Nikita Khruschev in Purgatory

http://nikitakhruschevinpurgatory.blogspot.com/

He says he got permission to communicate with the living.....

911 truth till I'm blue in my face.

The Pentacon

Eyewitness accounts prove Flight 77 took a different path.












A New Standard For Deception

A comprehensive analysis of the NIST report by former Underwriters Laboratory engineer Kevin Ryan.














Improbable Collapse

The demolition of our Republic.

Charlie Sheen Is Wrong, and I've Been Wrong Too. Having Reviewed The Official Version of The Events of 9/11 I'm Sold!

; )


This comment was found on a Telegraph article about Charlie Sheen’s questions to the President.




***************************



Charlie Sheen will be viewed by history as a very brave individual…



The Official Version of 9/11 goes something like this…



Directed by a beardy-guy from a cave in Afghanistan, nineteen hard-drinking, coke-snorting, devout Muslims enjoy lap dances before their mission to meet Allah…



Using nothing more than craft knifes, they overpower cabin crew, passengers and pilots on four planes…



And hangover or not, they manage to give the world’s most sophisticated air defense system the slip…



Unphased by leaving their “How to Fly a Passenger Jet” guide in the car at the airport, they master the controls in no-time and score direct hits on two towers, causing THREE to collapse completely…



Our masterminds even manage to overpower the odd law of physics or two… and the world watches in awe as steel-framed buildings fall symmetrically – through their own mass – at free-fall speed, for the first time in history.



Despite all their dastardly cunning, they stupidly give their identity away by using explosion-proof passports, which survive the fireball undamaged and fall to the ground… only to be discovered by the incredible crime-fighting sleuths at the FBI…







…Meanwhile down in Washington…



Hani Hanjour, having previously flunked 2-man Cessna flying school, gets carried away with all the success of the day and suddenly finds incredible abilities behind the controls of a Boeing…



Instead of flying straight down into the large roof area of the Pentagon, he decides to show off a little…



Executing an incredible 270 degree downward spiral, he levels off to hit the low facade of the world’s most heavily defended building…



…all without a single shot being fired…. or ruining the nicely mowed lawn… and all at a speed just too fast to capture on video…



…Later, in the skies above Pennsylvania…



So desperate to talk to loved ones before their death, some passengers use sheer willpower to connect mobile calls that otherwise would not be possible until several years later…



And following a heroic attempt by some to retake control of Flight 93, it crashes into a Shankesville field leaving no trace of engines, fuselage or occupants… except for the standard issue Muslim terrorists bandana…



…Further south in Florida…



President Bush, our brave Commander-in-Chief continues to read “My Pet Goat” to a class full of primary school children… shrugging off the obvious possibility that his life could be in imminent danger…



…In New York…



World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein blesses his own foresight in insuring the buildings against terrorist attack only six weeks previously…



While back in Washington, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz shake their heads in disbelief at their own luck in getting the ‘New Pearl Harbor’ catalyzing event they so desired to pursue their agenda of world domination…



And finally, not to be disturbed too much by reports of their own deaths, at least seven of our nineteen suicide hijackers turn up alive and kicking in mainstream media reports…

Scholar: Europe’s Right is embracing its Jews | New Jersey Jewish News

Scholar: Europe’s Right is embracing its Jews | New Jersey Jewish News

Traficant criticizes Congress but not Obama on ‘Hardball’ - Local & Regional News, Jim Traficant - Vindy.com, The Vindicator

Traficant criticizes Congress but not Obama on ‘Hardball’ - Local & Regional News, Jim Traficant - Vindy.com, The Vindicator

Traficant, of Poland, described Congress as a “big whorehouse.”

But he was respectful of President Barack Obama.

“As far as Obama’s concerned, I tell these TEA [Taxed Enough Already] Party groups, ‘Hey, look I don’t think you should be going after President Obama. I think his hands are pretty much tied. I think his heart’s in the right place.’”

Traficant has also appeared on cable television news shows on Fox News and CNN.

Traficant, expelled from the U.S. House after more than 17 years as a congressman, was found guilty in April 2002 on 10 felony convictions including racketeering, bribery, obstruction of justice and tax evasion.

Matthews asked if Traficant was “in any way guilty as charged.”

“No, I was not guilty ... in any way, in any way,” Traficant responded

Jim Traficant: out of pokey, into spotlight - Andy Barr - POLITICO.com

Jim Traficant: out of pokey, into spotlight - Andy Barr - POLITICO.com



Traficant was a political prisoner. He definitely pissed off AIPAC. He did seven years in prison, he's out now and fighting mad.

George Galloway - I know it's old news but some old things bear repeating. He ripped the liars in the US Senate a new asshole back in '05.

British Member of Parliament George Galloway’s Senate Hearing Speech
Given in the Capitol Building, Washington D.C.
17 May 2005
Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I
have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my
behalf.
Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you
are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found
me guilty.
You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without
ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to
contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.
Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas
where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I
believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had
'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.
I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no
stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.
As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald
Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him
maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering
and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans
Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two
meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defense made of his.
I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and American governments and businessmen
were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and
American officials were going in and doing commerce.
You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards,
voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do
and than any other member of the British or American governments do.
2
Now you say in this document, you quote a source, you have the gall to quote a source, without ever
having asked me whether the allegation from the source is true, that I am 'the owner of a company
which has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil'.
Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole
purpose, is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer, Associated
Newspapers, in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil. And you have no
business to carry a quotation, utterly unsubstantiated and false, implying otherwise.
Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which
have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of
the letters against me that you had against Zhirinovsky, and even Pasqua, they would have been up
there in your slideshow for the members of your committee today.
You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the
convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many people to their credit
in your country now realize played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq.
There were 270 names on that list originally. That's somehow been filleted down to the names you
chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former
secretary to His Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress
Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood
against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to
this disaster.
You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar
Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I
believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In
these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib
prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in
those places.
I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner
in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never
met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.
And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any
evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this
committee today because I agreed with your Mr Greenblatt (legal counsel on the committee).
Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What counts is not the names on the paper, what counts
is where's the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The
answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have
produced them today.
Now you refer at length to a company names in these documents as Aredio Petroleum. I say to you
under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone from this
3
company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I'll tell you something else: I can assure
you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a
thin dime. I don't know who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they
would confirm that they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.
Whilst I'm on that subject, who is this senior former regime official that you spoke to yesterday?
Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think the Committee and the public have a right
to know who this senior former regime official you were quoting against me interviewed yesterday
actually is?
Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you have made in this set of documents is, to be frank,
such a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that you have made. You assert on page 19,
not once but twice, that the documents that you are referring to cover a different period in time from
the documents covered by The Daily Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by me in
the High Court in England late last year.
You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst you are
dealing with documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph's documents date
identically to the documents that you were dealing with in your report here. None of The Daily
Telegraph's documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I had never set foot in Iraq until late in
1993 - never in my life. There could not possibly be any documents relating to Oil-for-Food matters
in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food scheme did not exist at that time.
And yet you've allocated a full section of this document to claiming that your documents are from a
different era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the opposite is true. Your documents and the
Daily Telegraph documents deal with exactly the same period.
But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph action with the Christian Science Monitor.
The Christian Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages a set of allegations against me
very similar to the ones that your committee have made. They did indeed rely on documents which
started in 1992, 1993. These documents were unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor
themselves as forgeries.
Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you're such a hero, senator, were all absolutely
cock-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents, they were all absolutely
convinced of their authenticity. They were all absolutely convinced that these documents showed
me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime. And they were all lies.
In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the Christian
Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British newspaper, Mail
on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also upon forensic examination turned out to
be forgeries. So there's nothing fanciful about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.
The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is
a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated
amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the
fall of the Iraqi regime.
4
Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political
life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million
Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but
they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that
time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading
Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.
I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told
the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world,
contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world,
contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their
country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of
the beginning.
Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and
100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack
of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.
If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened
to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened
to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today.
Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes
that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.
Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of
Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a
look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money
of the American taxpayer.
Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and
selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to
American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or
weighing it.
Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony
in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French
politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own
Government.

The great thimerosal cover-up: Mercury, vaccines, autism and your child's health

The great thimerosal cover-up: Mercury, vaccines, autism and your child's health

Say No to the Swine Flu Vaccine! Vaccine manufactureres are shielded from liability cliams. That means they can harm you, even kill you and you have no recourse in the law. Can you trust any such product? I'd say no.

HHS extends liability shield to antivirals used for H1N1
Robert Roos News Editor


Jun 26, 2009 (CIDRAP News) – The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently provided a shield against damage claims related to the use of the antiviral drugs oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza) in the current H1N1 influenza pandemic.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius signed a notice extending liability protection under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act. It was published in the Federal Register on Jun 19.

The PREP Act allows the HHS secretary to provide liability protection related to the use of various medical measures against diseases that HHS determines to be health emergencies. Protections are already in place for the two antivirals when used against H5N1 influenza and for vaccines for H5N1 and other potential pandemic flu strains, among other drugs and vaccines.

Liability protection is provided to groups and individuals involved in the development, manufacture, testing, distribution, administration, and use of medical countermeasures, according to HHS.

Gretchen Michael, an HHS spokeswoman in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, described the antiviral-related move as routine. "This just sort of adapted the previous PREP Act documents for H1N1," she said.

Michael said the impulse for PREP Act liability protections has come primarily from the manufacturers of the relevant products. She said the oseltamivir protection measure was not related to the reports, mainly from Japan, of abnormal behavior in some adolescents who were given the drug.

See also:

Federal Register notice about liability protection for oseltamivir and zanamivir
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-14412.pdf

HHS PREP Act page with links to liability protection declarations
http://www.hhs.gov/disasters/discussion/planners/prepact/

Michael Moore: "Here's the problem with President Obama... he's a nice guy"

Ann Minch, aka Rockerchick4God Has Started a debtor's Revolt on You Tube!

She is one fantastic lady! Rock on!

Charlie Sheen Has Lots Of Questions He Would Like To Ask President Obama About 9/11 On Behalf of 9/11 Survivor Families

Alex Jones’ Prison Planet.com » Twenty Minutes With The President


http://www.infowars.com/twe... Charlie Sheen addresses the President about 9/11 in a special video message, shortly after releasing his "20 Minutes with the President," specifically addressing 20 ...
http://www.infowars.com/twenty-minute...

Charlie Sheen addresses the President about 9/11 in a special video message, shortly after releasing his "20 Minutes with the President," specifically addressing 20 key points that need to be answered by a truly independent investigation.

Sheen's message is a call to action, not only for President Obama to address the pertinent issues, but for activists everywhere to pressure their representatives and leaders, wherever they may be, to 'be on the right side of history' and take back the country through peaceful revolution and true grassroots dissent.

READ MORE:

Twenty Minutes with the President - http://www.infowars.com/twenty-minute...

Charlie Sheen Requests Meeting With Obama Over 9/11 Cover-Up - http://www.infowars.com/charlie-sheen...

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with our 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, while he was out promoting his health care reform initiative. I requested 30 minutes given the scope and detail of my inquiry; they said I could have 20. Twenty minutes, 1200 seconds, not a lot of time to question the President about one of the most important events in our nation’s history. The following is a transcript of our remarkable discussion.

————————————————————————————————————————


Charlie Sheen – Good afternoon Mr. President, thank you so much for taking time out of your demanding schedule.

President Barack Obama – My pleasure, the content of your request seemed like something I should carve out a few minutes for.

CS – I should point out that I voted for you, as your promises of hope and change, transparency and accountability, as well as putting government back into the hands of the American people, struck an emotional chord in me that I hadn’t felt in quite some time, perhaps ever.

PBO – And I appreciate that Charlie. Big fan of the show, by the way.

CS – Sir, I can’t imagine when you might find the time to actually watch my show given the measure of what you inherited.

PBO – I have it Tivo’d on Air Force One. Nice break from the traveling press corps. (He glances at his watch) not to be abrupt or to rush you, but you have 19 minutes left.

CS – I’ll take that as an invitation to cut to the chase.

PBO – I’m all ears. Or so I’ve been told.

CS – Sir, in the very near future we will be experiencing our first 9/11 anniversary with you as Commander in Chief.

PBO – Yes. A very solemn day for our Nation. A day of reflection and yet a day of historical consciousness as well.

CS – Very much so sir, very much so indeed…. Now; In researching your position regarding the events of 9/11 and the subsequent investigation that followed, am I correct to understand that you fully support and endorse the findings of the commission report otherwise known as the ‘official story’?

PBO – Do I have any reason not to? Given that most of us are presumably in touch with similar evidence.

CS – I really wish that were the case, sir. Are you aware, Mr. President, of the recent stunning revelations that sixty percent of the 9/11 commissioners have publicly stated that the government agreed not to tell the truth about 9/11 and that the Pentagon was engaged in deliberate deception about their response to the attack?

PBO – I am aware of certain “in fighting” during the course of their very thorough and tireless investigative process.

CS – Mr. President, it’s hard to label this type of friction as “in fighting” or make the irresponsible leap to “thorough,” when the evidence I insist you examine regarding 6 of the 10 members are statements of fact.

(At this point one of Obama’s senior aides approaches the President and whispers into his ear. Obama glances quickly at his watch and nods as the aide resumes his post at the doorway, directly behind me.)

PBO – No disrespect Mr. Sheen, but I have to ask; what is it that you seem to be implying with the initial direction of this discussion?

CS – I am not implying anything Mr. President. I am here to present the facts and see what you plan to do with them.

PBO – Let me guess; your ‘facts,’ allegedly supporting these claims are in the folders you brought with you?

CS – Good guess Mr. President.

(I hand the first folder of documents to the President)

CS – Again sir, these are not my opinions or assumptions, this is all a matter of public record, reported through mainstream media, painstakingly fact checked and verified.

(the President glances into the folder I handed him)

CS – You’ll notice sir on page one of the dossier dated August of ‘06 from the Washington Post, the statements of John Farmer, senior council to the 9/11 commission, his quote stating, “I was shocked how different the truth was from the way it was described.”

PBO – (as he glances down at the report, almost inaudible) …. um hmm….

CS – He goes on to further state “The [NORAD Air Defense] tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years….”

(the President continues to view the documents)

CS – On pages two and three, sir, are the statements, as well, from commission co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, commissioners Bob Kerrey, Timothy Roemer and John Lehman, as well as the statements of commissioner Max Cleland, an ex-Senator from Georgia , who resigned, stating:

“It is a national scandal. This investigation is now compromised. One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9/11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up.”

He also described President Bush’s desire to delay the process as not to damage the ‘04 re-election bid. They suspected deception to the point where they considered referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. Mr. President, this information alone is unequivocally grounds for a new investigation!

PBO – Mistakes were clearly made but we as a people and as a country need to move forward. It is obviously in our best interest as a democratic society to focus our efforts and our resources on the future of this great nation and our ability to protect the American people and our allies from this type of terrorism in the coming years.

CS – Sir, how can we focus on the future when THE COMMISSION ITSELF is on record stating that they still do not know the truth??

PBO – Even if what you state, might in some capacity, begin to approach an open discussion or balanced debate, I can’t speak for, or about the decisions certain commission members made during an extremely difficult period. Perhaps you should be interviewing them instead of me. Wait, don’t tell me; I was easier to track down than they were?

CS – Not exactly sir, but let’s be honest. You’re the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, the buck stops with you. 9/11 has been the pretext for the systematic dismantling of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Your administration is reading from the same playbook that the Bush administration foisted on America through documented secrecy and deception.

PBO – Mr. Sheen, I’m having a difficult time sitting here and listening to you draw distorted parallels between the Bush/Cheney regime and mine.

CS – Mr. President the parallels are not distorted just because you say they are. Let’s stick to the facts. You promised to abolish the Patriot Act and then voted to re-authorize it. You pledged to end warrantless wire tapping against the American people and now energetically defend it. You decried the practice of rendition and now continue it. You promised over and over again on the campaign trail, that you would end the practice of indefinite detention and instead, you have expanded it to permanent detention of “detainees” without trial. This far exceeds the outrages of the former administration. Call me crazy Mr. President, but is this not your record?

PBO – Mr. Sheen, my staff and I authorized this interview based on your request to discuss 9/11 and deliver some additional information you’re convinced I’d not previously reviewed. Call me crazy, But it appears as though you’ve blindly wandered off topic.

CS – Sir, the examples I just illustrated are a direct result of 9/11.

PBO – And I’m telling you that we must move forward, we must endure through these dangerous and politically challenging years ahead.

CS – Mr. President, we cannot move forward with a bottomless warren of unanswered questions surrounding that day and its aftermath.

PBO – I read the official report. Every word every page. Perhaps you should do the same.

CS – I have sir, and so have thousands of family members of the victims, and guess what; they have the same questions I do and probably a lot more. I didn’t lose a loved one on that horrific day Mr. President and neither did you. But since then I, along with millions of other Americans lost something we held true and dear for most of our lives in this great country of ours; we lost our hope.

PBO – And I’d like to believe that I am here to restore that hope. To restore confidence in your leaders, in the system that the voting public chose through a peaceful transfer of power.

(An odd moment of silence between us. Precious time ticking away).

CS – Mr. President, are you aware of the number of days it took to begin the investigation into JFK’s assassination?

PBO – If memory serves I believe it was two weeks.

CS – Close. Seventeen days to be exact. Are you aware sir, how long it took to begin the investigation into Pearl Harbor?

PBO – I would say again about….two weeks.

CS – Close again sir, eleven days to be exact. Are you aware Mr. President how long it took to begin the investigation into 9/11?

PBO – I know it must have seemed like a very long time for all the grieving families.

CS – It was a very long time Mr. President – four hundred and forty days. Roughly 14 months. Does it bother you Mr. President that it only took FIVE HOURS for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after the initial attack to recommend and endorse a full scale offensive against Iraq?

PBO – I am not aware of any such purported claim.

CS – I have the proof Mr. President, along with scores of documents and facts I’d like you to take a look at. Here.

(I hand him another file – much thicker than the first)

PBO – I see you came prepared Charlie.

CS – No other way to show up Mr. President. When in doubt over prepare I always say.

PBO – Now you sound like the First Lady.

CS – That’s quite a compliment sir.

PBO – As you wish. Please continue.

CS – Sir, I’d like to direct your attention to the stack of documents in the folder I just handed you. The first in from the top is entitled “ Operation Northwoods“, a declassified Pentagon plan to stage terror attacks on US soil, to be blamed on Cuba as a pretext for war.

PBO – And I’d like to direct your attention to the fact that the principle draftsman of this improbable blueprint was quickly denied a second term as Joint Chiefs chairman and sent packing to a European NATO garrison. Thank God his otherworldly ambitions never saw the light of day.

CS – I wouldn’t be so certain about that Mr. President.

PBO – I could easily say the same to you Charlie.

(the President checks his watch)

CS – The next document reads “Declassified staged provocations.” Now, Honestly Mr. President I wish I was making this stuff up. I’m certain you are familiar with the USS Maine Incident, the sinking of the Lusitania, which we all now know brought us into WW1, and of course the most famous, the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

PBO – Of course I am familiar with these historical events and I’m aware that there’s a measure of controversy surrounding them. But to be quite frank with you, this is all ancient history.

CS – Mr. President, it has been often said; “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” And I concede to you sir, these events are the past.

PBO – A vastly different world young man, shouldering a radically disparate state of universal affairs.

CS – No argument sir, I‘m merely inviting you to acknowledge some credibility to the pattern or the theme. Case in point; the next document in your folder. It was published by the think-tank, Project For a New American Century and it’s entitled “Rebuilding Americas Defenses”, and was written by Dick Cheney and Jeb Bush. To quote from the document sir – (the President interrupts)

PBO – “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”

CS – Touché, sir. Your thoughts on this statement Mr. President?

PBO – I would call this a blatant case of misjudgment fueled by an unfortunate milieu of assumption. For some, the uninformed denial of coincidence.

CS – Interesting angle sir. Nevertheless, Vice President Cheney didn’t stop there. In early 2008, Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh and MSNBC, both reported that Cheney had proposed to the Pentagon an outrageous plan to have the U.S. Navy create fake Iranian patrol boats, to be manned by Navy Seals, who would then stage an attack on US destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz. This event was to be blamed on Iran and used as a pretext for war. Does any of this information worry you Mr. President? Should we just ignore it, until these realities can be dismissed years from now by our children, as ancient history as well?

PBO – Of course this information worries me, yet it’s not nearly as worrisome as you sitting here today suspiciously implying that 9/11 was somehow allowed to happen or even orchestrated from the inside.

CS – Mr. President I am not suspiciously implying anything. I am merely exposing the documents and asking the questions that nobody in power will even look at or acknowledge. And as I stated earlier, I voted for you, I believed in your message of hope and change. Mr. President I have come to you specifically hoping for a change. A change in the perception that our government has not yet made itself open and accountable to the people. These are your words Mr. President not mine. The lives of thousands were brutally cut short and those left behind to suffer their infinite pain are with me today Mr. President. They are with me in spirit and flesh, and the message we carry will not be silenced anymore by media fueled mantras insisting how they are supposed to feel. Deciding for them, for 8 long years, what can be thought, what can be said, what can be asked.

PBO – And I appreciate your passion, I appreciate your conviction. In spite of your concerns, in spite of what your data might or might not reveal, what you and the families must understand and accept is that we are doing everything we can to protect you.

CS – Mr. President , I realize were very short on time, so please allow me to run down a list of bullet points that might illuminate some reasons why we don’t embrace the warm hug of Federal protection.

PBO – We’ve come this far. Fire away.

CS – Please keep in mind Mr. President everything I’m about to say is documented as fact and part of the public record. The information you are holding in your hands chronicles and verifies each and every point.

PBO – You have five minutes left. The floor is yours. Brief me.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)



CS – Thank you Mr. President. Okay, first; On the FBI’s most wanted list Osama Bin Laden is not charged with the crimes of 911. When I called the FBI to ask them why this was the case, they replied: “There’s not enough evidence to link Bin Laden to the crime scene,” I later discovered he had never even been indicted by the D.O.J.

CS – Number 2; FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, was dismissed and gagged by the D.O.J. after she revealed that the government had foreknowledge of plans to attack American cities using planes as bombs as early as April 2001. In July of ‘09, Mrs. Edmonds broke the Federal gag order and went public to reveal that Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban were all working for and with the C.I.A. up until the day of 9/11.

CS – Number 3; The following is a quote from Mayor Giuliani during an interview on 9/11 with Peter Jennings for ABC News. “I went down to the scene and we set up headquarters at 75 Barkley Street, which was right there with the Police Commissioner, the Fire Commissioner, the Head of Emergency Management, and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was going to collapse. And it did collapse before we could actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building for 10, 15 minutes, and finally found an exit and got out, walked north, and took a lot of people with us.”

WHO TOLD HIM THIS??? To this day, the answer to this question remains unanswered, completely ignored and emphatically DENIED by Mayor Giuliani on several public occasions.

CS – Number 4; In April 2004, USA Today reported, “In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.” One of the targets was the World Trade Center.

CS – Number 5; On September 12th 2007, CNN’s ‘Anderson Cooper 360’, reported that the mysterious “white plane” spotted and videotaped by multiple media outlets, flying in restricted airspace over the White House shortly before 10am on the morning of 9/11, was in fact the Air Force’s E-4B, a specially modified Boeing 747 with a communications pod behind the cockpit; otherwise known as “The Doomsday Plane”.

Though fully aware of the event, the 9/11 Commission did not deem the appearance of the military plane to be of any interest and did not include it in the final 9/11 Commission report.

CS – Number 6; Three F-16s assigned to Andrews Air Force Base, ten miles from Washington, DC, are conducting training exercises in North Carolina 207 miles away as the first plane crashes into the WTC. Even at significantly less than their top speed of 1500 mph, they could still have defended the skies over Washington well before 9am, more than 37 minutes before Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon, however, they did not return until after 9:55am.

Andrews AFB had no armed fighters on alert and ready to take off on the morning of 9/11.

CS – Number 7; WTC Building 7. Watch the video of its collapse.

CS – Number 8; Flight 93 is fourth plane to crash on 9/11 at 10:03am. V.P. Cheney only gives shoot down order at 10:10-10:20am and this is not communicated to NORAD until 28 minutes after Flight 93 has crashed.

Fueling further suspicion on this front is the fact that three months before the attacks of 9/11, Dick Cheney usurped control of NORAD, and therefore he, and no one else on planet Earth, had the power to call for military sorties on the hijacked airliners on 9/11. He did not exercise that power. Three months after 9/11, he relinquished command of NORAD and returned it to military operation.

CS – Number 9; Scores of main stream news outlets reported that the F.B.I. conducted an investigation of at least FIVE of the 9/11 hijackers being trained at U.S. military flight schools. Those investigations are now sealed and need to be declassified.

CS – Number 10; In 2004, New York firefighters Mike Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi went public to say they had found the black boxes at the World Trade Center, but were told to keep their mouths shut by FBI agents. Nicholas DeMasi said that he escorted federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and helped them locate the devices, a story backed up by rescue volunteer Mike Bellone.

As the Philadelphia Daily News reported at the time, “Their story raises the question of whether there was a some type of cover-up at Ground Zero.”

CS – Number 11 – Hundreds of eye witnesses including first responders, fire captains, news reporters, and police, all described multiple explosions in both towers before and during the collapse.

CS – Number 12; An astounding video uncovered from the archives shows BBC News correspondent Jane Standley reporting on the collapse of WTC Building 7 over twenty minutes before it fell at 5:20pm on the afternoon of 9/11. Tapes from earlier BBC broadcasts show news anchors discussing the collapse of WTC 7 a full 26 minutes in advance. The BBC at first claimed that their tapes from 9/11 had been “lost” before admitting that they made the “error” of reporting the collapse of WTC 7 before it happened without adequately explaining how they could have obtained advance knowledge of the event.

In addition, over an hour before the collapse of WTC 7, at 4:10pm, CNN’s Aaron Brown reported that the building “has either collapsed, or is collapsing.”

CS – Number 13; Solicitor General Ted Olson’s claim that his wife Barbara Olsen called him twice from Flight 77, describing hijackers with box cutters, was a central plank of the official 9/11 story.

However, the credibility of the story was completely undermined after Olsen kept changing his story about whether his wife used her cell phone or the airplane phone. The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004. American Airlines confirmed that Flight 77 was a Boeing 757 and that this plane did not have airplane phones on board.

According to the FBI, Barbara Olsen attempted to call her husband only once and the call failed to connect, therefore Olsen must have been lying when he claimed he had spoken to his wife from Flight 77.

CS – Number 14; The size of a Boeing 757 is approximately 125ft in width and yet images of the impact zone at the Pentagon supposedly caused by the crash merely show a hole no more than 16ft in diameter. The engines of the 757 would have punctured a hole bigger than this, never mind the whole plane. Images before the partial collapse of the impact zone show little real impact damage and a sparse debris field completely inconsistent with the crash of a large jetliner, especially when contrasted with other images showing airplane crashes into buildings.

CS – Number 15; What is the meaning behind the following quote attributed to Dick Cheney which came to light during the 9/11 Commission hearings? The passage is taken from testimony given by then Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta.

During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, “The plane is 50 miles out.” “The plane is 30 miles out.” And when it got down to “the plane is 10 miles out,” the young man also said to the Vice President, “Do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, “Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?”

As the plane was not shot down, in addition to the fact that armed fighter jets were nowhere near the plane and the Pentagon defensive system was not activated, are we to take it that the orders were to let the plane find its target?

CS – Number 16; In May 2003, the Miami Herald reported how the Bush administration was refusing to release a 900-page congressional report on 9/11 because it wanted to “avoid enshrining embarrassing details in the report,” particularly regarding pre-9/11 warnings as well as the fact that the hijackers were trained at U.S. flight schools.

CS – Number 17; Top Pentagon officials cancelled their scheduled flights for September 11th on September 10th. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, following a security warning, cancelled a flight into New York that was scheduled for the morning of 9/11.

CS – Number 18; The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004, and even by that point it was only in the trial phase. Calls from cell phones which formed an integral part of the official government version of events were technologically impossible at the time.

CS – Number 19: On April 29, 2004, President Bush and V.P. Cheney would only meet with the commission under specific clandestine conditions. They insisted on testifying together and not under oath. They also demanded that their testimony be treated as a matter of “state secret.” To date, nothing they spoke of that day exists in the public domain.

CS – And finally Mr. President – Number 20; A few days after the attack, several newspapers as well as the FBI reported that a paper passport had been found in the ruins of the WTC. In August 2004, CNN reported that 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah’s visa was found in the remains of Flight 93 which went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

At least a third of the WTC victim’s bodies were vaporized and many of the victims of the Pentagon incident were burned beyond recognition. And yet visas and paper passports which identify the perpetrators and back up the official version of events miraculously survive explosions and fires that we are told melted steel buildings.

(The Senior aide appears again beside the President whispering in his ear. He then quickly moves off).

PBO – Well Charlie I can’t say this hasn’t been interesting. As I said earlier you’ve showed up today focused and organized. Regardless how I feel about the material you’ve presented, I must commend your dedication and zeal. However, our time here is up.

(the President rises from his chair , I do the same).

CS – Mr. President! One more second!

(The President starts towards the door – I follow him quickly step for step).

CS – Mr. President, I implore you based on the evidence you now possess, to use your Executive Power. Prove to us all Sir, that you do, in fact, care. Create a truly comprehensive and open Congressional investigation of 9/11 and its aftermath. The families deserve the truth, the American people and the rest of the free world deserve the truth. Mr. President -

(He pauses. We shake hands).

CS – Make sure you’re on the right side of history.

(The President breaks the handshake).

PBO – I am on the right side of history. Thank you Charlie, my staff and I will be in touch.

(I watch as he strides gracefully out of the room, the truth I provided him held firmly by his side; in the hand of providence.)



Author’s Note: What you have just read didn’t actually happen… yet.

This is an open letter to the President requesting a new investigation.

Charlie Sheen.

Charlie Sheen is going to be on Alex Jones’ syndicated radio show live twice this week. This letter to the President is only the opening salvo in a chain of key events. Read more details here and tune in at 11am CST when Alex will lay out this exciting new development. Sheen first appeared on The Alex Jones Show in March 2006 to air his doubts about the official 9/11 story, an interview that garnered national attention and put the issue of 9/11 truth at the forefront of public debate.

Listen to a 20 minute interview with Charlie Sheen conducted by Alex Jones here.


————————————————————————————————————————

For media requests on this subject email sheen@infowars.com

A comprehensive bibliography containing all of the evidence presented above can be viewed at http://www.prisonplanet.com/20_minutes_bibliography.html

Bill O'Reilly threatens the lives of Mark Cuban and Charlie Sheen.

Intellectual Dishonesty In The Age Of Universal Deceit:

a message to the corporate media and our elected officials.
http://www.911blogger.com/node/20013Daniel Sunjata: Intellectual Dishonesty In The Age Of Universal Deceit...




By Daniel Sunjata - May 4, 2009 - www.911blogger.com



"The inert masses are mentally and spiritually ill equipped to deal with reality, so they block it out of their minds - aided of course, by the corporate media and the propaganda apparatus of the government itself. This is why fantasy is frequently substituted for reality, plutocracy is mistaken for democracy, and the majority of the people do not know the difference. Millions of good people thus refuse to allow into their psyche the suffering and misery that U.S. policies have produced and exported to the world, even as that reality is closing in upon them." - Charles Sullivan



"They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality...and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening." - George Orwell, 1984



“Article XXXIV OBSTRUCTION OF INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001” - From the 35 articles of impeachment introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on 06/09/08 in H.Res. 1258 by Congressman Dennis Kucinich



The list is not a short one. It includes professors, architects, aerospace and aviation professionals, structural/mechanical/& aeronautical engineers, demolition experts, firefighters and other first responders, scientists, theologians, senior members of both the military and intelligence communities, Republican administration appointees, state department veterans, and other government officials from the United States and abroad; credible experts of impeccable pedigree with impressive track records from relevant fields of expertise, whose coolly rational intellects are not easily given to an unfounded belief in outlandish, unsubstantiated, or unverifiable claims. Individuals such as these are numbered among the ranks of skeptics and critics of the official theory of conspiracy regarding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Some pose questions, others draw conclusions, still others (like Congressman Kucinich) go so far as to level accusations and to substantiate them with evidence.



Organizations like Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth (MP911truth.org), Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth (AE911Truth.org), Lawyers for 911 Truth (L911T.com), The Journal of 9/11 Studies (journalof911studies.com), Pilots for 911 Truth (PilotsFor911Truth.org), Fire Fighters for 911 Truth (FireFightersFor911Truth.org), and Veterans for 911 Truth (V911T.org), have posted carefully crafted signing statements for all the world to see, and online petitions calling for a new and independent investigation with power of subpoena. Their unanswered questions, the consequent implications that arise, and the fundamental inadequacies they point out in the official reports issued by FEMA, NIST, and the now infamous 9/11 Commission are disturbing to say the very least. Even more disturbing, however, is the corporate media’s revolving door of silence and violence with which those who pose such questions have been greeted. In most cases they are completely ignored, and what might otherwise be front-page news goes virtually unreported. Feigned and transparently disingenuous gestures aimed at affecting the appearance of fair and balanced news coverage occasionally result in an arguably credible expert being granted an interview only to be condescended to, constantly interrupted, shouted down, and verbally abused in the process. Examples abound. Thus, in spite of having shouted their findings from the proverbial rooftops for years, and in spite of such notorious historical precedents as the now declassified Operation Northwoods, there has yet to be any substantive debate, journalistically integrous investigation, or scrutinous inquiry by the establishment or its media into the claim that 9/11 bears all the hallmarks of a complex covert operation of state intelligence; false flag terror; an inside job.



This is not to say, however, that the issue has gone entirely unaddressed by mainstream sources. Hand in hand with the marginalization of informed dissent and deep concern expressed by qualified skeptics like Lt. Col. Robert M. Bowman, PhD (Director of Advanced Space Programs Development under Presidents Ford and Carter), Paul Craig Roberts (Assistant Sect. Of Treasury under Pres. Reagan), Lynn Margulis (National Medal of Science recipient), James Quintiere (former Chief of NISTs Fire Science Division), Commander Ralph Kolstad, U.S. Navy (retired fighter pilot and Topgun Air Combat Instructor), and Sibel Edmonds (former FBI translator specializing in counter-terror, and gag-ordered whistleblower) is the corporate media’s rabid eagerness to confront, shame, condemn, and discredit celebrities and other citizens who have tried to draw public attention to the same issue. Marion Cotilliard, Martin and Charlie Sheen, Rosie O’Donnell, Ed Asner, Willie Nelson, and former Governor Jesse Ventura among many others, have uniformly fallen under swift and venomous attack upon questioning the official theory of conspiracy, and for daring to utter the blasphemous assertion (recently echoed in sentiments expressed by Melissa Rossi in her recent Huffington Post article titled ‘Obama: Reopen The 911 Investigation’) that a new investigation is warranted given the innumerable inconsistencies, omissions, and outright distortions that permeate the aforementioned "official" reports.



Unfairly attacked based not upon the substance of the arguments they have advanced, but rather upon the basis of inane irrelevancies related to their private lives and public personas, they have been dismissed out of pocket as paranoid conspiracy fanatics, drug addicts, Nazis, and narcissists who should stick to playing their position as entertainers and leave the thinking up to the grown-ups when it comes to things they could not possibly understand. This is the classic ad hominem approach - to dismiss the source as a means to dismissing the message. Consequently, nothing of what they have actually said has been given its due diligence by our supposedly free press. Even though their questions and conclusions rest upon broad-shouldered analysis, expert testimony, diligent research, peer reviewed scientific studies (most notably that of Danish scientist Niels Harrit, whose findings on undetonated nano-thermite explosive residues found in WTC dust samples can be read online in The Open Chemical Physics Journal), and a preponderance of other damning forensic and circumstantial evidence, such prominent skeptics have been greeted with outright hostility and the most virulent brands of journalistic irresponsibility and intellectual dishonesty. This in fact is anti-journalism; the exact opposite of what one would expect to find in a society aspiring to exemplify the democratic ideal. If I didn’t know any better, I might think that such tactics were being employed just to shut these experts and celebrities up, and to keep the general public from paying them any mind. I might think that childish insults, character assassination, reductionist clichés, insipid platitudes, necessary illusions and emotionally potent oversimplifications had taken the place of journalistic integrity, objective scrutiny, and investigative rigor.



For instance, when Joe Scarborough covers a story about a 9/11 demonstrator being arrested during an appearance by Bill Clinton in Corpus Christi, and he and his MSNBC ‘Morning Joe’ co-hosts utter things like “Where is the taser? Tase him!” and “Led away in handcuffs…hopefully taken to one of those secret prisons in Eastern Europe and never to be heard from again. I hope we have a special prison for 9/11 conspiracy theorists” it is quite difficult to grant them high scores for anything other than spewing fascistic rhetoric. Similarly only willful ignorance or a deliberate contempt for accuracy and logic can explain Glen Beck’s lumping together of Congressmen, law abiding citizens, highly decorated military personnel, prominent artists, and CIA veterans with violent radicals, in sweeping statements such as his ridiculous contention that 9/11 activists are “insane, dangerous anarchists” who comprise “"the kind of group a Timothy McVeigh would come from." It is an easily verifiable fact that in the thousands of 9/11 protests that have taken place since 2001, not a single individual has ever been arrested for violent conduct or convicted of a violent crime. It is also, shall we say, less than candid to assert that a movement whose implicit moral imperative arises from a desire to protect constitutional integrity could in any way be considered anarchistic in nature. Also, in one of the most irresponsible acts of journalism on record, Geraldo Rivera conflated the notoriously non-violent 9/11 activist community with terrorists in the following statement he made on FOX News Channel’s ‘FOX and Friends’ program while covering the 03/08 Times Square Bombing of a US Armed Forces recruiting station:



"I think that this bomber isn't Al Qaeda, isn't anything like that... He's more like those '9/11 was an inside job' kind of guys... Protesting in a violent way, but in a violent way almost like the eco-terrorists... where they don't intend to inflict casualties."



The most egregious examples of this type of filth masquerading as responsible news commentary can perhaps be found emanating from the twisted and blusterous mouth of Bill O’Reilly. When the story broke that Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was set to finance the distribution of ‘Loose Change 911’ (the most downloaded documentary in internet history) with Charlie Sheen set to narrate, O’Reilly (conceding his hypocrisy by admitting to not having seen the film or looked at the evidence) responded by unleashing a blitzkrieg of idiotic non-sequiturs, calculated ambiguities, and thinly veiled threats. After an erroneous and lame attempt to dismiss and discredit 9/11 Truth as “lunacy” from the “far-left fringe” (the movement transcends both liberality and conservatism alike, is a mainstream phenomenon, and its basic premise is in fact eminently sane), he compounded his ignorance by comparing 9/11-dissent to Nazi propaganda and holocaust denial. Like…dude…SERIOUSLY?! It is the very height of disingenuity to suggest that by demanding truth and accountability one is somehow offending and dishonoring the victims or their families, when the only way to honor them is by finding out the truth and holding the guilty parties responsible for their crimes. It would be more apt to compare Nazi propagandists and holocaust deniers to an administration that skewed intelligence about Iraq in order to fear-monger the American people into supporting the doctrine of preemption, while evading the initiation of any official inquiry into the most catastrophic day in our nations history, for 441 days. Either O’Reilly didn’t know or he didn’t care to know that Bill Doyle, founder of World Trade Center United Family Group (one of the largest 9/11 victims’ family organizations, comprised of over 7000 members from 2,573 families) believes that the government was complicit in the attacks. He has also publicly stated that at least half of his members harbor deep suspicions about what happened on 9/11 and why. Mr. Bill also saw fit to put Mark Cuban and Charlie Sheen on notice, so to speak. Sounding not altogether unlike a mafia don threatening to issue a hit, O’Reilly states "this is a warning to Mark Cuban, who is distributing that film in a few weeks. This is a warning to you Bud, okay, you pull that movie or I'm gonna be your worst nightmare, because this is gonna lead to death." “We're looking out for you, Charlie Sheen. Don't do this. You're not going to come back from it, if you do…”



As I said, examples abound. Such pathetically transparent diversionary tactics smack of cowardice and a reluctance to engage the subject of 9/11 based upon the facts at hand, and have no place in the realm of professional journalism (or info-tainment as the case may be). This must cease. If we are to have any hope of change as a nation, then we must recognize that turning the page on one of the darkest chapters in American governmental history without having properly read it, would be a grave and disastrous error. Regardless of how inconvenient, uncomfortable, or outlandish the implications may at first appear, this subject demands to be substantively addressed, free of spin or bias, for neither it nor its advocates are going to just fade away. Only a ship of fools would blatantly disregard the opinions of such highly qualified and erudite critics as those listed on sites like patriotsquestion911.com without closely examining their actual and factual claims. Now that Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Patrick Leahy has officially introduced a proposal to investigate the Bush administration for war-crimes and the subversion of Constitutional Law, it stands to reason that 9/11 should also be soberly looked into once and for all. Given the swirling cloud of criminal accusations and populist rage regarding the legalization of torture, the illegal wiretapping of American civilians (including the intentional targeting of journalists and intellectuals according to NSA whistleblower Russell Tice) as well as other allegations of treasonous conduct, and taking into consideration the claims, statements, and research of critical thinkers across a wide spectrum of expertise who publicly doubt the government’s official explanation, it shouldn't (although apparently it does) take a rocket scientist to see the disturbingly plausible connections between the inside job hypothesis and every Orwellian legislative and militaristic act for which 9/11 and its victims have been invoked as justification. Indeed the logic of context is fundamentally derailed by the prevailing ring-pass-not approach of investigating every area to which 9/11 is crucially relevant and intimately related, while treating the subject itself as sacrosanct. Clearly this should be part of any investigation into the alleged criminality of the previous administration; indeed it should be given priority. This above all else is President Obama’s litmus test of integrity and the quintessence of this nation’s hope for change. For if 9/11 was in fact an inside job, then it places all of the evils that flowed from and followed that event into vivid contextual focus. Bogus claims of executive privilege should offer no protection to those towards whom the preponderance of evidence points; chips fall where they may.



My own reasons for speaking out on this issue are fairly simple. I didn’t choose it; it chose me. Upon being hired to act the part of a post-9/11 NYC firefighter on Rescue Me, my research for the character led me to take a more objective look at what actually happened versus what we were told in the wake of the event. Nothing added up. No matter from which angle I approached 911, it invariably unraveled into contradictions and inconsistencies requiring the suspension of my logic and common sense in addition to several laws of physics. Slowly I came to the determination that I had no choice but to speak out, because (as Franco Rivera) I presume to represent the memories of the heroes who died that day, as well as the reality of the heroes who still mourn their loss. I work with these men; looking them daily in the eye. Therefore it is a citizen’s act of moral conscience and social responsibility, nothing more. To know or even to merely suspect, and yet remain silent, would be anti-American, unpatriotic, and tantamount to betrayal. Therefore this is no stunt on my part to gain publicity or to garner attention for myself by appearing edgy and controversial. Believe it or not, I rather covet my relative anonymity as a quasi-celebrity/working actor. I would much rather direct media and public attention to those most credible dissenting experts who have looked at and analyzed the facts (circumstantial as well as forensic) and found that they do not fit the government’s theory of conspiracy. People like Professor Emeritus David Ray Griffin, Richard Gage (AIA), Physics Professor Steven Jones (co-author of the above mentioned peer reviewed study proving that explosives were in fact used to implode the WTC towers as well as WTC 7), William Christison (former CIA Station Chief and Director of Regional and Political Analysis), Ray McGovern (27 year CIA vet., and former Chair of National Intelligence Estimates), Coleen Rowley (former F.B.I. Special Agent and Minneapolis Division Counsel), and Sibel Edmonds must be given fair and open forums on mainstream media platforms, as well as access to those with the power and responsibility to reopen the 9/11 investigation; or rather, to finally conduct one as the case may be. Until that happens we will not be silent. We will not go away. We will not submit.







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





Feel free to re-post Mr. Sunjata's statement, with a link back to the original post:

http://www.911blogger.com/node/20013

Carl Cameron of Fox News Supports 9/11 Truth (on the DL), talks of Israeli spy operation in the US.

Oh, We Are Change in Minnesota busted Fox News' Carl Cameron in the Senate Office Building.. I love stuff like this.



Nate Clark


We Are Change Minnesota

September 29th, 2009



Fox News Channels chief political correspondent Carl Cameron shared his thoughts on a variety of issues including the attacks of 9/11/2001 with We Are Change Minnesota on September 14th, 2009 in the U.S. Senate office building. Citing warnings by numerous foreign intelligence agencies, pre-9/11 warnings from Arizona FBI agent Kenneth Williams and stating quite plainly that, Its really hard to make the case that the buildings just imploded without some sort of an accelerant, Cameron said were, right to bang the drum because we dont know, what really transpired on 9/11 and that, The unanswered questions are reasons to be skeptical.



Sharing thoughts on how his reporting on the Israeli art student spy ring and executive assassination squads (subsequently revealed by Sy Hersh) have gone nowhere, he explained, There are bad guys in the government. Black Ops and stuff does happen. He went on to share some insight into the inner workings of the news industry. Despite repeated acknowledgment of the unanswered questions concerning the events of September 11th, 2001, he declined to go on the record in support of a new investigation of 9/11 with the excuse that, every single thing I say has to go though media relations—referring to media relations as a, meat grinder. An astute observer might wonder if media relations was involved or if he personally felt it appropriate as debate moderator to outright insult Ron Pauls electability—asking, Do you have any, sir? during the 2008 Republican presidential debates.



Cameron, a notorious John Skull and Bones Kerry basher, seemed to revel in sharing an account of Nancy Pelosi calling Kerry a liar for having supported the trumped up claims that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Considering how Cameron was also the source of the allegation that Sarah Palin thought that Africa is a country rather than a continent, it seems that character assassination may be the name of the game.



Ironically, the conversation concluded with a reference to his encounter with We Are Change New York last year when he listened to their concerns at length but offered little to none of his own thoughts on the matter. He did, however, tip off the group to the nearby Phil Gramm. Come on guys, thats Phil Gramm why arent you busting his ass? He offered the following advice on confrontation: Yeah, and I mean seriously, simply you guys help your own cause, and Im not saying you need to be rude to the people who are on your team, but if they tamp it down a little bit, I mean I got jumped in downtown New York by a bunch of 9/11 truthers and I talked with them for an hour and its still out there on the web and the thing is if wed had a quiet conversation, they mightve actually gotten something out of me that wouldve been better than me just telling them, Im not going to talk to you.



Lets hope more workers in the news industry do what they can to help expose the unanswered questions about 9/11—if even to tip off the real reporters to opportunities to report on the real questions.

Luke Rudkowski, Alex Jones, 9/11 Truth, The US Constitution, Shape Shifters, Jews, and what I think about all that.

People who follow this blog and who google my name (there are some) know that I am what you can call a 9/11 Truther, as opposed to 9/11 Liar. That means I know that the 9/11 Commission Report was a bunch of hooey, that there are too many unanswered questions regarding what really happened on 9/11 2001, that what I do understand points to an inside job. The resistance to a real inquiry that could be trusted also points to a conspiracy and cover up after the fact. I'm pretty angry about all that not just because around 3,000 people were murdered on that day but because the murders were used as cover and excuses for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. These wars have taken hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, including the lives of ignorant and naive young Americans, Canadians, Europeans. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars have been wasted so far and hundreds of billions more are slated to be wasted in pursuit of these wars.


Now I am not alone in these opinions, though most US "leftists" run for the door or join in denouncing people who hold these opinions.

Alex Jones, "We Are Change" and Luke Rudkowski share most of these views to an extent or other. They, like me, would be tagged "truthers" or even "trooffers" by 9/11 Liars. But i part company with them in certain matters. They say they uphold the US Constitution. I say it's the US Constitution that has contributed mightily to the mess the world is in today. A system is designed to do what it does.



The US Constitution started out as a compromise legal code, a compromise between slave owners and merchants who relied on the slave trade to an extent and on the other hand wanted not to have to compete with slave labor. They coexisted until the battle of Fort Sumter (April 12-13, 1861). That kicked off a Civil War that ended in another compromise between these two forces, but a compromise that cost the slave owners their slaves. During Reconstruction the anti slavery side rode high. They did things that could be said to have overthrown the Constitution. For example. they had said that the states could not secede but then set terms the southern states had to meet to reenter the Union they were not able to leave to begin with. They made legal the secession of some counties of Virginia from the state of Virginia. (That's why there is a West Virginia). They forced the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution in ways that could be called unconstitutional. I say good thing, too, and "so what?" The slavers lost the war and things changed and that's as it ought to be.

Alex and Luke and "We are Change " talk about "the Republic" but not about any "democracy." That's because the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence do not make mention of democracy and are not democratic documents. The US Senate is a prime example of the undemocratic nature of the US Constitution as is the Electoral College. And this document provided the structure that gave us segregation, covered up assassinations, wars of choice, Bush II, etc. So I think this document needs to be changed. Now I respect the opinions of Alex Jones and Luke Rudkowski. They show great courage and honesty. I believe they mean what they say. I also think that it's probably best to address the right wingers of the US in the language of the Constitution. After all, lots of things that are bad that the state is doing are also unconstitutional. Cops and soldiers and politicians have to pledge to defend the Constitution and they haven't been doing a good job of that.


Shape shifters? Well if we live in an infinite multiverse, then I guess anything is possible. People swear they've seen these beings in the act of shifting shapes. I haven't. Some would accuse me maybe of being one of them because my ancestry is so called "Jewish." Well, I think the ancestry of the people who are called "Jewish" today is disputable and I don't claim to know the answers about that. I prefer to define Jews as adherents to a religion, a religion that I am not a part of.


Are there secret societies and organizations some of whom have occult rituals? You bet there are. Do their members work in tandem towards common goals and interests? I'd imagine so. Do they explain why things are what they are? In this I'm not so certain. Interests are permanent, allies are not. The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray....

Fakery demonstrated in "Bin Laden" "confession" tape

<

New Yorkers Demand 9/11 Truth

Sunday September 27 at 2pm

From Battery Park to City Hall via Ground Zero,


The City Clerk and The State Supreme Court

Speakers Include:


Bob McIlvaine - 9/11 Family Member

Manny Badillo - 9/11 Family Member

Daniel Sunjata - Star of "Rescue Me"

Other Speakers TBA



80,000 New Yorkers have signed the petition.


As with every other NYC ballot initiative, the City of New York is denying the will of its people to vote on the issues it considers most important.



NYC CAN responded by filing suit, and on September 9 the City conceded NYC CAN did in fact submit enough valid signatures to put the referendum before the voters. Now NYC CAN is battling to prove the petition is legally valid. On September 28, the referee will report on the petition's legality, and a final determination will be made in the days that follow.


On the eve of the referee's decision, let us take to the streets in the THOUSANDS on behalf of the families, first responders and survivors of September 11th and the 80,000 New Yorkers who signed the petition. As the climate ripens and public opinion continues to swing in favor of a new investigation, this is our opportunity to send a message like never before. If we stand together, we can make history.



September 27. 2pm. Battery Park.


If you are able to volunteer to hand out fliers for the march, starting Saturday, September 19, please email volunteer@nyccan.org.

NYCCAN Legal brief.

http://nyccan.org/NYC_CAN_MEMORANDUM_OF_LAW.pdf

Throughout the course of the investigation and afterward, several members of the federal


9/11 Commission made public statements denouncing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the Federal Aviation

Administration (FAA) for their failure to cooperate and/or apparent efforts to mislead the

Commission:

• NORAD’s False Testimony On Its Failure to Intercept the Hijacked Aircraft.

Representative Timothy Roemer: “We were extremely frustrated with the false

statements we were getting,” Roemer told CNN. “We were not sure of the intent, whether it was

to deceive the commission or merely part of the fumbling bureaucracy.”33

Governor Thomas Kean, Chairman of the federal 9/11 Commission: “We, to this day,

don’t know why NORAD told us what they told us… It was just so far from the truth.”34

Kean and Representative Lee Hamilton, Vice Chairman, of the federal 9/11 Commission:

“Fog of war could explain why some people were confused on the day of 9/11, but it could not

explain why all of the after-action reports, accident investigations and public testimony by FAA

and NORAD officials advanced an account of 9/11 that was untrue.”35

• CIA Destruction of Videotapes Documenting Interrogation of Al-Qaeda Operatives.

Kean and Hamilton also stated that “the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed

videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to
 
respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those


videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.”...

The Morganthau Plan: Semitism Gone Wild

" It is Semitism gone wild for vengeance and will lay the seeds of another war in the next generation." Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War

When I was a little boy my parents seethed with hatred for Germans and taught that to me.  War brings out the worse in people. They were Jewish. My father had served in the US Army as a World War Two combat soldier in North Africa and Italy. One night the combat was so fierce that his hair was black at the start and white the next day.

I'm posting this WIKIPEDIA article about the Morganthau Plan in part to put into context and perspective the so called "anti semitism" of people who oppose what Israel has done and is doing to the Palestinian people. Israeli Jews who want a future in the area need to consider the anger they are creatinng against themselves by allowing the madness of the roadblocks, the blockade of Gaza and settlement building while the right of return is denied Palestinians in defiance of international law. Henry Morganthau was Franklin D. Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury and an American Jew. His job was not officially to set US foriegn or military policy but he pushed a plan of revenge against the ordinary people of Germany that influenced US policy towards the German people for over two years. Millions of people lived on the verge of starvation and millions died because of the harshness of this plan. this was revenge not only against nazi leaders or Nazi followers but against the entire people of Germany, including infants who could have had no say or impact whatever on Germany's prosecution of the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan

Morgenthau Plan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The Morgenthau Plan showing the planned partitioning of Germany into a North State, a South State, and an International zone. Areas in grey are areas intended for control by France, Poland and the USSR.
Political borders of post-World War II Germany (1949). West Germany is shown in Blue, East Germany is shown in Red, The Saar protectorate under French economic control is shown in Green. The Ruhr Area, the industrial engine of West Germany, is shown in brown as it was under the control of the International Authority for the Ruhr. Pre-war German territory east of the Oder-Neisse line is shown in Gray, as it was assigned to Poland and annexed by Soviet Union. West Berlin is shown in Yellow as it was legally under Allied occupation.The Morgenthau Plan was a plan for the occupation of Germany after World War II that advocated measures intended to remove Germany's ability to wage war. It was proposed by and subsequently named after Henry Morgenthau, Jr., United States Secretary of the Treasury.

Contents [hide]
1 Overview
2 Content of one of the original proposals
3 The Second Quebec Conference (September 1944)
4 Influence on policy
5 Roosevelt's support for the plan
6 Churchill's support for the plan
7 Partial Rejection of the plan
8 Wartime consequences
9 JCS 1067
10 Implementation
11 Contemporary relevance and assessment
12 See also
13 Notes
14 Further reading
14.1 Articles
14.2 Primary sources
15 External links
15.1 Document Collections
15.2 Documents
15.3 Images
15.4 Time Magazine articles



[edit] Overview
In the original proposal this was to be achieved in three main steps.

Germany was to be partitioned into two independent states.
Germany's main centers of mining and industry, including the Saar area, the Ruhr area and Upper Silesia were to be internationalized or annexed by neighboring nations.
All heavy industry was to be dismantled or otherwise destroyed.
At the Second Quebec Conference on September 16, 1944, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Henry Morgenthau Jr. persuaded the initially very reluctant British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to agree to the plan, likely using a $6 billion Lend Lease agreement to do so.[1] Churchill chose however to narrow the scope of Morgenthau's proposal by drafting a new version of the memorandum, which ended up being the version signed by the two statesmen.[2]

The memorandum concluded "is looking forward to converting Germany into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in its character."[3]

News of the existence of the plan was leaked to the press.[4] President Roosevelt's response to press inquiries was to deny the press reports.[5]

In wartime Germany, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels was able to use the plan to bolster the German resistance on the Western front. [6]

In occupied Germany, the Morgenthau plan lived on in the U.S. occupation directive JCS 1067[7][8] and in the Allied "industrial disarmament" plans[9], designed to reduce German economic might and to destroy Germany's capability to wage war by complete or partial de-industrialisation and restrictions imposed on utilization of remaining production capacity. By 1950, after the virtual completion of the by then much watered-out "level of industry" plans, equipment had been removed from 706 manufacturing plants in the west and steel production capacity had been reduced by 6,700,000 tons.[10]

In 1945 the German Red Cross was dissolved[11][12] , and the International Red Cross and other international relief agencies were kept from helping ethnic Germans through strict controls on supplies and on travel.[13] The few agencies permitted to operate within Germany, such as the indigenous Caritas Verband, were not allowed to use imported supplies. When the Vatican attempted to transmit food supplies from Chile to German infants[14] the U.S. State Department forbade it.[15] In early October 1945 the UK government privately acknowledged in a cabinet meeting that, German civilian adult death rates had risen to four times the pre-war levels and death rates amongst the German children had risen by 10 times the pre-war levels.[16] In early 1946 U.S. President Harry S. Truman finally bowed to pressure from Senators, Congress and public to allow foreign relief organization to enter Germany in order to review the food situation. In mid-1946 non-German relief organizations were finally permitted to help starving German children.[17] During 1946 the average German adult received less than 1,500 calories a day. 2,000 calories was then considered the minimum an individual can endure on for a limited period of time with reasonable health.[18]

According to some historians the U.S. government formally abandoned the Morgenthau plan as promoted occupation-policy in September 1946 with Secretary of State James F. Byrnes' speech Restatement of Policy on Germany.[19]

Unhappy with the Morgenthau-plan consequences, in a March 18, 1947 report former U.S. President Herbert Hoover remarked:

"There is the illusion that the New Germany left after the annexations can be reduced to a 'pastoral state'. It cannot be done unless we exterminate or move 25,000,000 people out of it." [20]
It is argued that it was Hoover's March 1947 statements in his report that led to the end of the Morgenthau plan and to a change in U.S. policy. [21]

In July 1947 with the advent of the initial planning for the Marshall Plan designed to help the now deteriorating European economy recover, the restrictions placed on yearly German steel production were lessened. Permitted steel production quotas were raised from 25% of pre-war capacity to 50% of pre-war capacity.[22] The U.S. occupation directive JCS 1067, whose economic section had prohibited "steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany [or] designed to maintain or strengthen the German economy", was then also replaced by the new U.S. occupation directive JCS 1779 which instead stressed that "An orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany."

In early 1947 four million German soldiers were still being used as forced labor in the UK, France, and the Soviet Union to repair damage made by Nazi Germany to those countries.[23][24]

In 1951 West Germany agreed to join the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) the following year. This meant that some of the economic restrictions on production capacity and on actual production that were imposed by the International Authority for the Ruhr were lifted, and that its role was taken over by the ECSC.[25]


[edit] Content of one of the original proposals
The original memorandum, written sometime between January and early September 1944, signed by Morgenthau, and headed "Suggested Post-Surrender Program for Germany" is preserved at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. The text, and a facsimile image, can be viewed online.[26]

The main provisions can be summarized as follows:

"1. Demilitarization of Germany.
It should be the aim of the Allied Forces to accomplish the complete demilitarization of Germany in the shortest possible period of time after surrender. This means completely disarming the German Army and people (including the removal or destruction of all war material), the total destruction of the whole German armament industry, and the removal or destruction of other key industries which are basic to military strength.
2. Partitioning of Germany.
(a) Poland should get that part of East Prussia which doesn't go to the USSR and the southern portion of Silesia as indicated on the attached map, (Appendix A).
(b) France should get the Saar and the adjacent territories bounded by the Rhine and the Moselle rivers.
(c) As indicated in part 3 an International zone should be created containing the Ruhr and the surrounding industrial areas.
(d) The remaining portion of Germany should be divided into two autonomous, independent states, (1) a South German state comprising Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and some smaller areas and (2) a North German state comprising a large part of the old state of Prussia, Saxony, Thuringia and several smaller states.
There shall be a custom union between the new South German state and Austria, which will be restored to her pre-1938 political borders.
3. The Ruhr Area.
(The Ruhr, surrounding industrial areas, as shown on the attached map, including the Rhineland, the Kiel Canal, and all German territory north of the Kiel Canal.)
Here lies the heart of German industrial power, the cauldron of wars. This area should not only be stripped of all presently existing industries but so weakened and controlled that it can not in the foreseeable future become an industrial area. The following steps will accomplish this:
(a) Within a short period, if possible not longer than 6 months after the cessation of hostilities, all industrial plants and equipment not destroyed by military action shall either be completely dismantled and removed from the area or completely destroyed. All equipment shall be removed from the mines and the mines shall be thoroughly wrecked.
It is anticipated that the stripping of this area would be accomplished in three stages:
(i) The military forces immediately upon entry into the area shall destroy all plants and equipment which cannot be removed.
(ii) Removal of plants and equipment by members of the United Nations as restitution and reparation (Paragraph 4).
(iii) All plants and equipment not removed within a stated period of time, say 6 months, will be completely destroyed or reduced to scrap and allocated to the United Nations.
(b) All people within the area should be made to understand that this area will not again be allowed to become an industrial area. Accordingly, all people and their families within the area having special skills or technical training should be encouraged to migrate permanently from the area and should be as widely dispersed as possible.
(c) The area should be made an international zone to be governed by an international security organization to be established by the United Nations. In governing the area the international organization should be guided by policies designed to further the above stated objectives.
4. Restitution and Reparation.
Reparations, in the form of recurrent payments and deliveries, should not be demanded. Restitution and reparation shall be effected by the transfer of existing German resources and territories, e.g.
(a) by restitution of property looted by the Germans in territories occupied by them;
(b) by transfer of German territory and German private rights in industrial property situated in such territory to invaded countries and the international organization under the program of partition;
(c) by the removal and distribution among devastated countries of industrial plants and equipment situated within the International Zone and the North and South German states delimited in the section on partition;
(d) by forced German labor outside Germany; and
(e) by confiscation of all German assets of any character whatsoever outside of Germany."

[edit] The Second Quebec Conference (September 1944)
At the Second Quebec Conference, a high-level military conference held in Quebec City, September 12, 1944 – September 16, 1944, the British and United States governments, represented by Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, respectively, agreement was reached on a number of matters, including a plan for Germany, based on Morgenthau's original proposal. The memorandum drafted by Churchill provided for "eliminating the warmaking industries in the Ruhr and the Saar... looking forward to converting Germany into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in its character."[27]

This memorandum, together with the later effected "industrial disarmament" plans in occupied Germany, is generally known as the real Morgenthau plan.[28]

(See United States Department of State Foreign relations of the United States, Conference at Quebec, 1944 pp. 466–467 for the full text of the signed memoranda.)


[edit] Influence on policy
The negative public reaction to the publishing of the Morgenthau plan had forced President Roosevelt to publicly shelve it, but he permitted no further planning for the occupation of Germany. Thus with the death of the president the plan itself never took effect, but as its ideas permeated parts of the American administration, especially Morgenthau's Treasury, it did influence subsequent American and Allied planning, most notably:

the Potsdam Conference
Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067 (April 1945 – July 1947)
The industrial plans for Germany. (Level of industry agreements)
JCS 1067 explicitly prohibited U.S. occupation authorities from providing any economic or reconstruction assistance of any kind to the German people, not even to maintain the current economic levels.[citation needed] U.S. occupation efforts were to be focused on denazification and the destruction of heavy industry war-production capability.[citation needed]

In January 1946 the Allied Control Council set the foundation of the future German economy by putting a cap on German steel production, the maximum allowed was set at about 25% of the prewar production level.[29] Steel plants thus made redundant were dismantled.

Also as a consequence of the Potsdam conference, the occupation forces of all nations were obliged to ensure that German standards of living were made equal to the level of its European neighbors with which it had been at war with, France in particular.

Germany was to be reduced to the standard of life it had known at the height of the Great Depression (1932). [30]

The first "level of industry" plan, signed in 1946, stated that German heavy industry was to be lowered to 50% of its 1938 levels by the closing of 1,500 manufacturing plants[31]

The problems brought on by the execution of these types of policies were eventually apparent to most U.S. officials in Germany. Germany had long been the industrial giant of Europe, and its poverty held back the general European recovery[citation needed]. The continued scarcity in Germany also led to considerable expenses for the occupying powers, which were obligated to try and make up the most important shortfalls through the GARIOA program (Government and Relief in Occupied Areas).

In view of the continued poverty and famine in Europe, and with the onset of the Cold War which made it important not to lose all of Germany to the communists, it was apparent by 1947 that a change of policy was required.

The change was heralded by Restatement of Policy on Germany, a famous speech by James F. Byrnes, then United States Secretary of State, held in Stuttgart on September 6, 1946. Also known as the "Speech of hope" it set the tone of future U.S. policy as it repudiated the Morgenthau Plan economic policies and with its message of change to a policy of economic reconstruction gave the Germans hope for the future. Herbert Hoover's situation reports from 1947, and "A Report on Germany" also served to help change occupation policy.

The Western powers worst fear by now was that the poverty and hunger would drive the Germans to Communism. General Lucius Clay stated "There is no choice between being a communist on 1,500 calories a day and a believer in democracy on a thousand."

After lobbying by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Generals Clay and Marshall, the Truman administration finally realized that economic recovery in Europe could not go forward without the reconstruction of the German industrial base on which it had previously been dependent.[32] In July 1947, President Harry S. Truman rescinded on "national security grounds"[33] the punitive JCS 1067, which had directed the U.S. forces of occupation in Germany to "take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany." It was replaced by JCS 1779, which instead stressed that "[a]n orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany."[34]

The most notable example of this change of policy was a plan established by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall, the "European Recovery Program", better known as the Marshall Plan, which in the form of loans instead of the free aid received by other recipients was extended to also include West Germany.

The Marshall Plan … is not a philanthropic enterprise … It is based on our views of the requirements of American security … This is the only peaceful avenue now open to us which may answer the communist challenge to our way of life and our national security." (Allen W. Dulles, The Marshall Plan) [35]


[edit] Roosevelt's support for the plan
Secretary of the Treasury Henry J. Morgenthau Jr. convinced Roosevelt to write to Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson saying that a U.S. occupation policy which anticipated that "Germany is to be restored just as much as the Netherlands or Belgium" was excessively lenient. A better policy would have the Germans "fed three times a day with soup from Army soup kitchens" so "they will remember that experience the rest of their lives."[36] Morgenthau was the only Cabinet member invited to participate in the Quebec Conference during which the Plan was agreed to.

Roosevelt's motivations for agreeing to Morgenthau's proposal may be attributed to his desire to be on good terms with Joseph Stalin and to a personal conviction that Germany must be treated harshly. In an August 26, 1944 letter to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Roosevelt wrote that "There are two schools of thought, those who would be altruistic in regard to the Germans, hoping by loving kindness to make them Christians again — and those who would adopt a much 'tougher' attitude. Most decidedly I belong to the latter school, for though I am not bloodthirsty, I want the Germans to know that this time at least they have definitely lost the war."[37] Roosevelt is also quoted as saying to Morgenthau that "We have got to be tough with the Germany and I mean the German people not just the Nazis. We either have to castrate the German people or you have got to treat them in such a manner so they can't just go on reproducing people who want to continue the way they have in the past."[38]

The Morgenthau plan faced strong opposition within Roosevelt's government. Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War, said he had "yet to meet a man who was not horrified at the 'Carthaginian' attitude of the Treasury. It is Semitism gone wild for vengeance and will lay the seeds of another war in the next generation." He further pointed out that the plan violated the Atlantic Charter, which promised equal opportunity for the pursuit of happiness to both victors and vanquished. In a note to the president dated September 5, 1944, Stimson wrote[39]:

We contemplate the transfer from Germany of ownership of East Prussia, Upper Silesia, Alsace and Lorraine (each of them except the first containing raw materials of importance) together with the imposition of general economic controls. We also are considering the wisdom of a possible partition of Germany into north and south sections, as well as the creation of an internationalized State in the Ruhr. With such precautions, or indeed with only some of them, it certainly should not be necessary for us to obliterate all industrial productivity in the Ruhr area, in order to preclude its future misuse. Nor can I agree that it should be one of our purposes to hold the German population "to a subsistence level" if this means the edge of poverty.

Secretary of State Hull was outraged by Morgenthau's "inconceivable intrusion" into foreign policy. Hull told Roosevelt that the plan would inspire last ditch resistance and cost thousands of American lives. Hull was so upset over the plan that it prompted his resignation from the administration. [40]


[edit] Churchill's support for the plan
Churchill was not inclined to support the proposal, saying "England would be chained to a dead body." Roosevelt reminded Churchill of Stalin's comments at the Tehran Conference, and asked "Are you going to let Germany produce modern metal furniture? The manufacture of metal furniture can be quickly turned in the manufacture of armament." [41] The meeting broke up on Churchill's disagreement but Roosevelt suggested that Morgenthau and White continue to discuss with Lord Cherwell, Churchill's personal assistant.

Lord Cherwell has been described as having "an almost pathological hatred for Nazi Germany, and an almost medieval desire for revenge was a part of his character".[42] Morgenthau is quoted as saying to his staff that "I can't overemphasize how helpful Lord Cherwell was because he could advise how to handle Churchill" (Blum, p. 373). In any case, Cherwell was able to persuade Churchill to change his mind. Churchill later said that "At first I was violently opposed to the idea. But the President and Mr. Morgenthau — from whom we had much to ask — were so insistent that in the end we agreed to consider it".[43]

Some have read into the clause "from whom we had much to ask" that Churchill was bought off, and note a September 15 memo from Roosevelt to Hull stating that "Morgenthau has presented at Quebec, in conjunction with his plan for Germany, a proposal of credits to Britain totalling six and half billion dollars." Hull's comment on this was that "this might suggest to some the quid pro quo with which the Secretary of the Treasury was able to get Mr. Churchill's adherence to his cataclysmic plan for Germany".[44]

Harry Dexter White, regarded by many as the principal author of the plan, was after his death exposed as having passed information onto the Soviets, who were US allies at the time.

At Quebec White made sure that Lord Cherwell understood that economic aid to Britain was dependent on British approval of the plan. During the signing of the plan, which coincided with the signing of a loan agreement, President Roosevelt proposed that they sign the plan first. This prompted Churchill to exclaim: "What do you want me to do? Get on my hind legs and beg like Fala?" ([45])


[edit] Partial Rejection of the plan
Anthony Eden expressed his strong opposition to the plan and, with the support of some others, was able to get the Morgenthau Plan set aside in Britain. In the U.S., Hull argued that nothing would be left to Germany but land, and only 60% of the Germans could live off the land, meaning 40% of the population would die.[46] Stimson expressed his opposition even more forcefully to Roosevelt. According to Stimson, the President said that he just wanted to help Britain get a share of the Ruhr and denied that he intended to fully deindustrialize Germany. Stimson replied, "Mr. President, I don't like you to dissemble to me" and read back to Roosevelt what he had signed. Struck by this, Roosevelt said he had "no idea how he could have initialed this" (Elting E. Morrison quoting Stimson's October 3, 1944 diary, "Turmoil and Tradition: A Study of the Life and Times of Henry L. Stimson" (Boston, 1960) p. 609). The theory that Roosevelt was not truly rejecting the plan, just postponing the decision until a more propitious time is supported by Eleanor Roosevelt, who states that she never heard him disagree with the basics of the plan, and who believed that "the repercussions brought about by the press stories made him feel that it was wise to abandon any final solution at that time."[47]

On 10 May 1945 President Truman approved JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff policy) 1067 which directed the U.S. forces of occupation in Germany to "…take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany [nor steps] designed to maintain or strengthen the German economy". This was a modified version of the Morgenthau Plan. The net effect was that Germany wasn't allowed to realistically produce goods for export in order to purchase food; millions of Germans were supplied only meager starvation rations, with 1947 being the worst year. It took 2 years (1945 to 1947) of death and disease, and fears that starving Germans might "go Communist" before US Sec of State James Byrnes made his Stuttgart speech. Byrnes had some questionable history: he agreed at Potsdam in July 1945 to "temporarily assign" an area of southern Silesia to "Polish Administration" which was more than the Poles and Soviets had expected to be agreed to. The British were not happy with Mr. Byrnes's maneuver.

Dismantling of (West) German industry ended in 1951, but "industrial disarmament" lingered in restrictions on actual German steel production, and production capacity, as well as on restriction on key industries. All remaining restrictions were finally rescinded in May 5, 1955. "The last act of the Morgenthau drama occurred on that date or when the Saar was returned to Germany."[48]


[edit] Wartime consequences
Drew Pearson publicized the plan on September 21, although Pearson himself was sympathetic to it. More critical stories in the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal quickly followed. Joseph Goebbels said that "The Jew Morgenthau" wanted to make Germany into a giant potato patch. Goebbels used the Morgenthau Plan for his propaganda machine extensively. The headline of the Völkischer Beobachter stated, “ROOSEVELT AND CHURCHILL AGREE TO JEWISH MURDER PLAN!”[49]

The Washington Post urged a stop to helping Dr. Goebbels: if the Germans suspect that nothing but complete destruction lies ahead, then they will fight on.[50] The Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey complained in his campaign that the Germans had been terrified by the plan into fanatical resistance, "Now they are fighting with the frenzy of despair."[51]

General George Marshall complained to Morgenthau that German resistance had strengthened.[52] Hoping to get Morgenthau to relent on his plan for Germany, President Roosevelt's son-in-law Lt. Colonel John Boettiger who worked in the War Department explained to Morgenthau how the American troops that had had to fight for five weeks against fierce German resistance to capture the city of Aachen had complained to him that the Morgenthau Plan was "worth thirty divisions to the Germans." Morgenthau refused to relent.[53]

On December 11, OSS operative William Donovan sent Roosevelt a telegraph message from Bern, warning him of the consequences that the knowledge of the Morgenthau plan had had on German resistance; by showing them that the enemy planned the enslavement of Germany it had welded together ordinary Germans and the regime; the Germans continue to fight because they are convinced that defeat will bring nothing but oppression and exploitation.[54] The message was a translation of a recent article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

So far, the Allies have not offered the opposition any serious encouragement. On the contrary, they have again and again welded together the people and the Nazis by statements published, either out of indifference or with a purpose. To take a recent example, the Morgenthau plan gave Dr. Goebbels the best possible chance. He was able to prove to his countrymen, in black and white, that the enemy planned the enslavement of Germany. The conviction that Germany had nothing to expect from defeat but oppression and exploitation still prevails, and that accounts for the fact that the Germans continue to fight. It is not a question of a regime, but of the homeland itself, and to save that, every German is bound to obey the call, whether he be Nazi or member of the opposition. [1]


[edit] JCS 1067
On March 20, 1945 President Roosevelt was warned that the JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) 1067 was not workable: it would let the Germans "stew in their own juice". Roosevelt's response was "Let them have soup kitchens! Let their economy sink!" Asked if he wanted the German people to starve, he replied, "Why not?"[55]

On May 10, 1945 Truman signed the JCS 1067. Morgenthau told his staff that it was a big day for the Treasury, and that he hoped that "someone doesn't recognize it as the Morgenthau Plan."[56]

In occupied Germany Morgenthau left a direct legacy through what in OMGUS commonly were called "Morgenthau boys". These were US Treasury officials whom Dwight D. Eisenhower has "loaned" in to the Army of occupation. These people ensured that the JCS 1067 was interpreted as strictly as possible. They were most active in the first crucial months of the occupation, but continued their activities for almost two years following the resignation of Morgenthau in mid 1945 and some time later also of their leader Colonel Bernard Bernstein, who was "the repository of the Morgenthau spirit in the army of occupation".[57]

Morgenthau had been able to wield considerable influence over Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067. JCS 1067 was a basis for US Occupation policy until July 1947, and like the Morgenthau Plan, was intended to reduce German living standards. The production of oil, rubber, merchant ships, and aircraft were prohibited. Occupation forces were not to assist with economic development apart from the agricultural sector.

In his 1950 book Decision in Germany, Clay wrote, "It seemed obvious to us even then that Germany would starve unless it could produce for export and that immediate steps would have to be taken to revive industrial production".[58] Lewis Douglas, chief adviser to General Lucius Clay, US High Commissioner, denounced JCS Directive 1067 saying, "This thing was assembled by economic idiots. It makes no sense to forbid the most skilled workers in Europe from producing as much as they can in a continent that is desperately short of everything" [59] Douglas went to Washington in the hopes of having the directive revised but was unable to do so.

The US Senate's Judiciary Committee asserted: "During the first two years of the Allied occupation the Treasury program of industrial dismantlement was vigorously pursued by American officials."[60]

In July 1947 JCS 1067, which had directed the U.S. forces of occupation in Germany to "…take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany [or] designed to maintain or strengthen the German economy", was replaced by JCS 1779 which instead stated that "An orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany." [61]

It took over two months for General Clay to overcome continued resistance to the new directive JCS 1779, but on July 10, 1947, it was finally approved at a meeting of the SWNCC (State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee). The final version of the document "was purged of the most important elements of the Morgenthau plan."[62]

Vladimir Petrov, an expert on the financial aspects of the occupation, wrote: "By forbidding the American Army to maintain price, wage, and market controls, it (JCS 1067) literally decreed, as a State Department official put it, economic chaos."[63]

In 1947 the U.S. Congress warned that the continuation of the present policies

…can only mean one of two things, (a) That a considerable part of the German population must be "liquidated" through diseases, malnutrition, and slow starvation for a period of years to come, with the resultant dangers to the rest of Europe from pestilence and the spread of plagues that know no boundaries; or (b) the continuation both of large occupying forces to hold down "unrest" and the affording of relief mainly drawn from the United States to prevent actual starvation.[64]

Conditions in Germany reached their lowest point in 1947. Living conditions were considered worse in 1947 than in 1945 or 1946. At an average ration of 1040 calories a day, malnutrition was at its worst stage in post-war Germany. Herbert Hoover asserted that this amount of rations was hardly more than the amount which caused thousands in the Nazi concentration camps to die from starvation.[65]

Vladimir Petrov concluded: "The victorious Allies … delayed by several years the economic reconstruction of the war torn continent, a reconstruction which subsequently cost the US billions of dollars."[66]

In view of increased concerns by General Lucius D. Clay and the Joint Chief of Staff over communist influence in Germany, as well as of the failure of the rest of the European economy to recover without the German industrial base on which it was dependent, in the summer of 1947 Secretary of State General George Marshall, citing "national security grounds" was finally able to convince President Harry S. Truman to remove JCS 1067, and replace it with JCS 1779.[67] JCS 1067 had then been in effect for over two years.

The Morgenthau boys resigned en masse when the JCS 1779 was approved, but before they went the Morgenthau followers in the decartelization division of OMGUS accomplished one last task in the spring of 1947, the destruction of the old German banking system.[68] By breaking the relationships between German banks they cut off the flow of credit between them, limiting them to short-term financing only, thus preventing the rehabilitation of German industry and with immediate adverse effects on the economy in the U.S. occupation zone.[68]

With the change of occupation policy, most significantly thanks to the currency reform of 1948, Germany eventually made an impressive recovery, later known as the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle").


[edit] Implementation
The Morgenthau Plan was implemented[47], although not in its most extreme version.[47] The Morgenthau Plan spawned the JCS-1067 [2], which contained the ideas of making Germany a "Pastoral State". This concept's name was later changed to become "level of industry", where Germany's production was to be severely limited but not completely eliminated. No new locomotives were to be built until 1949, most industries were to have their production halved. Automobile production was to be set at 10% of its [pre-war] 1936 level, etc. [3]

On February 2, 1946, a dispatch from Berlin reported:

Some progress has been made in converting Germany to an agricultural and light industry economy, said Brigadier General William H. Draper, Jr., chief of the American Economics Division, who emphasized that there was general agreement on that plan. He explained that Germany’s future industrial and economic pattern was being drawn for a population of 66,500,000. On that basis, he said, the nation will need large imports of food and raw materials to maintain a minimum standard of living. General agreement, he continued, had been reached on the types of German exports — coal, coke, electrical equipment, leather goods, beer, wines, spirits, toys, musical instruments, textiles and apparel — to take the place of the heavy industrial products which formed most of Germany's pre-war exports.[69]

Morgenthau had written a book outlining the full Morgenthau Plan, Germany is Our Problem. In November 1945 General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone, approved the distribution of one thousand free copies of the book to American military officials in Germany.[70]

By February 28, 1947 it was estimated that 4,160,000 German former prisoners of war, by General Dwight D. Eisenhower relabeled as Disarmed Enemy Forces in order to negate the Geneva Convention, were used as forced labor by the various Allied countries to work in camps outside Germany: 3,000,000 in Russia, 750,000 in France, 400,000 in Britain and 10,000 in Belgium. [4] Meanwhile in Germany large parts of the population were starving [5] at a time when according to a study done by former US President Herbert Hoover the nutritional condition in countries that in Western Europe was nearly pre-war normal". [6] General George S. Patton opposed the forced labor, finding the practice to contravene the ideals the United States fought for in its Revolutionary and Civil wars.[71] German prisoners engaged in dangerous tasks, such as clearing mine fields.[72]

In Germany shortage of food was an acute problem, according to Alan S. Milward in 1946–47 the average kilocalorie intake per day was only 1,080, an amount insufficient for long-term health.[73] Other sources state that the kilocalorie intake in those years varied between as low as 1,000 and 1,500. William Clayton reported to Washington that "millions of people are slowly starving."[74]

All armaments plants, including some that could have been converted to civilian operation, were dismantled or destroyed. A large proportion of operational civilian plants were dismantled and transported to the victorious nations, mainly France and Russia.

In addition to the above courses of action, there have been general policies of destruction or limitation of possible peaceful productivity under the headings of "pastoral state" and "war potential." The original of these policies apparently expressed on September 15, 1944, at Quebec, aimed at:

"converting Germany into a country principally agricultural and pastoral,"

and included,

"the industries of the Ruhr and the Saar would therefore be put out of action, closed down…." [75]

Early U.S. plans for "industrial disarmament" included detaching the Saarland and the Ruhr from Germany in order to remove much of the remaining industrial potential.[76]

As late as March 1947 there were still active plans to let France annex the Ruhr.[citation needed]

"The Ruhr — The Times' article and editorial on the breach in the US ranks on the subject of the Ruhr were accurate, and the latter excellent. I have been disturbed over the arena in which the debate has been carried out. Clay and Draper claim that Germany will go communist shortly after any proposal to infringe on its sovereignty over the Ruhr is carried out;". [77]

The Saar, another important source of coal and industry for Germany, was likewise to be lost by the Germans. It was cut out from Germany and its resources put under French control. In 1955, the French, under pressure from West Germany and her newfound allies, held a plebiscite in the Saar Protectorate on the question of reunification or independence. Reunification won overwhelmingly, and on January 1, 1957, Saarland rejoined West Germany.

As Germany was allowed neither airplane production nor any shipbuilding capacity to supply a merchant navy, all facilities of this type were destroyed over a period of several years. A typical example of this activity by the allies was the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, where explosive demolition was still taking place as late as 1949. Everything that could not be dismantled was blown up or otherwise destroyed. A small-scale attempt to revive the company in 1948 ended with the owners and a number of employees being thrown in jail by the British. It was not until 1953 that the situation gradually started to improve for the Blohm & Voss, thanks in part to repeated pleas by German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to the Allied High Commissioners.[78]

Timber exports from the U.S. occupation zone were particularly heavy. Sources in the U.S. government stated that the purpose of this was the "ultimate destruction of the war potential of German forests." As a consequence of the practiced clear-felling extensive deforestation resulted which could "be replaced only by long forestry development over perhaps a century.".[79]

Over a period of years, American policy slowly changed away from this policy of "industrial disarmament". The first and main turning point was the speech "Restatement of Policy on Germany" held in Stuttgart by the United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes on September 6, 1946.

Reports such as this by former U.S. President Herbert Hoover, dated March 1947, also argued for a change of policy, among other things through speaking frankly of the expected consequences.

There are several illusions in all this "war potential" attitude. There is the illusion that the New Germany left after the annexations can be reduced to a "pastoral state". It cannot be done unless we exterminate or move 25,000,000 people out of it. This would approximately reduce Germany to the density of the population of France. [80]

In July 1947, President Harry S. Truman rescinded on "national security grounds"[81] JCS 1067, which had directed the U.S. forces of occupation in Germany to "take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany." [82] Three months earlier, the United States and France had agreed upon a German POW release program to begin releasing 20,000 prisoners per month.[83] By July, of the 740,000 German POWs transferred to France, 290,000 had been "stricken from the rolls."[84]

In addition to the physical barriers that had to be overcome, for the German economic recovery there were also intellectual challenges. The Allies confiscated intellectual property of great value, all German patents both in Germany and abroad, and used them to strengthen their own industrial competitiveness by licensing them to Allied companies.[85] Beginning immediately after the German surrender and continuing for the next two years, the U.S. pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents in Germany. John Gimbel comes to the conclusion, in his book "Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany", that the "intellectual reparations" taken by the U.S. and the UK amounted to close to $10 billion.[86][87][88] During the more than two years that this policy was in place, no industrial research in Germany could take place[citation needed], as any results would have been automatically available to overseas competitors who were encouraged by the occupation authorities to access all records and facilities. Meanwhile thousands of the best [7] German researchers were being put to work in the Soviet Union and in the U.K. and U.S. (see also Operation Paperclip)

According to some scholars, the Marshall Plan, which was extended to also include Western Germany after it was realized that the suppression of the Western German economy was holding back the recovery of the rest of Europe,[89] was not the main force behind the Wirtschaftswunder.[90][91] According to them, the amount of monetary aid (which was in the form of loans) received by Germany through the Marshall Plan (about $1.4 billion in total) was far overshadowed by the amount the Germans had to pay back as war reparations and by the charges the Allies made on the Germans for the ongoing cost of occupation (about $2.4 billion per year).[90] In 1953 it was decided that Germany was to repay $1.1 billion of the aid it had received. The last repayment was made in June 1971.[91] In a largely symbolic 2004 resolution by the lower house of the Polish Parliament reparations of $640 billion were demanded from Germany, mainly as a weapon in an ongoing argument regarding German property claims on formerly German territory.[92] However, at the Potsdam conference The Soviet Union undertook to settle the reparation claims of Poland from its own share of reparations from Germany. In 1953 Poland agreed to forego further reparations claims against Germany. [8] Meanwhile, Poland was now in possession of almost a quarter of pre-war German territory, including the important industrial centers in Silesia and the richest coal fields in Europe. [9] In addition, many of ethnic Germans living within the Polish pre-war borders were prior to their expulsion for years used as forced labor in camps such as the camp run by Salomon Morel. For example Central Labour Camp Jaworzno, Central Labour Camp Potulice, Łambinowice, Zgoda labour camp and others. (see also this HNET review)

In 1949 West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer wrote to the Allies requesting that the policy of industrial dismantling end, citing the inherent contradiction between encouraging industrial growth and removing factories and also the unpopularity of the policy.[93] (See also Adenauers original letter to Schuman, Ernest Bevins letter to Robert Schuman.)


[edit] Contemporary relevance and assessment
The German establishment view, as expressed by the German government, is that the Morgenthau Plan was of no significance for the occupiers' policy toward Germany but that Nazi propaganda on the subject had a lasting effect and that it is still used for propaganda purposes by extreme right-wing organizations.[94]
NOTES:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#Notes

Israeli rapper calls for Palestinian Right of Return, Reparations, kicking out Israel's ambassador

The Emperor's Clothes (Detroit, San Francisco, Palestine, 4 mins) Directed by Maha Bazzy and Wesley Taylor Score by K-Salaam and Beatnick Footage by Vanessa Huang and Al Jazeera Creative Commons...
The Emperor's Clothes (Detroit, San Francisco, Palestine, 4 mins) Directed by Maha Bazzy and Wesley Taylor Score by K-Salaam and Beatnick Footage by Vanessa Huang and Al Jazeera Creative Commons Depository Poster artwork by Melanie Cervantes, Faviana Rodriguez, and Jesus Barraza Produced by EMERGENCE http://emergencetravel.net/http://emergencemusic.net/In January 2009, Israel launched an assault on the Gaza Strip, causing massive damage to civilian infrastructure, killing more than 1,300 Palestinians and wounding 5,300. Israel has held Gaza under siege, controlling the borders, air and water space, preventing even the most basic humanitarian goods from entering. The Emperors Clothes is a call to action. One of the most effective strategies we can pursue right now is boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns (http://bdsmovement.net/) against Israel, as we demand an end to Israel's 60-plus years of occupation and war on Palestinian life.


Aims Why Do it yourself

Individual consumers can show their opposition to Israel's project by participating in a consumer boycott of Israeli goods and services. A consumer boycott works in two ways: firstly by generating bad publicity for the offender and secondly by applying economic pressure for change.

The Israeli barcode starts with 729





Aims

Raise awareness among consumers about the consequences of buying Israeli goods and services. Pressurise supermarkets and shops into removing goods with barcode 729 - denoting Israeli origin - from their shelves. Encourage companies who make use of Israeli technology and components to find alternatives and join the boycott. Focus the attention of the world on Israeli occupation and apartheid and expose those who bankroll the Israeli regime; and to foster an environment in which it is unacceptable to promote Israeli policies.
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Why

Individual consumers can show their opposition to Israel's project by participating in a consumer boycott of Israeli goods and services. A boycott can also put pressure on companies whose exports are linked to some of the most evident aspects of the Israeli occupation and apartheid.



Agrexco export fruit and vegetables for sale all over Europe and the US under the trade name Carmel. Much of its produce is grown on confiscated Palestinian land in the Jordan Valley, and the Israeli government owns 51% of the company. Jaffa Oranges were famous for centuries before Israelis successfully colonised the Palestinian name along with the city of Yafa. Continues...




Israeli forces and settlers watch as an occupation bulldozer destroys a Palestinian water tank



Motorola, as well as producing mobile phones, also manufacture wireless data networks for military bases and battlefield communications systems. Much of the cutting-edge technology contained in products such as mobile phones, computers and software is developed in the manufacture of military services and goods. Products developed to meet the needs of the Israeli military have a reputation for reliability, having been tried and tested on Palestinians.

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Tel-Aviv is the global hub of a trade with considerable moral and ethical implications having consistently fuelled conflicts, wars and oppression throughout Africa. Many of the globes major dealers use Tel Aviv as the processing point for a trade which makes a major contribution to the Israeli economy. Consumers in Arab countries have begun to raise their voices in recent years. Tired with their US-backed governments, they have taken the isolation of Israel into their own hands – creating enormous losses especially for US producers complicit in the occupation of Palestine. In the West, consumers are growing more and more aware of the products they buy and the food they eat. In the UK a survey conducted in 2005 for the Co-Op bank revealed that over half of the questioned consumers stated that they had avoided buying products from a company on the basis of its reputation. Boycotts are big business, and it is vital that the international public are made aware of the moral and ethical dimension of buying Israeli goods.

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Do it yourself

While boycott is an individual act, it becomes only powerful if it is promoted collectively and finds strong support in organizations and movements willing to promote the boycott. It is important that you find allies and choose your targets well. In the primary boycott, consumers boycott products from Israeli companies. A secondary boycott means avoiding goods produced by companies with a significant business interest in Israel or containing parts produced by Israel. It includes boycott of companies whose management uses the profits and the power of the company to promote Israeli colonial policies of occupation and apartheid. Multinationals such as Nestle to Estee Lauder are notable examples of multinationals guilty of lending vital support to the Occupation. Continues...



Activists picketing a Carmel-Agrexo distribution centre in the UK

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The 'secondary boycott' approach was used successfully by consumers opposing apartheid in South Africa. By the time Barclays' Bank (UK) had pulled out of apartheid South Africa, its share of the student market had plummeted from 27% to 15%. The sheer number of companies involved with the Israeli economy means that for practical reasons, a boycott must focus on strategic targets of particular significance, such as: Produce that is symbolic of its origin from Israel e.g. fruit, vegetables, cut flowers; Companies and individuals who are actively working to promote the Zionist agenda; Companies that can be an easy and global target for their obvious benefit to the Occupation such as Agrexco.



1. Don't buy Israeli goods

This is easier than it sounds and a list of common products from Israeli companies can be found on a series of websites listed in the Resource section. You could also send a letter to the supermarket, the media and local political parties in your country informing them of your decision and the reasons.



2. Identify and lobby retail outlets that stock Israeli goods: Outlets that stock Israeli goods can be lobbied to break off such business relations in response to Israeli policies. You can send letters to local shops and large retailers asking them to de-shelve Israeli products. Find organizations and networks that would be willing to endorse the letter in order to achieve a more powerful effect.

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3. Boycott and picket outlets that do not respond to lobbying

Where outlets continue to sell Israeli goods, go a step further and write informing them that you will no longer shop there. Organiza a picket of the shop and distribute campaign materials informing people of the BDS campaign.



4. Set up a local campaign and website promoting the boycott

Spread the word about the BDS campaign. Useful material, fact sheets and resources can be taken straight from the BDS website for you to set up your own local campaign. You could also provide a blacklist of outlets in the local area that are refusing to stop selling Israeli goods.



5. Further steps

Organise pickets and blockades of the transportation of Israeli produce; Encourage shop workers, dockworkers and others to refuse to handle Israeli goods; Putting out public information about companies' use of Israeli technology and components; Create a Buycott alternative, promoting ethical alternatives to Israeli goods and reward companies who publicly distance themselves from the Israeli economy with greater levels of trade.

The Real Phil Hendrie Is A Horse's Ass

“Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller,”

Look, if there is not going to be any medical insurance reform the present situation of health care rationing is going to continue and get even worse than it already is and worse than it would be with a real reform. Facts are stubborn things. The population is aging. The baby boomers, people born between 1946 and 1964 have not yet filed their first Medicare old age medical insurance claim and when we start doing that Medicare is going to be scrambling for ways to economize, ObamaCare or no ObamaCare. What there is going to be, no matter what anyone says today, is rationing.

Given that rationing of care does not really separate the sides of the ObamaCare debate the question is whether any ObamaCare plan will be better than letting the present situation drift. ObamaCare wins, by a whisker.

What is going on right now is a revolt against the 2008 election. Obama and the Democrats won, fair and square and they represent however poorly the hopes of most poor, "minority" gays, single mothers, low wage workers, people who want the government out of their personal lives. The Democrats will either grow some spine and do whatever is necessary to pass healthcare that has teeth, at the least a Government Option, or we go into another 16 years of assault on the needs of the majority that started in earnest with Lewinskygate and hypocrite Newt Gingrich's Contract On America.

ObamaCare and Euthanasia

Let me start out by saying that I believe that the US Healthcare system needs to be reformed along the lines of plans that exist in most of the industrialized countries of the world. Too many people are getting lousy medical attention or no medical attention or too late medical attention. Once upon a time Barack Obama was an advocate of single payer health insurance like they have in Canada and Europe where on average they spend about half what we do per capita and get better results in terms of lifespan and infant mortality.

Now Obama, ever the realist, says that single payer is not politically realistic in this country. He has thrown the authorship of what should have been his signature domestic accomplishment to the Blue Dog Democrats. There is not likely to be even a government option, there is not likely to be government negotiation on the prices of procedures and medicines, there is not likely going to be any emphasis on preventative medicine.

It's been emphasized that medical costs are rising much faster than the rate of inflation is and that the situation is not sustainable.

I just turned 63 years old. I was born eight months and two weeks after a certain troop ship disembarked a lot of soldiers, my father included, from the European theater of World War Two in New York City. I'm among the very first of what are called the baby boomers. I'm not yet eligible for Medicare that's two years off. I just became eligible for Social Security. I'm at the very vanguard of a very very large demographic group that is just beginning to cost the medical system more than we've put in and just beginning to make our claims to our Social Security pensions. Now, If the goal is cost cutting, and we're not going to do any hard bargaining on price of care, and we're not going to cut out the profit margin and the motivation to deny procedures and medication by for profit entities, and we're not going to eliminate or reduce bureaucratic waste how in Sam Hill is this thing going to end up?

People are throwing fists at congressional town hall meetings about this issue. Obama and the Democrats have emphasized a need to cut medical costs or at least to slow down their increase. This has really been the meat of ObamaCare in my opinion.

Well, there are a few problems with this of course. For one thing the population is getting older. The oldest baby boomers, that gigantic generation conceived by returning WWII soldiers after more than a decade of low birth rates caused by the Great Depression and WWII is only starting to be eligible for Social Security. This first wave, now 63 years old, are still a couple of years away from Medicare eligibility. It would seem that medical costs are just on the cusp of a tremendous increase, but we already spend twice per capita (and sixteen percent of our GDP) that other advanced countries do. Our results measured by life expectancy and infant mortality are more third world than first.

Now it is somehow going to come to pass that the increase will be slowed down and reversed without the Government being able to negotiate with providers over prices for services and medicines. Canada is a different matter. Maybe that's why medicine costs about half there what it costs here.

I have no love for the right wingnut birthers and folks who cannot get accustomed to having a black president but maybe they have one point. No way our medical costs are going to be controlled without the Government forcing down costs and without serious rationing especially to the aging population. I read a book called "Obamanomics" by a former Goldman Sachs-man, John Talbott. He was a great big Obama supporter early out and he still is one. He talks about a need to cut down Social Security and Medicare and offers a plan by which people opt for a lower cost insurance early in life on the condition that they don't go looking for advanced medicine when they get old.

This all steams me when I see we've pissed away over two billion dollars on the "war on terror" and when the Fed and Treasury have been throwing money at people just like Talbott.

I think a guy like former Goldman Sachs-man, John Talbott, whose ideas lean towards what could really be called Euthanasia, has the ear of Obama and Pelosi and Harry Reid.

We're going to have a real Canadian/European style health care system or we're going to have a Soylent Green one. If we do nothing we already have "soylent green".

Ron Reagan Said It

Ex president Ronald Reagan had a son who is now a liberal commentator. I happened to be listening to him on WWRL radio yesterday and he said something important. Speaking about the organized right wing Republican goon squads who have been disrupting town hall meetings held by Democratic members of Congress he pointed out that the loud, threatening disruptive disorderly thugs have not been arrested, even though in at least one case a Democratic member of Congress needed police protection in order to leave the meeting hall safely. Reagan reminded us that none of these right wing (fascist is my word) activists are African Americans in their own living rooms.

I think that the USA is coming apart. Millions of whites are so furious that a Democrat, one who is of African descent to boot won the last election handily that they insist that the President was not born in the US and therefore is not a legitimate President or commander in chief. Not only is he a black Democrat, he dares to insist that Israel make some concessions to the Palestinian Authority. These often armed and dangerous elements are being egged on by media personalities who are rich from the money of their corporate sponsors. These yahoos are really very distraught. The President gets around thirty death threats per day. Threats are aired on radio talk shows.

The liberals seem to think that the Sergeant Crowleys of this world will protect President Obama, the elected legislators and them. This is a mistaken hope in my opinion.

While I have more disagreements than agreement with Obama, he is the elected President of the United States and his election did represent at least in part an electoral uprising against the hard right and its idiotic following, and I nurse the suspicion that Obama understands much more than he can dare to say and is trying as best as he is able to incrementally change things for the better. He needs to be defended.

Medical Tourism

My wife is a citizen of Venezuela and a resident of the US. She and her kids are covered by my medical insurance, which I get as a retired employee of New York City. She and one of the kids visited the Cuban doctors who work for free in Venezuela partly because of dissatisfaction with the care they were getting here.

In Venezuela anyone can get at least primary medical attention absolutely for free, though tipping is not discouraged. And guess what? There were Americans at the clinic waiting their turn for free medical attention. Private doctors there are, and they cost a fraction of what they cost here. Specialists charge less than most insurance deductibles we have to pay here. I don't want to encourage Americans to go to Venezuela just to see a doctor they can both afford and trust. The United States of America ought to be able to duplicate what Cuba and Venezuela have for their people, and apparently for all comers. No?

What is the Democratic Party good for anyhow?

Cops Rule

Cops rule. They suely do.

Just look at what happened with Professor Gates up in Cambridge, Mass. A cop arrested him for being uppity in his own home. A cop submitted a report that was not "reality based" about the incident, testerlying, as the phrase goes, to justify a false arrest.

The President of The United States weighed in initially saying that it was a stupid thing for the cop to arrest this professor (the words were "acted stupidly") for being uppity and then writing stuff about it that wasn't true. Well, the roof fell in on the President of The United States. He took back the word "stupidly" which was a mild description of the Cambridge cops' actions and then praised this testerlying arrogant and maybe racist cop and invited him to the White House to have a beer with his two victims (the professor and POTUS).

Cops shoot people in the back, usually black people and sometimes other cops. They conduct themselves rudely to the general public, at least to that part not white and well dressed, and they are well known for saying things about people they've harmed that just aren't so. Well, it looks like the President of the United States had to back down in the face of this. Even black cops sometimes do this sort of stuff. Look at the Sean Bell case. Black cops, backed up by their white buddies (when they themselves aren't being executed by the same) sometimes seem to feel at ease drilling other non white people. Black, white and hispanic cops united in the Sean Bell case to unlawfully intimidate witnesses, kicking at doors in the dark of night and so forth.

Yeah, cops rule.

Death In The Air

Paul Wellstone airplane "accident" (Democrat, Iraq war opponent)

Mel Carnahan, (Democrat) Carnahan was the second Missouri politician to die in a small plane crash. The first was Democratic Representative Jerry Litton, whose plane crashed the night he won the Democratic nomination for senate in 1976.

Liberal Republican John Heinz, (There once were liberal Republicans) opponent of the Vietnam War, proponent of health care, social services, public transportation and the environment. Urged reconciliation with Cuba. Landing gear on his small plane failed to function, and a helicopter sent to observe the problem crashed into his plane.

John Tower, (Right wing Republican) also died in a small plane crash. Tower was best known as the chair of the Tower Commission, which investigated the Reagan/Bush era Iran/Contra scandal. Led Commission that issued a report that was critical of the Reagan Administration's connections with Iran and the Nicaraguan contra guerillas.

Another member of a prominent government commission who died in an airplane accident was former Democratic representative and House Majority Leader Hale Boggs. Boggs was a member of the Warren Commission that whitewashed the JFK assasination. He went public years later with his "doubts" about Lee Harvey Oswald being the "lone gunman." Vanished with Nicholas Begich Nicholas Joseph "Nick" Begich, Sr. (April 6, 1932 – undetermined, presumed dead October 16, 1972) was a Democratic Party member of the United States House of Representatives from Alaska. He disappeared in a 1972 plane crash.

Texas Democratic Representative Mickey Leland also died in a plane crash.

Another American politician to die overseas in a plane crash was the Clinton administration's Commerce Secretary, Ronald Brown, whose plane went down in the Balkans.


Mario Cuomo - A Democrat in An Airplane
Cuomo 's Plane Is Crippled, Forcing Emergency LandingBy DON TERRY

New York Times (1857-Current file); Nov 21, 1988; ProQuest Historical Newspapers

The New York Times (1851 - 2001)pg. B3

The article reports that "shortly before 2AM" the aircraft "which was overhauled last year at a cost of about $700,000 "began to fill with smoke and an acrid odor" and made an emergency landing at a small airfield in Pennsylvania. "A network of air traffic controllers scatered across three states and a plane flying nearby helped guide the Governor's crippled aricraft to a safe landing at the airport, which was closed...." "Some transmissions from the air traffic controllers to Cuomo's plane were garbled."The same plane had been forced to make an emergency landing in July with Cuomo on board. Cuomo dropped out of the 1988 presidential race and declined to run in 1992.

The Mystery of Mario Cuomo
by Halton Adler Mann
President, Vice President, Supreme Court Justice. Many American politicians have lusted for the first, settled for the second and accepted the third when the first two prizes were not to be theirs. But only ONE man, Mario M. Cuomo, former three term Governor of New Yorkdeclined all THREE perfect and predictably successful opportunities to leavethe political battlefield and the highest elective and appointive positionsto lower common denominators, to those who were monomaniacal in their desireto be next to or at the top of Disraeli's "greasy pole". How to explain this inexplicable abdication of personal and political destiny, specifically, Governor Cuomo's refusal to run for president in 1988 or 1992--in the latter year with his private plane on the Albany tarmac--to take him to meet the New Hampshire registration deadline as a presidential candidate? Governor Cuomo's stated reason for spurning the second presidential opportunity--to stay in Albany and debate the budget with State Senate President RalphMarino--was a ridiculous excuse no one accepted. Perhaps Cuomo did not want to be president, certainly not as passionately as Bill Clinton and he thought that the inevitable primary battle would be divisive and Democrat-defeating. Rationales accompany refusals. But 1992 was his second presidential prospect and not the best. In 1988,once Gary Hart self-destructed in personal scandal and Michael Dukakis was predicted to be the worst national nominee in Democratic Party history with the exception of Al Gore who SHOULD have won the 2000 race comfortably, Mario Cuomo should have entered and would have won, defeating George Bush, Senior before his incumbency,as easily as Bill Clinton did four years later. (Mario Cuomo would have nominated a progressive Black judge to Thurgood Marshall's Supreme Courtseat, therefore giving Gore the fifth vote he would need to continue the Florida recount. Clarence Thomas would have remained an unknown name in the meretricious American spectacle.)

Former CIA Agent Tells Glenn Beck on Fox News That He Wants To See A Grave Attack on the United States:


Michael Scheuer is hoping Osama bin Laden Detonates a major weapon in the U.S.:
" The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.



"Because it's going to take a grassroots, bottom up pressure, because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. It's an absurd situation, again. Only Osama can execute an attack that will force Americans to demand a government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary. "

...and Beck just sits there nodding in agreement.

A Hint to Al Franken, Minnesota's New Senator: Take The Train

Say what he will, Al Franken has finally beaten Norm Coleman in a bitter fight for the 60th seat in the US Senate. The Democratic Party, voted for by progressives, by union members, by discriminated against minorities, single mothers, gay people and people who want the government out of their personal lives, the party that for better or worse encapsulates the hopes of these groups of people, now has control of the United States Senate. It has sixty votes and it can shut down Republican obstruction of progressive measures. Personally I think the hopes of these groups of people are going to be betrayed more often than not, but the Dems have a bit less room for excuses and are under pressure to actually bring home some results. I do not know how sincere Senator Franken is. I know he can be a funny guy. I want to see some progressive changes in the US and the world. I want Senator Franken to be carefull and aware because I want him to vote in real health insurance reform that gets all people covered for all illnesses, I want to beat back the attack on women's right to choose, I want Social Security to be defended. These are the things Democrats might still be good for. I hope so.

Before Norm Coleman there was Paul Wellstone.


http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110102_wellstone.html
Democrats Twice As Likely to Die In Crashes
This item is being republished as a public service, and is not being used for profit It was found on the internet on a site that did not require subscription. I feel it is timely given Al Franken's election to the Senate, although the item is "dated."
Was Paul Wellstone Murdered?

History Suggests It
Crash Inconsistencies Suggest It
Many, Including Some Members of Congress, Believe It
by Michael C. Ruppert

[© Copyright 2002, From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com. All rights reserved. THIS IS A SUBSCRIBER-ONLY STORY AND MAY NOT BE POSTED ON A WEB SITE WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION. Contact media@copvcia.com. This story may be redistributed, circulated or copied for non-profit purposes only.]

Nov. 1, 2002, 15:00 PST (FTW) -- The air crash deaths of Sen. Paul Wellstone, his wife, daughter, three staff members and two pilots at approximately 10:25 a.m. on Oct. 25 in Eveleth, Minn. has given rise to the widespread belief -- shared by at least two members of the House of Representatives who spoke on condition of anonymity -- that the crash was a murder.

Just as important as the known details of the crash, in many cases contradicting mainstream press reports, is the fact that the belief is so widely held. It says something about America that cannot and should not be ignored.

A HISTORY TOO FULL OF COINCIDENCES

From a historical standpoint Democrats are twice as likely to die in air crashes as Republicans. Frequently, those who have died were known to have been either involved in the investigation of covert operations or to have taken highly controversial positions in opposition to vested government interests.

Sam Smith of the Progressive Review (www.prorev.com) published an Oct. 25 story titled "Politicians Killed In Plane Crashes." For his source he used a wonderful database found at http://politicalgraveyard.com. Of 22 air crashes involving state and federal officials, including one ambassador (Arnold Raphael) and one cabinet official (Ron Brown), FTW found that 14 (64 percent) were members of the Democratic Party and 8 (36 percent) were members of the Republican Party. If the list was limited to only elected members of Congress, the total was eight Democrats and four Republicans.

Six of the fatalities occurred during election campaigns. Of those, four were Democrats and two were Republicans. Maybe Democrats can't afford the same type of planes that Republicans can. That certainly was not the case with Paul Wellstone who was killed in a Beechcraft King Air 100, twin turboprop. The King Air is a favorite of many politicians and is widely regarded as the "Cadillac" of twin-engined propeller driven airplanes. The state of Minnesota owns two of them. And as FTW reported in October 1999, a Beechcraft King Air owned by the state of Texas was a personal favorite of then-Gov. George W. Bush. That particular King Air had a sordid past however. It had previously been owned by the legendary drug smuggler Barry Seal. (The Associated Press picked up our story of the plane's history).

To read our story on the Bush/Seal airplane connection, please visit:

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/W_plane.html.

Wellstone's airplane
Several names on the list are readily connected to intrigue.

Rep. Hale Boggs, D-La., was killed in 1972 and had been an outspoken member of the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of JFK. Various sources reported that he had openly expressed doubts about the commission's findings.

Rep. Jerry Litton, D-Mo., was killed while campaigning for a U.S. Senate seat from Missouri nearly two months before the 1976 election. This was exactly the same fate that was to befall Missouri Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan twenty-four years later.

Rep. Larry McDonald, D-Ga. and the national chairman of the John Birch Society and creator of a private intelligence operation called Western Goals, was killed on KAL 007 after it had mysteriously veered off course on a flight to South Korea and ventured several hundred miles into Soviet territory. The plane was shot down by the Soviet air force. At the time, McDonald's Western Goals was being exposed in an LAPD intelligence scandal linked to massive domestic spying, the CIA and covert operatives like Gen. John Singlaub.

Rep. Larkin Smith, D-Miss. was killed in a private plane crash in 1989. At the time he had been working with veterans of U.S. Army Special Forces looking into the deaths of five Green Beret colonels, all of whom had been connected to a covert CIA drug operation known as Watchtower. [Details of Smith's death are included in the FTW package "The Tyree Papers."]

Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, a Democrat, was killed in a plane crash in Croatia on April 3, 1996. There are many unresolved mysteries with this incident, not the least of which is a color photograph of a post mortem Brown, which is frequently displayed by comedian/activist Dick Gregory, clearly showing a bullet wound in the back of his skull.

John Tower, a recently retired Republican senator from Texas known for his heavy drinking, was writing a book about the Iran-Contra affair when he was killed in a plane crash in 1991. Tower had reportedly been extremely unhappy when he had been denied an appointment as secretary of defense by President George Herbert Walker Bush. Tower had also been the chairman of a Reagan-appointed independent commission investigating Iran-Contra.

THE WELLSTONE CRASH



Perhaps no member of the Senate ranked higher on the Bush Administration's enemies list than Minnesota Democrat Paul Wellstone. And the enmity goes back years to when Bush's father was president. The Nov. 4 issue of Time recounts an encounter between Wellstone and the elder Bush after which he referred to Wellstone as "this chickenshit." And it is known that there has been at least one prior reported attempt on Wellstone's life.

In the months before his death Wellstone had voted against several key Bush agendas including Homeland Security, the Iraqi use of force resolution and many of Bush's judicial nominees. In a Senate controlled 50-49 by the Democrats, Wellstone was perhaps the single one-man obstacle to Bush's fervent and stated desire to secure passage of the Homeland Security measure prior to a U.S. invasion of Iraq.

When the Senate reconvenes after the Nov. 5 election the balance will be 49-49 with one independent, Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont. Jeffords has been caucusing with the Democrats. If there is a tie vote, Vice President Dick Cheney, as president of the Senate, will decide the outcome.

Of special interest now is the Missouri Senate race, where the victor will be seated immediately after the election. Jean Carnahan -- whose husband Mel was killed in a similar plane crash two years ago -- seeks to hold on to a seat she gained by filling in for her husband after his death just days before the 2000 election. Under Missouri law, because of the death, the seat is only legally occupied until a new election is held.

So what happened to Paul Wellstone?

A check of more than 50 of the world's leading news organizations three days after the Wellstone crash left one clear impression: the crash had been caused by "freezing rain and snow," limited visibility, and likely icing of the wings. One CNN report on Oct. 24 described the plane as flying in "snowy, frozen rain."

None of these conditions, which did not exist as just described, had anything to do with the crash.

Icing can be ruled out for a number of reasons. First, as reported in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on Oct. 29, "Another pilot who landed a slightly larger twin engine plane at the airport on Friday, a couple of hours before Wellstone's plane crashed, said in an interview that he experienced no significant problems.

"Veteran pilot Ray Juntunen said there was very light ice, 'but nothing to be alarmed about. It shouldn't have been a problem.'

"He said he ran into moderate icing conditions at 10,000 feet and requested permission to drop to 5,000. At that altitude, he had only light icing. When he dropped to 3,400 feet, to begin his approach, 'the ice slid off the windshield,' he said.

"According to the NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board], Wellstone's pilots received warnings of icing at 9,000 to 11,000 feet and were allowed to descend to 4,000 feet. Juntunen said he was able to see the airport from five miles out, and another pilot landed a half-hour later and told him the clouds were a little lower, but still not bad."

Various local press reports state that the weather conditions at the time of the crash were overcast, with visibility of three miles and a ceiling of 700 feet.

An argument that the weather worsened immediately after these two pilots landed and before Wellstone crashed is belied by the fact that a contemporaneous Doppler weather radar map of the region obtained by FTW from the National Weather Service shows no major storm activity and the same basic conditions as reported previously.


[Click image to enlarge.]
(Note: Image shows time in GMT. Duluth, MN is GMT -6.)

To further clarify this, FTW interviewed a retired commercial airline pilot who still maintains full current FAA certifications. The pilot, who asked not to be identified by name, provided FTW with copies of his pilot's license, his current FAA medical certificate, and his gold membership card in the Airline Pilot's Association.

Upon reviewing the radar map he stated that there was nothing inherently dangerous in what he saw depending upon what additional conditions might be prevalent at the time like ceiling and visibility. When advised that the reported visibility was three miles with a ceiling of 700 feet he stated, "That shouldn't be any problem, especially if you have planes taking off right before and even at the time of the crash."

In various press reports the King Air was described as an excellently powered aircraft, and that de-icing equipment was standard.

And the Pioneer Press reported on Oct. 26 that Gary Ulman, the assistant manager of the Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport, "jumped into his own private plane and took off in search of the missing aircraft" after noting the Wellstone plane's delayed arrival. Therefore, the icing conditions could not have been a contributing factor in the crash, or else the airport manager would not have taken off.

What has been disclosed by various local press sources, including stories in the Oct. 28 and 29 Pioneer Press, is the following:

- The plane, although it was required to have only one, had two fully licensed commercial pilots. The lead pilot had 5,200 hours of flying time and the highest possible certification. No physical problems had been reported with either pilot;

- The plane was not required to and did not have either a flight data recorder or a cockpit voice recorder;

- Wellstone's plane had notified the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that it was on approach to the airport and had activated the runway lights;

- The time from the last radio contact with the FAA when everything was normal until the crash was approximately 60 seconds;

- The pilots -- as is standard procedure for unmanned airports -- had sent a radio signal from their airplane to equipment at the airport which turned on the runway lights and activated a directional beacon that would align the plane with the runway. [Note: The Eveleth airport was not equipped with a more sophisticated remotely activated instrument landing system that would have provided feedback to the pilots on speed, rate of descent and above ground altitude];

- The FAA found that "an airport landing beacon, owned and maintained by the state...[was]...out of tolerance Saturday and was retesting Sunday." This was later confirmed by the acting chairwoman of the NTSB, Carol Carmody; [Note: According to the NTSB web site Carmody formerly worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.]

- The runway selected ran directly east to west and that Wellstone's plane was on final approach from the east;

- According to FAA records as reported Oct. 29 in the WWorkers Daily, at 10:19 a.m. at an altitude of 3,500 feet the plane began to drift away from the runway toward the south;

- According to the same source, the plane was last sighted at 10:21 a.m. flying at 1,800 feet;

- Wellstone's plane was found approximately two miles south of the eastern half of the runway, facing south. [Early press reports placed the crash site at between 2-7 miles east of the runway. Subsequent television reports, accompanied by maps, placed the crash site at this location. FTW is continuing to investigate the exact location of the crash site.];

- The propellers were turning at the time of the crash;

- The angle of impact was 30 degrees (extremely steep), indicating the plane was out of control;

- The wing flaps, which should have been fully extended for landing were only extended to 15 degrees (a setting used for initial approach descent);

- That the plane had been traveling at approximately 85 knots.

One quote from the Pioneer Press is interesting. "Radar tapes indicate the plane had descended to about 400 feet and was traveling at only 85 knots near the end of its flight. It then turned south, dove at an unusually steep angle and crashed."

Aside from the aircraft's sudden change in direction and the setting of the flaps, the airspeed is perhaps the most intriguing known element in the crash. A number of factors, if the data which had been released by the NTSB is to be believed, indicate that the Wellstone plane stalled just before crashing. A stall usually occurs when an aircraft's nose is raised too steeply for the throttle setting of the engine.



One account of a King Air's stall characteristics can be found at http://www.ainonline.com/Features/Pilotreports2000/AIN_pr_kingair.html.

This text described a situation where the stall warning horn (an alert that warns if airspeed is too slow) was activated under landing conditions (gear down with full flaps) at 85 knots. This writer has been in several small aircraft and experienced the noise. It is intentionally loud, distracting and unmistakable. The account stated that the actual stall did not occur until the aircraft being tested reached 69 knots. That's 16 knots slower than what was reported.

Other factors like the plane's total weight and center of gravity might have changed these outcomes. The FAA lists the standard approach speed for a King Air B 100 (the type carrying Wellstone) as 111 knots. Therefore the crash speed was significantly below the recommended approach speed which is generally estimated at 1.3 times the manufacturer's listed stall speed.

The fact that the planes flaps were extended only 15 degrees would have raised the stall speed.

SPECULATION

This writer has spoken to several pilots who have flown high-risk covert missions for the CIA or the Department of Defense. One of them related to me once that it would be easy to cause an aircraft to fly right into the ground by recalibrating the airport's IFR approach equipment and resetting the altitude. In fact, such a scenario was used in the movie Die Hard II.

But the Eveleth airport was equipped with only a directional beacon to line the plane up with the runway. It has already been established that this equipment was not "properly calibrated" and yet there are no reports of any deviations by either of the two pilots who landed safely shortly before the crash. That might have been what caused Wellstone's plane to veer off to the south.

Several press reports have described small hills around the airport.

Given that the ceiling was only about 700 feet and the plane's rate of descent would have been between 300 and 500 feet per minute it is possible that the plane emerged from the clouds close to the ground and the pilots, seeing that they were off course, initiated a sharp left turn toward the south to initiate a go-around. They would not have turned right because that would have taken them at an angle over the center of the runway, something pilots are trained not to do to avoid collisions.

From this point, answers are hard to come by. A physical examination of the crash site might reveal a large hill that would have been immediately in front of the aircraft when it emerged from the clouds. FTW has not found any press reports that address this point.

An imminent head-on crash into a hillside would have prompted a "Hail Mary" yanking back of the control yoke and an instant move to full throttle. FTW has seen no press reports indicating the throttle settings of Wellstone's plane -- only statements that the propellers were turning.

Mechanical sabotage of flight controls that would only be triggered under certain conditions or an incapacitating gas might also offer explanations as to why a stall warning horn was not responded to. King Airs have pressurized cabins.

There are many questions, but the circumstances of the crash, as known thus far, do not lead to conclusions of pilot error, mechanical failure or bad weather. What does that leave? It leaves us with three dead Democratic senatorial candidates (Litton - 1976, Carnahan - 2000, and Wellstone - 2002) who all died in small private airplanes just days before critical elections.

ARGUING WITH BLITZER OVER THE DEATH OF A KNOWN TARGET

Many experienced internet researchers, especially post-9-11, understand the importance of immediately securing local press reports and eyewitness statements to pivotal events in the moments after they occur. Several keen observers were able to transcribe the following live dialogue between an on-the-scene reporter and CNN's Wolf Blizter.

Reporter: There is no evidence that weather had anything to do with the crash.

Blizter: But the plane was flying into some sort of ice storm, was it not?

Reporter: There is no evidence that the weather had anything to do with the crash.

According to these observers CNN immediately cut away from the on-scene reporter who was not heard from again. Other watchers noted a crawl along the bottom of the screen which, they said, ran only one time, "Weather not a factor in crash."

Yet the stories currently posted on the CNN site still suggest that the crash was caused by bad weather and icing.

Paul Wellstone had been a target of an assassin once before. He was strident opponent of Plan Colombia, a U.S. military aid package which involves massive aerial spraying of lands believed to be growing cocaine and the use of private military contractors employed by companies like DynCorp. Wellstone had traveled to Colombia to evaluate the program.

Shortly after his arrival on Dec. 1, 2000, as reported by a number of news sources including the AP, a bomb was found along his route from the airport. Although the State Department later downplayed the incident, the general opinion was, and remains, that as an outspoken critic of CIA and covert operations, Wellstone had indeed been a target.

Those suspicions gained credibility the next day when Wellstone and his staff were sprayed with glyphosate, a chemical that has been routinely documented as the cause of a variety of illnesses in the local population. It has left certain regions of Colombia, as one native put it, "Without butterflies or birds."

One anonymous author, using the pen name Voxfux, actually predicted Wellstone's assassination in spring 2001. The story can be read at www.voxnyc.com. In that missive the author predicted, "If the death occurs just prior to the midterm senatorial elections, expect it to be in a state with a close race. Expect a 'Mel Carnahan' style hit."

INSIDE SOURCES

FTW was able to receive comments on the crash from two Democratic members of the House of Representatives. Both, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stated that they believed that Wellstone had been murdered.

One said, "I don't think there's anyone on the Hill who doesn't suspect it. It's too convenient, too coincidental, too damned obvious. My guess is that some of the less courageous members of the party are thinking about becoming Republicans right now."

It is a rare occurrence when this writer refers to a quote from an unnamed CIA source. I have demonstrated in at least four interviews with the staffs of both the Senate and House Intelligence committees established that I know sources who have worked for the CIA in some very nasty covert operations.

The day after the crash I received a message from a former CIA operative who has proven extremely reliable in the past and who is personally familiar with these kinds of assassinations. The message read, "As I said earlier, having played ball (and still playing in some respects) with this current crop of reinvigorated old white men, these clowns are nobody to screw around with. There will be a few more strategic accidents. You can be certain of that."

Quo Vadis?

Different Kinds Of Jews (II)

Continued from Different Kinds Of Jews (I)

Well, you'd be surprised to know that in a weird way my parents and I were "orthodox" (that's right, bacon eating orthodox Jews). While my parents raised me to "not believe in God" they also raised me to be a Jewish nationalist. Their sect is very common in Israel, a little less so in the west. This sect looks down on Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism and any other "watered down" Judaism as less Jewish, or almost "not Jewish" but assimilationist! Yet they themselves profess not to be religious, even to be secular and even many "atheist." So the Judaism that my parents didn't practice and yet were of ws the orthodox brand. This sect is so strong in Israel (and my parents never even visited Israel) that in alliance with the actual Talmud toting hirsute wearers of black, this sect has helped marginalize Reform Judaism and Conservative Judaism in Israhell. So a rabbi of either of those "watered down" branches cannot, for example, perform a marriage in Israel. This is a political problem because most Jews in the West who attend any Jewish religious services at all go to the "watered down" branches, and so if they go to the stolen land of milk and honey their religion, though Jewish, is actually "second class" under the law.

Okay so "mom religious orthodox Jews" are a kind of Jew, as are Reform and Conservative and Reconstructionist Jews also kinds of Jews.

I mentioned the Talmud here. Now when I was going to cheder (Jewish after-school) the school was also called "Talmud-Torah." People who study about the Talmud online have found that the book(s) is pretty much hostile to Christianity and to non-Jews, though thee are sites that also deny this. I can say that in Talmud-Torah back then, over fifty years ago, I was not taught any of these hostile to Christianity doctrines directly out of the Talmud. I would not have believed that they exist. Now to me Talmudic Judaism involves a lot of game playing with God. Let me explain. As an example, let's look at the sabbath elevator. Orthodox Judaism has adapted to modern artifacts such as the elevator by ruling that one may enter an elevator on the Sabbath but one may not press a button to direct the elevator to a given floor. So in New York in lots of public buildings you have a Sabbath elevator that is programmed between Friday and Saturday sundowns to stop at every floor of the building without anyone having to press a button. so the Talmud believer may enter the elevator, go to his desired floor and not violate the Sabbath injunction against working. (If he walks several flights of stairs he is not working, if he rides an elevator he is working.) If God indeed prohibits "working" on the sabbath this is one way to "get around" that rule.


Next we look at the proscription on "carrying" on the sabbath. Orthodox rabbis say that one may not carry house keys or a book, for example, outside the walls of one's home on the sabbath. This presents a problem, but they also present a way to "get around" the rule. They get local secular authorities to create an "eruv" make believe walss of a make believe home, so that orthodox Jews may "carry", and even read a book in a public place, because God now believes that the public place is really a part of the Orthodox Jew's home and therefore grants a pass on the "no carry" rule. This involves having the uthorities to connect by string or netting public lamposts so that the zone inside the string or netting is a "modified permissive zone for the Talmud toters.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/17868?badlink=1

I'll get bak top all this later.

Different Kinds Of Jews (I)

I'm 63 years old and was born a Jew. My parents never kept a Kosher kitchen, they didn't bring me to a synagogue except on the day I was Bar Mitzvahed (though they allowed me to be Bar Mitzvahed in an orthodox synagogue and take the necessary pre-requisite classes because that is what I wanted to do). I had wanted this Bar Mitzvah because I wanted to honor my religious grandparents and because I wanted to spite Hitler and all Jew haters. This desire of mine had nothing to do with believing in God or in wanting to follow God's law. Part of Bar Mitzvah preparations involved attending several Sabbath services at the synagogue (without my parents who were as I told you, "not religious" and didn't attend any synagogue services). Then I'd go out and get a slice of peperoni pizza. And I was definitely a kind of a Jew!

Now if Jewishness is connected to Judaism (it is) and Judaism is a religion (yes, it is) how could someone be a "non-religious Jew"? (and possibly the majority of Jews alive today would say they are just that). Well, the short answer is it is not possible. There are Jews who even believe that they are non-religious, and say that they are non-religious, but it just isn't so. They belong to probably the largest and yet least formal branch of Judaism, one with sub branches to boot, as several branches also have. And all subscribe to the basic jewish law which I shall "reveal" later.

The mother lode of Judaism is Orthodox Judaism, which is based on the Talmud which is newer than Christianity. Some people hold that the Talmud is a reaction to Christianity:
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8383.html
"...the New Testament and the Talmud, could not be more different in form and content: the one, written in Greek, is concerned about the mission of this Jesus of Nazareth, who, regarded as the Messiah and the Son of God, was rejected in this claim by most of his fellow Jews, put to death by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, and resurrected on the third day after his crucifixion and taken up into heaven; the other, written mostly in Aramaic, is a huge collection of mainly legal discussions that deal with the intricacies of a daily life conducted according to the rabbinic interpretations of Jewish law.

Moreover, and here things become much more complicated, with the juxtaposition of “Jesus” and the “Talmud” bordering on an oxymoron, both stand in a highly charged and antagonistic relationship with each other. The Jewish sect triggered by Jesus in Palestine would eventually evolve into a religion of its own, a religion to boot that would claim to have superseded its mother religion and position itself as the new covenant against the old and outdated covenant of the people of Israel by birth. And at precisely the time when Christianity rose from modest beginnings to its first triumphs, the Talmud (or rather the two Talmudim) would become the defining document of those who refused to accept the new covenant, who so obstinately insisted on the fact that nothing had changed and that the old covenant was still valid..."

and so, first came Christinity and then came talmudic Judaism.

Well, this is a lengthy topic, more later. Stay tuned.

Go To Different Kinds Of Jews (II)

ISRAEL ATTACKS JUSTICE BOAT; KIDNAPS HUMAN RIGHTS WORKERS; CONFISCATES MEDICINE, TOYS AND OLIVE TREES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
30 June 2009



For more information contact:
Greta Berlin (English)
tel: +357 99 081 767 / friends@freegaza.org

Caoimhe Butterly (Arabic/English/Spanish):
tel: +357 99 077 820 / sahara78@hotmail.co.uk
www.FreeGaza.org


[23 miles off the coast of Gaza, 15:30pm] - Today Israeli Occupation Forces attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (see below for a complete list of passengers). The passengers and crew are being forcibly dragged toward Israel.

“This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip,” said Cynthia McKinney, a former U.S. Congresswoman and presidential candidate. “President Obama just told Israel to let in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that’s exactly what we tried to do. We're asking the international community to demand our release so we can resume our journey.”

According to an International Committee of the Red Cross report released yesterday, the Palestinians living in Gaza are “trapped in despair.” Thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed earlier during Israel’s December/January massacre are still without shelter despite pledges of almost $4.5 billion in aid, because Israel refuses to allow cement and other building material into the Gaza Strip. The report also notes that hospitals are struggling to meet the needs of their patients due to Israel’s disruption of medical supplies.

“The aid we were carrying is a symbol of hope for the people of Gaza, hope that the sea route would open for them, and they would be able to transport their own materials to begin to reconstruct the schools, hospitals and thousands of homes destroyed during the onslaught of "Cast Lead”. Our mission is a gesture to the people of Gaza that we stand by them and that they are not alone" said fellow passenger Mairead Maguire, winner of a Noble Peace Prize for her work in Northern Ireland.

Just before being kidnapped by Israel, Huwaida Arraf, Free Gaza Movement chairperson and delegation co-coordinator on this voyage, stated that: “No one could possibly believe that our small boat constitutes any sort of threat to Israel. We carry medical and reconstruction supplies, and children’s toys. Our passengers include a Nobel peace prize laureate and a former U.S. congressperson. Our boat was searched and received a security clearance by Cypriot Port Authorities before we departed, and at no time did we ever approach Israeli waters.”
0A
Arraf continued, “Israel’s deliberate and premeditated attack on our unarmed boat is a clear violation of international law and we demand our immediate and unconditional release.”
###

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

CONTACT the Israeli Ministry of Justice
tel: +972 2646 6666 or +972 2646 6340
fax: +972 2646 6357

CONTACT the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
tel: +972 2530 3111
fax: +972 2530 3367

CONTACT Mark Regev in the Prime Minister's office at:
tel: +972 5 0620 3264 or +972 2670 5354
mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il

CONTACT the International Committee of the Red Cross to ask for their assistance in establishing the wellbeing of the kidnapped human rights workers and help in securing their immediate release!

Red Cross Israel
tel: +972 3524 5286
fax: +972 3527 0370
tel_aviv.tel@icrc.org

Red Cross Switzerland:
tel: +41 22 730 3443
fax: +41 22 734 8280

Red Cross USA:
tel: +1 212 599 6021
fax: +1 212 599 6009
###

Kidnapped Passengers from the Spirit of Humanity include:

Khalad Abdelkader, Bahrain
Khalad is an engineer representing the Islamic Charitable Association of Bahrain.

Othman Abufalah, Jordan
Othman is a world-renowned journalist with al-Jazeera TV.

Khaled Al-Shenoo, Bahrain
Khaled is a lecturer with the University of Bahrain.

Mansour Al-Abi, Yemen
Mansour is a cameraman with Al-Jazeera TV.

Fatima Al-Attawi, Bahrain
Fatima is a relief=2 0worker and community activist from Bahrain.

Juhaina Alqaed, Bahrain
Juhaina is a journalist & human rights activist.

Huwaida Arraf, US
Huwaida is the Chair of the Free Gaza Movement and delegation co-coordinator for this voyage.

Ishmahil Blagrove, UK
Ishmahil is a Jamaican-born journalist, documentary film maker and founder of the Rice & Peas film production company. His documentaries focus on international struggles for social justice.

Kaltham Ghloom, Bahrain
Kaltham is a community activist.

Derek Graham, Ireland
Derek Graham is an electrician, Free Gaza organizer, and first mate aboard the Spirit of Humanity.

Alex Harrison, UK
Alex is a solidarity worker from Britain. She is traveling to Gaza to do long-term human rights monitoring.

Denis Healey, UK
Denis is Captain of the Spirit of Humanity. This will be his fifth voyage to Gaza.

Fathi Jaouadi, UK
Fathi is a British journalist, Free Gaza organizer, and delegation co-coordinator for this voyage.

Mairead Maguire, Ireland
Mairead is a Nobel laureate and renowned peace activist.

Lubna Masarwa, Palestine/Israel
Lubna is a Palestinian human rights activist and Free Gaza organizer.

Theresa McDermott, Scotland
Theresa is a solidarity worker from Scotland. She is traveling to Gaza to do long-term human rights monitoring.

Cynthia McKinney, US
Cynthia McKinney is an outspoken advocate for human rights and social justice issues, as well as a=2 0former U.S. congressperson and presidential candidate.

Adnan Mormesh, UK
Adnan is a solidarity worker from Britain. He is traveling to Gaza to do long-term human rights monitoring.

Adam Qvist, Denmark
Adam is a solidarity worker from Denmark. He is traveling to Gaza to do human rights monitoring.

Adam Shapiro, US
Adam is an American documentary film maker and human rights activist.

Kathy Sheetz, US
Kathy is a nurse and film maker, traveling to Gaza to do human rights monitoring.

Joyce Chediac - On Obama's speech in Cairo

On June 4 U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama gave a much-heralded speech addressed to the Muslim world in Cairo, Egypt. The commentary below is based on a comment Chediac, a Lebanese-American, made at a June 5 Workers World Forum in New York City.


Obama made a speech. It was called “bold” and “tough on Israel” because it called for no new Israeli settlements in the West Bank. But Israel does not have to start new settlements to continue the strangulation of the West Bank. It merely has to expand the huge high-rise settlements ringing East Jerusalem, which have virtually sealed off the West Bank. And many of these are not even considered settlements anymore, so their expansion is not even monitored.


Obama made a speech. It was hailed as “evenhanded” because for the first time a U.S. president mentioned the word “Palestine,” and said Palestinians have a right to a state. But he called on Palestinians defending their right to a state, and on Hamas by name, to “renounce violence” while never calling on Israelis to renounce violence and the more than 60 years of state terrorism Israel has perpetrated against the Palestinian people, made possible with U.S. aid and U.S. weapons.


Obama made a speech, which will surely lead to another round of peace talks. Since talks began in 2000, they have been used by Israel not to bring peace, but as a cover for unprecedented violence against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza. In the name of peace Israel has been building the apartheid wall, riddled the West Bank with checkpoints, demolished homes and stolen land, tortured and arrested youth so that the West Bank is now one big jail. Meanwhile, Gaza is under siege.


The time for such talks is long past. Action is needed to give the Palestinians some relief. But Obama did not take action. He did not demand disassembling the apartheid wall on the West Bank. He did not demand lifting the siege of Gaza, where 10 percent of Gaza’s children are now growth-stunted from the long-term effects of malnutrition. Instead, Obama made a speech.


Obama made a speech that was much heralded in the U.S. media, but U.S. troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan, and U.S. drone planes are still bombing Pakistani villages.


Obama made a speech, but the Sixth Fleet is still in the Mediterranean Sea; U.S. bases are still in Egypt, Israel, the Gulf States and the Indian Ocean. U.S. bases in Europe are still within striking distance of the Middle East.


Obama made a speech but the U.S. Navy still has a huge nuclear-armed armada in the Persian Gulf, with guns aimed at Iran. It is well known that the U.S. military threatens the Middle East in order to keep Middle Eastern oil in Wall Street’s hands. Yet Obama’s speech, which was called “insightful,” never once mentioned “oil.”


Obama made a speech in Cairo, the largest city in Africa. In order for Obama to make his speech there, the largest security force in the history of Egypt was assembled. The people of Cairo were confined to their homes and told to keep their windows shuttered. In order for Obama to make his speech, a city of 7.5 million was put on lockdown.


Obama said, “No government should be imposed by one nation on another,” and praised democracy. Yet Obama pointedly criticized Hamas, voted into office in a Palestinian election which Jimmy Carter and other observers called one the best examples of participatory democracy in the world. But Obama had no words of criticism for U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s head of state, who severely represses all political opposition, and is about to run in an election where he will once again be virtually unopposed.


Obama spoke in Egypt, the second largest recipient of U.S. aid. But Obama did not address the plight of the Egyptian people who, despite this influx of aid, have been steadily impoverished since their government came into the U.S. orbit.


Today, 70 percent of the Egyptian diet is bread. Over a million people live in Cairo’s cemeteries because there is no housing. Two years ago, one in five Egyptians couldn’t meet their basic living needs (Reuters, Oct. 17). Conditions now are surely worse as millions of Egyptians who worked abroad and sent money to families at home have lost their jobs due to the worldwide economic crisis begun on Wall Street. Obama certainly did not say that Egypt’s relationship with the U.S. has brought its people only poverty and desperation.


Obama made a speech. But nothing changed.


The fundamental relationship between the U.S. government and the Muslim and other people of that region remains one of exploiter and exploited. Despite Obama’s speech, U.S. imperialism still has nothing to offer working people in the Middle East, and only seeks to take more from them. It is truer today than ever that any gains made by Muslim and other oppressed peoples are won by their own independent struggles, and the solidarity they win from progressives abroad.



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Addenedum Saturday, June 28, 2009:

I was a member of Workers World for many years. I cannot say just when I joined because there was no application or acceptance process. One fine day I was referred to as "comrade" during a meeting, I did not object to that, I continued being active with the group and so I was a member, I suppose. Around 1980 I had some disagreements with them. I have to say that for the most part I was on the wrong side of things because I was really still much more Jewish than one can be and still be a real internationalist and communist, though I did not realize this. Anyhow, I also had a valid dispute, which was over their connection with Mr. Ramsey Clark. Now, I know that Clark is taken to task for his connection with Workers World. I look at it from the reverse side of the mirror. Clark was, lest we forget, Lyndon B. Johnson's Attorney General, that is to say, chief law enforcement officer of the United States during a time when the Black Panther Party was under sustained and coordinated attack nationwide, he was nominally at least J. Edgar Hoover's boss when Hoover was harassing Martin Luther King, Jr., and he went public to say that there was no conspiracy responsible for murdering King. As chief law enforcement officer when he said that this was not just an opinion he held, it was the official line of a war criminal regime.

Clark was Attorney General, just as Johnson was President, due to the assasination of John F. Kennedy, ie, he benefited from it.

Later Clark ran in the New York Democratic primary against Bella Abzug, who was at least unconditionally anti Vietnam war and against Patrick Moynihan, a Vietnam war supporter. He played "moderate" as being between two "extremes" (pro war criminal Moynihan on one extreme, not pro war criminal Abzug on the other extreme.) Probably due to his intervention Abzug was beat by Moynihan and we had one more pro Vietnam War Senator, one less anti Vietnam War Senator. So, I always held that it was not Clark who had to answer for being associated with Workers World, but rather They who had to answer for their association with him, as there never was an open, public renunciation of his past which, I forget to add, had included locking up young men who resisted being sent to murder in Vietnam.

Okay back to Joyce's piece here.

Worker's World has held the position that Israel functions as a US tool and that it advances US interests in the Middle East and in other places as well. While they do not beat the drum about it, they oppose "anti-semitism" and have said that "Israel is a deathtrap for the Jewish people," that is to say Israel is "bad for the Jews." Now it's true that at the end of WWII a lot of Jews in Europe wanted to go to the US, Canada, Australia, South Africa and not to the semi-arid Arab country of Palestine, and that there were limits on Jewish immigration to these places and so many Jews may have "ended up" in Palestine against their desires. Overall though, Jews were pro-zionist and this pro-zionism penetrated from the Communist movement all the way to mainstream US politics.

Now, one can make a case that during its confrontation with the USSR the US had a useful ally in Israel (one can also make a contrary case but I'll not try to settle that here and now). It is just about impossible though to make a case today that Israel serves US interests. There could be some inertia in a change of US policy but the USSR left the building quite a few years ago, and it has to be realized that the policy of unstinting support for Israel still lingers on. Obama's "attack" is really mild, his outreach to Islam is really limited, and Israel still is the ruler of the US Congress. In the mainstream media one finds criticism of Israel for instance on MSNBC (Rachel Maddow comes to mind) but this criticism is not of Israel itself. The Jews Only State is established on other people's land against their will. There is no mainstream criticism of the notion that Israel must always be a "Jews Only State" even though the number of non-Jews in Israhell continue to grow faster than the numbers of Jews, not even counting the Palestinians on the West Bank, in Jerusalem and in Gaza. In pre 1967 Israel (so-called "Israel proper") around a third of people under five years old are not Jewish. If you count in "the occupied territories" Jews are already a minority! How can there be a State there that gives Jews special rights and deprives all others of full participation and full citizenship?

Jews in the US and West are overall a privileged group (there are exceptions to every rule of course) and they are very highly represented among the elites in most important fields from "revolutionary politics" and trade union leaderships to Bilderberg. Their status comes in part from their mass rejection of communism that followed WWII (no longer so important) and Israel's "good guy" status in the Western world. Mix in the awe that the "chosen by God people" the "ever suffering people" the "most persecuted victims" people mythologies endow and you get what you have.

The US could procure oil and gas without Israel. It could advance its interests probably more easily were it not encumbered with the Israeli albatross. So I think people like Joyce should ask if the tail is wagging the dog. I think it is.

Lusitania Truthers Vindicated, Ship was secretly carring ammo and was a valid war target.

tidal vortices,
Jun 23, 2009

The article "Lusitania's Secret Cargo" in the Jan/Feb 2009 Archaeology Magazine appears to have vindicated the Lusitania “Truthers”
.
The article states:


“The nearly century-old debate about whether the passenger liner Lusitania was transporting British war munitions when torpedoed by a German U-boat is over. Physical evidence of just such a cargo has been recovered from the wreck, which rests 12 miles off the Irish coast in 300 ft. of murky turbulent water.



 “Lusitania was sunk off County Cork on May 7, 1915. The attack killed 1,198 people, including 128 Americans and helped push the United States into WWI. Ever since the ship went down, there have been suspicions [by conspiracy theorists known as 'the Lusitania truthers' (ed.)] that the Lusitania was carrying live munitions. Under the rules of war, that would have made the liner a legitimate target, as the Germans maintained at the time. "The British government has always been evasive about the presence of munitions on Lusitania. Two cargo manifests were submitted; the second, filed after the Lusitania sailed indicated there were light munitions on board. Some believe the ship was carrying much more, however, and that the British Navy attempted to destroy the wreck in the 1950s to conceal its military cargo.”


 Now a team led by County Waterford-based diver Eoin McGarry, on behalf of Lusitania's American owner, Gregg Bemis, has recovered live ammunition from the wreck ... This past September, Bemis's team used a remotely operated vehicle to penetrate the wreck. They were able to clearly identify a vast amount of ammunition in an area of the Lusitania not believed to have carried cargo. The Remington .303 caliber bullets the team discovered on the ship had been used by the British Military during WWI. Ten of the bullets were brought to the surface.
“‘The charge that the Lusitania was carrying war materiel is valid,’ says Bemis. ‘She was a legitimate target for the German submarine.’”




However, the official explanation of events contradicts the conspiracy theorists, and is supported by a study conducted by the government agency, Government Incompetence of Scientific Technology (GIST), after a 90-plus-year, 125-billion-dollar investigation. While GIST acknowledges that “vast quantities” of .303 ammunition may have been found, authors of the GIST study flatly deny that the ammo was in the Lusitania’s hold prior to its sinking, or that it came from America, a neutral country at the time. Using sophisticated computer models, the details of which are classified, GIST scientists have clearly demonstrated that the Remington bullets found were merely random live rounds accidentally dropped by WWI soldiers in the battlefields of Europe. Those dropped bullets then washed into streams and rivers that eventually were carried into the ocean, where they coalesced into a tidy pile inside the ship's hold by a drifting phenomenon called "Tidal Expansion," without causing any harm to the adjacent cargo.


Moreover, in order for the "twoofers" allegations to be true, it has been suggested that to carry out a sophisticated American-British ammo transport operation, with all the buy/sell ordering paperwork, the manufacturing, the hauling to the shipyard, unloading, storage, then re-loading into the ship's hold all that ammunition, would have involved thousands of people. Of course some would have talked, and it would have been impossible for the US or British government to keep such a secret for so many years.
In addition, it's well known that the US and British governments would never even consider such a thing. As GIST lead investigator, Dr. Siam Blunder, has stated, "Why would they take a chance placing their own citizens in harm's way?" Dr. Blunder added that they also investigated the possibility of a terrorist German group planting the ammo in the cargo hold prior to the New York departure. However, it was dismissed as "an absurd insinuation," since American security forces were at the shipyards, making it impossible for anyone, let alone the terrorists, to obtain the necessary access to load the ammo undetected.

GIST senior engineer, Mr. Gross Johnson, continued, “If the ammunition was truly in the hold before the sinking, it would have fallen to the ocean bottom at almost free-flotsam speed, crushing the ammunition in the process. The fact that the divers found the ammunition intact and not crushed is definitive proof that the ammo simply eroded into the neat piles due to the naturally occurring 'Tidal Expansion' process.”
GIST held a public hearing on its preliminary findings, generously allowing the public almost three weeks to review and comment on its 347,911-page Executive Summary of the full report. The hearing was sparsely attended by only a few surviving truthers, and of course some “fair and balanced” media.
GIST was asked by one old truther about the probability of the ammunition packing itself into the wreckage of the Lusitania, in view of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Dr. Blunder responded that due to limited funding and only 92 years to conduct the investigation, GIST didn't have time to go into the actual transfer mechanism of the ammunition, as its prime focus was on the tidal vortices around the 79th link of the ship's anchor chain that triggered the “chain” reaction of tidal expansion.
As a result of the GIST findings, significant code changes and stiffer regulations for the storage, transport and ownership of ammunition by Americans are in the final stages of review.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4DMUS_enUS271US272&q=lusitania+was+carrying+ammunition

The End of Free Speech?

May 7, 2009

The End of Free Speech?
Criminalizing Criticism of Israel
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

On October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Israel Lobby’s bill, the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. This legislation requires the US Department of State to monitor anti-semitism world wide.

To monitor anti-semitism, it has to be defined. What is the definition? Basically, as defined by the Israel Lobby and Abe Foxman, it boils down to any criticism of Israel or Jews.

Rahm Israel Emanuel hasn’t been mopping floors at the White House.
As soon as he gets the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 passed, it will become a crime for any American to tell the truth about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and theft of their lands.

It will be a crime for Christians to acknowledge the New Testament’s account of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus.

It will be a crime to report the extraordinary influence of the Israel Lobby on the White House and Congress, such as the AIPAC-written resolutions praising Israel for its war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza that were endorsed by 100 per cent of the US Senate and 99 per cent of the House of Representatives, while the rest of the world condemned Israel for its barbarity.

It will be a crime to doubt the Holocaust.

It will become a crime to note the disproportionate representation of Jews in the media, finance, and foreign policy.

In other words, it means the end of free speech, free inquiry, and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Any facts or truths that cast aspersion upon Israel will simply be banned.

Given the hubris of the US government, which leads Washington to apply US law to every country and organization, what will happen to the International Red Cross, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and the various human rights organizations that have demanded investigations of Israel’s military assault on Gaza’s civilian population? Will they all be arrested for the hate crime of “excessive” criticism of Israel?

This is a serious question.

A recent UN report, which is yet to be released in its entirety, blames Israel for the deaths and injuries that occurred within the United Nations premises in Gaza. The Israeli government has responded by charging that the UN report is “tendentious, patently biased,” which puts the UN report into the State Department’s category of excessive criticism and strong anti-Israel sentiment.

Israel is getting away with its blatant use of the American government to silence its critics despite the fact that the Israeli press and Israeli soldiers have exposed the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the premeditated murder of women and children urged upon the Israeli invaders by rabbis. These acts are clearly war crimes.

It was the Israeli press that published the pictures of the Israeli soldiers’ T-shirts that indicate that the willful murder of women and children is now the culture of the Israeli army. The T-shirts are horrific expressions of barbarity. For example, one shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a crosshairs over her stomach and the slogan, “One shot, two kills.” These T-shirts are an indication that Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians is one of extermination.

It has been true for years that the most potent criticism of Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians comes from the Israeli press and Israeli peace groups. For example, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and Jeff Halper of ICAHD have shown a moral conscience that apparently does not exist in the Western democracies where Israel’s crimes are covered up and even praised.

Will the American hate crime bill be applied to Haaretz and Jeff Halper? Will American commentators who say nothing themselves but simply report what Haaretz and Halper have said be arrested for “spreading hatred of Israel, an anti-semitic act”?

Many Americans have been brainwashed by the propaganda that Palestinians are terrorists who threaten innocent Israel. These Americans will see the censorship as merely part of the necessary war on terror. They will accept the demonization of fellow citizens who report unpalatable facts about Israel and agree that such people should be punished for aiding and abetting terrorists.

A massive push is underway to criminalize criticism of Israel. American university professors have fallen victim to the well organized attempt to eliminate all criticism of Israel. Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure at a Catholic university because of the power of the Israel Lobby. Now the Israel Lobby is after University of California (at Santa Barbara,) professor Wiliam Robinson. Robinson’s crime: his course on global affairs included some reading assignments critical of Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

The Israel Lobby apparently succeeded in convincing the Obama Justice (sic) Department that it is anti-semitic to accuse two Jewish AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, of spying. The Israel Lobby succeeded in getting their trial delayed for four years, and now Attorney General Eric Holder has dropped charges. Yet, Larry Franklin, the DOD official accused of giving secret material to Rosen and Weissman, is serving 12 years and 7 months in prison.

The absurdity is extraordinary. The two Israeli agents are not guilty of receiving secrets, but the American official is guilty of giving secrets to them! If there is no spy in the story, how was Franklin convicted of giving secrets to a spy?

Criminalizing criticism of Israel destroys any hope of America having an independent foreign policy in the Middle East that serves American rather than Israeli interests. It eliminates any prospect of Americans escaping from their enculturation with Israeli propaganda.

To keep American minds captive, the Lobby is working to ban as anti-semitic any truth or disagreeable fact that pertains to Israel. It is permissible to criticize every other country in the world, but it is anti-semitic to criticize Israel, and anti-semitism will soon be a universal hate-crime in the Western world.

Most of Europe has already criminalized doubting the Holocaust. It is a crime even to confirm that it happened but to conclude that less than 6 million Jews were murdered.

Why is the Holocaust a subject that is off limits to examination? How could a case buttressed by hard facts possibly be endangered by kooks and anti-semitics? Surely the case doesn’t need to be protected by thought control.

Imprisoning people for doubts is the antithesis of modernity.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Democracy for Iran?

Mr. Ahmadinejad was declared the run away landslide winner (his second 60% plus landslide, as a matter of fact)of the Iranian elections. Oppositionists, who include some of the richest Iranians, object to his "buying off" the poor, and his supposed "anti semitism."

Many of them have gone into the streets of Tehran demanding a "do over" of the election, though they cannot show one "hanging chad", one "black box vote".

Their leader has to be given some credit, though. Imagine Al Gore or John Kerry defying the Supreme Court, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg consensus and Ruppert Murdoch in insisting, at the risk of their own lives and liberty, that the elections stolen by the Bush handlers be redone, let alone recounted? And they actually had demonstrable fraud to complain about!