Secret Weapons Program Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant? U.S.-Japan security treaty fatally delayed nuclear workers' fight against meltdown by Yoichi Shimatsu | |
Global Research, April 12, 2011 | |
Confused and often conflicting reports out of Fukushima 1 nuclear plant cannot be solely the result of tsunami-caused breakdowns, bungling or miscommunication. Inexplicable delays and half-baked explanations from Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) seem to be driven by some unspoken factor. The smoke and mirrors at Fukushima 1 seem to obscure a steady purpose, an iron will and a grim task unknown to outsiders. The most logical explanation: The nuclear industry and government agencies are scrambling to prevent the discovery of atomic-bomb research facilities hidden inside Japan's civilian nuclear power plants. A secret nuclear weapons program is a ghost in the machine, detectable only when the system of information control momentarily lapses or breaks down. A close look must be taken at the gap between the official account and unexpected events. Conflicting Reports TEPCO, Japan’s nuclear power operator, initially reported three reactors were operating at the time of the March 11 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Then a hydrogen explosion ripped Unit 3, run on plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (or MOX). Unit 6 immediately disappeared from the list of operational reactors, as highly lethal particles of plutonium billowed out of Unit 3. Plutonium is the stuff of smaller, more easily delivered warheads. A fire ignited inside the damaged housing of the Unit 4 reactor, reportedly due to overheating of spent uranium fuel rods in a dry cooling pool. But the size of the fire indicates that this reactor was running hot for some purpose other than electricity generation. Its omission from the list of electricity-generating operations raises the question of whether Unit 4 was being used to enrich uranium, the first step of the process leading to extraction of weapons-grade fissionable material. The bloom of irradiated seawater across the Pacific comprises another piece of the puzzle, because its underground source is untraceable (or, perhaps, unmentionable). The flooded labyrinth of pipes, where the bodies of two missing nuclear workers—never before disclosed to the press— were found, could well contain the answer to the mystery: a lab that none dare name. Political Warfare In reaction to Prime Minister Naoto Kan's demand for prompt reporting of problems, the pro-nuclear lobby has closed ranks, fencing off and freezing out the prime minister's office from vital information. A grand alliance of nuclear proponents now includes TEPCO, plant designer General Electric, METI, the former ruling Liberal Democratic Party and, by all signs, the White House. Cabinet ministers in charge of communication and national emergencies recently lambasted METI head Banri Kaeda for acting as both nuclear promoter and regulator in charge of the now-muzzled Nuclear and Industrial Safety Commission. TEPCO struck back quickly, blaming the prime minister's helicopter fly-over for delaying venting of volatile gases and thereby causing a blast at Reactor 2. For "health reasons,” TEPCO 's president retreated to a hospital ward, cutting Kan's line of communication with the company and undermining his site visit to Fukushima 1. Kan is furthered hampered by his feud with Democratic Party rival Ichiro Ozawa, the only potential ally with the clout to challenge the formidable pro-nuclear coalition The head of the Liberal Democrats, which sponsored nuclear power under its nearly 54-year tenure, has just held confidential talks with U.S. Ambassador John Roos, while President Barack Obama was making statements in support of new nuclear plants across the U.S. Cut Off From Communications The substance of undisclosed talks between Tokyo and Washington can be surmised from disruptions to my recent phone calls to a Japanese journalist colleague. While inside the radioactive hot zone, his roaming number was disconnected, along with the mobiles of nuclear workers at Fukushima 1 who are denied phone access to the outside world. The service suspension is not due to design flaws. When helping to prepare the Tohoku crisis response plan in 1996, my effort was directed at ensuring that mobile base stations have back-up power with fast recharge. A subsequent phone call when my colleague returned to Tokyo went dead when I mentioned "GE.” That incident occurred on the day that GE’s CEO Jeff Immelt landed in Tokyo with a pledge to rebuild the Fukushima 1 nuclear plant. Such apparent eavesdropping is only possible if national phone carrier NTT is cooperating with the signals-intercepts program of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The Manchurian Deal The chain of events behind this vast fabrication goes back many decades. During the Japanese militarist occupation of northeast China in the 1930s, the puppet state of Manchukuo was carved out as a fully modern economic powerhouse to support overpopulated Japan and its military machine. A high-ranking economic planner named Nobusuke Kishi worked closely with then commander of the occupying Kanto division, known to the Chinese as the Kwantung Army, General Hideki Tojo. Close ties between the military and colonial economists led to stunning technological achievements, including the prototype of a bullet train (or Shinkansen) and inception of Japan's atomic bomb project in northern Korea. When Tojo became Japan's wartime prime minister, Kishi served as his minister of commerce and economy, planning for total war on a global scale. After Japan's defeat in 1945, both Tojo and Kishi were found guilty as Class-A war criminals, but Kishi evaded the gallows for reasons unknown—probably his usefulness to a war-ravaged nation. The scrawny economist’s conception of a centrally managed economy provided the blueprint for MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry), the predecessor of METI, which created the economic miracle that transformed postwar Japan into an economic superpower. After clawing his way into the good graces of Cold Warrior John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's secretary of state, Kishi was elected prime minister in 1957. His protégé Yasuhiro Nakasone, the former naval officer and future prime minister, spearheaded Japan's campaign to become a nuclear power under the cover of the Atomic Energy Basic Law. American Complicity Kishi secretly negotiated a deal with the White House to permit the U.S. military to store atomic bombs in Okinawa and Atsugi naval air station outside Tokyo. (Marine corporal Lee Harvey Oswald served as a guard inside Atsugi's underground warhead armory.) In exchange, the U.S. gave the nod for Japan to pursue a "civilian" nuclear program. Secret diplomacy was required due to the overwhelming sentiment of the Japanese public against nuclear power in the wake of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. Two years ago, a text of the secret agreement was unearthed by Katsuya Okada, foreign minister in the cabinet of the first Democratic Party prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama (who served for nine months from 2009-10). Many key details were missing from this document, which had been locked inside the Foreign Ministry archives. Retired veteran diplomat Kazuhiko Togo disclosed that the more sensitive matters were contained in brief side letters, some of which were kept in a mansion frequented by Kishi's half-brother, the late Prime Minister Eisaku Sato (who served from 1964-72). Those most important diplomatic notes, Togo added, were removed and subsequently disappeared. These revelations were considered a major issue in Japan, yet were largely ignored by the Western media. With the Fukushima nuclear plant going up in smoke, the world is now paying the price of that journalistic neglect. On his 1959 visit to Britain, Kishi was flown by military helicopter to the Bradwell nuclear plant in Essex. The following year, the first draft of the U.S.-Japan security was signed, despite massive peace protests in Tokyo. Within a couple of years, the British firm GEC built Japan's first nuclear reactor at Tokaimura, Ibaragi Prefecture. At the same time, just after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the newly unveiled Shinkansen train gliding past Mount Fuji provided the perfect rationale for nuclear-sourced electricity. Kishi uttered the famous statement that "nuclear weapons are not expressly prohibited" under the postwar Constitution's Article 9 prohibiting war-making powers. His words were repeated two years ago by his grandson, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The ongoing North Korea "crisis" served as a pretext for this third-generation progeny of the political elite to float the idea of a nuclear-armed Japan. Many Japanese journalists and intelligence experts assume the secret program has sufficiently advanced for rapid assembly of a warhead arsenal and that underground tests at sub-critical levels have been conducted with small plutonium pellets. Sabotaging Alternative Energy The cynical attitude of the nuclear lobby extends far into the future, strangling at birth the Japanese archipelago's only viable source of alternative energy—offshore wind power. Despite decades of research, Japan has only 5 percent of the wind energy production of China, an economy (for the moment, anyway) of comparable size. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a nuclear-power partner of Westinghouse, manufactures wind turbines but only for the export market. The Siberian high-pressure zone ensures a strong and steady wind flow over northern Japan, but the region's utility companies have not taken advantage of this natural energy resource. The reason is that TEPCO, based in Tokyo and controlling the largest energy market, acts much as a shogun over the nine regional power companies and the national grid. Its deep pockets influence high bureaucrats, publishers and politicians like Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, while nuclear ambitions keep the defense contractors and generals on its side. Yet TEPCO is not quite the top dog. Its senior partner in this mega-enterprise is Kishi's brainchild, METI. The national test site for offshore wind is unfortunately not located in windswept Hokkaido or Niigata, but farther to the southeast, in Chiba Prefecture. Findings from these tests to decide the fate of wind energy won't be released until 2015. The sponsor of that slow-moving trial project is TEPCO. Death of Deterrence Meanwhile in 2009, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a muted warning on Japan's heightened drive for a nuclear bomb— and promptly did nothing. The White House has to turn a blind eye to the radiation streaming through American skies or risk exposure of a blatant double standard on nuclear proliferation by an ally. Besides, Washington's quiet approval for a Japanese bomb doesn't quite sit well with the memory of either Pearl Harbor or Hiroshima. In and of itself, a nuclear deterrence capability would be neither objectionable nor illegal— in the unlikely event that the majority of Japanese voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to Article 9. Legalized possession would require safety inspections, strict controls and transparency of the sort that could have hastened the Fukushima emergency response. Covert weapons development, in contrast, is rife with problems. In the event of an emergency, like the one happening at this moment, secrecy must be enforced at all cost— even if it means countless more hibakusha, or nuclear victims. Instead of enabling a regional deterrence system and a return to great-power status, the Manchurian deal planted the time bombs now spewing radiation around the world. The nihilism at the heart of this nuclear threat to humanity lies not inside Fukushima 1, but within the national security mindset. The specter of self-destruction can be ended only with the abrogation of the U.S.-Japan security treaty, the root cause of the secrecy that fatally delayed the nuclear workers' fight against meltdown. Yoichi Shimatsu who is Editor-at-large with the 4th Media is a Hong Kong–based environmental writer. He is the former editor of the Japan Times Weekly. This article is first appeared in the New American Media. | |
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Boston artist Steve Mills - realistic painting
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Secret Weapons Program Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant?
Monday, April 18, 2011
Kentucky Teacher Placed In Psych Ward For Declaring 9/11 Was An ‘Inside Job’
Kentucky Teacher Placed In Psych Ward For Declaring 9/11 Was An ‘Inside Job’
By Greg Szymanski on February 10, 2007
Michael Cook has been persecuted and placed in a psychiatric ward simply for saying 9/11 was an inside job and possessing firearms registered legally in Kentucky.
His story is just another in a long line cases where law abiding citizens have been systematically deprived of their due process rights and trampled on by a fascist mindset controlling America.
In a nutshell, Cook’s case exemplifies how freedom of speech and the right to possess firearms are being taken away from Americans. His story further shows how a right to a fair is being replaced with psychiatric incarceration based on flimsy and often-times concocted doctor evaluations.
Cook appeared Monday on Greg Szymanski’s radio show, The Investigative Journal, on the Republic Broadcasting Network at www.republicbroadcasting.org, telling how simply speaking his mind and exercising his rights under the 1st and 2nd Amendments of the Constitution are now leading to his second stint in a psychiatric ward.
“Right after this interview at 2pm eastern time, I have to surrender to the U.S. Marshall and then taken to a psychiatric facility. Who knows how long it will take, but the last time I was illegally held for 45 days,” said Cook who lost his job as a special educator for the Covington Ky., Independent School District after talking 9/11 truth to a school district aide.
Cook’s legal troubles began after he shared information to an aide about 9/11 being an inside job as well as telling the aide he legally possessed firearms, including a 45 caliber pistol locked safely away in glove box of his car.
“I have a concealed weapons permit and everything is registered in the state of Kentucky, but that doesn’t seem to matter to authorities,” added Cook, who has been relegated to working as a carpenter until his incarceration in a psych ward Monday.
Here is rundown of Cook’s story in bullet form:
—After Cook talks to school district aide, aide tells head of district who calls Covington Kentucky police.
— Police arrive at Covington School, confiscate his pistol and take him immediately to the Psychiatric ward at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital where he spent 45 days after being evaluated for only minutes, the doctor saying he was paranoid schizophrenic. Cook said the only thing he said to the doctor was that he thought 9/11 to be an inside job.
—Cook was then fired from his teaching position, having his license to teach revoked from in 2006 by the state of Kentucky . Cook is still fighting the revocation but the state has refused to hear any evidence from expert witnesses who promised to testify on his behalf. Cook feels that if was declared mentally ill for saying 9/11 was an inside job, then he should be allowed to proved expert testimony showing his statements were based on the opinions and conclusions of rational men and not based on delusions.
—After taking a carpentry job while fighting the state for his teaching certificate, Cook was then sued in civil court for not paying the $8,500 hospital bill which he is still fighting.
— Cook tried to fight this case but the judge entered a summary judgment without properly allowing Cook to present his case. When he appealed, it was denied.
—In the early part of 2006, President Bush was scheduled to make a speech at Northern Kentucky University. Cook emailed the University President in the days prior to Bush’s speech, saying a 9/11 truth movie should be played to those in attendance before the speech in order to stimulate a truthful discussion. He further stated in an email that Bush should be found guilty of treason by his peers and shot in front of a firing squad.
—Secret Service agents then visited Cook’s home prior to the Bush speech and confiscate his legally registered weapons. Cook said he never intended to be violent, but only expressed his concern about Bush’s failure to address the truth about 9/11 as well as the illegal war in Iraq.
–On 5/19/06, Cook participates in the Bush protest at Northern Kentucky University although two police cars were assigned to follow and watch him throughout the entire protest.
—Although his firearms were returned after the first altercation with the Secret Service, on 6/20/06 agents returned with a search warrant and confiscated the weapons saying since he was admitted to a psych ward he wasn’t allowed to possess any weapons.
—On 8/16/06, Cook was served with a summons and arraigned in federal court on 8/17/06. He received a court appointed attorney for the federal charges listed strangely under The United States of America v. Michael Cook; United States District Court, Eastern District of Kentucky; Criminal Case No. 06-66-WOB. He says he is not superstitious, but thinks it is worth noting the case number 666.
—On 02/05/07, he appears on Greg Szymanki’s radio show to tell his story at 1pm eastern time. At 2pm eastern time he surrenders to the U.S. Marshall and is taken to another psychiatric ward without being allowed to stand trial.
http://www.arcticbeacon.com./6-Feb-2007.html
Greg Szymanski
Greg also has his own daily show on the Republic Broadcasting Network, from 11:00am to 1:00pm central time, shortwave frequency 12.180. Listen on the internet at: www.rbnlive.com Greg Szymanski is an independent investigative journalist and his articles can been seen at www.LewisNews.com. He also writes for his own site www.arcticbeacon.com
Listen to my Radio Broadcast live Monday night at 8pm Pacific time on LewisNews, returning Jan. 1 2006 Radio http://webs.lewisnews.com/radio/index.htm.
By Greg Szymanski on February 10, 2007
Michael Cook has been persecuted and placed in a psychiatric ward simply for saying 9/11 was an inside job and possessing firearms registered legally in Kentucky.
His story is just another in a long line cases where law abiding citizens have been systematically deprived of their due process rights and trampled on by a fascist mindset controlling America.
In a nutshell, Cook’s case exemplifies how freedom of speech and the right to possess firearms are being taken away from Americans. His story further shows how a right to a fair is being replaced with psychiatric incarceration based on flimsy and often-times concocted doctor evaluations.
Cook appeared Monday on Greg Szymanski’s radio show, The Investigative Journal, on the Republic Broadcasting Network at www.republicbroadcasting.org, telling how simply speaking his mind and exercising his rights under the 1st and 2nd Amendments of the Constitution are now leading to his second stint in a psychiatric ward.
“Right after this interview at 2pm eastern time, I have to surrender to the U.S. Marshall and then taken to a psychiatric facility. Who knows how long it will take, but the last time I was illegally held for 45 days,” said Cook who lost his job as a special educator for the Covington Ky., Independent School District after talking 9/11 truth to a school district aide.
Cook’s legal troubles began after he shared information to an aide about 9/11 being an inside job as well as telling the aide he legally possessed firearms, including a 45 caliber pistol locked safely away in glove box of his car.
“I have a concealed weapons permit and everything is registered in the state of Kentucky, but that doesn’t seem to matter to authorities,” added Cook, who has been relegated to working as a carpenter until his incarceration in a psych ward Monday.
Here is rundown of Cook’s story in bullet form:
—After Cook talks to school district aide, aide tells head of district who calls Covington Kentucky police.
— Police arrive at Covington School, confiscate his pistol and take him immediately to the Psychiatric ward at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital where he spent 45 days after being evaluated for only minutes, the doctor saying he was paranoid schizophrenic. Cook said the only thing he said to the doctor was that he thought 9/11 to be an inside job.
—Cook was then fired from his teaching position, having his license to teach revoked from in 2006 by the state of Kentucky . Cook is still fighting the revocation but the state has refused to hear any evidence from expert witnesses who promised to testify on his behalf. Cook feels that if was declared mentally ill for saying 9/11 was an inside job, then he should be allowed to proved expert testimony showing his statements were based on the opinions and conclusions of rational men and not based on delusions.
—After taking a carpentry job while fighting the state for his teaching certificate, Cook was then sued in civil court for not paying the $8,500 hospital bill which he is still fighting.
— Cook tried to fight this case but the judge entered a summary judgment without properly allowing Cook to present his case. When he appealed, it was denied.
—In the early part of 2006, President Bush was scheduled to make a speech at Northern Kentucky University. Cook emailed the University President in the days prior to Bush’s speech, saying a 9/11 truth movie should be played to those in attendance before the speech in order to stimulate a truthful discussion. He further stated in an email that Bush should be found guilty of treason by his peers and shot in front of a firing squad.
—Secret Service agents then visited Cook’s home prior to the Bush speech and confiscate his legally registered weapons. Cook said he never intended to be violent, but only expressed his concern about Bush’s failure to address the truth about 9/11 as well as the illegal war in Iraq.
–On 5/19/06, Cook participates in the Bush protest at Northern Kentucky University although two police cars were assigned to follow and watch him throughout the entire protest.
—Although his firearms were returned after the first altercation with the Secret Service, on 6/20/06 agents returned with a search warrant and confiscated the weapons saying since he was admitted to a psych ward he wasn’t allowed to possess any weapons.
—On 8/16/06, Cook was served with a summons and arraigned in federal court on 8/17/06. He received a court appointed attorney for the federal charges listed strangely under The United States of America v. Michael Cook; United States District Court, Eastern District of Kentucky; Criminal Case No. 06-66-WOB. He says he is not superstitious, but thinks it is worth noting the case number 666.
—On 02/05/07, he appears on Greg Szymanki’s radio show to tell his story at 1pm eastern time. At 2pm eastern time he surrenders to the U.S. Marshall and is taken to another psychiatric ward without being allowed to stand trial.
http://www.arcticbeacon.com./6-Feb-2007.html
Greg Szymanski
Greg also has his own daily show on the Republic Broadcasting Network, from 11:00am to 1:00pm central time, shortwave frequency 12.180. Listen on the internet at: www.rbnlive.com Greg Szymanski is an independent investigative journalist and his articles can been seen at www.LewisNews.com. He also writes for his own site www.arcticbeacon.com
Listen to my Radio Broadcast live Monday night at 8pm Pacific time on LewisNews, returning Jan. 1 2006 Radio http://webs.lewisnews.com/radio/index.htm.
CENTRAL ASIA-human right's inferno
U.S. State Department has released its 2010 Country Reports on Human Practices. As expected, Central Asian states did not make a significant progress in human rights practices. Vice versa, majority of our region’s countries turned their backs to what we call respect to human rights.
We will start with Uzbekistan because the situation with human rights and political freedoms in this coutnry was “granted” a huge paragraph in the Introduction to the Report. Along with Afghanistan and Pakistan, this Central Asian country, motherland for more than 28 million people, represented a South and Central Asia chapter.
UZBEKISTAN
Human rights problems in Uzbekistan included citizens’ inability to change their government peacefully; tightly controlled electoral processes with limited opportunities for choice; instances of torture and mistreatment of detainees by security forces; incommunicado and prolonged detention; occasional life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; denial of due process and fair trial; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association; governmental control of civil society activity; restrictions on religious freedom including harassment and imprisonment of religious minority group members; restrictions on freedom of movement for citizens; violence against women; and government-compelled forced labor in cotton harvesting.
According to the report, human rights activists and journalists who criticized the government were subject to physical attack, harassment, arbitrary arrest, and politically motivated prosecution and detention. (Read neweurasia’s coverage of one of such cases — Abdumalik Boboev, stringer at Voice of America, has been fined several hudnred minimum monthly wages, adding up to $11,000)
(TAKEN FROM THE INTRODUCTION; we split it in few parts with some minor edits): Uzbekistan continued to incarcerate individuals on political grounds. While one political prisoner, human rights activist Farhad Mukhtarov, was released during the year, 13 to 25 political prisoners remained in custody, and family members reported that many prisoners were tortured. Human rights activists, their family members, and members of certain religious groups reported harassment and arrest by police and other members of the security forces.
Freedom of expression was severely limited and harassment of journalists increased during the year. Police and security services subjected print and broadcast journalists to arrest, intimidation, and violence, as well as to bureaucratic restrictions on their activity.
The criminal and administrative codes imposed significant fines for libel and defamation and the government used charges of libel, slander, and defamation to punish journalists, human rights activists, and others who criticized the president or the government. Freedom of association also was restricted.
The government tightly controlled NGO activity and regulated Islamic and minority religious groups with strict legal restrictions on the types of groups that could be formed and registered. Forced adult and child labor was used during the cotton harvest.
KAZAKHSTAN
Human rights situation in this country was reported by the following problems: severe limits on citizens’ rights to change their government; military hazing that led to deaths; detainee and prisoner torture and other abuse; unhealthy prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of an independent judiciary; restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and association; pervasive corruption, especially in law enforcement and the judicial system; prohibitive political party registration requirements; restrictions on the activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); discrimination and violence against women; trafficking in persons; and societal discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender persons, and those with HIV/AIDS.
KYRGYZSTAN
The list of human rights problems in Kyrgyzstan included: arbitrary killings, torture, and abuse by law enforcement officials; impunity; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of judicial independence; pressure on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and opposition leaders, including government harassment; pressure on independent media; government detention of assembly organizers; authorities’ failure to protect refugees adequately; pervasive corruption; discrimination against women, persons with disabilities, ethnic and religious minorities, and other persons based on sexual orientation or gender identity; child abuse; trafficking in persons; and child labor.
TAJIKISTAN
This country’s report included following human rights issues: restricted right of citizens to change their government; torture and abuse of detainees and other persons by security forces; impunity for security forces; denial of right to fair trial; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; prohibition of international monitor access to prisons; restrictions on freedoms of speech, press, association, and religion; corruption, which hampered democratic and social reform; violence and discrimination against women; arbitrary arrest; and trafficking in persons.
TURKMENISTAN
Country report for this authoritarian state says that although there were modest improvements, the government continued to commit serious abuses, and its human rights record remained poor. Authorities continued to severely restrict political and civil liberties. Human rights problems included: citizens’ inability to change their government; torture and mistreatment of detainees; incommunicado and prolonged detention; arbitrary arrest and detention; house arrest; denial of due process and a fair trial; arbitrary interference with privacy, home, and correspondence; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association; restrictions on religious freedom, including continued harassment of some religious minority group members; restrictions on freedom of movement for some citizens; violence against women; and restrictions on free association of workers. Documentation of abuses was very limited.
The government initiated a broad effort to revise a variety of national laws to bring them into conformity with relevant international conventions. Other measured improvements in human rights included: the registration of two evangelical Christian groups; the pardoning of at least 22 prisoners of interest to the international community, some of whom were associated with the 2002 attack on President Niyazov’s motorcade; removal of external travel restrictions for at least four citizens; elimination of restrictions on internal movement for citizens; reinstatement of a 10th year of mandatory schooling; and establishment of a government commission tasked with bringing Turkmenistan’s practices in line with commitments in international human rights covenants.
Truth and Ivory Coast by Craig Murray
Truth and Ivory Coast
by Craig Murray on Apr 13th 2011
An article in the Guardian yesterday by Thalia Griffiths quite rightly pointed out the huge problems facing Alassane Ouattara in uniting and governing Ivory Coast. But the article is remarkably uncritical of Ouattara, and follows the common Western fallacy of promoting a “good guy” in a civil war when the leaders on all sides are “bad guys”.
This is the fundamental flaw in liberal interventionism. It inevitably leads to the imposition of governments like the ultra-corrupt coastal elite of Sierra Leone, like Bosnian and Albanian gangster mafias or like Alassane Ouattara. I wrote what I believe is the only genuine, full and eye-witness analysis of the truth of Blair’s Sierra Leone intervention in The Catholic Orangemen of Togo. The essential advice is simple. Follow the money.
That approach leads you quickly to note that Thalia Griffiths is the editor of African Energy. Ivory Coast is newly oil rich with extremely prospective deep fields under further exploration. That is why French army tanks finally crushed Gbagbo. That is why Sarkozy put such huge effort into establishing Ouattara.
Now we must not make the reverse error of glorifying the Gbagbo side. Gbagbo clung to office and postponed elections too long. He played the ethnic card. He indulged in nepotism. His forces killed the innocent. He was one of those noble and longstanding opposition figures who becomes something of a nightmare in power. His side cheated, beat and intimidated just as much as Ouattara’s side in elections which it is farcical to claim were free, fair and properly administered, or were any kind of realistic guide to the will of the people of a deeply riven state. I hope that Gbagbo is decently treated, but do not regret his loss of power.
That said, the attempt by Thalia Griffiths to puff Ouattara is simply a symptom of the saccharine treatment he will get in future by all those connected to western oil interests, including western governments. There were massacres on both sides, but the most startling were carried out by Ouattara’s forces, by ethnic militias which Ouattara deliberately mobilised with French money, including fighters brought in from neighbouring Liberia.
This by Thalia is an absolute disgrace:
Recent reports of atrocities in the west have blamed Ouattara supporters, but while conflicts over land pit northerners against southerners, it is cruel but convenient to blame Ouattara for the latest flare-up of conflicts that have existed for a generation. It is land conflict coupled with a breakdown in state security – not urban Abidjan politics – that are behind reports of killings in the west. Clashes like these are vile, but nothing new.
That is simply untrue. The massacre of 800 people at Duekoue a fortnight ago is thankfully extremely rare, and was without doubt committed by Ouattara mobilised militias. To try to lessen this is crass.
Consider this about Ouattara. He was Prime Minister to a truly dreadful African despot, Houphouet-Boigny, who was dictator of Ivory Coast for 33 years. Houphouet-Boigny moved the capital to his home village and spent US$300 million on building the world’s largest church there. He looted US$9 billion from the people of Ivory Coast. Ouattara was his ally, his finance minister then prime minister, and has never disavowed him. All that Thalia notes about H-B is that he had a policy of ethinic inclusion. That again is disgraceful journalism.
But also Houphouet-Boigny and Ouattara’s Ivory Coast was the base for both French military and CIA operations throughout the continent and for promoting the very worst kind of western interests – which is why Africans view with huge suspicion Ouattara’s instalment by Western forces.
Ivory Coast was allied to apartheid South Africa and was the sanctions busting capital of Africa. Vast amounts of goods, including but not limited to oil, were consigned to Ivory Coast on their papers and trans-shipped to the apartheid regime to bust sanctions. Ivory Coast also provided all the logistic back-up to Jonas Savimbi and UNITA and it was in Abidjan that the CIA and apartheid regime worked together to promote the terrible Angolan civil war.
It was also in Abidjan that the CIA organised the coup that overthrew Kwame Nkrumah and planned the death of Patrice Lumumba. (Again, we should not fall into the goodies and baddies trap. The CIA and Ivory Coast regime were definitely bad. But Nkrumah too had become a cruel dictator – again, read The Catholic Orangemen of Togo.)
Ouattara became head of the african department and deputy managing director of the IMF in the 1980s when that organisation was forcing disastrous structural adjustment programmes all over the continent. African nations were forced to liberalise, reduce tariffs and open up their economies when no such constraints were placed on the developing nations with which they were trading. To give just one example of how this worked, which I personally tried but failed to counter: Nigeria was forced by the IMF to reduce tariffs on imported sugar. The EU then flooded Nigeria with millions of tons of sugar, at one third of the cost of its production, with the remaining two thirds paid to European farmers as export subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy. Nigeria’s sugar plantations – which were actually very efficient – collapsed under the unfair subsidised competition from which Nigeria was not allowed to protect them. That was Ouattara. France was very happy with him.
So not only does Ouattara need to heal the deep divisions in his own population, he has to prove to the rest of Africa he is not just a western tool. That will not be easy. I pointed out in an earlier posting that there is dislike between Ouattara and Zuma; I hope that this gives you some idea why.
by Craig Murray on Apr 13th 2011
An article in the Guardian yesterday by Thalia Griffiths quite rightly pointed out the huge problems facing Alassane Ouattara in uniting and governing Ivory Coast. But the article is remarkably uncritical of Ouattara, and follows the common Western fallacy of promoting a “good guy” in a civil war when the leaders on all sides are “bad guys”.
This is the fundamental flaw in liberal interventionism. It inevitably leads to the imposition of governments like the ultra-corrupt coastal elite of Sierra Leone, like Bosnian and Albanian gangster mafias or like Alassane Ouattara. I wrote what I believe is the only genuine, full and eye-witness analysis of the truth of Blair’s Sierra Leone intervention in The Catholic Orangemen of Togo. The essential advice is simple. Follow the money.
That approach leads you quickly to note that Thalia Griffiths is the editor of African Energy. Ivory Coast is newly oil rich with extremely prospective deep fields under further exploration. That is why French army tanks finally crushed Gbagbo. That is why Sarkozy put such huge effort into establishing Ouattara.
Now we must not make the reverse error of glorifying the Gbagbo side. Gbagbo clung to office and postponed elections too long. He played the ethnic card. He indulged in nepotism. His forces killed the innocent. He was one of those noble and longstanding opposition figures who becomes something of a nightmare in power. His side cheated, beat and intimidated just as much as Ouattara’s side in elections which it is farcical to claim were free, fair and properly administered, or were any kind of realistic guide to the will of the people of a deeply riven state. I hope that Gbagbo is decently treated, but do not regret his loss of power.
That said, the attempt by Thalia Griffiths to puff Ouattara is simply a symptom of the saccharine treatment he will get in future by all those connected to western oil interests, including western governments. There were massacres on both sides, but the most startling were carried out by Ouattara’s forces, by ethnic militias which Ouattara deliberately mobilised with French money, including fighters brought in from neighbouring Liberia.
This by Thalia is an absolute disgrace:
Recent reports of atrocities in the west have blamed Ouattara supporters, but while conflicts over land pit northerners against southerners, it is cruel but convenient to blame Ouattara for the latest flare-up of conflicts that have existed for a generation. It is land conflict coupled with a breakdown in state security – not urban Abidjan politics – that are behind reports of killings in the west. Clashes like these are vile, but nothing new.
That is simply untrue. The massacre of 800 people at Duekoue a fortnight ago is thankfully extremely rare, and was without doubt committed by Ouattara mobilised militias. To try to lessen this is crass.
Consider this about Ouattara. He was Prime Minister to a truly dreadful African despot, Houphouet-Boigny, who was dictator of Ivory Coast for 33 years. Houphouet-Boigny moved the capital to his home village and spent US$300 million on building the world’s largest church there. He looted US$9 billion from the people of Ivory Coast. Ouattara was his ally, his finance minister then prime minister, and has never disavowed him. All that Thalia notes about H-B is that he had a policy of ethinic inclusion. That again is disgraceful journalism.
But also Houphouet-Boigny and Ouattara’s Ivory Coast was the base for both French military and CIA operations throughout the continent and for promoting the very worst kind of western interests – which is why Africans view with huge suspicion Ouattara’s instalment by Western forces.
Ivory Coast was allied to apartheid South Africa and was the sanctions busting capital of Africa. Vast amounts of goods, including but not limited to oil, were consigned to Ivory Coast on their papers and trans-shipped to the apartheid regime to bust sanctions. Ivory Coast also provided all the logistic back-up to Jonas Savimbi and UNITA and it was in Abidjan that the CIA and apartheid regime worked together to promote the terrible Angolan civil war.
It was also in Abidjan that the CIA organised the coup that overthrew Kwame Nkrumah and planned the death of Patrice Lumumba. (Again, we should not fall into the goodies and baddies trap. The CIA and Ivory Coast regime were definitely bad. But Nkrumah too had become a cruel dictator – again, read The Catholic Orangemen of Togo.)
Ouattara became head of the african department and deputy managing director of the IMF in the 1980s when that organisation was forcing disastrous structural adjustment programmes all over the continent. African nations were forced to liberalise, reduce tariffs and open up their economies when no such constraints were placed on the developing nations with which they were trading. To give just one example of how this worked, which I personally tried but failed to counter: Nigeria was forced by the IMF to reduce tariffs on imported sugar. The EU then flooded Nigeria with millions of tons of sugar, at one third of the cost of its production, with the remaining two thirds paid to European farmers as export subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy. Nigeria’s sugar plantations – which were actually very efficient – collapsed under the unfair subsidised competition from which Nigeria was not allowed to protect them. That was Ouattara. France was very happy with him.
So not only does Ouattara need to heal the deep divisions in his own population, he has to prove to the rest of Africa he is not just a western tool. That will not be easy. I pointed out in an earlier posting that there is dislike between Ouattara and Zuma; I hope that this gives you some idea why.
Japan nuclear operator aims for cold shutdown in 6-9 months
Japan nuclear operator aims for cold shutdown in 6-9 months
By wmw_admin on April 17, 2011
Tiaga Uranak – Reuters April 17, 2011
Japanese nuclear power plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) hopes it will be able to achieve cold shutdown of its crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant within six to nine months, the company said on Sunday.
The firm said the first step would be cooling the reactors and spent fuel to a stable level within three months, then bringing the reactors to cold shutdown in six to nine months. That would make the plant safe and stable and end the immediate crisis, now rated on a par with the world’s worst nuclear accident, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
TEPCO, founded 60 years ago, added it later plans to cover the reactor buildings, damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11.
The latest data shows much more radiation leaked from the Daiichi plant in the early days of the crisis than first thought, prompting officials to rate it on a par with Chernobyl, although experts were quick to point out Japan’s crisis was vastly different from Chernobyl in terms of radiation contamination.
TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata said he was considering resigning over the accident, but that he couldn’t say when.
“This is the biggest crisis since the founding of our company,” Katsumata told a news conference at which the timetable was unveiled.
“Getting the nuclear plant under control, and the financial problems associated with that… How we can overcome these problems is a difficult matter.”
The toll from Japan’s triple catastrophe is rising. More than 13,000 people have been confirmed dead, and on Wednesday the government cut its outlook for the economy, in deflation for almost 15 years, for the first time in six months.
TEPCO and the government are under pressure to clarify when those who have had to evacuate the area around the damaged plant will be able to go home. Prime Minister Naoto Kan faced heavy criticism over comments, which he later denied making, suggesting the evacuees might not be able to return for 10 or 20 years.
“We would like to present objective facts to help the government make judgment and outlook on when those who have evacuated can come back home,” TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata told a news conference at which the timeframe was unveiled.
Katsumata also said the company was taking steps to cope with the possibility of another big tsunami. The area has been rocked by large aftershocks since the magnitude 9.0 quake struck and triggered the devastating tsunami.
But he said he had no idea how much it would ultimately cost to stabilize the plant.
(Reporting by Taiga Uranaka; Writing by Elaine Lies and Linda Sieg
By wmw_admin on April 17, 2011
Tiaga Uranak – Reuters April 17, 2011
Japanese nuclear power plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) hopes it will be able to achieve cold shutdown of its crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant within six to nine months, the company said on Sunday.
The firm said the first step would be cooling the reactors and spent fuel to a stable level within three months, then bringing the reactors to cold shutdown in six to nine months. That would make the plant safe and stable and end the immediate crisis, now rated on a par with the world’s worst nuclear accident, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
TEPCO, founded 60 years ago, added it later plans to cover the reactor buildings, damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11.
The latest data shows much more radiation leaked from the Daiichi plant in the early days of the crisis than first thought, prompting officials to rate it on a par with Chernobyl, although experts were quick to point out Japan’s crisis was vastly different from Chernobyl in terms of radiation contamination.
TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata said he was considering resigning over the accident, but that he couldn’t say when.
“This is the biggest crisis since the founding of our company,” Katsumata told a news conference at which the timetable was unveiled.
“Getting the nuclear plant under control, and the financial problems associated with that… How we can overcome these problems is a difficult matter.”
The toll from Japan’s triple catastrophe is rising. More than 13,000 people have been confirmed dead, and on Wednesday the government cut its outlook for the economy, in deflation for almost 15 years, for the first time in six months.
TEPCO and the government are under pressure to clarify when those who have had to evacuate the area around the damaged plant will be able to go home. Prime Minister Naoto Kan faced heavy criticism over comments, which he later denied making, suggesting the evacuees might not be able to return for 10 or 20 years.
“We would like to present objective facts to help the government make judgment and outlook on when those who have evacuated can come back home,” TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata told a news conference at which the timeframe was unveiled.
Katsumata also said the company was taking steps to cope with the possibility of another big tsunami. The area has been rocked by large aftershocks since the magnitude 9.0 quake struck and triggered the devastating tsunami.
But he said he had no idea how much it would ultimately cost to stabilize the plant.
(Reporting by Taiga Uranaka; Writing by Elaine Lies and Linda Sieg
World food crisis looms as prices soar to record high
World food crisis looms as prices soar to record high
Philip Haddon – City Wire February 4, 2011
World food prices surged to an all time high last month on the back of extreme weather conditions and unrest in the Middle East.
The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Food Price index rose for the seventh month in a row. It now stands at 231, well above the last record high of 224.1 in June 2008 and the highest since records began in 1990.
And there was a stark warning from the FAO that these high prices will remain high for some time.
Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist at the organisation, said: ‘The new figures clearly show that the upward pressure on world food prices is not abating. These high prices are likely to persist in the months to come.’
Meanwhile, in an interview with Reuters, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said: ‘We are going to be facing a broader trend of increasing commodity prices, including food commodity prices.’
There are a number of factors across the globe which are exacerbating the situation.
Capital Economics’ Julian Jessop fears the uprising in Egypt could have severe implications for food prices after the unrest helped push oil above the $100 mark.
Jessop said: ‘Extreme weather conditions last year damaged crops in many parts of the world, notably harvests of wheat and sugar. The resulting increases in food prices have contributed to social unrest in many countries, including in Egypt. Governments in the rest of the Middle East and elsewhere, fearful of contagion, are responding by restricting exports of agricultural commodities and/or increasing imports to add to precautionary stockpiles.’
A massive snowstorm in the United States and floods in Australia are among the forces of nature which could push prices up further.
Philip Haddon – City Wire February 4, 2011
World food prices surged to an all time high last month on the back of extreme weather conditions and unrest in the Middle East.
The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Food Price index rose for the seventh month in a row. It now stands at 231, well above the last record high of 224.1 in June 2008 and the highest since records began in 1990.
And there was a stark warning from the FAO that these high prices will remain high for some time.
Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist at the organisation, said: ‘The new figures clearly show that the upward pressure on world food prices is not abating. These high prices are likely to persist in the months to come.’
Meanwhile, in an interview with Reuters, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said: ‘We are going to be facing a broader trend of increasing commodity prices, including food commodity prices.’
There are a number of factors across the globe which are exacerbating the situation.
Capital Economics’ Julian Jessop fears the uprising in Egypt could have severe implications for food prices after the unrest helped push oil above the $100 mark.
Jessop said: ‘Extreme weather conditions last year damaged crops in many parts of the world, notably harvests of wheat and sugar. The resulting increases in food prices have contributed to social unrest in many countries, including in Egypt. Governments in the rest of the Middle East and elsewhere, fearful of contagion, are responding by restricting exports of agricultural commodities and/or increasing imports to add to precautionary stockpiles.’
A massive snowstorm in the United States and floods in Australia are among the forces of nature which could push prices up further.
‘The Arab awakening began not in Tunisia this year, but in Lebanon in 2005′
‘The Arab awakening began not in Tunisia this year, but in Lebanon in 2005′
By Robert Fisk on April 15, 2011
Robert Fisk – April 15, 2011
First, to reports from the revolutionary front lines in Syria, in the same imperfect, but brave, English in which they were written less than 24 hours ago…
“Yesterday morning I went to the square to demonstrate, I arranged it with guys on Facebook, I don’t know them, but we share the same ambition of freedom, that night I was awake until 6am watching the news, it was horrible what’s happening in Syria, the security forces slaughter people as if aniamals !!!…
“I wore my clothes and went to (the) sq. there was about 150 security service in civilian cloths in street calling for Assad’s life [ie praising Assad] and one taxi car the driver was driving against the cars to stop them moving in street, I am not sure if he was revolutionizing or just empty the street for security service!, it was crazy, I was angry that they are calling for the dictator’s life and want keep him running Syria like he doing.
They were looking around at every man in street if he doesn’t call for president’s life they beat him and arrest him, of course I didn’t call for his life and I took my phone and started taking video to show the world who’s calling for this dictator, his gang! 2 guys were running infront of the demonstration – they are revoluter but they had to run with this gang until freedom seekers arrive from ommayad mosque, those 2 guys told me not to take video and hide my phone.
“I hid it in my pocket but suddenly about 40 men from secutiry came to me, they started shoulting ‘he is taking video, he is taking video!!’ 5 guys hold me (like when they arrest someone) and started beating me…another 7 attacked me, they took my phone, my ID and my money and other 7 guys attack me, they said why are you taking video bastard??
“‘We will kill you all enemies of assad, Syria belongs to assad not to you bastard people!!’ Immediately I said: ‘I am with you guys!! We all follow president assad even to death!’ they said then why are you taking video?’
“I said ‘because I am happy there is demonstration calling for the greatest leader assad…’”
“There was one man (looks like officer) caught me and slapped me and he was the last one in this fake demonstration which calls for assad life…”
The second report:
“Assad is lying I assure you! There is more than 6000 political prisoner in Syria so what does let 260 free mean?!!…they said the emergency law to be lifted BUT they will create new law against terrorism, which will be worse than emergency law we are sure!
“They said they will fight the corruption, do you think that Assad will arrest his cousin Rami Makhlouf, his brother Maher Assad, his uncle zo al himma shaleesh, will Assad arrest all his family, take their money and give it back to us??…the gang in Lattakia are Alawiyeen gang belong to Assad family we all know them in Syria they are called shapeeha, the people in Lattakia were demonstrating against the government and afterwards the secret service, police and army brought these shapeeha to scare people and kill them.
“In Syria we are not demonstrating for food or money, we want to change the whole system and hang all Assad family…”
This is raw stuff, the voice of popular – and young – fury that will not be quenched by torture rooms and the cosh. Both Syrian men escaped arrest – though one has now had to flee his country – but their accounts tell a grindingly familiar story from Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya… The fake pro-government demonstration, the promiscuous use of secret police violence, the popular knowledge of corruption and the production of plain-clothes regime thugs – “baltagi” in Cairo, where Mubarak used them, which literally means “thugs” – and the sectarianisation of suppression (the “Alawiyeen” in Lattakia are Alawi (Shia) gangs from the sect to which the Assad family belongs.
And now the regime in Damascus is claiming that Lebanon is one of the outside powers sewing discord in the “Um al-Arabia Wahida”, the mother of the Arab nation, specifically the Lebanese March 14 Alliance of the outgoing Lebanese Sunni prime minister Saad Hariri, whose principal opponents are the Lebanese Shia Muslim Hezbollah party and their allies.
See how easy it is to create a “sectarian” war in Syria and then infect your neighbour with the virus?
These are not idle words. Revolutions don’t start with dramatic incidents – the self-immolation of an unemployed Tunisian, the destruction of a Coptic church – however dramatic these tragedies may be.
In reality, the “Arab awakening” began not in Tunisia this year, but in Lebanon in 2005 when, appalled by the assassination of ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri (Saad’s father), hundreds of thousands of Lebanese of all faiths gathered in central Beirut to demand the withdrawal of Syria’s 20,000 soldiers in the country.
Bachar made a pitiful speech in Damascus, abusing the demonstrators, suggesting that live television cameras were using “zooms” to exaggerate the number of the crowds.
But the UN passed a resolution – a no-soldier zone, rather than a no-fly zone, I suppose – which forced the Syrian military to leave.
This was the first “ousting” of a dictator, albeit from someone else’s country, by the popular Arab “masses” which had hitherto been an institution in the hands of the dictators.
Yet I recall at the time that none of us – including myself, who had lived in Lebanon for decades – realised how deeply the Syrian claws had dug into the red soil of Lebanon over the previous 29 years. Syria’s Lebanese stooges remained in place. Their “mukhabarat” security police simply re-emerged in transmogrified form.
Their political murders continued at whirlwind speed. I spent days chasing from the scene of one car bomb or hit-job to another. This is what terrifies the demonstrators of all the nations struggling to throw off their brutal – and often American-supported – masters. Field Marshal Tantawi, the head of the Egyptian army, for example, is now running Egypt. Yet he is not only a close friend of America but a childhood and lifelong friend of Mubarak, who was allowed to whinge the usual ex-dictator’s self-congratulatory excuses on al-Arabia television (“my reputation, my integrity and my military and political record”) prior to his own questioning – and inevitable emergency entry into hospital. When the latest Tahrir Square crowds also called for Tantawi’s resignation, the field marshal’s mask slipped. He sent in his troops to “cleanse” the square.
When the Iranians, in their millions, demonstrated against Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s dodgy presidential election results in June of 2009, many members of the “green” movement in Tehran asked me about the 2005 Lebanese revolution against Syria – dubbed the “Cedar Revolution” by the US State Department, a cliché that never really caught on among the Lebanese themselves – and while there was no direct political connection, there was undoubtedly an inspirational junction; two sets of tracks of the same gauge which reinforced the idea that the youth of Tehran and Beirut belonged to the same transport system of humanity and freedom.
Of course, there were many in the Middle East Muslim world who hoped the security forces could be won over to their side. In Cairo, individual soldiers did join the revolution – on a large scale, in Yemen – but wolves do not turn into pussycats. And – despite one obvious historical example in the region – it is unrealistic to expect anyone to save the world by walking towards their own crucifixion. Police chiefs, however personally devout, will do as they are told – even when their orders involve mass murder.
Take, for example, the Saudis. The Independent is in possession of an extraordinary – and outrageous – order from Prince Nayef Biu Abdul al-Saud, the Saudi minister of interior, issued on 11 March, prior to the much-feared “Hunayn Revolution” organised by Shia and Sunni intellectuals last month.
Hunayn was the name of a battle which the Prophet Mohamed won by a virtual miracle against far more powerful armies.
“To all the honourable heads of police in the areas of Riyadh, Mecca and Medina, al-Bahr, Qassim, the northern borders, Tabouq, Sharqiya, Qaseer, Najwan, Jezaan and the head of the emergency Special Forces,” Nayef begins – note how responsibility is neatly spread across the entire network of the “mukhabarat” – “previous to our conversations regarding the so-called ‘Hunayn Revolution’ – if indeed it exists – with its single goal of threatening our national security: this group of stray individuals spreads evil throughout the land. Do not show them mercy. Strike them with iron fists. It is permitted for all officers and personnel to use live rounds. This is your land and this is your religion. If they want to change that or replace it, you must respond. We give thanks to you – and good luck!”
This outrageous order – which, mercifully, did not have to be obeyed – was well-known to the Americans, who have so bitterly condemned the Assad regime’s brutality in Syria but who, in this case of course, uttered not a bleat.
Shia, it seems, are targetable in these revolutions – whether they be of the Saudi, the Bahraini, the Syrian or, indeed, the Lebanese variety.
Prince Nayef’s instruction is worthy of investigation by the International Criminal Court at the Hague – he orders his police chiefs to shoot down unarmed demonstrators – but even if his men had performed their bloody duties (and they have, in the past), he is safe. Saudi Arabia is one kingdom where we in the West will no more tolerate Arab “awakenings” than will the local autocrats. No wonder every Saudi carries an identity card which refers to him not as a citizen but as “al-tabieya” which means, in effect, “serf”.
The odd thing about all these revolutions, of course, is that the dictators – be they the Ben Alis, the Mubaraks, the Salehs, the Assads, even the al-Sauds – spend more time spying on foreigners and amassing documentation of their people’s transgressions than in trying to understand what their own indigenous populations actually want. Eric Rouleau, a Le Monde correspondent in Iran, who subsequently became French ambassador to Tunisia, has recounted how “General” Ben Ali, Tunisian minister of interior between 1985 and 1986, wished to acquire the very latest French communications equipment from Paris. The “pitiless ‘superflic’”, as Rouleau cruelly called him, trained by American intelligence in the US, had files on “everyone”.
At one meeting with Rouleau, Ben Ali outlined the greatest threats to the Tunisian regime: social “unrest”, tensions with a certain Colonel Gaddafi of Libya (here, one must admit a certain sympathy for Ben Ali) and – most serious of all – “the Islamist threat”, whatever that may be. Rouleau remembered how “in a theatrical gesture, he (Ben Ali) pushed the button of a machine, which in an instant unrolled an unending list of names whom he said were under permanent surveillance. An information engineer, obsessed with technology, Mr Ben Ali did not cease to use this science of information gathering”. Rouleau, who was sending back to Paris less than flattering accounts of the regime and its interior minister, was puzzled that his relations with Ben Ali declined steadily – until the day he ended his mission. “On the day of my final departure from Tunisia, when I went to pay my courtesy visit to him,” Rouleau was to recall, “he asked me, in a state of white-hot anger, why I regarded him as a CIA agent possessed of unstoppable ambition. And he started quoting from his files, almost word for word, my own confidential telegrams to the Quai d’Orsay… The ambassador had not escaped from the intricate workings of his spy centre.”
Ben Ali could penetrate the French embassy, but as president he simply failed to learn about his own people. There is an unforgettable photograph of the soon-to-be-deposed president as he rather tardily visits the young suicider-by-fire, Mohamed Bouazizi, as he lies dying in his hospital bed.
Ben Ali is doing his best to look concerned. The boy clearly unable to communicate. But the doctors and paramedics are watching the president rather than their patient and doing so with a tired impatience, which the president obviously does not comprehend. From small kindlings do great fires grow.
Take the first uprising against Bashar al-Assad in Deraa – home to the old steam train station, by the way, in which TE Lawrence was supposedly assaulted by an Ottoman officer in the First World War – where no amount of sophisticated intelligence could have forewarned the regime of what was to come. A place of historical rebellion, some youths had painted anti-Assad graffiti on a wall. The Syrian security police followed their normal practice of dragging the young men to the cop shop, beating and torturing them. But then their mothers arrived to demand their release. They were verbally abused by the police.
Then – much more seriously – a group of tribal elders went to see the Deraa governor to demand an explanation for the behaviour of the police.
Each placed his turban on the governor’s desk, a traditional gesture of negotiation; they would only replace their turbans when the matter had been resolved. But the governor, a crusty old Baathist and regime-loyalist, took the turban of the most prestigious sheikh, threw it on the floor of his office and stamped on it.
The people of Deraa came out in their thousands to protest; the shooting started; Bashar hastily dismissed his governor and replaced him. Too late. The fire had been lit. In Tunisia, an unemployed young man who set himself alight. In Syria, a turban.
These episodes, of course, are not without their foundation of history. Just as the Hauran district, in which Deraa is situated, has always been a place of rebellion, Egypt was always the land of Gamel Abdul Nasser.
And oddly – although Nasser was the originator of the military dictatorships which were to cripple Egypt – his name was spoken of with respect by thousands of the demonstrators in Tahrir Square who successfully demanded Mubarak’s overthrow.
This was not because they forgot his legacy but because, after decades of monarchy and British colonial rule, they regarded Nasser as the first leader who gave Egypt self-respect.
Nasser’s daughter Hoda was undoubtedly right in February, when she said that “the parallel with the people’s power, the spontaneous uprising that brought my father to power, especially heartens me… People thought that the youth of today are apolitical, but they proved their detractors wrong.
“My father would have been ecstatic. He would have been proud of the people who demonstrated in Tahrir Square, chanting slogans urging radical political reform and social change. Nasser remains at the core of revolutionary mythology in Egypt and the Arab world at large. That is why you saw the portraits of Nasser hoisted high in Tahrir Square.” Against all this, the Libyan “revolution” is beginning to stale; its blood congealing along with the words once used about it.
The tribes we once acknowledged as a democratic opposition – namely the Senussis of the old Idriss family – are now called “rebels” by our press and television colleagues, the uprising is now a “civil war”, an unpleasant way of reminding ourselves why we must not put “boots on the ground”.
Our Tory masters – especially our odious defence minister of the time – invented the Bosnian “civil war” to delay our intervention in the Balkan ethnic cleansing.
Most Arab nations would be happy to see the end of Gaddafi, but he sits uneasily amid the pantheon of “revolution”. Wasn’t he supposed to be the original revolutionary against the corruption of King Idriss and later scourge of the West and Zionism?
Oddly, there are parallels with Syria which we – and Assad – may not like. For it is Syria’s refusal to bend to the United States’ “peace process”, its unwavering support for the Hezbollah “resistance” in Lebanon which broke the Israeli army in 2006, which allows the Assad family – caliphs, I suppose, by definition – to claim that their independence and their refusal to bow down to US-Israeli demands constitute a long-running revolution in Syria of infinitely more importance than the street fighting gangs of Deraa, Lattakia, Banias and Douma.
Hamas maintains its head political office in Damascus. Syria remains the lung through which Iran can breathe in the Middle East; through which Iran’s own president can enter Lebanon and proclaim – to the horror of the Lebanese whom Bachar Assad now blames for his own country’s violence – that southern Lebanon is now Iran’s front line against Israel.
And now let’s go a little further. On 31 March, the Israelis – who have steadfastly opposed the overthrow of the Middle East’s dictators – published a series of photo-reconnaissance pictures of southern Lebanon, supposedly marking the exact locations of 550 Hezbollah bunkers, 300 “monitoring sites” and 100 weapons storage facilities run by Syria’s Lebanese Shia militia allies in the country. They had been built, the Israelis claimed, next to hospitals, schools and public utilities. The documentation was fake. Visits to locations marked on the map uncovered no such bunkers. Indeed, the real Hezbollah bunkers known to the Lebanese are not marked on the map. The Hezbollah quickly understood the meaning.
“They are setting us up for the next war,” a veteran Hezbollah ruffian from the village of Jibchit told me. If Israel had really discovered our positions, the last thing they would have done is inform us they knew the locations – because we’d immediately move them!”
But last week, the Turkish air force forced down an Iranian transport aircraft supposedly flying over Diyarbakir en route to the northern Syrian city of Aleppo with “auto spare parts”. On board the Ilyushin-76, the Turks found 60 Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles, 14 BKC machine guns, 8,000 rounds of ammunition, 560 60-mm mortar shells and 1,288 120-mm mortar shells.
Forget Facebook. These were not part of any Arab “reawakening” or “uprising”, but further supplies for the Hezbollah to use in their next conflict with Israel. All of which raises a question. Is there a better way of taking your people’s minds off revolution than a new war against an enemy which has resolutely opposed the democratisation of the Arab world?
By Robert Fisk on April 15, 2011
Robert Fisk – April 15, 2011
First, to reports from the revolutionary front lines in Syria, in the same imperfect, but brave, English in which they were written less than 24 hours ago…
“Yesterday morning I went to the square to demonstrate, I arranged it with guys on Facebook, I don’t know them, but we share the same ambition of freedom, that night I was awake until 6am watching the news, it was horrible what’s happening in Syria, the security forces slaughter people as if aniamals !!!…
“I wore my clothes and went to (the) sq. there was about 150 security service in civilian cloths in street calling for Assad’s life [ie praising Assad] and one taxi car the driver was driving against the cars to stop them moving in street, I am not sure if he was revolutionizing or just empty the street for security service!, it was crazy, I was angry that they are calling for the dictator’s life and want keep him running Syria like he doing.
They were looking around at every man in street if he doesn’t call for president’s life they beat him and arrest him, of course I didn’t call for his life and I took my phone and started taking video to show the world who’s calling for this dictator, his gang! 2 guys were running infront of the demonstration – they are revoluter but they had to run with this gang until freedom seekers arrive from ommayad mosque, those 2 guys told me not to take video and hide my phone.
“I hid it in my pocket but suddenly about 40 men from secutiry came to me, they started shoulting ‘he is taking video, he is taking video!!’ 5 guys hold me (like when they arrest someone) and started beating me…another 7 attacked me, they took my phone, my ID and my money and other 7 guys attack me, they said why are you taking video bastard??
“‘We will kill you all enemies of assad, Syria belongs to assad not to you bastard people!!’ Immediately I said: ‘I am with you guys!! We all follow president assad even to death!’ they said then why are you taking video?’
“I said ‘because I am happy there is demonstration calling for the greatest leader assad…’”
“There was one man (looks like officer) caught me and slapped me and he was the last one in this fake demonstration which calls for assad life…”
The second report:
“Assad is lying I assure you! There is more than 6000 political prisoner in Syria so what does let 260 free mean?!!…they said the emergency law to be lifted BUT they will create new law against terrorism, which will be worse than emergency law we are sure!
“They said they will fight the corruption, do you think that Assad will arrest his cousin Rami Makhlouf, his brother Maher Assad, his uncle zo al himma shaleesh, will Assad arrest all his family, take their money and give it back to us??…the gang in Lattakia are Alawiyeen gang belong to Assad family we all know them in Syria they are called shapeeha, the people in Lattakia were demonstrating against the government and afterwards the secret service, police and army brought these shapeeha to scare people and kill them.
“In Syria we are not demonstrating for food or money, we want to change the whole system and hang all Assad family…”
This is raw stuff, the voice of popular – and young – fury that will not be quenched by torture rooms and the cosh. Both Syrian men escaped arrest – though one has now had to flee his country – but their accounts tell a grindingly familiar story from Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya… The fake pro-government demonstration, the promiscuous use of secret police violence, the popular knowledge of corruption and the production of plain-clothes regime thugs – “baltagi” in Cairo, where Mubarak used them, which literally means “thugs” – and the sectarianisation of suppression (the “Alawiyeen” in Lattakia are Alawi (Shia) gangs from the sect to which the Assad family belongs.
And now the regime in Damascus is claiming that Lebanon is one of the outside powers sewing discord in the “Um al-Arabia Wahida”, the mother of the Arab nation, specifically the Lebanese March 14 Alliance of the outgoing Lebanese Sunni prime minister Saad Hariri, whose principal opponents are the Lebanese Shia Muslim Hezbollah party and their allies.
See how easy it is to create a “sectarian” war in Syria and then infect your neighbour with the virus?
These are not idle words. Revolutions don’t start with dramatic incidents – the self-immolation of an unemployed Tunisian, the destruction of a Coptic church – however dramatic these tragedies may be.
In reality, the “Arab awakening” began not in Tunisia this year, but in Lebanon in 2005 when, appalled by the assassination of ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri (Saad’s father), hundreds of thousands of Lebanese of all faiths gathered in central Beirut to demand the withdrawal of Syria’s 20,000 soldiers in the country.
Bachar made a pitiful speech in Damascus, abusing the demonstrators, suggesting that live television cameras were using “zooms” to exaggerate the number of the crowds.
But the UN passed a resolution – a no-soldier zone, rather than a no-fly zone, I suppose – which forced the Syrian military to leave.
This was the first “ousting” of a dictator, albeit from someone else’s country, by the popular Arab “masses” which had hitherto been an institution in the hands of the dictators.
Yet I recall at the time that none of us – including myself, who had lived in Lebanon for decades – realised how deeply the Syrian claws had dug into the red soil of Lebanon over the previous 29 years. Syria’s Lebanese stooges remained in place. Their “mukhabarat” security police simply re-emerged in transmogrified form.
Their political murders continued at whirlwind speed. I spent days chasing from the scene of one car bomb or hit-job to another. This is what terrifies the demonstrators of all the nations struggling to throw off their brutal – and often American-supported – masters. Field Marshal Tantawi, the head of the Egyptian army, for example, is now running Egypt. Yet he is not only a close friend of America but a childhood and lifelong friend of Mubarak, who was allowed to whinge the usual ex-dictator’s self-congratulatory excuses on al-Arabia television (“my reputation, my integrity and my military and political record”) prior to his own questioning – and inevitable emergency entry into hospital. When the latest Tahrir Square crowds also called for Tantawi’s resignation, the field marshal’s mask slipped. He sent in his troops to “cleanse” the square.
When the Iranians, in their millions, demonstrated against Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s dodgy presidential election results in June of 2009, many members of the “green” movement in Tehran asked me about the 2005 Lebanese revolution against Syria – dubbed the “Cedar Revolution” by the US State Department, a cliché that never really caught on among the Lebanese themselves – and while there was no direct political connection, there was undoubtedly an inspirational junction; two sets of tracks of the same gauge which reinforced the idea that the youth of Tehran and Beirut belonged to the same transport system of humanity and freedom.
Of course, there were many in the Middle East Muslim world who hoped the security forces could be won over to their side. In Cairo, individual soldiers did join the revolution – on a large scale, in Yemen – but wolves do not turn into pussycats. And – despite one obvious historical example in the region – it is unrealistic to expect anyone to save the world by walking towards their own crucifixion. Police chiefs, however personally devout, will do as they are told – even when their orders involve mass murder.
Take, for example, the Saudis. The Independent is in possession of an extraordinary – and outrageous – order from Prince Nayef Biu Abdul al-Saud, the Saudi minister of interior, issued on 11 March, prior to the much-feared “Hunayn Revolution” organised by Shia and Sunni intellectuals last month.
Hunayn was the name of a battle which the Prophet Mohamed won by a virtual miracle against far more powerful armies.
“To all the honourable heads of police in the areas of Riyadh, Mecca and Medina, al-Bahr, Qassim, the northern borders, Tabouq, Sharqiya, Qaseer, Najwan, Jezaan and the head of the emergency Special Forces,” Nayef begins – note how responsibility is neatly spread across the entire network of the “mukhabarat” – “previous to our conversations regarding the so-called ‘Hunayn Revolution’ – if indeed it exists – with its single goal of threatening our national security: this group of stray individuals spreads evil throughout the land. Do not show them mercy. Strike them with iron fists. It is permitted for all officers and personnel to use live rounds. This is your land and this is your religion. If they want to change that or replace it, you must respond. We give thanks to you – and good luck!”
This outrageous order – which, mercifully, did not have to be obeyed – was well-known to the Americans, who have so bitterly condemned the Assad regime’s brutality in Syria but who, in this case of course, uttered not a bleat.
Shia, it seems, are targetable in these revolutions – whether they be of the Saudi, the Bahraini, the Syrian or, indeed, the Lebanese variety.
Prince Nayef’s instruction is worthy of investigation by the International Criminal Court at the Hague – he orders his police chiefs to shoot down unarmed demonstrators – but even if his men had performed their bloody duties (and they have, in the past), he is safe. Saudi Arabia is one kingdom where we in the West will no more tolerate Arab “awakenings” than will the local autocrats. No wonder every Saudi carries an identity card which refers to him not as a citizen but as “al-tabieya” which means, in effect, “serf”.
The odd thing about all these revolutions, of course, is that the dictators – be they the Ben Alis, the Mubaraks, the Salehs, the Assads, even the al-Sauds – spend more time spying on foreigners and amassing documentation of their people’s transgressions than in trying to understand what their own indigenous populations actually want. Eric Rouleau, a Le Monde correspondent in Iran, who subsequently became French ambassador to Tunisia, has recounted how “General” Ben Ali, Tunisian minister of interior between 1985 and 1986, wished to acquire the very latest French communications equipment from Paris. The “pitiless ‘superflic’”, as Rouleau cruelly called him, trained by American intelligence in the US, had files on “everyone”.
At one meeting with Rouleau, Ben Ali outlined the greatest threats to the Tunisian regime: social “unrest”, tensions with a certain Colonel Gaddafi of Libya (here, one must admit a certain sympathy for Ben Ali) and – most serious of all – “the Islamist threat”, whatever that may be. Rouleau remembered how “in a theatrical gesture, he (Ben Ali) pushed the button of a machine, which in an instant unrolled an unending list of names whom he said were under permanent surveillance. An information engineer, obsessed with technology, Mr Ben Ali did not cease to use this science of information gathering”. Rouleau, who was sending back to Paris less than flattering accounts of the regime and its interior minister, was puzzled that his relations with Ben Ali declined steadily – until the day he ended his mission. “On the day of my final departure from Tunisia, when I went to pay my courtesy visit to him,” Rouleau was to recall, “he asked me, in a state of white-hot anger, why I regarded him as a CIA agent possessed of unstoppable ambition. And he started quoting from his files, almost word for word, my own confidential telegrams to the Quai d’Orsay… The ambassador had not escaped from the intricate workings of his spy centre.”
Ben Ali could penetrate the French embassy, but as president he simply failed to learn about his own people. There is an unforgettable photograph of the soon-to-be-deposed president as he rather tardily visits the young suicider-by-fire, Mohamed Bouazizi, as he lies dying in his hospital bed.
Ben Ali is doing his best to look concerned. The boy clearly unable to communicate. But the doctors and paramedics are watching the president rather than their patient and doing so with a tired impatience, which the president obviously does not comprehend. From small kindlings do great fires grow.
Take the first uprising against Bashar al-Assad in Deraa – home to the old steam train station, by the way, in which TE Lawrence was supposedly assaulted by an Ottoman officer in the First World War – where no amount of sophisticated intelligence could have forewarned the regime of what was to come. A place of historical rebellion, some youths had painted anti-Assad graffiti on a wall. The Syrian security police followed their normal practice of dragging the young men to the cop shop, beating and torturing them. But then their mothers arrived to demand their release. They were verbally abused by the police.
Then – much more seriously – a group of tribal elders went to see the Deraa governor to demand an explanation for the behaviour of the police.
Each placed his turban on the governor’s desk, a traditional gesture of negotiation; they would only replace their turbans when the matter had been resolved. But the governor, a crusty old Baathist and regime-loyalist, took the turban of the most prestigious sheikh, threw it on the floor of his office and stamped on it.
The people of Deraa came out in their thousands to protest; the shooting started; Bashar hastily dismissed his governor and replaced him. Too late. The fire had been lit. In Tunisia, an unemployed young man who set himself alight. In Syria, a turban.
These episodes, of course, are not without their foundation of history. Just as the Hauran district, in which Deraa is situated, has always been a place of rebellion, Egypt was always the land of Gamel Abdul Nasser.
And oddly – although Nasser was the originator of the military dictatorships which were to cripple Egypt – his name was spoken of with respect by thousands of the demonstrators in Tahrir Square who successfully demanded Mubarak’s overthrow.
This was not because they forgot his legacy but because, after decades of monarchy and British colonial rule, they regarded Nasser as the first leader who gave Egypt self-respect.
Nasser’s daughter Hoda was undoubtedly right in February, when she said that “the parallel with the people’s power, the spontaneous uprising that brought my father to power, especially heartens me… People thought that the youth of today are apolitical, but they proved their detractors wrong.
“My father would have been ecstatic. He would have been proud of the people who demonstrated in Tahrir Square, chanting slogans urging radical political reform and social change. Nasser remains at the core of revolutionary mythology in Egypt and the Arab world at large. That is why you saw the portraits of Nasser hoisted high in Tahrir Square.” Against all this, the Libyan “revolution” is beginning to stale; its blood congealing along with the words once used about it.
The tribes we once acknowledged as a democratic opposition – namely the Senussis of the old Idriss family – are now called “rebels” by our press and television colleagues, the uprising is now a “civil war”, an unpleasant way of reminding ourselves why we must not put “boots on the ground”.
Our Tory masters – especially our odious defence minister of the time – invented the Bosnian “civil war” to delay our intervention in the Balkan ethnic cleansing.
Most Arab nations would be happy to see the end of Gaddafi, but he sits uneasily amid the pantheon of “revolution”. Wasn’t he supposed to be the original revolutionary against the corruption of King Idriss and later scourge of the West and Zionism?
Oddly, there are parallels with Syria which we – and Assad – may not like. For it is Syria’s refusal to bend to the United States’ “peace process”, its unwavering support for the Hezbollah “resistance” in Lebanon which broke the Israeli army in 2006, which allows the Assad family – caliphs, I suppose, by definition – to claim that their independence and their refusal to bow down to US-Israeli demands constitute a long-running revolution in Syria of infinitely more importance than the street fighting gangs of Deraa, Lattakia, Banias and Douma.
Hamas maintains its head political office in Damascus. Syria remains the lung through which Iran can breathe in the Middle East; through which Iran’s own president can enter Lebanon and proclaim – to the horror of the Lebanese whom Bachar Assad now blames for his own country’s violence – that southern Lebanon is now Iran’s front line against Israel.
And now let’s go a little further. On 31 March, the Israelis – who have steadfastly opposed the overthrow of the Middle East’s dictators – published a series of photo-reconnaissance pictures of southern Lebanon, supposedly marking the exact locations of 550 Hezbollah bunkers, 300 “monitoring sites” and 100 weapons storage facilities run by Syria’s Lebanese Shia militia allies in the country. They had been built, the Israelis claimed, next to hospitals, schools and public utilities. The documentation was fake. Visits to locations marked on the map uncovered no such bunkers. Indeed, the real Hezbollah bunkers known to the Lebanese are not marked on the map. The Hezbollah quickly understood the meaning.
“They are setting us up for the next war,” a veteran Hezbollah ruffian from the village of Jibchit told me. If Israel had really discovered our positions, the last thing they would have done is inform us they knew the locations – because we’d immediately move them!”
But last week, the Turkish air force forced down an Iranian transport aircraft supposedly flying over Diyarbakir en route to the northern Syrian city of Aleppo with “auto spare parts”. On board the Ilyushin-76, the Turks found 60 Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles, 14 BKC machine guns, 8,000 rounds of ammunition, 560 60-mm mortar shells and 1,288 120-mm mortar shells.
Forget Facebook. These were not part of any Arab “reawakening” or “uprising”, but further supplies for the Hezbollah to use in their next conflict with Israel. All of which raises a question. Is there a better way of taking your people’s minds off revolution than a new war against an enemy which has resolutely opposed the democratisation of the Arab world?
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
AMERICA’S “WINGNUT” PRESS
GORDON DUFF: “RULE OF LIE,” AMERICA’S “WINGNUT” PRESS
October 3, 2010 posted by Gordon Duff · http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/10/03/gordon-duff-rule-of-lie-americas-wingnut-press/
THE PHONY PRESS, SEX, SIN AND WAR
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior EditorPresident Ahmadinejad of Iran has asked for a UN investigation of 9/11. For this, he has been branded a “wingnut” and “evildoer” by the American press.
However, the 9/11 Commission itself asked for a criminal investigation, saying it uncovered a conspiracy and was prevented from getting the truth. They were quickly silenced.
9 years later, top scientists from around the world, supported by engineers, architects, military and intelligence officials agree on one thing. What thing is that? We will never know.
Reporting that “one thing” would be the last thing any member of the press would ever do. A day later, they would become unpaid bloggers and have their name on the “no fly” list. Do things like this happen? How long did CNN’s Rick Sanchez last after pointing out that Jon Stewart’s fanatic pro-Israel bias is a form of “bigotry?”
Let’s take a second to look at Ahmadinejad. Nearly daily stories hit newspapers around the world, “Iran is 15 minutes from being a nuclear power.” Ahmadinejad threatens to “wipe Israel off the map.” “Ahmadinejad supports a new holocaust.”
The press, of course, continually reviles Ahmadinejad as a terrorist and mass murderer. What he isn’t, however, is a liar. Every time it comes down to checking on who is telling the truth, Ahmadinejad or the press, it turns out Ahmadinejad is telling the truth. How can this be possible?
Well, a couple of things come into play. First of all, the press purposefully distorts what is said. The press lies, lies consistently. There is no nuclear program in Iran, not a weapons program. There is no credible information that varies from this fact, yet the press continually takes a line here and a statement there, out of context, and tries to build a case for war. Why is the press doing this? The answer is simply, Israelis control the American press and want the United States to destroy Iran, not because it is a military threat. It is technically impossible for Iran to attack Israel, every military expert in the world knows that and all have said it.
That will never be reported either.
Why is Ahmadinejad reviled with such venom? The answer is simple. He is being made an example. Anyone who speaks up, disagrees with reality as defined by the media, not any government, mind you, but the media that tells those in every government what they can and can’t say or think, risks destruction. There is a clear methodology here. Let’s look at some issues the press doesn’t like very much, starting with our favorite, the villain of all time, Mr. Adolf Hitler.
Hitler got his start, speaking up much like Ahmadinejad. After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles opened up Germany for abuse by financial criminals. However, it even started before that. Germany tried to quit the war in 1916 when it was winning. Britain and France refused, not on their own, but because the Rothschilds cut financial deals with them and promised to bring the United States into the war. 5 million more Europeans died along with nearly 200,000 Americans.
The Rothschilds got the Balfour Declaration, giving them a base to control Middle East oil, the Suez Canal and India, the things that the wars nearly a century later are being manipulated to bring about.
Communism took over Russia. Nearly every communist leader was Jewish and Zionist. Even today, every Russian “oligarch” is a Jew and Zionist. Hitler said that “communism’ was the real Jewish religion. He believes he saved Germany from communism when he was elected chancellor. The country he took over had been economically destroyed through currency manipulation. A loaf of bread cost billions of Marks at one point. The currency was devalued by the Rothschilds supported by France and Britain, by force. Cash smuggled out of the country by the ton and reimbursed at full value, at gunpoint, stripping Germany clean, starvation, humiliation and, eventually, that nasty “right wing” government the world had so much trouble with, the Third Reich.
During the 1920s, when the French and British, really the Rothschilds, were destroying Germany, 80% of the property was foreclosed on and bought by, well, do we say it? Jews? Bought for pennies. This is the “billions” in property the Nazi’s seized. Not a simple story when you get to hear all of it. An excuse, Auschwitz, Gaza, are there excuses for inhumanity?
This is all true. This is history. This will never be reported. Not only will this be kept secret but the fact that the Zionist groups that wanted Palestine settled by Jews supported Hitler and worked closely with him, not just in 1927 but as late as 1945. This is also historical fact, not conjecture.
So, lets go back to Ahmadinejad. Why would he have a “Holocaust Conference” in Tehran? Serious students of history that don’t have to live off a university paycheck, telling the same myths and lies term after term all know what Ahmadinejad knows. They also know that there are some nasty secrets about the holocaust. The real reason, however, is to anger Israel. Why? Israel pretty much hates everyone, is arrogant, obnoxious and predatory.
Since Israel controls, not only the press but the world banking system, all major banks being “children” of the original Rothschilds banks, including and especially the Federal Reserve which controls the American economy, the idea that Israel may have “fictionalized” the holocaust in collusion with Josef Stalin of Russia, a mass murderer well beyond anything Hitler ever imagined, interested Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad never said there wasn’t a holocaust. He simply asked for an honest and accurate historical assessment of the facts.
Israel went into a total panic. Israel was hiding a terrible secret about the holocaust. They still are. We don’t know what it is, I won’t even hazard a guess. We do know that millions were spent, tens of millions in bribe money to have laws passed suppressing any study of the holocaust. In 11 western nations, questioning the Israeli version, one that changes hourly it seems, is a crime.
So, what was Ahmadinejad’s game? He was simply telling Israel that “he knew.” Knew “what?” We don’t know and may never find out but it is something horribly discrediting to Israel, so threatening that they would stage a nuclear attack to keep it secret. We all agree there were camps. We all agree the Nazis were bad. What could it be? It is something that Iran uses to blackmail Israel, that and the fact that China, a major military power, a massive nuclear power, quietly stands behind Iran. Nobody is supposed to know it. We all know it.
IMF admits that the West is stuck in near depression
IMF admits that the West is stuck in near depression
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard – Telegraph.co.uk October 3, 2010
The IMF report – "Will It Hurt? Macroeconomic Effects of Fiscal Consolidation" – implicitly argues that austerity will do more damage than so far admitted.
Normally, tightening of 1pc of GDP in one country leads to a 0.5pc loss of growth after two years. It is another story when half the globe is in trouble and tightening in lockstep. Lost growth would be double if interest rates are already zero, and if everybody cuts spending at once.
"Not all countries can reduce the value of their currency and increase net exports at the same time," it said. Nobel economist Joe Stiglitz goes further, warning that damn may break altogether in parts of Europe, setting off a "death spiral".
The Fund said damage also doubles for states that cannot cut rates or devalue – think Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Italy, all trapped in EMU at overvalued exchange rates.
"A fall in the value of the currency plays a key role in softening the impact. The result is consistent with standard Mundell-Fleming theory that fiscal multipliers are larger in economies with fixed exchange rate regimes." Exactly.
Let us avoid the crude claim that spending cuts in a slump are wicked or self-defeating. Britain did exactly that after leaving the Gold Standard in 1931, and the ERM in 1992, both times with success. A liberated Bank of England was able to cut interest rates. Sterling fell. The key point is whether you can offset the budget cuts.
But by the same token, it is fallacious to cite the austerity cures of Canada, and Scandinavia in the 1990s – as the European Central Bank does – as evidence that budget cuts pave the way for recovery. These countries were able export to a booming world. They could lower interest rates, and were small enough to carry out `beggar-thy-neighbour' devaluations without attracting much notice. We were not then in our New World Order of "currency wars".
Be that as it may, it is clear that Southern Europe will not recover for a long time. Portuguese premier Jose Socrates has just unveiled his latest austerity package. He has capitulated on wage cuts. There will be a rise in VAT from 21pc to 23pc, and a freeze in pensions and projects. The trade unions have called a general strike for next month.
Mr Socrates has already lost his socialist majority, leaking part of his base to the hard-Left Bloco. He must rely on conservative acquiescence – not yet forthcoming. Citigroup said the fiscal squeeze will be 3pc of GDP next year. So under the IMF's schema, this implies a 3pc loss in growth. Since there wasn't any growth to speak off, this means contraction.
Spain had a general strike last week. Elena Salgado, the defiant finance minister, refused to blink. "Economic policy will be maintained," she said. There will be another bitter budget in 2011, cutting ministry spending by 16pc.
Mrs Salgado has ruled out any risk of a double-dip. But the Bank of Spain fears the economy may contract in the third quarter.
The lesson of the 1930s is that politics can turn ugly as slumps drag into a third year, and voters lose faith in the promised recovery. Unemployment is already 20pc in Spain. If Mrs Salgado is wrong, Spanish society will face a stress test.
We are seeing a pattern – first in Ireland, now in Greece and Portugal – where cuts are failing to close the deficit as fast as hoped. Austerity itself is eroding tax revenues. Countries are chasing their own tail.
The rest of EMU is not going to help. France and Italy are cutting 1.6pc GDP next year. The German squeeze starts in earnest in 2011.
Given the risks, you would expect the ECB to stand by with monetary stimulus. But no, while the central banks of the US, the UK, and Japan are worried enough to mull a fresh blast of money, Frankfurt is talking up its exit strategy. It risks repeating the error of July 2008 when it raised rates in the teeth of the crisis.
The ECB is winding down its lending facilities for eurozone banks, regardless of the danger for Spanish, Portuguese, Irish, and Greek banks that have borrowed €362bn, or the danger for their governments. These banks have used the money to buy state bonds, playing the internal "carry trade" for extra yield. In other words, the ECB is chipping at the prop that holds up Southern Europe.
One has to conclude that the ECB is washing its hands of the PIGS, dumping the problem onto the fiscal authorities through the EU's €440bn rescue fund. That is courting fate.
Who believes that the EMU Alpinistas roped together on the North Face of the Eiger are strong enough to hold the rope if one after another loses its freezing grip on the ice?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8039789/IMF-admits-that-the-West-is-stuck-in-near-depression.html
Last updated 05/10/2010
Exodus of Jewish Advisors from Obama White House
Exodus of Jewish Advisors from Obama White House Likely Not an Omen of Good Things to Come
While many–understandably sick to death of watching as powerful Jewish interests voraciously chew their way into the highest centers of power both in America and throughout the world–are no doubt cheering at the announced departure of Rahm Israel Emmanuel as White House Chief of Staff, there is more reason to look at this latest development with a certain amount of apprehension than relief.
Being immediately installed as Chief of Staff to Barack Obama upon election, Emmanuel (son of an Irgun terrorist and whose only stint in any armed forces was for that of a foreign country–Israel) effectively became the eyes and ears of a hostile foreign power bent upon destroying America, using a series of devastating, bankrupting wars as its means for doing so. As such, his installation in such a sensitive post represents the most effective wiretapping/surveillance operation of a sitting US president in history, with him acting as an informational sponge as it were, sitting literally within inches of the President during every waking moment. All can be rest assured that in this capacity, there wasn’t an executive yawn, cough or clearing of the throat whose details didn’t find their way to Mossad headquarters at the end of each day. The only possible equivalent to Israel’s being so intimately knowledgeable of the personal goings on in the White House was with LBJ via Zionist spy Matilda Krim and then several decades later when a nice Jewish girl named Monica Lewinsky acted as “personal assistant” to William Jefferson Clinton.
So the fact that Israel would so willingly forfeit such an invaluable source of inside information as Emmanuel can only indicate that big plans are afoot, and, as America has learned all too well following more than half a century of an undeniably toxic relationship with Murder, Incorporated, none of these plans can be good.
What makes this latest development all the more ominous is that Emmanuel is not the only VIP within organized Zionist interests getting our of Dodge. Shortly after Emmanuel’s announcement, the political world was rocked with the news–literally within days of each other–that Emmanuel’s colleagues, namely David Axelrod (Obama’s Chief Political Advisor) and Larry Summers (Chief Economic Advisor) announced they were leaving as well. The fact that these announcements took place in such close proximity to each other intimates not only coordination amongst all the players in question but as well its sinister twin, collusion. It must also be considered that both Axelrod and Summers, although certainly not in “bird’s-eye-view” positions necessarily as advantageous to Israel as Emmanuel’s, nevertheless were/are important listening posts as well viz-a-viz the internal workings of the Obama White House, and therefore their absence must also represent a great loss for the Jewish state in terms of human intelligence.
Add to all of this Israel’s conspicuous absence at Obama’s speech at the UN General Assembly the 3rd week of September–an unprecedented event in its own right–and the message being conveyed to Obama loud enough that even a deaf man at a Led Zeppelin concert could hear can be summed up thus–
“We, the Jewish people, are turning our backs on you Mr. President and are walking away.”
Now, given the harrowing dealings Obama has had to endure the last 2 years with regards to Israel and her various partisans viz-a-viz the issue of settlements and the ceaseless shrieking for war against Iran, doubtless the President would welcome such a development for the ensuing peace of mind and quiet such “back turning” represents, were it a stand-alone event with no repercussions.
However, as all who have studied this subject know too well, when it comes to Israel, Jewish interests and power politics, there is no such creature as “no repercussions”. A people whose motto is “never forget” and who insist upon always having the last word in any discussion, we can assume that this “cold shoulder” and “silent treatment” being directed towards the Obama presidency represents a statement, spoken in a particular dialect of gangsterese designed to avoid clarity when clarity represents a liability. Rather, what the interested parties responsible for this exodus are aiming at is the subtlety that speaks volumes instantaneously, such as a horse’s head under the sheets or dead fish wrapped in a bullet proof vest.
At best, this “exodus” from the Obama White House indicates that the same Jewish interests who view Obama as ‘their boy’ are planning to open the closet doors (kept strategically closed until now) and release the well-prepared flood of embarrassing (or possibly incriminating) skeletons before the world body just mere weeks before mid-term Congressional elections. In the same manner as Bill Clinton was forced to deal with the tsunami of embarrassing media noise concerning his tryst with the aforementioned Israeli asset Monica Lewinsky (done in the interests of pressuring him to bend to Israel’s demands) Obama too may be forced to deal with his own issues as Israel puts the screws to him in trying to get him to cry “uncle” viz-a-viz war with Iran and the settlements issue.
At worst however, and we cannot discount this for a minute, given Israel’s proclivity towards violence in all its forms–real or theoretical–what all this may indicate is that the same Jewish interests responsible over the last half century for a myriad of false flag attacks, assassinations and acts of terrorism against the United States may be planning something even more dramatic than simply character assassination.
First and foremost on the list would be a controlled demolition of the American economy at a time when the land of the free and home of the brave finds itself barely breathing and on financial life support following the mid-September, 2008 financial meltdown that insiders in D.C. and New York know all about yet will not discuss.
Worse than this though my be that another terrorist attack on America or even a presidential assassination may be in the works.
Curious watchers of this modern gangster drama involving Israel will recount that during the waning days of George Bush’s presidency, upon visiting Israel he was promptly met by rabbis closely-associated with Netanyahu and with ultra-violent elements of the Israeli right who presented him with a list of demands. The commandments, collectively called ‘Megillat Bush’ were written on a specially-made scroll made to look as if scribed personally by some fire-and-brimstone Old Testament prophet. Typical of the same haughty, pushy, demanding, threatening, obnoxious and condescending tones universally-known to be as much a part of the Jewish state’s character as pasta and tomatoes are to Italian cuisine, the decree had the following to say–
‘To George W. Bush…who comes to Jerusalem, eternal capital of our land, joy of the entire earth…
…If you truly desire peace and wish to be counted in the company of the truly righteous, we call upon you to declare to all the world the following-
‘I George Bush declare that the Land of Israel was bequeathed to the nation of Israel by the Creator of the world. which He gave to His people Israel, the eternal people. Therefore I call upon all the nations to save themselves from certain doom and recognize that this land is the exclusive rightful inheritance of the people of Israel. He who denies this truth endangers all life on earth.’
The proclamation, reminiscent of the same threats of doom and destruction Moses issued when he put the heat on Pharaoh some years back continued with–
‘Or, Heaven forbid, you can choose the second option…to willfully aid in destruction…You certainly know what the God of Israel did to Egypt and to all Israel’s enemies from time immemorial. Do you imagine you can escape from the struggles in Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon, by offering up the Jews who are slaughtered daily by their enemies? Remember our forefather Abraham, who pursued the world’s four greatest kings in order to redeem his nephew from captivity. We cannot forget the deeds of our patriarchs, whose example guides us through every generation…
…Understand this well–God ordained that the role of the nations of the world is to strengthen the nation of Israel. Therefore it behooves you to declare: “I, George Bush, Commander in Chief of the armies of the United States of America, will instruct all of my troops to protect the Divine rights of the nation of Israel, and remove from her any threat.” Before you is a choice: You can merit eternal life, or be inscribed for eternal disgrace. Your fate and that of all those with you hangs in the balance of the destiny of our land…’
Immediately after Bush was handed this list of demands, a mere few months later in mid-September of 2008, in the span of just two hours $550 billion dollars evaporated from the US money market accounts. According to Congressional testimony provided by Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke and then-Secretary of the Treasury Paulson, had they not stepped in and shut down the money market accounts, the US would have been completely bankrupt by 2 pm that day.
That this was a coordinated financial attack on the US economy (the likely intended result of which was to blame it all on Islamic terrorists–undoubtedly Iran–as a precursor to launching military attacks against that country) is not some wild, speculative conspiracy theory. That a repeat performance of that event is a logistical possibility, given the predominance of Zionist influence within the financial sector of the American economy is not some fringe theory.
However, in the aftermath of financial scandals involving creatures such as Bernie Madoff, Lloyd Blankfein and the rest of the gang, paired with the results of public opinion polls showing that the age-old spectre pairing up Jews, greed and money is again bobbing up and down like a hastily disposed-of body in the waters of American thinking, what this indicates is that Zionist interests might not want to “go there”.
Therefore, it is more likely that the same Jewish interests salivating over a new war in the Middle East involving Iran may resort to more desperate measures in getting the big ball rolling, something more along the lines of what took place in Dallas of 1963 to then-President JFK.
That there have been ruminations in this direction is without a doubt. Mainstream stories emanating out of Israel, the U.S. and Europe carry the unmistakable whiff of threats against the life of the President as a result of his stance viz-a-viz the settlements issue and his reluctance to widen U.S. involvement in an already-disastrous war in the region. In Israel, loud, raucous protests, sometimes right in front of Netanyahu’s residence take place with crowds burning effigies of Obama who is referred to as “the new Pharaoh”. Other stories, quoting high-level Israeli ministers, refer to Obama as “the descendent of slaves” who does not know his place and who needs to be dealt with harshly. Barely a week goes by where Netanyahu is not speaking in apocalyptic terms if America does not get busy soon by getting GI boots on the ground.
The question is–would Israel go so far as to assassinate an American president in order to gain certain political advantages? According to former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky, such a question is a no-brainer, as he describes in his book ‘The Other Side of Deception’ how Israel planned to assassinate President George H.W. Bush at the Madrid peace conference in October of 1991 for the purpose of blaming it on Arab extremists–
“Since the Mossad had all the security arrangements in hand, it would not be a problem in bringing the killers as close as they wanted to President Bush and then staging his assassination. In the ensuing confusion, the Mossad people would kill the ‘perpetrators,’ scoring yet another victory for the Mossad. With the assassins dead, it would be difficult to discover where the ‘security breach’ had been, except that several countries involved in the conference, such as Syria, were regarded as countries that assisted terrorists.”
Other hints as to how such an operation might take place are partially given in a story appearing in the New York Times entitled “President Apostate” written by hardcore Israel-firster Edward Luttwak that reads in part–
“As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant. Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him. His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder. With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric. Because no government is likely to allow the prosecution of a President Obama another provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing. At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards.”
So in other words, the idea Israel is trying to communicate to el Presidente is that if he gets out of line, he will be killed and it will be blamed on an “Islamic extremist” angry with Obama’s “apostasy”.
In conveying to Obama the idea that Israel means business and is all-too capable of bypassing every layer of security established for the protection of the most powerful man in the world by bringing someone within spitting distance of both him and his family, on November 24, 2009, in a headline-making event that kept the nation buzzing for weeks, Tareq Salahi, (described as an Israeli-born Palestinian) crashed an official White House state dinner party held for the Prime Minister of India, getting close enough to the President as to have photos taken of the two of them and later put on Facebook. In order to do this, Salahi had to pass through 2 Secret Service security checkpoints, both of which required his name being on the invitation list (neither one did) as well as his being able to produce photo identification. The breach in security was so serious that it resulted in both Congressional and criminal investigations involving every Federal agency tasked with providing personal protection for the President.
Whether it can be proven that this was an Israeli operation or not, the fact is that the Jewish owned/managed mainstream media in America made the most of it in driving home the theme to Obama–NO ONE is untouchable, Mr. President. The impossible-to-avoid-noting similarities between this event and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy by the Israeli-born Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan on June 5, 1968 for reasons dealing with the political situation in the Middle East were as subtle as the horse’s head under the bed sheets in the movie The Godfather.
The entire drama involving the exodus of Jewish power from the Obama White House is entirely reminiscent of those infamous news stories appearing immediately after 9/11, where so few Israelis were listed amongst the dead that day. In the case of 9/11, the world found out afterwards that Israelis were warned to stay away via the instant messaging system Odigo headquartered in Israel, whereas in this case, the world is finding out before the planned event. Israel and her supporters obviously do not want their people ‘there’ in teh White House when whatever ticking time bomb that has been placed there goes off.
One thing all can be sure of–for individuals such as Emmanuel, Axelrod and Summers to be leaving posts as prestigious and important to not only them personally but as well to the continued well-being of “home sweet home”–Israel, is tantamount to someone walking away from a found bag of money 6 feet high and 6 feet wide and in doing so, forfeiting all the power, privilege and prestige that such a find promises. Besides the personal loss, there is also the “weight of history” to consider. Right now, Israel needs as many eyes and ears in the White House as possible in terms of her very survivability. With biblical role models such as Joseph and Esther who wormed their ways into the highest places of power in their respective times and respective places, the fact that 3 rather large rats are fleeing the ship of state at this crucial time in history can only mean that through some extraordinary means they know a torpedo is approaching the ship and that it will be sinking soon.
© 2010 Mark Glenn
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