaliation for the brutal killing of four U.S. Blackwater contractors on March 31, 2004.

Conway did not repeat the criticism of UN envoy in Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, and many others who denounced the Fallujah offensive as “collective punishment,” a war crime under international law. But the Marine general did observe that the attack “certainly increased the level of animosity that existed.”

Conway stressed the stupidity of ordering the attack, in which six Marines were killed and six more wounded, and then halting it just three days later.

The reason for the rash order to attack and the sudden reversal related to concerns within George W. Bush’s White House, first, that the killings of the contractors could not go unpunished, followed by the realization that the worsening war in Iraq could affect Bush’s chances in the 2004 election.

Conway found particularly galling what happened after he was ordered to break off the attack. A handful of former Iraqi generals were allowed to form the “Fallujah Brigade” and were put in charge of the city.

The 800 AK-47 assault weapons, 27 pick-up trucks and 50 radios that the Marines gave this “Brigade” wound up in the hands of the resistance, which remained in control of Fallujah. The equipment also was used against Marines positioned near the city.

Asked who issued the order to attack and then halt, Conway would only say that he had advised against the attack in the first place but that “we follow our orders.” According to The Washington Post, senior U.S. officials in Iraq said the command to attack and then desist originated in the White House.

Just days after Bush won a second term in November 2004, the assault on Fallujah resumed with U.S. forces virtually leveling the city, partly in retribution for the dead Blackwater contractors and the humiliation that had been dealt the Bush administration.

Eye for an Eye

Most Americans are unaware of this sequence of events in Fallujah in 2004, but should know and ponder what actually happened. First, the Blackwater contractors had taken a wrong turn on March 29 and ended up in the wrong neighborhood in Fallujah.

Western press accounts left the impression that the murder of the four Blackwater operatives was the work of fanatics who acted without provocation and eventually got — along with thousands of their neighbors — the punishment they deserved. Few are aware that the killings of the contractors represented the second turn in that particular cycle of violence.

On March 22, 2004, Israeli forces assassinated in Gaza the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Yassin — a withering old man, blind and confined to a wheel chair. The Blackwater operatives in Fallujah were killed by a group that described itself as the “Sheikh Yassin Revenge Brigade.” One of the trucks that dragged the bodies of the mercenaries had a large poster of Yassin in its window, as did many Fallujah storefronts.

Gen. Conway may already know the full story. As his retirement nears, he may feel free to point out the actual sequence of events stretching from Gaza to Fallujah and join other realists who have served in the U.S. military and noted the increased dangers to U.S. troops that flow from the widespread perception that U.S. policy is identical to that of Israel.

Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He served as an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer, and then as a CIA analyst for a total of almost 30 years. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

This article appeared first on Consortiumnews.com.

Don’t Let the Military’s Deadly “Pain Ray” Machine Invade the L.A. County Jail

August 25, 2010

by David Shapiro, National Prison Project

ACLU

Los Angeles County Jail has just installed an Assault Intervention Device — an invisible microwave-beam weapon originally developed by the military — as a way to subdue inmates by focusing a microwave beam on them to make them feel “intolerable heat.”

Sheriff Lee Baca unveiled this giant robot-like device at a news conference last week, noting the “The Assault Intervention Device appears uniquely suited to address some of the more difficult inmate violence issues,” since it will “allow us to quickly intervene without having to enter the area and without incapacitating or injuring either combatant.”

The claim that the 7 ½-foot tall high-power microwave device — dubbed the “Pain Ray” by the media — will cause no injury is highly dubious, to say the least: There is good evidence from the United States military that it is capable of inflicting not only intolerable pain, but death.

The ACLU and the ACLU of Southern California sent a letter today to Sheriff Baca, demanding an assurance that he will never use the high power microwave device against the inmates of the Los Angeles County Jails.

The device, developed by the Raytheon Company of Waltham, Mass., was dubbed the “Active Denial System” (ADS) in its original military incarnation and was mounted on trucks for “crowd control,” evidently intended to be used against protesters outside American military bases. The U.S. Justice Department claimed that the device “does not cause permanent injury” — but that claim has been shown to be false.

In September 2006, the Secretary of the Air Force said the ADS should be used for crowd control in the U.S. to prove its harmlessness before deployment on the battlefield, or he would be “vilified” in the world press. While the device was being tested by the Air Force, however, a miscalibration of its power settings caused five airmen in its path to suffer lasting burns, including one whose injuries were so severe that he was airlifted to an off-base burn treatment center.

A 2008 report by noted physicist and less-lethal weapons expert Joergan Altmann explained that the ADS device’s microwave beam heats the skin without lasting harm only if the beam is switched off immediately once a temperature of 122 F. is reached — and then only if the beam is not retriggered. Dr. Altmann noted:

The power and duration of emission for one trigger event is controlled by a software program. Model calculations show that with the highest power setting, second- and third-degree burns with complete dermal necrosis will occur after less than 2 seconds. Even with a lower setting of power or duration there is the possibility for the operator to re-trigger immediately. … As a consequence, the ADS provides the technical possibility to produce burns of second and third degree.

Further, the Altmann report said, the possibility of retriggering on the same subject puts avoidance of burns at the discretion of the weapons operator: “Without a technical device that reliably prevents retriggering on the same target subject, the ADS has a potential to produce permanent injury or death.”

The notion that a military weapon intended to cause intolerable pain — and so capable of causing lethal injury when used for crowd control — should now be used against county jail inmates is staggeringly wrongheaded. It is all the more disturbing that the use of the Pain Ray is being entrusted to the deputies of L.A. County Jail, where the long-troubled history of deputy violence, retaliation and abuse against inmates, as well as a subculture of falsification of official records, has been documented by the ACLU in its role as court-appointed monitor of the jails in the federal litigation Rutherford v. Block.

Moreover, inmates at the jail — most of whom are not convicted, but awaiting trial — will not be the only potential victims of this Star Wars technology’s domestic use. We could all get burned. The Justice Department’s National Justice Institute specifically developed the smaller, portable version of the microwave weapon — the device that Sheriff Baca is now preparing to deploy against detainees in L.A. County Jail — for use in the homeland, and not only by corrections officials against unruly inmates, but by law enforcement officers for civilian “crowd control.”

Social Security Cuts Threaten to Hurt Low-Income Americans More

August 26, 2010

by Martha C. White

The Washington Independent

This summer, Social Security – the government program that provides a steady check for seniors – turned 75. In Washington, lawmakers celebrated its platinum anniversary not with champagne, but with a heated argument over whether to reform the costly entitlement program by slashing benefits or raising the retirement age. Indeed, with the national debt over $13 trillion and the government running at a $1 trillion a year loss, the Obama administration created a deficit commission – the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform – to find ways to return the country to the black. In anticipation of its report, and in anticipation of possible changes to the program, lawmakers have started discussing how to reform Social Security.

After running a surplus for years and building up a sizable trust fund, Social Security now runs in the red. Though the program is far from bankrupt, more money is pouring out than going in. Economists project that the trust fund will be emptied by 2037. From there, opinions diverge on how far into debt the program will fall if nothing is done.

“Social Security is not in immediate trouble. There’s been a lot of exaggeration of that problem,” says Alice Rivlin, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a member of the deficit commission. “It is not on a solid basis for the long run, however. The sooner we act, the less we have to do.”

The problem is, there’s no consensus on what form that action should take. And many of the most commonly discussed tactics for stemming the flow of red ink would disproportionately impact lower-income Americans, the segment of the population that depends on Social Security the most.

One idea that comes up frequently is raising the retirement age. House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio), for instance, proposes lifting it to 70; some economists have suggested lifting it to as high as 75.

The idea sounds good: People are living longer, so it makes sense they will be working longer as well, right? But raising the retirement age will not necessarily keep people in the workforce longer, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research. For lower-income Americans, it would often just consign them to a retirement of lower benefit checks.

Already, around two-thirds of non-disabled workers elect to begin receiving smaller checks at 62 rather than full payments at 65. The hardship of raising the retirement age falls disproportionately on low-income workers who work in physically demanding professions, jobs they may not be able to continue through their seventh decade. According to Baker, 45 percent of workers over the age of 58 hold physically demanding jobs. Among those who lack a high-school diploma, that percentage skyrockets to around 75 percent. “If the hope is that people will work longer, that’s a very difficult thing for low and moderate income Americans to do,” Baker says.

Moreover, though the average lifespan has increased since Social Security’s creation, those extra years aren’t enjoyed equally by all Americans. Overall, Americans are living about 7 years longer. But the poorest 20 percent of Americans are living just two years longer – coinciding with that increase in retirement age. Baker notes that minority Americans fare even worse. “Even at 65, there’s a gap of about two years in lifespan. Also, on average, they have much lower wealth at retirement, so they’re much more dependent on Social Security.”

Center and right-leaning policy experts say another way to limit Social Security expenditures is to change the baseline for the benefits calculator from a wage index to a price index. Since the price of goods tends to grow more slowly than wages do, this shift would reduce the amount the program would have to pay out in the future. Supporters of this proposal say that because the benefits will still increase along with price inflation, seniors won’t suffer a shortfall in real-dollar terms.

This logic works in theory. But in practice, it would seriously impact lower-income Americans. Why? Seniors spend differently than average-aged workers: They buy more healthcare goods and services. And healthcare costs are skyrocketing well above the average inflation rate, so lowering benefits would make it more difficult for retirees to cover their costs. The more economically strapped the American, the more it would hurt.

Other plans would have less impact on those least able to shoulder the burden. One idea would be to reduce benefits for wealthy retirees. The idea is that “Bill Gates doesn’t need social security,” says Brookings’ Rivlin.

The problem is deciding where to set the bar: Too low, and you ensnare middle-class families, too high, and you only earn the ire of the superrich without contributing much to the bottom line. Some experts, including Rivlin, think the political cost probably wouldn’t be worth the impact on the bottom line. Polls show that even wealthy Americans want their Social Security, and are willing to pay for it. The government might net a little more money, but it would lose the public support and buy-in of wealthy (and thereby influential) citizens.

“U.S. benefits relative to earnings are low by comparison with those in other wealthy nations,” says Henry Aaron, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “I don’t think there’s a strong case for cutting benefits on the merits of the idea. In my view, the bulk of the fix should come from the revenue side.”

Many economists on the left share that sentiment. “It makes sense to fix social security by increasing revenues and making sure a good chunk of those revenues come from the high end of the income distribution,” says Monique Morrissey, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

Raising the payroll cap is one popular idea. Currently, the first $106,800 an American makes is subject to the Social Security tax; above that, the earner pays nothing. “If you eliminate the cap, you’re probably getting very close to eliminating the entire Social Security deficit for the next 75 years,” says Christian Weller, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. “The more common proposal is to raise the cap so 90 percent of earnings are subject to the tax, which would eliminate about a third of the deficit.”

Another idea under consideration is raising the payroll tax rate by a fraction of a percentage point. Although the flat rate of this tax is inherently regressive, some left-leaning experts say it’s preferable to a cut in benefits, especially when the prospect is discussed in conjunction with other modifications like a minimum benefit, as described in a recent report by the Urban Institute.

Not everyone thinks adding to the payroll tax rate is the way to go, though. “It seems to me that raising the payroll tax is the least desirable way to try to move the program towards solvency,” says Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute. “It’s a tax on work and makes it more expensive for employers.”

Marshall supports ideas more commonly embraced by the right to make up the shortfall, including an increase in the retirement age and a downward adjustment on the formula used to calculate benefits.

Some Republican politicians are still pushing for privatization, pointing to the rise of the stock market over the long term. Mike Tanner, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, asserts that even if a retiree cashed out at the trough of the market in 2009, he or she would have still experienced a growth in wealth. Given the wariness with which many Americans bruised by a drop in their 401(k) and home values now view the stock market, though, privatization may be a tough sell at least until the current bear market fades from our collective memory. “A lot of Republicans seem to view private investment as some kind of panacea, which I don’t think is correct,” says PPI’s Marshall. “That wouldn’t solve the underlying structural problems.”

Right-leaning experts tend to paint a bleaker view of the Social Security situation in general. Cato’s Tanner explains that the difference is that they include in their calculation of upcoming obligations the cost to be borne by the Treasury when the program cashes in its trust fund bonds. Obviously, that money will have to come from somewhere, but progressive economists like CAP’s Weller, counter that it’s disingenuous for the right to say those bonds pose an economic risk when the Social Security surplus is one factor that was used to justify Bush-era tax cuts in the first place.

Experts of all stripes like to point out that Social Security reform should be a snap compared to changing more complex programs like Medicare. In a strictly economic sense, that’s true. But the discussion around Social Security often threatens to collapse under the metaphorical weight lawmakers have conferred on the program. “It’ll probably be more politically determined than substantively determined,” PPI’s Marshall concedes. “Right now neither side wants to come out of its assigned place.”

The Conversations with the Crow

When the CIA discovered that their former Deputy Director of Clandestine Affairs, Robert  T. Crowley, had been talking with author Gregory Douglas, they became fearful (because of what Crowley knew) and outraged (because they knew Douglas would publish eventually) and made many efforts to silence Crowley, mostly by having dozens of FBI agents call or visit him at his Washington home and try to convince him to stop talking to Douglas, whom they considered to be an evil, loose cannon.

Crowley did not listen to them (no one else ever does, either) and Douglas made through shorthand notes of each and every one of their many conversation. TBR News published most of these (some of the really vile ones were left out of the book but will be included on this site as a later addendum ) and the entire collection was later produced as an Ebook.

Now, we reliably learn, various Washington alphabet agencies are trying to find a way to block the circulation of this highly negative, entertaining and dangerous work, so to show our solidarity with our beloved leaders and protectors, and our sincere appreciation for their corrupt and coercive actions, we are going to reprint the entire work, chapter by chapter. (The complete book can be obtained by going to:

http://www.shop.conversationswiththecrow.com/Conversations-with-the-Crow-CWC-GD01.htm

Here is the twenty-seventh  chapter

Conversation No. 27

Date: Friday, Thursday, July 25, 1996

Commenced: 9:55 AM CST

Concluded: 10:22 AM CST

EC: Hello.

GD: Good morning, Mrs. Crowley. Is Robert available?

EC: He’s upstairs. Let me call him.

GD: If it’s too much….

EC: No, dear, I’m sure he would like to talk to you.

(Pause)

RTC: Good morning, Gregory. I was going through some papers.

GD: No problem. I can get back to you later.

RTC: No trouble. I was going to talk with you about your forthcoming books. I think you must be aware that the first book came on slowly but has gathered steam. That loud-mouth, Damato,[1] has the Jews behind him and he wants answers from people. The Jews are absolutely outraged at the thought that our Israel-loving government would have even considered hiring the head of the Gestapo, and this is anathema to them. And as you know, an angry Jew can be heard for two blocks with your windows shut.

GD: Tell me about it. I get all kinds of squealing emails from them demanding that I recant this or prove that.

RTC: How do you deal with this?
GD: Well, if they’re polite, I’m polite but when the shrill demands start or the orders to do this or that, I basically tell them to suck my ass.

RTC: In such language?
GD: Sometimes. I told you that I have all the German concentration camp records on microfilm that I got from the Russians and they either want to see if their aunt Sophie is there or are horrified that the Russians would dare send these to an unauthorized person. I being the unauthorized person. I am not a Jew and only a Jew may look at these precious and sacred records, let alone write about them. I mean I might discover that the huge death tolls are fakes. Can’t have that. Why all the holocaust museums would have to shut down and all across America, weeping librarians would be pulling down the Anne Frank diaries and either tossing them into the dumpster or putting them into the fiction section. Anyway, they are very, very unhappy and most of them want me to send them something, anything, to prove I have the files. I always send one or two pages, just enough to make my point and then I put them on the block. Jesus, such self-centered and self-important assholes. I don’t hear the Armenians, who really were massacred by the Turks, making such an uproar. I mean, it’s like someone I don’t know demanding that I attack the government of Great Britain because they got a traffic ticket they feel was unjust. Don’t these rodents realize that outside of their incestuous groups, no one else gives a flying fuck about their crazy stories? Six million gassed, my ass. The highest toll I can find is about two hundred thousand Russian Jews shot or hanged by the German security police in occupied Russian territory  and my God, I have reams of correspondence between the French, the Hungarians, the Latvians and, oh my, especially the Greeks, begging the Germans to rid them of their Jews. I mean begging them. The Hungarians were the most strident.  Now, of course, we hear stories of weeping Italians begging the evil Germans to let all their boxcars full of Jews go free. And as the train steamed off, headed for the enormous gas chambers of the dread Auschwitz, the Italians waved goodbye. Oh, and here is a really funny one. Now, it seems, trains of wailing Jews went from Italy through Switzerland on their way to martyrdom and the soap factory and while the trains were stopped in Swiss stations, the evil Swiss came down and pissed on them. Of course this is another legend because none of the camp trains ever went through Switzerland. Alfonse the Tomato is typical of his breed. He’s doing badly in the polls so the Jews offer to give him a few dollars and the price is to act as their hand puppet. On it goes, Robert, on it goes.

RTC: My, you must be on the second pot of coffee, Gregory.

GD: Actually, I’ve been sniffing glue. Sorry to rant here but I do get so tired of listening to the same old wailing  If I ever get around to trying to decipher Mueller’s notes and put out the daily diary he kept while he was over here, what is now the wind will become the whirlwind. And this time, your people will be beating their drums and blowing the tin horns to accompany the Hebrew cries for justice and money. In reverse order, actually. Of course, we could talk about all the calls you get from the Kimmel DOJ people about how truly evil I am and why you should never, ever talk to me.

RTC: Oh God, don’t bring that up. I don’t get as many calls as I used to but they still come in. I write their names and extension numbers down and send them to you. What do you do with them, by the way? Send them huge take-out Chinese dinners?

GD: No, I  ring them up and ask them who the fuck they think they are.

RTC: Actually, I don’t think they know. Someone puts them up to this, of course. And Kimmel hasn’t helped the situation by hovering in the background wearing a black cloak and hissing to his minions. Bill gets some of this and Bill will run with the hares and hunt with the hounds, if you take my meaning.

GD: I have come to that conclusion. Not a bad fellow and his wife is very nice but he wants to be important so he will pass something to me today, and ask me their questions tomorrow. I humor him, Robert, and if I give him information, I do so to mislead him and those who want the information. It’s so much fun to lead them down the secret trails right into the quicksand. For example, I know of someone who is a serious FBI informer so I once told Bill that the snitch was the one who was supplying me with the really awful documents from the files. Of course someone is supplying me but not the one I very privately tell him.

RTC: Yes, Mr. Mueller’s tag for you is perfect, Gregory. Mr. Sunshine indeed. I think they view you as old Nick himself with brimstone smells and a long tail.

GD: Well, sorry to have been so intense today but I bottle all this up and when it comes out, there is a lot of it.

RTC: Sounds like a dose of salts.

GD: More or less. Well, you’re Catholic Irish and I’m Protestant German but inside your Beltway, we are in the minority.

RTC: That’s sadly true.

GD: Instead of a chaplain starting sessions of Congress, pretty soon they’ll have the rabbi up there chanting. And eventually they will go too far and when the public finds out about it, and that will take some time because they own all the papers and the television stations, then El Al flights will be booked solid with a huge mass of one-way passengers, all carrying large carpetbags filed with dollars.

RTC: Do you really think so, Gregory? Or are you only trying to make an old man feel hopeful?

GD: No, it’s inevitable. Well, as Louis XIV said on his deathbed, ‘Oh Lord, come quickly!’

RTC: I think ‘go quickly’ would be more to the point.

GD: Let us pray, Robert, and a miracle of deliverance might suddenly come upon us.

(Concluded at 10:22 AM CST)

Dramatis personae:

James Jesus Angleton: Once head of the CIA’s Counterintelligence division, later fired because of his obsessive and illegal behavior, tapping the phones of many important government officials in search of elusive Soviet spies. A good friend of Robert Crowley and a co-conspirator with him in the assassination of President Kennedy

James P. Atwood: (April 16, 1930-April 20, 1997) A CIA employee, located in Berlin, Atwood had a most interesting career. He worked for any other intelligence agency, domestic or foreign, that would pay him, was involved in selling surplus Russian atomic artillery shells to the Pakistan government and was also most successful in the manufacturing of counterfeit German dress daggers. Too talkative, Atwood eventually had a sudden, and fatal, “seizure” while lunching with CIA associates.

William Corson: A Marine Corps Colonel and President Carter’s representative to the CIA. A friend of Crowley and Kimmel, Corson was an intelligent man whose main failing was a frantic desire to be seen as an important person. This led to his making fictional or highly exaggerated claims.

John Costello: A British historian who was popular with revisionist circles. Died of AIDS on a trans-Atlantic flight to the United States.

James Critchfield: Former U.S. Army Colonel who worked for the CIA and organizaed the Cehlen Org. at Pullach, Germany. This organization was filled to the Plimsoll line with former Gestapo and SD personnel, many of whom were wanted for various purported crimes. He hired Heinrich Müller in 1948 and went on to represent the CIA in the Persian Gulf.

Robert T. Crowley: Once the deputy director of Clandestine Operations and head of the group that interacted with corporate America. A former West Point football player who was one of the founders of the original CIA. Crowley was involved at a very high level with many of the machinations of the CIA.

Gregory Douglas: A retired newspaperman, onetime friend of Heinrich Müller and latterly, of Robert Crowley. Inherited stacks of files from the former (along with many interesting works of art acquired during the war and even more papers from Robert Crowley.) Lives comfortably in a nice house overlooking the Mediterranean.

Reinhard Gehlen: A retired German general who had once been in charge of the intelligence for the German high command on Russian military activities. Fired by Hitler for incompetence, he was therefore naturally hired by first, the U.S. Army and then, as his level of incompetence rose, with the CIA. His Nazi-stuffed organizaion eventually became the current German Bundes Nachrichten Dienst.

Thomas K. Kimmel, Jr: A grandson of Admiral Husband Kimmel, Naval commander at Pearl Harbor who was scapegoated after the Japanese attack. Kimmel was a senior FBI official who knew both Gregory Douglas and Robert Crowley and made a number of attempts to discourage Crowley from talking with Douglas. He was singularly unsuccessful. Kimmel subsequently retired and lives in retirement in Florida

Willi Krichbaum: A Senior Colonel (Oberführer) in the SS, head of the wartime Secret Field Police of the German Army and Heinrich Müller’s standing deputy in the Gestapo. After the war, Krichbaum went to work for the Critchfield organization and was their chief recruiter and hired many of his former SS friends. Krichbaum put Critchfield in touch with Müller in 1948.

Heinrich Müller: A former military pilot in the Bavarian Army in WWI, Müller  became a political police officer in Munich and was later made the head of the Secret State Police or Gestapo. After the war, Müller escaped to Switzerland where he worked for Swiss intelligence as a specialist on Communist espionage and was hired by James Critchfield, head of the Gehlen Organization, in 1948. Müller subsequently was moved to Washington where he worked for the CIA until he retired.

Joseph Trento: A writer on intelligence subjects, Trento and his wife “assisted” both Crowley and Corson in writing a book on the Russian KGB. Trento believed that he would inherit all of Crowley’s extensive files but after Crowley’s death, he discovered that the files had been gutted and the most important, and sensitive, ones given to Gregory Douglas. Trento was not happy about this. Neither were his employers.

Frank Wisner: A Founding Father of the CIA who promised much to the Hungarian and then failed them. First, a raging lunatic who was removed from Langley, screaming, in a strait jacket and later, blowing off the top of his head with a shotgun.

Robert Wolfe: A retired librarian from the National Archives who worked closely with the CIA on covering up embarrassing historical material in the files of the Archives. A strong supporter of holocaust writers.

Note: We understand that a large collection of documents, assembled by Robert T. Crowley, will be offered to the public in the near future. Here is a listing of some of the documents which will be included:

DOCUMENT CATALOG

Catalog Number                  Description of Contents __________________________________________________________________________________

1000 BH          Extensive file (1,205 pages) of reports on Operation PHOENIX. Final paper dated January, 1971, first document dated  October, 1967. Covers the setting up of Regional Interrogation Centers, staffing, torture techniques including electric shock, beatings, chemical injections. CIA agents involved and includes a listing of U.S. military units to include Military Police, CIC and Special Forces groups involved. After-action reports from various military units to include 9^th Infantry, showing the deliberate killing of all unarmed civilians located in areas suspected of harboring or supplying Viet Cong units. *

1002 BH          Medium file (223 pages)  concerning the fomenting of civil disobedience in Chile as the result of the Allende election in 1970. Included are pay vouchers for CIA bribery efforts with Chilean labor organization and student activist groups, U.S. military units involved in the final revolt, letter from  T. Karamessines, CIA Operations Director to Chile CIA Station Chief Paul Wimert, passing along a specific order from Nixon via Kissinger to kill Allende when the coup was successful. Communications to Pinochet with Nixon instructions to root out by force any remaining left wing leaders.

1003 BH          Medium file (187 pages) of reports of CIA assets containing photographs of Soviet missile sites, airfields and other strategic sites taken from commercial aircraft. Detailed descriptions of targets attached to each picture or pictures.

1004 BH          Large file (1560 pages) of CIA reports on Canadian radio intelligence intercepts from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa (1958) and a list of suspected and identified Soviet agents or sympathizers in Canada, to include members of the Canadian Parliament and military.

1005 BH          Medium file (219 pages) of members of the German Bundeswehr in the employ of the CIA. The report covers the Innere Führung group plus members of the signals intelligence service. Another report, attached, covers CIA assets in German Foreign Office positions, in Germany and in diplomatic missions abroad.

1006:BH          Long file (1,287 pages) of events leading up to the killing of Josef Stalin in 1953 to include reports on contacts with L.P. Beria who planned to kill Stalin, believing himself to be the target for removal. Names of cut outs, CIA personnel in Finland and Denmark are noted as are original communications from Beria and agreements as to his standing down in the DDR and a list of MVD/KGB files on American informants from 1933 to present. A report on a blood-thinning agent to be made available to Beria to put into Stalin’s food plus twenty two reports from Soviet doctors on Stalin’s health, high blood pressure etc. A report on areas of cooperation between Beria’s people and CIA controllers in the event of a successful coup. *

1007 BH          Short list (125 pages) of CIA contacts with members of the American media to include press and television and book publishers. Names of contacts with bios are included as are a list of payments made and specific leaked material supplied. Also appended is a shorter list of foreign publications. Under date of August, 1989 with updates to 1992. Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, Bradlee of the same paper, Ted Koppel, Sam Donaldson and others are included.

1008 BH          A file of eighteen reports (total of 899 pages) documenting illegal activities on the part of members of the U.S. Congress. First report dated July 29, 1950 and final one September 15, 1992. Of especial note is a long file on Senator McCarthy dealing with homosexuality and alcoholism. Also an attached note concerning the Truman Administration’s use of McCarthy to remove targeted Communists. These reports contain copies of FBI surveillance reports, to include photographs and reference to tape recordings, dealing with sexual events with male and female prostitutes, drug use, bribery, and other matters.

1009 BH          A long multiple file (1,564 pages) dealing with the CIA part (Kermit Roosevelt) in overthrowing the populist Persian prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. Report from Dulles (John Foster) concerning a replacement, by force if necessary and to include a full copy of AJAX operation. Letters from AIOC on million dollar bribe paid directly to J.Angleton, head of SOG. Support of Shah requires exclusive contracts with specified western oil companies. Reports dated from May 1951 through August, 1953.

1010 BH          Medium file (419 pages) of telephone intercepts made by order of J.J. Angleton of the telephone conversations between RFK and one G.N. Bolshakov. Phone calls between 1962-1963 inclusive. Also copies of intercepted and inspected mail from RFK containing classified U.S. documents and sent to a cut-out identified as one used by Bolshakov, a Russian press (TASS) employee. Report on Bolshakov’s GRU connections.

1011 BH          Large file (988 pages) on 1961 Korean revolt of Kwangju revolt led by General Park Chung-hee and General Kin-Jong-pil. Reports on contacts maintained by CIA station in Japan to include payments made to both men, plans for the coup, lists of “undesirables” to be liquidated  Additional material on CIA connections with KCIA personnel and an agreement with them  to assassinate South Korean chief of state, Park, in 1979.

1012 BH          Small file (12 pages) of homosexual activities between FBI Director Hoover and his aide, Tolson. Surveillance pictures taken in San Francisco hotel and report by CIA agents involved. Report analyzed in 1962.

1013 BH          Long file (1,699 pages) on General Edward Lansdale. First report a study signed by DCI Dulles in  September of 1954 concerning a growing situation in former French Indo-China. There are reports by and about Lansdale starting with his attachment to the OPC in 1949-50 where he and Frank Wisner coordinated policy in neutralizing Communist influence in the Philippines.. Landsale was then sent to Saigon under diplomatic cover and many copies of his period reports are copied here. Very interesting background material including strong connections with the Catholic Church concerning Catholic Vietnamese and exchanges of intelligence information between the two entities.

1014 BH          Short file (78 pages) concerning  a Dr. Frank Olson. Olson was at the U.S. Army chemical warfare base at Ft. Detrick in Maryland and was involved with a Dr. Gottleib. Gottleib was working on a plan to introduce psychotic-inducing drugs into the water supply of the Soviet Embassy. Apparently he tested the drugs on CIA personnel first. Reports of psychotic behavior by Olson and more police and official reports on his defenstration by Gottleib’s associates. A cover-up was instituted and a number of in-house CIA memoranda attest to this. Also a discussion by Gottleib on various poisons and drugs he was experimenting with and another report of people who had died as a result of Gottleib’s various experiments and CIA efforts to neutralize any public knowledge of these. *

1015 BH          Medium file (457 pages) on CIA connections with the Columbian-based Medellín drug ring. Eight CIA internal reports, three DoS reports, one FBI report on CIA operative Milan Rodríguez and his connections with this drug ring. Receipts for CIA payments to Rodríguez of over $3 million in CIA funds,showing the routings of the money, cut-outs and payments. CIA reports on sabotaging  DEA investigations. A three-part study of the Nicaraguan Contras, also a CIA-organized and paid for organization.

1016 BH          A small file (159 pages) containing lists of known Nazi intelligence and scientific people recruited in Germany from 1946 onwards, initially by the U.S. Army and later by the CIA. A detailed list of the original names and positions of the persons involved plus their relocation information. Has three U.S. Army and one FBI report on the subject.

1017 BH          A small list (54 pages) of American business entities with “significant” connections to the CIA. Each business is listed along with relevant information on its owners/operators, previous and on going contacts with the CIA’s Robert Crowley, also a list of national advertising agencies with similar information. Much information about suppressed news stories and planted stories. *

CIA paper cites Jewish acts of terrorism

August 26, 2010

JTA

A recent CIA paper cited Jewish acts of terrorism in the West Bank in its analysis of whether the United States is an exporter of terrorism.

The papers were released by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks Wednesday. They were classified under the relatively low-grade “secret.”

The documents analyze U.S.-backed Jewish, Muslim and Irish terrorist attacks. They conclude that international perceptions that the United States is an exporter of terrorism may lead to foreign countries’ non-cooperation in anti-terrorism operations and less willingness to share relevant intelligence. Those perceptions could even lead to the arrest of CIA or other American agents overseas, according to the documents.

The analysis cites the example of Jewish-American doctor Baruch Goldstein, among others, as an example that the U.S. exports terrorism. Goldstein emigrated from New York to the West Bank in 1994 and joined the extremist group Kach. In 1994, he killed 29 Palestinians praying at a mosque in Hebron.

The paper was released in February by the CIA’s Red Cell, a think tank set up by former CIA director George Tenet to analyze intelligence issues. Last month WikiLeaks published 76,000 classified U.S. military records and reports about the war in Afghanistan.



            Washington, D.C., August 26, 2010: “The anniversary of the 9/11 attack will soon be upon us and we can absolutely depend on floods of introspective articles in the media, paralleled by lunatic rantings from the conspiracy wierdos. Using this inside-job attack on the United States as an excuse, the Organs of Control are tightening their control over even the lowliest of America’s citizens by spying on everyone. Bank accounts, telephone calls, emails, the USPS, the car, aircraft travel, use of the public library, seeking forbidden subjects on Google or Wikipedia, travel both inside and outside of the country and on and on and in growing profusion aarer now part and parcel of the rodent associations. What all of this spying, note-taking and snooping is doing is to totally destroy the public’s confidence in the integrity of their government and to make evasion and deception more and more popular.

            A young man in Plano, Texas, has invented a simple device for blocking GPS identifiers so that if you want to take a trip, be it to Canada or the store, you merely need to snap the switch on the small box to ‘on’ and the snoops get nothing. I was sent one as a gift and it does appear to work. I don’t know about their marketing plans but believe it, the government, seeing one of their main snoop weapons nullified, will run howling to the courts and demand the device be banned.

Of course it will and no one will use it because it will be termed Unpatriotic and conducive to the Promotion of Terrorism!

And believe it will sell.

I have a Finnish device, small and quite compact, battery-operated and designed to shut off any cell phone operating within 300 feet. I am sure this is somehow not legal but I use it anyway and whenever my wife and I go to the mall, we use it. Great crowd of the idiots can be heard screaming: ‘Hello!!! Hello!! into a dead phone. And then, blessed silence. The chatter of idiots is stilled and we have peace and quiet.

And we also have peace and quiet in elevators, in restaurants, in theaters, in supermarkets, on the street and elsewhere. The screams of the uncomprehending when they discover that they have been disconnected are wonderful to hear! And all of this cell-phone babbling sounds like speed night at a group therapy session for the dysfunctional.”

The Government’s New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS

August 26, 2010

by Adam Cohen

TIME

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway – and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements.

That is the bizarre – and scary – rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants – with no need for a search warrant.

It is a dangerous decision – one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.

This case began in 2007, when Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents decided to monitor Juan Pineda-Moreno, an Oregon resident who they suspected was growing marijuana. They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle’s underside.

After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA’s actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand. (Pineda-Moreno has pleaded guilty conditionally to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and manufacturing marijuana while appealing the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained with the help of GPS.)

In fact, the government violated Pineda-Moreno’s privacy rights in two different ways. For starters, the invasion of his driveway was wrong. The courts have long held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the “curtilage,” a fancy legal term for the area around the home. The government’s intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy.

The judges veered into offensiveness when they explained why Pineda-Moreno’s driveway was not private. It was open to strangers, they said, such as delivery people and neighborhood children, who could wander across it uninvited.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month’s decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people’s. The court’s ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.

Judge Kozinski is a leading conservative, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but in his dissent he came across as a raging liberal. “There’s been much talk about diversity on the bench, but there’s one kind of diversity that doesn’t exist,” he wrote. “No truly poor people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for that matter.” The judges in the majority, he charged, were guilty of “cultural elitism.”

The court went on to make a second terrible decision about privacy: that once a GPS device has been planted, the government is free to use it to track people without getting a warrant. There is a major battle under way in the federal and state courts over this issue, and the stakes are high. After all, if government agents can track people with secretly planted GPS devices virtually anytime they want, without having to go to a court for a warrant, we are one step closer to a classic police state – with technology taking on the role of the KGB or the East German Stasi.

Fortunately, other courts are coming to a different conclusion from the Ninth Circuit’s – including the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That court ruled, also this month, that tracking for an extended period of time with GPS is an invasion of privacy that requires a warrant. The issue is likely to end up in the Supreme Court.

In these highly partisan times, GPS monitoring is a subject that has both conservatives and liberals worried. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s pro-privacy ruling was unanimous – decided by judges appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton

Plenty of liberals have objected to this kind of spying, but it is the conservative Chief Judge Kozinski who has done so most passionately. “1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it’s here at last,” he lamented in his dissent. And invoking Orwell’s totalitarian dystopia where privacy is essentially nonexistent, he warned: “Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we’re living in Oceania.”

Cohen, a lawyer, is a former TIME writer and a former member of the New York Times editorial board.

Israeli intelligence steps up its activity in the U.S. — and gets away with it.
August 23, 2010
by Philip Giraldi

American Conservative 

            Israeli government claims that it does not spy on the United States are intended for the media and popular consumption. The reality is that Israel’s intelligence agencies target the United States intensively, particularly in pursuit of military and dual-use civilian technology. Among nations considered to be friendly to Washington, Israel leads all others in its active espionage directed against American companies and the Defense Department. It also dominates two commercial sectors that enable it to extend its reach inside America’s domestic infrastructure: airline and telecommunications security. Israel is believed to have the ability to monitor nearly all phone records originating in the United States, while numerous Israeli air-travel security companies are known to act as the local Mossad stations.

            As tensions with Iran increase, sources in the counterintelligence community report that Israeli agents have become more aggressive in targeting Muslims living in the United States as well as in operating against critics. There have been a number of cases reported to the FBI about Mossad officers who have approached leaders in Arab-American communities and have falsely represented themselves as “U.S. intelligence.” Because few Muslims would assist an Israeli, this is done to increase the likelihood that the target will cooperate. It’s referred to as a “false flag” operation.

            Mossad officers sought to recruit Arab-Americans as sources willing to inform on their associates and neighbors. The approaches, which took place in New York and New Jersey, were reportedly handled clumsily, making the targets of the operation suspicious. These Arab-Americans turned down the requests for cooperation, and some of the contacts were eventually reported to the FBI, which has determined that at least two of the Mossad officers are, ironically, Israeli Arabs operating out of Israel’s mission to the United Nations in New York under cover as consular assistants.

            In another bizarre case, U.S.S. Liberty survivor Phil Tourney was recently accosted in Southern California by a foreigner who eventually identified himself as an Israeli government representative. Tourney was taunted, and the Israeli threatened both him and journalist Mark Glenn, who has been reporting on the Liberty story. Tourney was approached in a hotel lounge, and it is not completely clear how the Israeli was able to identify him. But he knew exactly who Tourney was, as the official referred to the Liberty, saying that the people who had been killed on board had gotten what they deserved. There were a number of witnesses to the incident, including Tourney’s wife. The threat has been reported to the FBI, which is investigating, but Tourney and Glenn believe that the incident is not being taken seriously by the bureau.

            FBI sources indicate that the increase in Mossad activity is a major problem, particularly when Israelis are posing as U.S. government officials, but they also note that there is little they can do to stop it as the Justice Department refuses to initiate any punitive action or prosecutions of the Mossad officers who have been identified as involved in the illegal activity.

            In another ongoing Israeli spy case, Stewart Nozette appears to be headed towards eventual freedom as his case drags on through the District of Columbia courts. Nozette, an aerospace scientist with a top secret clearance and access to highly sensitive information, offered to sell classified material to a man he believed to be a Mossad officer, but who instead turned out to be with the FBI. Nozette has been in jail since October, but he has now been granted an additional 90-day delay so his lawyers can review the documents in the government’s case, many of which are classified. If Nozette demands that sensitive information be used in his defense, his case will likely follow the pattern set in the nine-times-postponed trial of AIPAC spies Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who were ultimately acquitted in April 2009 when prosecutors determined that they could not make their case without doing significant damage to national security. A month after Rosen and Weissman were freed, Ben-Ami Kadish, who admitted to providing defense secrets to Israel while working as an engineer at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, walked out of a Manhattan court after paying a fine. He did no jail time and continues to receive his substantial Defense Department pension.

            The mainstream media reported the Rosen and Weissman trial intermittently, but there was virtually no coverage of Ben-Ami Kadish, and there has been even less of Nozette. Compare that with the recent reporting on the Russian spies who, by all accounts, did almost nothing and never obtained any classified information. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that spying for Israel is consequence free.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA Officer, is the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest. His “Deep Background” column appears every month exclusively in The American Conservative.

What you believe is no disgrace: the swinishness is in the race!

Why Israel deserves “singling out”
August 23, 2010
by Joel Kovel 

            • The degree to which US foreign policy is configured to give Israel its impunity, one small instance being Obama’s recent threat to Turkey that he would cut off military contracts unless it lays off Israel for the Mavi Marmara incident; meanwhile the US reinforces Israeli military superiority with the latest in free ultra technology for its F-16 fighter fleet;

            • The shameless debasement of our Congress, with hundreds of elected officials doing the bidding of a foreign power, again to whitewash the Mavi Marmara murders, thereby granting impunity once again;

            • The plague of Islamophobia now raging, inflamed by fury over the “Ground-zero Mosque,” and more generally, over the terrors stirred up by 9-11. But who pauses to reflect upon that awful day and the fact that it provided the one incontrovertible instance of highly suspicious involvement by a foreign state in the havoc, namely, the most odd finding of five “moving men,” who turned out to be Mossad agents filming from New Jersey the collapse of the towers while jubilantly giving each other high fives, who were released back to their home country after 71 quiet days in FBI custody, and whose “employer” moved very hastily back to Israel, after stripping his office of all evidence? How did they know to be there, cameras primed, at that time? Why were they so happy? No point in asking. The propaganda machine has constructed mass consciousness so as to obscure any thinking about the matter, which no longer exists so far as official political culture goes. Such questions are highly impertinent. After all, one does not want to “single” Israel out. That would be anti-Semitic, wouldn’t it? This Reichstag Fire leads in another direction, that of the Islamic Threat.

            • And then, more war, as in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and now the latest looming danger, the Persian menace. That this mainly exists in the mind of the Zionist Power Structure, here and in Israel, is anything but reassuring, given the authority of that mind. Suppose, then, that the exquisitely positioned pundits and opinion-makers get their wish of precipitating us into a bombing war with Iran, Israel’s #1 existential threat, and Iran bombs back. This could be a new Board Game: there goes the global economy; and there looms, as ever, our friend and ally’s “Samson Option” using its nuclear arsenal that nobody is to know about, but that has, in the meantime, totally wrecked any efforts to bring nuclear proliferation under control thanks to universal knowledge of the bad faith of the United States for its complicity over the years under the influence of a certain “lobby” . . .

In sum, if you care about the baleful influence of the United States in the world you cannot set Israel aside as an isolated issue. This is the precise opposite of “singling Israel out.” It is, rather, a demand to integrate Israel within the manifold of imperial/economic/military power, and taking the steps necessary to bring this power under rational control.

http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/zionist-occupation-of-us-civil-society-and-state-aparatus/

Youth Unemployment Linked to Immigration
August 18, 2010

             Coinciding with the release of NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) statistics, Migrationwatch have today issued a research paper examining whether youth unemployment and immigration are linked (Briefing Paper 3.11).

            The paper finds that the relationship between immigration and youth unemployment is positive and significant in those areas that have experienced the highest rates of immigration.

            In the case of those local authorities outside London with the highest proportion of immigrants, the relationship is very strong showing that for every one thousand immigrants into these areas, on average, the number of youth unemployed rises by around 900.

             Statistical correlation is not, in itself, proof of causality but a correlation as high as this is, to say the least, highly indicative.

             Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said

            “People have tiptoed around this issue for far too long. Many factors contribute to youth unemployment but this research suggests that immigration is a significant factor in areas of high immigration. The case for getting immigration down to sensible levels, as the government have promised, gets stronger by the day”

Immigration and the latest employment statistics: Nearly 80% of new jobs have gone to immigrants
August 13, 2010

Migrationwatch

            The thrust of the Migrationwatch press release “Immigration has damaged employment prospects for British workers” (below) is reinforced by the employment statistics released on 11 August – see http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmsuk0810.pdf.

              Employment increased by 188,000 between the first and second quarters of this year but 145,000 of them or 77% went to non UK born workers, that is immigrants.

            Many immigrants acquire nationality after some years in Britain but the employment figures for non British nationals are virtually the same as for non British born. This means that those who have entered employment in the last quarter are largely recent immigrants.
Immigration has Damaged Employment Prospects for British Workers
August 12, 2010

            The mass immigration of the past decade has damaged the employment opportunities of UK born workers in the areas most affected.

            This is the conclusion of a new study, from think-tank Migrationwatch, (see Briefing Paper 3.10) issued on the eve of new unemployment figures due out on August 12. It has conducted the first comparison of labour market conditions in the 50 Local Authorities with the highest international immigration with conditions in the 50 with the lowest.

            It shows conclusively that areas of the UK that have experienced the highest levels of immigration have higher unemployment levels than areas that have not.

            The study also shows that employment rates in these areas are lower compared with areas that have received comparatively little immigration from overseas.

            ‘While properly controlled immigration can be of economic benefit, this demonstrates that the ‘open door’ policies of the past decade have had a damaging effect on the employment, and therefore the economic prospects and standard of living, of UK born workers in the areas most affected,’ said Sir Andrew Green, Migrationwatch chairman.

            In London, which has received the highest level of immigrants, the study shows there is a positive relationship between unemployment and net immigration from abroad

            For example for every one percentage point increase in the ‘international immigration rate’ (NIM – Net International Migration expressed as a percentage share of the total population of the Borough concerned.) of a London borough, there is on average an increase of around a fifth of one percentage point in the unemployment rate in that borough.

            It also shows that immigration from overseas into London boroughs is associated with a fall in the employment rate of UK-born inhabitants: for every one percentage point increase in the share of immigrants in London boroughs there is a fall of around half a percentage point in the employment rate of UK-born inhabitants.

            ‘This is a very complex area and other factors such as skills levels and the operation of the benefit system are important. But too little attention has been paid to the impact of immigration on British born employment prospects,’ said Sir Andrew. ‘Our study underlines the importance of getting net immigration down to tens of thousands, as the present government has promised.’

http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/

The Conversations with the Crow

          When the CIA discovered that their former Deputy Director of Clandestine Affairs, Robert  T. Crowley, had been talking with author Gregory Douglas, they became fearful (because of what Crowley knew) and outraged (because they knew Douglas would publish eventually) and made many efforts to silence Crowley, mostly by having dozens of FBI agents call or visit him at his Washington home and try to convince him to stop talking to Douglas, whom they considered to be an evil, loose cannon.

             Crowley did not listen to them (no one else ever does, either) and Douglas made through shorthand notes of each and every one of their many conversation. TBR News published most of these (some of the really vile ones were left out of the book but will be included on this site as a later addendum ) and the entire collection was later produced as an Ebook.

            Now, we reliably learn, various Washington alphabet agencies are trying to find a way to block the circulation of this highly negative, entertaining and dangerous work, so to show our solidarity with our beloved leaders and protectors, and our sincere appreciation for their corrupt and coercive actions, we are going to reprint the entire work, chapter by chapter. (The complete book can be obtained by going to:

http://www.shop.conversationswiththecrow.com/Conversations-with-the-Crow-CWC-GD01.htm

Here is the twenty-sixth  chapter

Conversation No. 26

Date: Wednesday, July 24,1996

Commenced: 10:45 AM CST
Concluded: 11:10 AM CST

RTC: I found a very interesting report in the files when I was looking for something else. I misfiled it some time ago. Anyway, Gregory, I thought I would send it to you but I must say that it is highly sensitive and if you publish anything on or about it, you might have very serious problems.

GD: More CIA assassinations?
RTC: No, actually, this has nothing to do with the CIA. We know about the subject but it isn’t really in our field and we want nothing to do with it. This is about…I think we have talked about the subject before. Vanishing people, flying saucers and so on.

GD: I believe so. Do go on.

RTC: Well, you’ll have the report next week, or whenever Greg [1] gets to the local post office…I mean it runs to about a hundred or more pages. Otherwise, I could stick it into an envelope and leave it for the local route man. And there it is. Absolutely pure science fiction but in this case, or rather these cases, science facts. I may have told you about one of our top people who just  vanished while walking down his driveway? Well, there is a lot more. We may have talked about the Roswell business and we can get back to that later but the most interesting item in the file is about the woman who was jaywalking in New York and was hit by some minority trying to escape from the police. Terrible impact and knocked her up onto the sidewalk. Right next to a hospital so she was rushed there but died there at once or more likely was killed by the impact. So, when they did an autopsy on her, they were lucky because they got right on to her, or whatever it was, and that was good because about two hours later, after the body cooled off, it turned to a sort of jelly. But, this is the fascinating part. It looked like a woman from the outside but once they cut into her, it wasn’t a woman.

GD: It was a transvestite?
RTC: No, it wasn’t human. The insides were all different. None of the staff had ever seen anything like it before so they photographed the body and took out what they hoped might be some kind of organs. Didn’t do any good because, like the body, the pieces all turned to jelly in the jars. But there are the affidavits and the photographs plus the police report of the accident and the emergency room people. Not human. What it was, no one knows, not to this day. Fortunately for everyone, one of the doctors was an Air Force reserve officer and he made a call. There was a descent on the hospital and everyone was grilled and terrified. One set of the pictures was saved by accident and we got it. And next week, you can have it, if the USPS doesn’t deliver it to Gambon in error. We had no idea what the whole thing was about but we talked with the Air Force people and they know all about such things. They did their Bluebook project on saucers. They do know, Gregory, but we never will.

GD: Why not?
RTC: You ask a question like that? Orson Wells’ program? Why the issue is national panic, that’s why not. Harry Truman could see this and the Roswell business and other things were all shut up and the press fed with reams of fake sightings and they got their in-house historians to write satires on the little green men. And even now, they encourage the nut fringe to publish silly crap and engage in hair pulling contests, just to keep the public looking at other things. Panic, Gregory. Tens of thousands of people vanish each year without any trace. We got the transistor from the Roswell wreck and the Air Force says at least 5% of all flying saucer sightings are real. And the non-humans walking around. My God, can you imagine the resurrection of the Salem witch trials is the air-brained public ever got it into their fuzzy heads that there were aliens running around the streets? And I don’t mean Guatemalan housemaids or Mexican gardeners either. No, royal panic. The public would demand answers and no one in authority can give them.

GD: Oh, they can just make something reasonable up and get it on the front page of the New York Times and then it’s all quiet on the western front.

RTC: Yes, that’s the usual drill but that might apply to sightings of strange celestial crockery but the thought that something sitting next to you on the bus might be something sinister from another galaxy would cause a royal uproar. No one here wants to deal with such things so they are best forgotten or better still, never talked about in the first place.

GD: I remember uncovering a story in July of ’76 about the Legionnaire’s Disease in Philly. I don’t know who was behind it but it was no accident. I got ABC interested in it and they did one, and only one, story on the air and then were shut up from way on high.

RTC: That was a little mistake from the Ft. Detrick people. The perp was terminated.

GD: So were some old geeks.

RTC: Collateral damage. Yes, I know about that and I laugh every time they mention in the media that it broke out again. Keeps the ball rolling. But the visiting aliens are another matter.

GD: Oh, I understand that. The public would run around like drunken chickens and every nut in the country would be jabbering about his own nut version and of course people would point out homeless eccentrics or, more likely, unwanted neighbors or personal enemies and the public would lynch them.

RTC: That’s the problem.

GD: Is there a solution?
RTC: As I understand it, a number of our agencies have been very quietly working on this visitation business for some time. The problem is that we can’t just send out flyers to hospitals or morgues without it getting out but I would be obvious that if they found something similar, the local press would be alerted and the story might, just possibly might, get out. Ah well, I have mixed emotions about sending this to you and you do assure me you won’t copy any of this or write about it?

GD: Are you joking, Robert? My God, the flying saucer nuts are almost as bad as the Kennedy assassination lunatics. If I published anything that one of them didn’t dream up in some psych ward when the meds ran out, they would gang up on me, screeching like Irish banshees. I’ve been thinking about doing something on the Kennedy business…..

RTC: But after I am no longer around. We agreed on this…

GD: Of course. No, I anticipate the screeching and clawing if I do. And if I ever hinted that there are non-humans among us and, better still, if I could even come close to proving it, my God, not only would the Air Force strafe my house at night but an army of the Undead conspiracy nutties would camp on my lawn and shit all over the grass. But is it interesting all in all. I mean, who, or what, are these things? Are they just doing on the ground recon? Are they going to run one of their people for high office? Are they collecting toads to experiment on? Colonists?

RTC: We could go on for days but in the end, I doubt if we’ll ever know.

GD: I suppose if someone at a Burger King saw an old woman’s three foot long black tongue shoot out of her mouth and snatch a Whopper off of a tray we might have problems.

RTC: There would be a descent of the sanitizing people and a few obits in the local paper. The old lady with the frog tongue would be long gone and so would any witnesses, believe me.

GD: This is a weird conversation Robert, believe me..

RTC: Well, you can see why things like this never get any meaningful press, can’t you. If some farmer started talking about some giant frog eating his horses, everyone would laugh at the really funny AP article on page thirty and that would be the end of it.

GD: Probably would be.  But what do your people think about all of this?
RTC: That there are aliens among us and that flying saucers are about 98% real. And we know that people vanish from the sight of man but then why frighten ourselves unnecessarily, Gregory?

GD: Yes, we can go the beach and watch all the legions of fatties waddling around the sand, crushing small children and blocking out the sun for thousands of others.

RTC: Gregory, I thank God I am not fat or I might find you offensive.

GD: So many others do, Robert. How did they know the thing was a woman?
RTC: It had no cock and a pair of tits.

GD: To the point. Sounds like people I know. Turns to jelly, does it? Why back to  the subject of fatties at the beach, so many people turn to jelly after twenty five. If we could harvest the fat, flense them at it were, we could make up for any international oil shortfall. And if Malthus was right, and I know he was, when the great hunger comes, why this country will have whole ciities full of the hefties they can harvest. I saw a woman the other day and I swear, one of her mostrrous thighs could feed a family of five for a month. For a month, Robert. With a decent sauce, of course. Why the Filipinos eat monkeys but I think that’s more like cannibalism than anything else.

RTC: Your unkindness knows no borders. But to return to reality, Gregory, you understand the dynamics here, don’t you?

GD: More or less. A friend of mine, an anchor person for a television station in San Francisco told me once that if they knew to the hour when a major earthquake would strike Los Angeles, and it will, the state would quietly evacuate people they considered important and wait for the rest to happen. Not cruelty but pragmatism. There would be a huge panic, suicides, looting, rapes, arson and other manifestations of human vileness and the death tolls from these would far transcend those from a major quake. No, I understand the concept. ‘Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile.’

RTC: Have you ever considered going into the ministry, Gregory?

GD: The Ministry of Defense?
RTC: No, that’s not what I had in mind.

GD: I can put my shirt on backward and collect for the poor. Since I’m poor, it wouldn’t bother me at all.

(Concluded at 11:10 AM CST)

Dramatis personae:

James Jesus Angleton: Once head of the CIA’s Counterintelligence division, later fired because of his obsessive and illegal behavior, tapping the phones of many important government officials in search of elusive Soviet spies. A good friend of Robert Crowley and a co-conspirator with him in the assassination of President Kennedy

James P. Atwood: (April 16, 1930-April 20, 1997) A CIA employee, located in Berlin, Atwood had a most interesting career. He worked for any other intelligence agency, domestic or foreign, that would pay him, was involved in selling surplus Russian atomic artillery shells to the Pakistan government and was also most successful in the manufacturing of counterfeit German dress daggers. Too talkative, Atwood eventually had a sudden, and fatal, “seizure” while lunching with CIA associates.

William Corson: A Marine Corps Colonel and President Carter’s representative to the CIA. A friend of Crowley and Kimmel, Corson was an intelligent man whose main failing was a frantic desire to be seen as an important person. This led to his making fictional or highly exaggerated claims.

John Costello: A British historian who was popular with revisionist circles. Died of AIDS on a trans-Atlantic flight to the United States.

James Critchfield: Former U.S. Army Colonel who worked for the CIA and organizaed the Cehlen Org. at Pullach, Germany. This organization was filled to the Plimsoll line with former Gestapo and SD personnel, many of whom were wanted for various purported crimes. He hired Heinrich Müller in 1948 and went on to represent the CIA in the Persian Gulf.

Robert T. Crowley: Once the deputy director of Clandestine Operations and head of the group that interacted with corporate America. A former West Point football player who was one of the founders of the original CIA. Crowley was involved at a very high level with many of the machinations of the CIA.

Gregory Douglas: A retired newspaperman, onetime friend of Heinrich Müller and latterly, of Robert Crowley. Inherited stacks of files from the former (along with many interesting works of art acquired during the war and even more papers from Robert Crowley.) Lives comfortably in a nice house overlooking the Mediterranean.

Reinhard Gehlen: A retired German general who had once been in charge of the intelligence for the German high command on Russian military activities. Fired by Hitler for incompetence, he was therefore naturally hired by first, the U.S. Army and then, as his level of incompetence rose, with the CIA. His Nazi-stuffed organizaion eventually became the current German Bundes Nachrichten Dienst.

Thomas K. Kimmel, Jr: A grandson of Admiral Husband Kimmel, Naval commander at Pearl Harbor who was scapegoated after the Japanese attack. Kimmel was a senior FBI official who knew both Gregory Douglas and Robert Crowley and made a number of attempts to discourage Crowley from talking with Douglas. He was singularly unsuccessful. Kimmel subsequently retired and lives in retirement in Florida

Willi Krichbaum: A Senior Colonel (Oberführer) in the SS, head of the wartime Secret Field Police of the German Army and Heinrich Müller’s standing deputy in the Gestapo. After the war, Krichbaum went to work for the Critchfield organization and was their chief recruiter and hired many of his former SS friends. Krichbaum put Critchfield in touch with Müller in 1948.

Heinrich Müller: A former military pilot in the Bavarian Army in WWI, Müller  became a political police officer in Munich and was later made the head of the Secret State Police or Gestapo. After the war, Müller escaped to Switzerland where he worked for Swiss intelligence as a specialist on Communist espionage and was hired by James Critchfield, head of the Gehlen Organization, in 1948. Müller subsequently was moved to Washington where he worked for the CIA until he retired.

Joseph Trento: A writer on intelligence subjects, Trento and his wife “assisted” both Crowley and Corson in writing a book on the Russian KGB. Trento believed that he would inherit all of Crowley’s extensive files but after Crowley’s death, he discovered that the files had been gutted and the most important, and sensitive, ones given to Gregory Douglas. Trento was not happy about this. Neither were his employers.

Frank Wisner: A Founding Father of the CIA who promised much to the Hungarian and then failed them. First, a raging lunatic who was removed from Langley, screaming, in a strait jacket and later, blowing off the top of his head with a shotgun.

Robert Wolfe: A retired librarian from the National Archives who worked closely with the CIA on covering up embarrassing historical material in the files of the Archives. A strong supporter of holocaust writers.

Note: We understand that a large collection of documents, assembled by Robert T. Crowley, will be offered to the public in the near future. Here is a listing of some of the documents which will be included:

DOCUMENT CATALOG

Catalog Number               Description of Contents                                      __________________________________________________________________________________

1000 BH            Extensive file (1,205 pages) of reports on Operation PHOENIX. Final paper dated January, 1971, first document dated  October, 1967. Covers the setting up of Regional Interrogation Centers, staffing, torture techniques including electric shock, beatings, chemical injections. CIA agents involved and includes a listing of U.S. military units to include Military Police, CIC and Special Forces groups involved. After-action reports from various military units to include 9^th Infantry, showing the deliberate killing of all unarmed civilians located in areas suspected of harboring or supplying Viet Cong units. *

1002 BH            Medium file (223 pages)  concerning the fomenting of civil disobedience in Chile as the result of the Allende election in 1970. Included are pay vouchers for CIA bribery efforts with Chilean labor organization and student activist groups, U.S. military units involved in the final revolt, letter from  T. Karamessines, CIA Operations Director to Chile CIA Station Chief Paul Wimert, passing along a specific order from Nixon via Kissinger to kill Allende when the coup was successful. Communications to Pinochet with Nixon instructions to root out by force any remaining left wing leaders.

1003 BH                  Medium file (187 pages) of reports of CIA assets containing photographs of Soviet missile sites, airfields and other strategic sites taken from commercial aircraft. Detailed descriptions of targets attached to each picture or pictures.

1004 BH            Large file (1560 pages) of CIA reports on Canadian radio intelligence intercepts from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa (1958) and a list of suspected and identified Soviet agents or sympathizers in Canada, to include members of the Canadian Parliament and military.

1005 BH          Medium file (219 pages) of members of the German Bundeswehr in the employ of the CIA. The report covers the Innere Führung group plus members of the signals intelligence service. Another report, attached, covers CIA assets in German Foreign Office positions, in Germany and in diplomatic missions abroad.

1006:BH            Long file (1,287 pages) of events leading up to the killing of Josef Stalin in 1953 to include reports on contacts with L.P. Beria who planned to kill Stalin, believing himself to be the target for removal. Names of cut outs, CIA personnel in Finland and Denmark are noted as are original communications from Beria and agreements as to his standing down in the DDR and a list of MVD/KGB files on American informants from 1933 to present. A report on a blood-thinning agent to be made available to Beria to put into Stalin’s food plus twenty two reports from Soviet doctors on Stalin’s health, high blood pressure etc. A report on areas of cooperation between Beria’s people and CIA controllers in the event of a successful coup. *

1007 BH            Short list (125 pages) of CIA contacts with members of the American media to include press and television and book publishers. Names of contacts with bios are included as are a list of payments made and specific leaked material supplied. Also appended is a shorter list of foreign publications. Under date of August, 1989 with updates to 1992. Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, Bradlee of the same paper, Ted Koppel, Sam Donaldson and others are included.

1008 BH            A file of eighteen reports (total of 899 pages) documenting illegal activities on the part of members of the U.S. Congress. First report dated July 29, 1950 and final one September 15, 1992. Of especial note is a long file on Senator McCarthy dealing with homosexuality and alcoholism. Also an attached note concerning the Truman Administration’s use of McCarthy to remove targeted Communists. These reports contain copies of FBI surveillance reports, to include photographs and reference to tape recordings, dealing with sexual events with male and female prostitutes, drug use, bribery, and other matters.

1009 BH            A long multiple file (1,564 pages) dealing with the CIA part (Kermit Roosevelt) in overthrowing the populist Persian prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. Report from Dulles (John Foster) concerning a replacement, by force if necessary and to include a full copy of AJAX operation. Letters from AIOC on million dollar bribe paid directly to J.Angleton, head of SOG. Support of Shah requires exclusive contracts with specified western oil companies. Reports dated from May 1951 through August, 1953.

1010 BH            Medium file (419 pages) of telephone intercepts made by order of J.J. Angleton of the telephone conversations between RFK and one G.N. Bolshakov. Phone calls between 1962-1963 inclusive. Also copies of intercepted and inspected mail from RFK containing classified U.S. documents and sent to a cut-out identified as one used by Bolshakov, a Russian press (TASS) employee. Report on Bolshakov’s GRU connections.

1011 BH            Large file (988 pages) on 1961 Korean revolt of Kwangju revolt led by General Park Chung-hee and General Kin-Jong-pil. Reports on contacts maintained by CIA station in Japan to include payments made to both men, plans for the coup, lists of “undesirables” to be liquidated  Additional material on CIA connections with KCIA personnel and an agreement with them  to assassinate South Korean chief of state, Park, in 1979.

1012 BH            Small file (12 pages) of homosexual activities between FBI Director Hoover and his aide, Tolson. Surveillance pictures taken in San Francisco hotel and report by CIA agents involved. Report analyzed in 1962.

1013 BH             Long file (1,699 pages) on General Edward Lansdale. First report a study signed by DCI Dulles in  September of 1954 concerning a growing situation in former French Indo-China. There are reports by and about Lansdale starting with his attachment to the OPC in 1949-50 where he and Frank Wisner coordinated policy in neutralizing Communist influence in the Philippines.. Landsale was then sent to Saigon under diplomatic cover and many copies of his period reports are copied here. Very interesting background material including strong connections with the Catholic Church concerning Catholic Vietnamese and exchanges of intelligence information between the two entities.

1014 BH            Short file (78 pages) concerning  a Dr. Frank Olson. Olson was at the U.S. Army chemical warfare base at Ft. Detrick in Maryland and was involved with a Dr. Gottleib. Gottleib was working on a plan to introduce psychotic-inducing drugs into the water supply of the Soviet Embassy. Apparently he tested the drugs on CIA personnel first. Reports of psychotic behavior by Olson and more police and official reports on his defenstration by Gottleib’s associates. A cover-up was instituted and a number of in-house CIA memoranda attest to this. Also a discussion by Gottleib on various poisons and drugs he was experimenting with and another report of people who had died as a result of Gottleib’s various experiments and CIA efforts to neutralize any public knowledge of these. *

1015 BH            Medium file (457 pages) on CIA connections with the Columbian-based Medellín drug ring. Eight CIA internal reports, three DoS reports, one FBI report on CIA operative Milan Rodríguez and his connections with this drug ring. Receipts for CIA payments to Rodríguez of over $3 million in CIA funds,showing the routings of the money, cut-outs and payments. CIA reports on sabotaging  DEA investigations. A three-part study of the Nicaraguan Contras, also a CIA-organized and paid for organization.

1016 BH            A small file (159 pages) containing lists of known Nazi intelligence and scientific people recruited in Germany from 1946 onwards, initially by the U.S. Army and later by the CIA. A detailed list of the original names and positions of the persons involved plus their relocation information. Has three U.S. Army and one FBI report on the subject.

1017 BH            A small list (54 pages) of American business entities with “significant” connections to the CIA. Each business is listed along with relevant information on its owners/operators, previous and on going contacts with the CIA’s Robert Crowley, also a list of national advertising agencies with similar information. Much information about suppressed news stories and planted stories. *

Truth and Conspiracy in the Catskills

August 23, 2010
by Stanley Fish  

New York Times

            A small gathering of 50 or 60 people; roughly 95 percent white, 90 percent male, a few blond-haired kids, average age 45, all nodding in assent as a series of speakers explains that our government is conspiring against us and fabricating massive lies in order to hide its own crimes and frighten us into giving up our constitutional rights and liberties.

            The Tea Party? Minutemen? Birthers? No, “Truthers,” left-wing conspiracy theorists who believe (among other things) that 9/11 was an inside job, that no plane hit the Pentagon, that Ted Olson did not receive a call from his wife, Barbara, shortly before she perished in the crash of Flight 77, that the anthrax scare was also a government hoax (although the anthrax was real and deadly), and that hurricane Katrina was the result of weather manipulation by racists or profiteers or both.

            The thing about people who hold beliefs you find unbelievable (in two senses) is that they are in most other respects just like you and your friends.
.

Like many others, I was aware of these theories and aware too that a significant percentage of Americans (about the same percentage that believes President Obama is a Muslim who was born in Kenya) was at least partly persuaded by them. But on Aug. 15 I got an up-close look at the phenomenon when I attended a meeting of Truthers that just happened to be held in Livingston Manor, a small Catskill town about 20 miles from my house.

            The thing about people who hold beliefs you find unbelievable (in two senses) is that they are in most other respects just like you and your friends. The parking lot of the facility housing the conference might have been a parking lot at any university: lots of Subarus and Priuses. The men and women were casually dressed, polite and friendly. I’m sure that on any other topic — the Yankees, the Stieg Larsson novels, the latest Julia Roberts movie — they would have been all over the place, but when the topic is 9/11 and the “official story” told by the government, they all speak and think with an impressive unanimity of opinion and with an equally impressive sincerity.

            I was the only insincere one in the room. I didn’t announce myself as a columnist looking for something to write about. I let them think I was one of them. When a speaker began his presentation by asking, “Is there anyone here who holds to the official story?”, I didn’t raise my hand. When he followed up by asking whether anyone was on the fence, I raised my hand weakly, along with one other person who, presumably, was telling the truth. Technically, I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I felt dishonest and I was certainly being duplicitous.

            I distanced myself from my discomfort by regarding the event as theater and inventorying the dramatis personae. They were straight out of central casting. Sander Hicks, the master of ceremonies, looked like an amalgam of Johnny Depp, Sean Penn and Matt Dillon; he kept things moving and implored “put your hands together” as each speaker came to the podium. Paul Zarembka played (and was) the left-leaning academic economist. He said, “The ruling class will do anything to keep in power.” The Rev. Ian Alterman preached gentleness, humility and respect. He said that those who have an investment in the official lies because that’s all they’ve ever heard cannot be approached in a confrontational manner.

            But confrontation was obviously the preferred mode of Barry Kissin, the resident rabble-rouser who harangued the audience with the sins of elites who deliberately killed 3,000 of their own citizens and bullied “beleaguered countries” like North Korea and Iran. Nick Bryant tied the same elites to a massive network of pedophiles including almost everyone you’ve ever heard of.

            The star turn was taken by architect Richard Gage, founding member of Architects & Engineers for Truth, a group, he said, of 1,200 experts in the area of the construction and destruction of tall buildings. It was Gage, the man of science and the scientific method (another stock character), who laid out the basic thesis from which everything else grew. The twin towers could not have been brought down by fire. A fire, however intense, would have left the steel girders standing, perhaps at an odd angle. The way the towers fell — in free fall, straight down, in only 7 seconds — shows clearly, Gage declared, that the cause was controlled demolition by explosives placed next to the support structures and detonated in a precisely timed sequence. In short, destruction from the inside by insiders and not by a rag-tag group of fanatics who were incapable of flying the planes they supposedly deployed with incredible skill.

            Once this scenario is established, you have only to ask, first, who could have had the expertise to bring this off and, second, who had the motive to bring it off. Bingo! The government, which certainly had both money and materials and needed a pretext for starting two real wars and a metaphorical “war on terror” that could justify tight governmental and military control, torture, rendition and the passage of the Patriot Act. On this rock the house of the Truthers is built. Everything that comes up in the way of an objection can be explained by extending the basic assumption, by asking the question, “How did the conspirators get away with this one and pull the wool over everyone’s eyes?” It is always answered.

            At the end of the afternoon and before the conference-ending dinner, I slipped away. I thought about identifying myself before leaving. I should have, but I didn’t. Instead I drove home to a small dinner party: my wife and I, another couple and a friend. I told them about what I had seen and heard. The man of the couple said that on Sept. 11, 2001, when he heard the news, “inside job” was the first thought he had, although he hadn’t bothered much with the thought since. Our other guest told us that her brother-in-law was even more a partisan of the “government-did-it” view than those I had listened to. I guess you never know.

Myths and Legends of the 9/11 attack: Death Rays and Super-Thermite

by Dr. Phillip L.  Kushner

This is a subject that will be with us for years and will certainly grow in the telling. The WTC buildings collapsed  solely for a number of rational, provable reasons but the following the Suudi attack, all manner of “expert” opinions erupted into the public like some kind of a tropical skin disease and a great army of conspiracy idiots left the stale fictions surrounding the Kennedy assassination and gratefully rush to embrace the new religion, a religion that had the exciting suggestions of “plasmoid clouds.” “Ex-Soviet controlled rockets,” “’Nano thermite explosives planted in both buildings,” and on and on.

Now we discover that brilliant, fearless reporters and daring bloggers have exposed and are exposing the Real Truth behind the 911 disaster. We are subjected to the Plasmoid Clouds, The Chinese/Bulgarian Guided Missiles, The ex-Soviet Scientists working with the CIA, and Mossad and the Illuminati.

Ah, and now we learn about the dread Nano Thermite! Yes, more “experts” (as always, unidentified) found traces of this explosive all over the streets after the WTC building collapsed! Of course not a word was ever mentioned about this shocking fact for eight years but why let that bother the seekers after truth?

What about the self-sacrificing US Army Special Forces who actually went inside the buildings, acting on orders from Laura Bush the Freemasons and their controllers, the Illuminati (who were working with the Mossad at the time),  and blew the Twin Towers, and themselves, up? And the acres of foreign rocket engine parts strewed all over New York’s streets, or huge lakes of molten steel found by unidentified “rescue workers” in the cellars of the WTC? God, will these disillusions never end?

Here we have reassurance that all is not lost after all…. Next week, a stunning report will emerge on how Nicolas Tesla’s Z-Ray, controlled by former KGB officers stationed on Planet X,  actually brought down the two buildings,  as well as the Pentagon!  

               Two hijacked commercial airliners slammed into these buildings, setting fires that weakened the structure, causing the weight of the building above the point of impact to collapse down on itself.

There is absolutely no mystery at all about this.

Stories about rockets, explosives and other matters are entertaining and keep some people occupied but neither I nor most structural engineers I know believe any of these burgeoning urban legends for a nanosecond.

Next, I suppose, the killings at Coulmbine High School will be blamed on trained dwarves, members of the Mossad, killer robots, the Skull and Bones Society of Yale, the Teamsters, ABC News or the Mormon Church.

The public has lost confidence in their government and when that happens, all kind of rumor, theory and legends grow up like fungus in the woods after a long rain.

Those with a technical bent, endlessly postulate on the melting point of steel, the heat of burning jet fuel, the exact size of entrance holes in buildings and on and on. In the end, we have entertaining theory but no practice.

The same thing has become evident in the post mortem stories about the Kennedy assassination. Mongolian dwarves, the KGB, Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, the CIA and a dozen other entities are absolutely believed by this or that thrilled discoverer to have committed the deed.

Government stupidity, which is always with us, contributed to the growth of legend over the years until the underbrush is so thick that it could hide a wooly mammoth and sixteen university professors.

.

               It always seems that high-level individuals, privy top the Inner Circle Secrets, have solemnly warned a brilliant and insightful blogger that this or that sinister incident has occurred. Of course like the story of a plasmoid cloud destroying the WTC, the names of these powerful and mysterious sources are never revealed. Our own impeccable sources absolutely verify that the entire business is the work of dimwits but also that powerful forces are now at work to prevent Americans from reading the Real Truth. Among these stories are the SEA tsunami/Tesla bomb release, and the thrilling recent revelation that the head White House gardener was secretly indicted in Chicago for assassinating the Easter Bunny and Laura Bush’s cat with a new and deadly laser ray invented by the sinister Dr. Melbourne Fong, head of the Hidden Hand. There is also the recently revealed plot to put deadly Ricin poison on DoD toilet paper that has all of official Washington a-twitter.

The collapses of the Twin Towers generated seismic disturbances that were recorded by a half-dozen seismic recording stations within a 20-mile radius of Manhattan. Numerous websites have repeated an erroneous interpretation of the seismic recordings as evidence that bombs in the basements of the towers severed the core columns at the onsets of the collapses. One source of this error is an article by American Free Press reporter Christopher Bollyn, reprinted in Serendipity.

To the contrary, there was nothing strange about the seismic spikes recorded by the Palisades station. As the video and photographic evidence shows, the towers exploded into expanding clouds of rubble that were about 400 feet from top to bottom by the time they reached the ground. Those rubble clouds contained virtually all of the mass of towers — thousands of tons of rubble falling from as high as 1000 feet. That could certainly be expected to produce pronounced seismic waves.

In fact the seismic evidence from the Palisades station comports well with the sequence of destruction evident in photographs and videos: each tower was consumed by a wave of destruction that started near the crash zone and moved downward as it generated an expanding cloud of rubble. It took about ten seconds for the bottom of this cloud to reach the ground and another eight seconds for its top to reach the ground. Likewise the seismic records show small disturbances lasting for about ten seconds, followed by large spikes lasting for about eight seconds.

         There appears to be no basis for the claim that the large spikes preceded the collapses, nor that the energy indicated by those spikes was more than could be accounted for by the approximately 110 megawatt-hours of gravitational energy stored in the elevated mass of each tower. And there is strong evidence contradicting the idea that the seismic spikes indicated underground explosions including:

• There is no support in the large body of photographic and video collapse evidence for the idea of powerful explosions in the towers’ basements at the onset of the collapses. Instead they show waves of destruction proceeding methodically downward from the crash zones to the ground.
• Underground explosions would have produced strong P waves, but the seismic stations registered only strong S waves. P waves oscillate horizontally — parallel to the direction of travel; whereas S waves oscillate vertically — perpendicular to the direction of travel.

         An analysis of the timeline of the North Tower collapse on the 9-11 Research site corroborates the idea that the large seismic spikes were produced by rubble reaching the ground.

               If a group of people placed explosive charges in the basements of the twin towers, why did the buildings begin to collapse downward from the points of impact? Fables about great conspiracies make amusing reading but in reality, such massive plots, involving as they would, hundreds of people, would be exposed almost immediately by dissatisfied or horror-stricken participants.

            In 1998, the Republicans had been out of power for some time and were eager to not only get back into power  which they were able to accomplish with one of the usual electorate mood swings and guaranteed assistance by the Florida Republicans and some of the Supreme Court) but, as Karl Rove insisted, keep it for a long time.

            Rove worked for George H.W. Bush before the elder sent him to run his useless, drunken sot of a son. Rove, very much a history buff, reasoned that as George was colorless and stubborn, he would have to have some help or it would be a one term reign. The answer? Looking at Roosevelt, the answer was plain:

            A wartime president.

            In this position, if he could get the public riled up the way they were just after Pearl Harbor (which FDR deliberately pushed the Japanese into doing) much could be accomplished and firm domestic control installed and implemented so the plan went to this level:

            George H.W. was on excellent terms with the Saudi-based, and very powerful,l bin Ladin family. They socialized together and many family members were honored guests of the Bush family (and others) in this country.

            One son, Osama, had worked with the CIA/Taliban connection and although seriously ill (kidney problems) he was an excellent connection.

            The Interior Minister of Saudi Arabia was anti-US so the older Bush spoke with one of the bin Ladins who, in turn, spoke with the Interior Minister and, hey presto, a road crew of Saudi fanatics was put together, supplied with fake papers and off they went on their mission.

            First to Germany where the German BND watched them and reported to their superiors who, in turn, passed on information to our people and next the Saudi terrorists came to this country.

            In order to keep an eye on the volatile Arabs, we enlisted the eager support of the Israeli Mossad who were allowed to function in this country with the, often-disregarded, idea they would pass any information of importance to the FBI.

            The whole bunch were in Hollywood, Florida, plotting. The Jews knew to the minute what was on the fire and passed it all along. One projected hijacked plane was destined for the Pentagon (where we got the Mossad people to convince them to target a side of the huge building that was closed for repairs…the real targets were on the opposite side of the complex), two were destined to slam into the iconic WTC buildings (that had been attacked earlier) and the fourth was intended for the most important mission: crash into the Capitol while Congress was in session.

            This latter was the key to the Rove/George H.W. plan. Congress was in session at that time and if the plane crashed into either wing, it would cripple the government until replacements could be elected to fill the empty seats left by the attack. That plane, we can be thankful, was crashed into a field in Pennsylvania by the unexpected revolt of the doomed passengers and Congress was not touched.

            With the mainstay neutralized, the Bush people pushed ahead with their constant threats of pending terror, followed by more and more oppressive legislation and the erection of more organs of domestic repression.

             Eventually, because of a number of relatively minor problems, the worst being gross ineptness on the part of the Rovians, the plot slowly collapsed like a ground-based barrage balloon with a tear in the fabric.

            There is also the fact that bin Laden died (there exists an authentic copy of his Pakistani death certificate) but he lives on in the rather amateurish productions of the CIA but as a unifying factor, bin Laden is dead.

Point

LASER BEAM WEAPONS AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

by Christopher Bollyn

American Free Press

http://americanfreepress.net

February 14, 2002

Directed-Energy Weapons

A former East German physicist who studied Soviet infrared technology and plasmoids during the 60s and 70s, and who was directly involved in a demonstration of a Soviet laser beam weapon in 1991 for the U.S. Air Force in Weimar (DDR), told AFP that there is evidence that a directed-energy weapon using “deep infrared” radiation was used to bring down the WTC. Although infrared weapon technology is not widely discussed in the West, the Soviet infrared beam weapon is nothing new and was already used during a Soviet dispute with China in 1969 to destroy “a wall” at the Ussuri River, which separates Manchuria from Russia’s Far East, according to the physicist.

The physicist told AFP, “From my experience as a physicist and research scientist with the GRU (Russia’s Central Intelligence Agency) [The GRU was actually Soviet Military Intelligence, dealing with military matters]. I have enough experience to judge that the WTC towers have been burning too quickly, too hot, and too completely to have been caused by the kerosene [jet fuel] fires that resulted from the crashes. Furthermore, the demolished buildings nearby [the 47-story Salomon Bros. Bldg.] are an indication that there was a plasmoid cloud involved, which probably affected the buildings nearby.”

[Unfortunately, the reader of this stunning piece is not informed of the name of the “former East German physicist,” so that he might learn more about credentials of the man who has revealed the background of the astounding ‘plasmoid cloud’ that brought down the WTC towers].

A plasmoid cloud is a heated and ionized gas that can be created and projected using far infrared thermal waves. Plasma occurs when a gas is heated so that some electrons have been separated from their atoms or molecules. Ball lightning is considered by experts to be a plasmoid phenomenon.

The physicist told AFP that he believes that a plasmoid may have been projected onto the towers before the planes struck. “The planes may have had a plasmoid in front of them. Just two or three seconds before the planes hit the towers, a plasmoid on the towers would have caused the Faraday cabin effect, like a car being hit by lightning.”

*.

Seismic Evidence Points to Underground Explosions Causing WTC Collapse

by Christopher Bollyn
American Free Press
http://americanfreepress.net
August 28, 2002

Two unexplained “spikes” in the seismic record from September 11 indicate huge bursts of energy shook the ground beneath the World Trade Center’s twin towers — just as the buildings began to collapse.

American Free Press has learned of pools of “molten steel” found at the base of the collapsed twin towers weeks after the collapse. Although the energy source for these incredibly hot areas has yet to be explained, New York seismometers recorded huge bursts of energy, which caused unexplained seismic “spikes” at the beginning of each collapse. These spikes suggest that massive underground explosions may have literally knocked the towers off their foundations causing them to collapse.

“MOLTEN STEEL”

In the basements of the collapsed towers, where the 47 central support columns connected with the bedrock, hot spots of “literally molten steel” were discovered more than a month after the collapse. Such persistent and intense residual heat, 70 feet below the surface, could explain how these crucial structural supports failed.

Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction of Flushing, New York, told AFP that he saw pools of “literally molten steel” at the World Trade Center. Tully was contracted on September 11 to remove the debris from the site.

Tully called Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, Maryland, for consultation about removing the debris. CDI calls itself “the innovator and global leader in the controlled demolition and implosion of structures.”

Loizeaux, who cleaned up the bombed Federal Building in Oklahoma City, arrived on the WTC site two days later and wrote the clean-up plan for the entire operation.

AFP asked Loizeaux about the report of molten steel on the site. “Yes,” he 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,” Loizeaux said. He said molten steel was also found at 7 WTC, which collapsed mysteriously in the late afternoon.

Construction steel has an extremely high melting point of about 2,800° Fahrenheit (1535° Celsius). Asked what could have caused such extreme heat, Tully said, “Think of the jet fuel.”

Loizeaux told AFP that the steel-melting fires were fueled by “paper, carpet and other combustibles packed down the elevator shafts by the tower floors as they ‘pancaked’ into the basement.”

Kerosene-based jet fuel, paper, or the other combustibles normally found in the towers, however, cannot generate the heat required to melt steel, especially in an oxygen-poor environment like a deep basement.

Eric Hufschmid, author of a book about the WTC collapse, Time for Painful Questions, told AFP that due to the lack of oxygen, paper and other combustibles packed down at the bottom of elevator shafts would probably be “a smoky smoldering pile.”

Experts disagree that jet-fuel or paper could generate such heat. This is impossible, they say, because the maximum temperature that can be reached by hydrocarbons like jet-fuel, burning in air is 1520° F (825° C). Because the WTC fires were fuel rich (as evidenced by the thick black smoke) it is argued that they did not reach this upper limit of 825° C.

The hottest spots at the surface of the rubble, where abundant oxygen was available, were much cooler than the molten steel found in the basements. Five days after the collapse, on September 16, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) used an Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) to locate and measure the site’s hot spots. Dozens of hot spots were mapped, the hottest being in the east corner of the South Tower where a temperature of 1377° F (747° C) was recorded. This is, however, less than half as hot at the molten steel in the basement.

The foundations of the twin towers were 70 feet deep. At that level, 47 huge box columns, connected to the bedrock, supported the entire gravity load of the structures. The steel walls of these lower box columns were 4 inches thick.

CENTRAL COLUMNS SEVERED

Videos of the North Tower collapse show its communication mast falling first, indicating that the central support columns must have failed at the very beginning of the collapse. Loizeaux told AFP, “Everything went simultaneously.”

“At 10:29 the entire top section of the North Tower had been severed from the base and began falling down,” Hufschmid writes. “If the first event was the falling of a floor, how did that progress to the severing of hundreds of columns?”

Asked if the vertical support columns gave way before the connections between the floors and the columns, Ron Hamburger, a structural engineer with the FEMA assessment team said, “That’s the $64,000 question.”

Loizeaux said, “If I were to bring the towers down, I would put explosives in the basement to get the weight of the building to help collapse the structure.”

SEISMIC “SPIKES”

Seismographs at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, 21 miles north of the WTC, recorded strange seismic activity on September 11 that has still not been explained.

While the aircraft crashes caused minimal earth shaking, significant earthquakes with unusual spikes occurred at the beginning of each collapse. The Palisades seismic data recorded a 2.1 magnitude earthquake during the 10-second collapse of the South Tower at 9:59:04 and a 2.3 quake during the 8-second collapse of the North Tower at 10:28:31.

The Palisades seismic record shows that — as the collapses began — a huge seismic “spike” marked the moment the greatest energy went into the ground. The strongest jolts were all registered at the beginning of the collapses, well before the falling debris struck the earth. These unexplained “spikes” in the seismic data lend credence to the theory that massive explosions at the base of the towers caused the collapses.

A “sharp spike of short duration” is how seismologist Thorne Lay of Univ. of California at Santa Cruz told AFP an underground nuclear explosion appears on a seismograph.

The two unexplained spikes are more than twenty times the amplitude of the other seismic waves associated with the collapses and occurred in the East-West seismic recording as the buildings began to fall.

Lerner-Lam told AFP that a 10-fold increase in wave amplitude indicates a 100-fold increase in energy released. These “short-period surface waves,” reflect “the interaction between the ground and the building foundation,” according to a report from Columbia Earth Institute.

“The seismic effects of the collapses are comparable to the explosions at a gasoline tank farm near Newark on January 7, 1983,” the Palisades Seismology Group reported on Sept. 14, 2001.

One of the seismologists, Won-Young Kim, told AFP that the Palisades seismographs register daily underground explosions from a quarry 20 miles away. These blasts are caused by 80,000 lbs. of ammonium nitrate and cause local earthquakes between Magnitude 1 and 2. Kim said the 1993 truck-bomb at the WTC did not register on the seismographs because it was “not coupled” to the ground.

Experts cannot explain why the seismic waves peaked before the towers hit the ground. Asked about these spikes seismologist Arthur Lerner-Lam, director of Columbia University’s Center for Hazards and Risk Research told AFP, “This is an element of current research and discussion. It is still being investigated.”

“Only a small fraction of the energy from the collapsing towers was converted into ground motion,” Lerner-Lam said. “The ground shaking that resulted from the collapse of the towers was extremely small.”

Last November, Lerner-Lam said, “During the collapse, most of the energy of the falling debris was absorbed by the towers and the neighboring structures, converting them into rubble and dust or causing other damage — but not causing significant ground shaking,”

Evidently, the energy source that shook the ground beneath the towers was many times more powerful than the total potential energy released by the falling mass of the huge towers.

TEST FOR EXPLOSIONS?

While steel is often tested for evidence of explosions, despite numerous eyewitness reports of explosions in the towers, the engineers involved in the FEMA-sponsored building assessment did no such tests.

Dr. W. Gene Corley, who investigated for the government the cause of the fire at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco and the Oklahoma City bombing, headed the FEMA-sponsored engineering assessment of the WTC collapse. Corley told AFP that while some tests had been done on the 80 pieces of steel saved from the site, he said he did not know about tests that show if an explosion had affected the steel. “I am not a metallurgist,” he said.

SELLING THE EVIDENCE OVERSEAS

Much of the structural steel from the WTC was sold to Alan D. Ratner of Metal Management of Newark, New Jersey, and the New York-based company Hugo Neu Schnitzer East. Ratner, who heads the New Jersey branch of the Chicago-based company, quickly sold the WTC steel to overseas companies, reportedly selling more than 50,000 tons of steel to a Shanghai steel company known as Baosteel for $120 per ton. Ratner paid about $70 per ton for the steel.

Other shipments of steel from the WTC went to India and other Asian ports. Ratner came to Metal Management after spending years with a Sydney-based (Australia) metal trading firm known as SimsMetal. “

The Oracle with Feet of Clay 

Man said views led to arrest: Hoffman Estates writer alleges Israel involved in Sept 11

September 8, 2006

by Liam Ford and Tribune writer Mark Shuman

Chicago Tribune

            A Hoffman Estates writer who claims Israeli agents were involved in the World Trade Center attack said police arrested him and shot him with a stun gun because of his views.

            But police say Christopher Bollyn was arrested during an altercation with officers last month because police feared he was going to get a weapon, which Bollyn denies. He was charged with aggravated assault and resisting arrest.

            Bollyn writes for several web sites, including on run by American Free Press, a

Washington weekly publication  that has published articles, including  some by Bollyn, raising the possibility that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 2001 attacks.

            Last weekend, the publication co-sponsored a conference with the Barnes Review, a publication that considers the Holocaust a myth.

            Bollyn, 49, said he was concerned last month about an unmarked car that was driving around his neighborhood two days in a row. The men in the car- identified by police as tactical officers- were dressed in bullet-proof vests and looked like paramilitary agents, Bollyn said.

            On Aug. 15, Bollyn was in front of his house in the 200 block of Kingman Lane, the second day he saw the car.

            “I said ‘Hello FBI,’ and the guy in the passenger seat waved back,” Bollyn said.”These are these guys wearing flak jackets. They looked like they were out of Beirut or Baghdad. They looked like they were dressed for combat.”

            Bollyn called 911 about 8 p.m. to complain of a suspicious vehicle both he and police spokesman  Lt. Rich Russo said.

            Because the tactical car was still in the area, the officers volunteered to Bolly and explain who they were, Russo said.

            Bollyn disputed that, saying the officers did not identify themselves.

            Bollyn “ran out, got into the officers’ faces, got very close to them, caused a ruckus,” Russo said.

            Bollyn said he wanted to call his brother and started walking towards his house. The police, he said “tackled me in front of my wife and daughter,” then after officers had one handcuff on him, “they Taser- gunned me.”

            Police say Bollyn’s gestures, words and actions convinced them that he might be trying to get back into his house to get a weapon, Russo said.

            Bollyn was shot with the stun gun because he continued to resist arrest even after he was on the ground, Russo said.

            Bollyn said he did not resist and added he believes his arrest may have been engineered by federal authorities because he is considered “a dangerous person….a far right winger.”

            Russo said they were not aware of his Internet and reporting.

            “We didn’t know his political views,” Russo said.

Former mayoral candidate guilty of assault

June 6, 2007

by Ashok Selvam

Daily Herald
aselvam@dailyherald.com
 

Jurors heard two radically different stories over the four-day trial on whether Christopher Lee Bollyn assaulted Hoffman Estates police officers last year.

The jurors said they saw holes in Bollyn’s account of police brutality. Tuesday, they found the 50-year-old former Hoffman Estates mayoral candidate guilty of resisting arrest and aggravated assault.

He faces up to a year in prison and is to appear before Judge Hyman Riebman for sentencing June 25.

“I can’t talk about it right now,” a despondent Bollyn said minutes after the verdict.

Police arrested Bollyn Aug. 15 after Officer Michael Barber used a Taser to stun him. Three officers pushed Bollyn to the grass in front of his Kingman Lane home after prosecutors said Bollyn yelled to them that he was going inside to “get the militia to take them down.”

Bollyn said police broke his elbow. Prosecutors denied the extent of his injury and said he threatened police – who wanted to end the incident before it escalated – and that he ignored their commands.

“He wasn’t talking in a calm, civil tone,” prosecutor Stacy Cossette said.

The bizarre incident began when an unmarked police car cruised by Bollyn’s home. He called 911 and said the car was suspicious. The car returned, and three officers got out to explain to Bollyn they meant no harm. Instead, a wrestling match ensued.

Police later said they were patrolling because of possible nearby drug activity.

Bollyn’s attorney, Paul Moreschi, said the officers couldn’t have been terrified of his client, who was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and whose 8-year-old was running around outside. The officers used the incident as an excuse to let off some steam and use excessive force, Moreschi asserted.

Bollyn, a self-described journalist, has written several articles posted online, including a series calling the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks a plot involving Israeli agents. He said the mainstream media have ignored facts and covered up a conspiracy.

After the verdict, friends and family said Bollyn had been targeted by police because of his political views. Prosecutor James Pontrelli dismissed that as “ridiculous.” Pontrelli said Bollyn was looking for a confrontation with authority figures.

“It didn’t matter if it was the FBI or Homeland Security,” Pontrelli said.

Bollyn’s wife of 12 years, Helje Kaskel, witnessed the incident and called police liars. She remained shocked after the verdict.

“This is not the end,” she said.

Earlier Tuesday, Bollyn reflected on his time in the village, including his failed mayoral bid in 2000. He brought up the 1973 scandal, which saw some village officials go to prison after taking bribes from developers.

“Corruption isn’t anything new to the village,” he said.

Pontrelli also said Bollyn had two theft convictions in 1981 out of California, as well as an assault charge. Pontrelli sought to have Bollyn’s bond revoked, but that was denied.

Hoffman Estates Police Chief Clinton Herdegen testified Monday and was again in court Tuesday as a spectator. He had no comment.

Arrest warrant issued after man skips sentencing

June 28, 2007

by Ashok Selvam

Daily Herald

aselvam@dailyherald.com

            The day after Hoffman Estates police arrested Christopher Lee Bollyn in August, he posted his account of events on the Internet.

“

I honestly believe this brutal treatment is connected to my 9/11 research,” Bollyn wrote. “I intend to seek asylum in Norway or Switzerland. I can read the writing on the wall.”

Whatever his current whereabouts, Bollyn is indeed now considered a fugitive. He was a no-show at Monday’s sentencing hearing and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. He remained at large late Wednesday.

On June 5, a jury convicted Bollyn, 50, with misdemeanor aggravated assault and resisting arrest in an August 2006 scuffle with three Hoffman Estates police officers.

He was facing up to a year in jail for the conviction.

Bollyn has written pieces alleging the government covered up a Sept. 11 conspiracy and has said the arrest was an attempt to suppress him.

Though motions were filed to appeal the verdict, Bollyn’s attorney, Paul Moreschi, said Monday he didn’t know his client’s whereabouts. Moreschi couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday.

A man who answered the door at Bollyn’s home Wednesday — whom neighbors and police identified as Bollyn’s brother — declined comment. Neighbors said they haven’t seen Bollyn’s immediate family in weeks.

Bollyn’s wife, Helje Kaskel, is from Estonia and the family frequently traveled outside the country.

Judge Hyman Riebman said Bollyn wasn’t a flight risk when denying the prosecution’s request to revoke bond. Riebman noted after the verdict that Bollyn is a lifelong Hoffman Estates resident who attended his previous court dates.

“There’s frustration when we go through a jury trial and you think that the truth is heard … You want to see it finalized,” said Cook County prosecutor James Pontrelli.

Hoffman Estates police are treating Bollyn’s warrant the same as any other misdemeanor, Lt. Rich Russo said.

Police already have questioned the brother and are looking at “reasonable” leads. The department has no plans at this time to travel overseas in search of Bollyn.

“If we felt him as a danger to the public, we would have stepped up our efforts to apprehend him,” Russo said.

Bollyn’s views, which include Holocaust denial, led him to appear regularly on former Ku Klux Klan leader and politician David Duke’s radio show. He also was interviewed by CNN’s Paula Zahn about 9/11 conspiracies, telling her he wasn’t an anti-Semite.

Bollyn has not updated his Web site or made any known postings on other Web sites since his conviction. However, several supporters have posted messages on his Web site backing the idea that he should seek overseas asylum.

http://www.dailyherald.com/news/cookstory.asp?id=327028&cc=c&tc=&t=

Comment: A domestic asylum would be much cheaper. Chris pops up from time to time on odd websites, ranting about his usual disjointed subjects. He really ought to come back to the States, serve his time and then run for Congress on the Republican ticket. Along with such deranged creatures as the Divine Sarah, Bachmann and others too numerous to mention, Chris would be a shoo-in.

Counterpoint

The Destruction of the World Trade Center: Dislodged fireproofing felled World Trade Center

April 6, 2005
Agence France Presse

The twin towers of the World Trade Center would probably be standing today, if the impact of the planes used in the September 11, 2001 attack had not destroyed fireproofing material, experts said.

After what it described as the most detailed examination of a building failure ever conducted, the US Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) said it would be suggesting major changes to the way skyscrapers are built and managed.

In assessing the events that led to World Trade Center’s collapse, the NIST report said the structural impact of the planes and subsequent jet fuel-ignited, multi-floor fires were not in themselves enough to bring the towers down.

“The reason the towers collapsed is because the fireproofing was dislodged,” said Shyam Sunder, lead investigator for the NIST building and fire safety investigation into the disaster.

If the fireproofing had remained in place, Sunder said, the fires would have burned out and moved on without weakening key elements to the point of structural collapse.

He drew an analogy with the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster when the absence of a small piece of insulation foam — knocked off during launch — allowed fire to seep into the shuttle’s entire wing span during re-entry with catastrophic results.

New alternatives to traditional fireproofing should be explored, Sunder said, citing a paint-like substance which, if applied in sufficient layers, would stick “even if a plane hit it.”

Nearly 2,750 people were killed in the attack on the World Trade Center by members of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.

Roughly 17,400 people were in the skyscrapers at the time of the attack, and NIST estimated that the death toll would have been closer to 14,000 if the two towers had been filled to their 50,000-person capacity.

The report said each jet severed perimeter columns, damaged interior core columns and dislodged fireproofing as they penetrated the buildings. The weight carried by the severed columns was spread to others.

Fires caused by the jet fuel were fed by the building contents and oxygen entering through breached walls and windows.

“The floors weakened and sagged from the fires, pulling inward on the perimeter columns,” the report said.

“Floor sagging and exposure to high temperatures caused the perimeter columns to bow inward and buckle — a process that spread across the faces of the buildings.

“Collapse then ensued,” it said.

In examining the emergency services response on September 11 and the evacuation procedures, the NIST report echoed other probes in highlighting a lack of coordination and poor communications equipment.

The report cited one senior emergency services officer inside the north tower of the trade center as saying he would have known more about what was going on if he had been watching it on television.

“The lack of timely information sharing and inadequate communication capabilities, likely contributed to the loss of emergency responder lives,” the report concluded.

The evacuation of the twin towers has generally been called a success, with 87 percent of the occupants — including more than 99 percent of those below the floors hit by the planes — managing to get out.

The south tower collapsed 56 minutes after impact and the north tower in 102 minutes.

The NIST report noted that a full-capacity evacuation would have taken around four hours — a fatal length of time.

Occupants were often unprepared for the physical challenge of evacuating from higher floors. “It’s pretty demanding, especially if you want to do it fast,” Sunder said.

The NIST report, running to some 10,000 pages, is still in draft form, with a final version, complete with definitive findings and recommendations, to be released in September.

Selections from 9/11: Debunking The Myths
PM examines the evidence and consults the experts to refute the most persistent conspiracy theories of September 11.

Published in the March, 2005 issue of Popular Mechanics

Widespread Damage
           

CLAIM: The first hijacked plane crashed through the 94th to the 98th floors of the World Trade Center’s 110-story North Tower; the second jet slammed into the 78th to the 84th floors of the 110-story South Tower. The impact and ensuing fires disrupted elevator service in both buildings. Plus, the lobbies of both buildings were visibly damaged before the towers collapsed. “There is NO WAY the impact of the jet caused such widespread damage 80 stories below,” claims a posting on the San Diego Independent Media Center Web site (sandiego.indymedia.org). “It is OBVIOUS and irrefutable that OTHER EXPLOSIVES (… such as concussion bombs) HAD ALREADY BEEN DETONATED in the lower levels of tower one at the same time as the plane crash.”

FACT: Following up on a May 2002 preliminary report by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a major study will be released in spring 2005 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce. NIST shared its initial findings with PM and made its lead researcher available to our team of reporters.

            The NIST investigation revealed that plane debris sliced through the utility shafts at the North Tower’s core, creating a conduit for burning jet fuel–and fiery destruction throughout the building. “It’s very hard to document where the fuel went,” says Forman Williams, a NIST adviser and a combustion expert, “but if it’s atomized and combustible and gets to an ignition source, it’ll go off.”

            Burning fuel traveling down the elevator shafts would have disrupted the elevator systems and caused extensive damage to the lobbies. NIST heard first-person testimony that “some elevators slammed right down” to the ground floor. “The doors cracked open on the lobby floor and flames came out and people died,” says James Quintiere, an engineering professor at the University of Maryland and a NIST adviser. A similar observation was made in the French documentary “9/11,” by Jules and Gedeon Naudet. As Jules Naudet entered the North Tower lobby, minutes after the first aircraft struck, he saw victims on fire, a scene he found too horrific to film  

“Melted” Steel
           

CLAIM: “We have been lied to,” announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net. “The first lie was that the load of fuel from the aircraft was the cause of structural failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel.” The posting is entitled “Proof Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC.”

FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn’t need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength–and that required exposure to much less heat. “I have never seen melted steel in a building fire,” says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. “But I’ve seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks.”

            “Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F,” notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. “And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent.” NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.

            But jet fuel wasn’t the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.

            “The jet fuel was the ignition source,” Williams tells PM. “It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down.”

Puffs Of Dust
           

CLAIM: As each tower collapsed, clearly visible puffs of dust and debris were ejected from the sides of the buildings. An advertisement in The New York Times for the book Painful Questions: An Analysis Of The September 11th Attack made this claim: “The concrete clouds shooting out of the buildings are not possible from a mere collapse. They do occur from explosions.” Numerous conspiracy theorists cite Van Romero, an explosives expert and vice president of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, who was quoted on 9/11 by the Albuquerque Journal as saying “there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that caused the towers to collapse.” The article continues, “Romero said the collapse of the structures resembled those of controlled implosions used to demolish old structures.”

FACT: Once each tower began to collapse, the weight of all the floors above the collapsed zone bore down with pulverizing force on the highest intact floor. Unable to absorb the massive energy, that floor would fail, transmitting the forces to the floor below, allowing the collapse to progress downward through the building in a chain reaction. Engineers call the process “pancaking,” and it does not require an explosion to begin, according to David Biggs, a structural engineer at Ryan-Biggs Associates and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) team that worked on the FEMA report

            Like all office buildings, the WTC towers contained a huge volume of air. As they pancaked, all that air–along with the concrete and other debris pulverized by the force of the collapse–was ejected with enormous energy. “When you have a significant portion of a floor collapsing, it’s going to shoot air and concrete dust out the window,” NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder tells PM. Those clouds of dust may create the impression of a controlled demolition, Sunder adds, “but it is the floor pancaking that leads to that perception.”

            Demolition expert Romero regrets that his comments to the Albuquerque Journal became fodder for conspiracy theorists. “I was misquoted in saying that I thought it was explosives that brought down the building,” he tells PM. “I only said that that’s what it looked like.”

            Romero, who agrees with the scientific conclusion that fire triggered the collapses, demanded a retraction from the Journal. It was printed Sept. 22, 2001. “I felt like my scientific reputation was on the line.” But emperors-clothes.com saw something else: “The paymaster of Romero’s research institute is the Pentagon. Directly or indirectly, pressure was brought to bear, forcing Romero to retract his original statement.” Romero responds: “Conspiracy theorists came out saying that the government got to me. That is the farthest thing from the truth. This has been an albatross around my neck for three years.” 

Seismic Spikes
           

CLAIM: Seismographs at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., 21 miles north of the WTC, recorded the events of 9/11. “The strongest jolts were all registered at the beginning of the collapses, well before falling debris struck the earth,” reports the Web site WhatReallyHappened.com.

            A columnist on Prisonplanet.com, a Web site run by radio talk show host Alex Jones, claims the seismic spikes are “indisputable proof that massive explosions brought down” the towers. The Web site says its findings are supported by two seismologists at the observatory, Won-Young Kim and Arthur Lerner-Lam. Each “sharp spike of short duration,” says Prisonplanet.com, was consistent with a “demolition-style implosion.”

FACT: “There is no scientific basis for the conclusion that explosions brought down the towers,” Lerner-Lam tells PM. “That representation of our work is categorically incorrect and not in context.”

            The report issued by Lamont-Doherty includes various graphs showing the seismic readings produced by the planes crashing into the two towers as well as the later collapse of both buildings. WhatReallyHappened.com chooses to display only one graph which shows the readings over a 30-minute time span.

            On that graph, the 8- and 10-second collapses appear–misleadingly–as a pair of sudden spikes. Lamont-Doherty’s 40-second plot of the same data gives a much more detailed picture: The seismic waves–blue for the South Tower, red for the North Tower–start small and then escalate as the buildings rumble to the ground. Translation: no bombs.

WTC 7 Collapse
           

CLAIM: Seven hours after the two towers fell, the 47-story WTC 7 collapsed. According to 911review.org: “The video clearly shows that it was not a collapse subsequent to a fire, but rather a controlled demolition: amongst the Internet investigators, the jury is in on this one.”

FACT: Many conspiracy theorists point to FEMA’s preliminary report, which said there was relatively light damage to WTC 7 prior to its collapse. With the benefit of more time and resources, NIST researchers now support the working hypothesis that WTC 7 was far more compromised by falling debris than the FEMA report indicated. “The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7,” NIST’s Sunder tells PM. “On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom–approximately 10 stories–about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out.” NIST also discovered previously undocumented damage to WTC 7’s upper stories and its southwest corner.

            NIST investigators believe a combination of intense fire and severe structural damage contributed to the collapse, though assigning the exact proportion requires more research. But NIST’s analysis suggests the fall of WTC 7 was an example of “progressive collapse,” a process in which the failure of parts of a structure ultimately creates strains that cause the entire building to come down. Videos of the fall of WTC 7 show cracks, or “kinks,” in the building’s facade just before the two penthouses disappeared into the structure, one after the other. The entire building fell in on itself, with the slumping east side of the structure pulling down the west side in a diagonal collapse.

             According to NIST, there was one primary reason for the building’s failure: In an unusual design, the columns near the visible kinks were carrying exceptionally large loads, roughly 2000 sq. ft. of floor area for each floor. “What our preliminary analysis has shown is that if you take out just one column on one of the lower floors,” Sunder notes, “it could cause a vertical progression of collapse so that the entire section comes down.”

            There are two other possible contributing factors still under investigation: First, trusses on the fifth and seventh floors were designed to transfer loads from one set of columns to another. With columns on the south face apparently damaged, high stresses would likely have been communicated to columns on the building’s other faces, thereby exceeding their load-bearing capacities.

            Second, a fifth-floor fire burned for up to 7 hours. “There was no firefighting in WTC 7,” Sunder says. Investigators believe the fire was fed by tanks of diesel fuel that many tenants used to run emergency generators. Most tanks throughout the building were fairly small, but a generator on the fifth floor was connected to a large tank in the basement via a pressurized line. Says Sunder: “Our current working hypothesis is that this pressurized line was supplying fuel [to the fire] for a long period of time.”

            WTC 7 might have withstood the physical damage it received, or the fire that burned for hours, but those combined factors—along with the building’s unusual construction–were enough to set off the chain-reaction collapse.

          Washington, D.C., August 22, 2010: “Livid with rage at the collapse of a dim-witted public relations venture, the organs of our government have turned against their own foils. The release of thousands of pages of low-level documentation was intended to give Obama an excuse for pulling out of Afghanistan without drawing the hysterical super-militants of the far right. Instead, the documents supplied to Mr. Assange via the Army and its people created, and is still creating, terrible trouble for the American government and its organs of control.

The brutal personal attacks on Pfc Manning (the obedient New York Times promptly claimed, without any proof whatsoever, that Manning was a rampant homosexual) and subsequently, to claim that Assange was a rapist and molester.

This reeks of the CIA and its long, long and very ugly history of similar vicious smears that we have seen, aimed at individuals and institutions that the government in general, and the CIA in specific, does not like.

During its long existence, the CIA has developed “close and working” connections with American media outlets, to include book publishers, newspapers, television entities, and a growing number of bloggers. This is why sniggering innuendos and gross libels pour out of what is alleged to be a free press whenever the masters speak. Remember the moronic Tom Ridge mouthing dire warnings about red days and pink days, don’t you?

It is interesting to note that accusations of misdeeds in others always seem to reflect the secret sins of the attackers.

Inside the Beltway, it is not a secret that many CIA operatives down at Langley are as queer as a three dollar bill but outside, thanks to the media, they are seen as heroic defenders of the country.

The old question is still very valid: “Who will guard us against the guardians?”

Wikileaks says Australia warned of ‘dirty tricks’

August 23, 2010

AFP

             STOCKHOLM — Australian intelligence services had warned WikiLeaks of “dirty tricks” before Swedish authorities issued a short-lived arrest warrant for founder Julian Assange over a rape claim, he said Monday.

“We were warned on the 11th (of August) by Australian intelligence that we should expect this sort of thing,” Assange said in a telephone interview with broadcaster Al-Jazeera from a secret location in Sweden.

Assange — whose whistleblowing website is embroiled in a row with the Pentagon over the release of thousands of secret US documents on the Afghan war — faced allegations from two women in Sweden of rape and molestation.

Prosecutors issued a warrant for his arrest on Friday night on the rape claim but abruptly withdrew it the following day saying that new information had come to light.

“We were warned about dirty tricks and specifically that they would be of a type like this,” the 39-year-old Australian said.

Swedish authorities are still investigating the claim of molestation, but Assange insisted that all the allegations against him were untrue.

“It is clearly a smear campaign … the (rape) accusation was withdrawn six hours later. The only question is who was involved,” he said in the interview which was posted on Al-Jazeera’s website.

But while Assange had said at the weekend that he believed the Pentagon could be behind the claims, he was more circumspect on Monday, acknowledging that he could not say for sure.

“We don’t have direct evidence that this is coming from a US or other intelligence” agency, he said. “We can have some suspicions about who will benefit, but without direct evidence I won’t be making direct allegations.”

The Pentagon said Sunday any allegation of dirty tricks was “absurd”.

Assange has promised to publish 15,000 new documents about the war in Afghanistan, after posting 77,000 leaked documents online late last month in a move that the Pentagon said could endanger the lives of informants.

He told Al-Jazeera the new release would take place in “two to four weeks.”

Dirty Tricks:Smear campaign against Julian Assange reaches new low

August 23, 2010

by Justin Raimondo,

AntiWar

The smear campaign targeting Julian Assange and WikiLeaks isn’t very subtle, nor is it very effective. First the Pentagon refuses Assange’s request to vet the tens of thousands of secret files WikiLeaks put online, expunging material that might cost American or Afghan lives – and then turns around and declares Assange and his organization have “blood on their hands.” In a similar act of self-refutation, they announce there will be no negotiations with the WikiLeakers, and then denounce WikiLeaks’ American lawyer for not keeping a 10 a.m. appointment to … negotiate.

All this was preceded by a smear campaign against Pfc. Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old intelligence analyst suspected of leaking the “Collateral Murder” video, posted by WikiLeaks (Manning is also suspected of leaking the Afghan logs database, consisting of some 75,000 internal US Army communications, the so-called Afghan war logs). A whispering campaign was launched which targeted Manning’s sexuality: links to his Facebook page detailing his opposition to “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” were accompanied by wildly speculative assertions that he might be a transsexual. Then it was asserted that his alleged boyfriend is a drag queen – an odd relationship for a transsexual to have, but then I don’t keep up with these things.

In any case, the campaign against Assange has taken the same turn – in the direction of Kraft-Ebbing – with the bizarre arrest warrant issued by a Swedish prosecutor against the WikiLeaks founder on charges of rape and molestation. The rape charge was revoked less than 24 hours later, with the explanation that an “on call” prosecutor had filed the original charges based on incomplete evidence, while the regular prosecutor was able to obtain more information and revoke the warrant. The charges of “molestation,” we are told, are still being investigated.

The source of these charges is two anonymous women, one in her twenties and the other in her thirties, whose story is very murky. According to the Telegraph,

“One of the two women behind the charges yesterday told a Swedish newspaper that the women who alleged rape had been a stranger who had also attended speeches by Mr. Assange. The woman had approached her and she had agreed to attend a police interview to lay the charges and make a complaint of her own.

“’I believed her information immediately because I had a similar experience myself,’ she said. ‘The other woman wanted to report a rape, I gave my statement as a support statement to her story and to support her.’”

Sisterly solidarity in the Pentagon’s cause: just one of the many ways Western feminism is useful in the selling of the Afghan war (that recent Time magazine cover is another example). Looks like the War Party is aiming its propaganda at a targeted demographic: it’s all so very professional.

And not a bit credible. The big problem for the Smear Brigade, quite aside from the swift retraction of the rape charges, is this story stinks to high heaven. So these two women just happened to meet up at one of Assange’s lectures, and – in the course of casual conversation – realized they’d both been raped by this monster. I don’t know how many rape victims attend lectures by their assaulters, but the number is probably very low. More indications the whole thing is a set up: the Guardian reports that “the preliminary allegation, made on the Friday night, and not further investigated at that stage, was apparently leaked by police to a tabloid in Stockholm, which published dramatic claims on Saturday morning that Assange was to be arrested.”

The police leaked all by their lonesome selves, with no prodding either from Swedish or American intelligence services – who naturally knew nothing of any of this. And anyone who believes otherwise is a “conspiracy theorist,” as one of the women put it:

“In her [Aftonbladet] interview, she dismissed the idea, seized on by many conspiracy theorists that ‘dirty tricks’ lay behind the rape allegations, because of WikiLeaks’ defiance of the US government. She said: ‘The charges against Assange are of course not orchestrated by the Pentagon.’”

Oh, of course not: why, it’s pure coincidence that these charges have appeared just at the moment when US government prosecutors are looking for ways to nail him.

In the same interview, Assange’s anonymous accuser averred “that she had never intended Assange to be charged with rape. She was quoted as saying: ‘It is quite wrong that we were afraid of him. He is not violent and I do not feel threatened by him.’… She said each had had voluntary relations with Assange: ‘The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl lies with a man who had attitude problems with women.’ Sources close to the woman said today that issues arose during the relationships about Assange’s willingness to use condoms.”

The story, you see, is no longer about WikiLeaks, the Afghan logs, war crimes committed by the US under cover of darkness, or the US government’s frantic efforts to cover them up – it’s now about Assange’s sexual habits, and Manning’s, too.

So why am I so certain this is what Assange says it is: a coordinated effort by Washington to smear and discredit him?

Because it’s all so very American, i.e. sex-obsessed. In what other country would their spooks exhibit such an unhealthy interest in the erotic routines of their quarry? The combination of voyeurism and puritanism is a national characteristic: this smear campaign has “Made in America” stamped all over it.

It’s a new low for the War Party, even by their debased standards, but not really all that surprising. A debased empire reveals its character in little things, and large: the lies they spin are perfervid projections of their own decadent appetites, sprung from the depths of a culture that resembles Rome in full decline.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in web furore over Swedish rape claim

• Allegation apparently leaked to press by police
• Story garners 1m hits before prosecutor steps in

August 22,  2010

Guardian/UK

The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, was himself the subject of a rapidly spreading online story when news cascaded across the internet for several hours at the weekend mistakenly saying he was being sought in Sweden on rape charges.

Before Stockholm’s chief prosecutor made clear on Saturday afternoon that Assange was in fact neither charged with rape nor due to be arrested, the story had spread, generating more than 1,200 articles, available through internet news search, that received more than 1m hits.

“It was 7am when a friend who is Swedish and has been out on the net told me about the allegations,” Assange told Stockholm daily newspaper Aftonbladet, which has hired him as a columnist : “It was shocking. I have been accused of various things in recent years, but nothing so serious as this.”

He said none of his sexual relations had ever been built on anything other than totally consensual activity.

The preliminary allegation, made on Friday night, and not further investigated at that stage, was apparently leaked by police to a tabloid in Stockholm, which published dramatic claims on Saturday morning that Assange was to be arrested.

The Swedish Prosecution Authority today said an “on-call” prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Assange late on Friday, only to see it revoked the next day by a higher-ranked prosecutor who found no grounds to suspect him of rape.

“The prosecutor who took over the case had more information, and that is why she made a different assessment than the on-call prosecutor,” said Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the authority.

One of two women involved told Aftonbladet in an interview published today that she had never intended Assange to be charged with rape. She was quoted as saying: “It is quite wrong that we were afraid of him. He is not violent and I do not feel threatened by him.”

Speaking anonymously, she said each had had voluntary relations with Assange: “The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl lies with a man who had attitude problems with women.”

Sources close to the woman said that issues arose during the relationships about Assange’s willingness to use condoms.

In her interview, she dismissed the idea, seized on by many conspiracy theorists that ‘dirty tricks’ lay behind the rape allegations, because of WikiLeaks’ defiance of the US government. She said: “The charges against Assange are of course not orchestrated by the Pentagon.”

Swedish prosecutors said today that a decision would be taken early this week whether to continue investigations into lesser possible charges against the nomadic Assange, which he also denies.

Some of WikiLeaks’ computer servers are currently based in Sweden, and he has sought to shelter under Sweden’s journalistic source protection laws for the organisation’s crusade to promote worldwide leaking of information. Assange and his co-activists at WikiLeaks have refused US defense department demands that they cease publishing thousands of leaked military documents about the US war in Afghanistan, and making accusations of murder of civilians.

US generals have accused WikiLeaks of wholesale leaking that does too little to protect informants and the identities of Afghan villagers who co-operated with US and British forces.

Assange has riposted that it is US soldiers who have “blood on their hands” and he is seeking to edit sensitive files before posting them online.

A former US army intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, is in military custody at Quantico, Virginia, accused of turning over to outsiders a huge quantity of classified material which subsequently appeared on WikiLeaks. Bradley reportedly told fellow computer enthusiasts that he was horrified by what he found.

Sweden withdraws warrant for WikiLeaks founder

August 21, 2010

by Karl Ritter 

Associated Press

STOCKHOLM – Swedish authorities revoked a short-lived arrest warrant for the founder of WikiLeaks on Saturday, saying a rape accusation against him lacked substance.

Julian Assange, who was believed to be in Sweden, remained under suspicion of a lesser crime of molestation in a separate case, prosecutors said.

The nomadic 39-year-old Australian dismissed the allegations in a statement on WikiLeaks’ Twitter page, saying “the charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing.”

WikiLeaks is preparing to release of a fresh batch of classified U.S. documents from the Afghan war, despite warnings from the Pentagon that they could endanger American soldiers and their Afghan helpers.

A Stockholm prosecutor issued the arrest warrant on Friday, saying Assange was suspected of rape and molestation in two separate cases. But chief prosecutor Eva Finne withdrew the warrant within 24 hours.

“I don’t think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape,” Finne said in a brief statement.

Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Prosecution Authority, said Assange remains suspected of molestation, a less serious charge that would not lead to an arrest warrant.

“The prosecutor hasn’t made a decision” on that count, Rosander told The Associated Press. “The investigation continues.”

Molestation covers a wide of range of offenses under Swedish law, including inappropriate physical contact with another adult, and can result in fines or up to one year in prison.

Assange was in Sweden last week seeking legal protection for the whistle-blower website, which angered the Obama administration by publishing thousands of leaked documents about U.S. military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The first files in Wikileaks’ “Afghan War Diary” revealed classified military documents covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. Assange said Wednesday that WikiLeaks plans to release a new batch of 15,000 documents from the Afghan war within weeks.

The Pentagon has demanded WikiLeaks return all leaked documents and remove them from the Internet.

Assange has no permanent address and travels frequently — jumping from one friend’s place to the next. He disappears from public view for months at a time, only to reappear in the full glare of the cameras at packed news conferences to discuss his site’s latest disclosure.

Assange declined to talk about his background at a news conference in Stockholm a week ago. Equally secretive is the small team behind WikiLeaks, reportedly just a half-dozen people and casual volunteers who offer their services as needed.

A WikiLeaks spokesman, who says he goes by the name Daniel Schmitt in order to protect his identity, told AP in a telephone interview from Iceland that the “extremely serious allegations” came as a complete surprise.

Apart from the comment from Assange, WikiLeaks’ Twitter page had a link to an article in Swedish tabloid Expressen, which first reported the allegations.

“We were warned to expect ‘dirty tricks.’ Now we have the first one,” it said.

On its official blog, WikiLeaks expressed “full support” for Assange and said it “will be continuing its regular operations.”

Assange was in Sweden partly to apply for a publishing certificate to make sure the website, which has servers in Sweden, can take full advantage of Swedish laws protecting whistle-blowers.

He also spoke at a seminar hosted by the Christian faction of the opposition Social Democratic party and announced he would write bimonthly columns for a left-wing Swedish newspaper.

A physics Ph.D, Assange hasn’t shied from taking on both government officials and the press. Media profiles have detailed an unsettled upbringing — the Australian press has reported Assange attended dozens of schools growing up — and he still seems to live on the move, his computer traveling with him in a backpack.

Assange told Der Spiegel in an interview that he likes confronting the powerful. “I enjoy creating systems on a grand scale, and I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable,” he said. “And I enjoy crushing bastards. So it is enjoyable work.”

___

Associated Press Writer Juergen Baetz in Berlin contributed to this report.

Scathing SBI audit says 230 cases tainted by shoddy investigations

August 24, 2010

by Mandy Locke, Joseph Neff and J. Andrew Curless

NewsObserver, Raleigh, NC

RALEIGH — The North Carolina justice system shook Wednesday as an audit commissioned by Attorney General Roy Cooper revealed that the State Bureau of Investigation withheld or distorted evidence in more than 200 cases at the expense of potentially innocent men and women.

The full impact of the disclosure will reverberate for years to come as prosecutors and defense attorneys re-examine cases as much as two decades old to figure out whether these errors robbed defendants of justice. Some of the injustices can be addressed as attorneys bring old cases back to court. For others, it’s too late: Three of the defendants in botched cases have been executed.

“This report is troubling,” said Cooper, who oversees the SBI. “It describes a practice that should have been unacceptable then and is not acceptable now.”

The revelation came after a five-month review in which two former FBI agents pulled dusty case files from shelves to find the truths that analysts chose to keep to themselves.

Two former FBI agents, Chris Swecker and Mike Wolf, examined more than 15,000 cases at the invitation of Cooper, a Democrat who has been attorney general since 2001. The exoneration of Greg Taylor, a Wake County man imprisoned 17 years for a murder he didn’t commit, prompted the review. SBI analyst Duane Deaver admitted in February that he failed to report tests indicating a substance on Taylor’s SUV was not blood. Deaver, who was suspended Wednesday, said that his bosses told him to write reports that way.

He was telling the truth. Swecker determined that the practice of not reporting results of more sophisticated blood tests was sanctioned by some analysts. In 1997, it became written policy. That policy remained in effect as recently as 2003.

Swecker said his findings signal potential violations of the U.S. Constitution and North Carolina laws by withholding information favorable to defendants. Swecker stopped short of determining whether the hidden results affected guilt or innocence in the cases he examined; often there was other evidence in the cases that linked defendants to the crimes. Still, the withheld information could have made a difference in the sentences handed down.

“This is mind-boggling,” said veteran Wayne County District Attorney Branny Vickory, a Democrat. “It is really a nightmare for everyone. I don’t know how we are going to make this right.”

The audit is another black eye for a beleaguered SBI.

The News & Observer reported this month in a series, “Agents’ Secrets,” that analysts across the laboratory push past the accepted bounds of science to deliver results pleasing to prosecutors. They are out of step with the larger scientific community and have fought defense attorneys’ requests for additional information needed to review the SBI’s work. Cooper last month dismissed SBI Director Robin Pendergraft after she struggled to answer questions about SBI cases and policies.

“This is such a damning indictment on the SBI,” said Staples Hughes, the state appellate defender, whose office oversees appeals of all defendants convicted by juries. “Why didn’t they just say ‘we lied.’ That’s what they did. Sadly, I’m not surprised.”

Prosecutors and defense attorneys are scrambling to review the 230 problem cases cited in Swecker’s report. At least 80 defendants are still in prison, a top priority for Prisoner Legal Services, said executive director Mary Pollard.

No rules, bad science

Swecker’s report paints a picture of a renegade unit at the SBI crime lab acting without rules and with misguided notions about the science behind blood analysis.

In serology, police use rudimentary presumptive tests at crime scenes to determine where blood might be. Those tests are fallible, prone to giving false positives. So analysts depend on more sophisticated, confirmatory tests to determine whether a substance is, in fact, blood.

Before 1997, the serology unit operated without report-writing guidelines. Analysts set their own criteria until 1997; that policy sanctioned the practice of not reporting negative or inconclusive results of confirmatory tests.

Swecker found policies and practices out of step with the rules of serology. They were also far afield of fairness, according to the report.

“There was anecdotal evidence that some Analysts were not objective in their mindset,” Swecker wrote.

Tests used to confirm the presence of blood never yield “inconclusive results,” Swecker noted. Two analysts interviewed for the report told Swecker that despite volumes of warnings about the potential for false positives on presumptive blood tests, they didn’t believe it because they had not gotten a positive result when testing plant material and bacteria known to signal false positives. Those two analysts believed that positive presumptive tests were absolute indications of blood.

Eight analysts were involved in these bad practices. Some are dead; a few are retired.

Four still work for the SBI, and another performs contract work for the agency.

Behind the five cases Swecker deemed most problematic: Deaver, a 23-year veteran of the agency.

New SBI Director Greg McLeod suspended Deaver on Wednesday, pending further investigation.

‘An abomination’

The cost of these errors was tough for lawyers to comprehend Wednesday.

“This report reveals staggering lack of competence at the lab,” said Mike Klinkosum, a Raleigh lawyer who represented Taylor in February and helped discover Deaver’s withheld test results. “It’s an abomination of the criminal justice system and an affront to all the decent law enforcement officers out there doing their jobs.”

Cooper delivered copies of the report and a list of affected cases to district attorneys across the state little more than an hour before announcing his findings to the public.

At least one met the findings with anger.

“We’ve been out here asserting things as fact that just weren’t,” said John Snyder, district attorney of Union County. “Now, when I’ve got jurors coming in, I’ve got to enter into a whole line of questioning I never should have been forced to do. They won’t trust us.”

Snyder, a Republican , called for an independent audit of the entire crime lab.

On Wednesday, Cooper promised a more independent review would follow and that McLeod, the new director, would bring in experts.

“The lab cannot accept a lack of thoroughness,” Cooper said. “It cannot accept attitudes that are not open to the possibility that a mistake has been made. It cannot ignore criticism and suggestions from the outside.”

Pistol-packing preacher protests arrest; DC police confiscate guns

by John Thompson

Johnson City Press
 
jthompson@johnsoncitypress.com

ELIZABETHTON — For the rest of his life Pastor William Duncan of Caldwell Springs Baptist Church will remember the Fourth of July as the day he lost his freedom.

“I learned our freedoms can be taken away in a heartbeat,” the 64-year-old Duncan said of the ordeal he encountered in Washington, D.C., when he was arrested in front of his shocked family and forced to spend last month’s Fourth of July weekend in the city’s jails.

The nightmare for the entire Duncan Family began with a trip to the nation’s capital to celebrate Independence Day and enjoy the spectacular fireworks show on the Mall.

Duncan had been to Washington a few times in the past but his wife, Carolyn, had never been there. Accompanying them were their daughter, son-in-law and his 4-year-old granddaughter and 9-month-old grandson. Duncan’s daughter is a police officer, and her husband is a federal agent.

The family’s ordeal began when they reached the hotel’s parking garage, which is shared with a Federal Emergency Management Agency building. A security guard at the parking garage entrance asked if Duncan had any weapons. Duncan said he carried two Smith and Wesson pistols under his seat.

Unaware that his Tennessee handgun carry permit was not valid in the District of Columbia, Duncan was surprised when police were called. He was even more surprised by the belligerent attitude of the officer in charge. Surprise became shock when federal agents and a Special Weapons and Tactics team arrived. The street in front of the hotel was blocked off.

“It looked like the middle of New York City and they had just arrested Osama bin Laden,” Duncan said.

Duncan’s federal agent son-in-law attempted to help him. He identified himself and explained the family was in town to celebrate Independence Day and that Duncan was a Baptist preacher and not a terrorist.

Soon the federal officers were satisfied there was no threat and left. The hotel security people said they did not have a problem and offered to store Duncan’s guns in the hotel safe during his stay. Most of the police also seemed satisfied that Duncan was not a threat. The one exception was the officer in charge.

“You know what you have done, you will have to go to jail,” the officer told him.

At the police station, the officer grilled Duncan about the reason for carrying two big guns.

“I told them I have arthritis and two bad shoulders. If someone attacked my family there was no other way I could protect them,” Duncan said.

The officer said he did not think it was likely anyone would attack him or his family. Duncan then told them the story of the Lillelid Family, who were traveling to a Jehovah’s Witness convention in Johnson City in 1997 when the four members of the family were shot at a rest stop. Only the 2-year-old son survived the shootings and he was left orphaned and permanently disabled.

“What would happen if someone like those thugs attack me and my family? The Lord said a man who won’t protect his family is worse than an infidel,” Duncan said.

After the questioning, Duncan was given his one call to his family. He told them he was being held without bond and he hoped to see them on Monday at his court hearing.

As shocked as he was by his arrest, Duncan was even more shocked when he was taken to jail.

“I pity anyone who has to go into the jails of D.C.,” Duncan said.

He was placed in a cell in which the toilets did not work. They were filled with filth.

“There was no soap, no toilet paper, I wasn’t given any blankets or a pillow. I was strip searched three times. My dignity was gone.”

The family had provided the police with his Bible and his medication for arthritis and restless leg syndrome. The items were never given to him.

Without his medication, Duncan could not sleep on the steel bunk. He spent his first night in jail walking around the cell and trying to keep his legs working.

“

Every guard and every prisoner treated me with respect,” Duncan said.

“There were some very bad people in there with me, but I never felt threatened. There was a peace that I felt. I knew that everything was going to be OK.”

Some prisoners said it was God’s will that he should be in there with them. He didn’t know quite how to take that, examining his own conscience to see why he was being punished, but some of the prisoners seemed to feel he had been sent to them for a purpose. They asked him to teach them.

That made him really miss his Bible, but he spoke to them of God’s goodness.

“The only time I really broke down was on the night of Independence Day,” Duncan said. He heard booms and realized the sounds must be the fireworks he and his family had traveled

 to see.

“I got off my bunk and went to the door. I said ‘dear God, we are here to celebrate freedom and my freedom and has been taken from me.’ I couldn’t see the fireworks but I could listen.”

His family also missed the fireworks. After his arrest, they retreated to their hotel room and hardly left. Carolyn said she didn’t eat the whole time and her daughter, a nursing mother, found she could no longer provide her 9-month-old son with milk. To this day she can no longer nurse him.

As the hours crawled by, Carolyn felt she had to do something but did not know what she could do to help her husband. Finally, she thought of a leader in the church, Dexter Lunceford, who is a trooper for the Tennessee Highway Patrol. She called and told him what happened.

Lunceford wondered what he could do and decided to call Sonny Fletcher, a close friend of Rep. Phil Roe of the 1st Congressional District. Fletcher reached Roe with the news.

“I was infuriated when I got the phone call,” Roe said. “They called the SWAT team for a preacher and a veteran. They are arresting the good guys.”

Although it was Sunday night of a holiday weekend, Roe went to work to make sure Duncan was freed. He also called Carolyn several times to assure her his staff was working for them.

“I didn’t know Dr. Roe before this. I had voted for him, but that was about it,” Duncan said.

Roe was a cosponsor of a national right-to-carry reciprocity bill in 2009 and his chief of staff staff, Andrew Duke, was familiar with National Rifle Association lobbyists and representatives. He was able to reach attorney Richard E. Gardiner, who is in private practice but formerly served as legal counsel to the NRA.

After a weekend in jail, Duncan took comfort when a public defender assured him his case would be dropped. He was shocked when he approached the judge and heard the authoritative voice of Gardiner tell the judge he would represent him.

Duncan was quickly released on his own recognizance. He was allowed to return home and the case was dismissed three weeks later.

His problems are not yet over. Duncan wants the case expunged from his record and his guns returned. Gardiner is working on that.

“I told the church when I came back that I would resign if anyone didn’t want a jailbird for a preacher. They told me they weren’t ashamed of me, that I was a hero. But I don’t want to cause the church any embarrassment.”

Roe said he still feels bad about what happened to the Duncans in Washington and he hopes they will permit him to help make amends.

“I was so mad their trip was ruined, the first time his wife had visited D.C. I want them to come back and they will be treated as royalty,” Roe said.

Roe, the former mayor of Johnson City, said he also plans to have a little mayor-to-mayor chat with the mayor of Washington about the incident.
 

Joint Inquiry Staff Statement, Part I

Eleanor Hill, Staff Director, Joint Inquiry Staff

September 18, 2002

Intelligence Information on Possible Terrorist Use of Airplanes as Weapons

Central to the September 11 attacks was the terrorists’ use of airplanes as weapons. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, there was much discussion about the extent to which our Government was, or could have been, aware of the threat of terrorist attacks of this type and the extent to which adequate precautions were taken to address that threat. We therefore asked the question: Did the Intelligence Community have any information in its possession prior to September 11, 2001 indicating that terrorists were contemplating using airplanes as weapons? Based on our review to date of the requested information, we believe that the Intelligence Community was aware of the potential for this type of terrorist attack, but did not produce any specific assessments of the likelihood that terrorists would use airplanes as weapons.

Our review has uncovered several examples of intelligence reporting on the possible use of airplanes as weapons in terrorist operations. As with the intelligence reports indicating Bin Ladin’s intentions to strike inside the United States, the credibility of the sources is sometimes questionable, and the information is often sketchy. Nevertheless, we did find reporting on this kind of potential threat including the following:

•1. In December 1994, Algerian Armed Islamic Group terrorists hijacked an AirFrance flight in Algiers and threatened to crash it into the Eiffel Tower. French authorities deceived the terrorists into thinking the plane did not have enough fuel to reach Paris and diverted it to Marseilles. A French anti-terrorist force stormed the plane and killed all four terrorists;

•2. In January 1995, a Philippine National Police raid turned up materials in a Manila apartment indicating that three individuals – Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Murad and Khalid Shaykh Mohammad – planned, among other things, to crash an airplane into CIA headquarters. The Philippine National Police said that the same group was responsible for the bombing of a Philippine airliner on December 12, 1994. Information on the threat was passed to the FAA, which briefed U.S. and major foreign carriers;

•3. In January 1996, the Intelligence Community obtained information concerning a planned suicide attack by individuals associated with Shaykh Omar Adb al-Rahman and a key al-Qa’ida operative. The plan was to fly to the United States from Afghanistan and attack the White    House;

•4. In October 1996, the Intelligence Community obtained information regarding an Iranian plot to hijack a Japanese plane over Israel and crash it into Tel Aviv. An individual would board the plane in the Far Fast. During the flight, he would commandeer the aircraft, order it to fly over Tel Aviv, and then crash the plane into the city;

•5. In 1997, one of the units at FBI headquarters became concerned about the possibility of a terrorist group using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for terrorist attacks. The FBI and CIA became aware of reporting that this group had purchased a UAV. At the time, the agencies view was that the only reason that this group would need a UAV would be for either reconnaissance or attack. There was more concern about the possibility of an attack outside the United States, for example, by flying a UAV into a U.S. Embassy or a visiting U.S. delegation;

•6. In August 1998, the Intelligence Community obtained information that a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive-laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade Center. The information was passed to the FBI and the FAA. The FAA found the plot highly unlikely given the state of that foreign country’s aviation program. Moreover, they believed that a flight originating outside the United States would be detected before it reached its intended target inside the United States. The FBI’s New York office took no action on the information, filing the communication in the office’s bomb repository file. The Intelligence Community has acquired additional information since then indicating there may be links between this group and other terrorist groups, including al-Qa’ida;

•7. In September 1998, the Intelligence Community obtained information that Usama Bin Ladin’s next operation could possibly involve flying an aircraft loaded with explosives into a U.S. airport and detonating it; this information was provided to senior U.S. Government officials in late 1998;

•8. In November 1998, the Intelligence Community obtained information that the Turkish Kaplancilar, an Islamic extremist group, had planned a suicide attack to coincide with celebrations marking the death of Ataturk. The conspirators, who were arrested, planned to crash an airplane packed with explosives into Ataturk’s tomb during a government ceremony. The Turkish press said the group had cooperated with Usama Bin Ladin. The FBI’s New York office included this incident in one of its Usama Bin Ladin databases;

•9. In February 1999, the Intelligence Community obtained information that Iraq had formed a suicide pilot unit it planned to use against British and U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf. The CIA commented that this was highly unlikely and probably disinformation;

•10. In March 1999, the Intelligence Community obtained information regarding plans by an al-Qa’ida member, who was a U.S. citizen, to fly a hang glider into the Egyptian Presidential Palace and then detonate the explosives he was carrying. The individual, who received hang glider training in the United States, brought a hang glider back to Afghanistan. However, various problems arose during the testing of the glider. He was subsequently arrested and is in custody abroad;

•11. In April 2000, the Intelligence Community obtained information regarding an alleged Bin Ladin plot to hijack a 747. The source, who was a “walk-in” to the FBI’s Newark office, claimed that he had been to a training camp in Pakistan where he learned hijacking techniques and received arms training. He also stated that he was supposed to meet five to six other individuals in the United States who would also participate in the plot. They were instructed to use all necessary force to take over the plane because there would be pilots among the hijacking team. The plan was to fly the plane to Afghanistan, and if they would not make it there, that they were to blow up the plane. Although the individual passed an FBI polygraph, the FBI was never able to verify any aspect of his story or identify his contacts in the United States; and

•12. In August 2001, the Intelligence Community obtained information regarding a plot to either bomb the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi from an airplane or crash an airplane into it. The Intelligence Community learned that two people who were reportedly acting on instructions from Usama B in Ladin met in October 2000 to discuss this plot.

The CIA disseminated several of these reports to the FBI and to agencies that would be responsible for taking preventive actions, including the FAA. The FAA has staff assigned to the DCI’s CTC, the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, and to the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service to gather relevant intelligence for domestic use. The FAA is responsible for issuing information circulars, security directives and emergency amendments to the directives alerting domestic and international airports and airlines of threats identified by the Intelligence Community. Despite these reports, the Intelligence Community did not produce any specific assessments of the likelihood that terrorists would use airplanes as weapons. Again, this may have been driven in part by resource issues in the area of intelligence analysis. Prior to September 11, 2001, the CTC had forty analysts to analyze terrorism issues worldwide, with only one of the five branches focused on terrorist tactics. As a result, prior to September 11, 2001, the only terrorist tactic on which the CTC performed strategic analysis was the possible use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons (CBRN) because there was more obvious potential for mass casualties.

At the FBI, our review found that, prior to September 11, 2001, support for ongoing investigations and operations was favored, in terms of allocating resources, over long-term, strategic analysis. We were told, during the course of our FBI interviews, that prevention occurs in the operational units, not through strategic analysis, and that, prior to September 11, the FBI had insufficient resources to do both. We were also told that the FBI’s al-Qa’ida-related analytic expertise had been “gutted” by transfers to operational units and that, as a result, the FBI’s analytic unit had only one individual working on at-Qa’ida at the time of the September 11 attacks.

            While focused strategic analysis was lacking, the subject of aviation-related terrorism was included in some broader terrorist threat assessments, such as the National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) on terrorism. For example, the 1995 NIE on terrorism mentioned the plot to down 12 U.S.-owned airliners. The NIE also cited the consideration the Bojinka conspirators gave to attacking CIA headquarters using an aircraft loaded with explosives. The FAA worked with the Intelligence Community on this analysis and actually drafted the section of the NIE addressing the threat to civil aviation. That section contained the following language:

“Our review of the evidence… suggests the conspirators were guided in their selection of the method and venue of attack by carefully studying security procedures in place in the region. If terrorists operating in this country [the United States] are similarly methodical, they will identify serious vulnerabilities in the security system for domestic flights.”

The 1997 update to the 1995 NIE on terrorism included the following language:

“Civil aviation remains a particularly attractive target in light of the fear and publicity the downing of an airliner would evoke and the revelations last summer of the US air transport sectors’ vulnerabilities.”

As a result of the increasing threats to aviation, Congress passed Section 310 of the Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996, requiring the FAA and the FBI to conduct joint threat and vulnerability assessments of security at select “high risk” U.S. airports and to provide Congress with an annual report. In the December 2000 report, the FBI and FAA published a classified assessment that suggested less concern about the threat to domestic aviation:

“FBI investigations confirm domestic and international terrorist groups operating within the U.S. but do not suggest evidence of plans to target domestic civil aviation. Terrorist activity within the U.S. has focused primarily on fundraising, recruiting new members, and disseminating propaganda. While international terrorists have conducted attacks on U.S. soil, these acts represent anomalies in their traditional targeting which focuses on U.S. interests overseas.”

In short, less than a year prior to the September 11 attacks and notwithstanding historical intelligence information to the contrary, the FBI and FAA had assessed the prospects of a terrorist incident targeting domestic civil aviation in the United States as relatively low. After September 11, 2001, the CIA belatedly acknowledged some of the information that was available regarding the use of airplanes as weapons. A draft analysis dated November 19, 2001, “The 11 September Attacks: A Preliminary Assessment,” states:

“We do not know the process by which Bin Ladin and his lieutenants decided to hijack planes with the idea of flying them into buildings in the United States, but the idea of hijacking planes for suicide attacks had long been current in jihadist circles. For example, GIA terrorists Algeria had planned to crash a Air France jet into the Eiffel Tower in December 1994, and Ramzi Yousef – a participant in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing – planned to explode 12 US jetliners in mid-air over the Pacific in the mid-1990s. Likewise the World Trade Center had long been a target of terrorist bombers.”

Despite the intelligence available in recent years, our review to date has found no indications that, prior to September 11, analysts in the Intelligence Community were:

•Cataloguing information regarding the use of airplanes as weapons as a terrorist tactic;

•Sending requirements to collectors to look for additional information on this threat; or

•Considering the likelihood that Usama Bin Ladin, al-Qa’ida, or any other terrorist group, would attack the United States or U.S. interests in this way

 Comment: In the intervening years since 9-11, it has become very evident that the Bush Administration did everything within its power to block any official investigation into the circumstances surrounding the 9/11 attack. In previous matters, such as Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination, the administrations concerned made every public effort to support official investigations and the American media made every public effort to support the findings of the various investigative bodies (but only insofar as these findings supported the administration’s views.)

The frantic attempts on the part of the Bush people, and most especially on the part of the President himself, to either totally avoid any investigation into the background of the September 11, 2001 attacks or, second best, to completely derail it, does not speak well of its motives but it certainly highlights widespread belief in their fore-knowledge.

Regulators shut down big Chicago bank, 7 others

August 21, 2010

by Marcy Gordon 

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators on Friday shut down a big community bank based in Chicago that has been known for its social activism but racked by financial troubles in recent months. A consortium funded by several of the biggest U.S. financial firms is buying its assets and pledging to operate the new bank by the same principles.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over ShoreBank, with $2.16 billion in assets and $1.54 billion in deposits. Urban Partnership Bank, the newly chartered financial institution, agreed to assume ShoreBank’s deposits and nearly all its assets.

The FDIC also seized seven other banks Friday, bringing to 118 the number of U.S. bank failures this year amid the recession and mounting loan defaults.

In an unusual move, the FDIC allowed some of ShoreBank’s executives to continue running the restructured bank. Executives who joined ShoreBank recently, as the bank struggled to raise capital, will manage Urban Partnership Bank. These managers “did not contribute to the bank’s problems,” the FDIC said.

The FDIC and Urban Partnership Bank also agreed to share losses on $1.41 billion of ShoreBank’s loans and other assets.

ShoreBank’s failure is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $367.7 million.

The FDIC also took over Community National Bank at Bartow, in Bartow, Fla.; Independent National Bank of Ocala, Fla.; Imperial Savings and Loan Association of Martinsville, Va.; and four California banks: Butte Community Bank, based in Chico; Pacific State Bank, based in Stockton; Los Padres Bank, in Solvang; and Sonoma Valley Bank, in Sonoma.

The four closures in California boosted to 10 the number of bank failures in the state so far this year.

ShoreBank lost $39.5 million in the second quarter amid soured real estate loans. The bank had been under a so-called cease and desist order from the FDIC for more than a year, requiring it to boost its capital reserves. ShoreBank was able to raise more than $146 million in capital this spring from several big Wall Street institutions. It was unable, however, to secure federal bailout funds it sought from the Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Investors in Urban Partnership Bank read like an all-star roster of U.S. finance, including American Express Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., GE Capital Equity Investments Inc., Morgan Stanley, Northern Trust Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. The Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation also are investors.

ShoreBank was founded in 1973 with the aid of several dozen institutional backers. The bank has been known for promoting redevelopment, minority business and environmentally responsible lending, and serving low- and moderate-income neighborhoods in Chicago. It was the nation’s first community development and environmental bank, branching out from its roots on Chicago’s South side to Cleveland, Detroit, the Pacific Northwest and 40 foreign countries.

ShoreBank had indirect ties to a few members of the Obama administration — one of them, presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, was on the board of a Chicago civic organization led by a ShoreBank director — and powerful supporters, including former top federal banking regulators Ellen Seidman and Eugene Ludwig.

House Republicans launched an inquiry this spring into whether the administration intervened to help shepherd a bailout of ShoreBank. Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the senior Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter to a White House legal adviser asking specific questions on possible contacts between administration officials and executives of ShoreBank or potential investors.

The White House has said no administration officials met with ShoreBank concerning its rescue or requested help from financial institutions on its behalf.

The new bank’s chairman will be David Vitale, a former president of First National Bank of Chicago and an adviser to Arne Duncan, now the U.S. Education Secretary, when he headed the Chicago school system.

“Urban Partnership Bank will provide access to financial services and support to distressed neighborhoods in order to help transform distressed neighborhoods into strong, stable communities,” Vitale said in a statement issued Friday night. “The private investment in this new financial institution demonstrates commitment to restoring the economic vitality of our communities,” Vitale said.

He said the bank will continue the mission of serving low- and moderate-income and minority communities, and to support energy efficiency and environmentally constructive development.

The other banks closed Friday:

— Community National Bank at Bartow, Bartow, Fla., had $67.9 million in assets. Its failure is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $10.3 million.

— Independent National Bank, Ocala, Fla., $156.2 million in assets. Expected cost to insurance fund is $23.2 million. CenterState Bank of Florida, WinterHaven, Fla., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Community National Bank at Bartow and Independent National Bank.

— Butte Community Bank, Chico, Calif., $498.8 million in assets. Expected cost to fund, $17.4 million.

— Pacific State Bank, Stockton, Calif., $312.1 million in assets. Expected cost to fund, $32.6 million. Rabobank, El Centro, Calif., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Butte Community Bank and Pacific State Bank.

— Los Padres Bank, Solvang, Calif., $870.4 million in assets. Expected cost to fund, $8.7 million. Pacific Western Bank, San Diego, agreed to assume the assets and deposits of the bank.

— Sonoma Valley Bank, Sonoma, Calif., $337.1 million in assets. Expected cost to fund, $10.1 million. Westamerica Bank, San Raphael, Calif., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of the bank.

— Imperial Savings and Loan Association, Martinsville, Va., $9.4 million in assets. Expected cost to fund, $3.5 million. River Community Bank, also of Martinsville, agreed to assume the assets and deposits of the bank.

__

AP Business Writer Daniel Wagner in Washington contributed to this report.

Troops: Skipping Christian concert got us punished

August 20, 2010

by Steve Szkotak 

Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The Army said Friday it was investigating a claim that dozens of soldiers who refused to attend a Christian band’s concert at a Virginia military base were banished to their barracks and told to clean them up.

Fort Eustis spokesman Rick Haverinen told The Associated Press he couldn’t comment on the specifics of the investigation. At the Pentagon, Army spokesman Col. Thomas Collins said the military shouldn’t impose religious views on soldiers.

“If something like that were to have happened, it would be contrary to Army policy,” Collins said.

Pvt. Anthony Smith said he and other soldiers felt pressured to attend the May concert while stationed at the Newport News base, home of the Army’s Transportation Corps.

“My whole issue was I don’t need to be preached at,” Smith said in a phone interview from Phoenix, where he is stationed with the National Guard. “That’s not what I signed up for.”

Smith, 21, was stationed in Virginia for nearly seven months for helicopter electrician training when the Christian rock group BarlowGirl played as part of the “Commanding General’s Spiritual Fitness Concerts.”

Smith said a staff sergeant told 200 men in their barracks they could either attend or remain in their barracks. Eighty to 100 decided not to attend, he said.

“Instead of being released to our personal time, we were locked down,” Smith said. “It seemed very much like a punishment.”

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation first reported on the Christian concert. The foundation said it was approached by soldiers who were punished for not attending or offended by the religious theme of the event.

The group’s president, Mikey Weinstein, claims Christian-themed events are “ubiquitous” throughout the military, and he credited the soldiers for stepping forward.

“Whenever we see this egregious, unconstitutional religious tyranny our job is to fight it,” he said.

Smith said he and the other soldiers were told not to use their cell phones or personal computers and ordered to clean up the barracks.

About 20 of the men, including several Muslims, refused to attend the concert based on their religious beliefs, he said.

Smith said he went up the chain of command and traced the concert edict to a captain, who said he simply wanted to “show support for those kind of events that bring soldiers together.”

While not accepting blame, the officer apologized to the soldiers who refused to attend the concert and said it was not his intent to proselytize, he said.

“But once you get in there, you realize it’s evangelization,” Smith said.

Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.

The Conversations with the Crow

          When the CIA discovered that their former Deputy Director of Clandestine Affairs, Robert  T. Crowley, had been talking with author Gregory Douglas, they became fearful (because of what Crowley knew) and outraged (because they knew Douglas would publish eventually) and made many efforts to silence Crowley, mostly by having dozens of FBI agents call or visit him at his Washington home and try to convince him to stop talking to Douglas, whom they considered to be an evil, loose cannon.

             Crowley did not listen to them (no one else ever does, either) and Douglas made through shorthand notes of each and every one of their many conversation. TBR News published most of these (some of the really vile ones were left out of the book but will be included on this site as a later addendum ) and the entire collection was later produced as an Ebook.

            Now, we reliably learn, various Washington alphabet agencies are trying to find a way to block the circulation of this highly negative, entertaining and dangerous work, so to show our solidarity with our beloved leaders and protectors, and our sincere appreciation for their corrupt and coercive actions, we are going to reprint the entire work, chapter by chapter. (The complete book can be obtained by going to:

http://www.shop.conversationswiththecrow.com/Conversations-with-the-Crow-CWC-GD01.htm

Here is the twenty-fifth  chapter

Conversation No. 25

Date:  Monday, July 22, 1996

Commenced: 9:40 AM CST

Concluded:  10:10 AM CST

GD: Good morning, Robert. Been out and about today?
RTC: Gregory, I rarely get out and about these days. My hip problems you know. And there is nothing on television but trash and the continuing entertainment of the ignorant masses.

GD: Oh God, tell me about it. And the news is so controlled that the only way you can figure out what is happening is to read the foreign press. Not ours.

RTC: Well, if it doesn’t impact on Israel in a negative sense, we do get some news but God help the TV managers if anything negative in that area ever gets out. Israel and her boys inside the Beltway are sacred cows, believe me.

GD: I have no doubt of that, Robert. It’s interesting to consider than in the two thousand years since the mythic Jesus got nailed up, the poor Jews have been kicked out of every country they have colonized. No one wants them around after they get to know them. They were kicked out of England, France, Russia, Poland, Spain, and on and on. Why? Infectious bigotry? No, the locals get wind of what they are like and out they go. Get their hands on all the money and squeeze the public dry. None of them ever did manual labor in their lives but they live off the labor of everyone else. And then they get too greedy and too careless and out they go or, in some countries, into the bonfires.

RTC: The Germans?

GD: No, I had the Spanish in mind. Now I ask you, Robert, why would there be such universal hatred against Jews? There must be a reason. Jews have told me that it’s because they are so smart that people are jealous of them and perhaps this might have some validity but I personally think that it’s their utterly predatory nature. Jews are taught in their religion that non-Jews, and especially the hated Christians, are legitimate targets to attack. I mean, this sounds like some  kind of redneck propaganda but an objective reading of history will more than bear me out. Besides, most of the really evil Jews are not Semitic Jews at all but actually Mongolian Turks. The Khazars. Before they were converted to Judaism by their Khan in 900 AD, they were a particularly vicious and depraved Caspian Sea army of marauding, raping and killing Turks, intermixed with Mongolian blood. The other Jews, the real ones, hate them with a passion.

RTC: And why so?

GD: Because they make them look bad. My God, they hate them. But these internecine fights are of no lasting consequence.

RTC: Jim loved the Jews and I warned him many times to be careful. But he never listened and got that Mossad right into our organization. What I’m truly afraid of is that these shits suck up all kinds of secret information and off it goes to Israel, mostly through their Embassy here. A real spy center.

GD: Well, under Roosevelt, who opened the gates for them, they stole everything and sent it to Stalin under the mistaken apprehension that he loved Jews. He did not, of course, but that’s another story. So, now they steal everything, like Pollard, and ship it off to Tel Aviv instead of Moscow.

RTC: Sometimes, I can sympathize with Hitler.

GD: Well, when it happens here, and it will soon enough, Hitler will be seen in a different light. But I must comment on something else. Johnson passed the Civil Rights laws and gave the blacks a good crack at a decent middle-class life. Of course he did it to get votes and not out of any decency, but they do have entrée now and many of them are coming up. Which, considering that we brought them all here as slaves, is not a bad nor improper concept. However, there are many people here who despise blacks and, in fact, hate them. We don’t hear from them because of the political correctness crap being shoved on kids in the schools but they are still there. I say this because I know some of them. Anyway, they are quiet now but if the time ever comes when the lower middle class loses its position, look for the racial issue to erupt here. Oh yes, civilization is only a very thin veneer on very cheap plywood, Robert. And the clever Jews have managed to promote the blacks, not to help them but to use them as potential victims. If they get too gross, the Jews that is, and the economy takes a dump, then the public will want scapegoats and guess what? The Jews will point to the blacks and we can count on their papers, writers, think tanks and so on to play the race card in the domestic economic poker game. A nasty business but totally predictable.

RTC: Yes, I’ve seen this coming and so have some of my friends. But there is nothing to do with it. I suppose it’s better to see the black district of New Orleans going up in flames rather than synagogues in Skokie.

GD: But the economy is pretty sound now, Robert, so that hypothesis is not valid. I am speaking theoretically here.

RTC: My God, Gregory, I do hope the FBI isn’t tapping your phone.

GD: Or yours, Robert. Don’t forget, they hate you.

RTC: Well, there is freedom of speech.

GD: Yes, there is, but don’t scream fire in a crowded theater, Robert.

RTC: (Laughter) No correct on that one.

GD: My late grandfather once told me that. Do you know what else he said? I think I might have told you this before because it’s so funny but he said that you should not tell bald-headed jokes to Custer’s widow.

RTC: You may have said that but these days, I wouldn’t bother to tell anyone that.

GD: Bad taste?

RTC: No, no one remembers Custer anymore.

GD: How soon they forget. They’ve forgotten Pollard but I will bet you that he will never get out of prison alive.

RTC: I wouldn’t take that bet. They are supposed to be our wonderful allies yet they encourage one of theirs to steal our most valuable secrets, all of which ended up in Russia, and then, after he got caught, toss him out of the safety of the Israeli Embassy here right into the waiting arms of the FBI and life in prison. On the other hand, they set up a trust fund for him and made him a honorary member of their Knesset. That sends someone a message, doesn’t it?

GD: Yes, it does. I’m not quite sure what message, but it does send a message.

RTC: Can you imagine the New York Times or the Post running one of your comments?

GD: That would be like someone in Dublin endorsing an Orange candidate for the Dial.

RTC: (Laughter)

(Concluded at 10:10 AM CST)

Dramatis personae:

James Jesus Angleton: Once head of the CIA’s Counterintelligence division, later fired because of his obsessive and illegal behavior, tapping the phones of many important government officials in search of elusive Soviet spies. A good friend of Robert Crowley and a co-conspirator with him in the assassination of President Kennedy

James P. Atwood: (April 16, 1930-April 20, 1997) A CIA employee, located in Berlin, Atwood had a most interesting career. He worked for any other intelligence agency, domestic or foreign, that would pay him, was involved in selling surplus Russian atomic artillery shells to the Pakistan government and was also most successful in the manufacturing of counterfeit German dress daggers. Too talkative, Atwood eventually had a sudden, and fatal, “seizure” while lunching with CIA associates.

William Corson: A Marine Corps Colonel and President Carter’s representative to the CIA. A friend of Crowley and Kimmel, Corson was an intelligent man whose main failing was a frantic desire to be seen as an important person. This led to his making fictional or highly exaggerated claims.

John Costello: A British historian who was popular with revisionist circles. Died of AIDS on a trans-Atlantic flight to the United States.

James Critchfield: Former U.S. Army Colonel who worked for the CIA and organizaed the Cehlen Org. at Pullach, Germany. This organization was filled to the Plimsoll line with former Gestapo and SD personnel, many of whom were wanted for various purported crimes. He hired Heinrich Müller in 1948 and went on to represent the CIA in the Persian Gulf.

Robert T. Crowley: Once the deputy director of Clandestine Operations and head of the group that interacted with corporate America. A former West Point football player who was one of the founders of the original CIA. Crowley was involved at a very high level with many of the machinations of the CIA.

Gregory Douglas: A retired newspaperman, onetime friend of Heinrich Müller and latterly, of Robert Crowley. Inherited stacks of files from the former (along with many interesting works of art acquired during the war and even more papers from Robert Crowley.) Lives comfortably in a nice house overlooking the Mediterranean.

Reinhard Gehlen: A retired German general who had once been in charge of the intelligence for the German high command on Russian military activities. Fired by Hitler for incompetence, he was therefore naturally hired by first, the U.S. Army and then, as his level of incompetence rose, with the CIA. His Nazi-stuffed organizaion eventually became the current German Bundes Nachrichten Dienst.

Thomas K. Kimmel, Jr: A grandson of Admiral Husband Kimmel, Naval commander at Pearl Harbor who was scapegoated after the Japanese attack. Kimmel was a senior FBI official who knew both Gregory Douglas and Robert Crowley and made a number of attempts to discourage Crowley from talking with Douglas. He was singularly unsuccessful. Kimmel subsequently retired and lives in retirement in Florida

Willi Krichbaum: A Senior Colonel (Oberführer) in the SS, head of the wartime Secret Field Police of the German Army and Heinrich Müller’s standing deputy in the Gestapo. After the war, Krichbaum went to work for the Critchfield organization and was their chief recruiter and hired many of his former SS friends. Krichbaum put Critchfield in touch with Müller in 1948.

Heinrich Müller: A former military pilot in the Bavarian Army in WWI, Müller  became a political police officer in Munich and was later made the head of the Secret State Police or Gestapo. After the war, Müller escaped to Switzerland where he worked for Swiss intelligence as a specialist on Communist espionage and was hired by James Critchfield, head of the Gehlen Organization, in 1948. Müller subsequently was moved to Washington where he worked for the CIA until he retired.

Joseph Trento: A writer on intelligence subjects, Trento and his wife “assisted” both Crowley and Corson in writing a book on the Russian KGB. Trento believed that he would inherit all of Crowley’s extensive files but after Crowley’s death, he discovered that the files had been gutted and the most important, and sensitive, ones given to Gregory Douglas. Trento was not happy about this. Neither were his employers.

Frank Wisner: A Founding Father of the CIA who promised much to the Hungarian and then failed them. First, a raging lunatic who was removed from Langley, screaming, in a strait jacket and later, blowing off the top of his head with a shotgun.

Robert Wolfe: A retired librarian from the National Archives who worked closely with the CIA on covering up embarrassing historical material in the files of the Archives. A strong supporter of holocaust writers.

Note: We understand that a large collection of documents, assembled by Robert T. Crowley, will be offered to the public in the near future. Here is a listing of some of the documents which will be included:

DOCUMENT CATALOG

Catalog Number               Description of Contents                                      __________________________________________________________________________________

1000 BH            Extensive file (1,205 pages) of reports on Operation PHOENIX. Final paper dated January, 1971, first document dated  October, 1967. Covers the setting up of Regional Interrogation Centers, staffing, torture techniques including electric shock, beatings, chemical injections. CIA agents involved and includes a listing of U.S. military units to include Military Police, CIC and Special Forces groups involved. After-action reports from various military units to include 9^th Infantry, showing the deliberate killing of all unarmed civilians located in areas suspected of harboring or supplying Viet Cong units. *

1002 BH            Medium file (223 pages)  concerning the fomenting of civil disobedience in Chile as the result of the Allende election in 1970. Included are pay vouchers for CIA bribery efforts with Chilean labor organization and student activist groups, U.S. military units involved in the final revolt, letter from  T. Karamessines, CIA Operations Director to Chile CIA Station Chief Paul Wimert, passing along a specific order from Nixon via Kissinger to kill Allende when the coup was successful. Communications to Pinochet with Nixon instructions to root out by force any remaining left wing leaders.

1003 BH                  Medium file (187 pages) of reports of CIA assets containing photographs of Soviet missile sites, airfields and other strategic sites taken from commercial aircraft. Detailed descriptions of targets attached to each picture or pictures.

1004 BH            Large file (1560 pages) of CIA reports on Canadian radio intelligence intercepts from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa (1958) and a list of suspected and identified Soviet agents or sympathizers in Canada, to include members of the Canadian Parliament and military.

1005 BH          Medium file (219 pages) of members of the German Bundeswehr in the employ of the CIA. The report covers the Innere Führung group plus members of the signals intelligence service. Another report, attached, covers CIA assets in German Foreign Office positions, in Germany and in diplomatic missions abroad.

1006:BH            Long file (1,287 pages) of events leading up to the killing of Josef Stalin in 1953 to include reports on contacts with L.P. Beria who planned to kill Stalin, believing himself to be the target for removal. Names of cut outs, CIA personnel in Finland and Denmark are noted as are original communications from Beria and agreements as to his standing down in the DDR and a list of MVD/KGB files on American informants from 1933 to present. A report on a blood-thinning agent to be made available to Beria to put into Stalin’s food plus twenty two reports from Soviet doctors on Stalin’s health, high blood pressure etc. A report on areas of cooperation between Beria’s people and CIA controllers in the event of a successful coup. *

1007 BH            Short list (125 pages) of CIA contacts with members of the American media to include press and television and book publishers. Names of contacts with bios are included as are a list of payments made and specific leaked material supplied. Also appended is a shorter list of foreign publications. Under date of August, 1989 with updates to 1992. Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, Bradlee of the same paper, Ted Koppel, Sam Donaldson and others are included.

1008 BH            A file of eighteen reports (total of 899 pages) documenting illegal activities on the part of members of the U.S. Congress. First report dated July 29, 1950 and final one September 15, 1992. Of especial note is a long file on Senator McCarthy dealing with homosexuality and alcoholism. Also an attached note concerning the Truman Administration’s use of McCarthy to remove targeted Communists. These reports contain copies of FBI surveillance reports, to include photographs and reference to tape recordings, dealing with sexual events with male and female prostitutes, drug use, bribery, and other matters.

1009 BH            A long multiple file (1,564 pages) dealing with the CIA part (Kermit Roosevelt) in overthrowing the populist Persian prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. Report from Dulles (John Foster) concerning a replacement, by force if necessary and to include a full copy of AJAX operation. Letters from AIOC on million dollar bribe paid directly to J.Angleton, head of SOG. Support of Shah requires exclusive contracts with specified western oil companies. Reports dated from May 1951 through August, 1953.

1010 BH            Medium file (419 pages) of telephone intercepts made by order of J.J. Angleton of the telephone conversations between RFK and one G.N. Bolshakov. Phone calls between 1962-1963 inclusive. Also copies of intercepted and inspected mail from RFK containing classified U.S. documents and sent to a cut-out identified as one used by Bolshakov, a Russian press (TASS) employee. Report on Bolshakov’s GRU connections.

1011 BH            Large file (988 pages) on 1961 Korean revolt of Kwangju revolt led by General Park Chung-hee and General Kin-Jong-pil. Reports on contacts maintained by CIA station in Japan to include payments made to both men, plans for the coup, lists of “undesirables” to be liquidated  Additional material on CIA connections with KCIA personnel and an agreement with them  to assassinate South Korean chief of state, Park, in 1979.

1012 BH            Small file (12 pages) of homosexual activities between FBI Director Hoover and his aide, Tolson. Surveillance pictures taken in San Francisco hotel and report by CIA agents involved. Report analyzed in 1962.

1013 BH             Long file (1,699 pages) on General Edward Lansdale. First report a study signed by DCI Dulles in  September of 1954 concerning a growing situation in former French Indo-China. There are reports by and about Lansdale starting with his attachment to the OPC in 1949-50 where he and Frank Wisner coordinated policy in neutralizing Communist influence in the Philippines.. Landsale was then sent to Saigon under diplomatic cover and many copies of his period reports are copied here. Very interesting background material including strong connections with the Catholic Church concerning Catholic Vietnamese and exchanges of intelligence information between the two entities.

1014 BH            Short file (78 pages) concerning  a Dr. Frank Olson. Olson was at the U.S. Army chemical warfare base at Ft. Detrick in Maryland and was involved with a Dr. Gottleib. Gottleib was working on a plan to introduce psychotic-inducing drugs into the water supply of the Soviet Embassy. Apparently he tested the drugs on CIA personnel first. Reports of psychotic behavior by Olson and more police and official reports on his defenstration by Gottleib’s associates. A cover-up was instituted and a number of in-house CIA memoranda attest to this. Also a discussion by Gottleib on various poisons and drugs he was experimenting with and another report of people who had died as a result of Gottleib’s various experiments and CIA efforts to neutralize any public knowledge of these. *

1015 BH            Medium file (457 pages) on CIA connections with the Columbian-based Medellín drug ring. Eight CIA internal reports, three DoS reports, one FBI report on CIA operative Milan Rodríguez and his connections with this drug ring. Receipts for CIA payments to Rodríguez of over $3 million in CIA funds,showing the routings of the money, cut-outs and payments. CIA reports on sabotaging  DEA investigations. A three-part study of the Nicaraguan Contras, also a CIA-organized and paid for organization.

1016 BH            A small file (159 pages) containing lists of known Nazi intelligence and scientific people recruited in Germany from 1946 onwards, initially by the U.S. Army and later by the CIA. A detailed list of the original names and positions of the persons involved plus their relocation information. Has three U.S. Army and one FBI report on the subject.

1017 BH            A small list (54 pages) of American business entities with “significant” connections to the CIA. Each business is listed along with relevant information on its owners/operators, previous and on going contacts with the CIA’s Robert Crowley, also a list of national advertising agencies with similar information. Much information about suppressed news stories and planted stories. *

(cont…)

Anti-Israel sentiment grows in US

August 20, 2010

PressTV

            A new opinion poll shows the Israeli regime is losing support among the American public as more US citizens question Tel Aviv’s commitment to peace.

            The survey presented to Israeli leaders last week was conducted by pollster and strategist Stanley Greenberg and sponsored by America’s pro-Israeli organization, the Israel Project, Ha’aretz reported on Thursday.

            The opinion poll revealed the number of Americans who think the US needs to support Israel dropped to 51 percent in July from 58 percent in June and 63 percent in August 2009.

            On Tel Aviv’s commitment to peace, only 45 percent of Americans surveyed in July said they felt Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was committed to the Middle East peace process.

             Meanwhile, 39 percent responded that Netanyahu and his administration are not committed to seeking peace with the Palestinians.

            The finding is a serious challenge for the rightist Netanyahu as a late 2007 poll indicated that 66 percent of American respondents believed the Israeli administration, then led by his predecessor Ehud Olmert, was committed to peace.

             Conducting similar surveys in European countries, Greenberg said the data reflects the worst time for Israel with regard to German public opinion since 2008.

            In Germany, 50 percent of the respondents said they had “very cold” or unfavorable feelings toward Israel, compared with 39 percent who said they experienced “cold” or “very cold” feelings toward Palestinians.

            In Sweden, the situation was similar to that in Germany, with 49 percent saying their feelings toward Israel were “cold” or “very cold.”

            In France, those sympathizing with Israel did not go beyond 24 percent and the number, though narrowly, was outweighed by 31 percent who said that felt “cold” or “very cold” feelings toward it.

MRS/MRS

http://www.presstv.com/detail/139300.html

France Deports Gypsies: Courting the Xenophobes?

August. 19, 2010

by  Bruce Crumley 

TIME

Paris -France has begun the first deportations of 700 members of the Roma Gypsy minority, to Romania and Bulgaria, as part of its controversial crackdown on communities officials hold responsible for criminal activity. The expulsions are set to be completed by the end of the month. Also affected by the law-and-order push are the nomadic “travelers” group the Roma are a subset of; delinquents and their families in France’s troubled suburban housing projects; and human traffickers and the illegal immigrants they smuggle into France. But the highly publicized targeting of Roma in particular has been criticized by opposition politicians as a cynical move by the conservative government of President Nicolas Sarkozy to seduce hard-right voters in the long march toward the President’s 2012 re-election bid. It’s also raising alarms from Romanian and European Union officials that France’s drive may be fanning xenophobia and impinging on the rights of fellow E.U. citizens. Romania has been a member of the E.U. since 2007.

An initial flight took 79 Roma to their Romanian homeland on Thursday, with at least 292 additional deportations scheduled to take place over the next week. Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said 51 illegal camps inhabited by migrant Roma had been raided and broken up by police since late July. Apart from the 700 Roma from those camps to be expelled by the end of August, thousands more will follow as Hortefeux presses ahead with the dismantling of half of the 600 illegal camps in the next three months. Sarkozy embarked on the action on July 21, less than a week after youths from one of the transient communities ran amok in Saint-Aignan, south of Blois, to protest the alleged killing of one of their peers by police.

Opposition politicians and human-rights organizations have widely condemned the operation as abusive and racist, saying the Roma have too often been Europe’s scapegoats. Other observers pointed out that the itinerant people involved in the Saint-Aignan violence weren’t Roma but part of the far larger travelers communities, whose members are virtually all French citizens. Critics have said the more narrow focus on Roma is an effort by Sarkozy’s government to divert attention from dismal approval ratings and the scandals that have dogged it for months. Even members of Sarkozy’s ruling majority have expressed concerns over the moves. Parliamentarian Jean-Pierre Grand recently lamented what he called the rafles of Roma — a term used to refer to the notorious roundups of Jews during the Nazi occupation of France.

Despite the criticism, government officials moved ahead with the plan, which included not just Thursday’s deportations but also a raid on a new Roma camp in southeastern France. Such high-profile strutting is getting a little harder to do, however. On Aug. 18, the E.U. Commission for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship reminded France of the “freedom of movement for E.U. citizens.” It also warned that it would be watching France closely to make sure due process and the rights of European Roma were being respected.

Around the same time, Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi stepped into the fray, advising Paris not to use Roma as scapegoats for political advantage. “I am worried about the risks of populism and xenophobic reactions,” Baconschi told Radio France International. He isn’t the only one. Last week, a U.N. human-rights report decried what it called “a notable resurgence in racism and xenophobia” in France. It cited repeated French government initiatives that stigmatize foreigners and minorities — including a national debate on French identity and the anti-Roma drive — as contributing factors.

But Paris is on firm legal ground: it requires Romanian and Bulgarian citizens to obtain resident permits for stays of more than three months under the seven-year transition conditions set when both nations joined the E.U. in 2007. (Most Roma wouldn’t meet the residency requirement of stable employment.) Meanwhile, France also manages to get the Roma to return home “voluntarily”: deportees receive a payment of $386 per adult and $129 per child if they leave. Such sums, Paris says, are to allow impoverished Roma to set up a viable life at home — and stay there.

How, then, might opponents force Sarkozy to alter his anti-Roma drive? Perhaps by pointing out that despite the attention Sarkozy is drawing to the operation, his latest push is not new — nor does it work. Last year alone, around 10,000 Roma — or two-thirds of their estimated population in France — were deported, most with French taxpayer money in their pockets. Virtually all returned to France weeks later, according to international Roma organizations. Also, prior to Thursday’s deportations, 25 similar flights returned Roma to Bulgaria and Romania since January. The total for 2009 was 44 flights. Meaning, there’s nothing new to the current French expulsion of Roma except the shouting — and a crass calculation to win votes through xenophobia.

Comment: As time goes by, we can expect to see horror stories in the media about mass executions, by guillotine no doubt, in the squares of Paris and the gassing of millions Gypsies in huge French concentration camps. Soap and lampshades might also be mentioned. The public is forewarned.  Ed.

            Washington, D.C. August 20, 2010: “We must thank Julian the Apostate for all of his recent activity with purloined and classified U.S. government documents. Julian and others think that there are under some kind of control but in fact, they are not. Manning sent a number of these around to his hacker friends and they, in turn, sent them to other kindred spirits. This is something that can’t go back into Pandora’s Box and I must say, the reading is a revelation in one sense and a confirmation on the other. Believe it, in these cases (i.e. the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan…and now Pakistan) the sins of the fathers will most certainly be visited upon the children.”

Ambassador Report      

{Classification level and other information redacted}

Anne Patterson, Ambassador Islamabad     

To: Department of State

Date: Monday, January 25, 2010

            I refer here to the December 30^th, 2009 attack by Afghanistan terrorists on what was believed to be a “totally secure” C.I.A. base, an attack that killed seven C.I.A. agents and injured, some severely, six others.

             Forward Operating Base Chapman in southeastern Afghanistan is located near town of Khost, not far from Camp Salerno, a larger base used by U.S. Army Special Operations troops.

            The base has been a focal point for counter-terrorism operations against the Haqqani network, a particularly dangerous militant group that operates on both sides of the Afghan border.

            This group has secure bases located inside Pakistan and our intelligence indicates that the Pakistani ISI is in “close and friendly” contact with the leaders of the Haqqani group. The bomber appears to have been a member of this group but identification of the remains has proven to be difficult.

             Forward Operating Base Chapman used to be a U.S. military facility base but was later turned into a C.I.A. base.

            Among those killed, was the C.I.A. chief of the Khost base, who was a mother of three and a veteran of the agency’s clandestine branch. Besides the seven C.I.A. operatives who died, the blast also wounded six agency employees and Harold E. Brown Jr., a State Department employee of Fairfax, Va., also died in the attack,

            The bomber appears to have worn an explosives-laden suicide vest under an Afghan National Army uniform. The attack happened close to dusk, when some people at the base were relaxing in the gym before dinner.

            The bomber had been taken onto the base as a possible informant and was not subjected to the usual rigorous screening. Once inside the perimeter, the bomber had managed to elude security and reach the base’s gym. C.I.A. personnel regularly take foreign agents onto the base before sending them on intelligence collection missions in eastern Afghanistan and across the border into Pakistan

            The bomber was being cultivated by agents of the C.I. A. as an informant and it was the first time he had been brought inside the heavily-guarded camp. An experienced CIA debriefer had come in from Kabul for the meeting, suggesting that the purpose was to gain intelligence.

            Over the past year, the C.I.A. has been building a multiplicity of firebases in southern and eastern Afghanistan, moving significant numbers of agency operatives out of the relative protection of our embassy in Kabul and closer to their targets.

            The C.I.A. has always had a paramilitary branch known as the Special Activities Division, which secretly engaged in the sort of operations more routinely carried out by the U.S. Army’s Special Operations troops. But the C.I.A. branch was a very small, seldom used, part of its overall operations.

             But after Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush gave the agency expanded authority to capture or kill Qaeda operatives around the world and wherever they might be found, regardless of diplomatic considerations,  and from that point onwards, the C.I.A. have relied much more on the Special Activities Division because battling suspected terrorists does not involve fighting other military units. Rather, it involves a form of clandestine warfare, permitting C.I.A. personnel to secretly move in and out of countries such as Pakistan and Somalia where the American military is not legally allowed to operate.

            At the present time, the agency is, in effect, running a war in Pakistan. It has also established a network of secret overseas jails where terrorist suspects were subjected to very brutal and often sadistic interrogation techniques, and it set up, and executed,  an assassination program that at one point was outsourced to employees of a private security company, known as Blackwater USA.

             What was once believed could be a quickly-concluded military campaign against Afghanistan terrorists and their allies, [both in that country and in Pakistan,] has gradually turned into a military and political disaster: the mounting lack of success and increased U.S. military casualties have been reflected in current methodology of dealing with the Taliban.

            The current administration has accelerated the C.I.A.’s drone campaign, using Predator and Reaper aircraft to launch missiles and rockets against militants. Or even suspected, in Pakistan.

            These attacks are carried out by elements of the C.I.A. using U.S. Army bases that have been requisitioned for that purpose. Unfortunately, this has led to very serious friction between the higher commands of the Army and the C.I.A. because the Afghanistan and Pakistani population see the Army as the entity that has done considerable damage to the civilian population.

                Additionally, I have received the most severe demands from the Pakistan Interior Ministry that the United States must avoid causing the deaths of Pakistani civilians. Not only does it make the USA hated in this country, but it aso makes the maintenance of order more difficult for the government, and provides grist for the propaganda mills of its opponents.

Also, the Army has stated, repeatedly, that these drone attacks have done little to interdict the Taliban but a great deal to discredit their reputation. The Army feels that what they term “wanton and unnecessary slaughter” of civilians negates their own pacification programs. (See attached report by Defense Attaché Rear Admiral Michael LeFevre) ED. Not included in this posting

            But the Army’s protestations have been overridden by official policy. In early 2009, the White House approved a C.I.A. plan to expand the drone operations in Pakistan into Baluchistan, where top leaders of Afghanistan’s Taliban militia are thought to be hiding, with the full knowledge of the Pakistani government and their ISI

            The C.I.A. has also recently begun sending more operatives into Pakistan to, among other things, gather target intelligence for the drone program. In so doing, the C.I.A., and by association the Army and Special Forces, have drawn highly negative attention to themselves in Pakistan civilian and governmental agencies, and further, have gained the unwelcome attention of the population of Pakistan.

            Over the past year, the C.I.A. has built up a vast network of firebases in southern and eastern Afghanistan, moving their agency operatives out of the embassy in Kabul and closer to their targets.

            These bases most often are, or were, U.S. Army bases and the Afghanistan terrorists believe that their enemy is the Army and its units.

            Afghan President Karzai has been highly critical of the actions of US/NATO forces, although, the bulk of his crriticism has been, and is, aimed at the CIA-controlled drone attacks that have killed many Afghan civilians, to include a dispropotionate number of children.

            Claims of civilians killed by foreign forces are a highly emotional issue among Afghans and feed strong, and growing,  resentment of all international soldiers

            Further, as many of these drone attacks are also directed at targets inside Pakistan and appear to be aimed solely at civilians, there is growing disquiet from the Pakistani government as well.

            As a case in point, the  recent attack in Kunar province has created growing friction between the Afghan government, which said 10 civilians were killed, and NATO, which said there was no evidence to substantiate that claim. In point of fact, independent queries by the Embassy staff here indicates that 20 civilians, eight of them small children, were killed, with an additional 35 maimed or otherwise injured.

            The muted but growing conflict between the various branches of our services, i.e., the Army and the C.I.A., are causing what amount to open rifts in our ranks and these are now being exploited by elements in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other entities outside this arena. It is felt at this level, that such internicine warfare could prove disasterous and in order to present a unified front to our enemies, the heads of the various conflicting groups should, of necessity, get together and resolve these conflicts.

            Perhaps a neutral assessment of the drone attacks should be made and the results presented to higher authority so that a determination can be made regarding their future use.

Anne Patterson, Ambassador Islamabad     

(END)

(Current background…not included in Ambassador’s Report)

             “NATO, the world’s only and history’s first international military bloc, now counts among its members and global partners at least 70 nations on five continents, and has troops from seven Asia-Pacific nations (Australia, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Tonga) serving under its command in Afghanistan.

            It has expanded from the northern Atlantic Ocean region over the equator to the Antipodes and the reach of its operations extends from the Arctic Ocean to the Antarctic, from Africa’s Gulf of Guinea to the Gulf of Mexico, the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden.

             Securing the safety of Washington and Brussels requires the expansion of a U.S.-dominated military alliance into “the Euro-Asian and Asian-Pacific regions.” Having subdued and subordinated almost all of Europe through membership and partnership expansion over the last eleven years, at its Lisbon summit this November NATO will formalize its 21st century Strategic Concept in respect to placing the European continent under a U.S.-controlled interceptor missile system and expanding military partnerships into those corners of the planet so far left unincorporated into the network of the global, expeditionary military formation among other initiatives.

            NATO troop deployments, utilization and upgrading of bases, armed combat operations, air patrols, naval surveillance and interdiction, armed forces training programs and regular military exercises now occur on the borders and off the coasts of China (Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Tajikistan), Iran (Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Iraq, Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates) and Russia (Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine). There are no longer buffer states between the Western military alliance and major non-NATO nations in Eurasia.

            At the same time the Pentagon is escalating at an unparalleled pace military provocations near China – the recently concluded Invincible Spirit war games in the Sea of Japan with the nuclear-powered supercarrier ‘USS George Washington,’ the same aircraft carrier docking in central Vietnam along with the guided missile destroyer ‘USS John S. McCain’ on August 8 for unprecedented naval exercises in the South China Sea, the Pentagon announcing that the ‘George Washington’ will soon enter the Yellow Sea near China’s coastline – and leading the largest-ever Khaan Quest military exercises in Mongolia with the participation of, for the first time, troops from fellow NATO nations Germany and Canada along with France, as well as four Asian NATO candidates that were included in Khaan Quest 2009: India, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Mongolia shares borders with China and Russia.

            Russia, China and Iran are the only major nations outside Latin America that serve as serious barriers to American worldwide military expansion and dominance. By driving into former Soviet territory in the Caspian Sea basin and Central Asia, the Pentagon and NATO are completing their military advance on all three nations. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are situated in a compact zone between China, Iran and Russia, and all but Uzbekistan border one or more of the three nations.

             Notwithstanding the deadly upheavals in Kyrgyzstan this April and June, the U.S. and NATO have substantially increased the deployment of troops – at least 50,000 a month – and equipment through the nation for the West’s 150,000-troop, nine-year war in Afghanistan. Washington and Brussels have activated the Northern Distribution Network to transport supplies to the Afghan war front from ports on the Baltic, Black and Caspian Seas through the Caucasus and Central Asia, pulling Azerbaijan and the five Central Asian states deeper into the Western military phalanx.

            This year leading Pentagon, State Department and NATO officials have paid visits to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, including the first trip by a U.S. Secretary of Defense in five years and a Secretary of State in eighteen years to the first-named state. In April President Obama secured military overflight and transit rights from his Kazakh opposite number, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in a nation adjoining China and Russia.

            U.S. ambassador-designate to Azerbaijan, preeminent post-Soviet space hand Matthew Bryza, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 20 that his future host country, “located at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia, and bordering Iran,” immediately after September 11, 2001 ‘offered us unlimited overflights…for our military aircraft.’

            He added: ‘Today, Azerbaijan continues to provide valuable overflight, refueling, and landing rights for U.S. and coalition aircraft bound for Afghanistan.

             ‘Azerbaijan has also contributed troops to U.S. and coalition military operations in Afghanistan, as well as Kosovo and Iraq….Azerbaijan has also remained a steadfast supporter of Israel.’

            At the same hearing the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, connected the war in Afghanistan and beyond with America’s trans-Eurasian energy campaign against Russia and Iran: Troops and military equipment go to the east and oil and natural gas to the west by the same route.

            ‘I am concerned that the continuing absence of a Senate-confirmed US representative there Azerbaijan could impede progress toward several US national security goals. Our Committee has worked closely with our Envoy for Eurasian Energy, Ambassador Richard Morningstar, to promote the expansion of the Nabucco pipeline, the key element of a southern energy corridor that would stretch from the Caspian region to Europe.

             ‘Progress on this measure will allow our allies to diversify energy supplies, while providing nations in the region with a focus for closer cooperation. The Nabucco pipeline’s commercial and political viability will depend on both Azerbaijan’s commitment of its indigenous resources and its willingness to serve as a transport hub for Central Asian energy across the Caspian from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and possibly other countries.

            ‘A close partnership with Azerbaijan and other nations in the South Caucasus will also be essential to ensure the transit of supplies to our troops in the Middle East and to resolve complex disputes concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.’

             Reinhard Mitschek, managing director of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH in charge of the Western natural gas project from Kazakhstan to Europe, underscored Lugar’s point this June in stating ‘Europe is interested in the purchasing of natural gas from Azerbaijan, Egypt, Iraq and Turkmenistan via the Nabucco pipeline. We came into agreement. Iran’s participation in this project is not a point at issue.’

            In the same month Agence France-Presse quoted the U.S. ambassador to Tajikistan, Ken Gross, confirming that the Pentagon plans to construct a new military facility in the Central Asian nation: ‘The plan includes almost $10 million to build national training center for the Tajik armed forces.’ The new base is to be called the Karatag National Training Center and, according to Gross, could house U.S. military personnel.

            The August 7 edition of the Washington Post substantiated earlier reports that the U.S. plans to establish a comparable base in Kyrgyzstan, which like Tajikistan borders China.

            The article revealed that ‘The United States is planning to move ahead with construction of a $10 million military training base in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, the site of a bloody uprising in June….Called the Osh Polygon, the base was first proposed under former Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev as a facility to train Kyrgyz troops for counterterrorism operations. After the ouster of Bakiyev… discussions continued under the new Kyrgyz president, Roza Otunbayeva, with whose government Washington is trying to broaden relationships…Osh Polygon will consist of a secure garrison compound with officers’ quarters and barracks for enlisted personnel, plus range facilities, firing pistols, rifles, crew-served weapons and explosive ordnance….’

            Earlier this month the EurasiaNet website posted a feature titled ‘Is the U.S. Violating Turkmenistan’s Neutrality with the NDN?’ Quoting a Russian source, the piece describes the role of the U.S. and NATO Northern Distribution Network (NDN) in the Turkmen capital: ‘U.S. freight transited through Ashgabat is in fact military in nature and even constitutes criminal contraband. Airport employees claim they saw armored vehicles, combat helicopters and crates of ammunition. These reports challenge both the notion of Turkmen neutrality and the supposed nature of the bilateral agreement between Turkmenistan and the U.S.’

             Turkmenistan is a member of the NATO Partnership for Peace program, but its government doesn’t acknowledge supporting U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention those being prepared against Iran, its neighbor to the north.

             However, ‘The U.S. has gained access to use almost all the military airfields of Turkmenistan, including the airport in Nebit-Dag near the Iranian border, which was reconstructed at American expense. In September 2004, at the Mary-2 airfield, U.S. military experts appeared and began reconstructing the facility with the help of Arab construction companies, which provoked the protest of Moscow….An American military contingent is located in Ashgabat to oversee the operations related to refueling of military airplanes. NATO is also trying to open up a land corridor to bring freight by road and rail….’

            With regards to Uzbekistan, where German NATO troops remain at the Termez airbase although the U.S. military was ousted in 2005, Leonid Gusev of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations was cited last month maintaining that ‘The U.S. is interested in close cooperation with Uzbekistan, as the Central Asian country is strategically important for the U.S.” and that “Uzbek authorities have recently strengthened cooperation with the U.S. and other Western countries.’

            Gusev added: ‘Now non-military goods are delivered through Uzbekistan to Afghanistan for NATO troops.

            ‘There is a free industrial and economic zone, ‘Navoi,’ in Uzbekistan on the border with Afghanistan. It is the main transit point for shipments of goods to Afghanistan.

            ‘This zone may soon be transformed into a transcontinental forwarding air point, which will link the Far East, South-East Asia, South Asia and Europe….The U.S. plans to build a new military base near the Uzbek border to turn Uzbekistan into an important transit point for access to Afghanistan….It is planned to build an operational center, living accommodation, tactical operations center, warehouses, training complex, logistics center…etc. within this project.’

            Last week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosted Afghan and Tajik presidents Hamid Karzai and Emomali Rahmon in Tehran and, according to a Reuters report, ‘Iran’s president told the leaders of Afghanistan and Tajikistan…that the three neighbors could provide a counterweight to NATO in Asia once foreign troops quit the region.’ This is advice that China and Russia are now  taking under serious consideration.

             Ahmadinejad was quoted during a meeting with his counterparts stating ‘The Europeans and NATO are not interested in the progress of our three countries. Those who put pressure from abroad are unwanted guests and should leave.’

            With the announcement of new U.S. military bases in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in addition to the indefinite maintenance of those in the latter country, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and with American and NATO military strength in Afghanistan at a record 150,000 troops, there is no indication that the Pentagon and the North Atlantic military bloc intend to leave the strategic arc that begins in the South Caucasus and ends at the Chinese border.”

NATO Admits to Killing Five Afghan Civilians in Air Strike

Warplanes Targeted Compound Full of Civilians

August 15, 2010

by Jason Ditz,

AntiWar

            NATO issued a statement today, admitting  that reports of civilians killed in an air strike against the Helmand Province of Afghanistan were true, and that at least five civilians were confirmed killed.

Though they insisted that the investigation is still ongoing, NATO conceded that there was “evidence civilians were in the compound targeted by coalition forces during the operation.” This evidence, it appears from the report, included a number of dead and wounded Afghans found inside the compound.

US Brig. Gen. Timothy M. Zadalis expressed regret at the killings, saying “our first objective is to protect the people of Afghanistan, and in this case we may have failed.” The killings were the latest in a rising number of civilian deaths in the nine year long war in Afghanistan.

Though official reports insist the Taliban is responsible for the majority of those killings, the US and its NATO allies are taking considerable blame for the rising toll, likely in no small part because high profile incidents like the one admitted to today keep happening with alarming regularity.

U.S. Leading The Terror In Afghanistan

August 12, 2010
by Ghali Hassan
Countercurrents.org

            “We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a real threat to our force”. General Stanley McChrystal, former U.S.-NATO commander in Afghanistan

The U.S.-led war on Afghanistan is like the U.S.-led war on Iraq; to destroy the country and to indiscriminately kill large numbers of Afghan civilians. The aim is to terrorise the civilian population into submission using the so-called “War on Terrorism” as a cover-up for a U.S.-led war of terror.

             According to media reports, the number of Afghan civilians killed by U.S.-NATO troops has more than doubled this year. U.S.-NATO forces killed seventy-two civilians in the first three months of 2010, compared to twenty-nine during the same period in 2009. At least 6000 civilians were killed in 2009. While Western media often blames the “Taliban”, Afghan media sources and few Western media outlets continue to report crimes committed by U.S.-led NATO forces. The following are selected cases as part of an ongoing bloodbath in Afghanistan.

            On 27 December 2009, “American Special Forces” with helicopters landed at Ghazi Khan Village in Narang district of the eastern Province of Kunar and took ten people from three homes, eight of them were school students in grades six, nine and ten, and one of them was a guest, the rest from the same family. They handcuffed them before murdering them in cold blood, according to a statement on U.S.-installed “President” Hamed Karzai’s website. According to Jerome Starkey of The Times (31 December 2009): “At around 1 am, three nights ago, some American troops with helicopters left Kabul and landed around 2km away from the village. … The troops walked from the helicopters to the houses and, according to my investigation, they gathered all the students from two rooms, into one room, and opened fire.” (See also, Nieman Watchdog).

            As always, U.S.-NATO officials have denied civilians were killed, but Afghan investigators said nearly all those killed were school-age boys. A statement released by Hamid Karzai’s office said that a unit of U.S.-NATO forces descended from a plane Sunday night into Ghazi Khan Village and took ten people from three homes shot them dead.

            On 12 February 2010, in pre-dawn attack, U.S.-NATO forces killed two pregnant mothers, a teenage girl and two local officials in a pre-dawn attack in Khataba, just outside Gardez. Two children who survived the initial attack, slowly bled to death denied medical care. The invading forces then tried to cover-up the murder by claiming that the three pregnant women had been discovered bound and gagged, murdered execution style. According to The Times (05 April 2010), U.S.-NATO forces have “admitted responsibility for all the deaths for the first time last night”.

            On 08 May 2010, The New York Times, which often downplays U.S. war crimes, including the atrocity in Afghanistan, revealed that: “Shootings of Afghan civilians by American and NATO convoys at military checkpoints have spiked sharply this year, becoming the leading cause of combined civilian deaths and injuries at the hands of Western forces”. At least twenty-eight Afghans civilians have been killed and forty-three wounded at checkpoints this year. Afghan civilian casualties jumped by 33 percent in a recent month-long period. There were 173 civilian deaths reported from March 21 to April 21 this year.

            On 19 June 2010, The New York Times reported that: “Ten civilians, including at least five women and children, were killed in U.S.-NATO airstrikes in Khost Province, the provincial police chief said Saturday. Five other civilians were killed, as were two Afghan National Army soldiers and two police officials, in other violence around the country on Saturday”.

            The Associate Press reported on 09 July 2010, U.S.-NATO forces killed six Afghan civilians and wounded several others in Jani Khel district of Paktia Province in eastern Afghanistan in what described as and artillery shells “went astray”. The attack was “just one day after six Afghan soldiers died in a botched NATO airstrike”. Initially, the U.S. government and the media tried to bury the story and U.S. leaders denied that civilians were killed. It has become nearly impossible to conceal Western-perpetuated war crimes against defenceless population.

            On 24 July 2010, according to Afghan National Directorate for Security, as many as 52 innocent Afghan civilians killed and many more were seriously injured in a U.S.-NATO a missile strike in Rigi village in Sangin district of southern Helmand Province. According to a local press release; “Based on reports by the National Directorate of Security, a house in Rigi village in Sangin district of southern province of Helmand was hit with a rocket launched by NATO/ISAF troops leaving 52 civilians dead including women and children”. Men, women and children were massacred as they took cover, according to the, said the press release.

0n 04 August 2010, more than a dozen Afghan civilians were killed in a night-time raid by U.S. troops in Sherzad district in the Nangahar Province in eastern Afghanistan, reported the Los Angeles Times on 06 August 2010. It is possible that the number of civilians killed in the raid is much higher than it was originally reported.

            These were not few isolated massacres of innocent civilians, but rather part of U.S. ongoing terror against the people of Afghanistan. Evidence shows that the U.S. has always deliberately and indiscriminately targeted the civilian population in its wars against defenceless nations for political gains. The deliberate and systematic destruction of Iraq, including the mass murder of millions of innocent Iraqi civilians (the majority women and children) and the displacement and disappearance of at least 5 million Iraqis as a result of premeditated war of aggression and thirteen years of U.S.-enforced genocidal sanctions (a U.S.-enforced infanticide) followed by seven years of murderous Occupation is a case in point.

            It is true that U.S. crimes are often ignored or downplayed by Western media. However, most of the information about U.S.-led NATO war crimes in Afghanistan, which the organisation Wikileaks took credit for publishing, is available on the Internet and in some of the print media. There are no new “revelations”. Wikileaks provides confirmations of U.S.-led barbarism against defenceless civilian population.

            The Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary, which details a large portion of U.S.-NATO war crimes in more than 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010 is a slap in the face of those, including “progressive” opportunists and colonial feminists, who claim that the war on Afghanistan is for the “hearts and minds” of the Afghan people and “democracy”. But, Westerners don’t really care about their governments committing war crimes abroad, especially if the victims are women and children with brown skin colour.

            Today’s Western citizens are carefully manipulated and are too ignorant to care about others. As the philosopher, Bertrand Russell observed: “It is the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know and care about circumstances in the colonies”. People, particularly in the West, are conditioned not to think and not to ask questions. They are fed a daily diet to promote consumerism and militarism. It is a type of brainwashing that Adolf Hitler and his henchmen would have been proud of. That is why war criminals like George W. Bush, Tony Blair – who has become a multi-millionaire from the proceeds of his crimes – and the Australian John Howard were re-elected to power while their armies were involved in two bloodbaths against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.

             According to a new epidemiological study concerning the population of Iraq found that, as a result of the use of weapons of mass destructions (WMD), such as “Depleted Uranium” (DU) by U.S. forces on the Iraqi civilian population in Fallujah, the rates of infant mortality, fatal deformities and cancer (mainly Leukaemia) are much higher than those reported by Japanese survivors of the atomic bombs attacks on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. (Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 7, 2010, PDF). Like the criminal attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the attack on Fallujah is a criminal act of terrorism on an epic scale.

            While Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary confirms the U.S. and its allies as bloodthirsty invaders by providing a large and comprehensive summary of information of war crimes, there is nothing new or “top secret” about U.S. militarised violence. The U.S. is the most militarised and dangerous outlaw nation in the world today, second only to the fascist regime in Israel. The U.S. spends more money on its offensive military than all other countries in the world combined, while millions of Americans live in extreme poverty. The stated aim is to project violence on a global scale. U.S. leaders are addicted to violence and there are only a few bloodthirsty fascists outside the U.S. military. “It is fun to shoot some people”, said General James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, head of U.S. Central Command who has a long and violent record of war crimes against defenceless civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just listen to testimonies by U.S. soldiers themselves to validate their war crimes.

            The enormity of the war crimes in Afghanistan even forced the most violent people in U.S. military to tell the truth. Before his dismissal, former U.S.-NATO commander, Stanley McChrystal, admitted that: “In the nine-plus months I’ve been here in Afghanistan, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it”. McChrystal was not a saint; he was an assassin. He was replaced by a more violent commander, Gen. David Petraeus, who promised to escalate the violence in order to subdue the Afghan Resistance and forced them to make a deal with Washington.

             Furthermore, in an Op-Ed for The New York Times (05 August 2009), former army officers and supporters of U.S.-led war on defenceless nations, David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum have called for a halt on civilian killing. Quoting Pakistani sources, they write that, U.S. unmanned drones had “killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed, a hit rate of 2 percent – hardly ‘precision’”. They believe too much violence is exposing the true goal of U.S. imperialist ideology which is to control Afghanistan’s geostrategic position in Central Asia.

            The principle of U.S. Christian-fascist ideology has always been to intervene in other nations’ affairs, using military threat, terrorism and overwhelming violence against the civilian population. U.S. politicians and U.S. apologists justify this “policy of barbarism” as U.S. “exceptionalism” or U.S. “right”, which is based on the false assumption that the U.S. and its allies can dominate and change societies through violence and suffering. For example, despite overwhelming evidence of needless bloodbath in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. government and U.S. vassals continue to insist that their wars on the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are “morally and politically justifiable” wars, using the manipulative rhetoric of “democracy” and “human rights” as a cover.

            What the Afghan War Diary does, it supports the C.I.A. propaganda and provides U.S. Zionist leaders with ammunition to attack Pakistan and Iran. It is possible that the C.I.A. and the Pentagon use Wikileaks to spread anti-Pakistan and anti-Iran propaganda. In fact, the C.I.A. has a history of leaking false information to manipulate public opinion and cover-up U.S. war crimes. According to Wikileaks co-founder, Julian Assange: “We contacted the White House as a group before we released this material and asked them to help assist in going through it to make sure that no innocent names came out, and the white House did not accept that request”. So, where is the “top secret” or “classified” information?

            In reality, the U.S. and the British governments expressed no serious interest in the Afghan War Diary and have criticised Pakistan alleged support for the “Taliban”. However, Western politicians and Western media use the Afghan War Diary to threatened and warn ordinary people who oppose the war. Wikileaks is being accused of “moral culpability” as if Western leaders who were responsible for the premeditated mass murder of millions of Afghan and Iraqi civilians are Christian saints. George Bush, Tony Blair and their accomplices should be arrested and tried for war crimes.

            U.S. President Barack Obama used Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary to announce “change in strategy”. The President pleaded for the U.S. House of Representatives to pass legislation to fund the war on Afghanistan for another year. Thirty-six hours after Wikileaks released the Afghan War Diary, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass a bill that funds the bloodbath in Afghanistan with extra $33 billion and 30,000 more troops.

            The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has accused Pakistan of “exporting” of terrorism, forgetting his own country’s complicity in terrorism and the mass slaughters of innocent Afghan and Iraqi civilians. Credible media sources revealed that the U.S. and Britain are secretly financing and arming different groups through the increase in the cultivation and trafficking of narcotic drug. (See: Peter Dale Scott, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, April 5, 2010). According to Russian and Iranian media sources, the U.S. earn “about $50 billion a year from trafficking in drugs often transported out of Afghanistan in body bags on American planes”. The U.S.-NATO aim is to prolong the violence and justify long-term occupation of the region (Daniella Peled, The Guardian, 25 May 2010) using the pretext of “terrorism” as a cover.

            The fact that, the West’s major pro-war newspapers, the British Guardian, the Zionist New York Times and the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel have been contacted first to publish the so-called “revelations” is suspicious. Indeed, the Guardian and the New York Times have called for the escalation of the war. “It’s very strange that such a large cache of information can be leaked to the mainstream media so conveniently. Is something deliberate? What is its purpose? We’ll be looking into that”, a Pakistani official familiar with the Wikileaks’ “revelations” told Declan Walsh of the Guardian. The information serves the U.S. purpose of targeting Pakistan and Iran, both fingered by Wikileaks of supporting the “Taliban”. Of course, India and Israel couldn’t be happier.

            The Afghan War Diary plays in the hands of the anti-Muslims warmongers. According to The Guardian: “A huge cache of secret U.S. military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and NATO commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency“. Where is the evidence? Can anyone imagine the Guardian accusing the U.S. of fuelling the Afghan Resistance (the so-called, “Mujahideen”) against Soviet troops? The allegation that Pakistan’s intelligence agency is arming and training the “Taliban” is a falsehood. Western media and politicians have become addicted on attacking Pakistan and deliberately making false accusations against Pakistan in order to deflect attention away from their own crimes.

It is important to remember that Pakistan (a Muslim nation) is forced (by the U.S.) to participate in U.S.-led war not only against the people of Afghanistan but also against its own people and Pakistan vital strategic interests. Since the U.S. illegal invasion of Afghanistan, 

“Pakistan has lost more soldiers than the combined losses suffered by foreign forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and five times more civilians than those lost in the 9/11 strikes, which eminently reflect on Pakistan’s commitment to the war on terror”, writes Javed Hussain, a retired officer in the Pakistan Army. For each targeted assassination by U.S. drones in Pakistan, 140 innocent Pakistani civilians were also killed in a deliberate act of terrorism. According to Pakistani media, attacks by U.S. drones killed 708 people in 44 attacks targeting the Pakistani tribal areas between January 1 and December 31, 2009. “On average, 58 civilians were killed in these attacks every month, 12 persons every week and almost two people every day”. (Dawn, 02 January 2010). Meanwhile, the leader of the Pakistani corrupted elites (President Asif Ali Zardari) is visiting European leaders – his nation’s enemies – at a time when the Pakistani people are struggling to cope with the worst-ever floods in Pakistan’s history. Taking advantage of a corrupt government in Pakistan, U.S. leaders have extended their war into Pakistan, using the same pretext to cover-up the war on Afghanistan with dire consequences for the people of the region.

             Afghanistan was not “a training camp for terrorists”, as it is often accused by Western politicians and Western media. The truth is, in 1979 the U.S. government of president Jimmy Carter began covert operation of training and arming warlords and militias against the democratically-elected Afghan government months before Soviet troops went into Afghanistan. In the early 1980s, the U.S. established a training base (‘al-Qaeda’) in Afghanistan to sabotage and fight the Soviet troops in the country, using militant fighters from around the world. They were named by the C.I.A. the “Mujahideen” to associate them with Islam. After the Soviets withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the “Mujahideen” took control of the country and began a bloody infighting. The “Taliban” – funded and armed by the C.I.A. – defeated the “Mujahideen” in a criminal war that ravaged the country. According to C.I.A. officials, there are no more than 100 ‘al-Qaeda’ fighters in Afghanistan today. (For an analysis, see: Michael Parenti, Afghanistan, Another Untold Story). The linking Afghanistan to the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. is a flawed argument.

            There is no evidence to prove Afghanistan’s or any other Muslim nation involvement in the 9/11 attacks. All Muslim nations and organisations have unequivocally condemned the attacks. In order to commit attacks like 9/11, one needs state-of-the-art resources and well-connected contacts. The official story remains unsubstantiated and unproven.

             Overwhelming evidence shows that the Israeli Mossad agents, the C.I.A. and influential U.S. Zionists in the Bush administration had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Early this year, Israeli Mossad agents were able to acquire and counterfeited more than twenty foreign passports to murder a Palestinian politician Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, an act of terrorism that was condoned by several Western nations. Israel is the only nation which welcomed the 9/11 attacks. “It is very good” for Israel, said Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Israeli Prime Minister. (See: Christopher Ketcham, CounterPunch, 07 March 2007).

            The 9/11 attacks were used as an “opportunity” not only to justify war against Muslim nations, but also to instil fear and disseminate anti-Muslim propaganda. Many People, including most Americans have been coerced and indoctrinated to believed that it was morally justified to attack Afghanistan and Iraq as a response to the 9/11 attacks. The argument advanced by Western politicians and Western media that, “We were attacked and we have to fight back” is preposterous.

             According to Marjorie Cohn, a professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild, the U.S. and its allies have no case for self-defence, because: “The necessity for self-defence must be ‘instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice for means, and had no moment for deliberation’”. Like the war on Iraq, the war on Afghanistan constitutes an act of illegal aggression in violation of UN Charter and international law.

             According to credible media and NGOs reports, the Afghan Resistance against the U.S.-NATO war is a collection of native Afghani movements, legitimately fighting to liberate their land from foreign invaders. There are no “terrorist bases” in Afghanistan that threaten Western societies. The biggest terrorist bases in the world are not in Muslim nations, they are in Washington and Tel Aviv. From there, nearly all terror operations are organised and financed. The two countries are war-hungry and rightly viewed by the majority of world’s people as the two greatest threats to world’s peace and stability.

             Meanwhile, a report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights claims over two-thirds of Afghans live in dire poverty. The report criticises the “international community” for emphasizing security over development and also cites widespread corruption within the U.S.-installed puppet government of warlords and criminals. The ‘National Survey 2010’ by Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA) revealed that, under the Occupation, corruption has worsened, particularly in the police, justice, health, and education sectors where the Occupation authorities exert most power. Corruption, of course, is one of imperialism’s most effective tools to control the occupied population, violence is the other. There is no occupation without a corrupted and criminal puppet government. It is not coincident that Afghanistan and Iraq are ranked very high among the most corrupt countries in the world.

            Finally, the U.S.-NATO Occupation is responsible for the worst human rights abused, including torture, rape and denial of personal freedom. Moreover, the Afghanistan Rights Monitor reported: “In terms of insecurity, 2010 has been the worst year since the demise of the Taliban regime in late 2001”. Security is the new pretext for the ongoing Occupation. Women rights have all but disappeared even before the Occupation.

            The situation for women (one of the pretexts to invade Afghanistan is to “liberate” Afghan women) is far worse than before the invasion. The U.S.-backed “Mujahideen” and “Taliban” warlords have reversed all the gains that had been made in 1970s and the 1980s under the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) progressive government of Noor Mohammad Taraki. It is shameful, that Western politicians, academics and colonial feminists use women rights to advocate for ongoing Occupation of Afghanistan.

            If anything, conditions have gotten worse for children in Afghanistan since the invasion. According to a report by UNICEF, under U.S.-NATO Occupation, Afghanistan is the worst place for children to be born. The report says: “Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world with 257 deaths per 1,000 live births, and 70 percent of Afghans have access to clean water” The country “is especially dangerous for girls”, added the report. One-quarter of Afghan children will not reach the age of five, and life expectancy for Afghans is only 44 years. A new study says nearly two out of every three male youths jailed in Afghanistan are physically abused. The children’s rights organization Terre des Hommes says its findings are based on interviews with 40 percent of all those jailed in Afghan juvenile detention centres. One hundred thirty out of 208 male youths said they had been beaten since their arrest.

            The vast majority of the people of Afghanistan (and Pakistan) have rejected the Occupation and demanding an end to the presence of foreign troops in their countries. After nine years of murderous Occupation, opposition to the U.S.-led terror in Afghanistan is also rising among the populations of the countries involved in the Occupation. The latest Gallup opinion poll shows support for the Obama Administration’s war policy has declined from 48 per cent in February 2010 to 36 per cent. Moreover, 43 per cent of Americans believe the war was illegal. In Britain, 72 per cent of the public opposes Britain involvement in the Occupation and the ongoing terror in Afghanistan.

            The U.S. has inflicted great suffering on the people of Afghanistan. It is time for U.S. leaders and U.S. allies in the war on Afghanistan to renounce the use of violence and terrorism, and withdraw their forces from Afghanistan. The U.S. should concentrate instead on developing friendly and peaceful relations with all nations based on mutual respect and broad common interests to safeguard world peace.
Australia         
Ghali Hassan is an independent writer living in
 
U.S. Strategy in Pakistan Is Upended by Floods

August 18, 2010

by Mark Landler

New York Times

             WASHINGTON — The floods in Pakistan have upended the Obama administration’s carefully honed strategy there, confronting the United States with a vast humanitarian crisis and militant groups determined to exploit the misery, in a country that was already one of its thorniest problems.

While the administration has kept its public emphasis on the relief effort, senior officials are busy assessing the longer-term strategic impact. One official said the disaster would affect virtually every aspect of the relationship between the United States and Pakistan, and could have ripple effects on the war in Afghanistan and the broader American battle against Al Qaeda.

With Pakistan’s economy suffering a grievous blow, the administration could be forced to redirect parts of its $7.5 billion economic aid package for Pakistan to urgent needs like rebuilding bridges, rather than more ambitious goals like upgrading the rickety electricity grid.

Beyond that, the United States will be dealing with a crippled Pakistani government and a military that, for now, has switched its focus from rooting out insurgents to plucking people from the floodwaters. The Pakistani authorities, a senior American official said, have been “stretched to the breaking point” by the crisis. Their ragged response has fueled fears that the Taliban will make gains by stepping in to provide emergency meals and shelter.

“It certainly has security implications,” said another official who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss internal policy deliberations. “An army that is consumed by flood relief is not conducting counterinsurgency operations.”

On Thursday, the United Nations will convene a special meeting devoted to the floods, hoping to galvanize what has been a lackluster global response. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to announce that American public aid has surpassed $100 million, an official said.

“We’re obviously not oblivious to the political and strategic implications of this catastrophe, but right now, we are fully focused on the emergency relief effort and trying to get a good assessment of the needs,” said the administration’s special representative to the region, Richard C. Holbrooke.

Noting that several weeks remain in the monsoon season, Mr. Holbrooke said, “Worse may be yet to come.”

The disaster comes after a period in which the administration seemed to have made strides in repairing the American relationship with Pakistan. Mrs. Clinton visited Islamabad in July with a long list of pledges, including the upgrading of several power plants and a plan to promote Pakistani mangoes. Now, these projects seem almost beside the point.

“Before, there were power plants in need of refurbishment,” said Daniel S. Markey, senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Now there are power plants underwater.”

In recent days, the United States has sent 15 helicopters, rescuing nearly 6,000 people. On Wednesday, military cargo planes delivered 60,000 pounds of food and other relief supplies, bringing total deliveries to 717,000 pounds. The speed and scale of the effort, officials in both countries said, have helped bolster the checkered American image in Pakistan.

In another hopeful sign, officials said Pakistan and India had been in close touch about the floodwaters, some of which are flowing into Pakistan from India. Such communication, between historic archenemies, could augur reduced tension in other areas, one of the officials said.

Against that, however, are the staggering dimensions of the disaster. A senior Pakistani official told the administration on Tuesday that the next flood surge was likely to inundate much of Punjab, the densely populated region that borders India and produces much of Pakistan’s food.

So far, this official said, the greatest damage has been in regions that are also hotbeds for Islamic insurgents, which has set back the army’s fight against extremist groups. Local governments in those places have largely collapsed, leaving the army as the only source of authority.

With 20 million people displaced from their homes, the Pakistani authorities are girding themselves for an immense migration to the major cities, which they fear could sow further instability.

“Americans have not yet registered the enormity of the crisis,” Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, said in a telephone interview from Islamabad, the capital.

Pakistani and American officials said reports of hard-line Islamic charities providing relief were exaggerated. One pointed out that the floods had hurt the insurgents as well: there was a report of small arms and ammunition belonging to a militant group floating in the water.

Still, people in both countries warned that if rebuilding and rehabilitation efforts bogged down, the Taliban and other militant groups would try to take advantage of it. “The real test is, can their government provide the most fundamental services?” said an administration official.

Parallels to this crisis are hard to find. One official cited the example of the Indonesian province of Aceh, which had been racked by a three-decade insurgency fought by the separatist Free Aceh Movement. After the tsunami swept through in 2004, killing 170,000 people, the separatists and the Indonesian government quickly signed a peace treaty, in August 2005.

There are, however, big differences between a localized separatist group and an international jihadist movement.

“If the flood proves to tilt the balance of power in Pakistan, it’s more likely to tilt toward the militants than toward the government,” said Bruce Riedel, a former intelligence official who helped the administration formulate its initial policy for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Already, Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, has been exposed to withering criticism at home for going on a trip to Europe during the early days of the flood. American officials said they were determined not to get drawn into the dispute, noting that in any event, Mr. Zardari had been stripped of many of his powers in a recent constitutional change.

Decisions on how the flood will affect American economic aid may be influenced by a trip to Pakistan by Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who co-sponsored the five-year nonmilitary assistance package with Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana.

Senator Kerry, accompanied by Dan Feldman, a deputy to Mr. Holbrooke, is scheduled to tour the flooded areas on Thursday. Mr. Kerry has said he is open to redirecting aid money, though some analysts said they were skeptical that Congress would approve additional financing. Military aid may also come under scrutiny, according to administration officials.

“Every dimension of our relationship — politics, economics, security — is going to see major shifts as a result of this historic disaster,” said Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the White House coordinator for Afghanistan and Pakistan. “All the tools of diplomacy have to be examined in light of this new reality.”
                         

Robert Fisk: US troops say goodbye to Iraq

Torture. Corruption. Civil war. America has certainly left its mark

August 20, 2010

The Independent/UK

When you invade someone else’s country, there has to be a first soldier – just as there has to be a last.

The first man in front of the first unit of the first column of the invading American army to reach Fardous Square in the centre of Baghdad in 2003 was Corporal David Breeze of the 3rd Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment. For that reason, of course, he pointed out to me that he wasn’t a soldier at all. Marines are not soldiers. They are Marines. But he hadn’t talked to his mom for two months and so – equally inevitably – I offered him my satellite phone to call his home in Michigan. Every journalist knows you’ll get a good story if you lend your phone to a soldier in a war.

“Hi, you guys,” Corporal Breeze bellowed. “I’m in Baghdad. I’m ringing to say ‘Hi! I love you. I’m doing fine. I love you guys.’ The war will be over in a few days. I’ll see you soon.” Yes, they all said the war would be over soon. They didn’t consult the Iraqis about this pleasant notion. The first suicide bombers – a policeman in a car and then two women in a car – had already hit the Americans on the long highway up to Baghdad. There would be hundreds more. There will be hundreds more in Iraq in the future.

So we should not be taken in by the tomfoolery on the Kuwaiti border in the last few hours, the departure of the last “combat” troops from Iraq two weeks ahead of schedule. Nor by the infantile cries of “We won” from teenage soldiers, some of whom must have been 12-years-old when George W Bush sent his army off on this catastrophic Iraqi adventure. They are leaving behind 50,000 men and women – a third of the entire US occupation force – who will be attacked and who will still have to fight against the insurgency.

Yes, officially they are there to train the gunmen and militiamen and the poorest of the poor who have joined the new Iraqi army, whose own commander does not believe they will be ready to defend their country until 2020. But they will still be in occupation – for surely one of the the “American interests” they must defend is their own presence – along with the thousands of armed and indisciplined mercenaries, western and eastern, who are shooting their way around Iraq to safeguard our precious western diplomats and businessmen. So say it out loud: we are not leaving.

Instead, the millions of American soldiers who have passed through Iraq have brought the Iraqis a plague. From Afghanistan – in which they showed as much interest after 2001 as they will show when they start “leaving” that country next year – they brought the infection of al-Qa’ida. They brought the disease of civil war. They injected Iraq with corruption on a grand scale. They stamped the seal of torture on Abu Ghraib – a worthy successor to the same prison under Saddam’s vile rule – after stamping the seal of torture on Bagram and the black prisons of Afghanistan. They sectarianised a country that, for all its Saddamite brutality and corruption, had hitherto held its Sunnis and Shias together.

And because the Shias would invariably rule in this new “democracy”, the American soldiers gave Iran the victory it had sought so vainly in the terrible 1980-88 war against Saddam. Indeed, men who had attacked the US embassy in Kuwait in the bad old days – men who were allies of the suicide bombers who blew up the Marine base in Beirut in 1983 – now help to run Iraq. The Dawa were “terrorists” in those days. Now they are “democrats”. Funny how we’ve forgotten the 241 US servicemen who died in the Lebanon adventure. Corporal David Breeze was probably two or three-years-old then.

But the sickness continued. America’s disaster in Iraq infected Jordan with al-Qa’ida – the hotel bombings in Amman – and then Lebanon again. The arrival of the gunmen from Fatah al-Islam in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian camp in the north of Lebanon – their 34-day war with the Lebanese army – and the scores of civilian dead were a direct result of the Sunni uprising in Iraq. Al-Qa’ida had arrived in Lebanon. Then Iraq under the Americans re-infected Afghanistan with the suicide bomber, the self-immolator who turned America’s soldiers from men who fight to men who hide.

Anyway, they are busy re-writing the narrative now. Up to a million Iraqis are dead. Blair cares nothing about them – they do not feature, please note, in his royalties generosity. And nor do most of the American soldiers. They came. They saw. They lost. And now they say they’ve won. How the Arabs, surviving on six hours of electricity a day in their bleak country, must be hoping for no more victories like this one.

Then and now

3,000 The estimated number of Iraqi civilians killed last year. That’s less than a tenth of the 34,500 killed in 2007 but it’s still testament to the dangers faced each day by Iraqis.

200 The number of Iraqis known to be still held in US custody – a fraction of the 26,000 held in military prisons three years ago.

15.5 The average number of hours of electricity a day Baghdad receives, a marked impovement from the six hours it got three years ago but still not up to pre-invasions standards, when Iraqi cities could rely on 24-hour power.

The right’s latest weapon: ‘Zionist editing’ on Wikipedia

‘Idea is not to make Wikipedia rightist but for it to include our point of view,’ Naftali Bennett, director of the Yesha Council says.

August 18, 2010

by Nir Hasson

          For years now, Wikipedia has been a fierce battleground between the Israeli right and left. One key battle was over the entry for Bil’in and whether the weekly struggle at that village near the security fence should be described as violent.

Another battle was over the description of the Ariel University Center. Was it “the largest public college in Israel”? Or should an institution in Ariel not be considered as being in Israel? So a compromise was reached: “the largest Israeli public college.”

Now the Yesha Council of settlements and another right-wing group, Israel Sheli, are embarking on a Wikipedia battle: Zionist editing on the Web-based encyclopedia. The first course was held yesterday in Jerusalem.

“The idea is not to make Wikipedia rightist but for it to include our point of view,” said Naftali Bennett, the director of the Yesha Council.

“The Internet is not managed well enough, and Israel’s position there is appalling. Take for example the Turkish flotilla [to Gaza]. During the first hours we were nowhere to be found. In those first hours millions of people typed the words Gaza-bound flotilla and read what was written on Wikipedia.”

The course was designed to teach how to register for, contribute to and edit for Wikipedia.

The organizers’ aim was twofold: to affect Israeli public opinion by having people who share their ideological viewpoint take part in writing and editing for the Hebrew version, and to write in English so Israel’s image can be bolstered abroad.

The Yesha Council also announced a prize for the “Best Zionist Editor” – the person who over the next four years incorporates the most “Zionist” changes in the encyclopedia. That lucky encyclopedist will receive a trip in a hot-air balloon over Israel.

Some 50 people took part in the course, nearly all of them religious and many from settlements. Ruthie Avraham, who lives in Beit El and works in media, said she already knew the subject of the first Wikipedia entry she planned to write about.

“The entry on Jewish family,” she said. “The first sentence will be that the Jewish family is the ultimate response to the Western crisis of isolation and lack of affection.”

According to Einat Bornstein, another participant in the course, “I came here to have an impact. I think people are afraid to write rightist responses.”

She didn’t hesitate when asked about the first entry she intends to contribute to: Hanin Zuabi, the Arab MK who took part in the flotilla. “And also about the Turkish flotilla and the settlements and the settlement enterprise.”

The Conversations with the Crow

          When the CIA discovered that their former Deputy Director of Clandestine Affairs, Robert  T. Crowley, had been talking with author Gregory Douglas, they became fearful (because of what Crowley knew) and outraged (because they knew Douglas would publish eventually) and made many efforts to silence Crowley, mostly by having dozens of FBI agents call or visit him at his Washington home and try to convince him to stop talking to Douglas, whom they considered to be an evil, loose cannon.

             Crowley did not listen to them (no one else ever does, either) and Douglas made through shorthand notes of each and every one of their many conversation. TBR News published most of these (some of the really vile ones were left out of the book but will be included on this site as a later addendum ) and the entire collection was later produced as an Ebook.

            Now, we reliably learn, various Washington alphabet agencies are trying to find a way to block the circulation of this highly negative, entertaining and dangerous work, so to show our solidarity with our beloved leaders and protectors, and our sincere appreciation for their corrupt and coercive actions, we are going to reprint the entire work, chapter by chapter. (The complete book can be obtained by going to:

http://www.shop.conversationswiththecrow.com/Conversations-with-the-Crow-CWC-GD01.htm

Here is the twenty-fourth  chapter

Conversation No. 24

Date: Wednesday, July 17, 1996

Commenced: 9:20 AM CST

Concluded: !0:11 AM CST

RTC: Good day, Gregory.

GD: And a good day to you, too. How are you doing?
RTC: A decent day today. And you?

GD: Busy with the new Mueller book.

RTC: Anything of interest to me?
GD: No, probably not at this point. I am working on the real origins of the Second World War at this point. Not the he-said or they-said fictional crap and pap but the real meat. Taylor[1] covered much of this in his book on the subject but there is more. I discuss the threat of Poland in 1932 to physically invade Germany if Hitler were not silenced. They moved troops to the borders but the threats gradually subsided. Hitler, on the other hand, did not forget this. And Beck, their foreign minister, was an idiot and could easily have diverted the German threat of aggression. But I look more into the economic aspect of the war. Germany lost all her gold reserves after the war because she had to pay everyone in sight for a war she did not start. Then the western states kept the corrupt Weimar government afloat with short-term and high-interest loans. Weimar was corrupt and degenerate but Germany was a great producer of saleable goods so she was encouraged to work more. All of this post-Wilsonian manipulation was directly responsible for the conditions that allowed Hitler to assume power. There were two things he did that assured eventual war with England and the United States. One, he instituted the barter system whereby Germany would trade, let us say, new locomotives to the Argentine in exchange for their beef and wheat. Normally, Germany would have gone to the London banking houses for a loan, high interest of course. Or the Argentine people would have done the same. The barter system completely bypassed them and they stood to lose billions of pounds thereby. And, do not forget, that the British bankers were almost all Jewish and there was on-gong anti-Semitism in Germany. It wasn’t Hitler’s aim, postwar bullshit pseudo-historians to the contrary, to kill off all the Jews. He only wanted to root them out of German society and force them to emigrate.

RTC: But to where? No one wanted any of them. Jews are not liked, you know.

GD: Nor trusted. Müller set up training schools so that Jews could learn farming and go to Palestine. Wonderful! The Arabs howled and so did the British. They did not want Jews there at all. Diplomatic representations were made and Ribbentrop ran to Hitler so the useful project was stopped. Then, Mueller told me he chartered the SS.’St. Louis’ to take 900 Jews to Havana. Everything OK except that when Roosevelt found out about this, he forced the Cubans to cancel their landing permits. Isn’t that wonderful of him? And Roosevelt and Breckenridge Long did everything they could to keep Jewish Germans out of the country. Even little children. And parenthetically, note that in 1941, Roosevelt seized over two hundred million dollars in Jewish assets in this country and kept them. Never gave a penny back either. His son got some of it. Oh, all in the archives but believe me, Robert, not a word then, now or ever in our press. Can’t do that. It was all the evil Hitler, not Roosevelt. 

RTC: You say that if Hitler were not such an anti-Semite, there might not have been a war?
GD: Hitler was institutionally anti-Semitic, Robert. You see, the Germans had always gotten along with their Jews who had been in the country for a long time. No, after Pilsudski, the same one who threatened to invade Germany in ’32, came to power in Poland, he forced out huge numbers of Polish Jews, most of whom fled either to Germany or the United States. The German Jews were Sephardic, Semitic and cultured but the Polish Jews were Khazars, Mongoloid Turks, brutal, nasty and detested by both the Polish and the Imperial Russians. I have met a few in situ and believe me, they are all vicious swine. So, they flooded into a prostrate Germany in the early ‘20s and stole everything they could. By the way, these so called eastern Jews were detested by the German ones. But these were the Jews that enraged their German hosts and brought down the active persecutions and expulsions.  Interesting to note that after the war when many of the Polish Jews were released from the detention camps, they tried to go back to Poland where they were promptly subjected to pogroms and wholesale death. No, they then went to Israel where they make up most of the population and now practice their filthiness on the defenseless Arabs. But that’s off the topic here. It was Hitler’s attitude towards the Jews coupled with the potentially lethal barter system that spelled his doom. The Jewish bankers both in Britain and here got together and started a huge propaganda campaign against the Germans and egged both Roosevelt and Churchill into making trouble.

RTC: But Churchill was not in power in the late ‘30s.

GD: I know but he had influence and wrote for the press. These bankers hired Winnie to front for them and whore that he was, he went right along with them.  You can find some of this in Fuller and the rest in other unnoticed publications but it’s all there. Marx was right when he discussed the economic backgrounds to major wars. Yes, Robert, make room for General Fuller in your library and you will have a much clearer view. Of course none of this will ever get into the American press because guess who owns it?
RTC: I well know, Gregory. But they work with us and I see no Don Quixote-like necessity to cut my own throat or that of the Company. The Jews have a great power in this country now and one does not attack them; one works with them if you take my drift.

GD: Oh, I understand fully. Do you like them, Robert?

RTC: Evil little rats, Gregory, treacherous, envious and dangerous in the extreme. I know this sounds terrible but even though I am well aware that Hitler never gassed them, he should have. All of them and then there would be peace. There will never be peace in the Middle East unless and until Israel grabs up all the useful Arab lands and expels them from the area the way they were expelled from Poland and Germany. Remember, Gregory, that the abused child becomes the abusing parent.  Send me the references on Fuller and I will send you a stack of papers on this subject. And if you choose to use them, for the Lord God’s sake, keep me out of it. The Jews would make my life miserable here.

GD: I know. They would insert a newly discovered chapter into the fake Ann Frank diaries all about you visiting Holland during the war and shoving plump Jewish babies into bonfires. By the way, all seriousness aside, I have discovered rare documents that at least partially supports the silly Holocaust stories. Would I bore you?

RTC: No, certainly not.

GD: In April of 1943, all the Jews of Europe were transported to Berlin and when there, were jammed into the Alexander Platz in Berlin. At the stroke of noon on April 20^th, his birthday, Hitler came out onto his balcony and addressed an immense crowd of German Girl Scouts and school children. A cannon was fired and this huge army of girls, all armed with weenie forks, charged into the Alexander Platz and butchered at least thirty million screaming Jews. My God, the Swedish Ambassador wrote that huge raging rivers of blood roared down the Berlin streets, swamping cars and drowning thousands of Berliners before running into the Spee and Havel rivers. Ah, Robert, the truth is worse than the fictions. And the SS and Postal Employees barbecued the remains, after removing interesting tattoos for the lampshade makers, and Berlin feasted for weeks afterwards.

RTC: (Loud and prolonged laughter) Gregory, you are really a terrible person. You will kill me with these stories. No, I know it isn’t true. I mean I knew that when you mentioned the Postal employees.  If you ever told that story to a Jew, he would either beat you to death with his purse or literally explode with anger. Do tell that to Tom Kimmel, why don’t you? I would love to hear him when he rang me up, babbling about how psychotic you are. Or, better still, why not tell it to Wolfe?

GD: Oh, I think not. Bob is very old and getting senile and he might just melt down like the Wicked Witch of the West, leaving only a pair of sodden dignity pants and a beanie behind. No, I just thought you would like to hear what that nut Irving calls the Real Truth for once.

RTC: Well, such a nice history, lesson Gregory. The Hebrews should be happy you have a limited audience or they might get agitated.

GD: Pascal once said that to destroy a man, make a fool out of him. Humor is a great weapon and as I have said before when I tell my little stories, always look for the truth in the jest!

(Concluded at 10 :11 AM CST)

Dramatis personae:

James Jesus Angleton: Once head of the CIA’s Counterintelligence division, later fired because of his obsessive and illegal behavior, tapping the phones of many important government officials in search of elusive Soviet spies. A good friend of Robert Crowley and a co-conspirator with him in the assassination of President Kennedy

James P. Atwood: (April 16, 1930-April 20, 1997) A CIA employee, located in Berlin, Atwood had a most interesting career. He worked for any other intelligence agency, domestic or foreign, that would pay him, was involved in selling surplus Russian atomic artillery shells to the Pakistan government and was also most successful in the manufacturing of counterfeit German dress daggers. Too talkative, Atwood eventually had a sudden, and fatal, “seizure” while lunching with CIA associates.

William Corson: A Marine Corps Colonel and President Carter’s representative to the CIA. A friend of Crowley and Kimmel, Corson was an intelligent man whose main failing was a frantic desire to be seen as an important person. This led to his making fictional or highly exaggerated claims.

John Costello: A British historian who was popular with revisionist circles. Died of AIDS on a trans-Atlantic flight to the United States.

James Critchfield: Former U.S. Army Colonel who worked for the CIA and organizaed the Cehlen Org. at Pullach, Germany. This organization was filled to the Plimsoll line with former Gestapo and SD personnel, many of whom were wanted for various purported crimes. He hired Heinrich Müller in 1948 and went on to represent the CIA in the Persian Gulf.

Robert T. Crowley: Once the deputy director of Clandestine Operations and head of the group that interacted with corporate America. A former West Point football player who was one of the founders of the original CIA. Crowley was involved at a very high level with many of the machinations of the CIA.

Gregory Douglas: A retired newspaperman, onetime friend of Heinrich Müller and latterly, of Robert Crowley. Inherited stacks of files from the former (along with many interesting works of art acquired during the war and even more papers from Robert Crowley.) Lives comfortably in a nice house overlooking the Mediterranean.

Reinhard Gehlen: A retired German general who had once been in charge of the intelligence for the German high command on Russian military activities. Fired by Hitler for incompetence, he was therefore naturally hired by first, the U.S. Army and then, as his level of incompetence rose, with the CIA. His Nazi-stuffed organizaion eventually became the current German Bundes Nachrichten Dienst.

Thomas K. Kimmel, Jr: A grandson of Admiral Husband Kimmel, Naval commander at Pearl Harbor who was scapegoated after the Japanese attack. Kimmel was a senior FBI official who knew both Gregory Douglas and Robert Crowley and made a number of attempts to discourage Crowley from talking with Douglas. He was singularly unsuccessful. Kimmel subsequently retired and lives in retirement in Florida

Willi Krichbaum: A Senior Colonel (Oberführer) in the SS, head of the wartime Secret Field Police of the German Army and Heinrich Müller’s standing deputy in the Gestapo. After the war, Krichbaum went to work for the Critchfield organization and was their chief recruiter and hired many of his former SS friends. Krichbaum put Critchfield in touch with Müller in 1948.

Heinrich Müller: A former military pilot in the Bavarian Army in WWI, Müller  became a political police officer in Munich and was later made the head of the Secret State Police or Gestapo. After the war, Müller escaped to Switzerland where he worked for Swiss intelligence as a specialist on Communist espionage and was hired by James Critchfield, head of the Gehlen Organization, in 1948. Müller subsequently was moved to Washington where he worked for the CIA until he retired.

Joseph Trento: A writer on intelligence subjects, Trento and his wife “assisted” both Crowley and Corson in writing a book on the Russian KGB. Trento believed that he would inherit all of Crowley’s extensive files but after Crowley’s death, he discovered that the files had been gutted and the most important, and sensitive, ones given to Gregory Douglas. Trento was not happy about this. Neither were his employers.

Frank Wisner: A Founding Father of the CIA who promised much to the Hungarian and then failed them. First, a raging lunatic who was removed from Langley, screaming, in a strait jacket and later, blowing off the top of his head with a shotgun.

Robert Wolfe: A retired librarian from the National Archives who worked closely with the CIA on covering up embarrassing historical material in the files of the Archives. A strong supporter of holocaust writers.

Note: We understand that a large collection of documents, assembled by Robert T. Crowley, will be offered to the public in the near future. Here is a listing of some of the documents which will be included:

DOCUMENT CATALOG

Catalog Number               Description of Contents                                      __________________________________________________________________________________

1000 BH            Extensive file (1,205 pages) of reports on Operation PHOENIX. Final paper dated January, 1971, first document dated  October, 1967. Covers the setting up of Regional Interrogation Centers, staffing, torture techniques including electric shock, beatings, chemical injections. CIA agents involved and includes a listing of U.S. military units to include Military Police, CIC and Special Forces groups involved. After-action reports from various military units to include 9^th Infantry, showing the deliberate killing of all unarmed civilians located in areas suspected of harboring or supplying Viet Cong units. *

1002 BH            Medium file (223 pages)  concerning the fomenting of civil disobedience in Chile as the result of the Allende election in 1970. Included are pay vouchers for CIA bribery efforts with Chilean labor organization and student activist groups, U.S. military units involved in the final revolt, letter from  T. Karamessines, CIA Operations Director to Chile CIA Station Chief Paul Wimert, passing along a specific order from Nixon via Kissinger to kill Allende when the coup was successful. Communications to Pinochet with Nixon instructions to root out by force any remaining left wing leaders.

1003 BH                  Medium file (187 pages) of reports of CIA assets containing photographs of Soviet missile sites, airfields and other strategic sites taken from commercial aircraft. Detailed descriptions of targets attached to each picture or pictures.

1004 BH            Large file (1560 pages) of CIA reports on Canadian radio intelligence intercepts from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa (1958) and a list of suspected and identified Soviet agents or sympathizers in Canada, to include members of the Canadian Parliament and military.

1005 BH          Medium file (219 pages) of members of the German Bundeswehr in the employ of the CIA. The report covers the Innere Führung group plus members of the signals intelligence service. Another report, attached, covers CIA assets in German Foreign Office positions, in Germany and in diplomatic missions abroad.

1006:BH            Long file (1,287 pages) of events leading up to the killing of Josef Stalin in 1953 to include reports on contacts with L.P. Beria who planned to kill Stalin, believing himself to be the target for removal. Names of cut outs, CIA personnel in Finland and Denmark are noted as are original communications from Beria and agreements as to his standing down in the DDR and a list of MVD/KGB files on American informants from 1933 to present. A report on a blood-thinning agent to be made available to Beria to put into Stalin’s food plus twenty two reports from Soviet doctors on Stalin’s health, high blood pressure etc. A report on areas of cooperation between Beria’s people and CIA controllers in the event of a successful coup. *

1007 BH            Short list (125 pages) of CIA contacts with members of the American media to include press and television and book publishers. Names of contacts with bios are included as are a list of payments made and specific leaked material supplied. Also appended is a shorter list of foreign publications. Under date of August, 1989 with updates to 1992. Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, Bradlee of the same paper, Ted Koppel, Sam Donaldson and others are included.

1008 BH            A file of eighteen reports (total of 899 pages) documenting illegal activities on the part of members of the U.S. Congress. First report dated July 29, 1950 and final one September 15, 1992. Of especial note is a long file on Senator McCarthy dealing with homosexuality and alcoholism. Also an attached note concerning the Truman Administration’s use of McCarthy to remove targeted Communists. These reports contain copies of FBI surveillance reports, to include photographs and reference to tape recordings, dealing with sexual events with male and female prostitutes, drug use, bribery, and other matters.

1009 BH            A long multiple file (1,564 pages) dealing with the CIA part (Kermit Roosevelt) in overthrowing the populist Persian prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. Report from Dulles (John Foster) concerning a replacement, by force if necessary and to include a full copy of AJAX operation. Letters from AIOC on million dollar bribe paid directly to J.Angleton, head of SOG. Support of Shah requires exclusive contracts with specified western oil companies. Reports dated from May 1951 through August, 1953.

1010 BH            Medium file (419 pages) of telephone intercepts made by order of J.J. Angleton of the telephone conversations between RFK and one G.N. Bolshakov. Phone calls between 1962-1963 inclusive. Also copies of intercepted and inspected mail from RFK containing classified U.S. documents and sent to a cut-out identified as one used by Bolshakov, a Russian press (TASS) employee. Report on Bolshakov’s GRU connections.

1011 BH            Large file (988 pages) on 1961 Korean revolt of Kwangju revolt led by General Park Chung-hee and General Kin-Jong-pil. Reports on contacts maintained by CIA station in Japan to include payments made to both men, plans for the coup, lists of “undesirables” to be liquidated  Additional material on CIA connections with KCIA personnel and an agreement with them  to assassinate South Korean chief of state, Park, in 1979.

1012 BH            Small file (12 pages) of homosexual activities between FBI Director Hoover and his aide, Tolson. Surveillance pictures taken in San Francisco hotel and report by CIA agents involved. Report analyzed in 1962.

1013 BH             Long file (1,699 pages) on General Edward Lansdale. First report a study signed by DCI Dulles in  September of 1954 concerning a growing situation in former French Indo-China. There are reports by and about Lansdale starting with his attachment to the OPC in 1949-50 where he and Frank Wisner coordinated policy in neutralizing Communist influence in the Philippines.. Landsale was then sent to Saigon under diplomatic cover and many copies of his period reports are copied here. Very interesting background material including strong connections with the Catholic Church concerning Catholic Vietnamese and exchanges of intelligence information between the two entities.

1014 BH            Short file (78 pages) concerning  a Dr. Frank Olson. Olson was at the U.S. Army chemical warfare base at Ft. Detrick in Maryland and was involved with a Dr. Gottleib. Gottleib was working on a plan to introduce psychotic-inducing drugs into the water supply of the Soviet Embassy. Apparently he tested the drugs on CIA personnel first. Reports of psychotic behavior by Olson and more police and official reports on his defenstration by Gottleib’s associates. A cover-up was instituted and a number of in-house CIA memoranda attest to this. Also a discussion by Gottleib on various poisons and drugs he was experimenting with and another report of people who had died as a result of Gottleib’s various experiments and CIA efforts to neutralize any public knowledge of these. *

1015 BH            Medium file (457 pages) on CIA connections with the Columbian-based Medellín drug ring. Eight CIA internal reports, three DoS reports, one FBI report on CIA operative Milan Rodríguez and his connections with this drug ring. Receipts for CIA payments to Rodríguez of over $3 million in CIA funds,showing the routings of the money, cut-outs and payments. CIA reports on sabotaging  DEA investigations. A three-part study of the Nicaraguan Contras, also a CIA-organized and paid for organization.

1016 BH            A small file (159 pages) containing lists of known Nazi intelligence and scientific people recruited in Germany from 1946 onwards, initially by the U.S. Army and later by the CIA. A detailed list of the original names and positions of the persons involved plus their relocation information. Has three U.S. Army and one FBI report on the subject.

1017 BH            A small list (54 pages) of American business entities with “significant” connections to the CIA. Each business is listed along with relevant information on its owners/operators, previous and on going contacts with the CIA’s Robert Crowley, also a list of national advertising agencies with similar information. Much information about suppressed news stories and planted stories. *

(cont…)

Declassified Senate Investigation Files Reveal Clandestine Israeli PR Campaign in America

August 18, 2010

PRNewswire-USNewswire/

             WASHINGTON, — Declassified files from a Senate investigation into Israeli-funded covert public relations and lobbying activity in the United States were released by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on July 23rd, 2010.  The subpoenaed documents reveal Israel’s clandestine programs for “cultivation of editors,” the “stimulation and placement of suitable articles in the major consumer magazines” as well as U.S. reporting about sensitive subjects such as the Dimona nuclear weapons facility.

             Documents are now available for download from http://IRmep.org/ila/azc include:

            Dimona (excerpt): “The nuclear reactor story inspired comment from many sources; editorial writers, columnists, science writers and cartoonists.  Most of the press seemed finally to accept the thesis that the reactor was being built for peaceful purposes and not for bombs.” http://www.irmep.org/11-121960AZC.pdf

            Content placement and promotion (excerpt): “The Atlantic Monthly in its October issue carried the outstanding Martha Gellhorn piece on the Arab refugees, which made quite an impact around the country.  We arranged for the distribution of 10,000 reprints to public opinion molders in all categories… Interested friends are making arrangements with the Atlantic for another reprint of the Gellhorn article to be sent to all 53,000 persons whose names appear in Who’s Who in America…Our Committee is now planning articles for the women’s magazines for the trade and business publications.” http://www.irmep.org/09101961AZC.pdf

             Pressure campaigns (excerpt): “It can be said that the press of the nation…has by and large shown sympathy and understanding of Israel’s position.  There are, of course, exceptions, notably the Scripps-Howard chain where we still need to achieve a ‘break-through,’ the Pulliam chain (where some progress has been made) and some locally-owned papers.” http://www.irmep.org/11-121960AZC.pdf  

             Magazine Committee achievements (excerpt): “We cannot pinpoint all that has already been accomplished by this Committee except to say that it has been responsible for the writing and placement of articles on Israel in some of America’s leading magazines….” http://www.IRmep.org/10301962_AZC.pdf  

             According to Grant F. Smith, director of IRmep, “It is frightening how easily some in the American news media surrendered to a foreign public relations campaign that spent the 2010 equivalent of $36 million over two years. Time has proven most of the planted content to be misleading, if not dangerous.  These historical documents hold many important lessons for Americans who have long needed—but rarely received—straight reporting on key Middle East issues.”

            The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation’s record keeper.  It retains 1%-3% of the most important documents of business conducted by the United States Federal government.  The Israel Lobby Archive, http://IRmep.org/ila is a unit of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington.

            Washington, D.C., August 17, 2010: “There were many more documents dug out of official email files by Bradley Manning than the public is being shown. It strikes me as rather odd that all the critical military papers about our involvement in Afghanistan seem to cover only the period when George Bush was in the White House. This does not mean that there are no papers relating to incidents during the Obama administration but merely that these are not being released. This would indicate to me that there is some hanky-panky going on. Never mind all that because the hacking world has gotten a good deal of fascinating Department of State messaging and this has been circulated to a few interested people. We have been publishing some of the more interesting messaging here and will continue to do so. Ambassadorial reports are much more informative than low-level combat material and some of the machinations of our officials are fascinating to read. The Slaughterhouse Informer will be carrying a discussion of the hidden war between the Army and the CIA over the murderous use of drones against Pakistan and Afghanistan civilians. An interesting, if vicious, turf war indeed! In essence, the Army is angry that the CIA has taken over some of their bases and are using them to launch drones against civilian targets anywhere, and in any country, they choose. The Army gets the blame for this wholesale slaughter and is getting very angry.”

Harvard University fund sells all Israel holdings

No reason for the sale was mentioned in the report to the SEC.

August 10 2010,

by Hillel Koren 

Globes

In another blow to Israeli shares, the Harvard Management Company notified the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday that it had sold all its holdings in Israeli companies during the second quarter of 2010. No reason for the sale was mentioned. The Harvard Management Company manages Harvard University’s endowment.

Harvard Management Company stated in its 13-F Form that it sold 483,590 shares in Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) for $30.5 million; 52,360 shares in NICE Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: NICE; TASE: NICE) for $1.67 million; 102,940 shares in Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP) for $3.6 million; 32,400 shares in Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE:CEL; TASE:CEL) for $1.1 million, and 80,000 Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR) shares for $1.8 million.

Harvard Management Company’s 13-F Form shows some interesting investments. Its two largest holdings, each worth $295 million, are in iShares ETFs, one on Chinese equities, and the other on emerging markets. Harvard also owns $181 million in a Brazilian ETF.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on August 15, 2010

Foreigners beware in the Philippines
August 17, 2010

by Joel D Adriano

Asia Times

            MANILA – A spate of violent crimes against foreigners threatens to undermine the Philippine government’s drive to lure more foreign investors, tourists and retirees. Previously, only rebel-infested areas on the southern island of Mindanao were considered high-risk, but recent assaults on foreigners have been launched in the capital Manila and other places popular with international tourists.

            On July 17, US expatriate Frederick Boucher and his family were attacked by five armed men shortly after they arrived at the capital’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

            They were held at gunpoint and their vehicle was forcibly stolen after the suspects repeatedly bumped into the rear of their vehicle. Police investigators believe they were likely marked by “spotters” situated at the airport working on behalf of criminal gangs.

            Other high-profile carjacking cases in July included assaults against a popular local actor, a former Philippine ambassador and a Japanese business executive from Toshiba Philippines. Police statistics indicate an average of 130 auto thefts in Metro Manila each month, often targeting sports utility and other luxury vehicles.

            The Philippine National Police (PNP) have stepped up their anti-carjacking campaign, leading to the arrest of several suspects and the killing of two notorious alleged gang leaders. Nonetheless, the crime wave has prompted the US Overseas Advisory Security Council to warn its nationals about the risks of traveling through the international airport.

            Rising violence against foreigners represents the latest mark on the Philippines spotty image as a friendly destination for foreign investment and travel, adding to the burdens of outmoded infrastructure and endemic corruption. The police have responded by burnishing their crime statistics, giving the impression that crime is on the wane rather than rise. That’s been accomplished through a statistical loophole that allows crimes committed at the barangay level, the country’s smallest governmental units, not to be included on the national crime ledger.

            Many crimes, including kidnapping-for-ransom, are not reported due to widespread distrust of authorities who are often behind the crimes and possible reprisals. Still, Philippine officials bristle at the frequent depiction of the Philippines as a dangerous place for tourists and investors. Officials can’t believe that despite this year’s bloody protests and suppression in Thailand – including the shooting deaths of two foreign journalists – Bangkok remains a favorite destination for global travelers and is still widely viewed as a safer than Manila.

            In part, that’s because foreigners are being singled out by Filipino gangs and syndicates.

            For instance, on July 22, retired US Air Force Sergeant Albert Mitchell, his wife and their three housemaids were killed in a robbery in their home in Angeles City, outside of the national capital. The suspect, Mark Dizon, was arrested on July 27. He has since been accused in the murder and robbery of two other foreigners: 60-year-old South African national Geoffrey Allan Bennun and 51-year-old Briton James Bolton Porter and their respective live-in partners.

            Foreign kidnappings are also on the rise. On April 4, Swiss businessman Carl Reith was kidnapped from his beach home in Zamboanga on Mindanao island. He was rescued by the police two months later in a raid that killed one of the suspects. On April 11, Salvacion Gorenio, an American national, was kidnapped near her house in Cavite, a province just outside Metro Manila. After nearly a month in captivity she was rescued by the police in an operation that killed all three suspects. In July, Japanese national Amir Katayama Mamaito, a treasure hunter who operated a local pharmacy, was kidnapped in southern Sulu province. He is still being held at an unknown location.

            According to Pete Troillo, director of business intelligence at Pacific Strategies and Assessments Inc, a risk consulting firm, at least 33 foreigners were kidnapped in the Philippines last year, mostly Indian nationals. Indians are considered prime targets because many of them are engaged in small-time informal lending and hence often carry large amounts of cash.

            Chinese, Korean and American nationals, all of whom are believed capable of paying high ransoms, have also been frequently targeted, Troillo said. Including local victims, 139 people were kidnapped in the Philippines last year, up slightly from the 135 snatched in 2008.

Fudging the figures
           

Officials are grappling to explain the attacks. Many crimes in the Philippines are linked to the country’s high poverty rate. As much as one-third of the population live in poverty, according to some estimates. Economic desperation has recently been aggravated by the global economic recession and the severe flooding in Manila and surrounding areas last year.

            That’s compounded by a lack of effective law enforcement. Police are often suspected of being involved in many crimes in the Philippines, especially kidnappings for ransom. A number of suspects caught in past operations against kidnapping rings were either active or former policemen.

            Some sociologists attribute the crime to widely held Filipino perceptions that most foreigners, especially Caucasians, are rich. This notion is perpetuated by the media in movies and TV shows. They often view Filipinos with relatives in the US or abroad as comparatively better off.

            For instance, on July 19 four gunmen tailed and rammed the vehicle of a wealthy local family returning from a vacation in the US. When they stopped to inspect the damage, assailants held the family at gunpoint and shot businessman Jorge Bernas, a distant relative of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, before stealing their van.

            To be sure, some foreigners have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Briton Charles McKerchar, 69, was recently injured during a failed assassination attempt on Sulu Governor Sakur Tan at the Zamboanga City’s airport on August 5. McKerchar, who is married to a Filipino, was at the airport to retrieve an acquaintance. He is now in a serious but stable condition.

            Nor are all foreigners resident in the Philippines cowering in fear. James Musslewhite, an American expat from Houston who now lives in Mindanao and writes a blog about the Philippines, thinks that despite the recent negative news many foreigners living in the Philippines still believe its safer in Manila than in most US urban areas. “I feel safer walking in many streets in the Philippines than in the US,” he said.

            Police officials suggest that most of the violence against foreigners is motivated by a get-rich-quick mentality shared by many criminal gangs and syndicates. In self-defense, the PNP claims that nearly all of the high-profile crimes recently reported in the media have been solved – though the police frequently tally a crime as solved just by identifying a suspect.

            They often like to boast that they have a higher crime solution rate than their counterparts in the US and Japan. Last year the PNP claimed an 88% crime solution efficiency rate, compared to just 32% in the US and 31% in Japan. They’ve also reported a 57% drop in homicides and murders in the first half of this year, curiously at a time the media is awash with violent crime stories.

            Raul Bacalzo, director for police investigation and detection management, says the high crime solution rate may be attributed to some police chiefs ”under-reporting” the number of crimes in their region to make it appear that ”his area of responsibility is peaceful and crime incidents are manageable”. A new crime recording methodology implemented earlier this year is designed to correct the dysfunction in police procedures for processing crime and bring them on par with international standards.

            According to PNP director general Jesus Verzosa, the supposed drop in recent crime statistics was due mainly to a five-month gun ban aimed at reducing political violence ahead of the May 10 general elections. Some 3,000 people were arrested, including 200 government employees, during the gun ban period, which ran from January 10 to June 9.

            Because of the supposed dramatic decline in crime during the gun ban period, the PNP is now proposing a permanent gun ban. President Benigno Aquino, a gun enthusiast who target shoots as a hobby, has dismissed the idea out of hand, claiming that gun-related incidents represent a small percentage of the total crime statistics.

            Citing police statements that there were more unlicensed than licensed firearms across the county, Aquino believes that a gun ban would only affect those who are abiding by gun registration laws. Meanwhile, foreigners will weigh more cautiously whether to commit their capital or spend their holidays in a country where they are increasingly the target of heavily armed robbery, car-jacking and kidnapping gangs and syndicates.

            Joel D Adriano is an independent consultant and award-winning freelance journalist. He was a sub-editor for the business section of The Manila Times and writes for ASEAN BizTimes, Safe Democracy and People’s Tonight.

Humor: CIA Funnies- Why There’s The Easter Bunny !

CIA tapes of 9/11 plotter’s interrogation don’t show torture, official says

August 17, 2010 

by Peter Finn

Washington Post
 

The interrogation of Ramzi Binalshibh, a key figure in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was recorded several times while he was being questioned in Morocco by local intelligence officers, according to a U.S. official. The disclosure resolves a mystery over what are believed to be the only existing recordings from the CIA’s secret detention program.

The two videotapes and an audiotape do not show any use of what the CIA has called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” the official said. Human rights groups have described the CIA’s methods as torture.

“The tapes, which were made and found years ago, show a guy sitting at a desk answering questions,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of ongoing investigations.

Still, the disclosure adds a new wrinkle to the public understanding of the documentation of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program.

The destruction of 92 videotapes depicting the harsh interrogation and confinement of senior al-Qaeda figures at CIA secret prisons around the world is the subject of a criminal probe. Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the former head of the directorate of operations at the agency, issued an order to destroy the recordings in November 2005, as the CIA’s detention and interrogation program came under intense public and congressional scrutiny.

In January 2008, then-Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney John H. Durham to investigate the destruction of the tapes. That inquiry continues.

The CIA first acknowledged having tapes of the interrogation of a high-value detainee in 2007 but never identified the detainee.

During the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only suspect convicted in the United States in connection with the 9/11 attacks, the CIA made two declarations to U.S. District Court Judge Leonie M. Brinkema that it was not recording certain interrogations and did not have recordings of particular detainees.

But in September 2007, following Moussaoui’s conviction the previous year, the CIA discovered a videotape of Binalshibh being questioned by Moroccan officials. A subsequent search, requested by the Justice Department, then turned up another videotape and an audio recording of Binalshibh’s questioning, the Justice Department told Brinkema and Karen J. Williams, chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, in an Oct. 25, 2007, letter.

The Associated Press, which first revealed Tuesday that Binalshibh was the subject of the recordings, reported that the tapes were discovered under a desk at the CIA.

“The question becomes: If this is out there, what else is out there?” said Tom Durkin, Binalshibh’s former civilian attorney in the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay.

CIA spokesman George Little said the agency’s black sites and interrogation methods were “a thing of the past.”

“While we continue to cooperate with inquiries into past counterterrorism practices, the CIA’s focus now is exactly where it should be: protecting the American people now and into the future,” he said.

Binalshibh, a Yemeni who served as a key liaison between the 9/11 hijackers and al-Qaeda’s leadership, was captured in Pakistan on the first anniversary of the attacks, and held in the CIA’s secret detention program before the Bush administration announced his transfer to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in September 2006.

He was not among the three detainees who were waterboarded by the CIA, and it is not known what coercive techniques he was subjected to. A military court at Guantanamo Bay, where he is currently held, has heard that he is being treated with psychotropic drugs, and his mental competency to defend himself at trial has previously been at issue.

Binalshibh, 38, and four others, including Khalid Sheik Mohamed, the self-declared mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, were facing capital charges at Guantanamo Bay. Those charges were withdrawn in anticipation of a federal prosecution, but the Obama administration’s desire to transfer the case to civilian court has stalled in the face of public and congressional opposition.

Staff writer Ellen Nakashima and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report

            Comment: The precious CIA must have used the same person to narrate these hilarious faked tapesas the one  who narrates their ‘Bin Ladin”howlers. Bin Ladin has been dead since 2003, boys.  
Sri Lankan waters run deep with China
August 13, 2010

by Sudha Ramachandran

Asia TImes

            BANGALORE – The first phase of Sri Lanka’s Hambantota project, a showpiece of the country’s significant and growing cooperation with China, is almost complete. Filling the harbor basin with water for the port on the southern tip of the island begins on August 15 and the first ship is expected to dock at the port by November.

            Hambantota is several nautical miles north of a major shipping route that links the Suez Canal with the Malacca Strait, which about 36,000 ships cross annually. Once the entire project is completed, it is expected to transform Sri Lanka into an important transshipment hub.

            The project is more than just a port. On completion, the Hambantota Development Zone will include a liquefied natural gas refinery, aviation fuel storage facilities, three separate docks that will give the port transshipment capacity, dry docks for ship repair and construction, and bunkering and refueling facilities.

            The entire project is expected to cost about US$1.5 billion and most of the funding could come from China. Already the Chinese have provided 85% of the first phase’s total cost of $550 million as a soft loan and pledged $200 million toward the second phase. A consortium of Chinese companies led by the China Harbor Engineering Company and the Sino Hydro Corporation is also involved in the project’s construction.

            Besides the Hambantota project, China is involved in several others on the island. It is constructing a second international airport at Hambantota, a $248 million expressway connecting the capital Colombo with the airport at Katunayake, a $855 million coal power plant at Norochcholai, and a performing arts theater in Colombo.

            China’s Huichen Investment will provide $28 million and manage a special economic zone at Mirigama for Chinese investors. In addition, China has provided $1million as humanitarian aid for internally displaced persons and technical assistance for demining operations in northern and eastern provinces.

            China’s relationship with Sri Lanka goes back many decades. In the 1950s, the countries signed a rubber-rice agreement that assured Sri Lanka with a large market for its rubber, even as it was provided with low-priced rice.

            While the Sino-Sri Lankan bond is decades old, the relationship expanded remarkably after Mahinda Rajapaksa became president in 2005. Since 2006, Beijing has provided Sri Lanka with $3.06 billion in financial assistance for various projects. Its aid to Sri Lanka, which was a few million dollars in 2005, jumped to $1.2 billion in 2009, over half the total aid the island has been offered by various countries. China is Sri Lanka’s largest aid donor today.

            An important reason for the close ties between the Rajapaksa government and China is Beijing’s robust endorsement and support of Colombo’s conduct in the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). China was “instrumental to some extent in the Sri Lankan government’s success in defeating the LTTE”, said China expert Srikanth Kondapalli, an associate professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “Colombo was trying to purchase arms from abroad for years and only China supplied it with weaponry on a sustained basis.”

            Many in Sri Lanka favor the burgeoning relationship with China for reducing dependence on neighboring India, whose presence had been enormous. “Chinese help to Sri Lanka, unlike that from India, is free from conditions,” said Soosipillai Keethaponcalan, senior lecturer at Colombo University’s Department of Political Science.

            Unlike India, which did not fully support Rajapaksa’s military operations against the LTTE and which refrained from supplying it with weapons that would worsen the plight of civilians, China had no such qualms. It fulfilled Colombo’s wish-list for military hardware, asking no questions, and has stood by Colombo in various international forums when it has been accused of gross human-rights abuses and war crimes.

In 2008, Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohana told the New York Times that Sri Lanka’s new donors “conduct themselves differently. Asians don’t go around teaching each other how to behave,” he said. “There are ways we deal with each other – perhaps a quiet chat, but not wagging the finger.” China’s way of dealing with Sri Lanka by not raising uncomfortable questions works well for the Rajapaksa government.

            Economic and strategic reasons are behind China’s interest in Sri Lanka. The island provides it with a market for its goods. More important is the strategic interest. It is located close to India’s southern coast. A presence in Sri Lanka enhances China’s access to the Indian Ocean. As mentioned earlier, Sri Lanka is just a few nautical miles from an important sea lane, one that is taken by tankers carrying 80% of China’s oil.

            “China’s influence in Sri Lanka is as major as that of India’s,” said John Gooneratne, a retired Sri Lankan diplomat and author of A Decade of Confrontation: Sri Lanka and India in the 1980s. India’s investment in projects in Sri Lanka is largely in the war-torn Tamil areas, not visible to the majority Sinhalese community. “China has the ‘knack’ of making grants/loans for projects that visibly project the Chinese image – the Bandaranaike Conference Hall, the Courts complex, and now a Cultural Complex [under construction] in Colombo,” he told Asia Times Online.

            “There is reason for India to be concerned over the growing Chinese influence in Sri Lanka, particularly in the long term,” says Kondapalli.

            And the worry is showing.

            Indian security analysts have pointed out that while at present there is no talk of a Chinese naval base on the island, the possibility of one at Hambantota at a later stage cannot be ruled out.

            At the height of the war against the LTTE, India’s then national security adviser, M K Narayanan, went public with India’s concern over Colombo sourcing arms from China. More recently, India reached agreement with Colombo to set up a consulate in Hambantota, the district where the China-funded project is being built. India has a high commission in Colombo and a consulate in Kandy. Consulates in Jaffna and Hambantota are in the pipeline. This huge presence on a small island seems rather excessive. Sri Lankans believe the proposed Hambantota consulate is aimed at “keeping an eye” on Chinese activity there.

            The Sino-Sri Lankan relationship is not without its problems. Bilateral trade has doubled over the past five years and China has emerged the second-largest exporter to Sri Lanka and the 13th-largest export destination for Sri Lankan exports. However, “the trade balance is overwhelmingly in China’s favor”, Kondapalli told Asia Times Online.

            Sri Lanka’s exports consist of raw materials, rubber, tea, spices, gems and some minerals. “The Lankans want a diversification of the trade basket. Besides, Lankan traders are also having problems with the Chinese banking system,” he said.

            An issue that could trouble Sino-Sri Lankan relations in the coming years is that of China bringing in its own workers. This has triggered tensions in several countries such as Zambia, where Beijing is involved in big projects. Media reports have also drawn attention to claims that China uses convicts on overseas projects, a charge that Beijing has denied. Such allegations, especially if proved true, have the potential of triggering anti-China public sentiment and souring the current Sino-Sri Lankan bonhomie.

            Sri Lanka has taken care not to allow its dalliance with the Chinese to offend India. It has repeatedly clarified that it will keep India’s security concerns in mind.

            With the end of the war in Sri Lanka last year, India’s role in the island has diminished. All the same, the government recognizes it cannot afford to antagonize India, and geographical proximity to India is a factor that Colombo cannot ignore. Decision-makers in Colombo are unlikely to have forgotten past experiences.

            In the 1980s, when the civil war was unfolding, the Sri Lankan government sourced weapons from countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Pakistan and China – all with whom India was not on cordial terms at that time – ignoring India’s security concerns. That sparked a series of moves by India that culminated in its provision of limited arms and training to the Tamil militants. Then in June 1987, when India violated Sri Lankan airspace and dropped relief supplies to Jaffna’s beleaguered Tamil population, the J R Jayawardene government appealed to its Western friends and Asian allies for assistance. But little concrete help was forthcoming.

            China, for instance, expressed strong disapproval of the “bullying action of big powers”, but stopped short of naming India. It gave Colombo some arms, but that was it. China was aware that “it was too far away from Sri Lanka to sustain any military support operation on the island”, Kondapalli said. Beijing advised the Sri Lankan government to pursue a political solution to the ethnic conflict, reminding Colombo that “distant waters don’t put out fires on your doorstep”, Gooneratne, then in the Sri Lankan diplomatic service, recalled. It was proximate countries that were in a position to do so.

            This is a fact that Colombo will bear in mind as it does a careful balancing act between the two Asian giants.

Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore                         

August 17, 2010 by TomDispatch.com

The Guns of August: Lowering the Flag on the American Century

by Chalmers Johnson

In 1962, the historian Barbara Tuchman published a book about the start of World War I and called it The Guns of August. It went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.  She was, of course, looking back at events that had occurred almost 50 years earlier and had at her disposal documents and information not available to participants. They were acting, as Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara put it, in the fog of war.

So where are we this August of 2010, with guns blazing in one war in Afghanistan even as we try to extricate ourselves from another in Iraq?  Where are we, as we impose sanctions on Iran and North Korea (and threaten worse), while sending our latest wonder weapons, pilotless drones armed with bombs and missiles, into Pakistan’s tribal borderlands, Yemen, and who knows where else, tasked with endless “targeted killings” which, in blunter times, used to be called assassinations?  Where exactly are we, as we continue to garrison much of the globe even as our country finds itself incapable of paying for basic services?

I wish I had a crystal ball to peer into and see what historians will make of our own guns of August in 2060. The fog of war, after all, is just a stand-in for what might be called “the fog of the future,” the inability of humans to peer with any accuracy far into the world to come.  Let me nonetheless try to offer a few glimpses of what that foggy landscape some years ahead might reveal, and even hazard a few predictions about what possibilities await still-imperial America.

Let me begin by asking: What harm would befall the United States if we actually decided, against all odds, to close those hundreds and hundreds of bases, large and small, that we garrison around the world?  What if we actually dismantled our empire, and came home? Would Genghis Khan-like hordes descend on us?  Not likely.  Neither a land nor a sea invasion of the U.S. is even conceivable.

Would 9/11-type attacks accelerate?  It seems far likelier to me that, as our overseas profile shrank, the possibility of such attacks would shrink with it.

Would various countries we’ve invaded, sometimes occupied, and tried to set on the path of righteousness and democracy decline into “failed states?” Probably some would, and preventing or controlling this should be the function of the United Nations or of neighboring states. (It is well to remember that the murderous Cambodian regime of Pol Pot was finally brought to an end not by us, but by neighboring Vietnam.)

Sagging Empire

In other words, the main fears you might hear in Washington — if anyone even bothered to wonder what would happen, should we begin to dismantle our empire — would prove but chimeras.  They would, in fact, be remarkably similar to Washington’s dire predictions in the 1970s about states all over Asia, then Africa, and beyond falling, like so many dominoes, to communist domination if we did not win the war in Vietnam.

            What, then, would the world be like if the U.S. lost control globally — Washington’s greatest fear and deepest reflection of its own overblown sense of self-worth — as is in fact happening now despite our best efforts?  What would that world be like if the U.S. just gave it all up? What would happen to us if we were no longer the “sole superpower” or the world’s self-appointed policeman?

In fact, we would still be a large and powerful nation-state with a host of internal and external problems. An immigration and drug crisis on our southern border, soaring health-care costs, a weakening education system, an aging population, an aging infrastructure, an unending recession — none of these are likely to go away soon, nor are any of them likely to be tackled in a serious or successful way as long as we continue to spend our wealth on armies, weapons, wars, global garrisons, and bribes for petty dictators.

Even without our interference, the Middle East would continue to export oil, and if China has been buying up an ever larger share of what remains underground in those lands, perhaps that should spur us into conserving more and moving more rapidly into the field of alternative energies.

Rising Power

Meanwhile, whether we dismantle our empire or not, China will become (if it isn’t already) the world’s next superpower. It, too, faces a host of internal problems, including many of the same ones we have. However, it has a booming economy, a favorable balance of payments vis-à-vis much of the rest of the world (particularly the U.S., which is currently running an annual trade deficit with China of $227 billion), and a government and population determined to develop the country into a powerful, economically dominant nation-state.

Fifty years ago, when I began my academic career as a scholar of China and Japan, I was fascinated by the modern history of both countries. My first book dealt with the way the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s spurred Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party he headed on a trajectory to power, thanks to its nationalist resistance to that foreign invader. Incidentally, it is not difficult to find many examples of this process in which a domestic political group gains power because it champions resistance to foreign troops.  In the immediate post-WWII period, it occurred in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia; with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, all over Eastern Europe; and today, it is surely occurring in Afghanistan and probably in Iraq as well.

Once the Cultural Revolution began in China in 1966, I temporarily lost interest in studying the country. I thought I knew where that disastrous internal upheaval was taking China and so turned back to Japan, which by then was well launched on its amazing recovery from World War II, thanks to state-guided, but not state-owned, economic growth.

This pattern of economic development, sometimes called the “developmental state,” differed fundamentally from both Soviet-type control of the economy and the laissez-faire approach of the U.S.  Despite Japan’s success, by the 1990s its increasingly sclerotic bureaucracy had led the country into a prolonged period of deflation and stagnation.  Meanwhile, post-U.S.S.R. Russia, briefly in thrall to U.S. economic advice, fell captive to rapacious oligarchs who dismantled the command economy only to enrich themselves. 

In China, Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping and his successors were able to watch developments in Japan and Russia, learning from them both.  They have clearly adopted effective aspects of both systems for their economy and society. With a modicum of luck, economic and otherwise, and a continuation of its present well-informed, rational leadership, China should continue to prosper without either threatening its neighbors or the United States.

To imagine that China might want to start a war with the U.S. — even over an issue as deeply emotional as the ultimate political status of Taiwan — would mean projecting a very different path for that country than the one it is currently embarked on.

Lowering the Flag on the American Century

Thirty-five years from now, America’s official century of being top dog (1945-2045) will have come to an end; its time may, in fact, be running out right now. We are likely to begin to look ever more like a giant version of England at the end of its imperial run, as we come face-to-face with, if not necessarily to terms with, our aging infrastructure, declining international clout, and sagging economy. It may, for all we know, still be Hollywood’s century decades from now, and so we may still make waves on the cultural scene, just as Britain did in the 1960s with the Beatles and Twiggy. Tourists will undoubtedly still visit some of our natural wonders and perhaps a few of our less scruffy cities, partly because the dollar-exchange rate is likely to be in their favor.

If, however, we were to dismantle our empire of military bases and redirect our economy toward productive, instead of destructive, industries; if we maintained our volunteer armed forces primarily to defend our own shores (and perhaps to be used at the behest of the United Nations); if we began to invest in our infrastructure, education, health care, and savings, then we might have a chance to reinvent ourselves as a productive, normal nation. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening. Peering into that foggy future, I simply can’t imagine the U.S. dismantling its empire voluntarily, which doesn’t mean that, like all sets of imperial garrisons, our bases won’t go someday.

Instead, I foresee the U.S. drifting along, much as the Obama administration seems to be drifting along in the war in Afghanistan. The common talk among economists today is that high unemployment may linger for another decade.  Add in low investment and depressed spending (except perhaps by the government) and I fear T.S. Eliot had it right when he wrote: “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.” 

I have always been a political analyst rather than an activist. That is one reason why I briefly became a consultant to the CIA’s top analytical branch, and why I now favor disbanding the Agency. Not only has the CIA lost its raison d’être by allowing its intelligence gathering to become politically tainted, but its clandestine operations have created a climate of impunity in which the U.S. can assassinate, torture, and imprison people at will worldwide.

Just as I lost interest in China when that country’s leadership headed so blindly down the wrong path during the Cultural Revolution, so I’m afraid I’m losing interest in continuing to analyze and dissect the prospects for the U.S. over the next few years. I applaud the efforts of young journalists to tell it like it is, and of scholars to assemble the data that will one day enable historians to describe where and when we went astray.  I especially admire insights from the inside, such as those of ex-military men like Andrew Bacevich and Chuck Spinney. And I am filled with awe by men and women who are willing to risk their careers, incomes, freedom, and even lives to protest — such as the priests and nuns of SOA Watch, who regularly picket the School of the Americas and call attention to the presence of American military bases and misbehavior in South America.

I’m impressed as well with Pfc. Bradley Manning, if he is indeed the person responsible for potentially making public 92,000 secret documents about the war in Afghanistan. Daniel Ellsberg has long been calling for someone to do what he himself did when he released the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. He must be surprised that his call has now been answered — and in such an unlikely way. 

My own role these past 20 years has been that of Cassandra, whom the gods gave the gift of foreseeing the future, but also cursed because no one believed her. I wish I could be more optimistic about what’s in store for the U.S.  Instead, there isn’t a day that our own guns of August don’t continue to haunt me.

Chalmers Johnson is the author of Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006), among other works.  His newest book, Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope (Metropolitan Books), has just been published.  To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest TomCast audio interview in which Johnson discusses America’s empire of bases and his new book, click here or, to download it to your iPod, here.

The Death Toll Does Not Lie — Afghanistan Is Obama’s War

August 16, 2010

by Robert Naiman

Huffington Post

            575. That’s how many U.S. soldiers have lost their lives in the Afghanistan war since Barack Obama became President at noon on January 20, 2009, according to the icasualties.org website, which tracks U.S. soldiers’ deaths using reports received from the Department of Defense — and which is widely cited in the media as a source of information on U.S. deaths.

According to the same website, 575 is also the number of U.S. soldiers who lost their lives in the Afghanistan war during the Presidency of George W. Bush.

Therefore, total U.S. deaths in Afghanistan have doubled in Afghanistan under President Obama, and when the next U.S. soldier is reported dead, the majority of U.S. deaths in Afghanistan will have occurred under President Obama.

This grim landmark should be reported in the media, and White House reporters should ask Robert Gibbs to comment on it. It is quite relevant to Gibbs’ implicit attempt to marginalize critics of the war in Afghanistan by claiming that they wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than the abolition of the Pentagon. The majority of Americans – including the overwhelming majority of Democrats, and at least 60% of House Democrats – are deeply skeptical of the Administration’s Afghanistan policy not because they are knee-jerk pacifists – obviously they are not – but because the human and financial cost of the war is rising, we have nothing to show for the increased cost, and the Administration has not articulated a clear plan to reach the endgame; indeed, Administration officials, led by General Petraeus, have just launched a public relations campaign to undermine the substantial drawdown in troops next summer that Democratic leaders in Congress, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have said that they expect.

This grim landmark is not reported directly by the icasualties.org website — you have to have to go to the right places on the website to retrieve the data and then calculate it from the data given. The data retrieval and arithmetic is straightforward, but I will carefully explain it here so that any reader – and particular any reporter and news editor — can easily reproduce it.

The top-level organization of the icasualties.org website is divided into two parts, according to the designations previously given to the “two wars” by the Department of Defense: “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and “Operation Enduring Freedom.” The latter designation includes not just U.S. deaths in Afghanistan, but also non-Iraq U.S. deaths in the conflicts formerly known collectively as the “Global War on Terror”; for example, it includes deaths in the Philippines and Djibouti, far away from Afghanistan.

But you can find in the database U.S. deaths in Afghanistan since 2001 by year and month by first going to this link, and then, underneath the table that initially appears under “Fatalities by Year and Month,” choosing in the pop-up menus, “US” for nationality, “All Fatalities” for Fatality Type, and “Afghanistan Only” for Theatre.

You should then see a table that looks like this (view as web page) (download excel spread sheet).

As shown beneath the table, when you sum the yearly totals you get:

Total: 1150
2001-2008: 564
2009-2010: 586

But this wouldn’t give the right figures for Bush and Obama, because it would allocate all of January 2009 to Obama, when he was only President from noon on January 20.

Subtracting the 14 deaths of January 2009 from the total for 2009-10 gives:

2001-2008: 564
2009-2010 (not counting 1/09): 572

You can find the daily data for January 2009 by going to this link:

Scrolling down to January 2009, of the 14 deaths in Afghanistan (there was a January 30 death in Djibouti), 11 took place before January 20 and 3 took place after January 20.

Adding 11 to 564 and 3 to 572 gives:

Totals:
Bush: 575
Obama: 575

News media generally like landmarks as a way to visit and explain the U.S. death toll from the wars.

This landmark is surely a worthy candidate for consideration.

I expect Robert Gibbs to be asked about it.

Family of woman killed in botched drug raid to receive $4.9 million

August 16, 2010

CNN

Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) — The city of Atlanta will pay $4.9 million to the family of Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year-old woman killed in a botched November 2006 drug raid, Mayor Kasim Reed’s office announced Monday.

Johnston was shot to death by narcotics officers conducting a “no-knock” warrant. Investigators later determined the raid was based on falsified paperwork stating that illegal drugs were present in the home.

The incident prompted a major overhaul of the Atlanta police drug unit, and three former police officers were sentenced to prison terms for a cover-up that ensued.

Johnston’s family will receive $2.9 million sometime in fiscal 2011, the city said, with the remaining $2 million to be paid in fiscal 2012, on or before August 15, 2011.

The payment represents the settlement of a lawsuit filed against the city by Sarah Dozier, Johnston’s niece, Reed’s office said in a statement. Initially filed in state court, the suit was moved to federal court, where a judge ordered the parties to mediation.

As the search warrant was being executed November 21, 2006, at Johnston’s home, she fired at officers with an old pistol, apparently believing her home was being broken into. Six officers returned fire. Johnston’s one shot went through her front door and over the officers’ heads. They responded with 39 shots, hitting the elderly woman five times.

“The resolution of this case is an important step in the healing process for the city and its residents,” Reed said in the statement. “As a result of the incident, several police officers were indicted in federal and state court on charges and were later convicted and sentenced for their actions. In addition, the narcotics unit of the Atlanta Police Department was completely reorganized, which included changes in policy and personnel.”

Last year, former officer Jason Smith was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison, while former officers Greg Junnier and Arthur Tesler were sentenced to six and five years, respectively.

All three men pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to violate civil rights resulting in death. Smith and Junnier also pleaded guilty to state charges of voluntary manslaughter and making false statements, and Smith admitted to planting bags of marijuana in Johnston’s home after her death.

U.S. District Judge Julie Carnes ordered the three to split Johnston’s funeral costs of $8,180, and to serve three years of supervised release after they complete their prison terms.

“I pray daily for Ms. Johnston,” Smith said at the sentencing hearing, according to CNN affiliate WXIA-TV. “I also pray other officers in Atlanta will have the moral fortitude I didn’t have.”

Tesler was convicted on one state count of making false statements after filling out an affidavit saying that an informant had purchased crack cocaine at Johnston’s home, in a crime-plagued neighborhood near downtown Atlanta.

The informant, however, denied ever having been to Johnston’s home, leading to probes by federal and state authorities as well as the breakup and reorganization of the narcotics unit.

Tesler’s state conviction was reversed on appeal. According to their plea agreements, Junnier and Smith will serve their state sentences concurrently with the federal sentence.

Shortly after the probe began, Junnier began cooperating with authorities, providing “valuable assistance in the investigation and prosecution of Smith and Tesler,” according to a statement issued last year by federal prosecutors. Smith also cooperated to a lesser extent, and both men’s sentences were reduced in exchange for their cooperation.

Prosecutors have said that officers regularly presented false information to obtain warrants and that they cut corners to make more time for lucrative side jobs providing additional security to businesses, often while on duty, and receiving cash payments.

The investigation into the botched raid also led to guilty pleas from the police sergeant in charge of the narcotics unit and another officer who admitted to extortion, authorities said.

The Conversations with the Crow

          When