"The Jewish people as a whole will be its own Messiah. It will attain world domination by the dissolution of other races...and by the establishment of a world republic in which everywhere the Jews will exercise the privilege of citizenship. In this New World Order the Children of Israel...will furnish all the leaders without encountering opposition..." (Karl Marx in a letter to Baruch Levy, quoted in Review de Paris, June 1, 1928, p. 574)
The Protocols make it
quite clear that ’anti-semitism’, meaning ’anti-Judaic’, is an
’indispensable’ part of the plan for world domination. It will be used
for "the management of our lesser brethren".
In another measure of how what the establishment labels “conspiracy theory” is quickly becoming mainstream, Bloomberg News carries a story today acknowledging that those derided as “crazy” for warning that the world is run by a secret banking cabal have largely been proven right in light of the AIG cover-up.
“The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. After this week’s congressional hearing into the bailout of American International Group Inc., you have to wonder if those folks are crazy after all,” writes Bloomberg’s David Reilly [January 29, 2010].
“Wednesday’s hearing described a secretive group deploying billions of dollars to favored banks, operating with little oversight by the public or elected officials.”
Reilly goes on to describe how the New York Fed conducted a backdoor bailout (or in plainer terms a wholesale looting of the taxpayer) of banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank AG, and then sought to keep it secret from the public.
Reilly also highlights another telling quote by Representative Marcy Kaptur during the hearing on Wednesday, when she told Geithner, “A lot of people think that the president of the New York Fed works for the U.S. government. But in fact you work for the private banks that elected you.”
Reilly savages Tim Geithner’s denial of any involvement in the scandal and concludes with stating, “When unelected and unaccountable agencies pick banking winners while trying to end-run Congress, even as taxpayers are forced to lend, spend and guarantee about $8 trillion to prop up the financial system, our collective blood should boil.”
As we have constantly emphasized, as the global government and the financial takeover accelerates, it’s becoming harder and harder for the elite to hide the true intention of what they are doing, which is centralizing power into fewer hands, destroying sovereignty and creating a one world order run by an unelected, undemocratic authoritarian system.
So whereas “conspiracy theorists” were once sidelined as paranoid kooks, as more and more of what they warned about comes to fruition, they gain more credibility and the establishment finds it more difficult to neutralize what they are saying by means of character assassination.
The Bloomberg writer’s admission that the “conspiracy theorists” were probably right reminds us of former Clinton advisor Dick Morris’ appearance on Fox News last year, when he pointed out that people who have been sounding the alarm bells over a global government takeover for decades have also been vindicated.
“Those people who have been yelling ‘oh the UN’s gonna take over, global government’, they’ve been crazy but now – they’re right!,” stated Morris on Sean Hannity’s show.
A group of local politicians, business owners and other residents has banded together in calling for a new investigation into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.
The group is asking voters in towns throughout New Hampshire to petition to insert articles on town meeting ballots that would instruct the state’s congressional delegation to pursue a fresh inquiry into the attacks.
So far, the warrant article, dubbed Vote for Answers N.H., will appear on ballots in Exeter, Nelson, Peterborough, Rindge and Swanzey, according to Gerhard Bedding of Keene, a spokesman for the initiative.
Supporters of the initiative must gather the signatures of 25 petitioners or from 2 percent of their town’s registered voters, whichever number is less, to place the article on the ballot.
Petitions are also being passed around in Chesterfield, Dublin, Hanover, Harrisville, Hollis, Richmond and Stoddard, according to Bedding.
Local supporters of the initiative include former Keene Mayor Michael E.J. Blastos, state Reps. Peter H. Allen, D-Harrisville, Charles F. Weed, D-Keene, Barbara Hull Richardson, D-Richmond, and former state representatives Peter Espiefs, Betty Hall and Paul Harrington.
Other supporters include John Wyndham, a Peterborough resident who holds a Ph.D. in physics; Ed Trombly, the owner of U-Save Auto Rental in Keene; Peter Wells, a retired architect who lives in Peterborough; and Robin Eno, a fire protection technician in Swanzey.
Blastos likens the final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as The 9/11 Commission Report, to the Warren Commission Report on the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
“In my life span so far, there’s been two investigations or commission reports that have totally mesmerized me by the lack of investigation and cover-ups,” he said. “I’m hoping that if enough people speak with one voice, we can come up with an explanation as to what actually happened on 9/11.”
Blastos has participated in several 9/11 “truth” public events, often introducing speakers who questioned the official explanation of the attacks — that two hijacked airliners smashing into the Twin Towers resulted in the collapse of both buildings along with other nearby structures.
Like many others who are calling for a new investigation, Blastos believes explosives brought the towers down.
“It was a beautifully controlled demolition,” he said. “I don’t know who is to blame, whether Americans did it with money from al-Qaida or what, but obviously it was wired. In that, I feel I’m correct.”
Allen, a forest ecologist, said he’s always doubted the official explanation.
“When I first saw the picture of the tower collapsing, I thought, ‘This looks like demolition.’ And when I saw a replay of the plane crash, I didn’t change my mind,” he said. “It’s not a stupid observation. I’ve seen demolitions. We want to pursue this to see if there were some shenanigans.”
Weed, a professor of international politics and political ideology at Keene State College, said he didn’t want to speculate about what happened on Sept. 11. He said he just wants an “unbiased investigation” into the attacks.
“I think the official story just doesn’t hold up,” he said. “There are too many scientists and people who have found and documented inconsistencies and outright non-answers into the questions that have been raised.”
Phillip Bantz can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1409, or pbantz@keenesentinel.com.
POWERFUL SENATORS ARE WORKING to undermine landmark legislation passed by the House on Dec. 11, 2009 that would give the federal government the power to audit the Federal Reserve, says Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), head of the House Financial Services Committee.
According to Frank, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who heads the Senate Banking Committee, has personally assured Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) that any audit-the-Fed language would never make it through his committee to be included in any Wall Street reform package in the Senate.
Dodd, who recently announced he will not be seeking reelection during the midterm elections next November, is currently vetting a broad Wall Street reform package in the Senate. It is unknown whether that bill contains the provision, which mandates an official audit of the privately owned and controlled U.S. central bank by the Government Accountability Office. Gregg, who is also a member of the banking committee, has been one of the most vocal opponents of any bill in the Senate that would open the Fed up to public scrutiny.
In 2009, following House passage of the audit the Fed amendment sponsored by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), Gregg released a blunt statement, declaring: “Passage of the Paul Amendment by the House Financial Services Committee is a dangerous move by this Congress to pander to the populist anger currently directed against our central bank, the Federal Reserve.”
Both Dodd and Gregg have benefited from sizeable donations from Wall Street firms. According to FEC records, in the past five years, Gregg has received over $20,000 in donations from big banks like Citigroup and Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs. The health insurance industry is the only other industry that has donated more to Gregg. Dodd has also benefited from sizeable donations from the money trust. In the past five years,
Dodd has received $3.8 million from Wall Street. On Main Street, there is a growing backlash against the Fed’s policies, which are seen as benefiting big banks and Wall Street to the detriment of working-class Americans.
The recent election of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate in Massachusetts has prompted Democrats in the Senate to take a stronger populist position in opposing international corporations and Wall Street. This means legislation to audit the Fed could still be added to any reform bills making the rounds in the Senate and has as good a chance as any of ending up on Obama’s desk.
Putting Tony Blair on trial would be much too cruel. The man is ill, delusional, quite possibly to the point of madness. What he needs most of all is psychiatric help. Any doubts I might have had about that diagnosis were removed by his six-hour presentation to the Chilcot Inquiry of his reasons for joining the neo-conned “Dubya” Bush in the war on Iraq.
Without understanding why, I never thought Blair was Bush’s puppet. Now, thanks to the access Blair gave us to the workings of his mind for six hours, I do understand. He was ahead of Bush in the war on terrorism game because he is a neo-con, the real thing, whereas Bush had to be won over, conned, by America’s mad men. Blair didn’t. He was always with them in spirit. After 9/11, immediately after it, probably while the towers were still collapsing, their agenda was his agenda.
Though the Chilcot Inquiry is concerned only with Iraq – how Blair’s government made the decision to go to war and what lessons should be learned – Blair could not resist beating the drum for war on Iran. He did that four times. One might have been listening to John Bolton or any of America’s or Israel’s lunatics.
When he was going on about terrorism being a threat to all, he threw in: “It’s a constant problem for Israel. They get attacked.” That there is a cause-and-effect relationship between Israeli occupation and Israel’s frequent demonstrations of state terrorism and a degree of violence directed at the Zionist state from time to time is not something Blair the neo-con can, or ever will, get his deluded minded around.
At one point during his display of insufferable, Zionist-like self-righteousness, Blair denied he had said in an interview with the BBC’s Fern Britton that he favoured regime change in Iraq. “I didn’t use the words regime change in that interview,” he said to the Chilcot Inquiry. He was telling the truth in that he did not use those actual words. What then did he say on camera to Fern Britton on 13 December 2009? She asked him if knowing what we all know today (that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction) would he still have gone to war. Blair replied, “I would still have thought it right to remove him. If that is not regime change, what is?!
Blair still insists that the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein has “made the world a safer place”. The reality is that Blair and Bush together were the best recruiting sergeants for violent Islamic fundamentalism in many manifestations, not only the Al-Qaeda franchise.
Most amazing of all was that Blair declined an invitation to express any regret. He couldn’t even bring himself to say he regretted the loss of the lives of British soldiers and a great number of Iraqis (somewhere between 100,000 and 600,000), mainly civilians. To my way of thinking that makes him less than fully human.
Blair described Saddam Hussein as “a monster who threatened the world.” There’s an old English saying, “It takes one to know one.”
They despise America’s democracy and its fundamental freedoms more than any terrorist group in the world.
They have destroyed American democracy and its fundamental freedoms more ruthlessly and effectively than any terrorist group in the world.
They have sanctioned the murders of more Americans than any terrorist group in the world.
They loathe people of different races and/or religions.
They punish the innocent, but take extraordinary measures to protect the guilty.
They operate in shadowy black disguises.
They are known to the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security, yet none of these agencies have made the slightest effort to stop them.
They are Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, the four white racists and one self-loathing African-American who currently comprise the “conservative” majority on the United States Supreme Court.
Before readers dismiss these opening paragraphs as mere hyperbole, they should examine some of the Supreme Court’s more egregious rulings.
This court endorsed the random drug testing of public school students who are not even suspected of abusing drugs, which means that thousands of innocent children across America are dragged from their classrooms everyday, ordered to reveal personal medical information, and forced to urinate as strangers listen to them doing so—intrusions into personal dignity and privacy that Scalia has described as “minimal.”
In addition, people arrested for certain crimes can be compelled to provide a sample of their DNA to government authorities, even though they have not been tried or convicted. Yet, in the case of District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne, the Supreme Court ruled that persons convicted of crimes have “no constitutional right to obtain postconviction access to the State’s evidence for DNA testing,” even though that testing could establish their innocence.
In other words, a system that claims people are “innocent until proven guilty” now requires people to provide DNA and/or other bodily fluids to prove their innocence, yet does not require the government to provide DNA evidence that could exonerate a wrongfully convicted person, even though a wrongful conviction means that the real perpetrator is free and potentially committing more crimes.
This judicial hypocrisy is sickening beyond belief, and it’s tragic that karma isn’t more rapid and righteous, because nothing would be more satisfying than seeing Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Alito and Thomas entombed in the worst of America’s prisons, subjected to gang violence and forcibly sodomized on a daily basis, begging their attorneys to obtain the DNA evidence that could free them, only to be told that the “State” has refused to provide it.
The racism of the Supreme Court has been apparent throughout its history, from the now infamous Dred Scott decision, which threatened to expand slavery throughout the United States, to Plessy v. Ferguson, which gave constitutional blessing to the segregationist doctrine of “separate but equal.” And Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Alito and Thomas have continued this shameful tradition, in the cases of Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, by endorsing the racial resegregation of public schools. And, in an act of judicial callousness that insulted the memory of those who struggled and died during America’s civil rights movement, some of these so-called “justices” even defended their racist “opinion” by citing Brown v. Topeka, the landmark 1954 case that endorsed the desegregation of public schools.
Also, by upholding racial segregation in Plessy, the court essentially declared that African-Americans were second-class citizens. What followed from 1896, when Plessy was decided, until the civil rights era of the 1960s was a sordid history of lynchings, beatings and other injustices directed primarily against African-Americans, as well as the denial of their most fundamental rights, including the right to vote, which supposedly had been guaranteed with the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870.
In Employment Division v. Smith freedom of religion came under attack when the court ruled that the government no longer had to prove it had a “compelling reason” to interfere with one’s religious practices. When the United States Congress attempted to restore this “compelling reason” requirement via the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the court voided much of it on the grounds that Congress had exceeded its authority.
Three current members of the court - Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas - and two former members - O’Conner and Rehnquist - bloodied their hands, and (if there is such a thing as justice) damned themselves for all time, when they supported the coup of 2000 in the case of Bush v. Gore. Thanks to this corrupt decision, which illegally placed a sadistic, inept, venal and mendacious cabal of war criminals into the White House, thousands of Americans, and tens of thousands of Iraqis, have died in a war that was based upon nothing but lies.
But Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas were not satisfied with the partial destruction of democracy wrought by Bush v. Gore, particularly since democracy appeared to be restored during the 2008 presidential election. So, joining with Alito and Roberts, they decided to destroy it completely, along with most of the Bill of Rights, in the recent case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission by striking down laws that once limited the amount of money corporations could contribute to political campaigns.
Now corporations are free to buy and sell politicians like trading cards, and, since they control the bulk of the “mainstream” media, they can also ensure that any political messages contrary to theirs are unheard.
In other words, freedom now only belongs to those wealthy enough to afford it.
Although the Citizens United ruling is deplorable and deserving of contempt, it is not surprising. The unified Republican opposition to health care reform has already demonstrated how the bulk of America’s politicians are controlled by special interest groups. The fact that many Democrats refused to endorse any health care reform proposal that included a “public option” for people unable to purchase health insurance in the private sector further illustrates how corporate influence has already transcended party lines.
What Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Alito and Thomas undoubtedly hope to accomplish by Citizens United is to purge the few politicians actually devoted to serving the public interest. Now these politicians will either succumb to the whims of their corporate masters, or find limitless amounts of money being provided to their political opponents.
In a nation of millions, it seems almost obscene that five biased, bigoted, corrupt, unethical and agenda driven idiots in black robes can destroy an entire system of government. And it is certainly contrary to what the Supreme Court was supposed to be.
When the federal court system was created, a debate ensued over whether federal judges should be elected or appointed. It was ultimately decided that they would be appointed to lifetime tenures, removable only through death, retirement or impeachment. The hope was that federal judges would be immune from political party influences, act in accordance with the law, and protect the rights of racial, religious and political minorities, since they did not have to raise money in election campaigns or appease the majority in order to win the popular vote.
Unfortunately this hope was quixotic. The five so-called “justices” who weakened democracy in Bush v. Gore, and the five who destroyed it in Citizens United were all appointed by Republican presidents. In fact, Bush’s vice-president Dick Cheney was even Scalia’s “hunting buddy.” So it was not surprising when they ignored legal precedent and common sense to ensure that corporate rights and profits supplanted individual rights and needs.
Even conservative columnist David Broder acknowledged that the Citizens United ruling “extended itself far beyond what was necessary” and “may well be the best news Republicans have received since the 2000 ruling in Bush v. Gore.”
In law schools throughout America, Supreme Court opinions are dissected and analyzed as though they were commandments from Mount Sinai. But during my journey through the legal profession, I came to realize that there was nothing logical, analytical or esoteric about these opinions, and that many of them were inspired by pure evil.
Being legally trained, I have often been reluctant to acknowledge this reality. Attorneys, after all, are supposed to deal in facts, not in suppositions. But, given the cases I have cited in this article, the harm they have caused, and the harm they will cause, I believe there is enough evidence to conclude that Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Alito and Thomas are perhaps the most despicable, conscienceless and evil individuals to ever disgrace the United States Supreme Court, and the biggest threat to democracy and the Bill of Rights in the history of the United States.
James Madison, one of America’s founding fathers, once said, “We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility . . . because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few. And when the day comes, when the wealth of the nation will be in the hands of the few, then we must rely on the best elements in the country to readjust the laws of the nation to the changed conditions.”
Some of the best elements in America did try to readjust the laws to minimize the potential for corporations to use their vast financial resources to purchase political influence. Unfortunately five of the worst elements in America - Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Alito and Thomas—have ensured (with apologies to Abraham Lincoln) that the government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations will cause the government of the people, by the people and for the people to perish from the earth.
In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush recognized that Israel’s endless war on the Palestinians, a grossly unequal struggle waged with the military, financial, and diplomatic support of the United States, had put America at risk. For a brief moment, Bush spoke strongly of the need to establish a Palestinian state and bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a speedy and just conclusion. Bush even demanded an end to Israeli incursions into the West Bank and the targeted assassinations of Palestinian leaders.
In very little time, the president realized that acknowledging America’s own foreign policy in the Middle East had put America in the terrorist crosshairs was unlikely to be a vote-getter, particularly among the Republican Party’s Evangelical faithful, who view the establishment of the state of Israel as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. So the president, with the eager support of both parties and a tame corporate media, chose the explanation that foreigners willing to fly airplanes into buildings must hate America’s freedom and openness, our margaritas and miniskirts. This facile and entirely specious assertion was a much more palatable explanation for 9/11 than that American intervention, particularly U.S. support of corrupt Arab kings and potentates, a blank check for Israeli adventurism, and a murderous embargo on the Iraqi people, had provoked an intense hatred of the U.S. among a small but growing percentage of Muslims around the world.
Fast forward though the invasion of Iraq, justified by entirely bogus intelligence, through years of fighting in Afghanistan, bringing nothing but misery to the Afghan people, and through Israel’s brutal pounding of Lebanon and Gaza, to the election of a new American president determined to make a fresh start with the Muslim world. Barack Obama’s visit to Cairo in June of last year to deliver a much-ballyhooed speech seemed to break with the policies of the Bush administration, which had been perceived, especially in the Arab states, as blatantly anti-Arab and anti-Muslim. As part of Obama’s determination to change America’s profile among the world’s billion Muslims, he subsequently insisted that Israel end all settlement activity in Palestinian lands captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, a stance consistent with international law and favored by most of America’s allies.
As Bush learned in 2001, pressure on Israel, no matter how justified, takes courage and has political costs. The Democratic Party has long received a large proportion of its financial support from Israel’s friends in the United States, and Israel has many advocates in the Obama administration, the best example being the president’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who served in the Israeli army. So President Obama quickly surrendered to Israel’s American constituency, dropped his insistence that settlement of Palestinian lands cease, and began to pressure the Palestinian Authority’s weakling President Mahmoud Abbas to resume negotiations without preconditions.
To put a seal on Obama’s humiliation at the hands of right-wing Israeli politicians Bibi Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, the Obama administration sidelined the Goldstone Report detailing war crimes during the Gaza war (“willful killings and willful causing great suffering” to the civilian population and “collective punishment intentionally inflicted by the government of Israel on the people of the Gaza Strip”), signed a multi-year, $30 billion defense protocol with the Israelis, and rebuked U.S. Middle East negotiator George Mitchell for saying quite accurately that the U.S. had once withheld U.S. loan guarantees as a way showing displeasure at settlement activity.
At the same time, President Obama did nothing to alleviate the sufferings of 1.4 million desperate Palestinians under Israeli siege in Gaza. How bad are conditions in Gaza? Some 80 percent of its residents rely on foreign assistance, and unemployment is above 40 percent. Medical supplies, fuel, and food are routinely held up at the Israeli border. Half of Gaza’s schools have not been repaired from Israel’s onslaught a year ago. Almost unbelievably, the Obama administration has made suffering in Gaza worse by pressuring the Egyptian government to close smuggling tunnels connecting Gaza with Egyptian Sinai, which provided an alternative means of moving a trickle of goods around the Israeli blockade. Although Americans may close their eyes to the miserable existence Israel is inflicting on the people of Gaza, who have done nothing to harm the United States and do not threaten us in any way, Americans may be certain that our complicity has not gone unnoticed across the Muslim world.
The Obama administration has also maintained the Bush administration’s hostility to Syria. The Commerce Department recently vetoed the sale of European-manufactured Airbus commercial airliners to Syrian Air, which the Commerce Department was apparently able to do because 10 percent of the aircraft’s components are made in the U.S. Just what American strategic objective is furthered by forcing Syrians to fly around in clapped-out, Soviet-vintage commercial aircraft is unknown. Will the Syrian man in the street love us for putting his life at risk when he flies from Damascus to Aleppo? Or is this simply another case in which the interests of Israel trump those of the U.S.?
It is also worth noting that Gen. David Petraeus, that most political of all generals, has continued to accuse Syria of supporting the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. This charge is beyond absurd. Why would the government in Damascus seek to undermine the regime in Baghdad when both governments are closely allied with Iran? It is of course possible that some of the 1.5 Sunni Iraqi refugees in Syria are covertly supporting resistance in Iraq, but that is as might be expected and reflects the desperate mess the U.S. has created in Iraq, where some 25 percent of the population has fled to Syria or Jordan, or are internally displaced.
Although President Obama also sought a “new beginning” with Iran, he never directed any of the policy changes that would make that possible. Crucially, the U.S. continues to spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually to bring about regime change in Iran, prompting Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, to remark, “Money, arms, and organizations are being used by the Americans directly across our western border to fight the Islamic Republic.” U.S. anti-Iranian activities range from protecting the MEK terrorist group in Iraq for use in cross-border raids and subversion to funding American NGOs, whose support of “Twittering revolutionaries” on the streets of Tehran may be passed off as “promoting democracy” in the West, but which looks to the Iranian government like just another American attempt to destabilize the Islamic Republic.
American diplomacy certainly does not aim for reconciliation with Iran. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has sought international help, particularly in Europe, to impose “crippling” sanctions on the country. After a meeting with Bibi Netanyahu, Obama himself agreed to set up an American-Israeli working group to consider what coercive steps could be taken against Iran if it did not abandon nuclear enrichment. And American officials have continued to threaten military action over Tehran’s nuclear program, even though there is no meaningful data to overturn the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which held that the country gave up work on an atomic weapon in 2003. To suggest that Iran, with a military budget one one hundredth of what the U.S. spends on its armed forces, is a threat to the U.S. is the height of absurdity. To brand Iran a proliferator for its low-level enrichment of uranium while ignoring Israel’s 200 nuclear weapons is the height of hypocrisy.
In Afghanistan, the Obama administration added 17,000 U.S. troops last year and is in the process of adding 30,000 more. In eight years of war, the U.S. has brought misery to the civilian population and a gang of corrupt politicians to power in Kabul in an obviously bogus election. What is the Obama administration going to do in the next seven years that hasn’t been tried in the last eight? To give the situation a bit of perspective, the last man to pacify Afghanistan was Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C. Why Gen. McChrystal thinks an American-trained Afghan army recruited from various ethnic minorities in the north of the country will ever suppress an insurgency centered on Pashtun tribes, which comprise almost half the population of Afghanistan, is difficult to fathom. Well, no one would ever confuse McChrystal with Alexander, except maybe Victor Davis Hanson.
The war in Afghanistan has now spilled over into Pakistan, where administration pressure on the Pakistani army to fight the Taliban and its allies has produced hundreds of thousands of refugees and is destabilizing the country. America’s contribution to the widening war has been drone strikes on suspected Taliban leaders. The U.S. is also conducting anti-terrorist operations in Somalia and Yemen in the same way. The problem with this strategy is twofold. First, the drone would be a great weapon if it only killed the bad guys. Many drone strikes (and strikes from conventional aircraft, for that matter) have killed completely innocent people, undoubtedly increasing the number of America’s enemies. Second, where the U.S. relies on an ally’s intelligence service for targeting data, as in Yemen, there is a very good chance that enemies of the local regime, not al-Qaeda, are being hit.
Sometimes the Obama administration lashes out at the Muslim world in ways that are difficult to comprehend. In the wake of the failed underwear bombing, the TSA named 14 countries whose citizens would receive “full-body pat-downs” before boarding U.S.-bound aircraft: Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen. Obviously, any suspicious passenger ought to be selected for special screening, but the TSA’s message seems to be that if someone hails from Syria or Algeria, they possess murderous intent, thus confirming to millions of Muslims that the U.S. is deeply prejudiced against them.
As long as the Obama administration believes it can bomb, starve, invade, occupy, and intimidate the Muslim world into submission, and as long as the administration willingly makes Israel’s enemies America’s enemies, the U.S. will be a terrorist target and locked into endless wars in faraway places.
A core tenet of the Obama administration's plans for "victory" in Iraq and Afghanistan is an increased reliance on counterinsurgency.
As previously reported on this web site, the US military has sent shock troops - anthropologists, sociologists and social psychologists - with their own troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan, who also donned helmets and flak jackets. By the end of 2007, American scholars in these fields were embedding with the military in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a Pentagon program called Human Terrain System (HTS), which evolved shortly thereafter into a $40 million program that embedded four or five person groups of scholars in the aforementioned fields in all 26 US combat brigades that were busily occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. The program is currently comprised of approximately 400 employees, and is actively seeking new recruits.
Anthropology, in particular, has been referred to throughout history as the "handmaiden of colonialism," thus putting anthropologists, at least those with a moral conscience, on guard against anything that smells like exploitation or oppression of their subjects. Roberto Gonzalez, an associate professor of anthropology at San Jose State University and a leading member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, told Time magazine that the militarization of anthropology will cause the field to become "just another weapon ... not a tool for building bridges between peoples." Anthropology has core professional ethics standards that require voluntary, informed consent from subjects, and that anthropologists do no harm. How likely do you think these will be adhered to by the flack-jacket-wearing, gun-toting, embedded anthropologists working directly with regimental combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan?"
The two highest ethical principles of anthropology are protection of the interests of studied populations and their safety. All anthropological studies consequently are premised on the consent of the subject society. Clearly, the HTS anthropologists have thrown these ethical guidelines out the window. They are to anthropology what state stenographers like Judith Miller and John Burns are to journalism.
Truthout consulted David Price, author of "Anthropological Intelligence: The Deployment and Neglect of American Anthropology in the Second World War" and a contributor to the "Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual," a work of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, of which he is a member.
According to Price, "HTS presents real ethical problems for anthropologists, because the demands of the military in situations of occupation put anthropologists in positions undermining their fundamental ethical loyalties to those they study. Moreover, it presents political problems that link anthropology to a disciplinary past where anthropologists were complicit in assisting in colonial conquests. Those selling HTS to the military have misrepresented what culture is and have downplayed the difficulties of using culture to bring about change, much less conquest. There is a certain dishonesty in pretending that anthropologists possess some sort of magic beans of culture, and that if only occupiers had better cultural knowledge, or made the right pay-offs, then occupied people would fall in line and stop resisting foreign invaders. Culture is being presented as if it were a variable in a linear equation, and if only HTS teams could collect the right data variables and present troops with the right information conquest could be entered in the equation. Life and culture doesn't work that way; occupied people know they are occupied, and while cultural knowledge can ease an occupation, historically it has almost never led to conquest - but even if it could, anthropology would irreparably damage itself if it became nothing more than a tool of occupations and conquest."
The handbook for the HTS offers the human terrain "toolkit" for the US military to understand subjects living in militarily occupied areas. It stated:
"HTTs will use the Map-HT Toolkit of developmental hardware and software to capture, consolidate, tag, and ingest human terrain data. HTTs use this human terrain information gathered to assist commanders in understanding the operational relevance of the information as it applies to the unit's planning processes. The expectation is that the resulting courses of actions developed by the staff and selected by the commander will consistently be more culturally harmonized with the local population, which in Counter-Insurgency Operations should lead to greater success. It is the trust of the indigenous population that is at the heart of the struggle between coalition forces and the insurgents." (Emphasis added.)
The mission of the human terrain social scientists gains legitimacy and credibility when expressed in terms of engineering the "trust of the indigenous population."
The military's benign description specifies that HTS will "improve the military's ability to understand the highly complex local social-cultural environment in the areas where they are deployed." Proponents of the program go as far as to claim that its goal is to help the military save lives.
"Human Terrain Teams (HTT) are special units that imbed with battalions in Afghanistan and are trained to promote counterinsurgency practices," Price explained to Truthout, "Each Human Terrain Teams has a team leader who is usually retired military personnel, frequently from Special Forces, and each team has a social scientist. Though these social scientists are often referred to as 'anthropologists' in the press, the program has had great difficulty hiring many anthropologists to work on the program - especially those with relevant linguistic or cultural experience. These Human Terrain Teams are envisioned as providing cultural information to the occupying troops, and to also conduct research on populations under military control - though the American Anthropological Association's (AAA) recent report found that in many instances the tasks undertaken by HTS blur distinctions between research and intelligence work. But the basic tasks and methods of HTT violate basic ethical tenants of anthropological field research as the safety of research participants cannot be assured, nor can voluntary informed consent; and questions remain about what becomes of HTT data gathered in the field."
In December, the AAA held annual meetings in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the association made public a significant report titled the "AAA Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities (CEAUSSIC)," co-authored by David Price, which dealt directly with the ethical problems of the HTS.
Key findings in the executive summary of the report state:
"1. HTS and similar programs are moving to become a greater fixture within the U.S. military. Given still outstanding questions about HTS, such developments should be a source of concern for the AAA but also for any social science organization or federal agency that expects its members or its employees to adhere to established disciplinary and federal standards for the treatment of human subjects.
"2. The current arrangement of HTS includes potentially irreconcilable goals which, in turn, lead to irreducible tensions with respect to the program’s basic identity. These include HTS at once: fulfilling a research function, as a data source, as a source of intelligence, and as performing a tactical function in counterinsurgency warfare. Given this confusion, any anthropologist considering employment with HTS will have difficulty determining whether or not s/he will be able to follow the disciplinary Code of Ethics."
And:
"In summary, while we stress that constructive engagement between anthropology and the military is possible, CEAUSSIC suggests that the AAA emphasize the incompatibility of HTS with disciplinary ethics and practice for job seekers and that it further recognize the problem of allowing HTS to define the meaning of 'anthropology' within DoD."
While there has been some recent coverage of the HTS, Price told Truthout, "I haven't seen anything written that really gets to how these HTS teams fit into Obama's plans for increased counterinsurgency domination in Afghanistan."
The HTS continues to be condemned by the AAA, and in the wake of the filing of the CEAUSSIC, Price said, "our committee's evaluation of the program is purely negative and among our conclusion we determined that: 'When ethnographic investigation is determined by military missions, not subject to external review, where data collection occurs in the context of war, integrated into the goals of counterinsurgency, and in a potentially coercive environment - all characteristic factors of the HTS concept and its application - it can no longer be considered a legitimate professional exercise of anthropology.'"
In a recent article on the topic, that links the HTS with the increasing use of drones and the US military expansion of AFRICOM, Price wrote, "Today, in Iraq and Afghanistan, anthropologists are being told that they're needed to make bad situations better. But no matter how anthropological contributions ease and make gentle this conquest and occupation, it will not change the larger neocolonial nature of the larger mission; and most anthropologists are troubled to see their discipline embrace such a politically corrupt cause."
While the vast majority of mainstream media coverage of the HTS has been and remains favorable, Time magazine wrote a critical piece of the HTS after the CEAUSSIC was filed.
The House Armed Services Committee is currently undertaking a review of the HTS by directing the secretary of defense to undertake an assessment of HTS, and another HTS team member was wounded in Afghanistan. Given the Obama administration's escalation of counterinsurgent warfare and "soft power" as the US becomes further entrenched in Afghanistan, it is very likely more money will be allocated to HTS, despite any independent study indicating that HTS operates in any way similar to how it is promoted in the media.
Nevertheless, the use of HTS continues unabated in Afghanistan, and is going to be expanded in the future in Africa, both where, according to Price, the future of the program rests.
"The military seems increasingly interested in adapting some sort of Human Terrain like program for use in AFRICOM, and given AFRICOM's merging of military personnel and projects with counterinsurgent tactics and goals, it stands to reason that as AFRICOM takes on an increasing role in exploiting civil unrest in Africa as a way to leverage an increasing American military presence in resource rich Africa, something like HTS will be a part of these plans," Price told Truthout, "Given all the bad publicity HTS has been getting, I wouldn't be surprised if they changed the name but used a similar program."
Another problem with the problems is corruption. Currently, HTS training is geared towards Afghanistan, not Iraq, and is being conducted by the contracting firm CLI Solutions. The firm is funding training schools in Leavenworth, Omaha, and elsewhere, in addition to having found a way to rip off taxpayers and continue paying HTS using the "GG" scale (different than GS, GG provides a loophole in the GS systems that allows the government to sometimes hire "experts" at rates off the prevailing scale), which has elevated the pay scale back up to the levels it did when BAE Systems, a British military contractor, the world's second largest, ran the program.
Of this trick, Price revealed to Truthout that it is "a real boondoggle for the American taxpayers" and added, "Someone leaked the pay-scale to me and it shows scenarios where a GG-15, working 60 hours a week in the field in Afghanistan for 12 months would make over $230k per year, so presto change, we're back to the gravy train money days of BAE. That they are allowed to use the GG scale is scandalous: GG needs to exist in concept (so that for example when some expensive piece of government equipment needs to be worked on by experts, we can find a way to hire them) but use of GG for this end seems a clear abuse of what it was created for. So far no one has written anything on this in the press."
When asked why US taxpayers should be concerned about this payment scheme, Price told Truthout, "In terms of Pentagon spending and waste, $250,000,000 dollars spent on Human Terrain each year is small potatoes, but the program can't work as advertised. Taxpayers should be concerned that their president is committing us to a counterinsurgency-based war that will likely be impossible to successfully implement, and if the failed Human Terrain program is one of the star programs of US counterinsurgency efforts, we're in a lot of trouble."
Price refers to the AAA report as "devastating" with regard to the HTS, President Obama's policy of a huge escalation of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan as "doomed" and said the only way Obama's handling of the HTS has differed from Bush's is to have brought about "increases in HTS funding."
Stacey Fritz is a Ph.D. candidate in cultural anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who studies cold war militarization of the Arctic and other aspects of modern American militarism, including its impacts on academia. She is also a member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, an independent ad-hoc group that seeks to promote an ethical anthropology and that believes that anthropologists should refrain from directly assisting the US military in combat. On November 18, Fritz debated Kathleen Reedy, an employee in the HTS, assigned to the 1/25th Stryker Brigade out of Fort Wainwright, Fairbanks.
"She seemed to be trying to make herself believe the HTS lines, but they are so unbelievable that I think that it is very, very difficult to debate/defend that perspective, especially since I had plenty of quotes from military leaders saying very candidly that the HTTs do HUMINT [Human Intelligence gathering] that the military uses to figure out who the bad guys are and which good guys can be co-opted."
Fitz explained that Reedy opted not to debate the central HTS issues, but rather attempted to persuade the audience that she, as an anthropologist, had control over her information, and that she maintained "strong ethical guidelines concerning what she would pass on to them."
Fritz believes the entire edifice of ethics that anthropologists who participate in the HTS believe it is flawed.
"One of the main questions the NCA asks concerns whether the good intentions of anthropologists working in HTTs are being met - this is important -the anthropologists really are or come off as seeming well intentioned, but I don't think that it is believable that their actions could be positive even on the surface since the entire discussion presupposes that the military means the population well, and that there is such thing as a non-violent counterinsurgency war," Fitz told Truthout, "Of course, a huge portion of individuals in the military mean well and want the best for the Iraqis, which is great, but the policy under which they are acting makes that impossible. If they were doing what the Iraqis wanted, they would leave."
Price feels it is imperative for individuals to watch how the Obama administration uses and augments the HTS, because the mainstream media has largely been a unwilling to carry out much overdue critical reportage of the program.
"Since its conception HTS has been given an uncritical free ride in the press," Price explained, "There have been glossy profiles on its designers and supporters in places like the Wall Street Journal, Elle, and the New Yorker. I've seen drafts of feature stories on HTS that had critical counter-points removed by editors because they 'complicated the narrative,' and academics working on HTS have not had to answer the mounting questions about fundamental ethical, financial, and design problems that haunt the program - in some cases skipping out on academic conferences where they had agreed to engage with me and others. The mainstream media has cut HTS a lot of slack as it uncritically portrays the program as a way to engage in less lethal conquest; and given the severity of the findings of this recent American Anthropological Association report - which the New York Times did cover (in a small story in the Arts Section) - I have a hard time imagining a report from the American Medical Association or the Association of Applied Biologists declaring a key governmental program to be operating outside the most basic ethical and practical boundaries of the disciplines of medicine or biology, and receiving such little notice."
Fritz explained why this likely occurs. "I think the most important thing for the public to understand is the bigger picture of U.S. counterinsurgency wars. Counterinsurgency wars have always been fought on two fronts - one against the insurgents and the other, a propaganda war against a less than supportive public at home. This kind of tactic particularly appeals to liberals who are opposed to the war and grasp at any information that lets them feel better about it. It's very seductive - I think the worse people feel the more desperate they are to just believe that something like HTS is making a bloody illegal occupation better."
The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics will be the largest security operation in Canadian history. It will include more than 15,000 Canadian Forces, private security personnel, along with the RCMP and other police agencies. The U.S. will also provide security and support for the Games. With the Olympics fast approaching, the fear of terrorism is back in the public’s psyche. Although there has been no specific threats to the Games, more than anything, it is the danger of terrorism which is used to justify the huge security operation. This is further advancing the militarization of North America and U.S.-Canada military and security integration. The Olympics will take bi-national security cooperation to a whole new level.
Unmanned drones are patrolling the U.S.-Canada border as part of the war on terrorism and to curb smuggling, along with drug trafficking. It is unclear if they will be used for surveillance during the Games, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman, Juan Munoz-Torres has stated that, “If the RCMP or Canadian government believes they can make use of the aircraft for support during the Olympics, we will be more than willing to provide it.” In Afghanistan, Pakistan and other parts of the world, armed American drones continue to carry out strikes against suspected terrorists and insurgents. It is interesting that many of the weapons used in the war on terrorism overseas are later deployed for domestic purposes. The use of unmanned drones on the northern border will only add to the further militarization of North America.
In May of 2009, former Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano signed the Shiprider Agreement which grew out of a pilot project inspired by the Security and Prosperity Partnership. It was later tabled in the House of Commons as Bill C-60, the Keeping Canadians Safe (Protecting Borders) Act. The cross-border maritime security law would deputize U.S. officers operating in shared waterways during integrated operations, including pursuit on adjacent land. Stuart Trew of the Council of Canadians commented on the motivation surrounding Bill C-60, as well as several other pieces of legislation. “The effort seems purely aimed at appeasing U.S. concerns about Canadian security practices and is another step towards a perimeter approach to ‘securing’ North America as a whole.” As for the prorogation of Canada’s Parliament, he noted that, “although with C-60 off the order paper there is no legislative backing for the arrangement. U.S. police forces will be patrolling Canadian waterways on RCMP ships during the 2010 Winter Olympics.”
General Gene Renuart, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command(NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) has given some indication as to the function both will play during the Olympics. He stated that, “We, in our NORAD role, will maintain the air sovereignty both for the U.S. and Canada, the air security over the Olympic games.” He went on to say, “In our NORTHCOM role, we’ll probably provide some additional security and support…and consequence management response capability.” NORAD’s deputy commander Lt. Gen. Marcel Duval recently expanded on the bi-national organization’s responsibilities during the Olympics. “NORAD will do its normal airspace warning and aerospace control mission over the games using Canadian NORAD-region assets, (such as) Canadian CF-18s.” He also added that, “We’ll be supported by other NORAD assets like air-to-air refueling and airborne early-warning aircraft.” In regards to Canada Command, NORTHCOM and NORAD’s preparations for the Olympics, Duval acknowledged, “In many ways, the 2010 Winter Games have allowed the three commands to come closer, in terms of understanding, cooperating and collaborating.”
Canadian officials continue to work closely with their American counterparts in monitoring potential security threats to the Games and its shared border. Olympic Security Coordination Centre in Bellingham, Washington, “will coordinate the security efforts for over 40 federal, state and local agencies on the U.S. side of the U.S. – Canadian border. This facility will provide a strategic response platform to facilitate critical response efforts during the Olympic Games and beyond.” In the advent of an emergency situation, the bilateral Civil Assistance Plan signed by the U.S.-Canadian military in February of 2008 could be activated. The agreement allows the military of one nation to support the other during a civil emergency such as a flood, forest fire, hurricane, earthquake or a terrorist attack.
In late December 2009, pipeline and energy storage company Kinder Morgan notified the RCMP that while en route from Alberta to a North Vancouver facility, two one-tonne bags of ammonium nitrate went missing. This is the same chemical compound which has been used in several past terrorist bombings. Kinder Morgan later determined the missing bags were as a result of a clerical error. The RCMP have not been able to confirm the company's findings and continue with their investigation. This could be setting a cover story for a possible false flag terrorist attack during the Olympics.
A U.S. State Department fact sheet is advising Americans attending the Vancouver 2010 Olympics to use caution and be alert of their surroundings at all times. While it notes that there has been no specific or credible threats associated with the Olympics, it does warn of a possible Al-Qaeda attack. It states that, “As security increases in and around Olympic venues, terrorists could shift their focus to more unprotected Olympic venues, open public spaces, hotels, railway and other transportation systems, churches, restaurants, and other sites not associated with the Olympics.” It goes on to say that, “Al-Qaeda's demonstrated capability to carry out sophisticated attacks against sizable structures - such as ships, large office buildings, embassies and hotels - makes it one of the greatest potential threats to the Olympics.” In the aftermath of the failed Christmas day bombing attempt, once again terrorism is being used to create a climate of fear and insecurity.
Whether or not you buy into the whole war on terrorism, it is being used to launch wars of aggression and further expand the American empire. It is also very much intertwined with the whole process of deep North American integration and plans for a continental security perimeter. The threat level for the upcoming Olympics remains low, but some are warning that the proroguing of Canada’s Parliament, along with the huge security apparatus being assembled for the Games might be setting the stage for a possible false flag terror event. This could be used to pass more anti-terrorist and other draconian pieces of legislation. It could also lead to a martial law scenario with American troops occupying parts of Canada.
Dana Gabriel is an activist and independent researcher. He writes about trade, globalization, sovereignty, as well as other issues. Contact: beyourownleader@hotmail.com
“Who will ever suspect then that ALL THESE PEOPLES WERE STAGE-MANAGED BY US ACCORDING TO A POLITICAL PLAN WHICH NO ONE HAS SO MUCH AS GUESSED AT IN THE COURSE OF MANY CENTURIES?” Protocol of the Elders of Zion —13, para 6
Origins of Al-Qaeda
For about two years after 9/11, whenever the subject of 9/11 or international terrorism came up, the US administration, and the Western Media kept shouting, “Osama, Osama!” Al-Qaeda was given a secondary place. Gradually, the positions were reversed. Now, at every incident of terrorism anywhere in the world, they cried, “Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda!” Osama moved to secondary position. Indeed, to shift the spotlight from Osama, other shadowy fighters, such as, Abu Mossab AlZarqawi, were brought to prominence.
Before Sept 11, 2001, you could hardly find a mention of Al-Qaeda in the US Media. But, immediately after the dramatic attacks both the electronic and print Media began to speak of this hitherto almost unknown entity with such deep knowledge and understanding as if their reporters had been tracking and covering it for years! A classic example of this publicity was the “Special Report” in Time, Nov 12, 2001, that was spread over more than two-thirds of the magazine, whose blazing cover title was, “INSIDE THE AL-QAEDA—Bin Laden’s Web of Terror.”
The report was mum on how Al-Qaeda had so smoothly overcome all the insurmountable odds and so utterly disabled the US national security agencies and authorities, and had hijacked four American airliners and smashed three of them into most high profile buildings in broad daylight! It gave no explanation how Time had gathered such encyclopaedic knowledge of Al-Qaeda so soon after 9/11? The report was silent on many publicly known facts. It hid the fact that it was CIA that had picked up Osama and initiated him (through the Saudi Intelligence) into the anti-Soviet Afghan Jihad.
Time’s report was a bundle of disinformation and fabricated scenarios of past events and anticipated threats. What it said on 9/11, Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and future threat to the West was exactly the same that the US and the British governments and their intelligence agencies were propagating. It was obvious the source of Time’s report was the CIA. The major reports on Osama/Al-Qaeda that appeared around that time in various other news publications had carried the same material—as their source was the same!
Awesome Power Ascribed to Al-Qaeda. The “special report” went to great lengths to project Al-Qaeda as a powerful, resourceful, highly organized, ideologically fired, anti-West worldwide network of scores of “cells” that were centrally guided but operationally autonomous. It ascribed to Al-Qaeda enormous capabilities including use of chemical, biological, and tactical nuclear weapons, and of intricate computer technologies such as steganography (Greek for ‘hidden writing’). This technique allows messages to be slipped into innocuous picture and music files that are impossible to detect with the naked eye as the insertions are very small.
Al-Qaeda had to be shown as having all the power and resources for committing the most terrible acts at the global level. Otherwise, how could it be a big and dreadful enough threat to the World or a worthy enough combatant for the world’s superpower to battle with?
The real mischief is, Al-Qaeda can actually be invested with the alleged great capabilities, because it is a Wing of Mossad! The vast capabilities attributed to Al-Qaeda are those of Mossad, which has worldwide tentacles and can deploy biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. Let the world’s masses, more so the Muslims, and among them especially the religious, comprehend this frightful reality.
Al-Qaeda is Jewish Agency’s Child.
The terror gangs that came to be known as Al-Qaeda were formed in the early 1930s by the Jewish Agency (JA) for a dreadful purpose. Established in 1929 in Jerusalem as an arm of WZO, the JA was to function as a ‘government-in- being’ for the future Zionist state. One of its tasks was to expel the Palestinians from Palestine and to compel the large numbers of Jews living in and around the Middle East to immigrate to Palestine to increase its Jewish population.
An idea of how many Jews lived in some of the Muslim Countries in the early 1930s can be formed by the data given in The Jewish Communities of the World, a Zionist publication, although the Zionist records by design show much lower figures than the real numbers.
The data says: Algeria still had 140,000 Jews in 1962 after tens of thousands had been forced to shift to Palestine/Israel. Iran had 85000 in 1978, Tunisia 105,000 in 1949, Iraq 150,000 in 1947, Egypt 75000 in 1948, Libya 38000 in 1948, and Afghanistan had 40,000 Jews in 1875. Nearly 40,000 Turkish Jews had settled in Israel; in 1989, about 20,000 Jews lived in Istanbul alone.
The JA raised two types of Jewish terrorists, to operate under three principal terror gangs: the Haganah, Stern Gang, and the Irgun. One type consisted of Ashkenazi Polish/Russian or “Western” Jews. They terrorized Palestinian villages, burning houses and crops, massacring innocent people, forcing Palestinians to flee. “Irgun massacred 241 Arabs in the village of Deir Yasin on the outskirts of Jerusalem in 1948.” 7
They also targeted the British Mandatory Authority in Palestine to make it submit to various Zionist demands. “In July 1946, the Irgun, led by Menahem Begin, blew up a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, seat of the British civilian administration. The casualties, which included some of the most senior British civil servants, totalled 91 dead and 45 injured.” 8
The second type of gangs consisted of Sephardim or “Eastern” Jews from Middle East/Muslim Countries, i.e., Iraq, Iran, Central Asian Republics, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Libya, etc. They were to uproot the Jews settled in these countries and force them to shift to Israel, a move that these Jews were loathe to make as they had been living peacefully and prosperously in the Muslim Countries for centuries.
Disguised as Muslims and operating with extreme secrecy, these gangs of Eastern Jews subjected selected Jewish communities in each country to frightful psychological propaganda and shocking acts of terrorism including burning their synagogues and homes and slaughtering the Jewish people to make them believe they could no longer live safely among the Muslims. These gangs were to later form the core elements of the body named as Al-Qaeda.
After Israel came into being, the terror gangs were taken over by Mossad. The perfidious operations continued. “In 1950-51, in the face of the reticence of the Jews of Iraq to emigrate to Israel, the Israeli secret services threw bombs at them so as to convince the Jews that they were in danger.” 9
New Role for the Eastern Jews.
The first half of its 100-year Plot having been completed with the creation of Israel in May 1948, Zinjry turned its evil efforts to the next schemes, in which the Eastern Jewish terrorists would play a key role under Mossad’s direction. Working through the Western Governments and the International Media, Zinjry projected in early 1950s a daunting “Communist Threat” to a number of major Muslim Countries, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia. They were told US intelligence assistance was indispensable to them. This enabled CIA (and Mossad) to penetrate the intelligence agencies of these countries. Mossad’s Eastern Jewish operatives under CIA cover gained direct deep access into the secret agencies of all the pro-US Middle Eastern states, and indirect access into the others.
The Cloak of Anti-Communist Mujahideen.
On 27 December 1979 Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in accordance with the Zionist Global Plot. Mossad was ready for the next deployment of its Eastern Jewish operatives. They had been trained to look, act and live like dedicated Muslim Mujahideen. Many Tajik, Uzbek, Afghani Jews, as well as Jews from Pakistan’s Tribal Areas were added to their ranks.
The Eastern Jews became Mujahideen, and joined the parties/groups of all the major Mujahideen leaders, Gulbadin Hikmatyar, Burhanuddin Rabbani, Ahmad Shah Masud, Abdul Rasool Sayyaf, Maulavi Yunus Khalis, etc. Throughout the Soviet-Afghan War, Mossad remained the main supplier of arms and equipment to the Mujahideen on behalf of CIA, which controlled the overall policy and direction of the war while Pakistan’s ISI conducted it at the tactical/operational level.
When Mossad/CIA inducted Osama into the Afghan Jihad, the Arabian Jews as anti-Communism specialists had already established a firm footing in the Saudi intelligence service. While Osama kept the records of recruits, logistics and accounts (of the funds provided by CIA) for the Jihad in the computer folder (labelled Al-Qaeda), the induction, training and deployment of new recruits, especially those from the Middle East, was handled by the Arabian Jews positioned close to Osama. Mossad kept an up-to-date picture of the entire Jihad operations and the affairs of the Mujahideen and their leaders. It manipulated events and personalities to shape the situation as required by the Zionist schemes.
The Cloak of Taliban.
After the Soviet withdrawal in May 1989 and fall of the puppet regime in Kabul, the Mossad agents manipulated the Mujahideen to fight with each other. This created hostility and distrust among their major groups, and the coalition government they belatedly set up in Kabul was unworkable from the start. In early 1990s the Taliban headed by Mullah Omar but guided by Afghani Jews, who were posing as Taliban, made their appearance in Kandahar, as programmed in the Zionist scheme.
Within a short period the Taliban marched on to Kabul unopposed. The world was amazed! People had no idea that most of the Afghan leaders and the so-called warlords were mere pawns in the game; the game’s players in the field were all Afghani Jews. To get the Mujahideen fighters out of the way of the advancing Taliban, Zinjry used Money, Dollars—irresistible to the Afghans—that it wheedled out of UAE and Saudi Arabia!
Mullah Omar, programmed for his role and surrounded by disguised Afghani Jews as his ministers and advisers, was invested with the image of an intolerant extremist Islamist, a mentor of Osama Bin Laden and a foe of the West. Simultaneously, Osama and his senior disciples, who had previously been programmed to oppose the Soviets, were now cultivated and programmed to speak and act as ‘enemies’ of the United States.
Cells Set up by Mossad.
Mossad and CIA had already been setting up Al-Qaeda cells in the Muslim World and in other countries, such as, US, Canada, Britain, Germany, Spain, France, Kenya, the Philippines, to suit their schemes of engineering acts of terrorism before and after 9/11, to create the bogus threat of worldwide terrorism. It was not surprising that within a few weeks of 9/11, CIA produced a map of Al-Qaeda cells located in over 40 countries!10
A team of Mossad agents who can merge with the local people controls each cell. They decide the target, the timing and scope of each major operation, and they arrange for the required finances, technology, equipment, intelligence and hideouts. The cell’s militants may be local or foreign brainwashed, disposable minions, who have no idea of their controllers or of the real aims of the terror acts they are asked to undertake. Zionist stool pigeons go about recruiting emotion-charged volunteers for the cells in the name of Osama and Jihad against America and its allies/satellites. In the environment that depicts America as the biggest rogue, the protector of the hated Israel, and an enemy of Muslims, there is no dearth of such volunteers.
This is the origin and the character of Al-Qaeda—raised, supplied, deployed and directed by Israel’s Mossad, in the role of Zionism’s most effective weapon against the World of Islam. This is why every terror operation, said to be by Al-Qaeda, in its real consequences and effects has been a severe blow to Islam, the Muslim Countries and the Muslims living all over the world.
AlQaeda’s Mask Falls.
Nature has its own ways to uncover the real character of the masked agencies and individuals who are engaged in causing turmoil in society. Al-Qaeda’s uncovering key is ensconced in its very name! It is an unbefitting and undesirable name that genuine Muslim Mujahideen will never use for their fighting organization.
We know from published records how the name, Al-Qaeda, meaning ‘the Base,’ originated. It was the title of the computer folder in which Osama Bin Laden, employed by CIA through the Saudi Intelligence in December 1979, began to keep the data of the Mujahideen, recruited and trained by CIA and Mossad for Afghan Jihad. The name went with the body of the Arabian Mujahideen that operated in Afghanistan and was later headed by Osama.
The use of the word Al-Qaeda in its meaning as ‘the base or foundation or basic code of principles,’ etc, is legitimate in modern Arabic. However, its use as a name for a body of fighting men is highly inappropriate, as its meaning is totally against the spirit of fighting and action. Its root word Qa’ada means, ‘to sit, to sit idly,’ etc. One of its derivatives, Qa’ad, means, ‘people who stay at home at the time of fighting;’ another derivative Qu’ood, means, ‘one who just sits, a lazy person;’ in plural form the words used are Qaedoon or Qaedeen. No sensible Muslim commander would want to name his fighting outfit as AlQaeda.
There is a compelling reason, indeed a prohibition, in view of which a Muslim commander will never use the name Al-Qaeda for his fighting group. In the eyes of Allah, the members of Al-Qaeda, i.e., Qaedoon and Qaedeen are those who shirk from fighting or striving in His way and are undesirable.11 The Qur’an says: “When a Surah comes down enjoining them to believe in Allah and to strive and fight along with His Apostle, those with wealth and influence among them ask thee for exemption, and say: ‘Leave us behind; we would be with those who sit at home’ (Al-Qaedeen).” (9:86).
“Such of the believers as remain passive (Al-Qaedoon)—other than the disabled—cannot be deemed equal to those who strive hard in God’s cause with their possessions and their lives…” (4:95).
“They said: ‘Moses! While they [the defenders] remain there, never shall we be able to enter, to the end of time. Go thou, and thy Lord, and fight ye two, while we sit here (Inna Hahuna Qaedoon).” (5:24).
Indeed, Al-Qaedoon or Al-Qaedeen is the antithesis, the opposite, of Al-Mujahideen. The Mujahideen are those who fight or strive hard in Allah’s cause. The Qaedeen stay away from fighting or striving hard in Allah’s cause. A body of genuine Muslim Mujahideen will never operate under the name Al-Qaeda, because if they did they would be associating themselves with those terms, Al-Qaedoon and Al-Qaedeen, which are disliked by Allah. And if some one else had given them this name they would immediately reject it publicly.
The mask falls from the face of Al-Qaeda, and you can see Osama and his so-called fighters and allies such as Ayman Zawahri, Abu Mossab Al-Zarqawi and Mullah Omar in their real shape. This only confirms what I have shown already of Al-Qaeda’s real identity—that it is an arm of Mossad.
Al-Qaeda is a Zionist Weapon Against Islam.
Most of the Muslims rightly perceive the so-called West’s War on Terrorism as a War Against Islam. But, do they realize that Osama and his band, and his followers among Muslims, are actually the most valuable allies of the West in this War Against Islam!
Osama and Al-Qaeda are the greatest threat to the Muslims, not to the Western people. Has it not been proved already by the ugly events of the past four years since 9/11? To overcome this confounding threat, the leaders in all the Muslim Countries and Communities have to comprehend the complexities and the realities of the Zionist Game, and have to show the world the real character of Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.
'Al-Jazeera is not an Arab news channel' "From my perspective, the Arab world will have to accept we're a neutral channel. Our job is to sell both sides, not to favor one or the other," --CNN/BBC Riz Khan said to The Jerusalem Post
Osama Bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, has warned Barack Obama, the US president, that there will be further attacks on the United States unless he takes steps to resolve the Palestinian situation.
In an audio tape obtained by Al Jazeera on Sunday, the world's most wanted man also praised the Nigerian accused of a failed attempt to blow up an airliner heading for Detroit on Christmas Day.
"The message I want to convey to you through the plane of the hero Omar Farouk [Abdulmutallab], reaffirms a previous message that the heroes of 9/11 conveyed to you," Bin Laden said.
"America will never dream of living in peace unless we live it in Palestine. It is unfair that you enjoy a safe life while our brothers in Gaza suffer greatly.
"America will never dream of living in peace unless we live it in Palestine. It is unfair that you enjoy a safe life while our brothers in Gaza suffer greatly.
"Therefore, with God's will, our attacks on you will continue as long as you continue to support Israel," bin Laden said.
"If it was possible to carry our messages to you by words we wouldn't have carried them to you by planes."
Palestinian 'frontline'
Phil Rees, the author of Dining with Terrorists, told Al Jazeera: "Bin Laden has a great sense of timing; it's a complete poke in the eye to President Obama at a time when Obama is domestically suffering.
"The reference to Palestine is possibly the most interesting part of this because he almost now becomes the al-Qaeda leader that speaks about Palestine.
"One thing is very clear, Osama still has followers spread all over the world and such messages do reinvigorate the spirit in these people about their mission" Imtiaz Gul, chairman of the Centre for Research and Security Studies who does not even know how to make a link to his bio...
"What you've now got in Gaza is bin Laden looking at the situation where there's a peace process which is going nowhere, and in an ironic way, Hamas is at the frontline of the battle with al-Qaeda there."
Azzam Tamimi, a political analyst and the author of "Hamas the Unwritten Chapters", said that bin Laden was simply using the Palestinian issue in an attempt to mobilise Muslims against the US.
"I would say that al-Qaeda has not been able to set foot in many places in the Muslim world despite its rhetoric," he told Al Jazeera.
"In Palestine they failed miserably and that is why I understand this message as a return to the older strategy of waging war against America and the world order in the skies.
"It is very difficult to compete with an organisation like Hamas in Palestine."
Osama Hamdan, a spokesman for the Hamas movement, told Al Jazeera that the Palestinians were focused on ending the Israeli occupation.
"All Arabs and Muslims support our cause. [But] the Palestinian position is clear, the resistance is against the occupation, the Israeli army who is occupying and killing our people," he said.
"Everyone knows that the policies of the US have created huge problems in the region. At this moment, we know who our enemy is - the Israeli occupation."
'Subjected to scrutiny'
Imtiaz Gul, the chairman of the Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad, questioned whether the tape was genuine.
"I think the validity of this tape should be subjected to scrutiny because we haven't heard from Mr Bin Laden for quite some time."
The audio tape is believed to have been recorded last month.
In the attempted attack on Christmas Day, Abdulmutallab, who is now in US police custody, allegedly tried to ignite explosives sewn into his underwear as Northwest Airlines Flight 253 made its final descent to Detroit.
He had boarded the flight in Amsterdam, but purchased his tickets in Ghana on December 16.
Passengers on the flight were able to overpower the would-be bomber as he attempted to ignite the explosive's fuse.
After being taken into custody, Abdulmuttalab told police he had been directed by al-Qaeda and had obtained his explosive device in Yemen.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the organisation's affiliate in Yemen, has said it armed Abdulmutallab, describing the attempted attack as revenge for the US role in a Yemeni military offensive against al-Qaeda.
Obama has criticised his own intelligence agencies for failing to piece together information about the suspect which should have stopped him boarding the flight.
---
Flashback: Bin Laden, the billionaire troglodyte
New York times:"Bin Laden's high tech cave complex in Zhawar with "iron doors" that contained a bakery, a hotel with overstuffed furniture, a hospital with an ultrasound machine, a library, a mosque, weapons of every imaginable stripe; a service bay with a World War II-era Soviet tank inside, in perfect running order."
London Independent came up with its own fairly similar troglodyte story except that it had moved the underground fortress from Zhawar to Tora Bora.
The Independent headlined: "Al-Qa'ida almost 'immune to attack' inside its hi-tech underground lair." In the story, its correspondent Richard Lloyd Parry, in Jalalabad, described a vast redoubt burrowed deep under a mountain, with labyrinthian tunnels sealed by with iron doors. "It has its own ventilation system and its own power, created by a hydro-electric generator. Its walls and floors in the rooms are smooth and finished and it extends 350 yards beneath a solid mountain." It was therefore tunneled almost as deep as the World Trade Center was high. It was also " so well defended and concealed that – short of poison gas or a tactical nuclear weapon – it is immune to outside attack. And it is filled with heavily armed followers of Osama bin Laden. It further claimed that fortress was built " reportedly employing expertise from Mr bin Laden's Saudi construction businesses" and housed "as many as 2,000 Arab and foreign fighters."with a suicidal commitment to their cause and with nothing left to lose."
The Associated Press put The Independent story on its services, which went to hundreds of major newspapers and broadcasting stations.
ABC News re-headlined the story "Bin Laden Hide-out Resembles Hotel: Witness," depicting "The cave complex ... filled with bin Laden's fanatical followers."
Yahoo noted in its Internet service "Bin Laden has reputedly built a fortress 1,150 feet (350 meters) beneath the mountains, equipped with water, electricity and ventilation and guarded by hundreds or thousands of fighters ready to die for their leader."
CBS, expanding the story, reported that an Afghan "commander thinks bin Laden is in a cave fortress known as Tora Bora. The massive hideout was built by the U.S. to house forces fighting the Soviet Army in the 1980s. The complex - nicknamed "bin Laden's ant farm," is burrowed deep into Gree Khil peak -- soaring 13,000 feet above the village of Tora Bora. It is virtually impregnable -- a latticework of tunnels, storage rooms for arms and munitions, and accommodations for up to a thousand fighters. Ventilation shafts bring fresh air 1,200 feet inside the mountain. A nearby river provides hydroelectric power to the complex... at least 2,000 of bin Laden's al-Qaida fighters are believed to be hiding there,"
In the Los Angeles Times Professor Mark C. Taylor added to his essay on an ancient troglodyte Hittite city in Turkey that "This city and others like it provide the prototype for the underground fortresses where Bin Laden and his followers are presumed to be hiding;"
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution put the underground city in context, saying "The bitter and brutal end game between Osama bin Laden and U.S.-led forces is being played out in a mountain fortress the CIA helped build... equipped with ventilation and hydroelectric power." This bunker-fortress, the story continued, "provides bin Laden with significant advantages... it is considered invulnerable even to bunker-busting bombs and impregnable to conventional military attack."
The Times of London meanwhile illustrated its story with an artist's rendering of the underground fortress, which dwarfed even Hitler's infamous "eagle's nest" fortress.
The story probably reached its high point on NBC's Meet The Press on December 2nd when Tim Russert, the host of the program, provided Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with the artist's rendering of bin Laden's fortress. The interview proceeded:
Russert: The Times of London did a graphic, which I want to put on the screen for you and our viewers. This is it. This is a fortress. This is a very much a complex, multi-tiered, bedrooms and offices on the top, as you can see, secret exits on the side and on the bottom, cut deep to avoid thermal detection so when our planes fly to try to determine if any human beings are in there, it's built so deeply down and embedded in the mountain and the rock it's hard to detect. And over here, valleys guarded, as you can see, by some Taliban soldiers. A ventilation system to allow people to breathe and to carry on. An arms and ammunition depot. And you can see here the exits leading into it and the entrances large enough to drive trucks and cars and even tanks. And it's own hydroelectric power to help keep lights on, even computer systems and telephone systems. It's a very sophisticated operation.
Rumsfeld: Oh, you bet. This is serious business. And there's not one of those. There are many of those. And they have been used very effectively. And I might add, Afghanistan is not the only country that has gone underground. Any number of countries have gone underground. The tunneling equipment that exists today is very powerful. It's dual use. It's available across the globe. And people have recognized the advantages of using underground protection for themselves.
...and on... and on...
A few weeks after the "Meet the Press" interview, US special forces and their Afghan allies occupied Tora Bora. They painstakingly searched Gree Khil mountain and the surrounding area. They found no underground fortress, no hydro-electric power plant, no 2000-room hotel, no ant farm, no iron doors, no ventilating shafts. The troglodyte Lair of Bin Laden turned out to be mythic, just MSM LIES, including Arabic Al-Jazeera of course. It parroted the above lies continuously with its own and other Western "experts"
---
Whatever happened to Bin Billion$, can't afford a high res. camcorder? Voice Morphing
![[posts.png]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnVlsPD4ztI/AAAAAAAAVMI/DdB3iDF_krA/s1600/posts.png)
![[th_zionist_legends.jpg]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP-kpkRVcI/AAAAAAAAVGw/O9_iOklLt0c/s1600/th_zionist_legends.jpg)
![[150.png]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP8CAQNzpI/AAAAAAAAVCg/9e_nTRXTcT8/s1600/150.png)
![[jewisnazi2.png]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP8cIWEZyI/AAAAAAAAVDI/QD0hlMGZqjs/s1600/jewisnazi2.png)
![[th_hitler.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP9ppSCdSI/AAAAAAAAVFI/YDXbfd41xSQ/s1600/th_hitler.jpg)
![[th_holocaust.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP9tVLojSI/AAAAAAAAVFQ/8KomH7mP5z8/s1600/th_holocaust.jpg)
![[th_wall_street_hitlert.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP-YvqS7_I/AAAAAAAAVGY/GPF9ACDXNxU/s1600/th_wall_street_hitlert.jpg)
![[th_wallstjewbolshevic.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP-b0WqaHI/AAAAAAAAVGg/JgBcwt0aYIs/s1600/th_wallstjewbolshevic.jpg)
![[th_eustace_mullins.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP9Xdwg3VI/AAAAAAAAVEo/7oufiLeSR6g/s1600/th_eustace_mullins.jpg)
![[th_gary_allen_conspiracy.jpg]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP9gqDBbOI/AAAAAAAAVE4/aWpG_k-gJG4/s1600/th_gary_allen_conspiracy.jpg)
![[th_fritz_springmeier_.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP9b41qB0I/AAAAAAAAVEw/TXH3Wa8I-LY/s1600/th_fritz_springmeier_.jpg)
![[th_prtocofmofez.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP996RyCGI/AAAAAAAAVFo/hKrLMRXM18U/s1600/th_prtocofmofez.jpg)
![[th_secret_societies__.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP-QfSPmnI/AAAAAAAAVGI/k0u8WWTMqmA/s1600/th_secret_societies__.jpg)
![[th_archit_of_decep.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP8_Fagd5I/AAAAAAAAVEA/R9AB_TAAkCU/s1600/th_archit_of_decep.jpg)
![[prot1.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP-5NNwKpI/AAAAAAAAVHQ/PzIT2iO8Ils/s1600/prot1.jpg)
![[adlogo.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP_HCi4RiI/AAAAAAAAVHY/h6u1b65b2LY/s1600/adlogo.jpg)
![[th_douglas_reed.jpg]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP9SdYdk7I/AAAAAAAAVEg/h1E3you41l4/s1600/th_douglas_reed.jpg)
![[th_life_of_an__am.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP95fjAaPI/AAAAAAAAVFg/bxf6WSpQZjw/s1600/th_life_of_an__am.jpg)
![[th_henry_ford_s.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP9leSMDpI/AAAAAAAAVFA/Wye8WLQAZHo/s1600/th_henry_ford_s.jpg)
![[th_wikipornography.jpg]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP-gq7IzyI/AAAAAAAAVGo/h_UbzpZhdzw/s1600/th_wikipornography.jpg)
![[th_roger_garaudy_s.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP-F0UutHI/AAAAAAAAVF4/O02t2JHbkHo/s1600/th_roger_garaudy_s.jpg)
![[th_david_m_pidcock.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP9MLQ8uuI/AAAAAAAAVEY/-isXy9Ng2HA/s1600/th_david_m_pidcock.jpg)
![[th_church.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP9D3lZPEI/AAAAAAAAVEI/eqGoBC4DYrI/s1600/th_church.jpg)
![[th_jkaminsky.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP9zx-qXkI/AAAAAAAAVFY/FQs7kAckRHg/s1600/th_jkaminsky.jpg)
![[th_top_clicks-1.jpg]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP-Ul0Io_I/AAAAAAAAVGQ/_XhlFdj_HYk/s1600/th_top_clicks-1.jpg)
![[print.gif]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnP8osKGJ5I/AAAAAAAAVDg/Y5hArAJiwTo/s1600/print.gif)
![[up.gif]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_s5yaZ0Ye2Mo/SnVl4hdOgUI/AAAAAAAAVMY/4TsLm481I-M/s1600/up.gif)