GENOCIDE IN JAPAN! - Professor Chris Busby

The number of Christians in CHINA multiplies.

Christians in China: Is the country in spiritual crisis?

By Tim Gardam Radio 4's God in China
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14838749 

 

More people go to church on Sunday in China than in the whole of Europe.

Many of China's churches are overflowing, as the number of Christians in the country multiplies. In the past, repression drove people to convert - is the cause now rampant capitalism?

It is impossible to say how many Christians there are in China today, but no-one denies the numbers are exploding.

The government says 25 million, 18 million Protestants and six million Catholics. Independent estimates all agree this is a vast underestimate. A conservative figure is 60 million. There are already more Chinese at church on a Sunday than in the whole of Europe.

The new converts can be found from peasants in the remote rural villages to the sophisticated young middle class in the booming cities.

Driven underground

There is a complexity in the structures of Chinese Christianity which is little understood in the West. To start with, Catholicism and Protestantism are designated by the state as two separate religions.

 

The Haidian Christian Church in Beijing was completely re-built to cope with rising numbers

 

Throughout the 20th Century, Christianity was associated with Western imperialism. After the Communist victory in 1949, the missionaries were expelled, but Christianity was permitted in state-sanctioned churches, so long as they gave their primary allegiance to the Communist Party.

Mao, on the other hand, described religion as "poison", and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s attempted to eradicate it. Driven underground, Christianity not only survived, but with its own Chinese martyrs, it grew in strength.

Since the 1980s, when religious belief was again permitted, the official Churches have gradually created more space for themselves.

They report to the State Administration for Religious Affairs. They are forbidden to take part in any religious activity outside their places of worship and sign up to the slogan, "Love the country - love your religion."

In return the Party promotes atheism in schools but undertakes "to protect and respect religion until such time as religion itself will disappear".

House Churches

Protestants and Catholics are both divided into official and unofficial Churches.

“Start Quote

The old have seen the old certainties of Marxism-Leninism transmute into the most visceral capitalist society on earth”

The officially sanctioned Catholic Patriotic Association appoints its own bishops and is not allowed to have any dealings with the Vatican, though Catholics are allowed to recognise the spiritual authority of the Pope.

There is a larger Catholic underground church, supported by the Vatican. Inch by inch, the Vatican and the government have been moving towards accommodation. Most bishops are now recognised by both, with neither side admitting the greater sovereignty of the other.

Yet in the past few months, the Chinese government has again turned tough, ordaining its bishops in the teeth of opposition from the Vatican which has in turn excommunicated one of them.

Even so, it would be wrong simply to dismiss the official church as a sham.

In the mountains West of Beijing, I visited the village of Hou Sangyu where a Catholic Church has stood since the 14th Century. 

• Tim Gardam is the Principal of St Anne's College, Oxford.
• He is pictured here with the Catholic Sisters of Sangyu.
• God in China, Christianity and Catholicism will be on BBC Radio 4 at 8pm on Monday 12 September.

The tough faith of these old people had withstood the Japanese invasion and the Cultural Revolution. The village clinic was run by nuns, one from Inner Mongolia, a Catholic stronghold.

It is from such villages that the Catholic Church recruits its young ordinands, to undertake training for the priesthood.

The official Protestant Church is growing faster than Catholicism.

On Easter morning, in downtown Beijing, I watched five services, each packed with over 1,500 worshippers. Sunday school was spilling on to the street.

However, these numbers are dwarfed by the unofficial "house churches", spreading across the country, at odds with the official Church which fears the house churches' fervour may provoke a backlash.

What the authorities consider non-negotiable is the house churches' refusal to acknowledge any official authority over their organisation.

The State fears the influence of zealous American evangelism and some of the House Church theology has those characteristics, but, in many other respects, it seems to be an indigenous Chinese movement - charismatic, energetic and young.

An educated young Christian described her church to me: "We have 50 young professionals in this church. Everyone is so busy working, you don't have time socialising, and even if you are socialising, you are putting on a fake face.

"But in church people feel warm, they feel welcome… they feel people really love them so they really want to join the community, a lot of people come for this."

Alpha marriage course

A Chinese academic close to the government told me that the government would prefer to ignore the house churches, as unlike the Falun Gong they are not seen as a threat. But where a church oversteps the line, as happened in Beijing this year, taking its worship on to the streets, then the authorities will crack down.

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The worship of Mammon… has become many people's life purpose”

Professor He Guanghu Renmin University, Beijing

 

In some areas the state has sought to enlist Christianity into its "big idea" of a "harmonious society" - the slogan that dominates Chinese public life. There has been official interest in the Western evangelical Alpha Marriage Course, because of alarm at the escalating divorce rate among young Chinese.

What must unsettle the authorities most is the reason why so many are turning to the churches.

I heard people talking again and again of a "spiritual crisis" in China - a phrase that has even been used by the Premier Wen Jiao Bao. The old have seen the old certainties of Marxism-Leninism transmute into the most visceral capitalist society on earth.

For the young, in the stampede to get rich, trust in institutions, between individuals, between the generations, is breaking down.

As one of China's most eminent philosophers of religion - Professor He Guanghu, at Renmin University in Beijing put it to me: "The worship of Mammon… has become many people's life purpose.

"I think it is very natural that many other people will not be satisfied... will seek some meaning for their lives so that when Christianity falls into their lives, they will seize it very tightly."

Secret Weapons Program Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant?

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.

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

'Uranium making Punjab kids retarded'

'Uranium making Punjab kids retarded' Times of India June 14, 2010 BATHINDA: Confirming Punjab’s worst fear and The Times of India reports, a resounding document from Germany’s Microtrace Mineral Lab has revealed that hair samples of 80% of 149 neurologically disabled children, mainly from southern Malwa region, have high levels of uranium. The report from a world-renowned laboratory also establishes the presence of dangerous heavy metals in water, questioning high use of chemicals to support state’s green revolution. Presence of the radioactive element has strengthened doubts that depleted uranium (DU) used by American tanks in Iraq and Afghanistan travelled through air, reaching not just the region but Delhi as well. TOI was the first to report the suspected presence of uranium traces in the hair of kids undergoing treatment at Baba Farid Centre for Special Children. "We had suspected arsenic exposure, instead over 80% of children and adult, many of whom are suffering from cerebral palsy and mental retardation, showed pathological levels for uranium," said Dr Carin Smit, a South African toxicologist who had sent samples to the German laboratory in March 2009. With no apparent source of uranium in Punjab, Carin added, "We were not testing for the radioactive element but heavy metal toxicity, which results in ill-health and premature death."

Link: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/Uranium-making-Punjab-kids-retarded/
   articleshow/6045103.cms

Ron Paul: Afghanistan is a No-Win Situation

32 Responses

by RonPaul.com on April 7, 2010

A coalition of neocons, oil industry executives and religious extremists want to redraw the boundaries of the Middle East. But it’s not going to turn out the way they want: Afghanistan is a no-win situation, and reports of war crimes and torture continue to do irreparable harm to America’s reputation all around the world.

Show: Freedom Watch

Host: Judge Andrew Napolitano
Date: 04/06/2010

Transcript

Judge Andrew Napolitano: American soldiers recently murdered two pregnant women, then crudely removed the bullets from their bodies, then washed the wounds in alcohol, then stabbed the dead bodies and reported that the woman were found stabbed and bound when the soldiers arrived. General McChrystal backed up these guys, until Afghani investigators uncovered the likely truth. On Sunday of this week, the general apologized for what “international forces did”. Is it any wonder that President Karzai is furious with the American military? This is all part of President Obama’s war in Afghanistan.

In Pakistan, next door, the president is waging a secret war, and has unleashed more drones in one year than President Bush did in 8 years. Are soldiers fighting that war? No, CIA agents are. The authorization to use military force, which Congress enacted shortly after 9/11, is clearly unconstitutional. It has no target, it has no end, no one can concede defeat, no one can surrender. It permits every future president to attack whoever he or she wants, for whatever reason he or she wants, wherever they want to go.

Joining me now is one of America’s great defenders of the Constitution, of personal liberty and freedom, and the author of the best-seller, “End the Fed”, CongressmanRon Paul. Congressman, I know you guy are off this week, I appreciate your time. Thanks and welcome back to Freedom Watch.

Ron Paul: Thank you, Judge, good to be with you.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: I thought we would talk a little bit about foreign policy, about military policy, especially in light of this scandal the other day. These soldiers, obviously, did a horrific thing. They’re not an example of what every soldier does. The military must prosecute them now in light of what happened. But doesn’t the president, don’t those who set the American foreign policy, realize what this does to the reputation of the United States of America in areas of the world were things like this happen, and when people who perpetrate it, appear to get away with it?

Ron Paul: And don’t you think every Muslim around the world already hasn’t heard about this story? Just like the stories and the pictures of the torture. They said that did irreparable harm to us once that circulated around the world. So, it’s a no-win situation for us. We’re in there for the wrong reasons, doing the wrong thing, and these kinds of incidents just makes things so much worse for us. You just wonder what they’re thinking about to pursue a policy like this.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: When Lyndon Johnson wanted authority to invade North Vietnam, something he was secretly planning to do from before the time he labeled Barry Goldwater as a warmonger, he created the Gulf of Tonkin incident. We now know this never happened. The American public and the Congress believe that U.S. warships were fired on by North Vietnamese military, and so they gave them a resolution that authorized them to invade the North. We all know what happened on 9-11. But, nevertheless, the Congress gave President George W. Bush and his successor, Barack Obama, and President Obama’s successor if this thing is not rescinded, the authorization to use military force against any target anywhere on the planet. This can’t be lawful. The Congress could never have intended that this thing be so open-ended. Yet if you read it, it is open-ended. And presidents even use it in a non-public way, like dispatching the CIA to fight a secret war.

Ron Paul: Yeah, I think it’s totally out of control, although the resolution did say that he was to go only after those individuals responsible for 9/11. Well, the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan had nothing to do with it. So it’s being used outrageously. So you’re right; they have been able to justify this authority to go to any place, anytime they want. It’s endless war, and of course, they use this as a declaration of war, therefore, then they can set up their military courts and their tribunals and all the rest that goes on. So, the whole idea of our foreign policy needs be reversed. This idea that we are the policeman of the world and that we should be everywhere, telling everybody what to do, is an insane policy, and it’s coming back to haunt us. The sooner we wake up, the better.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Now, Pakistan is an ally. But why do members of Congress look the other way, Congressman Paul, when the United States bombs Pakistan? When by mistake it kills innocent people, when it does so using plastic drones out of the sky, that are controlled from a computer in Langley, when it has troops on the ground that are out of uniform? Oh let’s see. Troops on the ground out of uniform. Doesn’t that violate the laws of war? Doesn’t that allow the host country to declare that these people are unlawful combatants, and have no rights? Aren’t we basically doing in Pakistan some of the same things we’ve accused the bad guys of doing to us?

Ron Paul: Yeah, and if we weren’t so powerful, somebody would be charging us with war crimes. The Pakistan government, if it were a little bit stronger, maybe they would object. But, you know, they’re dependent on us. We go in there and we run roughshod over their government and their land. Then what do we do to pacify them? We send them more money, and weapons! So we’re just stirring the pot, it’s all we’re doing. And I just thing we ought to leave the whole area.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: I agree with you. I just don’t think, and I know you have said this yourself, that we can declare democracy by decree. I mean, this is a society, a culture, a set of values that are not shared by us. And you can’t bring democracy at the point of a gun. What do you think the president, who must understand this, really wants to accomplish in Afghanistan? Is it a presidential lust for war, because war brings political support, war lets you raise taxes, people are willing even to give up their freedoms in times of war? Or is there something else at work here?

Ron Paul: You know, I think it’s a lot of those things. But I think mostly its how they’ve been brought up, what they have learnt, who their professors have been, what is the general attitude? And basically it has been that of intervention. And there are some of the neo-cons who feel like we’re morally responsible for this, then the oil people get involved and say we need to control the oil and the gas lines and the pipelines. Others have the religious notion that we’re obligated to do this in support of both Christian beliefs and the Jewish state. And it all adds up and you get a lot of these coalitions together, and they want to redraw the boundaries of the Middle East. That’s what they’re trying to do.

But, you know, I don’t think it’s going to turn out the way they want. Because I think all our policies, whether it’s in Iraq, or what we’re threatening to do in Iran, is actually helping Iran. You know, Ahmadinejad and Karzai get together and talk about it, in spite of our hostilities to Ahmadinejad, and all the support we have given to Karzai up till now, these two guys get together just as the leaders, the Shia leaders of Iraq go around and talk to the Iranians. So I think we have just created so much chaos, and I don’t see any benefit to it.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Congressman Paul, it’s always a pleasure, thanks for joining us on Freedom Watch.

Ron Paul: Thank you, judge.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: You can catch today’s show atFoxNews.com/FreedomWatch and on Sirius 145, XM168, or online atFoxNewsTalk.com at 6 P.M Eastern on Saturdays. From New York, defending freedom, until the next time, stay free America.

Thailand: King Bhumibol Adulyadej

Profile: King Bhumibol Adulyadej

King Bhumibol Adulyadej is the world's longest reigning monarch.

King Bhumibol is the world's longest-reigning monarch

Revered by an adoring public, the 81-year-old king is seen as a stabilising influence in a country which, during his reign, has seen numerous military coups, 17 constitutions and even more prime ministers.

Thailand's economy is now more than 40 times the size it was when he came to power 63 years ago.

Seen as a benign father figure who remains above politics, King Bhumibol has nevertheless been credited with intervening at a few moments of acute political tension to find a non-violent resolution.

His usually opaque public utterances are minutely dissected for advice to the nation.

Though he is a constitutional monarch with limited powers, most Thais regard him as semi-divine.

Hundreds of thousands gathered to hear him speak in June 2006 when he celebrated 60 years on the throne, and any sign he has medical problems is seen as a matter of national concern.

Royal projects

King Bhumibol Adulyadej acceded to the throne on 9 June 1946 after his brother, King Ananda Mahidol, died in a still unexplained shooting accident at the Royal Palace in Bangkok.

He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his father was studying, and he was later educated in Switzerland. He returned there to finish his studies before returning to Thailand where he was crowned in May 1950.

King Bhumibol met the UK's Queen Elizabeth II in 1996

The status of the monarchy had been in decline since the abolition of absolute monarchy in 1932, and then the abdication of King Prajadhipok, King Bhumibol's uncle, in 1935.

In his early years King Bhumibol was overshadowed by a series of powerful military leaders.

But he rebuilt the monarchy's profile through a series of tours in the provinces, and through numerous royal projects that established his lifelong concern with agricultural development.

In 2006, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan presented him with the United Nations' first Human Development Lifetime Achievement Award.

The current public reverence for King Bhumibol appears genuine, but it has also been carefully nurtured by a formidable palace public relations machine, and by harsh "lese-majeste" laws that punish any criticism of the monarchy with up to 15 years in prison.

Interventions

King Bhumibol's first public intervention in Thailand's chaotic politics occurred in 1973, when pro-democracy demonstrators were fired on by soldiers and were allowed to shelter in the palace, a move which led to the collapse of the administration of the then prime minister, General Thanom Kittikachorn.

But he failed to prevent the lynching of left-wing students by paramilitary vigilantes three years later, at a time when the monarchy feared the growth of communist sympathies after the end of the Vietnam War.

Celebrations for the 60th year of the king's rule were lavish

In 1981, King Bhumibol stood up to a group of army officers who had staged a coup against the prime minister, and the king's personal friend, General Prem Tinsulanond. Units loyal to the king then retook Bangkok.

In 1992 he again intervened when dozens of demonstrators were shot after protesting against an attempt by a former coup leader, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, to become prime minister.

The king insisted on a new election and democracy was subsequently restored.

During the crisis that erupted over the leadership of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006, the king was frequently asked to intervene but insisted this would be inappropriate.

However his influence was still viewed as pivotal when the election Mr Thaksin had won that April was quickly annulled by the courts. His precise role in the coup that deposed Mr Thaksin is unknown.

Three years on, the king's name and image are invoked by factions both for and against Mr Thaksin, who are still jostling for power.

The entire country joined lavish celebrations to mark King Bhumibol's 80th birthday in 2008, and in the months leading up to it millions of Thais took to wearing his colour, yellow, to bring him good luck.

In his younger days, King Bhumibol enjoyed a wide variety of pursuits, including photography, playing and composing songs for the saxophone, painting and writing.

He even received a patent for his development of an artificial rain-making technique.