tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86292850729658596822024-03-19T03:16:40.909-07:00Revelationswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.comBlogger2549125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-25545240203941411332013-07-18T19:04:00.004-07:002013-07-18T19:04:55.500-07:00Why Putin Despises Edward Snowden <span style="color: white;"> .</span><br />
<br />
By Michael Bohm<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTHKa6H5hvJZyK2dkt2mIQtMFIhDGYyCmcvQU_Hm_9Ap9nmOcgRjgKMfLDJLoim-hKi0tNYOxNKUManwDiKZ4V8QBvKebt6pd93RGuIAq0wa4C6Rs58fSTOQ9wnG27qvuorFl4z52RZZc/s1600/5172-08-cartoon_1852.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTHKa6H5hvJZyK2dkt2mIQtMFIhDGYyCmcvQU_Hm_9Ap9nmOcgRjgKMfLDJLoim-hKi0tNYOxNKUManwDiKZ4V8QBvKebt6pd93RGuIAq0wa4C6Rs58fSTOQ9wnG27qvuorFl4z52RZZc/s320/5172-08-cartoon_1852.jpg" /></a><br />
When Edward Snowden, with the assistance of his curators in the Russian government, held his makeshift news conference last Friday in Sheremetyevo Airport's transit zone, it was no surprise that pro-Kremlin opinion makers dominated the short, invitation-only list of attendees. Among them were prominent lawyer and Public Chamber member Anatoly Kucherena, political analyst and State Duma Deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov and human rights ombudsmen Vladimir Lukin. Basking in the spotlight amid Snowden's sudden reappearance after nearly a month of being incognito in the airport's transit zone, they took full advantage of this PR opportunity, explaining to several hundred journalists on hand that Russia should offer Snowden political asylum because he is a refugee of U.S. repression.<br />
<br />
"Snowden is not a criminal," Lukin said, "and deserves asylum status."<br />
<br />
"He deserves protection," Kucherena said. "We need to defend him. I consider him a hero. … [The U.S. government] is persecuting him."<br />
<br />
This kind of demagoguery is expected from Kremlin loyalists. But what was surprising and disheartening was that the Moscow-based directors of two respected global rights organizations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, joined the chorus of support for Snowden's quest to receive political asylum. It was unsettling to see these organizations in full solidarity with Kremlin spin doctors. Indeed, the two groups make strange bedfellows, particularly considering that these NGOs have been victims of government harassment and a state-sponsored smear campaign that depicts them as U.S.-paid agents.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jul/17/vladimir-putin-edward-snowden-russia-us-video"><b>Vladimir Putin: I will not let Edward Snowden harm Russia's relations with US</b></a><br />
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These ardent Snowden supporters fail to understand a fundamental principle in asylum jurisprudence: Political asylum should be granted in cases of persecution, not prosecution. To qualify for asylum, Snowden must produce evidence that he is being persecuted based on his political opinion, race, religion, nationality or membership in a particular social group. These are United Nations and internationally recognized categories to determine the legitimacy of a person's asylum request. Asylum should not be granted to suspected criminals like Snowden who are simply trying to avoid a jail sentence in their home country.<br />
<br />
A good example of a legitimate asylum seeker would be Leonid Razvozzhayev, an opposition leader who fled to Ukraine in October to escape political persecution in Russia. When Razvozzhayev tried to seek political asylum in the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Kiev, he was seized by masked men believed to be Russian intelligence agents, handcuffed and dragged back to Moscow, where he is still being held in pretrial detention on trumped-up charges of "plotting riots." In this case, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were correct in protesting Razvozzhayev's kidnapping, detention and prosecution.<br />
<br />
Most Snowden supporters in Russia agree that Snowden broke the law by leaking classified information but say there is a higher law — a moral law — that justifies his decision to expose massive surveillance by the National Security Agency that Americans and the entire world had a right to know about. His actions, the argument goes, amounted to civil disobedience in the spirit of U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.<br />
<br />
But these Snowden advocates are missing two key differences: King, a Noble Peace Prize laureate, did not flee the U.S., and he worked within the democratic system to push for human rights legislation that addressed the immorality of existing segregation laws. Snowden, too, should have also worked within the U.S. legal system to declassify the NSA programs, thus subjecting them to larger public scrutiny, instead of engaging in criminal cyber-vigilantism.<br />
<br />
Snowden claims to be a whistleblower, but he is far from one. Unlike real whistleblowers — such as Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971 — Snowden did not reveal anything illegal in the NSA surveillance programs and thus cannot be protected under U.S. whistleblower laws. His sole position was that he was against the NSA surveillance programs and thought they should be declassified.<br />
<br />
But Snowden's personal dislike of the NSA programs is not sufficient grounds to leak classified information. This is precisely why he is a criminal, not a whistleblower. According to Snowden's logic, a pedophile who doesn't like anti-pedophile laws would have the same self-anointed right to violate the law on the grounds that it also contradicts his or her personal values.<br />
<br />
While pro-Kremlin spin doctors are having a heyday with Snowden's extended stay in Moscow and are enthusiastic about the opportunity to give him asylum, President Vladimir Putin remains highly unenthusiastic, to say the least, about Snowden's presence in the country for two main reasons.<br />
<br />
First, Putin has a strong dislike for human rights activists as a class, especially those working in Russia. They hardly mix well with his vertical power structure. Putin may like activists more when they reveal rights abuses in the U.S., but having someone like Snowden living in Russia and becoming cozy with Russian-based rights groups, who have their own long laundry lists of abuses committed by Putin's regime, probably makes Putin a bit uneasy.<br />
<br />
Last week, pro-Kremlin defense analyst Igor Korotchenko said in an interview with state-controlled Rossia 24 television that if Snowden receives asylum in Russia, "he will have a fabulous opportunity to continue his human rights activities, including battling against the state's interference in private lives."<br />
<br />
The problem, though, is that if Snowden were to turn his attention toward Russia's poor record on human rights, government transparency and privacy protection, Russia could easily get more than it bargained for with Snowden. After all, Putin's condition for giving Snowden political asylum was that he refrain from inflicting more damage on the United States. Putin said nothing about Russia.<br />
<br />
This situation is complicated by the fact that Russian authorities are keen on expanding surveillance of Russians who use Google, YouTube, Skype and Facebook, the preferred site for organizing protests. These foreign companies, unlike Russian ones such as Yandex, are largely out of the reach of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, since their servers are located in the U.S. Thus, the Kremlin is trying to force these U.S.-based companies to give the FSB direct, unlimited access to their servers as a condition for them being able to operate in the country. Snowden, whose main mission was to fight the "U.S. surveillance state," would likely have trouble swallowing this exponentially larger surveillance state in Russia.<br />
<br />
Given Snowden's apparent obsession with privacy rights and government transparency, Putin doesn't trust him. There is no guarantee that Snowden would remain silent about the FSB's widespread spying abuses, which make even the NSA's worst abuses look like child's play. (For example, the e-mails and telephone conversations of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday, were regularly hacked, even before charges were filed against him.) And once Snowden received asylum status, even Putin would have trouble taking it away if Snowden got out of hand.<br />
<br />
The second reason Putin, a former KGB agent, is wary about Snowden is because Putin remains religiously faithful to the lifetime oath he took: Never give away state secrets. Whatever initial gratification he might have experienced when Snowden revealed U.S. government abuses was quickly replaced by a sense of disdain for Snowden, who betrayed his nation. For this reason alone, Putin clearly considers Snowden a traitor, not a hero.<br />
<br />
Putin put it best in 2010, when he spoke of a Russian informant who gave away 10 sleeper agents in the U.S.: "Traitors are swine. … The lives of traitors always end badly." And this is precisely why Putin said that the sooner Snowden leaves Russia, the better.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/why-putin-despises-snowden/483368.html</span></span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com402tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-64007572942726416602013-07-15T18:59:00.001-07:002013-07-15T19:00:01.430-07:00On Crimes Against Western Muslims. <br />
<br />
<b>[Special Focus]: Matthew Harwood’s Must Read Article On US Laws & American-Muslims</b><br />
<br />
<br />
Source: Le Monde Diplomatique<br />
<br />
<br />
For a British-focus report see the post below on the rise of
‘domestic terror’ attacks against Muslims [by white-extremists] in
persons (check for more posts by typing ‘Woolwich’ on our blog search
space) and places of gatherings (mosques, community centres etc: the
first bomb attack was also in the West Midalnds).<br />
The study ‘Mapping Muslims’ (see the article below for the link to the study in full is a must read for all Muslims).<br />
<br />
The article is truly a must-read for all Muslims.<br />
<h1 class="crayon article-titre-6890 entry-title">
Political violence and privilege</h1>
<div class="crayon article-soustitre-6890 soustitre">
Why violent right-wing extremism doesn’t scare Americans</div>
<div class="surlignable">
<div class="lesauteurs">
</div>
<div class="lesauteurs">
by Matthew Harwood</div>
<div class="lesauteurs">
</div>
<div class="crayon article-texte-6890 texte entry-content">
<i>The evangelical Christians of Greenville County, South Carolina, are afraid.</i><br />
<br />
There has been talk of informants and undercover agents luring young,
conservative evangelicals across the South into sham terrorist plots.
The feds and the area’s police want to eliminate a particularly extreme
strain of evangelical Christianity opposed to abortion, homosexuality,
and secularism, whose adherents sometimes use violent imagery and
speech. They fear such extreme talk could convince lone wolves or small
groups of Christian extremists to target abortion clinics, gay bars, or
shopping malls for attack. As a result, law enforcement has flooded
these communities with informants meant to provide an early warning
system for any signs of such “radicalization.”<br />
<br />
Converts, so important to the evangelical movement, are now looked
upon with suspicion — the more fervent, the more suspicious. In local
barbecue joints, diners, and watering holes, the proprietors are careful
not to let FOX News linger onscreen too long, fearing political
discussions that could be misconstrued. After all, you can never be too
sure who’s listening.<br />
<br />
<i>Come Sunday, the ministers who once railed against abortion, gay
marriage, and Hollywood as sure signs that the U.S. is descending into
godlessness will mute their messages. They will peer out at their
congregations and fear that some faces aren’t interested in the Gospel,
or maybe are a little too interested in every word. The once vibrant
political clubs at Bob Jones University have become lifeless as students
whisper about informants and fear a few misplaced words could leave
them in a government database or worse.</i><br />
<br />
Naturally, none of this is actually happening to evangelical
Christians in South Carolina, across the South, or anywhere else. It
would never be tolerated. Yet the equivalents of everything cited above
did happen in and around the New York metropolitan area — just not to
white, conservative, Christian Americans. But replace them with American
Muslims in the New York area and you have a perfect fit, as documented
by the recent report <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.law.cuny.edu/academics/clinics/immigration/clear/Mapping-Muslims.pdf" rel="external"><i>Mapping Muslims</i></a>. And New York is hardly alone.<br />
<br />
Since 9/11, American law enforcement has taken a disproportionate
interest in American Muslims across the country, seeing a whole
community as a national security threat, particularly in California and
New York City. But here’s the thing: the facts that have been piling up
ever since that date don’t support such suspicion. Not at all.<br />
<br />
The numbers couldn’t be clearer: right-wing extremists have committed
far more acts of political violence since 1990 than American Muslims.
That law enforcement across the country hasn’t felt similarly compelled
to infiltrate and watch over conservative Christian communities in the
hopes of disrupting violent right-wing extremism confirms what American
Muslims know in their bones: to be different is to be suspect.<br />
<h3 class="spip">
Conducting suspicionless surveillance</h3>
In the aftermath of 9/11, law enforcement has infiltrated Muslim
American communities and spied on them in ways that would have outraged
Americans, had such tactics been used against Christian communities
after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, or after any of the other hate
crimes or anti-abortion-based acts of violence committed since then by
right-wing extremists.<br />
<br />
Documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests by the
American Civil Liberties Union make clear that FBI agents in California
<a class="spip_out" href="http://www.aclu.org/national-security/eye-fbi-exposing-misconduct-and-abuse-authority" rel="external">used</a>
community outreach programs to gather intelligence at mosques and other
local events, recording the opinions and associations of people not
suspected of any crime. In 2008, the FBI loosened its internal
guidelines further, allowing agents to <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-seeks-records-about-fbi-collection-racial-and-ethnic-data-29-states-and-dc" rel="external">collect</a> demographic information on ethnically concentrated communities and map them for intelligence and investigative purposes.<br />
There is no question that the most extreme example of such blanket,
suspicion-less surveillance has been conducted by the New York City
Police Department (NYPD). As <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.ap.org/Index/AP-In-The-News/NYPD" rel="external">revealed</a>
by the Associated Press, the NYPD’s Intelligence Division carried out a
secret surveillance program on the city’s varied Muslim communities
based on the erroneous belief that their religion makes them more
susceptible to violent radicalization.<br />
<br />
The program, which continues today, looks something like this, according to <i>Mapping Muslims</i>:
“rakers,” or undercover officers, are sent into neighborhoods to
identify “hot spots” — mosques, schools, restaurants, cafes, halal meat
shops, hookah bars — and told to chat up people to “gauge sentiment,”
while setting up “listening posts.” “Crawlers,” or informants, are then
recruited and sent to infiltrate mosques and religious events. They are
ordered to record what imams and congregants say and take note of who
attended services and meetings.<br />
<br />
These crawlers are encouraged to initiate “create and capture”
conversations with their targets, bringing up terrorism or some other
controversial topic, recording the response, and then sharing it with
the NYPD. The intelligence unit also went <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/18/nypd-monitored-muslim-stu_0_n_1286647.html" rel="external">mobile</a>,
checking out and infiltrating American-Muslim student groups from
Connecticut to New Jersey and even as far away as Pennsylvania.<br />
<br />
When news of the NYPD’s spying program broke, it shattered trust
within the city’s Muslim communities, giving rise to general suspicion
and fraying community ties of all sorts. This naturally raises the
question: How many terrorism plots were identified and disrupted thanks
to this widespread and suspicionless surveillance program? The answer:
none.<br />
<br />
Worse, the chief of the NYPD Intelligence Division <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2012/NYPD-Muslim-spying-led-to-no-leads-terror-cases" rel="external">admitted</a>
in sworn testimony last summer that the Muslim surveillance program did
not even generate a single criminal lead. The incredibly invasive,
rights-eroding program was a complete bust, a total waste of the
resources of the New York City Police Department.<br />
And that’s without even considering what is surely its most harmful
aspect: the likelihood that, at least in the short term, it has caused
irreparable damage to the Muslim community’s trust in the police.
Surveillance, concludes the <i>Mapping Muslims</i> report, “has stifled
constitutionally protected activity and destroyed trust between American
Muslim communities and the agencies charged with protecting them.”<br />
<br />
When people fear the police, tips dry up, potentially making the
community less safe. This is important, especially given that the
Muslim-American community has helped prevent, depending on whose figures
you use, from <a class="spip_out" href="http://homegrown.newamerica.net/about/tips-and-cooperation-muslim-communities-and-familes" rel="external">21%</a>-<a class="spip_out" href="http://www.mpac.org/assets/docs/publications/MPAC-Post-911-Terrorism-Data.pdf" rel="external">40%</a>
of all terrorism plots associated with Muslims since 9/11. That’s
grounds for cooperation, not alienation: a lesson that would have been
learned by a police department with strong ties to and trust in the
community.<br />
<h3 class="spip">
Numbers may not lie, but they sure can be ignored</h3>
The idea that American law enforcement’s mass surveillance of Muslim
communities is a necessary, if unfortunate, counterterrorism tool rests
with the empirically false notion that American Muslims are more prone
to political violence than other Americans.<br />
<br />
This is simply not true.<br />
<br />
According to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.start.umd.edu/start/publications/br/ECDB_FarRight_FactSheet.pdf" rel="external">right-wing terrorists</a>
perpetrated 145 “ideologically motivated homicide incidents” between
1990 and 2010. In that same period, notes START, “al Qaeda affiliates,
al Qaeda-inspired extremists, and secular Arab Nationalists committed 27
homicide incidents in the United States involving 16 perpetrators or
groups of perpetrators.”<br />
<br />
Last November, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center published <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ChallengersFromtheSidelines.pdf" rel="external">a report</a>
on America’s violent far-right extremists. Its numbers were even more
startling than START’s. “The consolidated dataset,” writes report author
Arie Perliger, “includes information on 4,420 violent incidents that
occurred between 1990 and 2012 within U.S. borders, and which caused 670
fatalities and injured 3,053 people.” Perliger also found that the
number of far-right attacks had jumped 400% in the first 11 years of the
21st century.<br />
<br />
It’s highly probable that the FBI drastically undercounts instances
of terrorism perpetrated by right-wing extremists because of cultural
double standards. As the New America Foundation’s Peter Bergen has <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/07/opinion/bergen-terrorism-wisconsin/index.html" rel="external">noted</a>,
attacks associated with anti-abortion or white supremacist ideologies
are rarely, if ever, counted as terrorist attacks. A typical example:
the <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/06/us/wisconsin-temple-shooting" rel="external">massacre</a> of worshippers at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in August 2012 by a white supremacist.<br />
<br />
Simply put, there is an unhealthy obsession among American law
enforcement agencies (and American society at large) with stopping
violence perpetrated by American Muslims, one that is wholly out of line
with the numbers. There is no doubt that the events of 9/11 play into
this — never mind that not one hijacker was American — but there is
something much darker at work here as well. It’s the fear of a people, a
culture, and a religion that most Americans do not understand and
therefore see as alien and dangerous.<br />
The fear of the “other” has wiggled its way into the core of another American generation.<br />
<h3 class="spip">
“While vile, all of this speech is protected by the first amendment”</h3>
Widespread surveillance and suspicion aren’t the only things American
Muslims have to worry about, feel frustrated by, or fear. They can also
point to the way fellow American Muslims are treated in the larger
criminal justice system.<br />
<br />
Since 9/11, the FBI has used tactics that clearly raise the issue of
entrapment in arresting hundreds of Muslims inside the U.S. on
terrorism-related charges. Investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson,
author of <i><a class="spip_out" href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1935439618/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" rel="external">The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism</a></i>, did the hard work of compiling and analyzing <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/terror-trials-numbers" rel="external">all of these cases</a> between September 11, 2001, and August 2011. What he found was alarming.<br />
“Of the 508 defendants, 243 had been targeted through an FBI
informant, 158 had been caught in an FBI terrorism sting, and 49 had
encountered an agent provocateur. Most of the people who didn’t face off
against an informant weren’t directly involved with terrorism at all,
but were instead Category II offenders, small-time criminals with
distant links to terrorists overseas. Seventy-two of these Category II
offenders had been charged with making false statements, while 121 had
been prosecuted for immigration violations. Of the 508 cases, I could
count on one hand the number of actual terrorists… who posed a direct
and immediate threat to the United States.”<br />
<br />
Those numbers, however damning, still don’t fully reflect the
inequity American Muslims face within the U.S. criminal justice system
when it comes to terrorism allegations. An analysis of two separate but
similar cases offers a clear sense of how terrorism allegations
targeting the American right and American Muslims in the criminal
justice system can end with very different results. The common question
running through two federal terrorism prosecutions — one against a group
of seven anti-government right-wing Christian paranoids, better known
as the Hutaree Militia, and the other against a Massachusetts pharmacist
and Islamic radical — is what kind of speech is protected by the First
Amendment and just who can rest safely under its shield?<br />
In late March 2010, FBI raids led to the arrest of members of the
Hutaree Militia across the Midwest. A Christian Patriot militia, Hutaree
members believed that the end of the world was near and local, state,
and federal law enforcement officers were actually “foot soldiers” in
the “New World Order.” According to the<a class="spip_out" href="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/03/29/stone.pdf" rel="external">federal indictment</a>,
Hutaree leader David Brian Stone, Sr., planned the murder of a local
police officer. But that was just to be the bait. When law enforcement
from across the nation attended his burial, the Hutaree would attack the
funeral procession with improvised explosive devices and other homemade
bombs, sparking a revolt against the government.<br />
<br />
Seven Hutaree members were charged with at least four felonies,
including seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to use weapons of mass
destruction. Like many post-9/11 counterterrorism investigations, the
case was built via an undercover FBI agent, primarily by using the
violent, antigovernment statements some of the accused made as proof
that a terrorist conspiracy existed. The defendants all filed motions
for a judgment of acquittal, arguing that the government didn’t have
enough evidence to sustain a conviction.<br />
In March 2012, Judge Victoria Roberts agreed with the motions of the
defendants, acquitting all seven on the most serious charges. (David
Stone, Sr., and his son were <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/08/us-usa-security-hutaree-idUSBRE8770ZQ20120808" rel="external">convicted</a> of weapons-related offenses and were sentenced to time served.) Read <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.volokh.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/hutaree.pdf" rel="external">Roberts’s decision</a> and it’s hard to disagree with her ruling, which concludes that the plot was all talk among paranoid people.<br />
<br />
Referring to Stone Sr.’s anti-government statements, Roberts writes,
“While vile, all of this speech is protected by the First Amendment.”
Ultimately, Roberts concluded, the government’s case was far too flimsy.
“The plethora of inferences the Government asks this Court to make are
in excess of what the law allows,” she wrote. “But the Government
crosses the line from inference to pure speculation a number of times in
this case. Charges built on speculation cannot be sustained.”<br />
<br />
Can anyone doubt, however, that if David Stone, Sr., had an
Islamic-sounding name, he, his two sons, and the four other codefendants
would likely be spending the rest of their lives in a federal
penitentiary?<br />
<h3 class="spip">
Does the first amendment have a blind spot for Muslims?</h3>
Consider the case of 29-year-old Tarek Mehanna. In April 2012, he was
convicted of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda,
providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to commit murder in
a foreign country, and lesser charges like lying to the FBI.<br />
<br />
According to the federal government’s case, Mehanna and two
associates went to a terrorist training camp in Yemen in 2004 with the
intention of later making their way to Iraq to resist the U.S.
occupation of that country. Mehanna countered that he went to Yemen to
study Islam and learn Arabic. Whatever Mehanna intended, we know that,
in fact, he never made it to any terrorist training camp.<br />
<br />
That, however, wasn’t the alleged “crime” the FBI was most interested
in. On his return from Yemen, Mehanna began translating into English
and posting jihadist videos and documents on the Internet advocating
that Muslims defend their lands against American imperialism. One video
was particularly gruesome. It showed the mutilation of the remains of
U.S. personnel in Iraq after the reported rape of an Iraqi girl by an
American service member. After watching it, an associate asked Mehanna
whether there was a way to try the U.S. serviceman suspected of the
crime. Mehanna replied, “Who cares? Texas BBQ is the way to go.”<br />
However grotesque or cruel Mehanna’s Internet activity or talk may
have been, it all constituted First-Amendment protected activity. The
government, however, argued that Mehanna’s online activities materially
supported al-Qaeda, even though Mehanna was known to have rejected
al-Qaeda’s worldview. He did not, among other things, believe civilians
should be targeted in response to the actions of their government
abroad. <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/a-dangerous-mind.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" rel="external">His belief</a> was clear enough: “Those who fight Muslims may be fought, not those who have the same nationality as those who fight.”<br />
<br />
The distinction didn’t matter. Mehanna is currently serving a
171/2-year sentence in a federal supermax prison. His thought crime:
engaging in the same kind of violent but constitutionally-protected
online advocacy regularly engaged in by white supremacists and
anti-government militias on the radical Right.<br />
That, to say the least, is the benefit of the doubt American Muslims
cannot take for granted in the United States more than a decade after
9/11. White Christians rarely have to worry that an informant or
undercover agent has infiltrated their churches, their neighborhoods, or
their student groups. They never have to fear someone watching them and
taking notes. They never have to question whether the new person who
seems so friendly may be just a little too friendly, just a little too
provocative. They don’t have to think twice before they say or post
online something political, controversial, or even violently angry. None
of this is their responsibility, their burden in life, just because
some random person within their community lashes out in the name of God.
And that’s how it should be, for everyone.<br />
<br />
<i><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://highfieldsoffice.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/on-crimes-against-western-muslims-special-focus-matthew-harwoods-must-read-article-on-us-laws-american-muslims-source-le-monde-diplomatique/</span></span></i></div>
</div>
whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com413tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-8332748277589312012013-07-15T17:00:00.002-07:002013-07-15T17:00:20.532-07:009/11 could be insurance fraud as “trial” of conspiring duo begins in NY today<span style="color: white;">.</span><br /><br />By Dr. Kevin Barrett<br />
<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Is this the world's worst case of insurance fraud...ever?</blockquote>
<br /><br />That's what many are saying, as the world's biggest real-estate swindler and the world's most corrupt judge meet in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. At issue: billions of dollars in loot from the demolition of the World Trade Center complex on September 11th, 2001.<br /><br />World Trade Center owner Larry Silverstein - who confessed on national television to “pulling” World Trade Center Building 7 - will appear in the courtroom of Judge Alvin Hellerstein at 500 Pearl St. in New York City. The non-jury trial, which is expected to last three days, will decide whether Silverstein is entitled to recover $3.5 billion from airlines and airport-related companies, in addition to the $4.9 billion he has already received for his “losses” on September 11th.<br /><br />The question on everyone's mind is: Why is Silverstein claiming that airliners destroyed his buildings, when he has already confessed to demolishing at least one of them himself? In the 2002 PBS documentary “America Rebuilds,” Silverstein admitted to complicity in the controlled demolition of WTC-7, a 47-story skyscraper that dropped into its own footprint in 6.5 seconds.<br /><br />The mysterious destruction of Building 7 has become the Rosetta Stone of 9/11. Virtually all independent experts who have studied the case, including thousands of architects and engineers, agree that the government's explanation - that a few small office fires somehow destroyed WTC-7 - is a non-starter. Building 7, these experts say, was obviously taken down in a controlled demolition, as Silverstein himself admitted. (A nationwide ad campaign called “Re-Think 9/11” will remind millions of Americans about Building 7 this September.)<br /><br />Despite his confession to demolishing his own building, Silverstein has already received $861 million from insurers for Building 7 alone, as well as over $4 billion for the rest of the Trade Center complex. That $861 million for WTC-7 was paid on the basis of Silverstein's claim that airplanes were somehow responsible for making Building 7, which was not hit by any plane, disappear at free-fall acceleration.<br /><br /> The insurance companies are not openly accusing Silverstein of insurance fraud, presumably because doing so would threaten to demolish the 9/11 cover-up and bring down the US and Israeli governments at free-fall speed. But they have gone so far as to call Silverstein's demand for more money “absurd,” a considerable understatement.<br /><br /><br /><br />The insurance companies claim that Silverstein's demands amount to “double recovery.” They say that Silverstein was already paid $4.9 billion - vastly more than the paltry $115 million or so that he and his backers paid for the complex just weeks before it was demolished - so why is he asking for another $3.5 billion? Silverstein's answer: He needs the money.<br /><br />And does he ever. He was originally demanding an extra $11 billion, before Hellerstein capped it at $3.5 billion.<br /><br />The insurers have not mentioned the fact that the World Trade Center Towers were condemned for asbestos in early 2001, just months before Silverstein bought them in July, six weeks prior to their demolition. They have not mentioned that Silverstein doubled the insurance coverage when he purchased the Trade Center. They have not mentioned that Silverstein hardballed his insurers to change the coverage to “cash payout.” They have not mentioned that Silverstein engineered his purchase of the Trade Center through fellow Zionist billionaire Lewis Eisenberg, Chair of the Republican National Committee and head of the New York Port Authority.<br /><br />As Christopher Bollyn wrote in 2002:<br /><br />“Silverstein and Eisenberg have both held leadership positions with the United Jewish Appeal (UJA), a billion dollar Zionist 'charity' organization. Silverstein is a former chairman of the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, Inc. This is an umbrella organization which raises hundreds of millions of dollars every year for its network of hundreds of member Zionist agencies in the United States and Israel.”<br /><br />According to Ha'aretz, Silverstein is a close friend of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. They speak on the phone every weekend.<br /><br />The insurance companies have likewise neglected to mention that after doubling his insurance coverage immediately before 9/11, Silverstein re-doubled his winnings after 9/11 by claiming double indemnity. According to Silverstein's spokesman, “the two hijacked airliners that struck the 110-story twin towers Sept. 11 were separate 'occurrences' for insurance purposes, entitling him to collect twice on $3.6 billion of policies.” The bizarre double-indemnity claim was approved in 2004.<br /><br />Additionally, the insurers have failed to mention that on the morning of 9/11, Silverstein and his daughter both failed to show up for their daily breakfast at Windows on the World restaurant atop the North Tower. Both offered flimsy pretexts - Silverstein claiming that he had suddenly remembered a dermatologist's appointment.<br /><br />How has Silverstein managed to get away with murder, in the most obvious case of insurance fraud ever?<br /><br />Thanks to his partner in crime, Judge Alvin Hellerstein.<br /><br />Hellerstein's courtroom is Ground Zero in the cover-up of the crimes of 9/11. Virtually all 9/11 litigation has been funneled through his courtroom, including Ellen Mariani's recent lawsuit against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and others.<br /><br />Like Silverstein and Eisenberg, Hellerstein is a rabid Zionist with close ties to Israel. The judge's son and sister both emigrated from the US to orthodox Zionist settlements in the Occupied Territories.<br /><br />Investigative journalist Christopher Bollyn writes: “Hellerstein's son is an Israeli lawyer who emigrated to Israel in 2001 and whose law firm works for and with the Rothschild-funded Mossad company responsible for the 9-11 terror attacks.”<br /><br />Bollyn notes that Hellerstein's son, an Israeli lawyer, represents “the Mossad-controlled airport security firm named International Consultants on Targeted Security (ICTS) N.V., which is the owner of Huntleigh U.S.A., the passenger screening company that checked the passengers that boarded the aircraft at the key airports on 9-11.”<br /><br />Additionally, Bollyn writes, “Both Alvin Hellerstein and his son Joseph worked for the well-known Jewish law firm of Stroock, Stroock & Lavan before moving to the positions they now hold...Stroock, Stroock & Lavan played a key role in the setting up of 9-11...Stroock has a long history of representing the Rothschilds and other high-level Zionists.”<br /><br />Will New York City 9/11 skeptics protest the Silverstein-Hellerstein trial this Monday through Wednesday?<br /><br />Will truth and justice ever triumph?<br /><br />In order to triumph, truth and justice will have to defeat the world's wealthiest and most powerful criminal network.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /><br />Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist, is one of America's best-known critics of the War on Terror. Dr. Barrett has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications. Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin, where he ran for Congress in 2008. He is the co-founder of the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance, and author of the books Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie (2007) and Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters (2009). His website is www.truthjihad.com.<br /><br /><span style="color: blue;">http://presstv.com/detail/2013/07/15/313839/911-incident-insurance-fraud/</span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com198tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-36184026216873133342013-07-14T18:43:00.004-07:002013-07-14T18:43:57.044-07:00Der Spiegel Encrypted E-mails Interview with whistleblower Edward Snowden<span class="is-active"><strong><span style="color: white;">.</span> </strong></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Part 1: The NSA and Its Willing Helpers<br /><br />Part 2: 'US Multinationals Should Not Be Trusted' (See below)</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<span class="is-active"><strong> </strong> <span style="font-size: large;"><b>- The NSA and Its Willing Helpers</b></span></span><br />
<span class="is-active"> </span> <br />
<strong>In an interview conducted using encrypted e-mails, whistleblower
Edward Snowden discusses the power of the NSA, how it is "in bed
together with the Germans" and the vast scope of Internet spying
conducted by the United States and Britain.</strong><br />
<br />
<strong> </strong>Shortly before he became a household name around the world as a
whistleblower, Edward Snowden answered a comprehensive list of
questions. They originated from Jacob Appelbaum, 30, a developer of
encryption and security software. Appelbaum provides training to
international human rights groups and journalists on how to use the
Internet anonymously.<br />
<br />
Appelbaum first became more broadly known to the public after he spoke
on behalf of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at a hacker conference in
New York in 2010. Together with Assange and other co-authors, Appelbaum
recently released a compilation of interviews in book form under the
title "Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet."<br />
<br />
Appelbaum wound up on the radar of American authorities in the course
of their investigation into the WikiLeaks revelations. They have since
served legal orders to Twitter, Google and Sonic to hand over
information about his accounts. But Appelbaum describes his relationship
with WikiLeaks as being "ambiguous," and explains here how he was able
to pose questions to Snowden.<br />
<br />
"In mid-May, documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras contacted me,"
Appelbaum said. "She told me she was in contact with a possible
anonymous National Security Agency (NSA) source who had agreed to be
interviewed by her."<br />
<br />
"She was in the process of putting questions together and thought
that asking some specific technical questions was an important part of
the source verification process. One of the goals was to determine
whether we were really dealing with an NSA whistleblower. I had deep
concerns of COINTELPRO-style entrapment. We sent our securely encrypted
questions to our source. I had no knowledge of Edward Snowden's identity
before he was revealed to the world in Hong Kong. He also didn't know
who I was. I expected that when the anonymity was removed, we would find
a man in his sixties."<br />
<br />
"The following questions are excerpted from a larger interview that
covered numerous topics, many of which are highly technical in nature.
Some of the questions have been reordered to provide the required
context. The questions focus almost entirely on the NSA's capabilities
and activities. It is critical to understand that these questions were
not asked in a context that is reactive to this week's or even this
month's events. They were asked in a relatively quiet period, when
Snowden was likely enjoying his last moments in a Hawaiian paradise -- a
paradise he abandoned so that every person on the planet might come to
understand the current situation as he does."<br />
<br />
"At a later point, I also had direct contact with Edward Snowden in
which I revealed my own identity. At that time, he expressed his
willingness to have his feelings and observations on these topics
published when I thought the time was right."<br />
<br />
<hr noshade="1" size="1" />
<i>Editor's note: The following excerpts are taken from the original
English-language version of the interview. Potential differences in
language between the German and English versions can be explained by the
fact that we have largely preserved the technical terms used by Snowden
in this transcript. Explanations for some of the terminology used by
Snowden as well as editor's notes are provided in the form of footnotes.</i><br />
<i> </i>
<br />
<b>Interviewer:</b> What is the mission of America's National Security Agency (NSA) -- and how is the job it does compatible with the rule of law?<br />
<br />
<b>Snowden:</b> They're tasked to know everything of importance that
happens outside of the United States. That's a significant challenge.
When it is made to appear as though not knowing everything about
everyone is an existential crisis, then you feel that bending the rules
is okay. Once people hate you for bending those rules, breaking them
becomes a matter of survival.<br />
<br />
<b>Interviewer:</b> Are German authorities or German politicians involved in the NSA surveillance system?<br />
<br />
<b>Snowden:</b> Yes, of course. We're<sup>
<b>1</b>
</sup> in bed together with the Germans the same as with most other Western countries. For example, we<sup>
<b>2</b>
</sup> tip them off when someone we want is flying through their
airports (that we for example, have learned from the cell phone of a
suspected hacker's girlfriend in a totally unrelated third country --
and they hand them over to us. They<sup>
<b>3</b>
</sup> don't ask to justify how we know something, and vice versa, to
insulate their political leaders from the backlash of knowing how
grievously they're violating global privacy.<br />
<br />
<b>Interviewer:</b> But if details about this system are now exposed, who will be charged?<br />
<br />
<b>Snowden:</b> In front of US courts? I'm not sure if you're serious.
An investigation found the specific people who authorized the
warrantless wiretapping of millions and millions of communications,
which per count would have resulted in the longest sentences in world
history, and our highest official simply demanded the investigation be
halted. Who "can" be brought up on charges is immaterial when the rule
of law is not respected. Laws are meant for you, not for them.<br />
<br />
<b>Interviewer:</b> Does the NSA partner with other nations, like Israel?<br />
<br />
<b>Snowden:</b> Yes. All the time. The NSA has a massive body responsible for this: FAD, the Foreign Affairs Directorate.<br />
<br />
<b>Interviewer:</b> Did the NSA help to create Stuxnet? (<i>Stuxnet is the computer worm that was deployed against the Iranian nuclear program.</i>)<br />
<br />
<b>Snowden:</b> NSA and Israel co-wrote it.<br />
<br />
<b>Interviewer:</b> What are some of the big surveillance programs that are active today and how do international partners aid the NSA?<br />
<br />
<b>Snowden:</b> In some cases, the so-called Five Eye Partners<sup>
<b>4</b>
</sup> go beyond what NSA itself does. For instance, the UK's General
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has a system called TEMPORA. TEMPORA
is the signals intelligence community's first "full-take" Internet
buffer that doesn't care about content type and pays only marginal
attention to the Human Rights Act. It snarfs everything, in a rolling
buffer to allow retroactive investigation without missing a single bit.
Right now the buffer can hold three days of traffic, but that's being
improved. Three days may not sound like much, but remember that that's
not metadata. "Full-take" means it doesn't miss anything, and ingests
the entirety of each circuit's capacity. If you send a single ICMP
packet<sup>
<b>5 </b>
</sup>and it routes through the UK, we get it. If you download something
and the CDN (Content Delivery Network) happens to serve from the UK, we
get it. If your sick daughter's medical records get processed at a
London call center … well, you get the idea.<br />
<br />
<b>Interviewer:</b> Is there a way of circumventing that?<br />
<br />
<div class="spMInline">
</div>
<b>Snowden:</b> As a general rule, so long as you have any choice at
all, you should never route through or peer with the UK under any
circumstances. Their fibers are radioactive, and even the Queen's
selfies to the pool boy get logged.<br />
<br />
<b>Interviewer:</b> Do the NSA and its partners across the globe do full dragnet data collection for telephone calls, text and data?<br />
<br />
<b>Snowden:</b> Yes, but how much they get depends on the capabilities
of the individual collection sites -- i.e., some circuits have fat pipes
but tiny collection systems, so they have to be selective. This is more
of a problem for overseas collection sites than domestic<sup>
<b>6</b> </sup>ones, which is what makes domestic collection so terrifying. NSA isn't limited by power, space and cooling PSC constraints.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>Part 2: 'US Multinationals Should Not Be Trusted' </strong><br />
<br />
<div class="article-section clearfix">
<b>Interviewer:</b> The NSA is building a massive new data center in Utah. What is its purpose?<br />
<br />
<b>Snowden:</b> The massive data repositories.<br />
<br />
<b>Interviewer:</b> How long is the collected data being stored for?<br />
<br />
<b>Snowden:</b> As of right now, full-take collection ages off quickly ( a few days) due to its size unless an analyst has "tasked"<b>
<sup>7</sup>
</b> a target or communication, in which the tasked communications get
stored "forever and ever," regardless of policy, because you can always
get a waiver. The metadata<sup>
<b>8</b>
</sup> also ages off, though less quickly. The NSA wants to be at the
point where at least all of the metadata is permanently stored. In most
cases, content isn't as valuable as metadata because you can either
re-fetch content based on the metadata or, if not, simply task all
future communications of interest for permanent collection since the
metadata tells you what out of their data stream you actually want.<br />
<br />
<b>Interviewer:</b> Do private companies help the NSA?<br />
<br />
<b>Snowden:</b> Yes. Definitive proof of this is the hard part because
the NSA considers the identities of telecom collaborators to be the
jewels in their crown of omniscience. As a general rule, US-based
multinationals should not be trusted until they prove otherwise. This is
sad, because they have the capability to provide the best and most
trusted services in the world if they actually desire to do so. To
facilitate this, civil liberties organizations should use this
disclosure to push them to update their contracts to include enforceable
clauses indicating they aren't spying on you, and they need to
implement technical changes. If they can get even one company to play
ball, it will change the security of global communications forever. If
they won't, consider starting that company.<br />
<br />
<b>Interviewer:</b> Are there companies that refuse to cooperate with the NSA?<br />
<br />
<b>Snowden:</b> Also yes, but I'm not aware of any list. This category
will get a lot larger if the collaborators are punished by consumers in
the market, which should be considered Priority One for anyone who
believes in freedom of thought.<br />
<br />
<b>Interviewer:</b> What websites should a person avoid if they don't want to get targeted by the NSA?<br />
<b>Snowden:</b> Normally you'd be specifically selected for targeting
based on, for example, your Facebook or webmail content. The only one I
personally know of that might get you hit untargeted are jihadi forums. <br />
<b>Interviewer:</b> What happens after the NSA targets a user?<br />
<br />
<b>Snowden:</b> They're just owned. An analyst will get a daily (or
scheduled based on exfiltration summary) report on what changed on the
system, PCAPS<sup>
<b>9</b>
</sup> of leftover data that wasn't understood by the automated
dissectors, and so forth. It's up to the analyst to do whatever they
want at that point -- the target's machine doesn't belong to them
anymore, it belongs to the US government.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>
<b>Footnotes:</b>
</i>
<br />
<sup>
<b>1</b>
</sup> "We're" refers to the NSA.<br />
<sup>
<b>2</b> </sup>"We" refers to the<i> </i>US intelligence service apparatus<br />
<sup>
<b>3</b>
</sup> "They" refers to the other authorities.<br />
<sup>
<b>4 </b>
</sup>The "Five Eye Partners" is a reference to the intelligence
services of United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.<br />
<sup>
<b>5</b>
</sup> "ICMP" is a reference to Internet Control Message Protocol. The
answer provided here by Snowden was highly technical, but it was clear
that he was referring to all data packets sent to or from Britain. <br />
<sup>
<b>6 </b>
</sup>"Domestic" is a reference to the United States. <br />
<b>
<sup>7</sup>
</b>In this context, "tasked" refers to the full collection and storage
of metadata and content for any matched identifiers by the NSA or its
partners. <br />
<sup>
<b>8</b>
</sup> "Metadata" can include telephone numbers, IP addresses and
connection times, among other things. Wired Magazine offers a solid
primer on <a class="spTextlinkExt text-link-ext" href="http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/phew-it-was-just-metadata-not-think-again/" target="_blank" title="Wired: Phew, NSA Is Just Collecting Metadata">metadata</a>.<br />
9 "PCAPS" is an abbreviation of the term "packet capture".<br />
</div>
<i>Interview conducted by Jacob Appelbaum and Laura Poitras</i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-whistleblower-edward-snowden-on-global-spying-a-910006.html </span></span></i>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com180tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-41932182323025427592013-07-14T17:51:00.005-07:002013-07-14T17:51:37.720-07:00The Israeli Vigilante Movement Spewing Hate In Occupied Palestine<span style="color: white;">. </span><br />
<br />
Translated by Charlotte Fichou<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Cases of violent vandalism are multiplying against Arab villages and places of worship. </b></blockquote>
<br />
Standing in front of his house in this Arab-Israeli village west of Jerusalem,
Ibrahim Hatem stares in disbelief: “I don’t understand. I am Israeli. I
like this country. On my street, my neighbors are all Jewish.”
<br />
On June 18, Ibrahim Hatem became yet another victim of the “price
tag” movement, which has been gaining momentum lately and performing
acts of vandalism all over the country. In Abu Gosh, about 30 cars had
their tires slashed during the night. Graffiti reading “Arabs out,” and
“racism or assimilation” was spray-painted on the walls.<br />
<br />
And yet, of all Arab villages, Abu Gosh is perhaps the most loyal to Israel – it was the only Palestinian village to
side with Israel in 1948. “If those who committed these crimes want to
make the country implode, they chose just the right place to do it,”
worries Hatem.<br />
<br />
This attack on a symbol of Arab-Israeli coexistence puts the
government in an increasingly uncomfortable situation. On June 16, Prime
Minister Benyamin Netanyahu refused to classify the authors of this racist vandalism as
“terrorists,” against the wishes of Justice Minister Tzipi Livni who
had been advocating for the classification of the attacks as “acts of
terror.”<br />
<br />
In the past month, attacks have been multiplying in Israel and in the
West Bank. They have been attributed to Jewish radicals from the
Hilltop Youth movement, a group of second-generation settlers,
proponents of a “Greater Israel” – from the Mediterranean Sea to the
Jordan River. The modus operandi is usually the same: slashed tires,
burnt cars and “price tag” graffiti, which often mention Eviatar
Borovsky, a father of five from the West Bank settlement of Yitzhak who
was stabbed by a Palestinian while waiting for a bus on April 30.<br />
Acts of revenge between Palestinians and West Bank settlers are
nothing new – the expression “price tag” first appeared in 2008. Their
objective is to respond eye for eye to
every attack against Israeli settlements. They justify their actions by
saying they are “exacting a price” after acts perpetrated by the
Palestinians against them or after moves by the Israeli security forces
to dismantle illegal settlement outposts.<br />
<br />
The concept was theorized in a 2009 book called <i>Torat Hamelech</i><i> </i>(“The King’s Torah”), written by extremist rabbis who argued that killing non-Jews is
acceptable as part of a religious war. Coincidence? After this
inflammatory book was published, the number of attacks against
Palestinians went up 144% between 2009 and 2011.<br />
<br />
<b>Targeting places of worship</b><br />
<br />
In addition to these assaults, what is most striking is how fast the
“price tag” concept has been spreading. “It has now largely overtaken
its initial concept of taking back the West Bank, and even the issue of
settlements. It has become a way to express the hatred of minorities,”
explains Barak Weiss, coordinator of the Tag Me’ir group, which fights
against this growing phenomenon. Since September 2011, he says, 25
“price tag” attacks have been perpetrated inside Israel’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Line_%28Israel%29" target="_blank">Green Line</a>, particularly in Arab-Israeli towns.<br />
Since the beginning of 2012, more and more of these attacks have been
targeting places of worship, including Christian churches. On May 31,
2013, the phrase “Christians are monkeys” was spray-painted on the walls
of the Benedictine Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. On June
13 in Tel Aviv, tombstones were vandalized in the Christian Orthodox
cemetery, in the historic district of Jaffa.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNyxd-l2UHqyW-AZCa2y72FiKOa8quHytOck68WTzOLCaQTsfP7Auu2gB-0mRpfDBp0spiJ5E4GXI2pVLCCe7z0XOABinYQN4HXfAq0IN280xxGhay2poZnK8Uliybi-1ScD8W8O9wkog/s1600/476058aravim.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNyxd-l2UHqyW-AZCa2y72FiKOa8quHytOck68WTzOLCaQTsfP7Auu2gB-0mRpfDBp0spiJ5E4GXI2pVLCCe7z0XOABinYQN4HXfAq0IN280xxGhay2poZnK8Uliybi-1ScD8W8O9wkog/s400/476058aravim.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><i>"Arabs out" price tag in Abu Gosh - Photo: reshettv</i></span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Christian authorities are starting to worry about this new development:
“Anti-Christian acts have always existed. What is new is that they are
happening within a political protest movement. But what do West Bank
settlements have to do with churches?” asks Father David Neuhaus, a
patriarchal vicar in Jerusalem.<br />
On the other hand, we are also witnessing a shift in the way the
“price tag” activists are acting out. At first, it was mostly impulsive
acts of vengeance, but now we are seeing a spate of well thought-out and
planned attacks. “There hasn’t been any particular event recently
against West Bank settlements,” Weiss points out.<br />
<br />
This development has
not escaped Prime Minister Netanyahu. On June 2, he condemned the
“Racism against Israeli Arabs and acts of hooliganism against
Palestinians, without any provocation or justification.”<br />
Aside from these official condemnations,
Israel has not done much to put an end to the movement. The Israeli
police, who has been accused of doing nothing, tried show its good faith
by announcing that in the past 18 months, it had opened 788
investigations, arrested 276 people and indicted 154 of them.<br />
Israeli NGOs however remain skeptical about these numbers. According
to B’Tselem, over the past ten years, only a dozen of people have been
charged for these attacks. So far, none of them have yet been brought to
trial.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"> http://www.lemonde.fr/</span></span><br />
<br />whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com295tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-3521668196456565512013-07-13T16:35:00.003-07:002013-07-13T16:35:47.535-07:00America Needs an Enemy in the Arctic<span style="color: #eeeeee;">. </span><br /><br />
By James R. Holmes<br />
<br />
<span itemprop="articleBody"></span><br />
On these hot days is the mad blood stirring, and beckoning the Naval Diplomat's attention to … the frosty Arctic!<br />
<br />
Last May the Obama administration released the nation's first National <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/nat_arctic_strategy.pdf">Strategy for the Arctic Region</a>. It's worth your time. For me, perusing the document confirms that the U.S. Coast Guard is the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/175378045/op-ed-its-time-to-beef-up-the-u-s-coast-guard">logical executor</a>
of U.S. strategy. The functions delineated in the document conform
ideally to the coast guard's "para-naval" — political scientist <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Navies_and_Foreign_Policy.html?id=DEgOAAAAQAAJ">Ken Booth's term</a> — character as a sea service.<br />
<br />
The strategy's framers sketch three main "lines of effort" in polar
climes. They direct U.S. agencies to bolster the nation's security
interests, developing the strategic wherewithal to monitor events
throughout the region, upholding freedom of the seas, and providing for
energy security. The document commits Washington to exercise stewardship
over the region, conserving its resources, protecting the environment,
and conducting scientific research. And it calls for international
cooperation through forums such as the Arctic Council and the UN
Convention on the Law of the Sea. These are coast-guard functions <i>par excellence</i>, well suited to a force that exists mainly to manage events off American shores.<br />
<br />
Is the National Strategy for the Arctic Region really a strategy, though? Sure, in a generic sense. Admiral Wylie <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.C._Wylie">defines strategy as a</a>
"plan of action designed in order to achieve some end; a purpose
together with a system of measures for its accomplishment." The Arctic
strategy is light on specific ways and means for accomplishing its
goals, but it gets over Wylie's bar with perhaps a micron to spare.<br />
<br />
It's not a strategy in the traditional sense, though. It makes little
mention of the potential for international competition in the Arctic
basin. It seemingly assumes away the prospect of interaction between
competitors determined to get their way. Clausewitz, of course, depicts
strategy as a collision of living forces, as a duel on a grand scale, or
as two wrestlers constantly striving to throw each other.<br />
<br />
Assuming the ocean will remain tranquil also deprives the strategy of
a focal point. Whether strategy demands an adversary is a long-running
debate in my field. The drift of opinion seems to be: yes. That's
certainly your gentle scribe's view. Even Wylie, having advanced his
rather anodyne definition, spends the bulk of his book <i>Military</i> <i>Strategy</i> probing the ins and outs of martial strife.<br />
<br />
Washington, then, should refuse to let the non-military challenges
lurking in the Arctic theater obscure the likelihood of competition
driven by the Thucydidean motives of fear, honor, and interest. Maybe
the powers fronting on the polar sea can resolve their conflicts of
interest amicably, factoring in the interests of stakeholders to the
south. Maybe a navigable Arctic will remain free of the elemental
passions that have impelled human actions throughout history. But let's
not succumb to wishful thinking.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"> http://thediplomat.com/the-naval-diplomat/2013/07/12/america-needs-an-enemy-in-the-arctic/</span></span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-38477107440199467522013-07-13T14:03:00.003-07:002013-07-13T14:03:22.889-07:00The Snowden Asylum Saga<span style="color: white;"> .</span><br />
<br />
by NORMAN POLLACK<br /><br />The NYT reports on the wholly expected: US application of pressure to prevent Latin American nations from granting asylum to Edward Snowden. Why not? First in the techniques of rendition, waterboarding, habeas-corpus suspension, data-mining, overall contempt for civil liberties, and presided over by the “Assassination” President who authorizes aerial murder at his Tuesday evening soirees with a stellar cast of national-security advisers, all with a supine, bankrupt Left looking idly on. With a national resume like that, the only surprise is not ordering a Special Ops mission to Moscow to kidnap Snowden.<br /><br />How dare Snowden spill the beans! Every hegemon worth its salt declares itself a National-Security State, rests comfortably with its biggest elephant in the room, its nuclear stockpile (Israel, are you also listening?), turns paramilitary operations, regime change, and economic blackmail into the fun-and-games entertainment of its Joint Chiefs, Political Honchoes, and CIA-JSOC debonair warriors, and, ear to the ground, moves in unison with the needs, ambitions, and desires of its upper capitalist stratum, itself an integral—if not paramount—part of the National-Security State. Shame on you, Snowden: stripping away the political-legal cover for war crimes. Twicefold shame, Snowden, for stripping away the ideological cover of counterterrorism, not only as America’s biggest growth industry, not only as the surest way of terrorizing the American public and keeping them docile, but also, as the presently most effective way of pursuing the now age-old means for achieving global counterrevolution, counterrevolution enlarged in concept and practice to include more than taking out Left movements and governments, or even Third World efforts at realizing autonomous modernization, for the biggest challenge perceived by US policy makers appears to be China (Obama’s notorious “pivot,” the Pacific-first geostrategic framework to gain predominance in Asia and hem-in Chinese development to prevent its global political-economic influence). Snowden’s Revelations (deserving capital “R,” as a way of inaugurating a new Bill of Rights for Americans, if we only cared to listen) leaves the Administration with its pants down (cynically mooning a compliant—aka, complicit—populace), exposing the pretentiousness of Exceptionalism and Moral Rectitude by which the US knows itself (talk of false consciousness!!) in seeking exclusive direction, guidance, leadership of a world community safe for the expansion of American capitalism.<br /><br />Snowden’s documents thus far released already demonstrate that the US has a finger in every pie, making it only a matter of time before that selfsame world community, especially the euphonious-sounding “friends and allies,” awakens to the recognition that all are being had, whether as “partners” in military alliances, which liberally finance the military’s status and power in each of the countries, participants in American-led international financial organizations (IMF, World Bank) which have determined domestic austerity policies compatible with US commercial and banking interests, or simply, as carrot-and-stick induced ideological soul mates, cemented in the spiritual bond of market fundamentalism, in which outsourcing clothing manufacturing to the semi-enslaved workers in poor Asian countries is deemed a crowning achievement. We mustn’t underestimate the significance of the Revelations, which is why the USG will leave no stone unturned in seeking retribution and, more immediately, silencing the messenger. This will also serve notice on future whistleblowers, your services are not wanted; indeed, you are really domestic al Qadea, and fair game for Obama’s Tuesday soirees off the Situation Room; you, too, may find yourself on the baseball cards dealt around the table. Feel honored that your Leader cares enough about you to enlist the full apparatus of the National-Security State to squelch your activities, with the full help of AG Holder and DCIA Brennan, Rice leading the cheering section of “humanitarian interventionists.” My New York Times Comment (July 12) follows, on the article about US full-court pressure applied to Latin American nations concerning asylum for Snowden:<br /><br /> If I could give my home extraterritoriality I would be honored to take in Edward Snowden as my guest. But of course even then USG would find a way to render him to a third country for torture–or simply shoot him on sight. In the eyes of the world America by its treatment of Snowden–as here blackmailing Latin American countries with sinister threats–stands out as the global terrorist, bully, war criminal.<br /><br />The more we get tough the more isolated we become, a world pariah. That is the main thing, not the specific revelations about domestic and foreign surveillance, but the larger revelation: that the US believes it can dominate Latin America and the world at large. Thank you, Obama, for revealing your true despotic dimensions–while your fellow liberals and/or progressives look the other way, showing their contempt for civil liberties and privacy (true tests of a democracy). The Left in the US is morally bankrupt, worshiping at the feet of a Democratic Party distinguished only by its interventionist propensities and incipiently fascist opportunism. By all means, Biden, man the phones. You are a laughing stock.<br />
<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Norman Pollack is the author of “The Populist Response to Industrial America” (Harvard) and “The Just Polity” (Illinois), Guggenheim Fellow, and professor of history emeritus, Michigan State University. His new book, Eichmann on the Potomac, will be published by CounterPunch/AK Press in the fall of 2013.<br /><span style="color: blue;">http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/12/the-snowden-asylum-saga/</span></span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com82tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-11643598415016459042013-07-12T19:10:00.001-07:002013-07-12T19:10:16.643-07:00New studies: ‘Conspiracy theorists’ sane; government dupes crazy, hostile<span style="color: white;"> .</span><br />
<br />
Dr. Kevin Barrett<br />
<br />
<span id="ctl00_body_spnDetail"></span><br />
<div id="divLead">
Recent studies by
psychologists and social scientists in the US and UK suggest that
contrary to mainstream media stereotypes, those labeled “conspiracy
theorists” appear to be saner than those who accept the official
versions of contested events.
</div>
<br />
<br />
The most recent study was published on July 8th by psychologists
Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent (UK).
Entitled <i>“What about Building 7? A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories,”</i> the study compared “conspiracist” (pro-conspiracy theory) and “conventionalist” (anti-conspiracy) comments at news websites.
<br />
<br />
The authors were surprised to discover that it is now more
conventional to leave so-called conspiracist comments than
conventionalist ones: “Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded
as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist.” In other words, among
people who comment on news articles, those who disbelieve government
accounts of such events as 9/11 and the JFK assassination outnumber
believers by more than two to one. That means it is the pro-conspiracy
commenters who are expressing what is now the conventional wisdom, while
the anti-conspiracy commenters are becoming a small, beleaguered
minority.
<br />
<br />
Perhaps because their supposedly mainstream views no longer
represent the majority, the anti-conspiracy commenters often displayed
anger and hostility: “The research… showed that people who favoured the
official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile when trying to
persuade their rivals.”
<br />
<br />
Additionally, it turned out that the anti-conspiracy people were not
only hostile, but fanatically attached to their own conspiracy theories
as well. According to them, their own theory of 9/11 - a conspiracy
theory holding that 19 Arabs, none of whom could fly planes with any
proficiency, pulled off the crime of the century under the direction of a
guy on dialysis in a cave in Afghanistan - was indisputably true. The
so-called conspiracists, on the other hand, did not pretend to have a
theory that completely explained the events of 9/11: “For people who
think 9/11 was a government conspiracy, the focus is not on promoting a
specific rival theory, but in trying to debunk the official account.”
<br />
<br />
In short, the new study by Wood and Douglas suggests that the
negative stereotype of the conspiracy theorist - a hostile fanatic
wedded to the truth of his own fringe theory - accurately describes the
people who defend the official account of 9/11, not those who dispute
it.
<br />
<br />
Additionally, the study found that so-called conspiracists discuss
historical context (such as viewing the JFK assassination as a precedent
for 9/11) more than anti-conspiracists. It also found that the
so-called conspiracists to not like to be called “conspiracists” or
“conspiracy theorists.”
<br />
<br />
Both of these findings are amplified in the new book Conspiracy
Theory in America by political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith, published
earlier this year by the University of Texas Press. Professor
deHaven-Smith explains why people don’t like being called “conspiracy
theorists”: The term was invented and put into wide circulation by the
CIA to smear and defame people questioning the JFK assassination! “The
CIA’s campaign to popularize the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and make
conspiracy belief a target of ridicule and hostility must be credited,
unfortunately, with being one of the most successful propaganda
initiatives of all time.”
<br />
<br />
In other words, people who use the terms “conspiracy theory” and
“conspiracy theorist” as an insult are doing so as the result of a
well-documented, undisputed, historically-real conspiracy by the CIA to
cover up the JFK assassination. That campaign, by the way, was
completely illegal, and the CIA officers involved were criminals; the
CIA is barred from all domestic activities, yet routinely breaks the law
to conduct domestic operations ranging from propaganda to
assassinations.
<br />
<br />
DeHaven-Smith also explains why those who doubt official
explanations of high crimes are eager to discuss historical context. He
points out that a very large number of conspiracy claims have turned out
to be true, and that there appear to be strong relationships between
many as-yet-unsolved “state crimes against democracy.” An obvious
example is the link between the JFK and RFK assassinations, which both
paved the way for presidencies that continued the Vietnam War. According
to DeHaven-Smith, we should always discuss the “Kennedy assassinations”
in the plural, because the two killings appear to have been aspects of
the same larger crime.
<br />
<br />
Psychologist Laurie Manwell of the University of Guelph agrees that
the CIA-designed “conspiracy theory” label impedes cognitive function.
She points out, in an article published in <i>American Behavioral Scientist</i>
(2010), that anti-conspiracy people are unable to think clearly about
such apparent state crimes against democracy as 9/11 due to their
inability to process information that conflicts with pre-existing
belief.
<br />
<br />
In the same issue of ABS, University of Buffalo professor Steven
Hoffman adds that anti-conspiracy people are typically prey to strong
“confirmation bias” - that is, they seek out information that confirms
their pre-existing beliefs, while using irrational mechanisms (such as
the “conspiracy theory” label) to avoid conflicting information.
<br />
<br />
The extreme irrationality of those who attack “conspiracy theories”
has been ably exposed by Communications professors Ginna Husting and
Martin Orr of Boise State University. In a 2007 peer-reviewed article
entitled <i>“Dangerous Machinery: ‘Conspiracy Theorist’ as a Transpersonal Strategy of Exclusion,”</i> they wrote:
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
“If I call you a conspiracy theorist, it matters little
whether you have actually claimed that a conspiracy exists or whether
you have simply raised an issue that I would rather avoid… By labeling
you, I strategically exclude you from the sphere where public speech,
debate, and conflict occur.”</blockquote>
<br />
But now, thanks to the internet, people who doubt official stories
are no longer excluded from public conversation; the CIA’s 44-year-old
campaign to stifle debate using the “conspiracy theory” smear is nearly
worn-out. In academic studies, as in comments on news articles,
pro-conspiracy voices are now more numerous - and more rational - than
anti-conspiracy ones.
<br />
<br />
No wonder the anti-conspiracy people are sounding more and more like a bunch of hostile, paranoid cranks.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span id="ctl00_body_spnContributor">Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D.
Arabist-Islamologist, is one of America's best-known critics of the War
on Terror. Dr. Barrett has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS and
other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in
the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune,
and other leading publications. Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and
universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin, where he ran for
Congress in 2008. He is the co-founder of the <i>Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance</i>, and author of the books <i>Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie (2007)</i> and <i>Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters (2009).</i> His website is </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span id="ctl00_body_spnContributor">www.truthjihad.com</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span id="ctl00_body_spnContributor">.<span style="color: blue;">http://presstv.com/detail/2013/07/12/313399/conspiracy-theorists-vs-govt-dupes/</span></span></span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com97tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-7816499126860956142013-07-12T19:05:00.001-07:002013-07-12T19:07:35.685-07:00Snowden a Hero to Americans<span style="color: white;">. </span><br />
<br />
by Justin Raimondo<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In spite of a hate campaign by the "mainstream" media</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnOyqDcebpdddgvB9JBe7YmVUTXHiX3NqCg5ZtYNSYFbJ02pelNt_WqguX654K1NA4CoQ7uFKJehlrpQ5mkmVCX4WiDEcJhlYctlEudq98wJWUemhQbcxEOZkItvyll28VNlkvLIul-tM/s1600/201371011383928734_20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnOyqDcebpdddgvB9JBe7YmVUTXHiX3NqCg5ZtYNSYFbJ02pelNt_WqguX654K1NA4CoQ7uFKJehlrpQ5mkmVCX4WiDEcJhlYctlEudq98wJWUemhQbcxEOZkItvyll28VNlkvLIul-tM/s320/201371011383928734_20.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
He’s been portrayed in the mainstream media as a "<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/06/edward-snowden-nsa-leaker-is-no-hero.html">narcissist</a>," a
scheming "<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/16/cheney-defends-us-surveillance-programs-says-snowden-traitor-obama-lacks/">traitor</a>," an <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/07/10/snowden-in-moscow-what-are-russian-authorities-doing-with-the-nsa-whistleblower/">agent of Russia</a>, <a href="http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/how-acceptable-was-anonymous-speculation-about-snowdens-laptops/">a Chinese spy</a>, a clueless
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=%22snowden%22+%22dropout%22">high school drop out</a>, an <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/26/1219225/-Edward-Snowden-2009-Leakers-should-be-shot-in-the-balls">anti-government</a> "extremist," and I’m quite
sure I must’ve missed a few of the more exotic epithets. I’m talking about <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yB3n9fu-rM">Edward</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz1MPGti7hc">Snowden</a>, of course, the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance">former CIA employee and NSA contractor</a> whose leaking
to the <i>Guardian</i> has exposed a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-online-metadata-collection">vast</a> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-boundless-informant-global-datamining">global</a> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data">spying</a> <a href="http://translate.google.com.br/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Foglobo.globo.com%2Fmundo%2Feua-espionaram-milhoes-de-mails-ligacoes-de-brasileiros-8940934&act=url">apparatus</a> secretly constructed
by Washington. The weeks-long <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/opinion/brooks-the-solitary-leaker.html?_r=1&">Hate</a> aimed at Snowden reached its apogee when
prominent "journalists" started going after the reporters who broke
the Snowden story, principally Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, inferring
that it was Greenwald and the <i>Guardian </i>who put Snowden up to penetrating
the NSA. These aren’t just wingnut bloggers we’re dealing with here, but two
prominent legacy-media reporters: David "<a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/greenwald-tears-into-david-gregory-with-newsmen-like-you-who-needs-government-to-criminalize-reporting/">Meet the Press</a>" Gregory and
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/questions-for-snowden/2013/07/08/d06ee0f8-e428-11e2-80eb-3145e2994a55_story.html">Walter Pincus</a>, of the <i>Washington Post</i>. When Gregory demanded to know
why Greenwald shouldn’t be prosecuted alongside Snowden, that was the Establishment
baring its teeth.<br />
<br />
One should never assume their bark is worse than their bite, but clearly this
display of anger is born of sheer frustration. Snowden, after all, has thrown
our rulers and their court jesters in the media on the defensive. Not since
David <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+17&version=NIV">bopped Goliath</a> on the noggin has a single individual landed such a decisive
blow on a giant, unwieldy bully. Washington is reeling from the impact of the
Snowden revelations, not just on the <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-10/germans-hail-snowden-as-nsa-evokes-stasi-seizing-lives-of-others.html">international</a> <a href="http://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/espionagem-dos-eua-se-espalhou-pela-america-latina-8966619">plane</a> but on the home front
as well. In spite of battalions of politicians of both parties dutifully denouncing
the NSA leaker as a modern day Benedict Arnold, and weeks of media hysteria
over the alleged "damage" he has done to our national security, the
American people aren’t buying the Official Narrative: a recent Quinnipiac poll
<a href="http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=1919">reports</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"American voters say 55 – 34 percent that Edward Snowden is a whistle-blower,
rather than a traitor, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released
today. In a massive shift in attitudes, voters say 45 – 40 percent the government’s
anti-terrorism efforts go too far restricting civil liberties, a reversal from
a January 14, 2010, survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University
when voters said 63 – 25 percent that such activities didn’t go far enough to
adequately protect the country. Almost every party, gender, income, education,
age and income group regards Snowden as a whistle-blower rather than a traitor."</blockquote>
<br />
This poll tracks several interesting trends, the most arresting of which is
the utter unanimity with which the American people are rejecting the <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/14/the-sickening-snowden-backlash.html">Official
Narrative</a> on Snowden – that Snowden is a traitor who committed espionage and
deserves to be punished for his "crime." Weeks and weeks of relentless
smearing, <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/snowden-guardian-nsa-leak/2013/06/09/id/508874">accusing him</a> of collusion with America’s enemies, and worse, have
simply had no effect – other than, perhaps, to <i>increase </i>his approval
ratings!<br />
<br />
As was the case in the former Soviet Union, where people took the truth to
be the opposite of whatever appeared in the newspapers, the American people
are simply tuning out the "mainstream" media. In the upside down <a href="http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j021302.html">Bizarro
World</a> they find themselves living in, Americans have resorted to the only reliable
method of determining truth from falsehood: by simply inverting whatever the
Establishment media is "reporting." They’re telling us Snowden’s a
"traitor": ergo, he’s a heroic whistle-blower. A crude but very effective
methodology, one that – if applied consistently – can have some pretty interesting
implications down the road.<br />
<br />
The great shift in voter attitudes toward civil liberties is worth going into
specifics: the partisan breakdown is particularly interesting. While 49 percent
of Republicans support the NSA’s phone dragnet program, the number rises to
58 percent when we’re talking about Democrats. Opposition is centered in Independents,
Republicans, and males. 56 percent of Republicans say the dragnet is too much
of an intrusion into privacy, while only 40 percent of Democrats agree.<br />
<br />
The evolution of American liberalism from a pro-civil liberties stance to one
that effectively <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/11/03/why_does_obama_get_a_pass_on_civil_liberties/">disappears</a> the Fourth Amendment because Government Is Our Friend
is here charted and measured. Yes, you’re right that they might not be telling
the pollsters this if a Republican was in the White House, but I would argue
this shift was bound to happen anyway. After all, haven’t "progressives"
been <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8NL8sduxoE">telling us</a> for years that conservative-libertarian fears of Big Government
are just paranoid alarmism? Aren’t Democrats the "Mommy" party, which
sees government as the <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/02/the_enduring_mommy-daddy_political_divide__104598.html">Great Protector</a> – and doesn’t the demographic breakdown,
which shows women much more conducive to the Surveillance State than men, tell
us where Democratic strategists are placing their bets? Indeed, one is hard
put to come up with a reason for liberals to stand with Snowden in an age when
"We’re from the government, and we’re here to help" is the <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/171100/barack-obamas-decisive-victory-liberal-government">leitmotif</a> and motto of American "progressivism."<br />
<br />
Old-fashioned American liberals never believed in any such claptrap. The Midwestern
"progressives" of <a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/progressive-era">yesteryear</a> didn’t cotton to centralization, and
saw government regulation as the instrument of corporate control as much as
a shield against it. They didn’t trust Washington bureaucrats, and although
they initially supported the New Deal they <a href="http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j090501.html">turned against FDR</a> when he started
accruing more power in the alphabet soup of government agencies set up during
the Depression. They <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0609.html#article">stood up</a> during the McCarthy era, when the threat to our
civil liberties was almost as great as it is today, and they fought government
repression tooth and nail. Today, that noble tradition persists in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/us/aclu-files-suit-over-phone-surveillance-program.html?pagewanted=all">ACLU</a>,
and a few other organizations, mostly legal defense groups, but politically
the old-fashioned liberals are in decline, as the Quinnipiac poll suggests,
with the center of opposition to the Surveillance State shifting to the libertarian-conservative
side of the spectrum.<br />
<br />
In the short term, this is good news for libertarians, such as myself, who
have been campaigning for years to convert conservatives to the cause of constitutional
government and a non-interventionist foreign policy. The latter is involved,
at least tangentially, because the rationalization for universal surveillance
hinges on the need to protect us from the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/11/opinion/miller-mideast-us-anger/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn">consequences</a> of our dangerously wrong-headed
policy of perpetual war. To those of us who lived – and suffered – through the
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/mobile/research/2006/01/03/media-conservatives-cited-faulty-poll-to-claim/134542">Bush years</a>, that significantly more Republicans than Democrats see Snowden as
a whistleblower rather than a "traitor" is an astonishing fact.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, this is <i>very</i> bad news for the country in the long
term. A healthy American liberalism – that is, a movement dedicated to the preservation
of our civil liberties against a government ever-eager to infringe on them –
is absolutely necessary if the Constitution is to be successfully defended.
In the absence of such a movement, it becomes politically impossible to fight
off attempts by both the Obama cult and <a href="http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/06/majority-of-americans-back-nsa-surveillance/">the neocons</a> to impose a universal surveillance
regime in the US. Unless old-fashioned liberalism undergoes a revival on account
of the Snowden revelations, civil liberties in this country are doomed. Neither
the left nor the right alone can save the Constitution: a united effort is needed
if we are going to defeat the new authoritarians.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2013/07/11/snowden-a-hero-to-americans/</span></span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com206tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-13943919609494024082013-07-11T17:27:00.000-07:002013-07-11T17:29:19.626-07:00Where Orwell got it wrong<span style="color: white;">. </span><br />
<br />
by John O'Farrell<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="post-field body notes-source">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="grid-breaking-override" name="365d">
<i>War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.</i></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="grid-breaking-override" name="365d">
<br /></div>
<div class="grid-breaking-override" name="b226">
In his novel <i>1984</i>,
George Orwell forecasted a dystopian society 36 years in the future, in
which an all-powerful state uses advanced technology to exert
totalitarian control over the thoughts, words and actions of its
citizens. Ubiquitous two-way “telescreens” watch the individual’s every
move and emit an endless stream of sinister propaganda. Big Brother is
watching you. The Ministry of Truth is the only source of information.
The Thought Police control what you think. As citizen Winston Smith
learns to his cost, resistance is futile.</div>
<div class="grid-breaking-override" name="b226">
<br /></div>
<div class="notes-source-hasnotes" name="9fbb">
The
allegations that the NSA has apparently been collecting the cellphone
and Internet records of everyone in the United States (if not the world)
has catalyzed fears that Orwell’s terrifying future may finally be
materializing twenty-nine years late. Sales of <i>1984 </i>are up 9,500%. Was Orwell right? Is technology in the hands of the state enabling our subjugation as he predicted?</div>
<div class="notes-source-hasnotes" name="9fbb">
<br /></div>
<div class="" name="a974">
In
one key aspect, Orwell was absolutely right. Like Orwell’s telescreens,
security cameras increasingly monitor us from every street-corner, but
we also carry smartphones that log our every physical movement, and
meanwhile a host of tracking technologies record our virtual movements
across the Web. As a recent <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324634304578537720921466776.html" target="_blank">WSJ OpEd</a> by Sen. Rand Paul proclaims, <i>“Big Brother Really Is Watching Us” </i>–
and he’s using technologies far more powerful than Orwell could have
imagined back in 1948. The implications of this surveillance are
profoundly disturbing. While we may trust the current administration’s
assertions that they’re only watching us in order to protect us, who can
be confident that future administrations or less benign overseas
governments will not use these tools to track and persecute whomever
they deem to be an enemy of the state?</div>
<div class="" name="a974">
<br /></div>
<div class="notes-source-hasnotes" name="0d80">
In another fundamental aspect, however, Orwell was dead wrong. In a paradox worthy of <i>1984 </i>itself,
the same technologies that enable Big Brother to watch us are rendering
it ever more impossible for him to control what we know and think. Far
from ending up in control of all knowledge through the Ministry of
Truth, today’s governments have effectively lost the ability to control
our access to information. In Orwell’s time, the state only needed to
censor a few newspapers and a handful of broadcasters to effect total
information control. Today, we carry access to hundreds of global news
sources and tens of thousands of bloggers around in our pockets, most of
them beyond our national government’s reach. If the New York Times
won’t publish it due to a secret FISA court order, the Guardian will. If
we don’t trust the Turkish government’s account of events in the
streets of Istanbul, we can turn for the truth to thousands of cellphone
videos or tweets from the people themselves. SMS, Twitter and Facebook
have become the means for citizens to organize resistance to abusive
government power, and for the rest of the world to witness it. No wonder
Prime Minister Erdogan recently declared Twitter and its ilk “the worst
menace to society.”</div>
<div class="notes-source-hasnotes" name="d2ed">
<br />
Moreover,
technology is exposing the state itself to scrutiny in ways that Orwell
never foresaw. Even in China, these days it only seems to take a flurry
of critical comments on Sina Weibo for the government to change its
policy on luxury cars for officials or to give in to villagers demanding
the removal of a corrupt mayor. In what’s become a recurring nightmare
for Western governments, leaks spread instantly and uncontrollably in
the world of smartphones and Twitter. Whether you agree or disagree with
their tactics, it only takes one “whistleblower” to shine the blinding
spotlight of the global Internet on controversial top-secret government
programs. And just as our personal use of technology lays a trail the
government can follow, so too does government’s use of technology create
a record that can be used to scrutinize the actions of the officials
involved and hold them to account. If there is a “smoking gun”
associated with the IRS Tea Party affair, it’s likely to be found
somewhere in a trove of internal email. Like Nixon with his tapes, the
day will inevitably come when a national government is brought down by
its emails.<br />
</div>
<div class="notes-source-hasnotes" name="a332">
So, Orwell
was partly right. The state uses ever more advanced surveillance
technology to watch us, and our own ever-greater use of personal
technology makes it possible. On the other hand, technology has
fundamentally destroyed the state’s ability to control our access to
information, and exposed its bureaucracy to unprecedented scrutiny. This
may be the death of privacy, but perhaps it’s also the death of secrecy
and impunity. In that respect, fortunately, Orwell was wrong. Thanks to
technology, Big Brother may be watching us, but we’re watching him too.</div>
<div class="notes-source-hasnotes" name="a332">
<br /></div>
<div class="notes-source-hasnotes" name="a332">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;">https://medium.com/surveillance-state/a3f8a99880d6 </span></span></div>
</div>
whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com98tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-39519986607007185022013-07-10T18:21:00.002-07:002013-07-11T10:57:32.476-07:00September 11: Inside Job or Mossad Job?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<article class="hnews hentry item">
<div id="title">
<div style="margin-top: -3px; text-align: center;">
<h1 class="titre_serif_1 crayon article-titre-179295 entry-title" style="margin-bottom: 2px; margin-top: -2px;">
</h1>
<div class="titre_serif_3 byline author vcard" style="margin-bottom: 5px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;">by
<span class="fn">Laurent Guyénot</span></span></div>
<div class="titre_serif_3 byline author vcard" style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 5px; text-align: left;">
<span class="fn"> </span>
</div>
</div>
<div class="chapo crayon article-chapo-179295 entry-content">
Israel’s
role in the events of September 11, 2001—that shape the 21st century—is
the subject of bitter controversy, or rather a real taboo even within
the 9/11 Truth Movement, causing the ostracism of the man who dared to
broach the subject, Thierry Meyssan. Most advocacy groups, mobilized
behind the slogan "9/11 was an Inside Job," remain discreet regarding
the evidence involving the secret services of the Jewish state. Laurent
Guyénot focuses on certain compelling—though grossly under
reported—facts and analyzes the mechanisms of denial.</div>
</div>
</article>
<br />
<div class="grille_400_1">
<div class="zoom_texte entry-content">
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<article>
<div class="texte_sans crayon article-texte-179295 ">
<div class="lettrine">
While Israel’s role in the destabilization of the
world post-September 11 is becoming increasingly clear, the idea that a
faction of Likudniks, aided by their allies embedded in the U.S. State
apparatus, are responsible for the false flag operation of September 11
is becoming more difficult to suppress, and some individuals have the
courage to state so publicly. Francesco Cossiga, President of Italy
between 1985 and 1992, declared on 30 November 2007 to the daily <i>Corriere della Sera</i>: “<i>From
areas around the Palazzo Chigi, nerve centre of direction of Italian
intelligence, it is noted that the non-authenticity of the video is
supported by the fact that Osama bin Laden in it ’confessed’ that Al
Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New
York. However, all of the democratic areas of America and of Europe,
with the Italian center-left in the forefront, now know full well that
the disastrous attack was planned and executed by the American CIA and
Mossad with the help of the Zionist world to falsely incriminate Arabic
countries and to persuade the Western Powers to intervene in Iraq and
Afghanistan</i> [<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nb1" id="nh1" rel="footnote" title="Original article in Italian: "Demystifying 9/11: Israel and the Tactics of (...)">1</a>]."
Alan Sabrosky, former professor at the U.S. Army War College and the
U.S. Military Academy, did not hesitate to proclaim his belief that
September 11 is a "<i>classical operation orchestrated by Mossad</i>"
carried out with accomplices within the United States government, and
his voice has been forcefully echoed by some U.S. Army veterans sites
who are disgusted by the vile war that they were forced to wage on
behalf of the September 11 lie or that of the weapons of mass
destruction of Saddam Hussein [2].</div>
<div class="lettrine">
<br /></div>
The arguments in favor of the Mossad hypothesis are not only related
to the reputation of the world’s most powerful secret service, which a
report by the U.S. Army School for Advanced Military Studies (quoted by
the <i>Washington Times</i> on the eve of September 11th), described as "<i>wildcat,
ruthless and cunning. Able to carry out an attack on U.S. forces and
disguise it as an act committed by Palestinians/Arabs</i> [3]." The Mossad involvement, together with other Israeli elite units, is made evident by a number of little known facts.<br />
<h3 class="spip">
The dancing Israelis</h3>
<dl class="spip_document_154252 spip_documents spip_documents_left" style="float: left; width: 220px;">
<dt></dt>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiicltdD4nE-I38x2Atl4EF4gIg1l5uhMJWQ0CoARYJx1owTeIDRKpaJRnrwBObD6uk4Ga755zbMmFSNaFx8fue-zcQeVA2xhI2fTjTRPtHxRoEmf8tuN_ThbzOXUfhGLoTKA9IHQc4doY/s1600/Untitled1-70359-b1441.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiicltdD4nE-I38x2Atl4EF4gIg1l5uhMJWQ0CoARYJx1owTeIDRKpaJRnrwBObD6uk4Ga755zbMmFSNaFx8fue-zcQeVA2xhI2fTjTRPtHxRoEmf8tuN_ThbzOXUfhGLoTKA9IHQc4doY/s1600/Untitled1-70359-b1441.jpg" /></a></div>
<dt class="crayon document-titre-154252 spip_doc_titre" style="width: 220px;"><b>The
eBook by Hicham Hamza, "Israel and September 11: The Great Taboo"
(2013) brings together the case against Israel, with impeccable
precision and all easily accessible sources.</b></dt>
</dl>
How many of us know, for example, that the only people arrested on
the same day in connection with the terrorist attacks of September 11
are Israelis [4]? This information was reported the very next day by journalist Paulo Lima in <i>The Record</i>,
the newspaper of Bergen County in New Jersey, according to police
sources. Immediately after the first impact on the North Tower, three
individuals were seen by several witnesses on the roof of a van parked
at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, "<i>celebrating</i>” and “<i>jumping up and down</i>,”
and photographing themselves with the twin towers in the background.
They then moved their van to another parking spot in Jersey City, where
other witnesses saw them display the same ostentatious celebrations. The
police immediately issued a BOLO alert (be-on-the-look-out): "<i>Vehicle
possibly related to the terrorist attack in New York. 2000 white
Chevrolet van with New Jersey plates and an ’Urban Moving Systems’ sign
at the back, was seen at Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ, at the
time of first impact of jetliner into the World Trade Center. Three
individuals with the van were seen celebrating after the initial impact
and the explosion that followed</i> [5]."
The van was stopped by police a few hours later, with five young
Israelis aboard: Sivan and Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and
Omer Marmari. Physically forced out of the vehicle and pinned to the
ground, the driver, Sivan Kurzberg, launched this strange sentence: "<i>We are Israelis. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem</i> [6].” Police sources who informed Paulo Lima were convinced of the involvement of the Israelis in the morning’s attacks: "<i>There were maps of the city in the van with some of the points highlighted. It looked like they knew</i> [...] <i>they knew what would happen when they were at Liberty State Park</i> [7].
Passports of various nationalities, nearly 6000 dollars in cash and
open airline tickets to travel abroad were also found on them. The
Kurzberg brothers were formally identified as Mossad agents. The five
Israelis worked officially for a moving company named Urban Moving
Systems, whose employees were mostly Israelis. "<i>I was in tears. These guys were joking and that bothered me</i> [8]," stated one of the few non-Israeli workers to <i>The Record</i>.
On September14, after receiving a visit from the police, the business
owner, Dominik Otto Suter, left the country for Tel Aviv.<br />
<br />
The information disclosed by <i>The Record</i>, confirmed by the police report, was taken on by investigative sites such as the <i>Wayne Madsen Report</i> (September 14, 2005) and <i>Counterpunch</i> (February 7, 2007). It was also reported in some main media as well but in a way that minimized its scope: the <i>New York Times</i> (November 21, 2001) failed to mention the nationality of the individuals, just like <i>Fox News</i> and the <i>Associated Press</i>. The <i>Washington Post</i> (November 23, 2001) said they were Israelis, but passed over in silence their apparent foreknowledge of the event. However, <i>The Forward</i>
(March 15, 2002), a magazine of the New York Jewish community, revealed
that, according to an anonymous U.S. intelligence source, Urban Moving
Systems was a Mossad undercover unit (which did not prevent it from
receiving a federal loan of 498,750 dollars, as shown by the tax
records)] [9].<br />
<br />
The FBI conducted an investigation contained in a 579 page report,
partially declassified in 2005 (it will be completely declassified in
2035). Freelance journalist Hisham Hamza analyzed this in detail in his
book <i>Israel and September 11: The Great Taboo</i>. It shows a number
of damning elements. First, the photos taken by these young Israelis
actually show them in attitudes of celebration before the North Tower on
fire: "<i>They smiled, they hugged and they gave each other high fives</i>." To explain this, stakeholders said they were simply delighted "<i>that the United States should now take steps to stop terrorism in the world</i>"
(although, at this point, a majority of people thought the crashes were
an accident rather than an actd of terrorism). Moreover, at least one
witness saw them positioned at 8:00, before an aircraft struck the first
tower, while others certify that they were already taking pictures five
minutes later, which is confirmed by their photos. A former employee
confirmed to the FBI, the fanatically pro-Israeli and anti-American
atmosphere that reigned in the company, even attributing to its
director, Dominik Otto Suter, these words: "<i>Give us twenty years and we will seize and destroy your media and your country</i>."
The five arrested Israelis were in contact with another moving company
called Classic International Movers, four employees of which were
interviewed separately for their links with the nineteen suspected
hijackers. One of them had called "<i>an individual in South America with genuine links to Islamic militants in the Middle East</i>." Finally, "<i>a sniffer dog gave a positive result for the presence of traces of explosives in the vehicle</i> [10]."<br />
<br />
As Hamza notes, the report’s conclusion is thought provoking: the FBI informs the local police detaining the suspects that, "<i>the FBI has no further interest in investigating the prisoners and ’appropriate immigration procedures should be initiated</i> [11]."
A letter from the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service in
fact shows that the FBI management recommended the termination of the
investigation on September 24, 2001. However, the five Israelis spent 71
days in prison in Brooklyn, during which they refused, then failed
several lie detector tests. They were subsequently repatriated under the
simple charges of visa violations.<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0;">
<div align="center">
<br />
<div align="center">
<table background="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguZ2erHsZissWweh6ln6KngZhS7XQNpiLkjvAjscMd6I5pjy-afGmR7snITkNGW2bwk-Bo6nc5dVgQgJtvjM6rEcHY-JChbVZn4M1M2K1wN7EV-qV9dh6U02ZA2OXllyxYVP4epbuAWQ/s1600/fnfyoutubebg420.jpg" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="height: 375px; width: 479px;"><tbody>
<tr><td><div align="center">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/RI5wTgEHNok" width="420"></iframe></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Omer Marmari, Oded Ellner and Yaron Shmuel, three of the five
"dancing Israelis" are invited to report in an Israeli TV programe upon
their return in November 2001. Denying being members of Mossad, one of
them said candidly: "Our goal was to record the event."</blockquote>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
We must finally mention an important detail of this affair, which may
provide an additional explanation for the exuberant behavior of these
young Israelis: some witnesses specify in their calls to the police,
that people rejoicing on the roof of their van seemed to be "<i>Arabs</i>" or "<i>Palestinians</i>".
In particular, shortly after the collapse of the towers, an anonymous
call to police in Jersey City, reported on the same day by <i>NBC News</i>, described "<i>a white van with two or three guys on the inside, they look like Palestinians and they are circling around a building</i>", one of them "<i>is mixing things and he has a ’sheikh’s outfit on.</i> [...] <i>He is dressed like an Arab</i> [12]."
All indications are that these individuals were precisely the five
Israelis arrested later. Two hypotheses come to mind: either our false
movers are actually engaged in a staged action to appear as
Arabs/Palestinians, or the witness or witnesses who described them as
such were accomplices. As in the other case, it is clear that their goal
was to initiate media rumors that Muslims had been spotted rejoicing
not only for the attacks, but also for having foreknowledge. The
information was actually broadcast on some radio stations at noon, and
on <i>NBC News</i> in the afternoon. I personally lean toward the second
hypothesis (informants as accomplices rather than true Arabs in
disguise) because the police report makes no mention of any exotic
clothing found in the van, but especially because the informant cited
above, who emphasized the clothing details, seems to have wanted to
mislead the police about the exact location of the van; the latter was
intercepted only because the police, instead of being satisfied with
just this location, blocked all bridges and underground tunnels between
New Jersey and New York. But the important thing is this: If the
Israelis had not been arraigned in the late afternoon, the story
probably would have made headlines with the title: <i>The Dancing Arabs</i>. Instead, it was completely suppressed and was circulated only confidentially under the title <i>The dancing Dancing Israelis</i>, or <i>The Highfivers</i>.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<dl class="spip_document_154254 spip_documents spip_documents_center">
<dt></dt>
<dt class="crayon document-titre-154254 spip_doc_titre" style="width: 350px;"><b>Ehud
Barak, former head of Israeli military intelligence (Sayeret Matkal),
was Prime Minister from July 1999 to March 2001. Replaced by Ariel
Sharon, he moved to the United States as a consultant for Electronic
Data Systems and SCP Partners, a Mossad screen company specializing in
security issues which, with its partners Metallurg Holdings and Advanced
Metallurgical, had the ability to produce nano-thermite. SCP Partners
had an office within ten kilometers of Urban Moving Systems. An hour
after the disintegration of the towers, Ehud Barak is on the set of BBC
World to describe bin Laden as the prime suspect (Bollyn, Solving 9-11,
p. 278-280).</b></dt>
</dl>
<h3 class="spip">
200 explosives expert spies </h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Few people, even among the 9/11 Truthers, know the story of "<i>the dancing Israelis</i>"
(we are still waiting, for example, for the Reopen 9/11 Association to
talk about it on its Francophone site, though they are very sharp on all
other aspects of the case). Also, few people know that at the time of
the attacks, the U.S. federal police were busy dismantling the largest
Israeli spy network ever identified on US soil. In March 2001, the
National Counterintelligence Center (NACIC) posted this message on its
website: "<i>During the past six weeks, employees of federal offices
located throughout the United States have reported suspicious activities
related to individuals posing as foreign students selling or delivering
artwork</i>." The NACIC specifies that these individuals, citizens of Israel, "<i>also went to private homes of federal officials under the guise of selling art objects</i> [13]."</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Then in the summer, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), after being
targeted by a large number of such incidents, compiled a report which
was revealed to the public by the <i>Washington Post</i> on November 23, 2001, and in <i>The World</i> on March 14, 2002, before being made fully accessible by the French magazine <i>Intelligence Online</i>.
This report lists 140 Israelis arrested since March 2001. Aged between
20 and 30 years and organized into teams of 4 to 8 members, they visited
at least "<i>36 sensitive sites in the Department of Defense</i>." Many
of them were identified as members of the Mossad and Aman (Israeli
military intelligence), and six were in possession of phones paid for by
a former Israeli vice consul. Sixty arrests occurred after September
11, bringing to 200 the number of Israeli spies arrested. All were
eventually released.</div>
<br />
<dl class="spip_document_154256 spip_documents spip_documents_left" style="float: left; width: 220px;">
<dt></dt>
<dt class="crayon document-titre-154256 spip_doc_titre" style="width: 220px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ZhR63920VclqMlynJIplplipQUgG9hzYCXcbP-zE7S6vauBsXRvAMiWtlCuEyVv_3sB27mHn9VtAJxfFs6nqrXg56tntENg1KmFQgJs8Q6CKh4geFkYLmSZLmZBAtpEx7_QaPAT6Fqg/s1600/Untitled3-b451e-86e8c-05bbe.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ZhR63920VclqMlynJIplplipQUgG9hzYCXcbP-zE7S6vauBsXRvAMiWtlCuEyVv_3sB27mHn9VtAJxfFs6nqrXg56tntENg1KmFQgJs8Q6CKh4geFkYLmSZLmZBAtpEx7_QaPAT6Fqg/s1600/Untitled3-b451e-86e8c-05bbe.jpg" /></a><b>Michael
Chertoff, an Israeli citizen, the son of an Orthodox rabbi and a
pioneer of the Mossad, headed the Criminal Division of the Department of
Justice in 2001, and as such was responsible for the retention and
destruction of all evidence regarding the 11th of September – from
Pentagon cameras to World Trade Center beams. It is to him also that the
"dancing Israelis" owe their discreet repatriation. In 2003, he was
appointed to head the new Department of Homeland Security in charge of
counter-terrorism on U.S. territory, which allows him to control dissent
while continuing to restrict access to the file of Sept. 11 through the
law of Sensitive Security Information.</b></dt>
</dl>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The DEA report concluded that "<i>the nature of the behavior of these individuals</i> [...] <i>leads us to believe that the incidents are perhaps intelligence gathering</i> [<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nb14" id="nh14" rel="footnote" title="“The nature of the individuals’ conducts […] leads us to believe the incidents (...)">14</a>]."
But the nature of the information collected remains unknown. It may be
that in fact espionage was just a secondary cover—an undergarment—of
these Israeli art students, considering the military training received
by some as demolition explosive ordnance expert, combat engineer, bomb
disposal expert, electronic signal intercept operator, according to the
DEA. One of the arrested agents, Peer Segalovitz, "<i>acknowledged that he was capable of making buildings, bridges and cars explode, and anything he wanted</i> [15]."
Why would these Israeli agents have diverted attention from their real
mission in a campaign of espionage as ostentatious as unproductive
curiously focusing on the Drug Enforcement Agency? The answer to this
question is suggested by a disturbing geographical link between this
network and the attacks of September 11.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
According to the DEA report, <i>"The Hollywood community in Florida seems to have been the focal point of these individuals</i> [16]."
In fact, more than thirty of the fake Israeli student spies arrested
shortly before September 11 lived in or near the city of Hollywood,
Florida, precisely where 15 of the 19 alleged Islamist hijackers had
regrouped (9 in Hollywood proper and 6 others nearby). One of them,
Hanan Serfaty, through whom at least one hundred thousand dollars
transited in three months, had rented two Hollywood apartments close to
the apartment and post office box rented by Mohamed Atta, who was
presented to us as the leader of the gang of hijackers. What was the
relationship between the "<i>Israeli spies</i>" and the "<i>Islamic terrorists</i>?"
According to the embarrassed explanation by the aligned media, the
former were just monitoring the latter. Listen for example to David
Pujadas introducing the <i>Intelligence Online</i> article televised March 5, 2002 on <i>France 2</i>: "<i>More
about Israel, but specifically concerning Afghanistan now, this
espionage affaire is troubling: an Israeli network was dismantled in the
United States, particularly in Florida: one of its missions was to
track the men of Al-Qaeda (this was before September 11). Some sources
go even further: they indicate that the Mossad may not have shared all
the information in its possession.</i>" This euphemistic explanation is
an example of damage control. Israel appears barely tainted, since we
can not reasonably blame a spy service for not shariong information. At
worst, Israel can be accused of having "<i>let it happen</i>", which
guarantees impunity. This explains, in my opinion, the sub-secondary
cover of the spies-as-fake-Israeli-students, actually experts at false
flag attacks. In fact, the students’ deliberately frail cover was made
to draw attention to their secondary cover, that of spies, which would
serve as an alibi for their proximity to the alleged pirates.</div>
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<br />
<br />
<i>Why does Pujadas (propelled to France 2 television news just a
week before September 11) mention Afghanistan, which has nothing to do
with the information being introduced? The slip can only be deliberate
and illustrates "the great taboo" which Hicham Hamza alludes to: never
mention September 11 and Israel in the same sentence.</i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
The truth is that they were probably not spying on the pirates, but
that they manipulated them, financed them, and probably likely
eliminated them shortly before September 11. An article in the <i>New York Times</i>
of February 18, 2009 established that Ali al-Jarrah, cousin of a
suspected Flight 93 pirate, Ziad al-Jarrah, had been a spy for the
Mossad for 25 years, infiltrating the Palestinian resistance and
Hezbollah in 1983. He is currently in prison in Lebanon. Let’s also
recall that the Mohamed Atta in Florida was a fake. The real Mohamed
Atta, who called his father after the attacks (as last confirmed by the
German magazine <i>Bild am Sonntag</i> in late 2002), is described by
his family as reserved, pious, avoiding women and having a fear of
planes. He had his passport stolen in 1999 while studying architecture
in Hamburg. The false Mohamed Atta in Florida was living with a
stripper, ate pork, loved fast cars, casinos and cocaine. As reported by
the South Florida <i>Sun-Sentinel</i> on September 16, "<i>The suspects’ actions do not add up</i>."
As also reported by many national newspapers, this Atta got drunk,
drugged and paid for the services of several prostitutes in the weeks
and days before the September 11 attacks, and four other suicide bombers
had similar behavior incompatible with Islamists preparing for death [17].</div>
<h3 class="spip">
The New York Network</h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
According to the renegade agent, Victor Ostrovsky <i>(By Way of Deception</i>, 1990), the Mossad draws its effectiveness from its international network of <i>sayanim</i>
("collaborators"), the Hebrew term designating Jews living outside
Israel and ready to perform illegal actions on demand, without
necessarily knowing their ultimate purpose. They number in the thousands
in the United States, particularly in New York, where the U.S. Jewish
community is concentrated. Larry Silverstein, the leaseholder of the
Twin Towers as of April 2001, appears as the archetype of a September 11
<i>sayan</i>. He is a leading member of the United Jewish
Appeal/Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, the largest U.S.
fund raiser for Israel (after the U.S. government, which pays annually
three billion in aid to Israel). Silverstein was also at the time of the
attacks, the intimate friend of Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu,
with whom he was in conversation every Sunday, according to the Israeli
newspaper <i>Haaretz</i>. Silverstein’s partner for the mall basement in the lease of the WTC was Frank Lowy, another Zionist "<i>philanthropist</i>"
close to Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, former member of the Haganah. The
head of the New York Port Authority, which privatized the WTC, granting
the lease to Silverstein and Lowy was Lewis Eisenberg, also a member of
the United Jewish Appeal Federation and former vice president of AIPAC.
Silverstein, Lowy and Eisenberg were undoubtedly three key men in the
planning of the attacks against the Twin Towers.
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<i>Lucky Larry! Every morning, without exception, Larry Silverstein
took his breakfast at Windows on the World atop the north tower of the
WTC. Until the morning of September 11, when he had an appointment with a
dermatologist.</i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
Other members of the New York-based network can be identified.
According to the NIST report, the Boeing that crashed into the North
Tower "<i>cut a gash that was over half the width of the building and
extended from the 93rd floor to the 99th floor. All but the lowest of
these floors were occupied by Marsh & McLennan, a worldwide
insurance company, which also occupied the 100th floor</i> [18]."
The CEO of Marsh & McLennan was then Jeffrey Greenberg, a member of
a wealthy Jewish family that contributed heavily to the campaign of
George W. Bush. Greenberg was also the insurer of the twin towers and on
July 24, 2001, they had taken the precaution of reinsuring their
contracts with competitors who had to indemnify Silverstein and Lowy.
And as the world of the neocons is small, in November 2000, the Board of
Directors of Marsh & McLennan welcomed Paul Bremer, President of
the National Commission on Terrorism at the time of the attacks, and
appointed as the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in
2003.
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<i>Paul Bremer appeared on September 11, 2001 on the set of NBC, calm
and relaxed, while 400 employees of his company are missing (in the
end, 295 employees and more than 60 of the group’s associates were to be
officially counted among the victims)</i>.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
Complicity must also be sought in airports and airlines involved in
the attacks. Both airports from which flights AA11, UA175 and UA93 took
off (Logan Airport in Boston and Newark Airport near New York)
subcontracted their security to International Consultants on Targeted
Security (ICTS), a firm financed through Israel and headed by Menachem
Atzmon, a treasurer of the Likud. A thorough investigation would
certainly lead to other accomplices. Such an investigation should, for
example, focus on Zim Israel Navigational, a giant maritime shipping
outfit 48% held by the Jewish state (known to occasionally be used as a
cover for the Israeli secret service), the US head of which left his
offices at WTC with his 200 employees Sept. 4, 2001, one week before the
attacks - "<i>Like an act of God</i> [19] - commented the CEO Shaul Cohen-Mintz.</div>
<h3 class="spip" style="text-align: left;">
It’s the oil, stupid!</h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
All these facts give a new meaning to the words of Bob Graham, a
member of the September 11 Commission, who, in an interview with PBS in
December 2002, cited "<i>evidence that foreign governments contributed
to facilitating the activities of at least some of the terrorists in the
United States</i> [20]."
Graham, of course, was referring to Saudi Arabia. Why would the Saud
family have helped Osama bin Laden, after having deprived him of his
Saudi nationality and put a price on his head for his attacks on their
soil? Graham’s response, made in July 2011, is "<i>the threat of civil unrest led by Al-Qaeda against the monarchy</i> [21]."
The Saudis supposedly helped Bin Laden under his threat of fomenting a
revolution. This ridiculous theory (that Graham, short on arguments,
developed into a novel) [<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nb22" id="nh22" rel="footnote" title="The Keys to the Kingdom, Vanguard Press, 2011">22</a>]. has only one goal: to divert suspicion away from the only "<i>foreign government</i>"
whose links with the alleged terrorists are demonstrated, Israel,
towards its enemy, Saudi Arabia. We smile similarly when reading the
summary of the book <i>The War After</i> (2003) by the anti-Saudi Laurent Murawiec that "<i>The
royal power [Saudi] has succeeded over the years to infiltrate agents
of influence at the highest levels of the U.S. administration and to
organize an effective intellectual lobby that now controls several
universities among the country’s most prestigious</i> [23]. "</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
In asserting further that the Saudi track was stifled because of the
friendship between the Bush and Saudi families, Graham and his friends
use neoconservative George W. Bush as a fuse or lightning rod. The
strategy paid off since the 9/11 Truth movement as a whole barks against
him and balks at pronouncing the name of Israel. One can recognize the
art of Machiavelli: have the dirty work done by another, and then lead
the mob against him.</div>
<br />
<dl class="spip_document_154261 spip_documents spip_documents_right" style="float: right; width: 220px;">
<dt></dt>
<dt class="crayon document-titre-154261 spip_doc_titre" style="text-align: left; width: 220px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtju5RM94d5J5CsRzHRQkLYYVeErE-CGsuXoAqfZjH7VxOPNFPbtumFbIqt_Jo7_pzZGRkGd8j7AAuE2Xozb4I2C279wW4KNF4MKAIIKO9B_xAT8RJGNTKLD6b4FQHIGyFLhG9R26TXdM/s1600/Untitled4-cd432-a3071-cf0bb.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtju5RM94d5J5CsRzHRQkLYYVeErE-CGsuXoAqfZjH7VxOPNFPbtumFbIqt_Jo7_pzZGRkGd8j7AAuE2Xozb4I2C279wW4KNF4MKAIIKO9B_xAT8RJGNTKLD6b4FQHIGyFLhG9R26TXdM/s1600/Untitled4-cd432-a3071-cf0bb.jpg" /></a><b>As
I have shown elsewhere, a more appropriate term for the
"neo-conservatives" would be "machiavelo-Zionists." Michael Ledeen gives
proof of this in an article in the Jewish World Review (June 7, 1999)
where he defends the thesis that Machiavelli was "secretly Jewish" as at
the time were thousands of families nominally converted to Catholicism
under threat of expulsion (mainly Marranos from the Iberian Peninsula).
"Listen to his political philosophy and you will hear Jewish music ".
By definition, Machiavellianism advances masked by virtuous speech (ie
the human-rightist), but a growing number of Zionists overtly espouse
it: Another example is the book by Obadiah Shoher, "Samson Blinded: A
Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict."</b></dt>
</dl>
The day when, under pressure from public opinion, the mainstream
media will be forced to abandon the official theory, the protest
movement will have been thoroughly infiltrated and the "<i>9/11 is an inside job</i>"
slogan will have prepared public sentiment for an outburst against
Bush, Cheney and others, while neoconservatives remain immune from
justice. And if, by misfortune, the day of the great unravelling, media
zionists fail to keep Israel beyond the reach of justice, the Jewish
state can always play the Chomsky card: <i>America made me do it</i>. Noam Chomsky [<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nb24" id="nh24" rel="footnote" title="“Contrary to Chomsky’s theories, the United States has no interest to support (...)">24</a>],
who camps on the far left since the Trotskyist Irving Kristol veered to
the extreme right to form the neoconservative movement, continues in
effect to relentlessly push the hackneyed argument that Israel is merely
carrying out the will of the United States, as its <i>de facto</i> 51st state and the policeman in the Middle East.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
According to Chomsky and hyped radical U.S. left personalities such
as Michael Moore, the destabilization of the Middle East is Washington’s
strategy prior to being that of Tel Aviv. The Iraq war? For oil of
course: "<i>Of course it was Iraq’s energy resources. It’s not even a question</i> [25]." Sign of the times, here Chomsky has Alan Greenspan, head of the Federal Reserve, joining in the chorus. In his book, <i>The age of turbulence</i> (2007) Greenspan pretends to concede "what everyone knows: one of the major factors in the war in Iraq was oil in the region."</div>
<dl class="spip_document_154264 spip_documents spip_documents_left" style="float: left; text-align: left; width: 220px;">
<dt></dt>
<dt class="crayon document-titre-154264 spip_doc_titre" style="width: 220px;"><b>"I
personally believe that there is a deep connection between the events
of September 11 and peak oil, but it’s not something I can prove,"
states Richard Heinberg, expert on energy depletion, in the documentary
“Oil, Smoke and Mirrors”. Might as well say that the thesis arises from
irrational faith.</b></dt>
</dl>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN8_VvMY9NksPbU6BG1Cf3PMNLg28PbXKkM00Hn85l-4oo7FHz84FJ1ZFVhTzS5b4k8sSSNHngDff80CyNxGRFWoM-nNDnF6c-8qGvYWBmxNI_ghcwUOlWLSPX98aIIxjlPmMHs57tcbI/s1600/Untitled5-d9862-56b09-7b232.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN8_VvMY9NksPbU6BG1Cf3PMNLg28PbXKkM00Hn85l-4oo7FHz84FJ1ZFVhTzS5b4k8sSSNHngDff80CyNxGRFWoM-nNDnF6c-8qGvYWBmxNI_ghcwUOlWLSPX98aIIxjlPmMHs57tcbI/s1600/Untitled5-d9862-56b09-7b232.jpg" /></a>To this we must respond in unison with James Petras <i>(Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of U.S. Power</i>), Stephen Sniegoski (<i>The Transparent Cabal</i>) and Jonathan Cook (<i>Israel and the Clash of Civilizations</i>):
"Not only did Big Oil not encourage the invasion, it did not even
manage to control a single oil well, despite the presence of 160,000
U.S. troops, 127,000 mercenaries paid by the Pentagon and the State</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Department, and a corrupt puppet government [26]."
No, the oil does not explain the war in Iraq, nor does it explain the
war in Afghanistan, nor does it explain the assault on Syria by
surrogate mercenaries, no more than it explains the planned war against
Iran. And it is certainly not the oil lobby that has the power to impose
the "great taboo" over the entire media sphere (from <i>Marianne</i> to <i>Echoes</i>, in the case of France).</div>
<br />
<br />
<h3 class="spip">
The Israeli culture of false flag terror</h3>
<div style="text-align: left;">
A reminder is needed here to better situate September 11 in history.
Americans have a long history of manufacturing false pretenses for war.
We could go back to 1845 with the expansionist war against Mexico,
triggered by U.S. provocations on the disputed area on the border with
Texas (the Nueces River in Mexico, the Rio Grande for Texans) until
clashes offered President James Polk (a Texan) the opportunity to
declare that the Mexicans “spilled American blood on American soil."
After the war, a member by the name of Abraham Lincoln had Congress
admit the falsity of the <i>casus belli</i>. Thereafter, all the wars waged by the United States have been under false pretenses: the explosion of the <i>USS Maine</i> for the war against Spain in Cuba, the sinking of the <i>Lusitania</i>
for entry into the First World War World, Pearl Harbor for the second,
and the Gulf of Tonkin for the burning down of North Vietnam. However,
only the explosion of the <i>USS Maine</i>, which caused few deaths, falls into the category of a false flag ploy; although it is still not completely clear.</div>
<br />
<dl class="spip_document_154265 spip_documents spip_documents_right" style="float: right; width: 220px;">
<dt></dt>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqlCAsp9k9M644sK-_9CSdEDILtp2xog5khXjTVFCUh9FB-rqpeqRYgiCu1CSqx6floIhRTbwsYz0knOYDGehGH2_bwQkAb6r0KpPIL_CW13oPMcL3BaeWiALN6BQITsNK5-v3EvBaWAk/s1600/Untitled9-29f98-e6c5c-d38aa.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqlCAsp9k9M644sK-_9CSdEDILtp2xog5khXjTVFCUh9FB-rqpeqRYgiCu1CSqx6floIhRTbwsYz0knOYDGehGH2_bwQkAb6r0KpPIL_CW13oPMcL3BaeWiALN6BQITsNK5-v3EvBaWAk/s1600/Untitled9-29f98-e6c5c-d38aa.jpg" /></a></div>
<dt class="crayon document-titre-154265 spip_doc_titre" style="width: 220px;"><b>The
transatlantic liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed May 7, 1915 by the
Germans, while operating in a war zone. Remember the Lusitania is the
slogan that President Woodrow Wilson used in mobilizing public opinion
in favor of U.S. entry into the war. The fact that only one torpedo was
enough to sink the ship in fifteen minutes raises questions. In his
paper, Mendel Edward House, Wilson’s adviser, reports a conversation he
had shortly before with the British Foreign Minister Edward Grey (later
in 1919 ambassador to the United States). "What would the Americans do
if the Germans sank a transatlantic liner with American passengers on
board?" Grey asked. House replied: "I think a fire of indignation would
sweep the United States and that would be enough to get us into war."</b></dt>
</dl>
However, it is a fact that Israel has a heavy past and great
expertise in false flag attacks. A world history of this strategy would
probably have to devote half of its pages to Israel, though it is the
youngest of modern nations. The mould was cast even before the creation
of Israel, with the bombing of King David Hotel, the headquarters of the
British authorities in Jerusalem. On the morning of July 22, 1946, six
terrorists of Irgun (the terrorist militia commanded by Menachem Begin,
the future Prime Minister) dressed as Arabs entered and deposited 225 kg
of TNT hidden in milk cans around the central pillar of the building,
while others planted explosives along the access roads to the hotel to
prevent the arrival of first responders. When a British officer became
suspicious, a gunfight broke out in the hotel and members of the
commando fled after detonating the devices. The explosion killed 91
people, mostly British, but also 15 Jews.<br />
<br />
The strategem was repeated in Egypt during the summer of 1954, with <i>Operation Susannah</i>,
whose aim was to thwart the British withdrawal from the Suez Canal
required by Gamal Abdul Nasser with support from President Eisenhower.
This also went stale and is known as the "Lavon Affair", named after the
Israeli prime minister who was held responsible. The most famous and
most calamitous of the Israeli false flag attacks was that on the
American NSA ship <i>USS Liberty</i>, June 8, 1967 off the coast of
Egypt, two days before the end of the Six Day War; we see already a deep
collaboration between Israel and the U.S. The Johnson administration
had covered up and perhaps even encouraged this crime against its own
engineers and soldiers. I evoked these two cases in a previous article
and will not go over them again here [27]<br />
<br />
In 1986, the Mossad tried to make believe that a series of terrorist
orders were transmitted from Libya to various Libyan embassies around
the world. According to former agent Victor Ostrovsky (<i>By Way of Deception</i>,
1990), the Mossad used a special communication system, labeled "Trojan
Horse," established by commandos inside enemy territory. The system acts
as a relay station for false transmissions sent from an Israeli ship
and immediately reissued on a frequency used by the Libyan state. As the
Mossad had hoped, the NSA caught and deciphered the transmissions,
which were interpreted as evidence that the Libyans supported terrorism,
reports that Mossad came opportunely to confirm. Israel relied on
Reagan’s promise of retaliation against any country caught in the act of
supporting terrorism. The Americans fell into the trap and dragged with
them the British and the Germans: April 14, 1986, one hundred and sixty
U.S. aircraft dropped over sixty tons of bombs on Libya, targeting
mainly airports and military bases. Among the civilian casualties on the
Libyan side was Gaddafi’s adopted daughter, aged four. The strike
torpedoed a deal for the release of US hostages held in Lebanon,
allowing Hezbollah to continue as public enemy number one in the eyes of
the West.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvuNLrkCIY3hRm4QgUsVWPdwhYR0hietmuJTat4XrmoNFymMSgE1ZPEbQMF9IjHjniPVXi-S0kE8zCkIJ5MCUUdTwfqAn_vvlxQiJ5MmZSeIAsJpGLGx4mkUH_4yBgD9ru4Vg5Xg8ILSc/s1600/1-3801-64e9d-3ec2e-6578b.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvuNLrkCIY3hRm4QgUsVWPdwhYR0hietmuJTat4XrmoNFymMSgE1ZPEbQMF9IjHjniPVXi-S0kE8zCkIJ5MCUUdTwfqAn_vvlxQiJ5MmZSeIAsJpGLGx4mkUH_4yBgD9ru4Vg5Xg8ILSc/s320/1-3801-64e9d-3ec2e-6578b.jpg" width="320" /></a> <br />
<dl class="spip_document_154266 spip_documents spip_documents_center">
<dt></dt>
<dt class="crayon document-titre-154266 spip_doc_titre" style="width: 350px;"><b>Isser
Harel, founder of the Israeli secret service, would have predicted to
the Christian Zionist Michael Evans in 1980 that Islamic terrorism would
eventually hit the USA. "In Islamic theology, the phallic symbol is
very important. Your biggest phallic symbol is New York City and its
tallest building will be the phallic symbol they will hit. "In
reporting this exchange in a 2004 interview, Evans, author of "The
American Prophecies, Terrorism and Mid-East Conflict Reveal a Nation’s
Destiny", hopes to elevate Harel to prophet. Rational minds will see the
indication rather that September 11 matured for 30 years in the deep
state of Israel.</b></dt>
</dl>
The manipulating capacity of the Mossad at the time can be further
illustrated by two stories analyzed by Thomas Gordon. On April 17, 1986 a
young Irish woman named Ann-Marie Murphy unknowingly carried 1.5 pounds
of Semtex on board a flight from London to Tel Aviv. Her fiancé, a
Pakistani named Nezar Hindawi, was arrested while trying to flee to the
Syrian Embassy. Both were actually manipulated by the Mossad, which
achieved the desired result: the Thatcher government broke off
diplomatic relations with Syria. But the manipulation was exposed in
high places (as Jacques Chirac later told the <i>Washington Times</i>) [28]<br />
<br />
In January 1987, the Palestinian Ismail Sowan, a Mossad mole who
infiltrated the PLO in London, is given two suitcases packed with
weapons and explosives by an unknown person supposedly sent by his PLO
chief. Ismail reveals this to his Mossad contacts, who send him on a
trip to Tel Aviv, then denounce him to Scotland Yard as a suspect in an
Islamist attack in London. Ismail is picked up on his return to Heathrow
Airport and charged on the basis of weapons found at his home. Result:
the Mossad gains the favors of the Thatcher government [29].
After the February 26, 1993, attack against the WTC, the FBI arrested
the Palestinian Ahmed Ajaj and identified him as a terrorist linked to
Hamas, but the Israeli newspaper <i>Kol Ha’ir</i> showed that qu’Ajaj
had never been involved with Hamas or the PLO. According to journalist
Robert Friedman, author of an article in <i>The Village Voice</i>,
August 3, 1993, Ajaj was actually a petty crook arrested in 1988 for
forging dollars, sentenced to two and a half years in prison and
released after a year following a deal with the Mossad, for whom he had
infiltrated Palestinian groups. Upon his release, Ajaj undergoes a
classic sheep-dipping by being briefly imprisoned again, this time for
trying to smuggle weapons for Fatah in the West Bank. We have therefore,
with the bombing of the WTC in 1993 a prototype for September 11, in
which are demonstrated Israel’s responsibility for terrorism and its
willingness to have Palestinians accused.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFOwekbBUXHnujvkO_-1ZMMnLy2Pk0C2kFAPajkfUERALQmdYfmTv0W60glhkjik1xr7txnpIRtqs9A1byp1pJMVdLbk2pHfAH7ouY03QcXsTiMFmXy3JARUmDVSKpGUdXQ6dYOq1jVCk/s1600/222-2-ae128-133d2-cc5f6.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFOwekbBUXHnujvkO_-1ZMMnLy2Pk0C2kFAPajkfUERALQmdYfmTv0W60glhkjik1xr7txnpIRtqs9A1byp1pJMVdLbk2pHfAH7ouY03QcXsTiMFmXy3JARUmDVSKpGUdXQ6dYOq1jVCk/s400/222-2-ae128-133d2-cc5f6.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<dl class="spip_document_154267 spip_documents spip_documents_center">
<dt></dt>
<dt class="crayon document-titre-154267 spip_doc_titre" style="width: 350px;"><b>The
attack against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, which
caused 29 dead and 242 wounded, was instantly blamed on Hezbollah
suicide bombers who used a truck bomb. But the judge in charge of the
investigation revealed pressures from the US and Israeli delegates and
manipulation of evidence and false testimony to lean the investigation
toward the theory of a truck bomb, while facts indicated that the
explosion came from inside the building. When the Argentine Supreme
Court upheld this argument, the spokesman of the Israeli embassy accused
the judges of anti-Semitism.</b></dt>
</dl>
It is interesting to recall what was written by Philip Zelikow with John Deutch in December 1998 in an article in <i>Foreign Affairs</i>
entitled "Catastrophic Terrorism," positing that the bomb used in the
1993 attack was nuclear, and already evoking a new Pearl Harbor: "<i>An
act of catastrophic terrorism that killed thousands or tens of thousands
of people and/or disrupted the necessities of life for hundreds of
thousands, or even millions, would be a watershed event in America’s
history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented for
peacetime and undermine Americans’ fundamental sense of security within
their own borders in a manner akin to the 1949 Soviet atomic bomb test,
or perhaps even worse</i>. […] <i>Like Pearl Harbor, the event would
divide our past and future into a before and after. The United States
might respond with draconian measures scaling back civil liberties,
allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects and use
of deadly force</i> [30]."<br />
<br />
On 12 January 12, 2000, according to the Indian newspaper <i>The Week</i>,
Indian intelligence officers arrested eleven Islamist preachers who
were preparing to board a flight to Bangladesh at Calcutta airport. They
were suspected of belonging to Al-Qaeda and wanting to hijack the
plane. They presented themselves as Afghans who had stayed in Iran
before spending two months in India to preach Islam. But it was found
that they all had Israeli passports. The Indian intelligence officer
told <i>The Week</i> that Tel Aviv "<i>exerted considerable pressure</i>" on Delhi to secure their release.<br />
<br />
On 12 October 12, 2000, in the final weeks of Clinton’s term of office, the <i>USS Cole</i>,
en route to the Persian Gulf, was ordered by its homeport of Norfolk to
refuel in the port of Aden in Yemen, an unusual procedure since these
destroyers are generally supplied by a Navy tanker at sea. The captain
of the ship expressed his surprise and concern: the <i>USS Cole</i> had recently filled up at the entrance of the Suez Canal, and Yemen is a hostile area. The <i>USS Cole</i>
was executing docking maneuvers when she was approached by a dinghy
apparently for the removal of garbage, which exploded against the hull,
killing 17 sailors and wounding 50. The two "suicide bombers" driving
the boat also perished in this "suicide". The attack was immediately
attributed to Al-Qaeda, although bin Laden denied responsibility and the
Taliban denied that their "host" could have been involved. The
accusation gave the United States a pretext to force the Yemeni
President Ali Abdullah Saleh to cooperate in the fight against
anti-imperialist Islamism, closing for starters three paramilitary camps
on its territory. On top of that, a few weeks before the elections, the
attack was the <i>October Surprise</i> that brought Bush to power.<br />
<br />
John O’Neill was in charge of the investigation. A twenty year
veteran of the FBI, and experienced specialist in counter-terrorism, he
had investigated the bombing at the WTC in 1993. His team came to
suspect that Israel had fired a missile from a submarine: the hole was
indeed indicative of a penetrating charge and inexplicable by the
explosion of one dinghy. The suspicions were shared by President Saleh,
who spoke in an interview with <i>Newsweek</i>, of the possibility that the attack was due to Israel, "trying to spoil the US-Yemeni relationship [31]."
O’Neill and his team suffered the hostility of U.S. Ambassador Barbara
Bodine. They were kept from diving in order to inspect the damage.
Finally, taking advantage of their return to New York for Thanksgiving,
Bodine refused them re-entry to Yemen. The crew of the <i>Cole</i> were
put under a gag order forbidding then to talk about the attack to anyone
other than the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). In July
2001, O’Neill resigned from the FBI. He was soon after offered a
position as head of security at the WTC starting on September 11, 2001.
His body was found in the rubble of the WTC after he had disappeared for
two days. As for Barbara Bodine, in 2003 she joined the corrupt team of
the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWGFYr_k0b9A7sdWOelW2_ITB0eszAjoHpualgSfPDCs8QINYaL_0saGbegrn4_DBqqnW82aR1toEALETdh2ObU8ldFjtfNCxHZ5d6ggS-wRoFNAXqrd9WBEIwwT-IDyFG5_IHoe340AI/s1600/Untitled12-5f348_1_-72a27-829c7.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWGFYr_k0b9A7sdWOelW2_ITB0eszAjoHpualgSfPDCs8QINYaL_0saGbegrn4_DBqqnW82aR1toEALETdh2ObU8ldFjtfNCxHZ5d6ggS-wRoFNAXqrd9WBEIwwT-IDyFG5_IHoe340AI/s400/Untitled12-5f348_1_-72a27-829c7.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<dl class="spip_document_154269 spip_documents spip_documents_center">
<dt></dt>
<dt class="crayon document-titre-154269 spip_doc_titre" style="width: 350px;"><b>Where
does the list of Zionist-designed fake Islamic terrorism end? The
"New York Times" and other newspapers reported that on September 19,
2005, two agents of the British Special Forces (SAS) were arrested after
forcing a road block in a car filled with weapons, ammunition,
explosives and detonators which they drove disguised as Arabs. It is
suspected that they were planning to commit violent attacks in the
center of Basra during a religious event, to stir up conflict between
Shiites and Sunnis. The same evening, a SAS unit freed the two agents by
destroying the prison with a dozen tanks assisted by helicopters.
Captain Masters, charged with the investigation of this embarrassing
affair, died in Basra on October 15.</b></dt>
</dl>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 7px; text-align: left;">
Laurent Guyénot
</div>
<div class="texte_sans_3b" style="padding-top: 7px;">
Translation
<br />
Roger Lagassé</div>
<aside>
</aside>
<br />
<div class="notes" style="border-top: solid 1px #b1b1b1; margin-top: 40px;">
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh1" id="nb1" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 1">1</a>] <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.corriere.it/politica/07_novembre_30/osama_berlusconi_cossiga_27f4ccee-9f55-11dc-8807-0003ba99c53b.shtml" rel="external">Original article in Italian</a>: "<a class="spip_out" href="http://mycatbirdseat.com/2011/06/demystifying-911-israel-and-the-tactics-of-mistake/" rel="external">Demystifying 9/11: Israel and the Tactics of Mistake — Alan Sabrosky</a>."<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh2" id="nb2" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 2">2</a>] “<i>Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act</i>” (Rowan Scarborough, "<a class="spip_out" href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2001/sep/10/20010910-025319-6906r/" rel="external">U.S. troops would enforce peace Under Army study</a>," <i>The Washington Times</i>, 10 September 2001.)<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh3" id="nb3" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 3">3</a>] In addition to the book by Hicham Hamza and Christopher Bollyn, more on this issue from: Justin Raimondo, <i>The Terror Enigma: 9/11 and the Israeli Connection</i>, iUniversal, 2003 as well as an article by Christopher Ketcham, "<a class="spip_out" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/03/07/what-did-israel-know-in-advance-of-the-9-11-attacks/" rel="external">What Did Israel Know in Advance of the 9/11 Attacks?</a>", <i>CounterPunch</i>, 2007, vol. 14, p. 1-10).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh4" id="nb4" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 4">4</a>] "<i>Vehicle
possibly related to New York terrorist attack. White, 2000 Chevrolet
van with New Jersey registration with ’Urban Moving Systems’ sign on
back seen at Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ, at the time of first
impact of jetliner into World Trade Center. Three individuals with van
were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion</i>" (Raimondo, <i>The Terror Enigma</i>, p. xi).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh5" id="nb5" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 5">5</a>] "<i>We are Israelis. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are your problem</i>." (Hicham Hamza, <i>Le Grand Tabou</i>, ch. 2).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh6" id="nb6" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 6">6</a>] "<i>There
are maps of the city in the car with certain places highlighted. It
looked like they’re hooked in with this. It looked like they knew what
was going to happen when they were at Liberty State Park</i>" (Raimondo, <i>The Terror Enigma</i>, p. xi).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh7" id="nb7" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 7">7</a>] "I was in tears. These guys were joking and that bothered me"(Raimondo, <i>The Terror Enigma</i>, p. 19 ); Hamza, <i>Le Grand Tabou</i>, ch. 2.<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh8" id="nb8" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 8">8</a>] "<i>They smiled, they hugged each other and they appeared to ‘high five’ one another</i>"; "<i>the United States will take steps to stop terrorism in the world</i>"; "<i>Give us twenty years and we’ll take over your media and destroy your country</i>"; "<i>an individual in South America with authentic ties to Islamic militants in the middle east</i>"; "<i>The
vehicule was also searched by a trained bomb-sniffing dog which yielded
a positive result for the presence of explosive traces</i>" (Hamza, <i>Le Grand Tabou</i>, ch. 2).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh9" id="nb9" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 9">9</a>] "... <i>that
the FBI no longer has any investigative interests in the detainees and
they should proceed with the appropriate immigration proceedings</i>" (Hamza, <i>Le Grand Tabou</i>, ch. 2).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh10" id="nb10" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 10">10</a>] See Youtube “Dancing Israelis, our purpose was to document the event.”<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh11" id="nb11" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 11">11</a>] "<i>Yes, we have a white van, 2 or 3 guys in there, they look like Palestinians and going around a building.</i> […] <i>I see the guy by Newark Airport mixing some junk and he has those sheikh uniforms.</i> […] <i>He’s dressed like an Arab</i>" (Bollyn, <i>Solving 9-11</i>, p. 278-80).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh12" id="nb12" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 12">12</a>] "<i>Yes, we have a white van, 2 or 3 guys in there, they look like Palestinians and going around a building</i>. […] <i>I see the guy by Newark Airport mixing some junk and he has those sheikh uniforms</i>. […] <i>He’s dressed like an Arab</i>" (Bollyn, Solving 9-11, p. 278-80).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh13" id="nb13" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 13">13</a>] "<i><a class="spip_out" href="http://cryptome.org/dea-il-spy.htm" rel="external">In
the past six weeks, employees in federal office buildings located
throughout the United States have reported suspicious activities
connected with individuals representing themselves as foreign students
selling or delivering artwork</a></i><a class="spip_out" href="http://cryptome.org/dea-il-spy.htm" rel="external">.” “<i>These individuals have also gone to the private residences of senior federal officials under the guise of selling art</i></a>." Drug Enforcement Administration Report.<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh14" id="nb14" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 14">14</a>] “<i>The nature of the individuals’ conducts</i> […] leads us to believe the incidents may well be an organized intelligence gathering activity” (Raimondo, <i>The Terror Enigma</i>, p. x).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh15" id="nb15" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 15">15</a>] “acknowledged he could blow up buildings, bridges, cars, and anything else that he needed to” (Bollyn, <i>Solving 9/11</i>, p. 159).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh16" id="nb16" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 16">16</a>] "<i>The Hollywood, Florida, area seems to be a central point for these individuals</i>” (Raimondo, <i>The Terror Enigma</i>, p. 3).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh17" id="nb17" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 17">17</a>] David Ray Griffin, <i>9/11 Contradictions</i>, Arris Books, 2008, p. 142-156, citing the <i>Daily Mail</i>, the <i>Boston Herald</i>, the <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i> and <i>The Wall Street Journal</i>.<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh18" id="nb18" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 18">18</a>] "<i>The
aircraft cut a gash that was over half the width of the building and
extended from the 93rd floor to the 99th floor. All but the lowest of
these floors were occupied by Marsh & McLennan, a worldwide
insurance company, which also occupied the 100th floor</i>." (p. 20). <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.reopen911.info/News/2012/09/11/la-parenthese-enchantee-1011-lucky-guys/" rel="external">These elements have been analyzed by Lalo Vespera in <i>La parenthèse enchantée</i></a>, ch. 10<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh19" id="nb19" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 19">19</a>] "Like an act of God, we moved," (<i>USA Today</i>, 17 septembre 2001).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh20" id="nb20" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 20">20</a>] “<i>Evidence
that there were foreign governments involved in facilitating the
activities of at least some of the terrorists in the United <i>States</i>”</i> (Raimondo, <i>The Terror Enigma</i>, p. 64).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh21" id="nb21" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 21">21</a>] "The threat of civil unrest against the monarchy, led by al Qaeda" ("<a class="spip_out" href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/11/saudi-arabia-fried-or-foe-asks-senator-bob-graham.html" rel="external">Saudi Arabia : Friend or Foe?</a>," <i>The Daily Beast</i>, 11 July 2011).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh22" id="nb22" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 22">22</a>] <i>The Keys to the Kingdom</i>, Vanguard Press, 2011<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh23" id="nb23" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 23">23</a>] <a class="spip_out" href="http://www.amazon.ca/Guerre-Dapres-La-LAURENT-MURAWIEC/dp/2226137548" rel="external">Summary from Amazon.ca</a><br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh24" id="nb24" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 24">24</a>] “<a class="" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article143635.html">Contrary to Chomsky’s theories, the United States has no interest to support Israel</a>”, by Jeffrey Blankfort, <i>Voltaire Network</i>, 28 September 2006.<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh25" id="nb25" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 25">25</a>] “Of course it was Iraq’s energy resources. It’s not even a question”(Stephen Sniegoski, <i>The Transparent Cabal : The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel</i>, Enigma Edition, 2008, p. 333).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh26" id="nb26" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 26">26</a>]
"‘Big Oil’ not only did not promote the invasion, but has failed to
secure a single oil field, despite the presence of 160,000 US troops,
127,000 Pentagon/State Department paid mercenaries and a corrupt puppet
régime" (James Petras, <i>Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power</i>, Clarity Press, 2008, p. 18).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh27" id="nb27" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 27">27</a>] “<a class="" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article178401.html">Kennedy, the Lobby and the Bomb</a>”, by Laurent Guyénot, Translation Gaia Edwards, <i>Voltaire Network</i>, 2 May 2013.<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh28" id="nb28" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 28">28</a>] Gordon Thomas, <i><a class="spip_out" href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0312252846/ref=rdr_ext_tmb" rel="external">Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad</a></i>, Griffin; New Ed edition (23 Feb 2007).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh29" id="nb29" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 29">29</a>] Gordon Thomas, <i>op.cit.</i><br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh30" id="nb30" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 30">30</a>] “<i>An
act of catastrophic terrorism that killed thousands or tens of
thousands of people and/or disrupted the necessities of life for
hundreds of thousands, or even millions, would be a watershed event in
America’s history. It could involve loss of life and property
unprecedented for peacetime and undermine Americans’ fundamental sense
of security within their own borders in a manner akin to the 1949 Soviet
atomic bomb test, or perhaps even worse. […] Like Pearl Harbor, the
event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The
United States might respond with draconian measures scaling back civil
liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of
suspects and use of deadly force</i>” (Griffin, <i>9/11 Contradictions</i>, p. 295-6).<br />
[<a class="spip_note" href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html#nh31" id="nb31" rev="footnote" title="Footnotes 31">31</a>] "<a class="spip_out" href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2000/12/17/we-are-still-searching.html" rel="external">We Are Still Searching</a>" (<i>The Daily Beast</i>, December 17, 2007.<br />
<br /></div>
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<aside>
</aside>
<br />
<div class="fond3b" style="margin-bottom: 25px;">
<div style="padding: 5px;">
Laurent Guyénot
<br />
<div class="texte_sans_3b">
Engineer (National School of Advanced Technology, 1982) and medievalist
(PhD in Medieval Studies at Paris IV-Sorbonne, 2009). He has authored
numerous books on the subject. He has dedicated the past three years to
studying the behind-the-scenes history of the United States, where he
lived for five years.
</div>
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<span style="color: blue;"> http://www.voltairenet.org/article179295.html</span></div>
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whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com67tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-2001405704749861572013-07-09T16:24:00.000-07:002013-07-09T16:24:00.489-07:00Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg: Government Has ORDERED the Media Not to Cover 9/11<span style="color: white;"> .</span><br />
<br />
By Washington's Blog<br />
<br />
It’s <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Pentagon+Papers%22&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=JA0&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images&tbs=,qdr:w">big news</a> that the Pentagon Papers have finally been released by the government.<br />
<br />
But the statements from Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg about 9/11 have not been covered by the corporate media.<br />
<br />
As Fire Dog Lake’s Jeff Kaye <a href="http://my.firedoglake.com/valtin/2011/06/13/dod-whistleblower-documents-show-intel-withheld-from-911-congressional-investigators/">writes</a> today:<br />
<blockquote>
The entire 9/11 field of inquiry has been vilified,
poisoned over the years by ridicule, sometimes fantastic conspiracy
mongering, and fearfulness by journalists of approaching the material,
lest they be branded as irresponsible or some kind of conspiracy freak.
As a result, little work has been done to investigate, except by a small
group of people, some of whom have raised some real questions …</blockquote>
Similarly, Air Force Colonel and key Pentagon official Karen Kwiatkowski – who <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/2004-02-19/news/soldier-for-the-truth/">blew the whistle</a> on the Bush administration’s efforts to concoct false intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction – <a href="http://www.amazon.com/11-American-Empire-Intellectuals-Speak/dp/1566566592">wrote</a> (page 26): <br />
<blockquote>
I have been told by reporters that they will not report
their own insights or contrary evaluations of the official 9/11 story,
because to question the government story about 9/11 is to question the
very foundations of our entire modern belief system regarding our
government, our country, and our way of life. To be charged with
questioning these foundations is far more serious than being labeled a
disgruntled conspiracy nut or anti-government traitor, or even being
sidelined or marginalized within an academic, government service, or
literary career. To question the official 9/11 story is simply and
fundamentally revolutionary. In this way, of course, questioning the
official story is also simply and fundamentally American.</blockquote>
Several months after 9/11, famed news anchor Dan Rather <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2002/05_may/16/dan_rather.shtml">told</a> the BBC that American reporters were practicing “a form of self-censorship”: <br />
<blockquote>
There was a time in South Africa that people would put
flaming tires around peoples’ necks if they dissented. And in some ways
the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming
tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. Now it is that fear
that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions….
And again, I am humbled to say, I do not except myself from this
criticism. <br />
What we are talking about here – whether one wants to recognise it or
not, or call it by its proper name or not – is a form of
self-censorship.</blockquote>
The head of CNN <a href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/transcript1.html">agreed</a>: <br />
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null">There was ‘almost a patriotism police’ after 9/11 and
when the network showed [things critical of the administration's
policies] it would get phone calls from advertisers and the
administration and “big people in corporations were calling up and
saying, ‘You’re being anti-American here.’</a></blockquote>
Keith Olbermann <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen/4">said</a>: <br />
<blockquote>
You can rock the boat, but you can never say that the
entire ocean is in trouble …. You cannot say: By the way, there’s
something wrong with our …. system.</blockquote>
Former Washington Post – and now Huffington Post – columnist Dan Froomkin <a href="http://blog.niemanwatchdog.org/?p=53">wrote</a> in 2006: <br />
<blockquote>
Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming
increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy
Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being
afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do. . . .<br />
There’s the intense pressure to maintain access to insider sources,
even as those sources become ridiculously unrevealing and oversensitive.
There’s the fear of being labeled partisan if one’s bullshit-calling
isn’t meted out in precisely equal increments along the political
spectrum.<br />
If mainstream-media political journalists don’t start calling
bullshit more often, then we do risk losing our primacy — if not to the
comedians then to the bloggers.<br />
I still believe that no one is fundamentally more capable of
first-rate bullshit-calling than a well-informed beat reporter –
whatever their beat. We just need to get the editors, or the corporate
culture, or the self-censorship – or whatever it is – out of the way.</blockquote>
The Pulitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison
torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam, Seymour Hersh, <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/14010621/national_affairs_cheneys_nemesis_seymour_hersh_reveals_white_houses_secret_plan_to_bomb_iran/print">said</a>: <br />
<blockquote>
“All of the institutions we thought would protect us —
particularly the press, but also the military, the bureaucracy, the
Congress — they have failed. The courts . . . the jury’s not in yet on
the courts. So all the things that we expect would normally carry us
through didn’t. The biggest failure, I would argue, is the press,
because that’s the most glaring…. <br />
Q: What can be done to fix the (media) situation?<br />
[Long pause] You’d have to fire or execute ninety percent of the
editors and executives. You’d actually have to start promoting people
from the newsrooms to be editors who you didn’t think you could control.
And they’re not going to do that.”</blockquote>
Veteran reporter Bill Moyers <a href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/about/index-premiere.html">criticized</a>
the corporate media for parroting the obviously false link between 9/11
and Iraq (and the false claims that Iraq possessed WMDs) which the
administration made in the run up to the Iraq war, and concluded that
the false information was not challenged because:<br />
<blockquote>
“the [mainstream] media had been cheerleaders for the
White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the
public behind the President — no questions asked.”</blockquote>
Of course, the <a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/12/5-reasons-that-most-corporate-media-is.html">corporate media is always pro-war</a>.
Since 9/11 provided a justification for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Yemen and elsewhere, the mainstream media doesn’t want to question the
government’s version of events.<br />
As Tom Brokaw <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/tom-brokaw-defends-war-co_b_104636.html">notes</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
All wars are based on propaganda.</blockquote>
What Does Ellsberg Say?<br />
Ellsberg <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5260#more-5260">says</a> that the government has ordered the media not to cover 9/11: <br />
<blockquote>
Ellsberg seemed hardly surprised that today’s American
mainstream broadcast media has so far failed to take [former FBI
translator and 9/11 whistleblower Sibel] Edmonds up on her offer,
despite the blockbuster nature of her allegations [which Ellsberg calls
"far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers"]. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
As Edmonds has also alluded, Ellsberg pointed to the New York Times,
who “sat on the NSA spying story for over a year” when they “could have
put it out before the 2004 election, which might have changed the
outcome.” </blockquote>
<blockquote>
“There will be phone calls going out to the media saying ‘don’t even
think of touching it, you will be prosecuted for violating national
security,’” he told us. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
* * *<br />
“I am confident that there is conversation inside the Government as
to ‘How do we deal with Sibel?’” contends Ellsberg. “The first line of
defense is to ensure that she doesn’t get into the media. I think any
outlet that thought of using her materials would go to to the government
and they would be told ‘don’t touch this . . . .’”</blockquote>
He <a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/03/pentagon-papers-whistleblowers.html">supports</a> a new 9/11 investigation.<br />
<br />
He <a href="http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5260">says</a> that the case of a certain 9/11 whistleblower is “far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers”. (<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/31/760117/-Bombshell:-Bin-Laden-worked-for-US-till-9-11">Here’s some</a>
of what that whistleblower says.) He also said that the government is
ordering the media to cover up her allegations about 9/11.<br />
<br />
And he says that some of the claims concerning government involvement
in 9/11 are credible, that “very serious questions have been raised
about what they [U.S. government officials] knew beforehand and how much
involvement there might have been”, that engineering 9/11 would not be
humanly or psychologically beyond the scope of those in office, and that
there’s enough evidence to justify a new, “hard-hitting” investigation
into 9/11 with subpoenas and testimony taken under oath (see <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJhWhItqYCc">this</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VirlkZq1pLY">this</a>).<br />
Alternative Media Is Not Much Better<br />
<br />
It is not just the corporate media.<br />
<br />
I have had the owners of highly-regarded alternative media companies
confide in me privately that they don’t believe the government’s version
of 9/11, but that are scared of discussing it publicly because they
don’t want to be tarred-and-feathered for discussing “conspiracy
theories”.<br />
<br />
Even writers like Glenn Greenwald – who are good on so many issues – <a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/what-glenn-greenwald-will-be-interested.html">won’t touch it</a>.<br />
<br />
Of course – as Ellsberg <a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/daniel-ellsberg-secrets-can-be-kept.html">points out</a>
– “Secrets … can be kept reliably … for decades … even though they are
known to thousands of insiders”. Indeed, the whole label “conspiracy
theory” is just an <a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/02/ridicule-of-conspiracy-theories-focuses.html">attempt to diffuse criticism of the powerful</a>.<br />
<br />
People used to understand this. As the quintessential American writer Mark Twain <a href="http://thinkexist.com/quotation/a_conspiracy_is_nothing_but_a_secret_agreement_of/172365.html">said</a> in a more rational age:<br />
<blockquote>
A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a
number of men for the pursuance of policies which they dare not admit in
public.</blockquote>
Of course, as thousands of top American military officers,
counter-terrorism officials, intelligence officers, congressmen,
structural engineers, and others have publicly said, the government’s
story about 9/11 makes absolutely no sense. See <a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/06/al-qaeda-flying-planes-into-world-trade.html">this</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/09/anniversary-of-911.html">this</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/permission-to-speak-freely-regarding.html">this</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/02/government-infiltrates-terror-cells.html">this</a>. And family members of people who died on 9/11 – and many New Yorkers – <a href="http://rememberbuilding7.org/">want a new investigation</a>.<br />
<br />
But you’ll never hear that in the corporate media.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.globalresearch.ca/pentagon-papers-whistleblower-daniel-ellsberg-government-has-ordered-the-media-not-to-cover-9-11/25286 </span></span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-52389893952231074832013-07-08T23:58:00.000-07:002013-07-08T23:58:42.080-07:00The Ten Most Disturbing Things You Should Know About the FBI Since 9/11 <div class="description">
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<span style="color: white;"> .</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="storyContent">
As Congress considers the nomination of James
B. Comey to lead the FBI for the next ten years, lawmakers should
examine measures to rein in a bureau that has undermined civil liberties
in the name of fighting terrorism. This is a false trade off: we can be
both safe and free.</div>
</blockquote>
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<b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTIOyaJ_kOmtVSggz5RxCyYKFkY19lPfVnb0Kqb-h6g03VwrUxk0RgJrvPYBhPH-bA69tvA70XteO7pOkxF8A64hGONM-pgsjRwXa22ASCkEepUAstiaWjKbKi2itywq3CpMrjtuQQlhk/s1600/133730_600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTIOyaJ_kOmtVSggz5RxCyYKFkY19lPfVnb0Kqb-h6g03VwrUxk0RgJrvPYBhPH-bA69tvA70XteO7pOkxF8A64hGONM-pgsjRwXa22ASCkEepUAstiaWjKbKi2itywq3CpMrjtuQQlhk/s400/133730_600.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div>
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<b>1</b><b><b> - </b>USA Patriot Act Abuse</b></div>
The recent <u><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order">revelation</a></u>
about the FBI using the Patriot Act's "business records provision" to
track all U.S. telephone calls is only the latest in a long line of
abuse. Five Justice Department Inspector General audits documented
widespread FBI misuse of Patriot Act authorities (<u><a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0703b/final.pdf">1</a></u>,<u><a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0803b/final.pdf">2</a></u>,<u><a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0703a/final.pdf">3</a></u>,<u><a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0803a/final.pdf">4</a></u>,<u><a href="http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s1001r.pdf">5</a></u>), and a federal district court recently <u><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/depth-judge-illstons-remarkable-order-striking-down-nsl-statute">struck down</a></u>
the National Security Letter (NSL) statute because of its
unconstitutional gag orders. The IG also revealed the FBI's unlawful use
of "<u><a href="http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s1001r.pdf">exigent letters</a></u>" that claimed false emergencies to get private information without NSLs, but in 2009 the Justice Department <u><a href="http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2013/05/doj-asks-dc-circuit-to-keep-surveillance-law-memo-secret.html">secretly re-interpreted the law</a></u>
to allow the FBI to get this information without emergencies or legal
process. Congress and the American public need to know the full scope of
the FBI's spying on Americans under the Patriot Act and all <u><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining-authorised-obama">other</a></u> <u><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324299104578529112289298922.html">surveillance</a></u> authorities enacted since 9/11, like the FISA Amendments Act that underlies the <u><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html">PRISM</a></u> program.<br />
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<b>2</b><b><b> - </b>2008 Amendments to the Attorney General's Guidelines</b></div>
Attorney General Michael Mukasey <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/national-security/fact-sheet-new-attorney-general-guidelines">re-wrote</a></u>
the FBI's rulebook in the final months of the Bush administration,
giving FBI agents unfettered authority to investigate people without any
factual basis for suspecting wrongdoing. The 2008 <u><a href="http://www.justice.gov/ag/readingroom/guidelines.pdf">Attorney General's Guidelines</a></u>
created a new kind of intrusive investigation called an "assessment,"
which required no "factual predicate" before FBI agents could search
through government or commercial databases, conduct overt or covert FBI
interviews, and task informants to gather information about people or
infiltrate lawful organizations. In a two-year period from 2009 to 2011,
the FBI opened over <u><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/us/24fbi.html?_r=0">82,000</a></u>
"assessments" of individuals or organizations, less than 3,500 of which
discovered information justifying further investigation.<br />
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<b>3</b><b><b> - </b>Racial and Ethnic Mapping</b></div>
The 2008 Attorney General's Guidelines also authorized "domain
management assessments" which allow the FBI to map American communities
by race and ethnicity based on crass stereotypes about the crimes they
are likely to commit. FBI documents obtained by the ACLU show the FBI
mapped entire Chinese and Russian communities <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/fbimappingfoia/20111019/ACLURM011495.pdf">in San Francisco</a></u> on the theory that they might commit organized crime, all Latino communities in <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/fbimappingfoia/20111019/ACLURM008040.pdf">New Jersey</a></u> and <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/fbimappingfoia/20111019/ACLURM009170.pdf">Alabama</a></u> because a street gang has Latino members, African Americans in <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/fbimappingfoia/20111019/ACLURM011454.pdf">Georgia</a></u> to find "Black separatists," and Middle-Eastern communities in <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/fbimappingfoia/20111019/ACLURM011609.pdf">Detroit</a></u> for terrorism investigations. The FBI's racial and ethnic <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu_eye_on_the_fbi_alert_-_fbi_engaged_in_unconstitutional_racial_profiling_and_racial_mapping_0.pdf">mapping program</a></u> is simply racial and religious profiling of entire communities.<br />
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<b>4</b><b><b> - </b>Unrestrained Data Collection and Data Mining</b></div>
The FBI has claimed the authority to secretly sweep up voluminous
amounts of private information from data aggregators for data mining
purposes. In 2007 the FBI said it amassed databases containing <u><a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/09/fbi-nsac/">1.5 billion records</a></u>, which were <u><a href="http://www.securityprivacyandthelaw.com/uploads/file/miller_snsbrnner_walker_GAO_6_5_07.pdf">predicted</a></u>
to grow to 6 billion records by 2012, or equal to "20 separate
‘records' for each man, woman and child in the United States." When
Congress sought information about one of these programs, the FBI <u><a href="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/files/61608_miller_to_obey.pdf">refused</a></u> to give the Government Accountability Office access. That program was temporarily <u><a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/06/there-was-a-tim/">defunded</a></u>, but its successor, the FBI Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, <u><a href="http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/2013/a1318r.pdf">currently</a></u> has 360 staff members running 40 separate projects. <u><a href="http://epic.org/privacy/fusion/doj-dataming.pdf">Records</a></u> show analysts are allowed to use data mining tools to establish "risk scores" for U.S. persons. A 2013 <u><a href="http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/2013/a1318r.pdf">IG audit</a></u>
questioned the task force's effectiveness, concluding it "did not
always provide FBI field offices with timely and relevant information."<br />
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<b>5</b><b><b> - </b>Suppressing Internal Dissent: The FBI War on Whistleblowers</b></div>
The FBI is exempt from the Whistleblower Protection Act. Though the
law required it to establish internal mechanisms to protect
whistleblowers, it has a <u><a href="http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/printers/110th/42510.PDF">long history</a></u> of retaliating against them. As a result, a 2009 <u><a href="http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/FBI/e0902/final.pdf">IG report</a></u>
found that 28 percent of non-supervisory FBI employees and 22 percent
of FBI supervisors at the GS-14 and GS-15 levels "never" reported
misconduct they have seen or heard about on the job. The FBI has also <u><a href="http://www.whistleblower.org/program-areas/homeland-security-a-human-rights/surveillance/nsa-whistleblowers-bill-binney-a-j-kirk-wiebe">aggressively investigated</a></u> whistleblowers from other agencies, leading to an <u><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer">unprecedented increase</a></u> in Espionage Act prosecutions under the Obama administration, almost invariably targeting critics of government policies.<br />
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<b>6</b><b><b> - </b>Targeting Journalists</b></div>
The FBI's overzealous pursuit of government whistleblowers has
resulted in the inappropriate targeting of journalists for
investigation, potentially chilling press freedoms. Recently, the FBI <u><a href="http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/20/18377209-dojs-secret-subpoena-of-ap-phone-records-broader-than-initially-revealed?lite">obtained</a></u>
records from 21 telephone lines used by over 100 Associated Press
journalists, including the AP's main number in the U.S. House of
Representatives' press gallery. And an FBI search warrant <u><a href="http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/read-fbis-affidavit-for-search-warrant-of-foxs">affidavit</a></u> claimed Fox News reporter James Rosen aided, abetted, or co-conspired in <u><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/20/nation/la-na-fbi-reporter-20130521">criminal activity</a></u>
because of his news gathering activities, in an apparent attempt to
circumvent legal restrictions designed to protect journalists. In 2010,
the <u><a href="http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s1001r.pdf">IG reported</a></u> that the FBI unlawfully used an "<u><a href="http://www.leahy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/The%20Honorable%20Robert%20S.%20Mueller,%20III.pdf">exigent letter</a></u>"
to obtain the telephone records of seven New York Times and Washington
Post reporters and researchers during a media leak investigation.<br />
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<b>7</b><b><b> - </b>Thwarting Congressional Oversight</b></div>
The FBI has thwarted congressional oversight by withholding information, limiting or <u><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/11/robert-mueller-10-years-after-9-11-is-fbi-s-top-cop-keeping-us-safer.html">delaying</a></u>
responses to members' inquiries, or worse, by providing false or
misleading information to Congress and the American public. Examples
include false information regarding FBI investigations of <u><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-6884942.html">domestic advocacy groups</a></u>, misleading information about the FBI's awareness of <u><a href="http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=e655f9e2809e5476862f735da11db40a&wit_id=e655f9e2809e5476862f735da11db40a-0-0">detainee abuse</a></u>, and deceptive responses to questions about <u><a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/04/fbi-director-ci/">government</a></u> <u><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/politics/justice-dept-is-accused-of-misleading-public-on-patriot-act.html">surveillance</a></u> authorities.<br />
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<b>8</b><b><b> - </b>Targeting First Amendment Activity</b></div>
Several ACLU Freedom of Information Act requests have uncovered
significant evidence that the FBI has used its expanded authorities to
target individuals and organizations because of their participation in
First Amendment-protected activities. A 2010 IG <u><a href="http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s1009r.pdf">report</a></u>
confirmed the FBI conducted inappropriate investigations of domestic
advocacy groups engaged in environmental and anti-war activism, and
falsified public responses to hide this fact. Other FBI documents showed
FBI exploitation of <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu_eye_on_the_fbi_alert_-_community_outreach_as_intelligence_gathering_0.pdf">community outreach</a></u> programs to secretly collect information about law-abiding citizens, including a <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu_eye_on_the_fbi_-_mosque_outreach_03272012_0_0.pdf">mosque outreach</a></u> program specifically targeting American Muslims. Many of these abuses are likely a result of flawed FBI <u><a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/09/fbi-muslims-radical/">training materials</a></u> and <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/sign_on_letter_to_dir_mueller_re_radicalization_report_10_4_11.pdf">intelligence products</a></u> that expressed anti-Muslim sentiments and falsely identified religious practices or <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform-national-security/manufacturing-black-separatist-threat-and-other-dubious">other First Amendment activities</a></u> as indicators of terrorism.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="fbiStory" id="Story9">
<div class="numberImage">
</div>
<div class="storyTitle">
<b>9</b><b><b> - </b>Proxy Detentions</b></div>
The FBI increasingly operates outside the U.S., where its
authorities are less clear and its activities much more difficult to
monitor. Several troubling cases indicate that during the Bush
administration the FBI requested, facilitated, and/or exploited the
arrests and detention of U.S. citizens by foreign governments, often
without charges, so they could be interrogated, sometimes tortured, then
interviewed by FBI agents. The ACLU represents two victims of such
activities. <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/national-security/meshal-v-higgenbotham">Amir Meshal</a></u>
was arrested at the Kenya border by a joint U.S., Kenyan, and Ethiopian
task force in 2007, subjected to more than four months of detention,
and transferred between three different East African countries without
charge, access to counsel, or presentment before a judicial officer, all
at the behest of the U.S. government. FBI agents interrogated Meshal
more than thirty times during his detention. Similarly, <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/aclu-southern-california-demands-truth-about-proxy-detention-naji-hamdan">Naji Hamdan</a></u>,
a Lebanese-American businessman, sat for interviews with the FBI
several times before moving from Los Angeles to the United Arab Emirates
in 2006. In 2008, he was arrested by U.A.E. security forces and held
incommunicado for nearly three months, beaten, and tortured. At one
point an American participated in his interrogation; Hamdan believed
this person to be an FBI agent based on the interrogator's knowledge of
previous FBI interviews. Another case in 2010, involving an <u><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/world/middleeast/13detain.html?_r=0">American teenager</a></u> jailed in Kuwait, may indicate this activity has continued into the Obama administration.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="fbiStory" id="Story10">
<div class="numberImage">
</div>
<div class="storyTitle">
<b>10 - Use of No Fly List to Pressure Americans Abroad to Become Informants</b></div>
The number of U.S. persons on the No Fly List has more than <u><a href="http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-476">doubled</a></u>
since 2009, and people mistakenly on the list are denied their due
process rights to meaningfully challenge their inclusion. In many cases
Americans only find out they are on the list while they are traveling
abroad, which all but forces them to interact with the U.S. government
from a position of extreme vulnerability, and often without easy access
to counsel. Many of those prevented from flying home have been subjected
to FBI interviews while they sought assistance from U.S. Embassies to
return. In those interviews, FBI agents sometimes offer to take people
off the No Fly List if they agree to become an FBI informant. In 2010
the ACLU and its affiliates filed a <u><a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/court-today-seeking-rein-no-fly-list-0">lawsuit</a></u>
on behalf of 10 American citizens and permanent residents, including
several U.S. military veterans, seven of whom were prevented from
returning home until the suit was filed. We argue that barring them from
flying without due process was unconstitutional. There are now 13
plaintiffs; none have been charged with a crime, told why they are
barred from flying, or given an opportunity to challenge their inclusion
on the No Fly List.</div>
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whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-18970565267987229882013-07-08T18:24:00.003-07:002013-07-08T18:26:43.807-07:00The US Fears the World will Discover its Big Nuclear Secret<span style="color: white;">.</span><br />
<br />
By Joao Peixe<br />
<br />
Ever since the Fukushima nuclear meltdown the US has taken a close
interest in Japan’s nuclear program, and wields its geopolitical mite to
<a href="http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/07/u-s-forcing-japan-to-burn-plutonium-in-nuclear-reactors.html">influence that program</a> as much as possible.<br />
<br />
As <a href="http://enenews.com/watch-govt-main-reason-crisis-fukushima-unit-4-toned-down-video">Mitsuhei Murata</a>, the former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland, said in August last year: <i> </i><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“In
the US there are 31 [sic] units the same type of that of Fukushima
nuclear plant [23 are virtually identical to Fukushima]. So, if the
accident be spread too far that really embarrasses the US. So that is
why the crisis of Unit 4 has been toned down recently. The USA is
actually the main reason.”</blockquote>
So the US has been determined to play down the negative press about the
Fukushima disaster, in order to avoid any close analysis of its own
nuclear power plants back home, and protect its nuclear industry from
facing a similar public backlash to Japan’s poor industry.<br />
<br />
One of the ways that the US tried to calm the furore over the
Fukushima disaster, was to help Japan to raise the acceptable radiation
levels, so that any leak of radioactive particles would be deemed less
serious.<br />
<br />
And ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was thought to
have signed an agreement with her Japanese counterpart to promise that
the US would continue to buy seafood from Japan, as proof that all is
well, even though the FD has so far refused to actually test the
sea-food for any radiation and determine that it is safe for
consumption.<br />
<br />
As part of the US’s efforts to keep Japan’s nuclear
industry alive, at the end of last month, Mainichi Shimbum, one of the
largest Japanese newspapers, reported that <i> </i><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“the Japanese prime ministerial envoy <a href="http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130625p2a00m0na006000c.html">secretly promised</a>
to the United States that Japan would resume its controversial
‘pluthermal’ program, using light-water reactors to burn plutonium,
according to documents obtained by the Mainichi.”</blockquote>
<br />
The
‘pluthermal’ program mixes uranium with plutonium, extracted from spent
nuclear fuel, to form a mixed-oxide (MOX). The resulting MOX fuel can
then be used in light-water reactors, and provides a useful means of
disposing of dangerous plutonium.<br />
<br />
Nuclear experts have criticised Japan’s program, questioning the high
costs, and the high risks that the MOC fuel poses, due to its lower
melting point, and therefore higher risk of suffering a meltdown.<br />
The
decision to resume the pluthermal program could be very controversial,
especially as the country has still not decided which nuclear reactors
it will approve for restart.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/The-US-Fears-the-World-will-Discover-its-Big-Nuclear-Secret.html </span></span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com50tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-36228522358547742582013-07-07T19:08:00.001-07:002013-07-07T19:08:21.496-07:00Raw, Mossad, NDS behind terrorism in Pakistan<br />
<br />
Intelligence agencies of India, Afghanistan and Israel are involved in terrorist activities in various parts of Pakistan.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMsvSKt1zgV5KokIXF7GdT91DnEz3qXjDBjdP6Ug2asp2akZmBJ9bzkmv51_vf4NMe-jdXNwgv81drSISs20LHilRTP2b1MZoBXvUjZ44i6YDz480rck3AES9z0xblqwuS4Ro35umNlrc/s1600/RAW2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMsvSKt1zgV5KokIXF7GdT91DnEz3qXjDBjdP6Ug2asp2akZmBJ9bzkmv51_vf4NMe-jdXNwgv81drSISs20LHilRTP2b1MZoBXvUjZ44i6YDz480rck3AES9z0xblqwuS4Ro35umNlrc/s320/RAW2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Reliable sources told WAQT NEWS on Saturday that in Karachi mostly
Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of India was involved in killings. In
Balochistan, RAW and Afghan intelligence agency, NDS, have joined hands
to encourage separatists. At a broader level, it becomes a troika with
Mossad as its third wing.<br />
<br />
Daily killings in Karachi have become a serious challenge to the
government and the steps taken by it so far have failed to bridle the
criminals. “The security agencies have the evidence of RAW’s involvement
in Karachi terrorist activities,” said the sources. <br />
<br />
According to them, after committing heinous acts, terrorists go to the
RAW offices along the Afghan border, show the videos to the officials,
collect money from them and get directions for further operations.
Evidence about the RAW providing millions of dollars to such elements is
available with the Pakistan Intelligence agencies.<br />
<br />
The RAW, in collaboration with Afghan intelligence agency, NDS, is also
actively providing covert financial and weapon support to Baloch
militant groups, Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), Baloch Republican
Army (BRA) and Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF), for terrorist
activities in the province. These outfits are pursuing the separatist
agenda and are responsible for playing havoc with the province.
“Irrefutable evidence” suggests that Baloch militants are being
harboured at various places and training camps located at Kabul, Nimroz
and Kandahar in Afghanistan by RAW in collaboration with NDS since 2006.<br />
<br />
RAW is also providing sustained financial and monetary support to Baloch
feudalists and militants, both in Afghanistan and Balochistan. Besides,
RAW, with the complete support and patronage of Afghan authorities, is
also providing arms and ammunition to Baloch militants for terrorist
activities inside Pakistan. Sources privy to the situation also claim
they have evidences that RAW is involved in providing fake identity and
travel documents to Baloch militants for moving out of Afghanistan to
India, UAE and Western countries. <br />
<br />
“It is arranging visits of Baloch sub nationalists and militants to
India for training purposes. In this regard, RAW arranged a visit of
Riaz Gull Bugti (a leading militant commander of Brahamdagh Bugti) to
India in September 2009, where he was trained by RAW for terrorist
activities. In order to overcome the linguistic problems, RAW is also
arranging Balochi language courses in India for Afghan intelligence
operatives through Baloch instructors so that their expertise could be
utilised to intensify terrorist activities in the province.<br />
<br />
RAW, in collaboration with prominent Baloch sub-nationalists round the
globe, is also persistently utilising various international forums, NGOs
and think-tank organisations like United Nations Human Rights Council
(UNHRC) to malign Pakistan through arranging stage events such as
preplanned anti-Pakistan interventions, media briefings, protests and
demonstrations. “Their convergence, facilitation and media coverage is
managed and funded by RAW and other agencies through their operatives. <br />
<br />
Tarek Fateh, a Canada-based political activist and sympathiser of Baloch
sub-nationalists, after spitting venom against Pakistan during the
UNHRC 22nd session at Geneva in February this year, visited India on
RAW’s sponsorship for future directions. He also held one-and-one
meetings with RAW ex senior officers, Vikram Sood and AS Daulat.<br />
<br />
According to the sources, the close relatives and friends of Hakim Ullah
Mehsud, Maulana Fazlullah, frequently visits Afghanistan to meet RAW
officers under diplomatic cover in their embassy and consulates, and
collects money for terrorist activities in Pakistan.<br />
The Swat militants are being harboured in camps in the areas of Kunar
and Nuristan. They are imparted training and given weapons for organised
militant actions against Pakistan’s regular and civil armed forces in
FATA areas. Maulana Fazlullah and his commanders openly travel in
Afghanistan and visit Indian Embassy/consulates, RAW and NDS offices as
if Afghanistan were their hometown.<br />
<br />
RAW and Mossad are also preparing plans against the nuclear installations of Pakistan.<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.defence.pk/forums/pakistans-war/262792-raw-mossad-nds-behind-terrorism-pakistan.html</span></span></div>
whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com328tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-43745020386579107372013-07-07T19:02:00.003-07:002013-07-07T19:03:35.269-07:00Death by ‘security’: Israel’s military machinations in Latin America<br />
by Belen Fernandez<br />
<br />
The country has supported repressive governments in the region to suppress indigenous movements and uprisings.<br />
<br />
According to a Mexican <a class="InternalLink" href="http://www.excelsior.com.mx/nacional/2013/05/08/898070" target="_blank"><b>news article</b></a>
that surfaced in May, the Israeli military will begin training the
police force in Mexico's southeastern state of Chiapas, where the
predominantly indigenous Zapatista National Liberation Army is based.<br />
<br />
Yaron Yugman, Israel's defence ministry representative in Mexico,
Honduras, and the Dominican Republic, is quoted as affirming that "a
country's security is fundamental to its growth" and that human rights
would be one of the focuses of military instruction.<br />
<br />
Of course, "security" and "growth" aren't luxuries usually intended for domestic indigenous groups. A May <a class="InternalLink" href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-and-mexico-swap-notes-abusing-rights/12475" target="_blank"><b>article</b></a> in <i>The Electronic Intifada</i>
recalls the aftermath of the 1994 Zapatista uprising, which coincided
with the inauguration of the North American Free Trade Agreement:<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 30px;">
"The Mexican government found itself needing to respond to the dictates of foreign investors, as a <a class="InternalLink" href="http://govt.eserver.org/chiapas-and-chase-report.txt" target="_blank"><b>famously leaked Chase-Manhattan Bank memo</b></a>
revealed: 'While Chiapas, in our opinion, does not pose a fundamental
threat to Mexican political stability, it is perceived to be so by many
in the investment community. The government will need to eliminate the
Zapatistas to demonstrate their effective control of the national
territory and of security policy'."</div>
<br />
As for the alleged focus on human rights, Israel's expertise in
oppressing indigenous populations and squelching dignity happens to be
more marketable.<br />
<br />
The Israeli embassy in Mexico has reportedly denied military machinations in the southeast, but not even <a class="InternalLink" href="http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2013/06/14/mexico-chiapas-state-receives-police-training-from-israel-despite-israeli/" target="_blank"><b>Fox News Latino</b></a> is convinced:<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 30px;">
"The Israeli Embassy's denial of its
government working in Chiapas is puzzling, given the long history that
Israel's government has of working with Mexico. Since the early 1970s,
the Mexican government has purchased airplanes, helicopters, missile
boats, small arms and other weapons from either the Israeli army or
Israeli military contractors."</div>
<br />
<b>Contributions to genocide</b><br />
<br />
Mexico's indigenous Mayans are not the only group to have found themselves on the receiving end of Israel's arsenal.<br />
<br />
In an email to me, acclaimed author and historian <a class="InternalLink" href="http://greggrandin.com/?page_id=2" target="_blank"><b>Greg Grandin</b></a> outlined a previous episode of such charitable regional intervention:<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 30px;">
"In [civil war-era] Guatemala, Israel,
acting on behalf of the Reagan administration, stepped in to supply
military equipment, including helicopters and Galil rifles, and training
that had been cut off during the previous Carter administration. Israel
also supplied [the Guatemalan regime with] computers, software, and
other equipment used for surveillance. This was at the height of the
genocide, which ultimately left 200,000 dead, including many Mayans."</div>
<br />
Investigative reporter Jeremy Bigwood, who as a photojournalist
covered Latin American civil wars in the 1980s and 1990s, confirmed that
the Israelis were "up to their ears in the genocide" in Guatemala. He
said the Israelis had supplied the military with Arava STOL planes and
armoured personnel carriers, and established an ammunition factory in
the city of Coban. Bigwood added: "The Israelis used telephone analysis -
similar to what the NSA is now doing - and were able to utterly destroy
the Guatemalan urban guerrillas. They assisted in the countryside by
mapping out each family farmhouse and identifying the politics of the
inhabitants."<br />
<br />
A 2012 <a class="InternalLink" href="http://israelglobalrepression.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/israels-worldwide-role-in-repression-footnotes-finalized.pdf" target="_blank">report </a>entitled <i>Israel's Worldwide Role in Repression</i>
by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network notes that Israel's
extensive experience in displacing Palestinians enabled the state to
assist in the planning and implementation of "scorched earth" policies
in both Guatemala and El Salvador. According to the report, the
Guatemalan operations "were combined with 'development poles' -
concentrated villages of displaced populations that allowed for greater
government control over the popular movement and the repression of any
grassroots organising".<br />
<br />
Giong back further, a 1986 <a class="InternalLink" href="http://www.merip.org/mer/mer140/israel-guatemala" target="_blank"><b>article</b></a>
by the Middle East Research and Information Project quotes a former
member of the Knesset foreign affairs committee as defending Israeli
involvement in Guatemala: "Israel is a pariah state. When people ask us
for something, we cannot afford to ask questions about ideology. The
only type of regime that Israel would not aid would be one that is
anti-American".<br />
<br />
<b>From Palestinian laboratory to 'trail of terror'</b><br />
<br />
One advantage to being forced to comply "[w]hen people ask us for
something", obviously, is that sizable profits accompany weapons sales.<br />
<br />
As for Israel's alleged pariah-hood, this tragic scenario is seemingly contradicted by Bigwood's <a class="InternalLink" href="http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2003/06/2008491463219614.html" target="_blank">2003 article </a>for Al Jazeera, <i>Israel's Latin American trail of terror,</i>
in which he lists countries in the region where Israel has supplied,
trained, and advised right-wing groups and regimes: Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru,
and Venezuela. So much for lonesomeness.<br />
<br />
Ideology's negligible importance is confirmed in Bigwood's article by
Israel's support for the Argentine military junta's dirty war of
1976-1983 - which was characterised by mass forced disappearances and
torture - despite, as Bigwood notes, the junta's anti-Semitic
orientation. Ideological overlap is, however, seen in the case of
Colombia, where President Juan Manuel Santos has not only appeared in a <a class="InternalLink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZvHfRgbBPA" target="_blank"><b>promotional video</b></a> for an Israeli private security firm but has also <a class="InternalLink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtXvhsuqkCM&feature=related" target="_blank"><b>announced</b></a>: "We've even been accused of being the Israelites <i>[sic]</i> of Latin America, which personally makes me feel really proud."<br />
<div>
<table border="0" class="in-article-item video">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="caption"><br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Beyond verifying Santos' clunessness, this statement is particularly
relevant given that Carlos Castano - the founder of modern Colombian
paramilitarism - was trained in Israel and <a class="InternalLink" href="http://www.narconews.com/Issue29/article729.html" target="_blank"><b>acknowledged copying the paramilitary concept from the Israelis</b></a>.<br />
</div>
<div>
</div>
Israel's hobby of collective punishment has, it seems, proven
especially instructive; although formally disbanded, Colombian
paramilitaries continue to terrorise civilian populations, often
reportedly in concert with the military - which is itself famous for <a class="InternalLink" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8038399.stm" target="_blank"><b>slaughtering civilians and dressing the corpses up as anti-government guerrillas</b></a>.
A primary goal of this terrorisation is to clear land of indigenous
groups, campesinos, and other people whose existence impedes the proper
exploitation of resources.<br />
<br />
In Chiapas, meanwhile, the indigenous movement has rudely imperiled the flourishing of neoliberalism. <i>The Electronic Intifada</i> <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-and-mexico-swap-notes-abusing-rights/12475"><b>article</b></a>
explains: "The Zapatistas took back large tracts of land [from the
government] on which they have since built subsistence cooperatives,
autonomous schools, collectivised clinics and other democratic community
structures."<br />
<br />
<b>Enter the Israeli army.</b><br />
<br />
John Collins, chair of the Global Studies Department at New York's St Lawrence University, <a href="http://www.weavenews.org/blogs/johncollins/10065/pacification-industry-comes-chiapas" target="_blank"><b>describes</b></a>
Israeli military collaboration with the Mexican government in Chiapas
as "further evidence of how tools of surveillance and repression
field-tested on Palestinians are being used throughout the world",
quoting Israeli anthropologist Jeff Halper's <a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/halper310310.html" target="_blank"><b>assessment</b></a> that "[t]he Israeli economy is based on exporting the occupation [of Palestine]".<br />
<br />
Although Israel may contend that "a country's security is fundamental to its growth", the fact is that global <i>insecurity</i> is fundamental to Israel's growth.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><b>Belen Fernandez is the author of <a href="http://www.versobooks.com/books/1024-the-imperial-messenger" target="_blank">The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work</a>, released by Verso in 2011. She is a member of the <a href="http://jacobinmag.com/" target="_blank">Jacobin Magazine</a> editorial board, and her articles have appeared in the <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/author/belen-fernandez/" target="_blank">London Review of Books blog</a>, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/06/20/i_got_tear_gassed_at_taksim_square_partner/singleton/" target="_blank">Salon</a>, <a href="http://thebaffler.com/current" target="_blank">The Baffler</a>, <a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/753" target="_blank">Al Akhbar English</a> and many other publications.</b></i></span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-5340283617579156162013-07-07T18:29:00.001-07:002013-07-07T18:29:29.662-07:00Syrian Weapons Depot Containing Advanced Russian Arms Destroyed by Israel <span style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: small;">.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">by Richard Silverstein. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A massive explosion last Thursday at a major Syrian weapons depot in
Latakia, not far from the main port of Tartous, completely destroyed the
facility and munitions stored there. Tartous is Syria’s main port. It
is largely controlled by the Russian military, and the route by which
all weapons transported by sea would enter Syria. As such, any advanced
Russian weaponry would enter via Tartous and might be stored in the
Latakia depot.<br />
<br />
Though the Free Syrian Army took immediate credit for the attack, it
was not the responsible party. A confidential Israeli source informs me
that Israeli forces attacked the site. The target were components of
Russia’s SA-300 anti-aircraft missile system which had been shipped by
Russia to Tartous and stored in Latakia. Israel and exerted tremendous
pressure on Vladimir Putin to cancel its contract to supply the missile
batteries to Syria, since once they were operational they would render
Israeli aircraft more vulnerable to attack. Israel, of course, will
countenance no front-line state having even defensive weapons which give
it superiority over Israeli weapons systems. In response to Israeli
entreaties, Russia’s leader refused to budge and recommitted to
providing the weapons to Assad. Apparently, he’d begun to follow
through on his promise with these first shipments.<br />
<br />
This is Israeli third attack inside Syria since January. It
considerably escalates the conflict there since it is the first known
attack by Israeli forces which destroyed Russian armaments. Though
Putin was surely warned by Israel that this would happen if he went
forward with the arms deal, actually attacking Russian munitions is an
act to which Putin will not take kindly, to say the least.<br />
<br />
Assad bragged publicly a month ago that the SA-300 deliveries had
arrived. Turns out he was right. Perhaps he shouldn’t have shot his
mouth off.<br />
<br />
Israel’s Channel 10 aired a claim by Syria rebels that Israel
attacked and Israel journalists tell their viewers that they know things
they’re not allowed to tell. A clear indication of Israeli
involvement. Haaretz reports that a Syrian army source called the
explosion the result of a technical failure, which hardly seems
credible.<br />
My source further notes that the FSA coordinated with the IDF and
launched a rocket attack on nearby government military installations in
order to distract loyalist forces from the real target. But the rebels
played no role in the attack on the munitions cache. Their claim of
responsibility conveniently takes Israel off the hook (until people read
this report) and lessens pressure or condemnation on Israel for its
third major attack inside Syria since January.<br />
<br />
It’s all the stranger that Haaretz’s Amos Harel, in writing about the incident would write this:<br />
<blockquote>
Israel wasn’t mentioned in connection with Thursday’s incident in Latakia. It doesn’t intervene in events in Syria.</blockquote>
Apparently, Israelis believe that “intervention” means invading the
country with boots on the ground. When it sends its jet planes to bomb
Syrian targets inside the country, that’s not considered intervention.
This is further evidence of Israeli delusions and self-denial about
their level of interference in the affairs of frontline Arab states.
Such refusal to acknowledge Israel’s real role allows Israelis to
believe falsely they’re innocent bystanders, sometimes even victims (!)
in the affairs in the region.<br />
<br />
How does Harel think Israel coordinated the FSA diversionary attack
near Latakia? With smoke signals? No, Israeli intelligence has created
a tacit alliance with the rebels who serve Israel’s interests when
Assad acts in ways Israel believes will harm it. Hezbollah’s role in
the Qusayr fight may have caused alarm in the Israeli defense ministry,
which may’ve seen this as further evidence of escalation inside Syria.
If Israel could take Hezbollah down a peg or two after its victory
taking the Syria town on Assad’s behalf, it would be eager to do so. In
this sense, the Syrian civil war is a proxy battle between Israel and
Hezbollah who are itching for their next direct confrontation (the last
one being in 2006).<br />
<br />
Israel <a href="http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2012/10/24/israel-sabotages-sudanese-weapons-factory/" title="Israel Sabotages Sudanese Weapons Factory, Two Dead">launched a very similar raid</a>
several months ago on the Sudanese capital Khartoum, in which it
destroyed a major government arms depot. It’s known that Iran ships its
weapons to Hamas and Syria via ports on the Arabian Sea, from where
they’re shipped via Sudan to points north. Again, Israel has sucked
countries throughout the region into the vortex of its own conflict with
the Palestinians. If this doesn’t prove that this conflict is a major
destabilizing force in the region, nothing will.<br />
<br />
The area attacked is in the Alawite heartland of northwestern Syria.
As such, Assad would think of it as one of his most secure bastions.
Violating it as Israel has done would be meant to show Assad that he
has no sanctuary from which to hide and serve as a psychological blow.
At least, Israel would hope to convey such a message.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/world/middle-east/.premium-1.2064904#.UdkMAzMdnEA.facebook">Haaretz’s Hebrew edition reports</a>
that Israel may’ve chosen this time to attack because the attention of
the international media was focussed on the Egyptian coup, which served
as a convenient distraction.<br />
Another factor to keep in mind is that the recent assistance that
Hezbollah offered to Assad in sending 4,000 fighters to subdue the
strategic town of Qusayr would come with a price. Hezbollah would not
be shy is extracting its share of the bargain, which would certainly
involve transshipment of advanced Iranian or Russian weaponry via Syria
to Lebanon, where the Lebanese militia would use it against Israel in
any future military confrontation.<br />
<br />
Another possibility is that Russia, which recently confirmed that it
would honor its contract with Assad calling for delivery of the SA-300
anti-aircraft system. It’s possible Russia had begun shipping
components of these missile batteries to Assad.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://osnetdaily.com/2013/07/did-an-israeli-dolphin-submarine-just-bypass-the-russian-s-300-batteries-in-syria/">This site speculates</a>
that Israel used cruise missiles launched from its German-built Dolphin
submarines to destroy the complex. If true, it would mean that German
built advanced armaments were being used by Israel in a pre-emptive
attack violating the territorial sovereignty of another Mideast country.
Though Israel could just as easily have used its own air force to do
the job.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2013/07/07/israel-destroyed-syrian-weapons-depot/ </span></span><br />
whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-1045089454428416392013-07-06T16:44:00.000-07:002013-07-06T16:44:00.485-07:00The man without a country <span style="color: white;"> .</span><br />
<br />
by <span style="font-style: italic;">Mark Feldman </span><br />
<br />
The Man Without a Country is a celebrated short story written exactly 150 years
ago.<br />
<br />
It’s about an American soldier who renounces his country during a
trial for treason and is consequently sentenced to spend the rest of his days at
sea.<br />
<br />
When Edward Everett Hale penned the story in 1863 for The Atlantic ,
his vivid creation of Lt. Philip Nolan at the treason trial of Aaron Burr
resonated deeply within the US, deep in the middle of their Civil
War.<br />
<br />
Nolan was being tried as an accomplice, and during his testimony, he
angrily shouts: “I wish I may never hear of the United States again!” An easier
sentence had never been passed. The judge, in shock at Nolan’s announcement,
upon his conviction, sentenced him to spend the rest of his life aboard US Navy
ships, in exile, with no right to ever set foot on American soil
again.<br />
<br />
Fast forward to today and Edward Snowden, stripped of his US
passport, has been traipsing the transit area corridors at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo
Airport, stuck in limbo. It’s been a month since Snowden exposed top secret US
surveillance programs and hopped on a plane to Hong Kong to avoid certain
arrest.<br />
<br />
Persecuted or set to be prosecuted, after publicly
acknowledging his giddy role in leaking the documents, he boarded a plane to
Moscow aiming to catch a plan to Havana, Cuba, where he thought he could live
out his days sipping rum and smoking cigars. US authorities stripped him of his
passport, and President Vladmir Putin of Russia said “nyet” when Snowden showed
up in Russia hoping to switch planes to a sunnier climate.<br />
<br />
Presumably
debriefed by Russian intelligence personnel to gain access to these sensitive
documents, the beleaguered whistle blower was forced to spend his days and nights
in a transit area at the Moscow airport.<br />
<br />
Once Cuba said “no, gracias,”
his hopes turned to flying to Quito and joining famed WikiLeaks whistle blower
Julian Assange, holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. But with US Vice
President Joe Biden’s request that the country reject Snowden’s asylum bid and
the subsequent backtracking by Ecuadorian officials, the countries willing to
offer shelter to Snowden are dwindling away.<br />
<br />
MOST OF us know that the pen
is mightier than the sword, and one such ‘penned’ item is a passport.<br />
<br />
A
passport is nothing more than a document, issued by a national government, which
certifies the identity and nationality of its holder for the purpose of
international travel. The basic elements of identity contained in all
standardized passports include information about the holder, including name,
date of birth, gender and place of birth.<br />
<br />
However, a passport does not of
itself entitle the passport holder entry into another country. Yet it does
normally entitle the owner to return to the country that issued the passport –
where Snowden most likely will end up.<br />
<br />
So when Jack contacted me with the
plea of his stranded brother in the transit area of Heathrow Airport in London,
historical references rushed into my mind. Like many expats residing in Israel,
the surest way of having family members residing abroad visit is to plan a
celebration in the Holy Land.<br />
<br />
Be it a bar mitzva or a wedding, those life
events are hard to avoid, and Jacks’ brother was no exception.<br />
<br />
With a bar
mitzva planned far in advance, Jack’s brother, Aaron, scoured the Internet,
conspired with travel consultants and concluded that the least expensive, least
cumbersome option was to fly British Airways from New York to Israel via
London.<br />
<br />
Big Brother and his family procured the tickets, postulating that
the layover in London was worth the hundreds of dollars it would save
them.<br />
<br />
In JFK airport, at the BA ticket counter, their electronic tickets
and passports were presented, bags were checked in all the way to Ben-Gurion
Airport, boarding passes were printed – and up, up and away they flew. Upon
arrival at Heathrow, they were herded into a transit area where their travel
documents were inspected. Slowly turning the passports from side to side, the
immigration official looked up and gravely announced that one of the passengers
could not continue to Israel. Seems that Aaron’s passport was not valid for more
than six months and thus he would not be allowed into the Jewish
state.<br />
<br />
Yes, Israel, that Light Among Nations, that democratic bastion,
allowing all eligible to move to Israel under the Law of Return, had a clear and
concise codicil in their law.<br />
<br />
ALL TOURISTS entering the State of Israel
must possess a travel document valid for more than six months from their date of
entry. Failure to comply will result in immediate deportation.<br />
<br />
Like a
blow to the stomach, Aaron seemed shellshocked.<br />
<br />
When he purchased his
tickets online, no mention was made of this regulation. His credit card was
gleefully charged and his e-ticket transmitted.<br />
<br />
Sadly, this is not the
first time my intercession has been requested. Too many customers naively give
out their passport information, rarely asking if a visa is needed unless
prodded, and even more rarely asking how long one’s passport will be valid for.
Customers are stopped at airports throughout North America by keen airline
representatives when the passport’s validity does not meet the State of Israel’s
requirements. Their vigilance is based on the simple of tenet of aviation law:
If an airline brings in someone who will be denied entry, the airline is
financially liable to fly said client out of the country, with the cost to borne
only by the airline.<br />
<br />
It was a Friday morning in London; time was ticking
away and moreover, the later British Airways flight that morning was chock full.
The evening flight to Tel Aviv would arrive after Shabbat, something that Aaron,
an observant Jew, would not consider.<br />
<br />
I quickly pointed out two salient
facts: Firstly, BA was legally obligated to either get him to Israel or back to
New York, as they never should have permitted him to embark when legally he
could not get into the country.<br />
<br />
Secondly, I instructed Jack to somehow,
some way contact the Israeli Embassy in London. What was needed was some type of
permission allowing Aaron into Israel, with the caveat that he obtain a valid US
passport prior to his departure. Embassy officials would need to quickly get his
information to police representatives at Ben-Gurion Airport. Friday morning is
not the best day to locate officials, but once more the Israeli Foreign Ministry
came through and gave their one-time permission to allow him to enter the
country.<br />
<br />
British Airways, once made cognizant of their complicity, was
kind enough to put him on an El Al flight that arrived in Tel Aviv a good two
hours before the advent of Shabbat.<br />
<br />
The simcha was stupendous, a new
emergency passport was provided and his return flight was
uneventful.<br />
<br />
Clearly it is far better to have one’s country backing you,
rather than declaring you persona non grata.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small; font-style: italic;">Mark Feldman is the CEO of
Ziontours Jerusalem. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small; font-style: italic;"> http://www.jpost.com/Travel/Travel-News/Travel-adviser-The-man-without-a-country-318962</span></span><br />
whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-40666020736360345382013-07-05T17:26:00.000-07:002013-07-05T17:26:06.829-07:00A Human Spring <span style="color: white;">.</span><br /><br />by Uri Avnery<br />
<br /><br />LET ME come back to the story about Zhou Enlai, the Chinese Communist leader. When asked what he thought about the French Revolution, he famously answered: “It’s too early to say.”<br /><br />This was considered a typical piece of ancient Chinese wisdom – until somebody pointed out that Zhou did not mean the revolution of 1789, but the events of May 1968, which happened not long before the interview in question.<br /><br />Even now it may be too early to judge that upheaval, when students tore up the cobblestones of Paris, confronted the brutal police and proclaimed a new era. It was an early forerunner of what is happening today all over the world.<br /><br />QUESTIONS ABOUND. Why? Why now? Why in so many totally different countries? Why in Brazil, Turkey and Egypt at the same time?<br /><br />We know how it started. In the souk of Tunis, of all places. I have been there many times, when Yasser Arafat was staying in that city. The market always struck me as a happy place, full of noise, eager shopkeepers, haggling tourists and local men with jasmine flowers behind their ears.<br /><br />It was there that a policewoman confronted a fruit vendor and overturned his cart. He was mortally insulted, set himself on fire and set in motion a process that now involves many millions of people around the world.<br /><br />The Tunis example was taken up by the Egyptian masses, who assembled in Tahrir Square and eventually overturned their dictator. Then it was our turn, and almost half a million Israelis went out into the streets to protest the price of cottage cheese. Then there were upheavals in Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and other Arab states, collectively known as the Arab Spring. In the US, the Occupy Wall Street movement staged its own Tahrir Square in New York. And now millions are demonstrating in Turkey and Brazil, and Egypt is aflame again. One may add Iran and other places.<br /><br />How did this come about? How does it work? What is the hidden mechanism?<br /><br />And especially: why at this point in time?<br /><br />I CAN think of two interrelated phenomena in contemporary life that make the uprisings possible and probable: television and the social media.<br /><br />Television informs viewers in Kamchatka about events in Timbuktu within minutes. The huge demonstrations in Istanbul’s Taksim Square could be followed in real time by people in Rio de Janeiro.<br /><br />Once upon a time, it took weeks for people in Piccadilly Circus in London to hear about events in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. After the battle of Waterloo, the Rothschilds made their killing by using messenger pigeons. In 1848, when revolution spread from Paris throughout Europe, it took its time, too.<br /><br />Not any more. Brazilian youngsters saw what was happening in Gezi Park, Istanbul, and asked themselves: why not here? They saw that determined young men and women could withstand water cannon, tear gas and batons, and felt that they could do it, too.<br /><br />The other instrument is facebook, Twitter and the other “social media”. Five young men sitting in a Cairo café and talking about the situation could decide to launch an online petition for the removal of the incumbent president, and within a few days tens of millions of citizens signed. Never before in history was such a thing possible, or even imaginable.<br /><br />This is a new form of direct democracy. People don’t have to wait anymore for the next elections, which may be years away. They can act immediately, and when the groundswell is powerful enough, it can develop into a tsunami.<br /><br />HOWEVER, REVOLUTIONS are not made by technologies, but by people. What is it that arouses so many different people in so many different cultures to do the same thing at the same time?<br /><br />For example, the rise of religious fundamentalism. In recent decades, this has happened in several countries and with several religions. Jewish fundamentalism is setting up settlements in the Occupied West Bank and threatening Israeli democracy. All over the Arab world and many other Muslim countries, Islamic fundamentalism raises its head, causing havoc. In the US, evangelical fundamentalism has created the Tea Party and is dragging the Republican Party to the extreme right, much against its own interest.<br /><br />I don’t know about other religions, but there are news stories about Buddhists attacking Muslims in several countries. Buddhists? I always though that this was an exceptionally peaceful creed!<br /><br />How to explain these simultaneous and parallel symptoms? Commentators use the German philosophical expression, Zeitgeist (“spirit of the times”). This explains everything and nothing. Like that other great human invention, God.<br /><br />So is the Zeitgeist behind the upheavals now? Don’t ask me.<br /><br />THERE ARE many curious similarities between the mass revolts in different countries.<br /><br />They are all made by young people of the so-called middle class. Not by the poor, not by the rich. Poor people do not make revolutions – they are too busy trying to feed their children. The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 was not made by the workers and peasants. It was made by disaffected intellectuals, many of them Jewish.<br /><br />When you see a group of demonstrators in a newspaper picture, you do not know at first glance whether they are Egyptians, Israelis, Turks, Iranians or Americans. They all belong to the same social class. Young people alienated by a heartless globalization, confronted by a labor market that no longer offers the bright prospects they expect, university students for whose skills there is little demand. People with jobs, but who find it hard to “finish the month”’ as we say in Hebrew.<br /><br />The immediate causes are varied. Israelis demonstrated against the price of cottage cheese and new apartments. Turks protest against the plan to turn a popular Istanbul park into a commercial project. Brazilians rise up against a small increase in bus fares. Egyptians are now protesting against the efforts of politicized religion to take over the state.<br /><br />But at root, all these protests express a common disgust with politics and politicians, with a power elite that is seen as remote from ordinary people, with the immense power of a tiny group of the ultra-rich, with a barely understood globalization.<br /><br />THE SAME mechanism that makes these revolutions possible also produces their outstanding weakness.<br /><br />The model was already apparent in the Paris events of May 1968. These started with a student protest which was joined by millions of workers. There was no organization, no common ideology, no plan, no overall leadership. Activists gathered in a theater, debated endlessly, giving voice to all sorts of possible and impossible ideas. In the end there were no concrete results.<br /><br />There was a certain spirit. Claude Lanzmann, the writer and director of the monumental film Shoah, once described it to me this way: The students were burning cars. So every evening I spent a lot of time finding a secure place for my car. Until I suddenly said to myself: What the hell! What do I need a car for? Let them burn it!<br /><br />This spirit lingered for some time. But life went on, and the great event was soon just a memory.<br /><br />This may happen again now. Again the same thing is happening everywhere: No organization, no leadership, no program, no ideology.<br /><br />The very fact that everyone has a voice on facebook seems to make it easier to agree on “against” than on “for”. The young protesters are anarchist by nature. They abhor leaders, organizations, political parties, hierarchies, programs, ideologies.<br /><br />You can call a demonstration on facebook, but you cannot hammer out a joint ideology that way. But, as Lenin once remarked, without a political ideology there is no political action. And he was an expert on the art of revolution.<br /><br />There is a great danger that all these huge demonstrations will fade away some day – Zeitgeist again – without leaving anything behind, except some memories.<br /><br />This has already happened in Israel. The mass demonstrations had some influence on this year’s elections, but the new parties are indistinguishable from the old ones. New politicians have taken the place of old politicians. But nothing real has changed. Neither on the national nor on the social level.<br /><br />IN ANY democracy, real change can only take place through new political parties which enter parliament and make new laws. For this you need political leaders – now, in the era of TV, more than ever. It is not enough to generate a lot of steam – you need an engine to make the steam do useful work.<br /><br />The tragedy in Egypt - a country I love – demonstrates this perfectly. The revolution overthrew the dictatorship, but in the elections that followed, the revolutionaries were unable to unite, create a joint political force, elect leaders. Victory was snatched by the Muslim Brotherhood, who were well organized with a solid leadership.<br /><br />The brotherhood has failed. Power, after decades of persecution, went to their heads. They threw away caution. Instead of building a new state on moderation, compromise and inclusion, they could not wait. So they may lose all.<br /><br />The democratic revolutionaries have yet to prove that they are able to lead a country – in Egypt or anywhere else. They may yet launch a world-wide Human Spring. Or they may leave nothing behind, except a vague longing.<br /><br />It’s up to them.<br /><br /><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1373018195?ver=Fri%2C%2005%20Jul%202013%2012%3A56%3A42%20%2B0300</span></span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-59376783413874415742013-07-04T19:21:00.001-07:002013-07-04T19:21:53.026-07:00Révélations sur le Big Brother PRISM français <span style="color: white;"> .</span><br />
<br />
By Jacques Follorou and Franck Johannès<br />
<br />
Translated by by: Daniel Shadmy<br />
<br />
The revelations of the controversial U.S. domestic surveillance program PRISM
have provoked massive indignation through much of Europe, but France
has been rather quiet. There are two simple explanations: Paris was
already aware -- and does exactly the same.<br />
<br />
<i>Le Monde</i> has confirmed that the “Direction Générale de la
Securité Extérieure” (DGSE, the French secret service) systematically
collects the electromagnetic signals transmitted by computers and phones
in France, as well as the digital streams going back-and-forth between
the French and abroad. All communications are being spied on: emails,
SMS messages, phone records, Facebook and Twitter updates, which are all then stored for years.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2CJ515il1v3g-srmFu_KuFYdaz1rO6lg3a-E3BsUmleQA3QuiY26QdLc0wHjUmgXx2qSj4Eo-UDXoow8ZrKcRZSLXo5FE_K2cuMoPhF7B6rdqbzlg4j7wJlQfptNF9hbmQ-IIQCvPVOI/s610/96adac679e3b29022adc59287e381473_800px_emeraude___domme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2CJ515il1v3g-srmFu_KuFYdaz1rO6lg3a-E3BsUmleQA3QuiY26QdLc0wHjUmgXx2qSj4Eo-UDXoow8ZrKcRZSLXo5FE_K2cuMoPhF7B6rdqbzlg4j7wJlQfptNF9hbmQ-IIQCvPVOI/s320/96adac679e3b29022adc59287e381473_800px_emeraude___domme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b> The French DGSE is listening too</b></span></div>
<br />
If this massive database was used only by the DGSE, which works only
outside France’s borders, the practice would already be illegal. But the
six others intelligence French services are also making daily use of
the data they need, very discreetly, without any legal authorization or
any type of serious control. Certain politicians are very much aware of
what is done, but secrecy is the rule.<br />
<br />
This French Big Brother, of course, is meant to be kept clandestine.
However, its existence is mentioned briefly in parliamentary documents.
The eight senators and members of Parliament who handle intelligence
oversight note in their April 30 report that “since 2008, progress has
been made in matters of mutualization of capacities, especially
concerning electromagnetic originated intelligence […]”.<br />
<br />
The legislators even propose going further, to “reinforce the
capacities exploited by the DGSE” and to “consolidate the access to
other services to the mutualised capacities of the DGSE.”<br />
<br />
<b>Not the <i>what</i>, but the <i>who</i></b><br />
<br />
Intelligence services are not looking into the content of messages,
but their source. It is more interesting to know who is talking to whom
rather than collect what people actually say. It is the technical data,
the <i>metadata</i> that is of more interest.<br />
<br />
The DGSE collects the phone records of millions of subscribers, the
identity of the caller and recipient, place, date, length, and size of
the message. Same goes for emails (with the possibility of reading the
subject of the message), SMSs, faxes… and more generally, any activity
on the Internet that goes through Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple,
Yahoo!...<br />
<br />
This is what the parliamentary delegation calls the “renseignement
d’origine electromagnetique” (ROEM), a perfect translation of the NSA’s
Sigint (signal intelligence).<br />
<br />
This metadata allows for the drawing of huge graphics that draw links
between people based on their numeric activity, over the course of
several years. One can thus establish a kind of intimate diary for
anyone, culled from their phone or computer communications. Then, when a
certain interesting subject has been identified, more intrusive techniques -- such as placing phone taps or monitoring their movements -- can be implemented.<br />
<br />
This massive collection system is of course invaluable in matters of counter-terrorism. But it also allows for the spying on anybody,
at anytime. The DGSE collects this way, billions of billions of data,
which is then compressed and stored in three floors below its Paris
headquarters. France's intelligence operations are among the five
leaders in the world in matters of information technology capacity,
behind the U.S., UK, Israel and China.<br />
<br />
Bernard Barbier, the technical director of the DGSE since 2006, has
spoken publicly two times about the existence of this surveillance
program. “Today, our targets are the general public networks, because
they are used by terrorists,” Barbier was quoted as saying in front of a
group of military information specialists in 2010.<br />
<br />
<b>"A procedure like PRISM"</b><br />
<br />
The system is completely illegal, but is utilized by a vast array of
French intelligence and law enforcement services -- from local police
departments to the customs and military intelligence services, and is
dubbed the “mutualized infrastructure.”<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUF2bUYWPPa3geprvCXhsvhh2Sgrati1N1qZ8fbNfpDMZohURTZgsTmh_7FkgPwqMp15EObXNettsnvBAVFigSlukYGEE6GVHFKO5LU9CiFxdYgxEsBnv5riNgGImx9TTKSrx2SN_zJUo/s534/3441698_6_e770_comment-la-dgse-espionne_5becd1e99c99cf92adfbf272bca3d6fc.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" class="" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUF2bUYWPPa3geprvCXhsvhh2Sgrati1N1qZ8fbNfpDMZohURTZgsTmh_7FkgPwqMp15EObXNettsnvBAVFigSlukYGEE6GVHFKO5LU9CiFxdYgxEsBnv5riNgGImx9TTKSrx2SN_zJUo/s400/3441698_6_e770_comment-la-dgse-espionne_5becd1e99c99cf92adfbf272bca3d6fc.png" style="display: inline-block;" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
According to the French Senate, 80% of the data collected by the DGSE
is being used by other services. Each service then indicates a target
to a contact in the DGSE who answers either “hit” or “no hit,” if the
target is present in the database or not.<br />
<br />
One of the directors of these services refers to the system as <i>non-legal</i>. “The legal regime of security interceptions
forbids the actions of the Intelligence services, those resembling a
procedure like PRISM," says a source at the CNIL (the French national
commission of informational technology and freedom).<br />
The CNIL can neither deny nor confirm the existence of this French system, and does not have access to the DGSE’s files.<br />
<br />
Legal decisions have been made that relate only to specific security
interceptions authorized by the Prime Minister, based on the legal
notice of the national commission, but has not ruled on massive storage
of technical data by the secret services. “For years we have been
operating under a virtual authorization," says a former secret service
chief. "And every agency is satisfied with the freedom permitted by the
blurred legal regime surrounding the metadata.”<br />
<br />
A member of Parliament confirms that “a large part of electronic
connections in France are in fact, intercepted and stored by the DGSE”.
However, officially “the mutualized infrastructure” does not exist.<br />
<br />whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-7143568198043401512013-07-04T18:28:00.005-07:002013-07-04T18:28:59.412-07:00Egypt needs real Islamic revolution<span id="ctl00_body_spnDetail"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span id="ctl00_body_spnContributor"><span style="color: white;">. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span id="ctl00_body_spnDetail"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span id="ctl00_body_spnContributor">by Dr. Kevin Barrett</span></span> </span><br />
<br />
<span id="ctl00_body_spnDetail">Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has
fallen in a coup d’état. Morsi’s demise marks the end of the Muslim
Brotherhood’s failed strategy of accommodation with the West.
<br />
<br />Nobody denies that the majority of Egyptians wants Islamic
governance. Nobody denies that President Morsi won Egypt’s first-ever
free and fair elections.
<br />
<br />But Egypt’s Western-backed secularist comprador elite was not ready
for real democracy. They were not willing to accept the results of free
and fair elections. So with the help of their Western paymasters, they
hamstrung Egypt’s economy, pointed the finger of blame at Morsi, duped
impressionable young people into flooding the streets, and engineered a
coup d’état.
<br />
<br />The anti-Morsi coup has strangled Egypt’s democracy in its cradle.
<br />
<br />It may also have ended the Muslim Brotherhood’s misguided, hopeless
attempt to Islamize Egyptian society while remaining in the Western
orbit.
<br />
<br />Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood made a terrible mistake by forging
an alliance with the West and its regional puppets. The Brotherhood has
become a tool of the Zionist-dominated West, which seeks to divide and
conquer the Middle East by fomenting a sectarian civil war between Sunni
and Shia Muslims. Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, once a respected
Brotherhood intellectual, has disgraced himself by becoming a spokesman
for Zionist-instigated, Saudi-assisted anti-Shia sectarianism.
<br />
<br />Perhaps President Morsi thought that if he accepted the West’s
dictates to join their war on Syria, keep the Gaza border closed,
maintain the Camp David “surrender treaty,” enslave future generations
of Egyptians to the International Monetary Fund, and let the Egyptian
Army continue to rule as it did under Mubarak, he would be allowed to
add a bit more shariah to the Egyptian civil code.
<br />
<br />It was a devil’s bargain to begin with. And the devil did not even keep the bargain.
<br />
<br />President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood need to go back and study
the works of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of the
political Islamic awakening that is shaking the globe.
<br />
<br />Ayatollah Khomeini insisted that there is no room for sectarianism
in the Islamic awakening. Muslims are Muslims first and foremost,
whether they follow the Hanafi, Malaki, Hanbali, Shafiyi, or Ja’fari law
schools.
<br />
<br />The Muslim Brotherhood should stop inciting sectarianism, and stand up for Islamic unity.
<br />
<br />Secondly, Ayatollah Khomeini understood that all Muslims have a
moral obligation to side with the world’s oppressed - the mustazafin -
in the struggle against their oppressors. The resistance against empire,
apartheid, Zionism, aggressive war, and all forms of racism and
injustice is also the struggle of all Muslims.
<br />
<br />The Muslim Brotherhood should stop kowtowing to oppressive rulers,
be they Western, Saudi, or Qatari, and join the worldwide struggle
against exploitation and injustice.
<br />
<br />Third, Ayatollah Khomeini saw that a real Islamic revolution would
require the overthrow of the old order and a complete break with the
West. All of the powerful figures who propped up the Western puppet
dictator, the Shah - especially the military leaders - would have to be
either removed from power or successfully re-educated. And imperialist
institutions such as the IMF would have to be expelled from Iran.
<br />
<br />The Muslim Brotherhood should recognize that it must work for a
complete Islamic revolution, including removing all of the West’s
puppets from power and breaking the bonds imposed by Western banks and
governments, if it is to establish the Islamic society that the majority
of Egyptians want. Simply winning an election, while the real power in
Egypt remains with the Western-puppet military, accomplishes nothing.
<br />
<br />The Muslim Brotherhood should view its setback in Egypt as an opportunity to reflect on its mistakes.
<br />
<br />Its biggest mistake was its refusal to join the axis of resistance -
the Hamas-Hezbollah-Syria-Iran alliance that is standing up to Zionist
and imperialist power, with notable success.
<br />
<br />The Brotherhood let its tragic history in Syria blind it to the historic opportunity offered by the rising axis of resistance.
<br />
<br />Now is the time to take off the blinders.
<br />
<br />A year ago, who would have thought that the two most prominent
Muslim Brotherhood-linked heads of state, President Morsi of Egypt and
Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani of Qatar, would fall from power almost
simultaneously - while the Assad government in Syria not only remains in
power, but continues to gain strength?
<br />
<br />The Western mainstream media kept telling us that President Assad was about to fall.
<br />
<br />According to them, he has been about to fall for more than two years.
<br />
<br />Apparently if you want an accurate view of the Middle East, you
should be reading the alternative media - including Press TV, which has
been consistently skeptical about the West’s claims that regime change
in Syria is always just around the corner.
<br />
<br />The axis of resistance is winning in Syria. And it is winning,
slowly but surely, in Palestine, as the world awakens to the truth about
Israeli apartheid.
<br />
<br />The axis of capitulation to Zionism and empire is losing.
<br />
<br />The future is with the world’s rising economies, not the collapsing West.
<br />
<br />Will the coup d’état against President Morsi help awaken the Muslim
Brotherhood? Will the Brotherhood decide to take a new path - the path
to Islamic unity and real Islamic revolution forged 34 years ago by
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini? </span><br />
<span id="ctl00_body_spnDetail"><br />
</span><br />
<span id="ctl00_body_spnDetail"><br />
</span><br />
<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span id="ctl00_body_spnContributor">Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D.
Arabist-Islamologist, is one of America's best-known critics of the War
on Terror. Dr. Barrett has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS and
other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in
the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune,
and other leading publications. Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and
universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin, where he ran for
Congress in 2008. He is the co-founder of the <i>Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance</i>, and author of the books <i>Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie (2007)</i> and <i>Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters (2009).</i> His website is www.truthjihad.com.</span></span><br />
<span id="ctl00_body_spnContributor"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://presstv.com/detail/2013/07/04/312153/egypt-needs-real-islamic-revolution/ </span></span></span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-21743832103644901652013-07-04T16:40:00.000-07:002013-07-04T16:40:42.794-07:00How Israel Spies on Us All through the NSA<span style="color: white;"> .</span><br />
<br />
Christopher Bollyn<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">The very same Israeli agents who had prior knowledge of the false-flag terror attacks of 9-11 - and who <i>owned</i> the electronic messaging system that was used to warn Israelis to avoid the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 - <span style="font-size: 13px;">are behind the NSA's illegal and secret tapping of our phone calls</span><span style="font-size: 13px;">. Is this just a coincidence or is it the conspicuous tip of Israel's criminal operations in the United States?</span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG44PdBPnT36Nh9I7DxwRqPQ5MquoCbevWOBC33ZYkdDKtoA3gpCztvovgkbhWIDzohqNA_qd85wBoZG0dJznpOYwm_Ip8ECxg9dszhsqgux5pf9YQbkCE8zHPfuj59IQmVsKMZCMA718/s389/Der_Spiegel_July_1-13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG44PdBPnT36Nh9I7DxwRqPQ5MquoCbevWOBC33ZYkdDKtoA3gpCztvovgkbhWIDzohqNA_qd85wBoZG0dJznpOYwm_Ip8ECxg9dszhsqgux5pf9YQbkCE8zHPfuj59IQmVsKMZCMA718/s320/Der_Spiegel_July_1-13.jpg" width="248" /></a></div>
<br />
The latest revelations from Edward Snowden that the NSA is spying on the European Union is <i>Der Spiegel's</i> current cover story.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black;">"If
it is true that EU representations in Brussels and Washington were
indeed tapped by the American Secret Service, it can hardly be explained
with the argument of fighting terrorism."<br /> - German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;">A current report in</span> <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/secret-documents-nsa-targeted-germany-and-eu-buildings-a-908609.html"><span style="color: blue;"><i>Der Spiegel</i> </span></a><span style="color: black;">says
that the National Security Agency (NSA) has bugged European Union (EU)
offices and gained access to its internal computer networks. It also
reports that the U.S. spy agency taps half a billion phone calls,
emails, and text messages in Germany in a typical month.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">"If
the media reports are correct, this brings to memory actions among
enemies during the Cold War. It goes beyond any imagination that our
friends in the United States view the Europeans as enemies," German
Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said. As the German
justice minister said, such spying “can hardly be explained with the
argument of fighting terrorism.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">To understand how and why the NSA spies on Europeans and Americans I recommend reading <i>The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America</i>
(2008) by James Bamford. The chapter that I found most interesting was
“Wiretappers” in which Bamford discusses the Israeli connections to the
NSA. This chapter describes how two Israeli companies are at the center
of the illegal tapping of our phone calls and email and focuses on Jacob
“Kobi” Alexander, the Israeli criminal behind one of them.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">It
is amazing that patriotic Americans like Bradley Manning and Edward
Snowden are hounded to the end of the Earth and prosecuted for their
whistle-blowing actions to shed light on illegal activity, while the
Israeli criminals, like Kobi Alexander, who are actually behind the
criminal activity, are allowed to flee with their ill-gotten gains. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijZ-x4Q7lF_rLRezZYgQR5gAzefyBwYt6DSNa4OCnmgkAWM8NxYVcSDL-6p1ZjeS6m5-i_bFIDHOL7IPoRhGEV64wblEpA6-k1Myozm1c9eokq7yebZkExxx26Nlf9s-YXZDcqSH0E2Z4/s511/Kobi_Alexander.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijZ-x4Q7lF_rLRezZYgQR5gAzefyBwYt6DSNa4OCnmgkAWM8NxYVcSDL-6p1ZjeS6m5-i_bFIDHOL7IPoRhGEV64wblEpA6-k1Myozm1c9eokq7yebZkExxx26Nlf9s-YXZDcqSH0E2Z4/s320/Kobi_Alexander.jpg" width="196" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<b>Kobi
Alexander, the Israeli criminal behind Verint, is tied to the terror
attacks of 9-11. Why did the FBI allow him to send $57 million of stolen
money to Israel and flee from justice while he was under investigation
in June 2006? How does one wire $57 million to a foreign bank without
the federal government knowing?</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: black;">Alexander,
wanted by the FBI for a long list of serious crimes, was the former
head of Verint, the Israeli company behind the snooping at Verizon. He
was also part owner of Odigo, the Israeli text messaging company that
was used to send warning messages to Israelis telling them to avoid the
World Trade Center on 9-11. Alexander’s father, Zvi, who helped
him acquire tens of millions of dollars illegally, is a former business
partner of the late Marc Rich, the senior Mossad operative who sent two
of his Belgian-Israeli agents to New York City to manage the shipping of
steel from the World Trade Center to Asia - where it was destroyed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">What
is most telling about the bizarre relationship between Israel and the
NSA (and FBI) is that those who expose the criminal activity are treated
as criminals while the foreign intelligence service that is spying on
Americans is completely ignored. The fact that Israeli intelligence has
secret access to all our private communications means that it is able to
use blackmail and other methods to control our politicians. Such
criminal tactics may explain why criticism of Israel is so rare in
Washington, D.C.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">It is
important to understand how the Israeli connection to the NSA gives the
Israeli secret service access to all of the data that comes through the
massive collection of our private phone calls and email. The Israeli
hardware and software at the center of this spying give the Israelis
access to all of this data in the same way that having an Israeli
security company working at our airports gives them the keys to the
back-doors.</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">As James Bamford wrote in a 2012 article for Wired.com:</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">According
to a former Verizon employee briefed on the program, Verint, owned by
Comverse Technology, taps the communication lines at Verizon, which I
first reported in my book <i>The Shadow Factory</i> in 2008… At
AT&T the wiretapping rooms are powered by software and hardware from
Narus, now owned by Boeing, a discovery made by AT&T whistleblower
Mark Klein in 2004… </span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">What is especially troubling is that both companies
have had extensive ties to Israel, as well as links to that country’s
intelligence service, a country with a long and aggressive history of
spying on the U.S.</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">In
fact, according to Binney, the advanced analytical and data mining
software the NSA had developed for both its worldwide and international
eavesdropping operations was secretly passed to Israel by a mid-level
employee, apparently with close connections to the country. The
employee, a technical director in the Operations Directorate, “who was a
very strong supporter of Israel,” said Binney, “gave, unbeknownst to
us, he gave the software that we had, doing these fast rates, to the
Israelis.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">…
But Binney now suspects that Israeli intelligence in turn passed the
technology on to Israeli companies who operate in countries around the
world, including the U.S. In return, the companies could act as
extensions of Israeli intelligence and pass critical military, economic
and diplomatic information back to them. “And then five years later,
four or five years later, you see a Narus device,” he said. “I think
there’s a connection there, we don’t know for sure.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;"><br /> - James Bamford, “Shady Companies with Ties to Israel Wiretap the U.S. for the NSA,” Wired.com, April 3, 2012</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: black;">The following extracts are from the chapter “Wiretappers” from <i>The Shadow Factory</i>,
Bamford’s 2008 book. The chapter explains how the Israelis have access
to the stored data that has been collected by the NSA and describes some
of the things they can do with it, such as using our digital
voice-print to find all of our recorded telephone calls:</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">While
such tools as DCS-1000 [Carnivore] and CIPAV are used on a small number
of select targets, Verint and Narus are superintrusive – conducting
mass surveillance on both international and domestic communications
24/7. What is especially troubling, but little known, is that both
companies have extensive ties to a foreign country, Israel, as well as
links to that country’s intelligence service – a service with a long
history of aggressive spying against the U.S.</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">Equally
troubling, the founder and former chairman of one of the companies is
now a fugitive, wanted by the FBI on nearly three dozen charges of
fraud, theft, lying, bribery, money laundering, and other crimes.
Although there has long been Congressional oversight of the telecom
industry, there is virtually no oversight of the companies hired to do
the bugging.</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">Verint
was founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer, Jacob Alexander,
who often goes by the nickname “Kobi.” His father, Zvi Alexander, was a
wealthy Israeli oil baron and an international wheeler-dealer who ended
up running the country’s state-owned oil company. To win drilling
franchises, he would make political payments to African cabinet
ministers, often in partnership with the U.S. tax cheat Marc Rich, who
became a fugitive and was given sanctuary in Israel. (p. 238)</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">Thus,
by 2004, a large percentage of America’s – and the world’s – voice and
data communications were passing through wiretaps built, installed, and
maintained by a small, secretive Israeli company run by former Israeli
military and intelligence officers. Even more unnerving is the fact that
Verint can automatically access the mega-terabytes of stored and
real-time data secretly and remotely from anywhere, including Israel.
(p. 241)</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">While
Verint can provide mass interception of data and phone calls, one of
its Israeli spinoffs, PerSay, can go one step further and offer
“advanced voice mining.” The company, based in Tel Aviv, employs a
system “that efficiently searches for a target’s voice within a large
volume of intercepted calls, regardless of the conversation content or
method of communication.” Thus, with remote access to the internal and
international voice and data communications of over one hundred
countries around the world, including the United States, Verint’s
headquarters in Tel Aviv has a capability rivaled only by the NSA’s, if
not greater, especially when coupled with PerSay’s voice-mining
capability. (p. 242)</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">The
agency responsible for worldwide eavesdropping in Israel is the
hypersecret Unit 8200, that country’s NSA… Having both trained alumni of
the organization and sophisticated eavesdropping equipment developed by
Unit 8200 in foreign countries would be an enormous intelligence
windfall, should Israel be able to harness it. Retired Brigadier General
Hanan Gefen, a former commander of Unit 8200, noted his former
organization’s influence on Comverse, which owns Verint, as well as the
other Israeli companies that dominate the U.S. eavesdropping and
surveillance market. (p. 243)</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">Nevertheless,
despite the fact that many of the NSA’s and the Pentagon’s sensitive
communications – like those of the rest of the country – travel across
the tapping equipment of Verint and Narus, their links to Israel seem to
have slipped below the radar. (p. 244)</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">Thus,
virtually the entire American telecommunications system is bugged by
two Israeli-formed companies with possible ties to Israel’s
eavesdropping agency – with no oversight by Congress.</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">Also
troubling are Verint’s extremely close ties to the FBI’s central
wiretapping office, known as the CALEA Implementation Section (CIS). (p.
246)</span><span style="color: black;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="color: black;">Unknown
to the public, an entire national telecom network was channeled through
a powerful foreign-made bug controlled by a corrupt foreign-based
company with close links to a foreign electronic spy agency. As of 2008,
the bug was still there and the only thing that had changed was a
reshuffling of the company’s top management. (p. 252)</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<b><span style="color: black;">Sources and Recommended Reading:</span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">"How the NSA Targets Germany and Europe," <i>Der Spiegel</i>, July 1, 2013</span><br />
<a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/secret-documents-nsa-targeted-germany-and-eu-buildings-a-908609.html"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/secret-documents-nsa-targeted-germany-and-eu-buildings-a-908609.html</span></a><br />
<span style="color: black;">“Shady Companies with Ties to Israel Wiretap the U.S. for the NSA” by </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13px;">James Bamford,</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13px;"> Wired.com, April 3, 2012<br /><a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/04/shady-companies-nsa/all/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/04/shady-companies-nsa/all/</span></a><span style="color: blue;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">"The Israeli Criminals Behind the NSA Spy Scandal" by Christopher Bollyn, Bollyn.com, June 13, 2013</span><br />
<a href="http://www.bollyn.com/the-israeli-companies-behind-the-nsa-spy-scandal/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.bollyn.com/the-israeli-companies-behind-the-nsa-spy-scandal/</span></a><br />
<i><span style="color: black;">The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America </span></i><span style="color: black;"> by James Bamford, Doubleday, 2008</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> http://www.bollyn.com/#article_14210</span></span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-77421698751190051592013-07-03T20:40:00.001-07:002013-07-03T20:40:31.760-07:00Tomorrow's Israel Wars -- No Longer Science Fiction<span style="color: white;">.</span><br /><br /><br />by Joe Charlaff<br /><br /> What will tomorrow’s wars look like? What was once considered science fiction is fast becoming a reality. The characteristics of the battlefield of the future will demand an even faster and more sophisticated response: asymmetric wars, cyber warfare, hostile exploitation of physical and cyber of space, drones, robotics, unconventional weaponry falling into the hands of terrorist organizations, and more. <br /><br />The perception of future wars has already become Israel Aerospace Industriesa reality with pilotless sophisticated drones carrying out reconnaissance missions and striking at their targets, while the “pilot” at the controls is sitting in a cubicle at a base far away. In the movie “Oblivion,” weaponized drones attack and destroy aliens. This concept is becoming part of today’s and tomorrow’s wars. In a similar fashion, an unmanned ground vehicle patrolling a border sends intelligence information to the control room where the person who pulls the trigger is safely out of harms’ way. <br /><br /><b>Cyber Warfare</b><br /><br />Brig General (res.) Yair Cohen, Head of Intelligence and Cyber solutions Division at Elbit Systems, and former Commander of Unit 8200 (Israel’s equivalent of the American NSA), addressing a select audience at the Israeli Presidential Conference held here last month, offered a glimpse of future wars from his perspective.<br /><br />“As part of the IDF's preparation for future warfare, cyberspace warfare, Unit 8200 is slated to provide defensive and collection capabilities and in computer, network, and communications wars, as well as carry out other active operations," Cohen said.<br /><br />Until a few decades ago, enemies were conquered using conventional heavy weapons and armor. The scene has changed to the deployment of weapons with unconventional capabilities. But current and future battlefields generate new opportunities but also present new risks.<br /><br />Until recently, cyber capabilities seemed to belong to science fiction. In the opening event of the Six Day War, Israeli Air Force jets destroyed all enemy aircraft which determined the course of the war right from the outset. This war was considered Israel’s most successful from a military point of view.<br /><br />“However in the future should we be on the brink of war, cyber weapons, with a single press of a button, will disable enemy aircraft without sending our own aircraft to engage them without large scale preparations that could be exposed to the enemy, and without risk to human life," said Cohen .<br /><br /><b>Robotics</b><br /><br />“Israel is moving towards increasing automation in its weaponry, not only on the ground but in the air and sea” noted Brig. Gen. (Res.) Daniel Gold, HIsrael Aerospace Industriesead of the Israel National Committee for Commercial/Civilian Cyber R&D and formerly Head of the Research and Development Department at the Israel Ministry of Defense and the IDF. <br /><br />He reviewed one of the latest robotic devices developed by the IDF for ground troop support called the “Snake,” a device that resembles a real snake and mimics its movements. It measures two meters long, is covered in military camouflage, and is capable of recording video and sounds on the battlefield. While slithering around through caves, tunnels, bunkers, cracks and buildings, it sends images and sounds back to a soldier who controls the device from a laptop.<br /><br />Gold emphasized that robotics are not limited to use on the ground but also in the air and at sea. Israel has become a leader in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), better known as drones, which are used for surveillance as well as support for troops on the ground.<br /><b><br />Future Warfare Trends</b><br /><br />What are the future global trends in warfare? According to Dr. Ariel Levite, Deputy National Security Adviser for Defense Policy and Head of the Bureau of International Security and Arms Control in the Israeli Ministry of Defense, the trends that affect violent conflict include factors already seen over the past decade such as globalization, disenfranchisement, competition, economic dislocation, technological advancements in information technology in particular, weakening governance of the international system with the USA retreating and no other country taking a leadership position.<br /><br />All these factors will influence the nature of future conflicts.<br /><br />“Classic wars will remain few and far apart – they will be the exception rather than the rule," said Levite. "Instead, we are likely to see global and multi-dimensional friction combining physical and cyber elements.”<br /><br />What is less likely to be seen are wars in which weapons of mass destruction are deployed, and even less likely, wars in which nuclear weapons are deployed. Of course, that does not mean that nuclear weapons won’t play an important part in politics as deterrents or coercion.<br /><br />“We will face adversaries," said Levite. "But unlike those in the past, they will be comprised of mainly terrorists, pirates, human traffickers, and drug dealers, and in some cases desperate and vengeful groups with permutations of a hybrid nature and these groups have increasing access to sophisticated weaponry supplied by rogue states” he said.<br /><br />“Those adversaries are difficult to deter and they also enjoy several safe havens," said Levite. "As a result we will face a fusion of homeland security and external security which blurs the line between state and non- state actors, between adversaries and non-combatants," he said. "State-of-the-art capabilities are making their way to non-state actors, and ultimately no single battle or operation will be decisive anymore."<br />
<br /><br /><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.hstoday.us/briefings/correspondents-watch/single-article/exclusive-tomorrow-s-wars-no-longer-science-fiction/3f5f30b452378fccee6886c3d5d1d5ce.html</span></span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-30962953936757081682013-07-03T17:51:00.000-07:002013-07-03T17:51:37.149-07:00Independence Day Greetings to Edward SnowdenBy Stephen M. Walt<br />
<br />
Every year on the Fourth of July I sit down and read the <a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html" target="_blank">Declaration
of Independence</a>. It's a habit I got into some years ago, but I take a
peculiar pleasure in reading through the founding principles of the American
Revolution, archaic language and all. In these days of creeping executive
power, supine journalism, and reflexive threat-inflation, it's a valuable
reminder that governments exist to serve the people -- and not the other way
around.<br />
<br />
On this Independence Day, I am wondering what the Founding Fathers would
have made of Edward Snowden. The question is obviously a bit absurd, as they
could hardly have imagined something like the Internet, or even the telephone, back
in 1776. But they would have understood the ability of a government to seize
the mail and to investigate and harass those suspected of disloyalty. And they
surely would have understood the concept of risking one's future for the sake
of one's ideals.<br />
<br />
It is of course possible that they would have seen Snowden as some members
of Congress do, as a man who betrayed his country by releasing classified
information. But isn't it also possible that they would have seen in him a
kindred spirit -- someone who took an irrevocable step on a matter of
principle? In particular, they might have seen in him a man who recognized the
natural tendency of governments to extend their control over citizens, usually
in the name of national security.<br />
<br />
Let us not forget that the Founding Fathers repeatedly warned about the
dangers of standing armies, which they rightly understood to be a perennial
threat to liberty. Or that James Madison <a href="http://harpers.org/blog/2007/07/madison-on-the-dangers-of-war/" target="_blank">famously
warned</a> that no nation can remain free in a state of perpetual warfare, a
sentiment that Barack Obama <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/remarks-president-national-defense-university" target="_blank">recently
quoted</a> but does not seem to have fully taken to heart. The Founders also
gave Americans the <a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html" target="_blank">Fourth
Amendment</a> to the <a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html" target="_blank">U.S.
Constitution</a> because they understood that defending individual privacy
against the grasp of government authority is an essential human right as well
as an important safeguard of freedom.<br />
<br />
The United States can no longer protect the country's security with a
citizen militia, of course, and a permanent defense establishment has become a
necessary evil in the competitive world of contemporary international politics.
But the Snowden affair reminds us that large and well-funded government
bureaucracies have a powerful tendency to expand, to hide their activities
behind walls of secrecy, and to depend on a cowed and co-opted populace to look
the other way.<br />
<br />
Snowden may have broken the law, but so did the Founding Fathers when they
issued that famous declaration 237 years ago. They did so in defiance of a
powerful empire, just as Snowden did. The world is better off that they chose
to defy the laws of their time, and Snowden's idealistic act may leave us
better off too. I suspect Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the rest of
those revolutionaries might have understood.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;">http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/03/a_happy_fourth_of_july_for_edward_snowden</span></span>whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8629285072965859682.post-32972943495002943052013-07-02T18:37:00.004-07:002013-07-02T18:37:53.949-07:00Department of Dirty Tricks<span style="color: white;">.</span><br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Why the United States needs to sabotage, undermine, and expose its enemies in the Middle East. </blockquote>
<br />BY MAX BOOT, MICHAEL DORAN<br /><br />"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." So said Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part III. He was complaining about the impossibility of leaving the mafia behind, but the quote undoubtedly expresses the feelings of President Barack Obama as he contemplates the difficulty of extricating the United States from the Middle East. He is eager to pivot to Asia and sees bringing soldiers home from Iraq and Afghanistan as one of his most important legacies. Like the mafia, however, the Middle East has a way of pulling the United States back in. First in Afghanistan, then in Libya, and now in Syria, events on the ground and pressure from allies convinced a reluctant president to make new military commitments.<br /><br /> But if the United States wants to exert influence over events in this turbulent region, it will have to do more than provide military assistance. Even if the arms the United States will supply to the Syrian rebels were to topple President Bashar al-Assad -- which at the moment seems an unlikely outcome, barring the employment of American air power -- the bloodletting will almost certainly continue. Rival factions will compete for power, and American-backed forces under Gen. Salim Idriss and allied figures could easily lose out to the al-Nusrah Front and other Islamist extremists. Look at what's happened in Libya, where in the aftermath of Qaddafi's ouster, militias and militants exercise more authority than the central government. Or consider Egypt, where the downfall of a dictator has allowed the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist organization hostile to the United States and Israel, to consolidate authority in an increasingly authoritarian manner.<br /><br />Clearly, the president needs options between military intervention and complete nonintervention -- ways to influence developments in the Middle East without deploying Reaper drones or sending U.S. ground forces. To give Obama the tools he needs, the U.S. government should reinvigorate its capacity to wage "political warfare," defined in 1948 by George Kennan, then the State Department's director of policy planning, as "the employment of all the means at a nation's command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives." Such measures, Kennan noted, were "both overt and covert" and ranged from "political alliances, economic measures (as ERP -- the Marshall Plan), and 'white' propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of 'friendly' foreign elements, 'black' psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states."<br /><br />During the Cold War, the United States waged political warfare through a variety of mechanisms. It covertly funded noncommunist political parties in Europe and Japan; backed intellectual magazines like Encounter, an Anglo-American journal of opinion that flourished in the 1950s, as well as groups such as the Congress of Cultural Freedom, which organized artists and intellectuals against communism; and provided financial and logistical support to anti-Soviet dissidents like Lech Walesa and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. At their worst, such policies propped up strongmen with scant legitimacy -- think Cuban president Fulgencio Batista and the shah of Iran -- and invited anti-American "blowback." But at their best, they enabled the United States to aid freedom fighters behind the Iron Curtain and beyond. They were policies that helped to outflank communism in Europe and Asia, where free societies stood up to help the United States win the Cold War.<br /><br />What distinguished political warfare from the amorphous and open-ended development and assistance programs that the United States currently runs was its emphasis on winning a global competition against the Soviet Union. In the era of the Marshall plan, for example, the United States did not simply develop, in a general sense, the economy of Europe. It did so with an eye to strengthening specific groups that were dedicated to weakening the enemy of the United States. More often than not, political warfare involves the application of "soft power." But it requires organizing ourselves so as to apply it against specific targets in order to achieve clearly defined goals. Influencing the flow of information was, therefore, a key component of Cold War political warfare.<br /><br />Thus, during the 1980s, the U.S. government did not limit its involvement in Afghanistan to having the CIA arm the mujahideen. The now-defunct U.S. Information Agency also spread news globally about Soviet atrocities in Afghanistan (most notoriously, the rumored use of exploding toys to maim children). Tales of human-rights violations did much to undermine the Soviet Union's legitimacy and helped speed its collapse. Today, the president has very few tools at his disposal, other than statements from the podium, that allow him to direct the flow of information in a competitive manner. Consider, for example, the intervention by Hezbollah in Syria today. The number of fighters lost in that conflict, the brutality of their activities, and the cost to the treasury of Iran are all pieces of information -- if delivered to the right audiences in the Middle East -- which could help the United States to undermine the morale of rivals. But whose job is it in the United States government to collect such information and place it on a defined target? <br /><br /> With the end of the Cold War, America's tradition of political warfare all but died. Covert action was revived after the 9/11 attacks, but it has been primarily kinetic -- consisting of drone strikes, renditions, and commando raids. In fact, the lack of a complementary political strategy makes it impossible to undermine persistent foes, and forces us to rely more than we should on direct military action, which often does not achieve any lasting effect. A more indirect, politically focused approach is needed to exert American influence in countries like Egypt, where we have no intention of sending Reaper drones to kill Muslim Brotherhood leaders, but nevertheless need to counter the organization's hardline policies.<br /><br />Reinvigorating America's capability to wage political warfare will not cost much -- and can be paid for by redirecting parts of the foreign aid, public diplomacy, and military budgets -- but it will require mobilizing autonomous bureaucracies to act in concert. The normal Balkanization of government will have to be replaced by a cooperative system in which operatives are encouraged to develop crosscutting skill sets; no longer will al Qaeda specialists be able to focus only on al Qaeda, or Iran specialists only on Iran.<br /><br />Fortunately, a model already exists for this kind of organizational innovation. The counterterrorism apparatus created in the wake of 9/11 provides a good example of what must be built -- or, rather, expanded. This involved creating the National Counterterrorism Center, an intelligence community organization which brings together experts from the military, the CIA, NSA, FBI, and other agencies, and which works closely with other agencies such as the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security under the general supervision of a coordinator of homeland security and counterterrorism on the White House staff. As a first step, Obama should appoint a highly respected coordinator for political warfare to the National Security Staff, where most foreign policy decisions are made. Without the personal support of the president, this initiative will fail.<br /><br />Second, the president should create a strategic operational hub -- an interagency coordinating body like the National Counterterrorism Center that pulls all of the government's efforts together -- housed within the State Department. Under an executive order signed by Obama in 2011, the State Department has already created a Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications that is designed to "coordinate, orient, and inform government-wide foreign communications activities targeted against terrorism and violent extremism." This is a step in the right direction, but it does not go nearly far enough.<br /><br />The effort should aim, in the first instance, to counter not only terrorist groups like al Qaeda, but also malevolent organizations such as Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah, even in their nonviolent manifestations. Tactically, this should involve much more than simple overt messaging directly from the U.S. government. It should comprise efforts to build up rival groups in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere and to destroying the reputation of those organizations by using the profound information-gathering capabilities of the United States in ways that have become unfamiliar to today's generation of intelligence professionals and diplomats. Consider, for example, the effect on Hezbollah, an organization that thrives on secrecy, if the United States were to collect the names, photos, and home addresses of its unit commanders in Syria and to publish them in Lebanon, along with detailed descriptions of their activities on the battlefield. The goal should be to blend various forms of American power -- some of them clandestine, some of them not -- to shape the Middle East so as to make it less permissive to the rivals of the United States.<br /><br />Third, the president should direct top-level government officials -- especially the secretary of state, secretary of defense, CIA director, and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development to create political warfare career tracks, which would result in the training and promotion of specialists in this area. Without separate career tracks, the bureaucracies will stigmatize and ostracize individuals who find political warfare rewarding and attractive.<br /><br />Political warfare is an alien -- even sinister-sounding -- concept in 2013. But the United States will never be able to extricate itself from the Middle East until a more stable order arises -- and the current pendulum swing between military involvement and military withdrawal is unlikely to prove sustainable. In places like Libya and Syria, we must build up, through steady, painstaking engagement, political forces that share the strategic interests of the United States. There is admittedly a danger of American machinations blowing up in our faces, but current trends, if left unchanged, carry even greater dangers. If we do nothing and cede the Middle East to malign actors such as Iran, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood, groups which have no qualms about doing whatever it takes to seize power, we risk creating a situation that will require, at some point in the future another massive military intervention by the United States. <br /><br /><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/28/political_warfare_dirty_tricks?page=0,0</span></span><br /><br />whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04434314871274401386noreply@blogger.com1