The president of Somalia on Sunday denounced the recruiting of young men from Minnesota's huge Somali community for terrorist activity in his war-ravaged homeland, and said he plans to work with the U.S. government to bring those still alive back home.
President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed speaking in the Minneapolis area, where authorities believe as many as 20 young Somali men — possibly recruited by a vision of jihad to fight — returned to the impoverished nation over the last two years.
At least three have died in Somalia, including one who authorities believe was the first American suicide bomber. Three others have pleaded guilty in the U.S. to terror-related charges.
"We believe this is a wrong action, that these young men were wronged, they were robbed out of their life. Their parents were wronged," Ahmed said through an interpreter. "The laws of the United States were violated. The security of Somalia was violated. So we condemn (them) without reservation."
Ahmed was in the Minneapolis area — home of the largest Somali population in the U.S. — to build support as his government tries to bring peace to the Horn of Africa country that has been plagued by violence for decades. The nation of 7 million people has not had a functioning government since 1991, when clan-based warlords overthrew a dictator and then turned on each other.
Polio, the dreaded paralyzing disease stamped out in the industrialized world, is spreading in Nigeria. And health officials say in some cases, it's caused by the vaccine used to fight it.
In July, the World Health Organization issued a warning that this vaccine-spread virus might extend beyond Africa. So far, 124 Nigerian children have been paralyzed this year — about twice those afflicted in 2008.
The polio problem is just the latest challenge to global health authorities trying to convince wary citizens that vaccines can save them from dreaded disease. For years, myths have abounded about vaccines — that they were the Western world's plan to sterilize Africans or give them AIDS. The sad polio reality fuels misguided fears and underscores the challenges authorities face using a flawed vaccine.
Nigeria and most other poor nations use an oral polio vaccine because it's cheaper, easier, and protects entire communities.
But it is made from a live polio virus — albeit weakened — which carries a small risk of causing polio for every million or so doses given. In even rarer instances, the virus in the vaccine can mutate into a deadlier version that ignites new outbreaks.
The vaccine used in the United States and other Western nations is given in shots, which use a killed virus that cannot cause polio.
So when WHO officials discovered a polio outbreak in Nigeria was sparked by the polio vaccine itself, they assumed it would be easier to stop than a natural "wild" virus.
They were wrong.
In 2007, health experts reported that amid Nigeria's ongoing outbreak of wild polio viruses, 69 children had also been paralyzed in a new outbreak caused by the mutation of a vaccine's virus.
Back then, WHO said the vaccine-linked outbreak would be swiftly overcome — yet two years later, cases continue to mount. They have since identified polio cases linked to the vaccine dating back as far as 2005.
It is a worrying development for officials who hope to end polio epidemics in India and Africa by the end of this year, after missing several earlier deadlines. "It's very disturbing," said Dr. Bruce Aylward, who heads the polio department at the World Health Organization.
This year, the number of polio cases caused by the vaccine has doubled: 124 children have so far been paralyzed, compared to 62 in 2008, out of about 42 million children vaccinated. For every case of paralysis, there are hundreds of other children who don't develop symptoms, but pass on the disease.
When Nigerian leaders suspended polio vaccination in 2003, believing the vaccine would sterilize their children and infect them with HIV, Nigeria exported polio to nearly two dozen countries worldwide, making it as far away as Indonesia.
Nigeria resumed vaccinations in 2004 after tests showed the vaccine was not contaminated with estrogen, anti-fertility agents or HIV.
Experts have long believed epidemics unleashed by a vaccine's mutated virus wouldn't last since the vaccine only contains a weakened virus strain — but that assumption is coming under pressure. Some experts now say that once viruses from vaccines start circulating they can become just as dangerous as wild viruses.
"The only difference is that this virus was originally in a vaccine vial," said Olen Kew, a virologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The oral polio vaccine used in Nigeria and elsewhere contains a mild version of the live virus. Children who have been vaccinated pass the virus into the water supply through urine or feces. Other children who then play in or drink that water pick up the vaccine's virus, which gives them some protection against polio.
But in rare instances, as the virus passes through unimmunized children, it can mutate into a strain dangerous enough to ignite new outbreaks, particularly if immunization rates in the rest of the population are low.
Kew said genetic analysis proves mutated viruses from the vaccine have caused at least seven separate outbreaks in Nigeria.
Though Nigeria's coverage rates have improved, up to 15 percent of children in the north still haven't been vaccinated against polio. To eradicate the disease, officials need to reach about 95 percent of the population.
Nigeria's vaccine-linked outbreak underlines the need to stop using the oral polio vaccine as soon as possible, since it can create the very epidemics it was designed to stop, experts say. WHO is researching other vaccines that might work better, but none is on the horizon.
Until a better vaccine is ready, WHO and U.S. CDC officials say the oral vaccine is the best available tool to eradicate polio and that when inoculation rates are nearly 100 percent it works fine.
"Nigeria is almost a case study in what happens when you don't follow the recommendations," Kew said.
Since WHO and partners began their attempt to rid the world of polio in 1988, officials have slashed the disease's incidence by more than 99 percent.
But numerous deadlines have been missed and the number of cases has been at a virtual standstill since 2000. Critics have also wondered whether it is time to give up, and donors may be sick of continuing to fund a program with no clear endgame.
"Eradication is a gamble," said Scott Barrett, an economist at Columbia University who has studied polio policies. "It's all or nothing ... and there is a very real risk this whole thing may fall apart."
Aside from Nigeria, polio persists in a handful of other countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Chad, Angola and Sudan.
Aylward agreed the Nigeria situation was another unwelcome hurdle, but was confident eradication was possible. "We still have a shot," he said. "We're throwing everything at it including the kitchen sink."
I think there is something really sick going about in our medical world. There is something really maddening about people who should be protecting us and our kids from dangerous viruses and diseases going mercenary for BigPharma. The indications are that we now live in a very dangerous world and there is no-one and nobody to trust in matters that affect our everyday lives; not in politics, economics and belatedly medicine. It is a very scary scenario and the lies that pursue these deceptions are deliberately calculated to do us all in. If there is one reason why you shouldn't take the swine flu vaccine, this is it staring you in the face.
STATE & FEDERAL LAW REVIEWS REGARDING FORCED VACCINATIONS & QUARANTINES by Larry Becraft, Constitutional Attorney
"no right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person."~~~Union Pacific Ry. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891)
The following linked document provides this author’s compilation of state and federal laws and regulations regarding pandemics for easy public access and reference. . . .
Having spent a great deal of time compiling this information, adding links wherever I thought it might be helpful, providing some guidance and commentary when indicated, I observe references to the fed quarantine laws only apply to people crossing international and state borders.
Regarding quarantines, there is nothing printed in “black and white” law that even intimates doing something in the States; the Constitution does not grant these types of “police powers” to the Congress or the feds.
Likewise, any Presidential Executive Order regarding quarantine can only be based on these laws as an executive order could not be broader than the statutes forming the basis of his authority. Any Executive Order, in this respect, would only apply to people crossing borders and inside the insular possessions.
Quarantines have a long history going back hundreds of years. Governments have encountered and dealt with epidemics for centuries and the courts have upheld such police power.
In reference to the States, one must actually look at the laws for each State regarding vaccinations and quarantines. All states have quarantine laws regarding plants and animals; all require vaccines for school children (with certain exemptions); and most require emergency and hospital personnel to take vaccinations. Besides these, a smart legal student must focus on what his own state provides in reference to pandemics. Do state laws only provide that people be quarantined, or can mandated vaccinations be enforced? What are the rights of people targeted for this “emergency” treatment?
Some states have “due process” provisions so that people can legally challenge any detention. For example, Arizonans know about this:
What was troubling for me was learning about the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act. This proposed act, adopted by as many as 39 states in one form or another, represents a new advancement in this field.
It does appear that after 9-11, the feds have been trying to get states to act in unison and rely upon CDC “proclamations” of emergencies to implement state quarantine laws.
If the swine-flu pandemic comes next fall, people need to know whether State officials are acting within their authority. They need to know about “due process” laws actually written into the quarantine laws. For example, suppose a fake crisis and resulting quarantine is declared in Phoenix. If Arizonans do not know about their quarantine “due process” rights, officials can run over them roughshod.
If large numbers of people know about these laws, and file suits in courts, we may be able to stop the insanity.
What about exemptions? Suppose your state allows school children to escape poisonous injections because of medical or religious reasons. Principles of equal protection would seem to me to permit others to use the same exemptions regarding a pandemic.
Further, I personally believe that any vaccines offered for swine-flu this fall may be very harmful. I also believe that those promoting these shots will not tell people about the risks. Withholding this information deprives people, medical patients, of “informed consent.” (See linked case of Fain v Smith.pdf.)
People need to actually read and study their own state laws and be prepared to use them. If people do not know about these laws, then officials will get away with doing whatever they want.
FOR SUPPLEMENTAL FINDING OF FACTS AND DISCUSSION REGARDING THE RESOLUTION ADVANCED ON THIS WEBSITE CLICK: County of Hawaii Swine FLU Resolution of Religious Freedom.pdf.
According to Constitutional attorney Larry Becraft, the United States Government was founded upon Christianity.
This is evidenced in Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892): "and for this plain reason that the case assumes that we are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply ingrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of those impostors.'
And in the famous case of Vidal v. Girard's Ex'rs, 2 How. 127, 198. This court observed: 'it is also said, and truly, that the Christian religion is a part of the common law of Pennsylvania.'"
In addition there are various Presidential Proclamations and the frequent references to "Almighty God"
Thus, it is completely inconsistent with American jurisprudence to suspend religious freedom and legislate violation of religious convictions under any circumstance; especially without “just compensation.”
ADDITIONAL CASES INVOLVING BODY RIGHTS AND BODILY HARM PERTAINING TO MEDICAL EXAMS & VACCINATIONS
Union Pacific Ry. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891): "no right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person."
Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hosp., 211 N.Y. 125, 219, 105 N.E. 92, 93 (1914):
“Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body; and a surgeon who performs an operation without his patient's consent commits an assault, for which he is liable in damages. This is true except in cases of emergency where the patient is unconscious and where it is necessary to operate before consent can be obtained.”
Rishworth v. Moss, 191 S.W. 843, 847 (Tex.Civ.App.-San Antonio 1916):
“a physician is liable for operating upon a person unless he obtains the consent of such person, if competent to give consent, and, if not, of some one who, under the circumstances, would be legally authorized to give the consent; that in the case of a child of tender years consent must be obtained from the parent or guardian.”
Karp v. Cooley, 493 F.2d 408, 419 (5th Cir. 1974): “The root premise jurisprudentially is that ‘[e]very human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body’.”
Reyes v. Wyeth Laboratories, 498 F.2d 1264, 1294 (5th Cir. 1974): “the right of the individual to choose and control what risk he will take.”
Fain v. Smith, 479 So.2d 1150 (Ala. 1985): see copy I sent.
In re Duran, 2001 PA Super 52, 769 A.2d 497 (2001):
The right to refuse medical treatment is deeply rooted in our common law. This right to bodily integrity was recognized by the United States Supreme Court over a century ago when it proclaimed " no right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person. . . . " Union Pacific Railway Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251,
11 S.Ct. 1000, 1001, 35 L.Ed. 734, ___ (1891).
The right to control the integrity of one's body spawned the doctrine of informed consent. See Fiori, supra; Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital, 105 N.E. 92, 93 (N.Y. 1914) (Cardozo, J.). This doctrine demands that if the patient is mentally and physically able to consult about his or her condition, the patient's informed consent is a prerequisite to treatment. Moure v. Raeuchle, 529 Pa. 394, 404, 604 A.2d 1003, 1008 (1992). See also Fiori, supra at 910; Nogowski v. Alemo-Hammad, 691 A.2d 950, 954 (Pa.Super. 1997), appeal denied, 550 Pa. 684, 704 A.2d 638 (1997).
A logical corollary to this doctrine is the patient's right, in general, to withdraw consent to treatment once begun. Courts have unanimously concluded that this right to self-determination does not cease upon the incapacitation of the individual.
While this right is fundamental to our concept of personal autonomy, it may be outweighed by any one of four state interests: 1) protection of third parties; 2) protection of the ethical integrity of the medical profession; 3) preservation of life; and 4) prevention of suicide.
“The underlying basis for the doctrine of informed consent is a patient's right of self-determination, the right to intelligently decide whether to choose or decline a particular medical procedure. See Niemiera v. Schneider, 114 N.J. 550, 562, 555 A.2d 1112 (1989); Schloendorff v. Soc'y of the N.Y. Hosp., 211 N.Y. 125, 105 N.E. 92, 93 (1914) (Cardozo, J.) ("Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body; and a surgeon who performs an operation without his patient's consent, commits an assault, for which he is liable in damages.")
IN 2004, ATTORNEY BECRAFT WROTE:
"All the courts are authorized to do when the constitutionality of a legislative act is questioned is to determine whether Congress, under the Constitution as it is, possesses the power to enact the legislation in controversy; their power does not extend to the matter of expediency. If Congress has not the power, the duty of the court is to declare the act void. The court is unable to find any provision in the Constitution authorizing Congress, either expressly or by necessary implication, to protect or regulate the . . . in a state, and is therefore forced to the conclusion that the act is unconstitutional. . . .
If this is the case, you might ask what is the Constitutional basis upon which the U.S. [Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC)] has been created and currently operates [to direct state health departments through locally positioned federal agents]?”
IMPORTANT FOOTNOTE by Dr. Horowitz:
If you decide to file a lawsuit against your state health department or local health official(s), MAKE CERTAIN YOU DO NOT NAME ANY FEDERAL AGENTS as defendants, such as those commonly stationed within states’ health departments! This will save you from having to sue the federal government of the United States and lose the case instantly when the case is remanded to federal court wherein no remedy can be provided on behalf of the state defendants.
" Our race is the Master Race. We are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves."
— Menachem Begin - Israeli Prime Minister 1977–1983
It doesn't take a Jew long to discover what his brothers are doing, so a group of Jews settled in Charleston, South Carolina, where they set up distilleries for making rum and whiskey. They, too, learned that they could trade with the natives on the West Coast of Africa for ivory, and several ships were purchased and sent to Africa, trading the usual glass beads and other cheap ornaments for ivory, which, however, took up but little space on board ship. It occurred to these Jew traders that they could supply the plantations in the South with 'Black ivory', needed under swampy and malarial conditions which European labor could not tolerate without sickness, and which would not only fill the holds of their ships, but bring enormous profits. (This same group had earlier tried selling Indians as slaves but they found them completely unsatisfactory, as the Indians would not tolerate this type of work.) Thus, another segment of the slave trading had become active and profitable out of Charleston, South Carolina. Several shiploads of Black slaves were sent by the Dutch West Indies Company to Manhattan.
During this time there were a number of plantation owners established in the West Indies and two Jews, Eyrger and SayUer, with strong Rothschild connections in Spain, formed an agency called ASIENTO, which later operated in Holland and England. It was through these connections that Jews in Holland and England exerted influence and both of these connections cooperated in helping the Jews provide Black Slaves for the Colonists.
With the yearly capture and transport of one million Black slaves it is not difficult to figure that from 1661 to 1774 (one hundred thirteen years) approximately one hundred ten million slaves had been removed from their native land. About ten percent, or ELEVEN MILLION, Black slaves reached the Colonies alive.
We have talked about the small ship "Abigail" which could accommodate only 56 people and yet the profits per trip were enormous, with little or no investment. There were many other ships but we will concentrate here on only a few, such as the "La Fortuna," "Hannah," "Sally" or the "Venue" which made very great profits. The "La Fortuna," by the way, transported approximately 217 slaves on each trip. The owner cleared not less than $41,438.00 from such a trip. These were dollars which the slave dealers 'could keep'. And these were dollars of value which would buy a great deal in return.
When one considers that the Jews of Newport owned about 300 slave-transporting ships, active without interruption, docking at Newport-Africa, Charleston, (or Virginia), one can approximate the tremendous earnings which made their way to Jewish ship owners. Indeed, the Jews admit, that of the 600 ships, leaving Newport harbor into all the world, "at least half of them" went their way to Africa, and we know what these ships going to Africa "were seeking."
The fact that Aaron Lopez had control of over more than half of the combined deals in the Colonies of Rhode Island, with Newport, is well-known. The well-known Rabbi Morris A. Gutstein, in his book, The Story of the Jews in Newport, attempts to remove these facts, maintaining that there is not any evidence that the Jews were connected with the Slave Trade. It is therefore imperative to prove that the Jew was indeed connected with the slave trading. Especially so since this rabbi insists they had made great contributions, and how very "blessed" their residence became for the city of Newport. Surely Morris A. Gutstein will grant us permission to present the facts which he was unable to find.
Turning to one report of the Chamber of Commerce of the "Rhode Island Colony" in the year 1764, we find, for instance, that in the year 1723 "a few merchants in Newport" devised the idea to send their Newport rum to the coast of Africa. It developed into such a great export that in the matter of a few years "several thousand (hogsheads)" of rum went that way. To which purpose did this rum serve?
The Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C., presents and makes public authentic documents entitled "Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade in America". We wish to present a few facts from this particular collection of original documents and scrutinize them at closer range, and not at all to prove the heretofore Rabbi Morris A. Gutstein in error. In this collection of the first American institute of learning, we evaluate the capital "Rhode Island" which contributed the main share of the public documentation regarding the Slave trading. Here we find documented the recipients of the numerous shipping letters, also letters to the Slave dealers, and correspondence to the ship's captains, who were about 15% Jews, living in Newport. Among these we find, for instance, the Jew Isaac Elizar. He wrote a letter to Captain Christopher Champlin on February 6, 1763, saying he would like to be an agent for a load of slaves. Then follows the Jew Abraham Pereira Mendez, and one of the main slave dealers, Jacob Rod Rivera-the father-in-law of Aaron Lopez. And then there is Aaron Lopez, himself, and many, many more other Jews. Although we have considered Aaron Lopez several times, the size of this documented treatise limits us, and we cannot describe all of the writers concerned in the Slavery Dealing correspondence, their names and the special dates—rather, we wish to study the documentation of the 'Carnegie Institute' itself—keeping Aaron Lopez in mind. We wish to see what in the main this Jew was pursuing and what his business was. This is due to the fact that Rabbi Morris A. Gutstein presents him as a "lofty and fine civilian of Newport" who was so generous and even "made contributions to welfare."
In a great number of published original unprejudiced writings in the Carnegie Institute, we find that Aaron Lopez pursued a tremendous commerce in rum with the African coast in exchange for slaves. These irrefutable facts are as follows:
* June 22, 1764, a letter by Captain William Stead to Aaron Lopez. * July 22, 1765, a letter by Aaron Lopez to Captain Nathaniel Briggs. * July 22, 1765, a letter to Captain Abraham All. * February 4, 1766, a letter to Captain William Stead by Aaron Lopez. * March 7, 1766, a letter by Captain William Stead to Aaron Lopez. * February 20, 1766, a letter by Aaron Lopez to Captain William Stead. * October 8, 1766, a letter by Captain William Stead to Aaron Lopez. * February 9, 1767, a letter by Captain William Stead to Aaron Lopez.
Aside from that, there are similar statements out of letters by Aaron Lopez in the original, which he directed to the Captains Henry Cruger, David Mill, Henry White, Thomas Dolbeare, and William Moore. Indeed, one letter by Captain William Moore to Aaron Lopez & Company, is particularly revealing, and of special mention at this point. We wish to remark on the main contents of this letter in which Captain Moore writes: "I wish to advise you that your ship 'Ann' docked here night before last with 112 slaves, consisting of 35 men, 16 large youths, 21 small boys, 29 women, 2 grown girls, 9 small girls, and I assure you this is such a one rumcargo (rum in exchange for slaves) which I have not yet encountered, among the entire group there may be five to which one could take exception."
The date of the above letter was November 27, 1773. We have not yet concluded, because of lack of space, the excerpts and grateful compilations made available by the "Carnegie Institute."
On November 29, 1767, the Jew Abraham Pereira Mendez—who had been cheated by one of his kind—from Charleston, where he had journeyed to better control his Black cargo, wrote Aaron Lopez at Newport:
"These Negroes, which Captain Abraham All delivered to me, were in such poor condition due to the poor transportation, that I was forced to sell 8 boys and girls for a mere 27 (pounds), 2 other for 45 (pounds) and two women each for 35 (pounds)." (No doubt, English money)
Abraham Pereia Mendez was very angry and accused Aaron Lopez of "cheating" him. This letter delineates to us that this generous and fine citizen of Newport was insatiable in his greed for money. This is what caused the Rabbi Morris A. Gutstein to present this nobleman, Aaron Lopez, to pursue his objectionable methods. Negroes presented to him but a commodity.
In all of the letters which the "Carnegie Institute" published, it stresses the lack of human sympathy for the poor Negro slaves. This lack of feeling and compassion for the abused and pitiful Blacks at the hands of their Jewish dealers, can be read out of the diary of a captain who manned a ship owned by Aaron Lopez. The entrees concern a trip from the African Coast to Charleston. Moreover, they are authentic documents, published by the "Camegie Institute" in Washington, D.C., calling attention to an organization which had heretofore known little or nothing about; neither had they encountered further publicity in books or newspapers. Therefore, it is not to be wondered at that the facts of the leading share of American Jews in the slave trade could be pointed out as a monopoly, and unknown to the non-Jewish Americans, including the great masses of people all over the world. Others, however, acquainted with the facts, had good reason to remain painfully quiet.
The captain of another ship, the "Othello" among other things, makes the following entries in his diary:
* February 6th: One man drowned in the process of loading. * March 18th: Two women went overboard because they had not been locked up. * April 6th: One man dead with Flux. (No doubt an illness.) * April 13th: One woman dead with Flux. * May 7th: One man dead with Flux. * June 16th: One man dead by Kap Henry. * June 21st: One man dead by James Fluss. * July 5th: One woman dead with fever. * July 6th: One girl, sick for two months, died.
This vessel was on its way for five months. What terrible and unspeakable suffering was the lot of these millions of Blacks, who were torn with brutal force from their friendly African huts, jammed together, like animals below deck, and then sold with less concern than selling a head of cattle. Small wonder that ten of them died, being purchased for just a few dollars, and then sold for the sum of $2,000.00.... Read more
A stunning FSB report circulating in the Kremlin today states that the largest theft in World history has been engineered by the Israel Security Agency (ISA) under the direction of current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Australian media oligarch Rupert Murdoch and the US investment bank giant Goldman Sachs that has stolen from American mutual and pension fund account holders over $18 Trillion through a device known as “the Doomsday box”.
According to these reports, Israeli opposition leader, and former Mossad agent, Tzipi Livni [photo 2nd left next to Netanyahu] has turned over to the Obama administration the “complete dossier” of the ISA’s crimes against the American government and people after having the leadership of Israel “stolen” from her by Netanyahu, who through the ISA’s use of intimidation and massive bribes forced upon the Israelis the most right-wing government they have ever known.
These reports have come to light since last weeks arrest of a Mossad agent named Sergey Aleynikov by the United States, who these reports say stole from Goldman Sachs the most “complex and secretive stock manipulating programme ever created” and turned it over to Livni, and who in turn then gave copies of it to Russia, China and Germany.
Western news reports on the arrest of Aleynikov state that upon learning of the theft of their “Doomsday Programme”, Goldman Sacks ordered the US Government to arrest him, but as noted by the Bloomberg News Service, “what was Goldman doing with this programme to begin with”?
“Never let it be said that the Justice Department can’t move quickly when it gets a hot tip about an alleged crime at a Wall Street bank. It does help, though, if the party doing the complaining is the bank itself, and not merely an aggrieved customer.
Another plus is if the bank tells the feds the security of the U.S. financial markets is at stake. This brings us to the strange tale of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Sergey Aleynikov.
Aleynikov, 39, is the former Goldman computer programmer who was arrested on theft charges July 3 as he stepped off a flight at Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey. That was two days after Goldman told the government he had stolen its secret, rapid-fire, stock- and commodities-trading software in early June during his last week as a Goldman employee. Prosecutors say Aleynikov uploaded the program code to an unidentified Web site server in Germany.
It wasn’t just Goldman that faced imminent harm if Aleynikov were to be released, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Facciponti told a federal magistrate judge at his July 4 bail hearing in New York. The 34-year-old prosecutor also dropped this bombshell: “The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways.”
How could somebody do this? The precise answer isn’t obvious -- we’re talking about a black-box trading system here.... Meantime, it would be nice to see someone at Goldman go on the record to explain what’s stopping the world’s most powerful investment bank from using its trading program in unfair ways, too.”~~~~~ Jonathan Weil, Bloomberg News columnist
To the power that the ISA led Goldman Sachs bank has had over the US in allowing them to steal nearly the entire wealth of that Nation has been devastatingly detailed by the Rolling Stone Magazine News Service in their report titled “The Great American Bubble: How Goldman Sachs Has Engineered Every Major Market Manipulation Since The Great Depression”.
Even worse for the witless American people is that their new President Barak Obama has so filled his administration with former Goldman Sachs executives and lobbyists that Russian economists are now calling Wall Street the “Fourth Branch Of The US Government”, and which includes their current Treasury Secretary, his Chief of Staff, the former Treasury Secretary under President Bush (who engineered the $700 Billion bailout of US banks), and the former Treasury Secretary under President Clinton (who allowed the deregulation of US banks allowing them to loot the American public of their wealth in the first place).
Most important to note in this report are the details describing how Goldman Sachs “Doomsday Programme” was “created” by ISA programmers working under the Chairman of the Israeli National Security Council, Dr. Uzi Arad, his wife, Dr. Ruth Arad, Vice President and Chief Risk Officer of Bank Leumi, and Jacob Ezra Merkin, who bought the Bank Leumi from the Israeli government headed by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and finance minister Ehud Olmert, who became Israel’s Prime Minister after Sharon but was forced to step down while under corruption charges allowing Netanyahu to steal the Premiership from Livni.
Now, what is really interesting in these reports is that Jacob Ezra Merkin allowed his longtime business partner Bernard Madoff the “personal use” of the “Doomsday Programme” which he then used to enrich himself, Dr. Arad and his wife, and Madoff to the tune of over $65 Billion they stole largely from the wealthiest Jewish Families in America, and who they knew would not testify against ISA agents in any US Court.
However, the outcry over the billions lost by America’s richest Jewish families necessitated the scapegoating of Madoff, who received a sentence of 150 years in exchange for the US not prosecuting Dr. Arad, his wife or Merkin, all who remain free and uncharged for their crimes. More astoundingly, Dr. Arad, who was banned from ever entering the United States due to the massive Israeli spy network he headed in that country, was granted a visa by Obama who sided with his Goldman Sachs allies against his own intelligence services.
Also interesting to note in these reports is the role played in the vast Israeli criminal network by the Australian media oligarch Rupert Murdoch, who these reports say has used his vast media holdings in the United States and Britain to collect personal data on “high government officials” which was then used by Dr. Arad’s ISA network to blackmail these officials against conducting any investigation into the crimes they have committed.
Though the United Kingdom has announced an investigation into Murdoch’s vast ISA spy network set up in their country, there remains no evidence of the United States doing the same.
To the utterly stupefying theft of the American people's wealth by these criminals, it is only eclipsed by the fact that those elements and forces that robbed these people blind have, literally, come out from the shadows and are now openly running the entire government of the United States.
Egoigwe says: For those who may not know, the Doomsday Programme is comparable to a clever Ultimate Insider Trading software, which handy Unix boxes monitor trade orders at the New York Stock Exchange. This secured information can then be used, in microseconds, to place layers of trade orders for hundreds of millions of shares that translate to hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, in profits at quarter’s end. Question is; what did Goldman Sachs require this gadget for, if not insider trading? Please click and read, for a historical brief of our present descent into this sorry, very sorry, global mess and you will discover that as it was in the beginning, so is it now:Click and Read; The History of the Money Changers by Andrew Hitchcock.
The Global killer plague; WHO's flu and WHO's vaccine?
These are challenging times and we need to stay calm and think things through - not just panic and react. Fear, panic and emotional reaction got us into this mess and it is certainly not going to get us out of it.
We also need to realise - here, now - that we have long crossed the line into a fully-fledged fascist dictatorship. It has hidden itself to most people this far, but it is about to lift the veil.
It is no longer an option to do nothing or passively acquiesce to authority out of fear or apathy. Or, at least, it's not if we care about our freedoms and, most importantly, those of our children and grandchildren who will have to live almost their entire lives under a global jackboot of sheer, undiluted evil.
The word 'evil' is much overused and I don't say it lightly; but we are dealing with evil in the sense that the word is the reverse of 'live'. Those behind the conspiracy to cull the human population and turn the rest into little more than computer terminals are anti-life. They have no respect for it and no empathy with those who suffer the consequences of their actions, no matter how appalling.
I have been warning of what was coming for nearly 20 years and it is not 'coming' any more - it's here. No more excuses from anyone, please. We have to deal with it. We have to draw a line in the sand and say no more.
Never was this more important than with the conspiracy to force swine flu vaccination upon the global population. The swine flu virus was created in a laboratory to generate mass panic with the specific intention of forcing everyone to have the vaccine. Problem-Reaction-Solution. This 'natural' swine flu virus apparently contains genes from humans, birds and pigs from several continents.
If you concoct and release a virus and then implement a clearly long-planned mass vaccination programme, there can be only one sensible conclusion: swine flu is not the biggest danger here - it's the vaccine.
The scale and speed of the planned vaccination programme is insane given that the overwhelming majority of those who have contracted the virus have had very mild symptoms. Dr Peter Holden of the Rothschild-controlled British Medical Association said that although swine flu was not causing serious illness they were eager to start a mass vaccination campaign, beginning with 'priority groups'. Ugh?? This is not about public health and never was.
Those administering the vaccinations have no clue what is in them or their potential effect. They are just repeaters thinking what they are told to think and doing what they are told to do. Only those at the core of the conspiracy, and those who bother to research it, know what the game is.
'Get yer flu shot, get yer flu shot, get yer flu shot ...'
The Austrian journalist, Jane Bürgermeister, has filed criminal charges with the FBI against the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations, Barack Obama, a Rockefeller, a Rothschild, and others, over a plot she uncovered to cull the population with a deadly swine flu vaccine.
She said that bird flu and swine flu have been developed in laboratories and released on the public with the aim of mass murder through vaccination. Her filed document is called Bioterrorism Evidence. She writes here about the United States, but what she says applies everywhere:
'There is evidence that an international corporate criminal syndicate, which has annexed high government office at Federal and State level, is intent on carrying out a mass genocide against the people of the United States by using an artificial (genetic) flu pandemic virus and forced vaccine program to cause mass death and injury and depopulate America in order to transfer control of the United States to the United Nations and affiliated security forces (UN troops from countries such as China, Canada, the UK and Mexico).
There is proof many organisations - World Health Organisation, UN as well as vaccine companies such as Baxter and Novartis - are part of a single system under the control of a core criminal group, who give the strategic leadership, and who have also funded the development, manufacturing and release of artificial viruses in order to justify mass vaccinations with a bioweapon substance in order to eliminate the people of the USA, and so gain control of the assets, resources etc of North America.
The motivation for the crime is classical robbery followed by murder although the scale and method are new in history. The core group sets its strategic goals and operative priorities in secret using committees such as the Trilateral Commission, and in person to person contact in the annual Bilderberg meeting.'
Jane Bürgermeister is a rare real journalist, so much so that she was sacked from her job as European correspondent of the Renewable Energy World website after she filed the charges with the FBI. Renewable Energy? It is their backbone and sense of decency that need renewing, but it shows how controlled everything is.
What Bürgermeister describes in her FBI submission is a summary of what I have been trying to get across in my books and talks for nearly two decades. A cabal of interbreeding families is seeking to impose a global fascist dictatorship of total human control.
Their vehicle is a secret society network structured like a transnational corporation. The operational headquarters is in Europe, in places like Rome, London, Paris, Brussels and Berlin. I refer to this as 'the Spider' and it dictates to the global web.
There are subsidiary networks of secret societies in every country that answer to the 'Spider'. Their job is to control their country's politics, banking, business, military, media, medicine, and so on, and introduce in their sphere of influence the global agenda dictated by the 'Spider'. Those on the inner levels of this structure are collectively known as the 'Illuminati'.
This is how they coordinate between apparently unconnected governments, corporations, media groups etc. The Rothschild and Rockefeller dynasties (the same bloodline) are fundamentally involved in this, as I have long exposed, and they dominate pharmaceutical medicine and government 'health' policy worldwide.
The web controls governments, the pharmaceutical industry, or 'Big Pharma', the World Health Organisation and public heath 'protection' agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States. In short, they control the entire medical system.
The Illuminati cabal established global bodies like the World Heath Organisation, World Bank and World Trade Organisation to transfer power from the many to the few. Their goal is a world government, world central bank, world currency and world army.
You have to centralise power to impose a global dictatorship and diversity is your worst nightmare. The Illuminati network is behind 'globalisation' and the creation of superstate dictatorships like the European Union for this same reason.
Given this essential background, it was no surprise when I saw the list of names and organisations in Jane Bürgermeister's submission to the FBI:
'Specifically, evidence is presented that Defendants President Barack Obama, President of the United States, David Nabarro, UN System Coordinator for Influenza,
Margaret Chan, Director-General of World Health Organisation, Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Secretary Janet Napolitano, the Department of Homeland Security, David de Rothschild, banker, David Rockefeller, banker, George Soros, banker, and Alois Stoger, Austrian Health Minister, among others, are part of this international corporate crime syndicate which has, marching as one phalanx to carry out their plan of genocide, have developed, produced, stockpiled and used biological weapons to eliminate the population of the United States for financial and political gain.'
Bürgermeister says there is clear evidence that pharmaceutical companies and international government agencies are actively engaged in producing, developing, manufacturing and distributing biological agents classified as the most deadly bioweapons on earth.
She says the swine flu virus was created and released with help from the Rothschild/Rockefeller-controlled World Health Organisation - the very body which then said it was spreading so fast that a pandemic had to be declared.
The symptoms of 'swine flu' at present are pretty much the same as regular flu and it is easy to call everything 'swine flu' to increase the official numbers. The British government has announced that people should no longer see a doctor if they have flu symptoms and instead a system of diagnosis over the phone has been introduced without laboratory confirmation. How convenient for fixing the figures:
'Hello, I've got a cold, doc.'
'I think its swine flu, I'll tick you off.'
Jane Bürgermeister has filed bioterrorism charges against pharmaceutical giants like Novartis International AG, based in Basel, Switzerland, Baxter AG, based in Austria, and its parent company, Baxter International in Deerfield, Illinois. Guess who is providing much of the swine flu vaccine for mass inoculation - Baxter International and Novartis.
This is the same Baxter International that sent bird flu virus to European laboratories 'by mistake' earlier this year and it was mixed with a seasonal flu virus to create a much more dangerous strain.
Last year at least 81 people were killed by Baxter International's contaminated blood-thinning product, heparin, which was made in China from, among other things, pig intestines. Isn't pharmaceutical medicine wonderful? The contaminated heparin also seriously injured hundreds of people and it was revealed that the factory of Baxter's Chinese supplier had never been inspected by either American or Chinese public 'protection' agencies.
More than 50 dialysis patients died in 2001 because of faults with Baxter International equipment, and this month Baxter Healthcare Corporation, a subsidiary of Baxter International, reached an out-of-court settlement of two million dollars with the State of Kentucky. Baxter had been caught inflating the cost of intravenous drugs sold to Kentucky Medicaid by as much as 1,300 per cent.
This is clearly a company you can trust and it is now is a major source of the swine flu vaccine that governments across the world want to impose upon entire populations with the most minimal safety checks. The vaccine is being fast-tracked through the regulatory system with safety trials lasting less than a week. The London Times reported:
'Regulators at the European Medicines Agency said the fast-tracked procedure has involved clinical trials of a "mock-up" vaccine similar to the one that will be used for the biggest mass vaccination programme in generations. It will be introduced into the general population while regulators continue to carry out simultaneous clinical trials.'
There is no need for 'trials' at all, except for public consumption. They already know what is in it and its effect. The drug companies have even been given immunity from prosecution from death or injury from the vaccine in a document signed by Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius.
Baxter International said it will be shipping swine flu vaccine worldwide by the end of July and the potential profits are fantastic; but this is not primarily about money. It about a long-planned mass-culling of the human population.
We are told that the drug companies and the World Health Organisation have been working at fever pitch to develop a vaccine for the 'new' swine flu strain known as H1N1, but ... wait for it ... Baxter International filed a patent for the H1N1 vaccine on August 28th 2008. Click here to read ...
Baxter Vaccine Patent Application US 2009/0060950 A1 says:
'... In particular preferred embodiments the composition or vaccine comprises more than one antigen ... such as influenza A and influenza B in particular selected from of one or more of the human H1N1, H2N2, H3N2, H5N1, H7N7, H1N2, H9N2, H7N2, H7N3, H10N7 subtypes, of the pig flu H1N1, H1N2, H3N1 and H3N2 subtypes, of the dog or horse flu H7N7, H3N8 subtypes or of the avian H5N1, H7N2, H1N7, H7N3, H13N6, H5N9, H11N6, H3N8, H9N2, H5N2, H4N8, H10N7, H2N2, H8N4, H14N5, H6N5, H12N5 subtypes.'
The patent was published in March 2009, a month before the virus was released in Mexico in April, but it was filed seven months before this 'new strain' was officially known about. It is the most blatant set-up you could ever see.
The patent includes the following ingredients and toxicity warning:
'Suitable adjuvants can be selected from mineral gels, aluminium hydroxide, surface active substances, lysolecithin, pluronic polyols, polyanions or oil emulsions such as water in oil or oil in water, or a combination thereof. Of course, the selection of the adjuvant depends on the intended use. E.g. toxicity may depend on the destined subject organism and can vary from no toxicity to high toxicity.'
Nice.
Another Big Pharma corporation involved is Novartis in Switzerland. Chief executive, Daniel Vasella, is a regular attendee of the secretive Bilderberg meetings that I have long exposed in my books. The Bilderberg Group, named in Jane Bürgermeister's FBI submission, is the creation of the Rothschild dynasty and has been administered for decades by people like David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger.
It answers to a Rothschild secret society in Britain called the Round Table. This was first headed by the Rothschild agent, Cecil Rhodes, who plundered southern Africa on the family's behalf. Vasella attended the last Bilderberg meeting last May, just as the swine flu scare was being engineered, and bingo, his company comes up with the vaccine.
I am not saying that people will die in large numbers immediately. This is certainly possible, but it would hardly encourage others to continue to be inoculated. The effects may be immediate in some, probably medium or longer-term in most, to hide the true source of their problem. What we do know is that we are seeing a long-prepared plan for mass vaccination by people who could not care less about the health of the population. That says everything about the real motivation, but only those in the shadows know what the effect is designed to be.
For sure, it will involve targeting the human immune system. Once that has been disabled, it's over as we see with the immune-destroyer we call AIDS. People don't die of AIDS, they die of diseases the immune system would normally deal with.
The excellent work of people like the American researcher and author, Patrick Jordan, have exposed the unfolding plan to kill vast numbers of people through engineered viruses and vaccines. He says that they have long perfected vaccines that switch off the human immune system and US troops have often been used as guinea pigs.
Patrick Jordan's research uncovers a three-vaccine system that the Illuminati have developed. The first inoculation turns off white blood cells (the immune system); the second injects viruses; and the third switches the immune system on again.
In the middle period viruses are expanding around the body, but the person doesn't feel sick because the immune system is not fighting them. When the immune system kicks in again it unleashes such an assault on the virus cocktail that it kills the body.
This is known as a cytokine storm when the immune system is so overwhelmed that it sends too many antibodies at the same time to infected areas of the body and the body kills itself.
It is also the case that the World Health Organisation has asked for live swine flu virus to be in the vaccine and it is quite possible that they will expand and maybe increase the strength of the virus through the vaccine. The WHO website says:
'In view of the anticipated limited vaccine availability at global level and the potential need to protect against "drifted" strains of virus, SAGE recommended that promoting production and use of vaccines such as those that are formulated with oil-in-water adjuvants and live attenuated influenza vaccines was important.'
Jane Bürgermeister's evidence has been supported by Wayne Madsen, a former US Naval Intelligence officer and now an investigative journalist. He said that a top United Nations scientist concluded that the H1N1 swine flu virus has certain transmission 'vectors' that suggest the new flu strain has been genetically-manufactured as a military biological warfare weapon. The UN expert believed that Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and the current A-H1N1 swine flu virus are all biological warfare agents. Madsen writes:
'Past swine flu outbreaks have been spread from pigs to humans, who then passed the flu on to other humans. However, with A-H1N1, there have been no reported infections of pigs. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), A-H1N1 has gene segments from North American swine, bird and human flu strains and a segment from Eurasian swine flu.'
Wayne Madsen also says that his sources confirm that the Centers for Disease Control and the US army recovered the body of an Inuit woman who died in 1918 in Brevig Mission, Alaska, from an outbreak of Spanish flu that killed 100 million people worldwide in 18 months.
Madsen was told that genetic material from the corpse provided the basis for the development of the H5N1 avian, or 'bird flu', strain at the US Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland. This lab was the origin of the anthrax attacks on US Congress and media targets shortly after September 11th in 2001.
All this will sound way out in the Twilight Zone to those new to this sort of information, but what they need to understand is that these Illuminati families are utterly insane. They don't think like most of the rest of us, so please don't judge what they would do by what you would do. It's not the same, because they're not the same.
The Illuminati plan for the world includes a mass cull of the population and the microchipping of every man, woman and child. Microchips would allow everyone to be tracked 24/7, but it goes much further than that.
Computer technology communicating with the chips has the potential to manipulate people mentally, emotionally and physically. This could be done en masse or individually through the chip's unique transmitter-receiver signal. Killing someone from a distance would be a synch.
I mention this because, as readers of my books will know, a CIA scientist told me in 1997 that microchips developed in the secret government-military research projects were even then small enough to be injected by hypodermic needles in vaccination programmes. With nanotechnology, no one would know.
The fake swine flu scare of 1976 was a trial-run for what is happening now. These events are planned way in advance and these sick people are extremely thorough in their preparations.
The scare began with the death of an Army recruit at Fort Dix in New Jersey which the government said was caused by 'swine flu'. The recruit was the only death from the virus in 1976, but the government instigated a vaccination programme for all Americans supported by a campaign of outrageous propaganda based, as always, on terrifying people.
The result was that at least 25 people were killed by the vaccine and hundreds seriously harmed while the Fort Dix recruit was the only death from swine flu - even if the government was telling the truth about the diagnosis. We are now heading for a re-run on a vastly bigger scale.
The British and American governments have ordered enough swine flu vaccine for the entire population and other countries are following suit. Of course, they are; the 'Spider' has demanded it.
It is clear they intend to make vaccination compulsory and threaten parents with losing their children if they refuse to submit to this fascism. Even before that, the pressure on parents to submit to the dictates of the state are going to be considerably increased.
The Rockefeller-dominated Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States have said that children who have never had a flu 'shot' may need to be vaccinated four times in the Autumn - twice for seasonal flu and twice for swine flu. Making up for lost time, eh? Other children will get three shots - note the three, given Patrick Jordan's information.
The Rothschild-Rockfeller front-man, Barack Obama, has demanded that his 'health reform' bill is passed into law by August, just ahead of mass vaccination. The bill was approved this week by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee and it includes the targeting of parents who do not have their children vaccinated. It authorises the Orwellian 'demonstration program to improve immunization coverage'. The bill says:
'Under this program, CDC will provide grants to states to improve immunization coverage of children, adolescents, and adults through the use of evidence-based interventions. States may use funds to implement interventions that are recommended by the Community Preventive Services Task Force, such as reminders or recalls for patients or providers, or home visits.'
'Interventions'? Home visits? It is one step away from immunising your children by force or having you arrested for refusing to comply. World Health Organisation 'recommendations' are binding on its nearly 200 member countries when a pandemic emergency is declared under the International Health Regulations Act of 2005 and WHO pandemic plan of April this year.
Margaret Chan, the WHO Director General, declared a swine flu pandemic when there wasn't one so these emergency powers would be activated and this lackey of the Rothschild-Rockefeller cabal is going to be recommending compulsory vaccination. She's virtually done it already. The WHO advisory board on vaccination policy includes executives from ... Baxter, Novartis, GSK and Sanofi Pasteur.
Last week Margaret 'Be Afraid' Chan warned that a global pandemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis may be imminent with potentially 'catastrophic consequences'. She prattled on ...
'The situation is already alarming, and poised to grow much worse very quickly. This is a situation set to spiral out of control. Call it what you may: a time bomb or a powder keg. Any way you look at it, this is a potentially explosive situation.'
Oh, get a life woman. When will TB 'explode'? As soon as they've circulated it sufficiently, I guess.
What is happening now has been planned for a very long time. Builders have been at work for months in a highly-secretive operation at a council building called Westridge, just down the road from me on the Isle of Wight.
The builders themselves have become very suspicious as one group is given plans for one section of the work and then a totally new group is brought in for the next, and so on. No single group sees the whole picture and now people in unmarked white vans are turning up to complete the job.
I had a look through a window near a fire escape after everyone had left and it is clearly an emergency response centre of some kind. The builders were told they had to finish their work by mid-July without fail and, apparently, something similar is happening all over the country.
If you listen carefully, the dark suits tell you what is going to happen. As I said in a recent newsletter, I kept hearing the mantra from different agencies and countries about the dangers of a massive increase in swine flu in the autumn and that is now their target for mass vaccination to really get moving.
Now I am hearing that the virus could become more deadly in the same period and it could well be that they are planning to increase the numbers who die from swine flu to generate more panic and demands to be vaccinated.
We should not forget, however, that 'normal flu' kills hundreds of thousands of people a year worldwide. Have no doubt that large numbers of those people will now be officially designated as a death from swine flu, whether they are or not.
It was always going to come to this and aware people need to be strong and come together in collective non-compliance. These crazies want access to our bodies and those of our children for a reason that is nothing whatsoever to do with health.
Most people will line up with their children like good little sheep. They will accept the blatant lies without question and the authorities will use those people to target others who refuse. You will hear nonsense like 'You are putting my children at risk'.
In fact, it is the programmed people who stand in line who are putting all children at risk. The authorities will claim that those who decline are preventing 'herd immunity' when all they have done is withdraw from the herd mentality.
This is a time for like-minded people to come together in mutual support and to prepare a strategy of peaceful non-compliance. There is far more strength in numbers than doing this alone.
We must not succumb to compulsory vaccination, nor pressure from those who lack a mind of their own. If we concede our freedom to stop the state enforcing vaccination upon us and our children, what the hell freedom is left?
And dig this too: LONDON (Reuters) - At least 160 Britons are being held in quarantine abroad because they are suspected of having the H1N1 flu virus, the Foreign Office said on Friday. The Britons, a mixture of adults and children, are being held in China, Singapore, India and Egypt. The actual number could be more...
And more...
'The WHO has refused to release the Minutes of a key meeting of an advisory vaccine group – packed with executives from Baxter, Novartis and Sanofi – that recommended compulsory vaccinations in the USA, Europe and other countries against the artificial H1N1 “swine flu” virus this autumn.
In an email this morning, a WHO spokesperson claimed there are no Minutes of the meeting that took place on July 7th in which guidelines on the need for worldwide vaccinations that WH0 adopted this Monday were formulated and in which Baxter and other pharma executives participated. Under the International Health Regulations, WHO guidelines have a binding character on all of WHO’s 194 signatory countries in the event of a pandemic emergency of the kind anticipated this autumn when the second more lethal wave of the H1N1 virus — which is bioengineered to resemble the Spanish flu virus — emerges.
In short: WHO has the authority to force everyone in those 194 countries to take a vaccine this fall at gunpoint, impose quarantines and restrict travel.'
The US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, has just signed a decree granting vaccine makers total legal immunity from any lawsuits that result from any new “Swine Flu” vaccine. Moreover, the $7 billion US Government fast-track program to rush vaccines onto the market in time for the Autumn flu season is being done without even normal safety testing. Is there another agenda at work in the official WHO hysteria campaign to declare so-called H1N1 virus—which has yet to be rigorously scientifically isolated, characterized and photographed with an electron microscope—the scientifically accepted procedure—a global “pandemic” threat?
The current official panic campaign over alleged Swine Flu danger is rapidly taking on the dimensions of a George Orwell science fiction novel. The document signed by Sebelius grants immunity to those making a swine flu vaccine, under the provisions of a 2006 law for public health emergencies.
Not so sage SAGE
That is once the WHO in Geneva, on recommendation of the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group on Immunizations, declared H1N1 to be Phase 6 or Pandemic, automatic emergency health response programs could be activated even in countries such as Germany where reported outbreaks of even “suspected” H1N1 can be counted to date on the fingers of slightly more than one hand.
The WHO’s SAGE is also worth scrutiny. Its Chairman since 2005 has been the UK Director of Immunization at the British Department of Health, Dr David Salisbury. In the 1980’s Salisbury reportedly drew major fire for backing a massive vaccination of children with a multiple MMR vaccine manufactured by the predecessor company of GlaxoSmithKline. That vaccine was pulled off the market in Japan after significant numbers of children developed adverse reactions to the vaccine and the Japanese government was forced to pay significant compensation to the victims. In Sweden the MMR vaccine of GlaxoSmithKline was removed after scientists linked it to outbreaks of Crohn’s disease. Apparently that had little impact on WHO SAGE chairman Salisbury.
According to one independent UK investigator, Alan Golding, who obtained Freedom of Information documents on the case, in “1986 Trivirix, an MMR compound containing the Mumps Urabe strain AM-9, was introduced in Canada to replace MMR I. Concerns regarding the introduction of MMR in the UK are recorded in the minutes of the Joint Working Party of the British Paediatric Association and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) Liaison Group on June 26th of that year. Such concerns were soon to prove well grounded, as reports began to come in of an increased incidence of aseptic meningitis in vaccinated individuals. Ultimately, all MMR vaccines containing the Urabe strain of mumps were withdrawn in Canada in early 1988. This was before Urabe containing vaccines were licenced by the Department of Health for use in the UK…”
The report adds, “Smith-Kline—French, the pharmaceutical company who became Smith-Kline-Beecham and were involved in UK manufacture at that time, were concerned about these safety issues and were reluctant to obtain a UK license for their Urabe-containing vaccines. As a result of their ‘concern’ that children might be seriously damaged by one of their products, they requested that the UK government indemnify them against possible legal action that might be taken as a result of ‘losses’ associated with the vaccine, which by then was known to carry significant risk to health. The UK government, advised by Professor Salisbury and representatives from the Department of Health, in it’s enthusiasm to get a cheap MMR onto the market, agreed to this request.”
Today the same Dr Salisbury is advocating global proliferation of untested H1N1 vaccines, also manufactured by the same firm, now called GlaxoSmithKline.
The last phony Swine Flu Disaster
The last time the US Government faced a new swine flu virus was in 1976. Thousands filed claims contending they suffered side effects from the shots. This time, the government has taken steps to prevent any possible legal remedy should thousands of US citizens suffer severe complications as a result of being given untested vaccines.
In 1976 President Gerald Ford, facing a difficult re-election campaign, was advised by the head of the CDC, David Sencer, to launch a mass national vaccination. As today with H1N1 Swine Flu, Sencer also used the scare of the alleged 1918 flu pandemic. Notably, some scientific researchers maintain that the deaths during the flu wave of 1918-1919, in the aftermath of the ghastly First World War, came not from any virus but from the governmental campaigns of mass vaccination against “Spanish Flu.” Interestingly, the Rockefeller University and Foundation was in the middle of that event as well.
Cases of what was then called swine flu were found in soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J. in 1976, including one death. That death, whose true cause is in dispute as the soldier, sick with influenza was put on a forced march despite and fell dead, was used by Sencer to convince Ford to launch one of the most infamous public health fiascos in US history, forcing Sencer’s resignation as CDC head. Federal officials vaccinated 40 million Americans during a national campaign. A pandemic never materialized, but thousands who got the shots filed injury claims, as they contracted a paralyzing condition called Guillain-Barre Syndrome or other side effects. At least 25 people died after receiving the vaccine died and 500 developed Guillain-Barre syndrome, an inflammation of the nervous system which can cause paralysis and be fatal. The US Government was forced to pay damages after vaccination victims made it a national scandal. In the end the 1976 Swine Flu vaccine proved far worse than the disease.
Sencer was fired in 1977 for the fiasco but by then the damage had already been done.
No Safety Test? Don’t worry, be happy…
The story gets worse. Now that the Obama Administration has signed a document of immunity from legal prosecution, the FDA in the United States and UK health authorities have decided to let Big Pharma put vaccine products onto the market before any tests of the possible harmful side effects of the vaccines are even known.
The first doses of swine flu vaccine will be given to the public before full data on its safety and effectiveness become available. The untested “pandemic” vaccines will be spread over two doses in a higher quantity, and one brand reportedly will contain a chemical additive, an adjuvant, to make it “go further,” dramatically potentially increasing the risk of side-effects.
Children will be among those first in line for the shots and may get the vaccine more than a month before trial results are received.
In the UK the government’s National Health Service, NHS, has been ordered to plan for a worst-case scenario in which swine flu might cause 65,000 deaths over the coming winter, including several thousand deaths among children.
The British Government has placed advance orders for 132 million doses of vaccine with two manufacturers, GlaxoSmithKline and Baxter, who have licensed “in advance” three "core" vaccines in preparation for a pandemic, conveniently enough even though we are told by WHO and epidemiologists that we cannot prepare in advance for what could be a more ominous mutation of the currently very mild H1N1 problem.
Curiously enough, a full year before any reported case of the current alleged H1N1, the major pharmaceutical company, Baxter, filed for a patent for H1N1 vaccine: Baxter Vaccine Patent Application US 2009/0060950 A1. Their application states, “the composition or vaccine comprises more than one antigen.....such as influenza A and influenza B in particular selected from of one or more of the human H1N1, H2N2, H3N2, H5N1, H7N7, H1N2, H9N2, H7N2, H7N3, H10N7 subtypes, of the pig flu H1N1, H1N2, H3N1 and H3N2 subtypes, of the dog or horse flu H7N7, H3N8 subtypes or of the avian H5N1, H7N2, H1N7, H7N3, H13N6, H5N9, H11N6, H3N8, H9N2, H5N2, H4N8, H10N7, H2N2, H8N4, H14N5, H6N5, H12N5 subtypes."
The application further states, “Suitable adjuvants can be selected from mineral gels, aluminium hydroxide, surface active substances, lysolecithin, pluronic polyols, polyanions or oil emulsions such as water in oil or oil in water, or a combination thereof. Of course the selection of the adjuvant depends on the intended use. E.g. toxicity may depend on the destined subject organism and can vary from no toxicity to high toxicity."
With no legal liability, could it be that Baxter is preparing to sell hundreds of millions of doses containing highly toxic aluminium hydroxide as adjuvant? Perhaps it is time to demand that all leading officials of WHO, SAGE and CDC, the US Obama Administration, Cabinet officials and members of Congress who voted the $7 billion H1N1 emergency funds and who have gone along with the declaration of pharmaceutical company immunity from subsequent prosecution for damage from their products. The same should apply as well for other national health bodies demanding its citizens take the H1N1 vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline or Baxter to see if it is really safe.
And WHO stopped even tracking H1N1
Another indication that the world is being taken for colossal suckers in the entire WHO Swine Flu scare scenario, the WHO itself, the world body entrusted to monitor outbreaks of so-called pandemics or even epidemics worldwide, has just decided to stop tracking Swine Flu or H1N1 Influenza A as they prefer to name it now, so as not to offend Smithfield Foods and other industrialized pig CAFO producers.
The World Health Organization in a “briefing note” posted on their Web site posted the baffling notice that they would no longer track outbreaks of H1N1. The last WHO update, issued July 6, showed 94,512 confirmed cases in 122 countries, with 429 deaths. The WHO apparently claims that the numbers of laboratory-confirmed cases were actually meaningless.
The briefing note said countries would still be asked to report their first few confirmed cases. It also said countries should watch for clusters of fatalities, which could indicate the virus had mutated to a more lethal form. Other “signals to be vigilant for,” it said, were spikes in school absenteeism and surges in hospital visits. The Atlanta CDC has also agreed to the WHO count drop. Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, admits that the existing tests to confirm H1N1 Influenza A are not even certain, but rather hit-or-miss. “Bad measures can be worse than no measures at all,” he stated. So the WHO has decided to drop tests that anyway did not give a scientific picture of who had H1N1 or not, and as well they have decided to drop counting any test results or cases of H1n1 around the world with the comment that “we can assume almost all cases are H1N1 Swine Flu. This is science on which basis we are told to vaccinate our young? Whoah there… Not with our children.
>And now, dig this: Britain's biggest pharmaceutical company is preparing to sell £3bn worth of swine flu drugs this year, it emerged today.
Worldwide sales from the two drugs are expected to reach £3bn by January, but the company rejected claims it was exploiting the pandemic – stressing that profits would be much lower once development costs were taken into account.
by F. William Engdahl author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order.
For 40 years, the French government has been fighting a secret war in Africa, hidden not only from its people, but from the world. It has led the French to slaughter democrats, install dictator after dictator – and to fund and fuel the most vicious genocide since the Nazis. Today, this war is so violent that thousands are fleeing across the border from the Central African Republic into Darfur – seeking sanctuary in the world's most notorious killing fields...
By Johann Hari in Birao, Central African Republic
Friday, 5 October 2007
I first heard whispers of this war in March, when newspapers reported in passing that the French military was bombing the remote city of Birao, in the far north-east of the CAR. Why were French soldiers fighting there, thousands of miles from home? Why had they been intervening in Central Africa this way for so many decades? I could find no answers here – so I decided to travel there, into the belly of France's forgotten war.
On the battlefield - Birao
I am standing now on its latest battlefield, looking out over abandoned mud streets streaked with ash. The city of Birao is empty and echoing, for the first time in 200 years. All around are miles of burned and abandoned homes, with the odd starved child scampering through the wreckage. What were all these buildings? On one faded green sign it says Ministry of Justice, on a structure reduced to a charcoal husk. In the market square, the people who have returned are selling a few scarce supplies – rice and manioc, the local yeasty staple food – and talking quietly. At the edges of the town, there are African soldiers armed and trained by the French, lolling behind sandbags, with machine guns jutting nervously at passers-by. They are singing weary nationalist anthems and dreaming of home.
To get here, you have to travel for eight hours on a weekly UN flight that carries eight passengers at most, and then ride on the back of a rusting flat-top truck for an hour along ravaged and broken roads. It is hard to know when you have arrived, because you are greeted only by emptiness and silence. What has happened here? Sitting amid the mud and dust and sorrow, I find Mahmoud, one of the 10 per cent of Birao's residents who have returned to the rubble.
He is a thin-faced 45-year-old farmer, and explains, in a low, slow voice, how his home town came to this. "I woke up for morning prayers on 4 March and there was gunfire everywhere. We were very frightened so we stayed in the house and hoped it would stop. But then in the early afternoon my brother's children came running to our house, screaming and crying. They told us the Forcés Armées Centrafricanes [Faca – the army trained and equipped by the French, on behalf of their friendly neighbourhood strongman, President François Bozize] had gone into their house. They wouldn't calm down and explain. So I ran there, and I saw my brother on the floor outside, dead. His wife explained they had forced their way in and rounded him up, along with three men who lived nearby. They took them out on to the street and shot them one by one in the head."
Mahmoud's friend, Idris, lived nearby, and feared he, too, would be shot. He says now: "We could see the villages burning and the children were screaming and really scared, so we ran two kilometres out into the jungle. From there we could see our whole city on fire. We fled along the river and stayed out there. We ate fish, but there weren't many. Some days we couldn't catch anything and we starved. The children were so terrified. Still, when they hear a loud noise, they think there are guns coming and they start shaking." Idris looks off into the distance and continues: "On the fourth day, we saw the French planes come. They each had six rockets that they fired. The explosions were loud. We don't know what they were targeting, or why. Then the French soldiers arrived." A military truck filled with French soldiers rumbles by not long after, its tanned troops wearing designer sunglasses and a "why am I here?" anxiety.
As Mahmoud and Idris talk it gets dark, and a suffocating blackness and silence falls on the city. There is no electricity and no moonlight. They explain in this blackness that the French-backed troops began firing and the French military began bombing in March for one reason: the desperate locals had begun to rise up against President Bozize, because he had done nothing for them. People here were tired of the fact that "there are no schools, no hospitals, and no roads". "We are completely isolated," they explain. "When it rains, we are cut off from the world because the roads turn to mud. We have nothing. All the rebels were asking was for government help." As I stumble around Birao, I hear this every time: the rebels were simply begging for government help for the hungry, abandoned people. Even the bemused French soldiers and the Bozize lackeys sent to the area admit this privately. Yet the French response was with bombs against the rebels' pick-up points. Why? What is there here that they want?
I look out towards the jungle and realise many of Birao's residents are still hiding out there, risking the wild beasts. In the similarly burned-out areas in the north-west, I drive out into the jungle with Unicef and find these clusters of starving families scattered everywhere. In one cleared patch, I find a group of four men with their wives and mothers, clearing an area of ground with their bare hands where they will try to plant peanuts. They are living in handmade huts and set traps to catch mice to eat. Ariette Nulguhom is cradling her eight-month-old grandson with his distended little belly and praying he will survive another night. She tells me: "He's been sick for a long time. We tried to get him to a nurse but there aren't any. We think it is malaria but there is no medicine here. We don't know what will happen... We are all weak and feverish. We're exhausted because we work all day, every day. I have not eaten for days now." When they left behind their houses, they left behind access to clean water, electricity, and medicine. When the Faca burned those homes, they burned away the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries for these families, too.
This is a forgotten corner of a forgotten country. Birao lies and dies in the far north-east of the Central African Republic. CAR itself has a population of just 3.8 million, spread across a territory bigger than Britain's, landlocked at the exact geographical heart of Africa. It is the least-reported country on earth. Even the fact that 212,000 people have been driven out of their homes in this war doesn't register on the global radar. In Birao, I realise I am too close to the immediate horror to find the deeper explanations for this war. I only begin to uncover the origins of this story when I stumble across a very rare find in the CAR – an old man.
A country of children - Paoua
In the CAR, you have beaten the odds if you live to be 42. There are times when this seems like a country of children, swarming around with guns and hardened laughs, without an adult in sight. So when I see Zolo Bartholemew limping past the wreckage of another burned-out town – this time in the distant north-west, outside the city of Paoua – he seems like a mirage. He has no teeth and a creased face, and when I ask, he does not know his age. But he remembers. He remembers the tail-end of the first time the French were here – and why.
"I watched my parents forced to work in the fields when I was a child," he says in Sango, the local language. "When they got tired, they were whipped and beaten and made to go faster. It was constantly like this." The French flag was first hoisted in the heart of Africa on 3 October 1880, seizing the right bank of the Congo for the cause of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité – for the white man. The territory was swiftly divided up between French corporations, who were given the right effectively to enslave the people, like Zolo's parents, and force them to harvest its rubber. This rubber was processed into car tyres for sale in Paris and London and New York. A French missionary called Father Daigre described what he saw: " It is common to meet long files of prisoners, naked and in a pitiful state, being dragged along by a rope round their necks. They are famished, sick, and fall down like flies. The really ill and the little children are left in the villages to die of starvation. The people least affected often killed the dying, for food."
Zolo nods when I mention this. "When the whites were here, we suffered even more," he says. "They forced us to work. We were slaves."
One horrified French administrator wrote in the 1920s that the locals reacted to being enslaved by the corporations by becoming "a troglodyte, subsisting wretchedly on roots until he starves to death, rather than accept these terrible burdens". Areas that had "only a few months ago been rich, populous and firmly established in large villages" became, he wrote, "wasteland, sown with dilapidated villages and deserted plantations".
But in the 1950s, men like Zolo rose and refused to be enslaved. "We followed Boganda," he says. Barthélemy Boganda was born in a Central African village near here in 1910, and, as a child, he saw his mother beaten to death by the guards in charge of gathering rubber for a French corporation. He rose steadily through the Catholic priesthood, married a French woman, and, quite suddenly, became the leader of the CAR's pro-democracy movement. He would begin his speeches to the French by introducing himself as the son of a polygamous cannibal, and then lecture them on the values of the French Revolution with a fluency that left them stunned and shamed. He crafted a vision of a democratic Africa beyond tribe, beyond race and beyond colonialism. He was passionate about the need for a plurality of political parties, a free press, and human rights. He rhapsodised about his vision of a United States of Africa, linking together the countries of Central Africa into a USA Mk II.
"And they killed him," Zolo says, shaking his head and kicking at the earth beneath his feet. On 29 March 1959, not long after the French era of direct rule had ended, President Boganda's plane was blasted out of the air. The French press reported that there had been "suspicious materials " found in the remains of the fuselage – but on the orders of the French government, the local investigation was abandoned. The French installed the dictator David Dacko in his place. He swiftly shut down Boganda's democratic reforms, brought back many French corporations, and reintroduced their old system of forced labour, rebranding it "village work". French rule over the CAR – the whippings Zolo remembers – did not end with "independence". It simply mutated, into a new and slippery form, and it is at the root of the current war.
But the clues to this lie far to the west, in the capital city. " Nothing happens in this country without somebody pulling a lever in Paris," a taxi driver tells me as I leave to travel to Bangui at the bottom of the country, driving through clouds of red-dust and past swarms of street-children. I have an appointment with an underground figure in the opposition to keep.
A tortured president - Bangui
Bangui looks like a city that rose with a heave from the jungle a century ago, and has been sighing back into it ever since. Every building appears to be rusting away, and great eruptions of vegetation are shoving the homes and shops aside, reaching for the sky. On corner after corner there are huge, hideous caricature-statues of black people, showing them as thick-lipped and kinky-haired, giving the city the ambience of a Ku Klux Klan garage sale.
Every few hours, the power supply dies, and the city stammers to a halt. People dawdle in the streets, playing cards and wiping away their sweat with the back of their wrists. It is during one of these blackouts that I arrive at the office of a leader of the opposition with a delegation from the British campaigning group Waging Peace. His office is above a parade of shops, and it is a simple room filled with African carvings and pictures of past and faded glories. He walks towards us in a green suit, and – although he does not say it – we all know he is taking a huge risk by meeting us secretly like this. Last year, 40 political figures who criticised the government of President Bozize were tossed into jail and tortured. " They tried to kill my son. They are trying to assassinate me," he says, with a matter-of-fact shrug. He gives the long, horrible details. I cannot repeat them here because they would identify him – and become a death sentence.
"The country is in a dire situation," he says. "We have been described by the magazine Foreign Policy as one of the worst failed states in the world, after Iraq and Afghanistan." He says the CAR is now " a total and ferocious dictatorship" under the absolute command of Bozize. The roots of the wars in the north-east and north-west are, he says, simple. "Local people in these regions are rebelling against the government, because the government provides them with nothing. There are no services. There aren't even roads. So the rebels rise up to get attention – and the government retaliates by rampaging through the area, killing civillians and burning homes."
So who is this Francois Bozize, and why are the French supporting him with batallions and bombs? I telephone the vast presidential palace to meet the man who stares out from behind a smartly-trimmed moustache in the pictures hanging on every wall, and the President's press officer eventually gets back to me. "Call me back, I am running out of credit on my mobile phone," he snaps. Then he promises a meeting with the President, but finds mysterious "complications" that lead him to cancel every time. There are rumours across Bangui that Bozize is becoming ever-more paranoid and locked down, employing food tasters to check for poison before every meal and refusing to meet strangers. So I look instead to the few scraps of independent journalism that survive here for clues as to who this French love-child really is.
Le Citoyen is distributed on rough photocopied paper every day and sold on street corners for a few pennies – but it is one of the bastions of Central Africa's remaining freedoms. Its editor Maka Obossokotte has a neat grey beard, square cheekbones, and balls of steel. He has been jailed for criticising the President and his cronies more than once, but he insists I quote him on-the-record and by name. "In jail, you were given rotten fish to eat. I got gout. The toilets..." he shakes his head. "It is hell." He says he knows now that "it is very likely somebody from the presidential clan will kill me... Every morning when I wake up, I think there are three beds I could end up in tonight. Back here at home, the hospital, or the morgue." But he says: "I will not be afraid. It is when you are afraid that you lose."
Sitting in a delicious cloud of smoke, puffing away on high-tar cigarettes, Maka talks me through the President's biography. He was born in nearby Gabon, the son of a police officer from the CAR. He wasn't smart at school, but he managed to get a coveted job as bodyguard to Jean-Bedel Bokassa, one of the vicious dictators flattered and fawned over by the French. Bokassa was famously mad, declaring himself "Emperor of the CAR", eating the leader of the opposition, and opening fire on a group of children who were protesting for help to buy their school uniforms. Bozize carried Bokassa's cane and his bag, and, Maka explains: "It was through watching him that Bozize got his taste for power." The "Emperor" promoted him to the rank of general.
After a while, Bokassa's foaming madness made him an unreliable servant of the French, so they backed a coup against him. Bozize left to study at the Ecole Spécial Militaire de Saint-Cyr in France, and returned only to stage a farcical coup attempt of his own. In 1982, he seized control of one of the national radio stations and announced that he was now President. Everybody laughed; Bozize fled. A few years later he was deported back to Bangui to be punished. "They tortured him," Maka says. "They pissed in his mouth, they broke his ribs, they really mistreated him for three years."
Eventually, they let him go back to France for medical treatment – and the French government swiftly began to build him up as an alternative president, in case their current pick became too disobedient and got ideas of his own. From being a poor man, Bozize suddenly had the money to run a huge presidential campaign. He ran, and he lost. So in October 2002, he paid for a vast private mercenary army (you might wonder – with whose money?) to invade the CAR from neighbouring Chad, depose the sitting president and install himself as the supreme ruler. Since then, he has "won" a disputed election he arranged for himself and bathed in French approbation.
"France sees the CAR as a colony," Maka says. "The presidents are selected by France, not elected by the people. The presidents do not serve the interests of this country; they serve the interests of France." He lists the French corporations who use the CAR as a base to grab Central African resources. This French behaviour is, he reasons, at the root of the wars currently ripping apart the north of the country. Whoever becomes president knows his power flows down from Paris, not up from the people – so he has no incentive to build support by developing the country. Rebellions become inevitable, and the president crushes them with the house-burnings and French bombs I learned about in Birao.
"The country will only be able to develop when France stops putting in place these dictators and the people choose," Maka adds, stubbing out his cigarette into an overflowing ashtray. "The CAR will only progress when the president is scared of his people, not the French."
Into rebel country - Bossangoa
I am driving now through the skin-sizzling heat of Bossangoa, the home-town of Bozize – and the last outpost of his power before you stumble into bandit-and-rebel territory. The Marie Celeste villages stretch for miles once more. Silence. Walls eaten by fire. Dead towns. In the houses there are smashed pots, abandoned as their residents fled Bozize's marauding murderers. I find a stray shoe sitting alone in one. In another village, the bell that calls children to school is still hanging from a tree, forgotten. On the blackboard is the final lesson, still there: a map of the CAR in chalk.
But then, after an hour of driving beyond Bossangoa into the jungle, there are signs of life. In yet another burned village, there are 20 young men, all sweat and Kalashnikovs. We pull up, and realise we are in an unexpected rebel camp. The boys' leader strolls toward us – an elder, at the age of 24 – and shakes our hands. He explains they are part of the rebel Army for the Restoration of the Republic and Democracy (French acronym APRD), who have taken this area. His "troops" are dressed oddly. One is swearing ski glasses and a ski hat, in a place as far from a ski slope as any on earth. Another is wearing nothing but bright red swimming trunks, and half a dozen strings of bullets around his neck. He is wearing a single woman's flip-flop, silver and glittering in the sun.
They explain they are not allowed to make statements – only their leader can do that – but they are eager to have their photographs taken. As soon as I agree, they contort themselves into wild poses. They stick bullets in their mouths, flex their muscles and screw their faces into a fake rage, like they are recreating a Rambo poster. The baby-faced soldier in the corner, they tell me casually, is 13. They look like teenagers on any street corner anywhere in the world, playing at being rebels. Except these are real rebels, with real guns. A 13-year-old with a gun is a comic sight – until he points it towards you and smiles strangely.
Why, I ask, did you join the rebellion? "Bozize killed my father, my mother and my brother," their leader steps forward to say, in a low voice. He peels up his vest and shows an angry scar where he says he was bayoneted. "They thought I was dead, so they left me." I ask what the rebels want. "We want peace, we want schools, we want roads," the leader says. Most of them nod. Do you want power? "That's up to God. We want roads and schools."
With that, we drive away, and they cheerfully wave their guns in our direction. I follow the trail of burned homes up to Paoua, a town at the top of the north-west – and I am sitting now on a bench with the man who ordered so many to be torched. A lieutenant of the Garde Présidentiel (GP) is chewing gum in the sun, behind barbed wire and sleeping security guards. The GP is the jagged spike of the country's military accountable only to President Bozize – his own private militia. When you see them approach on the streets, with their wild eyes and ready guns, pulses surge and spines stiffen. In the market-square in Paoua, a GP "officer" put a gun to the head of a Médecins sans Frontières doctor and told him: "We will do what they did in Rwanda." And I am making small talk with one of its bosses.
He is wearing long shining purple robes and a white fez, and he tells us haltingly that he will be interviewed, yes, but we cannot use his name. He is young – 33 – with hunched shoulders. His bodyguard is a muscled ripple of anxiety, and he watches every move we make, as if ready to pounce. So, lieutenant, why do you think people join the rebels and fight against you? He makes eye contact only with his bodyguard. "I don't know." Chew, chew. Why do you think people are so scared of the GP here? " There have been a few undisciplined elements, but we have dealt with them." Chew, chew, chew. So it is only undisciplined soldiers who burn all these thousands upon thousands of homes? You don't order them to? "If they burn homes, we deal with them." How have you dealt with them? "We use discipline." He stops leaning and sits up. Really? How many people have you disciplined? When? His bodyguard doesn't like this question; he glares at me. "I had an officer who went to the market when he was not supposed to. I disciplined him." That's it? "We have disciplined."
That's not what people in the villages say, I comment. They are terrified. "Show me the villages. I will show you how we have done good." After we drive away from his compound, we meet up with two pale, disturbed workers from the Italian charity Coopi. They explain that as the lieutenant was assuring us his forces are disciplined, a GP officer drove up on a motorbike and waved a gun in their faces.
At every one of these scenes, the question keeps coming back: why? Why are the French providing military support and training for these militia? The French government says it is in the CAR because it signed a military agreement back in the 1970s to protect the country from external aggression. The rebellions in the north are, they say, supported by Sudan – so this counts. Mes amis, we are protecting a democratically elected President from a tyrannical and genocidal neighbour.
But I couldn't find anyone in the CAR – not a single person, not even the most pro-French – who thought Sudan had anything to do with the rebels. So I arrange to meet up in Bangui with Louise Roland-Gosselin, an Anglo-French director of the group Waging Peace, who has been studying the Central African Republic. "The policies here in the CAR are part of a much bigger approach by France towards Africa," she says. "We call this system 'Franceafrique', and it was set up by Charles de Gaulle to replace the former colonial system. There is clear continuity from the imperial system to the present day."
The motives for this war are, Roland-Gosselin says, drenched in dollars and euros and uranium. "The overarching goal is to take African resources and funnel them towards French corporations," she says. "The CAR itself is a base from which the French can access resources all over Africa. That is why it is so important. They use it to keep the oil flowing to French companies in Chad, the resources flowing from Congo, and so on. And of course, the country itself has valuable resources. CAR has a lot of uranium, which the French badly need because they are so dependent on nuclear power. At the moment they get their uranium from Niger, but the CAR is their back-up plan." So this is, in part, a war for nuclear power? "Yes, but also a lot of this money has been funnelled, through corruption, straight back into the French political process. Say somebody needs a road built here in the CAR. The French government will insist on a French company – and the French company back home donates a lot to the 'right' French political party."
This neo-imperial war reached its psychotic apogee in 1994, when the French government used the CAR as a base to fund and fuel the Rwandan genocide, the most bloody since the death of Adolf Hitler. Vincent Mounie is a leading figure in Sur Vie, a French organisation monitoring its government's actions in Africa. He explains: "The French were totally complicit in the genocide. There were French troops there before, during and after the genocide, backing the most extreme Hutu forces as they murdered the Tutsis. You know the identity cards that divided the Rwandan population into Hutus and Tutsis in preparation for the slaughter? They were printed in Paris."
The French military base in Bangui had to be abandoned in 1996 after it was burned down by enraged locals, tired of the French ramming tyrants down their national gullet. Today the old base is overgrown, and the French military has shifted to new camps in Birao. But I stare at it now. The French planes that backed the Rwandan holocaust left from here.
President François Mitterrand began his career supporting one genocidal force, and he ended it supporting another. As a young man he rose through the ranks of the Hitler-hugging Vichy regime, only quitting and joining the Resistance when it became obvious the democrats would win. He then became nominally a Socialist and, finally, President – when at last genocide entered his life again. The French government had long seen the Hutu nationalists in Rwanda as Their Men, the people most friendly to French demands for military and corporate access. So when, starting in 1989, the Tutsi refugees who had been driven out decades before started to demand their right to return to their homes, the French were furious. Mitterrand saw this Tutsi rights movement as a creation of the CIA, designed to displace a pro-French regime and replace it with a buddy of Uncle Sam. His own aides told him there was no evidence of a link to the CIA – but he refused to listen. He announced that the Tutsis were a "Khmer Noir" , an evil anti-French force, and began to rapidly build up the Hutu Power forces to fight back.
In just four years, starting in 1990, the French buffed up the Hutu nationalist military forces in Rwanda from 10,000 to more than 40,000. The moderate forces within Rwanda began desperately trying to broker a power-sharing agreement between the two sides, "And the French government deliberately destroyed any attempt at a peace deal," Mounie says. Then the hacking up of Tutsi men, women and children began. Mitterrand extended bigger loans to the Hutus, which they used to buy more weapons and ammunition. He publicly mocked anyone who talked about a Hutu-led genocide.
Then, when the international outrage became so great even Mitterrand could not ignore it, the French announced they would send in a military force to stop the killing. "It was France's last lie, and the most cruel," Mounie adds. "Even at this point, Mitterrand's real aim was to recapture Kigali and restore the Hutus to power." In Birao today, many of the soldiers patrolling the city are veterans of this "rescue operation". I am sipping sweet tea in one of the local bigwig's ramshackle houses when a group of local soldiers on patrol arrive. They are working-class men from the Paris and Lyons banlieues, and in the course of the small talk, they admit that they were in Rwanda – and they are still traumatised by what they were ordered to do by Mitterrand and his men. " Children would bring us the severed heads of their parents and scream for help," one says, "but our orders were not to help them."
A year after the holocaust ended, Mitterrand told an aide: "Nobody in France cares about the genocide." These disturbed soldiers, sitting in the waning sunlight, show the old cynic was wrong, at least, about that.
Mother, do not beat us - Bangui
In the red-dusted heart of Bangui, there is a rusting, collapsing metaphor for this war – and where it is going. On one side of the road is the vast stadium the French government built for Bokassa in the 1970s, so he could crown himself Emperor of Central Africa and Lord of All He Surveyed. It is falling down now, a dangerous wreck. Opposite, there is a gleaming new sports stadium with plush seating and marble floors. It was built by the Chinese. France is only one slice of this new great game, this global scramble for Africa's resources. Every swaggering world power – the US, Britain, China – is grabbing Africa's remaining riches now, shunting aside democracy and human rights to get to them. But even the Chinese dictators remember to toss some of the loose change from the riches they have pillaged to Bangui. The French have long since given up even on that. They come only with bullets and bombs.
As I prepare to leave the CAR, I am told by senior French and African sources that Paris could be getting ready to ditch President Bozize. Like a string of Central African dictators before him, he has been tugging too hard on the French leash, imagining he is the independent ruler of an independent country. He has decided to nationalise some of the energy companies operating here, including the French mega-corporations Total and ELF. " If he wants the French to crush his rebellions and keep him in power, he has to do what they say," my source says. Bozize is trying to deal with this pre-emptively, by offering the rebel leaders a place in his cabinet. As I drive past his presidential palace for the last time, I wonder if the paranoia that kept me from meeting him was justified all along.
But as my plane finally propels me away from this place, one CAR voice – angry, crazed – seems to follow me. In the jungles around Paoua, I was taken to the entrance to a remote burned-out village to meet Laurent Djim-Woei, the spokesman for the rebels in the north-west. He is a man talked about in awe by his followers – and his enemies.
A group of young men greeted us. They were carrying spears alongside their ski hats and scars. Silently, they beckoned us to follow them through more charcoal villages and dense foliage and beyond. Eventually we reached a clearing. Laurent was dressed in stained combat gear. He had a big smile that was marred by the absence of almost all his teeth. There were three cellphones hanging from his neck. He led an inspection of his rag-tag forces for our benefit, getting them to stand to attention and yelling hoarse orders at them in Sango. Then Laurent told us to sit down and embarked on a rambling, barely comprehensible lecture.
There were only a few of us in a silent jungle, but he looked beyond us and boomed, like he was addressing a stadium full of supporters. The CAR needs "a guard dog" to "bark about justice" and not "the kind of dog that leads you, which we have had in the past", he said. It is the first of a string of odd metaphors. I kept trying to draw him back to specifics: what does he want? He would only use abstract nouns – justice, peace – but then occasionally he voiced his grievances succinctly, before they were doused in metaphor and burned into incomprehensibility again: "Bozize is burning our villages. A country shouldn't burn its own country's villages. It is like a mother and a child, a mother does not burn her child, it would be madness." His eyes danced nervously around the jungle as we spoke, as if he was waiting for a raid.
"France is the mother of Central Africa, and we are the child," he said, oddly picking up the old racist metaphor and making it his own. " The French must now change sides and support us, not Bozize. The French are our parents, we want them to be good parents." This is a sentiment that kept cropping up in the rubble of France's interventions – an appeal to the French to suddenly become a benevolent mother, acting on the side of good, despite all the evidence. France and the CAR are, it strikes me at last, locked in a sick embrace. The French crave the riches offered by this lush, hungry patch of Africa, and the people of Central Africa pine for a deus ex machina to enter stage right and resolve their internal disputes with raw force.
Looking into the far distance, Laurent cries: "We say to France: 'Mother, we are your child, you must love us like a mother should. Do not beat us.'" In the jungle, his voice echoes for miles, until it dies, unheard.
We have seen many threats and accusations made against Iran and its Nuclear Research Programme with condemnations coming from the US, UK, NATO countries and the "Big Boys Club" known as the UN Security Council. Repeated warnings and many dress rehearsals for such an attack have been carried out by Israel. This cat-and-mouse game has gone on for many years but have Israel and their allies ever looked at the consequences of this ill-conceived plan?
We should look at some of the work that has been carried out by two British experts, Dr Chris Busby and Dai Williams. These two extremely dedicated men have worked tirelessly on the continued military use of Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons. These weapons are manufactured in the US and used by US, UK, NATO forces and by many other countries. It is also believed that such weapons can or have been manufactured in Israel, Pakistan and any other country that has a nuclear capability. These two determined gentleman have very convincing evidence that not only have DU weapons been used but also a strong possibility of other uranium based weapons which could be linked to the so called "Dirty Bomb". Such evil weapons have been used in the Balkans, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza with possible further use in Pakistan.
DU weapons leave a trail of misery and suffering to thousands upon thousands of soldiers and innocent civilians caught up in its indiscriminate use in all the many areas of conflict. The Gulf War Syndrome is directly linked to such weapons as is the dramatic rise in all types of cancers, diabetes, still births and badly disfigured babies. Uranium based weapons have the ability to change the cell structure and DNA in all humans that come into contact with it by either inhalation or ingestion. It has the ability to contaminate the local area, region, adjacent countries and the world once it becomes an aerosol and enter the upper atmosphere.
Dai Williams and Dr Chris Busby have written with great authority on this subject and have written to the then-British Prime Minster Tony Blair highlighting the many issues relating to the manufacturing and use of DU weapons. He also decided to look into what would happen if Israeli or any of its allies carried out such an attack on Iran's nuclear facility at Natanz.
He said,"If the current conflict escalates further I anticipate that Israeli and/or American forces will find an excuse to bomb nuclear facilities in Iran in the near future" "Whether Israeli or US forces use conventional (uranium cased) bunker busters or mini-nuclear warheads the effect of igniting uranium metal stockpiles in Iran (e.g. at Natanz) will spread radioactive contamination across the whole region within 2-3 days and around the world in 3-4 weeks."
The above simulation is within 48 hours of such an attack and one can clearly see that beyond this time the entire region will be contaminated. Could one even imagine that Israel would be prepared to do this and at the same time contaminate its own country? Dai Williams in his communication to Tony Blair summarised the following: Possibly your last chance to prevent widespread radiation contamination in the Middle East and Asia.
"I have tried to restrain my frustration at your support for US policies in Iraq and your apparent apathy over Palestine for the last 3 years," he wrote. "But I can no longer stay silent. However I also realise that you probably were not shown my previous correspondence and that you may still be unaware of the known development and suspected widespread use of large uranium weapons by US forces in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq."
He continued:
"UK media coverage of these hazards has been very rare since 2000 when NATO was first confronted about mysterious deaths of Spanish and Italian troops soon after service near US bomb targets in the Balkans. An exception was the Sunday Times report of Uranium contamination in the UK during March/April 2003 (19 Feb 2006 available at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2047373,00.html ) Now that Israeli forces are using the same guided weapons in Lebanon the public is seeing their horrific effects on civilians for the first time. In Afghanistan and Iraq there was little coverage of civilian casualties from the new generation of US guided weapons".
He concluded:
"Despite the impending summer recess you have one last chance to warn the Israeli and US Governments that further aggression and use of uranium warhead guided weapons will no longer be tolerated by the UK Government. These systems are increasing global radiation Levels from their own contamination. This will be several times worse if they are used on nuclear installations. So it is strategically and environmentally essential that you oppose any military strikes on nuclear facilities in Iran."
I have decided to republish Dai Williams information for many good reasons.
1. That Gaza has now become a victim of Israel and is being used as an experimental testing ground for US and Israeli weapons that one can only imagine goes well beyond conventional weapons. 2. That the UN War Crimes team currently carrying out investigations in Gaza must understand that they should not be restricted by time constraints. 3. That they must carry out investigations across a broad range of issues from War Crimes to the many illegal weapons used in such a disproportionate way. Finally to all the members of the Arab League I urge you to support the people of Palestine and to denounce any such actions being taken by Israel or its allies. As you will all see from the evidence above the entire Middle East would become a victim of such an attack. It is your duty of care towards all your people to insist that this illogical thinking is stopped.
As recently as September 2008 CBS reported that Special Forces struck Qaeda leadership in Pakistan.
The decision faced by Holder, whether or not to appoint a Special Prosecutor on torture, is of a different gravity altogether. A weight of evidence keeps building which indicates torture was employed on innocent men, that it didn't work, and that it didn't prevent any attacks. And it gets worse. Bush's own FBI Director Robert Mueller recently confirmed to the New York Times what he told Vanity Fair a year ago, that "to [his] knowledge" torture didn't prevent a single attack. Former Legendary CIA Director William Colby has said that torture is "ineffective."
Harper's Magazine's Scott Horton nows suggests there are two Eric Holders at war with each other: Holder the good soldier who knows well the preference of his boss for prosecutions to not take place, and Holder the servant of the law who is aware that what he does now may determine what is likely to happen again.
It is becoming clear that such an investigation, if it happens, will not stop with a few low-ranking scapegoats. Horton notes:
"President Obama�s assurance to CIA officials who relied on the opinions of government lawyers in implementing these programs, an assurance that Holder himself repeated, would have to be worked in. That suggests that the focus would likely be on the lawyers and policymakers who authorized use of the new techniques."
And CIA whistleblower Ray McGovern writes this week:
the buck stops - actually, in this case, it began - with President Bush. Senate Armed Services Committee leaders Carl Levin and John McCain on Dec. 11, 2008, released the executive summary of a report, approved by the full committee without dissent, concluding that Bush's Feb. 7, 2002, memorandum "opened the door to considering aggressive techniques."
What changed with Holder? Horton writes in "The Torture Prosecution Turnaround?":
Holder began his review mindful of the clear preference of President Obama�s two key political advisers�David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel�that there be no investigation. Axelrod and Emanuel are described as uninterested in either the legal or policy merits of the issue of a criminal investigation. Their concerns turn entirely on their political analysis...Holder initially appeared prepared to satisfy their wishes.
This attitude seemed to change after Obama's speech at the CIA, when Emanual and Axelrod moved out front to say there would be no prosecutions. According to Horton:
"In the days after Obama�s speech at the CIA, both Axelrod and Emanuel insisted that the White House had made the decision that there would be no prosecutions. According to reliable sources, that incensed Holder, who felt that the remarks had compromised the integrity both of the White House and Justice Department by suggesting that political advisers made the call on who would or would not be criminally investigated."
To make things worse for the Bush administration, evidence is emerging that they can no longer even rely on exhibit A and B of the Torture Works theory, Al Zabudaya and Kalid Shiek Mohammed, the latter of whom is still confessing to everything short of being the real Boston Strangler. I guess if I'd been waterboarded 82 times I'd be babbling too. The FBI Special Agent who interrogated Abu Zubayda, recently breaking a 7-year silence after reading the "torture memos," wrote in the New York Times:
"One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn�t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.
It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence...This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives."
Then there is the political risk to the Obama administration that Axelrod and Emanual have miscalculated, and that, in fact, the rest of the president's agenda is hamstrung while a growing number of Americans call for existing laws to be enforced. What is haunting Americans could be, in Washington jargon, "sucking oxygen" out of the debate, and "moving forward" is a pipe dream until pending business is dealt with. Spontaneous and planned rallies calling for a Special Prosecutor are growing, not diminishing. In addition, the worse revelations may be yet to come in the horrifying saga of what happened when, as Major General Anthony Taguba says:
[a] permissive environment [was] created by implicit and explicit authorizations by senior US officials to "take the gloves off"...
President Jimmy Carter wrote that the Red Cross, Amnesty International and the Pentagon "have gathered substantial testimony of torture of children, confirmed by soldiers who witnessed or participated in the abuse." In "Our Endangered Values" Carter said that the Red Cross found after visiting six U.S. prisons "107 detainees under eighteen, some as young as eight years old." And reporter Hersh, (who broke the Abu Ghraib torture scandal,) reported 800-900 Pakistani boys aged 13 to 15 in custody.
Journalist Seymour Hersh's (who broke the Abu Ghraib scandal) bombshell before the ACLU some years ago has been in a temporary slumber, as there is question as to whether the videotapes in possession of the Pentagon were among those claimed to be destroyed. Destroyed or not, there is still the conscience of soldiers and agents who bore witness to contend with, as the reign of political terror against whistleblowers which characterized the Bush administration subsides. Hersh said:
" Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out."
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said at the time:
"The American public needs to understand, we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges."
History is just beginning to sort out the Bush era, with stubborn facts showing a resilience that Fox News talking points cannot, and more emerging. Today, even among Republicans, it is difficult to find those who will embrace Richard Nixon, though for a while he was every bit the perceived victim of "left-wing hate" that Bush and Cheney are now. Incredibly, to compare Nixon to Bush-Cheney is to do a deeply flawed man a disservice. Nixon inherited Vietnam. He did not orchestrate from whole cloth a campaign to link Saddam with 9/11, and strenuously push to war despite the objections of his countrymen and the world. Nixon spied on political enemies. He did not use a tragedy to illegally spy on millions, the true numbers of which we still do not know because congress has never investigated.
It's almost possible to feel sorry for the shifty, friendless Nixon. It is less possible to feel so for the smirking Bush, who thought nothing of telling soldier's families that war critics were saying that their loved ones "had died in vain."
A compilation in November2008 of other evidence of alleged incidents involving children at the time recounts:
-- Iraqi lawyer Sahar Yasiri, representing the Federation of Prisoners and Political Prisoners, said in a published interview there are more than 400,000 detainees in Iraq being held in 36 prisons and camps and that 95 percent of the 10,000 women among them have been raped. Children, he said, "suffer from torture, rape, (and) starvation" and do not know why they have been arrested. He added the children have been victims of "random" arrests "not based on any legal text."
-- Former prisoner Thaar Salman Dawod in a witness statement said, "[I saw] two boys naked and they were cuffed together face to face and [a U.S. soldier] was beating them and a group of guards were watching and taking pictures and there was three female soldiers laughing at the prisoners."
-- Iraqi TV reporter, Suhaib Badr-Addin al-Baz, arrested while making a documentary and thrown into Abu Ghraib for 74 days, told Mackay he saw "hundreds" of children there. Al-Baz said he heard one 12-year-old girl crying, "They have undressed me. They have poured water over me." He said he heard her whimpering daily.
-- Al-Baz also told of a 15-year-old boy "who was soaked repeatedly with hoses until he collapsed." Amnesty International said ex-detainees reported boys as young as 10 are held at Abu Ghraib.
-- German TV reporter Thomas Reutter of "Report Mainz" quoted U.S. Army Sgt. Samuel Provance that interrogation specialists "poured water" over one 16-year-old Iraqi boy, drove him throughout a cold night, "smeared him with mud" and then showed him to his father, who was also in custody. Apparently, one tactic employed by the Bush regime is to elicit confessions from adults by dragging their abused children in front of them.
-- Jonathan Steele, wrote in the British "The Guardian" that "Hundreds of children, some as young as nine, are being held in appalling conditions in Baghdad�s prisons...Sixteen-year-old Omar Ali told the "Guardian" he spent more than three years at Karkh juvenile prison sleeping with 75 boys to a cell that is just five by 10 meters, some of them on the floor. Omar told the paper guards often take boys to a separate room in the prison and rape them.
-- Raad Jamal, age 17, was taken from his Doura home by U.S. troops and turned over to the Iraqi Army�s Second regiment where Jamal said he was hung from the ceiling by ropes and beaten with electric cables.
-- Human Rights Watch (HRW) last June put the number of juveniles detained at 513. In all, HRW estimates, since 2003, the U.S. has detained 2,400 children in Iraq, some as young as ten.
-- IRIN, the humanitarian news service, last year quoted Khalid Rabia of the Iraqi NGO Prisoners� Association for Justice(PAJ), stating that five boys between 13 and 17 accused of supporting insurgents and detained by the Iraqi army "showed signs of torture all over their bodies," such as "cigarette burns over their legs," she said.
-- One boy of 13 arrested in Afghanistan in 2002 was held in solitary for more than a year at Bagram and Guantanamo and made to stand in stress position and deprived of sleep, according to the "Catholic Worker."
Attorney General Holder is a man of conscience who now serves both President Obama and the law. A Newsweek piece last week says he has no illusions that:
Such a decision [to appoint a Special Prosecutor] would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama's domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months. "I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president's agenda," he says. "But that can't be a part of my decision."
There can be redemption for a nation which faces its past. One that does not can only become more monstrous.
Here is the flag of Persia, used prior to 1925. Note the ratio of length to height, more a banner than a flag. Note also the paler coloring.
Source, Wikipedia
Here is the flag of Iran during the time of the Pahlavi Dynasty. Note the ratio of length to height, like a modern flag, and the darker coloring.
Source, Wikipedia
Here is the modern day flag of Iran. This is the flag in use for the last 30 years.
Source, Wikipedia Also HERE
So, whose flag are they flying at the protests?
Judge for yourself. And remember, these flags were flown as part of protests that held in front of the White House, in Toronto, Irvine, on CNN and at it's Atlanta headquarter office, in Salt Lake City and on the Bellevue Washington, amongst others. There was definitely a clear impression and message being sent along.
Think! This design flag has not been used for 30 years. They are not just lying around "Flags-R-us". Somebody ordered these flags made in advance of the protests!
Singer, songwriter. Jackson was born August 29, 1958, in Gary, Indiana, to an African-American working-class family. His father, Joseph Jackson, had been a guitarist but had put aside his musical aspirations to provide for his family as a crane operator. Believing his sons had talent, he molded them into a musical group in the early 1960s. At first, the Jackson Family performers consisted of Michael’s older brothers Tito, Jermaine, and Jackie. Michael joined his siblings when he was five, and emerged as the group’s lead vocalist. He showed remarkable range and depth for such a young performer, impressing audiences with his ability to convey complex emotions. Older brother Marlon also became a member of the group, which evolved into the Jackson 5.
Michael died today, 25 June 2009 of a heart attack, he was aged 50. May his gentle soul rest in perfect bliss.
STUTTGART, Germany — A social science research center is under development at U.S. Africa Command headquarters, where researchers from the academic world are being recruited to help map the complicated human terrain on the African continent.
The research center, which falls under AFRICOM’s knowledge development division, will be designed to focus on the long-term with an eye toward forecasting potential flashpoints and preventing them from developing into conflicts.
But mixing military and social science has long been a source of controversy, going all the way back to the Vietnam era when information collected by researchers was used for targeting people.
More recently, the Army’s Human Terrain System, used in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been met with resistance from groups such as the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, made up of social scientists opposed to the mingling of academia and the military.
Though defenders of the Human Terrain System argue that social scientists are providing information to commanders that potentially can reduce levels of violence, opponents say human terrain mapping benefits the U.S. military, not local populations.
As AFRICOM sets out to recruit and build its staff of social scientists, word is beginning to spread about the latest effort, and some professors are already expressing similar concerns.
"There is a contradiction between anthropology and AFRICOM or the U.S. military," said David Hughes, an environmental anthropologist from Rutgers University’s Center for African Studies.
Hughes, who participated in an interview for a position on the AFRICOM team — a position Hughes said he was never interested in but wanted to learn more about — contends that academic researchers shouldn’t accept employment with the Defense Department.
While pursuing national security interests is the military’s objective, "Our concern is to take the concerns of the subject first and foremost. It would be difficult to negotiate that conflict," he said.
For example, researching the degree of pro or anti-American sentiment in a given area and turning over those findings to the military could open to door to selective targeting of individuals, according to Hughes.
"Then I might immediately endanger my subjects. This is the sort of thing we don’t want to be involved in and facilitate," said Hughes, whose department has issued a statement vowing that it would not collaborate with the military’s efforts in Africa.
AFRICOM officials, however, say fears about militarizing social science are misplaced. So are comparisons between AFRICOM’s research center and the Human Terrain System, which embeds academics on the battlefield to provide cultural advice to commanders in support of their missions, officials said.
"We have no combat mission in Africa," said Col. Dean Bland, who is heading up AFRICOM’s research center effort and insists the social scientists would have no role in targeting people.
Rather, the academics will fill in gaps in knowledge and help commanders craft more effective programs, he said. For example, as military training initiatives are developed, having an awareness of the ethnic mixes and traditions in a given area would be valuable information, he said. Knowing when there’s a disenfranchised minority sub-group in a region also would be valuable as the military tries to anticipate flashpoints and prevent conflict, he said.
"You have to understand how societies tick to make better decisions," Bland said.
Examining the relationship between geography and environment, culture and politics, and how these factors can come together to create instability is a new approach to intelligence-gathering, Bland said.
The research center will deal largely in the unclassified realm. The intent is to work together with other think tanks, non-governmental organizations and release reports into the public domain, Bland said. Papers will be peer-reviewed and the work will be available for others working on the continent, he said.
Despite some early criticism in academia, recruiting hasn’t been a problem, Bland said.
Currently, about a dozen staffers are on board. Within six months, the knowledge development team is expected to be fully manned with 25 to 30 members. The majority will be based in Stuttgart. A team of about six people will be stationed at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, where they will work closely with AFRICOM’s Combined Joined Task Force-Horn of Africa.
At times, the Germany-based members could deploy to the continent for short research missions.
The need for a research center, Bland said, boils down to the fact that there’s a lot the military doesn’t know regarding Africa — a continent of 53 countries, hundreds of languages, tribes and cultures.
Indeed, Africa is a place Americans generally know little about and tend to regard as one big country instead of a diverse continent of nearly one billion people, AFRICOM officials say.
Could AFRICOM’s social scientists help leaders anticipate events, such as the violence that followed last year’s elections in Kenya? Could they advise commanders on the potential destabilizing effects of global warming and desertification in certain regions? Could the next genocide be prevented?
That’s the goal, though measuring effectiveness will be difficult, Bland said.
"We’ll never know if we are successful, because if we do our job right, flashpoints will go away," Bland said.
DATELINE: Abuja. The Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s administration in Nigeria might have finally decided to take the bulls by the horn by deciding to acquire nuclear capabilities for various peaceful purposes, especially for the nation’s intractable power sector.
Zumarockreports.com has been reliably informed by inside sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that President Yar’Adua and President Dimitri Medvedev of Russia will in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, on June 24, initial an agreement for the provision of nuclear technology to Nigeria.
President Medvedev who will be in Nigeria as part of an African business trip is expected to arrive here with about 300 prospective investors on his entourage will also initial other agreements with Nigerian officials.
A formal hint to Nigeria’s decision to acquire nuclear technology was dropped by the Minister of National Planning, Shamsudeen Usman, last week when he announced that Nigeria and 16 other African countries may soon start power generation from nuclear plants, under a power base diversification program being backed by the Austria-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), adding that already IAEA has organized a regional training program for personnel from countries participating in the project.
President Medvedev’s historic visit to Nigeria will be the first time a Russian head of state would be visiting Africa. The trip will also take him to Angola, Namibia and Egypt. Informed sources have told our correspondent that apart from the nuclear deal, another important reason for the Russian leader’s visit would be to seal agreements for the Russian involvement in Nigeria’s gas and petroleum sector through its giant Gazprom, which, as is being speculated may replace Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria.
Nigeria may have decided to terminate its contract with the Anglo-Dutch company for the development of an oil and gas deposit in the Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta, even after the company has made a huge pay-out to the Ogoni people for years of environmental degradation suffered by the communities.
Zumarockreports.com also learnt that Shell abandoned the fields, which hold proven reserves of over 10 trillion cubic meters (353 trillion cubic feet) of gas, 15 years ago after its relations with the Ogoni people reached its nadir, to the extent that Ogonis vowed to ensure that Shell never sets its feet on Ogoniland.
A hint to the possible involvement of the Russian energy giant, Gazprom in Nigeria’s booming energy sector was dropped about one year ago in South Africa by President Yar’Adua himself when he announced that, "by the end of the year another oil operator will take over Shell Petroleum interests in Ogoniland."
Earlier this year, Gazprom had confirmed negotiating a seven-billion dollar contract for offshore gas exploration with the Nigerian government. Earlier this month, Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller, who will be on Medvedev’s delegation to Africa had met with the group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and Tanimu Yakubu, the chief economic adviser to the president, to discuss the details of the cooperation.
Look what they are doing to our world, that we may become zombies!
With the discovery of vaccines to eradicate polio, smallpox, diptheria, and other killers, and, the discovery of potent antibiotics, the last 50 years of the 20th Century heralded a hope for conquering disease by the 21st Century. In the 1980's it was obvious that we would not conquer disease when we were challenged with the discovery of HIV and HCV. The 1990's brought us the realization that our antibiotics would not be a panacea. Diseases formerly controlled by antibiotics were becoming resistant to the drugs. Diseases like TB were making a comeback and with a vengence. Our climate is changing rapidly, and with this change, we are seeing emerging and re-emergiing diseases not endemic to the particular areas of outbreak.
Fall 1999, New York area experienced just such an event. A non endemic disease broke out in a "hot zone" in Northern Queens. Was this altered strain a result of climate change or did it emerge from a Lab, Plum Island, Yale, or some other lab? Plum Island is located less then 2 miles from the Eastern shore of Long Island, Orient Pt. It is less then 13 miles across Long Island Sound from our Submarine base at Groton, Ct. (Pathogens deemed too dangerous to enter via JFK, are brought via submarine and transferred to a Govt. Ferry to Plum Island. Plum Island is a biolevel 5 facility. In 1996 SUNY Stoney Brook had been considering joint experiments with Plum Island, using the biolevel 4 lab at Plum Island. Why then do we hear in the press, that Plum Island is seeking funds to upgrade from level 3 to a level 4 facility? This request to "upgrade" to "bogus" level 4 came on the heels of the West Nile like outbreak. March 1999 and also. during the summer there were a sequence of power outages. Some background on Plum is needed. March 1999, Plum island installed an undersea fiberoptic cable. During the finalization of the cable, by STV Inc. all power to Plum Island was lost. Plum Island needs power to maintain biocontainment. Plum Island has had a horrific safety violation record and has been cited by the EPA as late as Spring 1999. In March 1999, the (now previous) Director, Alfonso Torres, gave his resignation. A new Director, Dr. LeeAnn Thomas, took over in July of 1999. Some of the attached links prove that Plum is not a biolevel 3, but it is a biolevel 5 faciliity, one of only a few worldwide. According to Dr. Alfonso Torres and also Dr. Kiley of Plum Island, Plum Island is the only biolevel 5 facility in the US. Why would Plum Island seek the bogus level 4 upgrade after the outbreak of the WNV? I do not have that answer. It is theorized that Plum island needs funds just to maintain its present biocontainment. (according to Dr. Kiley 1998 meeting USAHA Committee on Government Relations.) Plum Island had been working with Japanese Encephalitis since the early 1990's. Plum Island/Yale Scientists had even tested JE vaccine on HUMAN VOLUNTEERS. Background: 1978 bioaccident. FMD microbes escaped. Workers were evacuated in paper coveralls, lab animals were incinerated and the island was sprayed with toxic chemicals. I have corresponded with a person who lived near Plum Island at that time, and claims to have contracted Foot and Mouth Disease, as was the case with other children at that time. Was this same toxic spraying done March 1999 and other times when the power was out? http://www.nalusda.gov/ttic/tektran/data/000009/05/0000090536.html Yes, Plum Island has been working with JE as the above link proves. Why would an animal facility test JE vaccine on HUMAN VOLUNTEERS? There has been a loss of the lobster population in Long Island Sound, Fall 1999. Did installation of the STV Inc. Cable cause the hazardous waste that Plum Island was cited for illegally dumping in 1998 to be drudged up? Did this or toxic chemical spraying of the island cause the algal bloom to become toxic and thereby cause the killoff? Why did the Mayor of the City of New York, OVER REACT, and spray deadly Malathion when he learned of 3 deaths of elderly people. He did not follow legal steps to obtain a permit for the spraying. History of Plum Island: In 1954 Ft. Terry, a biowar research facility closed its doors on that scruffy island. It handed over to the new lab, 134 strains of 13 viruses collected from every Continent of the World. At that time, the prime directive of Plum Island, was to find an efficient manner to infect Soviet Livestock. In 1969, President Nixon OFFICIALLY ended the biowar research program. Plum Island, officially, became an Animal Foreign Disease diagnostic facility. The advent of the 21st Century has the world in fear of bioterrorism. Bioweapons are cheaply fabricated, easy to carry and undetectable. Countries unable to fund expensive defense programs are able to put together an arsenol of bioweapons. Individual terrorists are able to strike fear into the hearts and souls of Nations at just the mention of a bioweapon threat. In 1993, after a 10 year hiatus, Dugway Proving Ground began bioresearch. In 1983, after a bioaccident which resulted in the anthrax death of sheep in neighboring pastures, Dugway had ended its biowar research. Now, 10 years later, in the name of biowar DEFENSE, Dugway opened for business without any opposition. Dugway is testing BIDS (BioIntegrated Defense System). At first the tests were conducted in liquid with "designer" simulants anthrax, bottulism, plague and smallpox etal. Now, testing of the defensive weapon is aerosol. The pathogens are (synthetic, a type of "designer" pathogen) deemed no more harmful then bacteria found in dirt. Only time will tell, I guess. Now, for a PLUM ISLAND UPDATE I now know why Plum Island is a biolevel 5 facility. In 1970, just one year after President Nixon officially ended our offensive biowar research, Plum Island was granted 10 million dollars by the Federal Govt. The purpose of the grant was to research the use of mycoplasma for use in germ warfare. The original 10 million dollar grant was for a 5 year period. In 1975, the funding was continued as the mycoplasma research was deemed very successful. In the 1980's a young scientist had just completed his graduate research at Cornell. He was hired by Plum Island to head up the mycoplasma research project. This scientist was Dr. Jawad Al Aubaidi. When it was obvious that hostilities would break out in the Persian Gulf, he went back home to his native Iraq, where he headed up the mycoplasma research at the Univ. of Bagdad. I have recently received a letter from Dr. Aubaidi's professor at Cornell, Dr. Carmichael. Dr. Carmichael pointed out that Dr. Aubaidi was a brilliant young researcher and a very nice person. He also sent me a medline reference sheet for me to look up Dr. Aubaidi's research prior to and while at Cornell. I am still trying to figure out how Dr. Carmichael was able to locate my mailing address. I had applied to the National Archives, under FOIA, for information on Ft. Terry, Plum Island, and information about Dr. Aubaidi and the circumstances of his untimely death. I received a letter from the NSA dated June 5, 2000 regarding my FOIA request. They informed me that the circumstances of the death of Dr. Jawad Al-Aubaidi, and information on his research is classified in accordance with Executive Order 12958. My request for information was therefore denied. They further went on to state that such information would involve breaching National Security and Foreign Relations. According to Prof. Garth Nicolson, Dr. Aubaidi was murdered by the Israelis. Yet, according to Dr. Carmichael, Dr. Aubaidi was hit by a truck when fixing a flat tire. Dr. Carmichael said that according to Dr. Aubaidi's wife, the flat tire and subsequent "Accident" was arranged by agents of Sadam. Were the Iraqis responsible for his death? According to Cornell Univ. Dr. L. E. Carmichael, Dr. Aubaidi and his family were planning to move back to the US. At the time of Dr. Aubaidi's death, Dr. Carmichael states that Dr. Aubaidi's planned move back to the US was to take place a week after Dr. Aubaidi's accident. According to Dr. Carmichael, Dr. Aubaidi deserves better. I therefore, am very interested in finding out exactly why Dr. Jawad Al Aubaidi was murdered in such a manner.
I could never understand how the US and the Pentegon could insist that biological agents were not used in the Persian Gulf. There was NO MONITORING FOR BIOLOGICALS in place during the Gulf War. There was only LIMITED Chemical weapon monitoring. The BIDS moniitoring technology was not in place at that time. It only commenced in 1993. According to accurate and verified accounts, Sadam Hussein purchased mycoplasma as well as other biologicals, which included West Nile Virus, from the US right up to 2 weeks before Desert Storm. I have further discovered that Plum Island had projects in which "clean" ticks were infected with brucella. They also had a project infecting ticks with African Swine Fever. Plum Island Scientists, Dr. Fred Brown and former Plum Island Director, Alfonso Torres have been working with BSE and other Prion diseases. It is my contention that the disease we now call Lyme Disease, originated in a lab at Plum Island. The funding for research would be covered in the Mycoplasma grant. The very first case of Lyme Disease was isolated in a youth, in 1975, within a few miles of the dock where the Plum Island Government Ferry boat lands on the Connecticut side of Long Island Sound. I have heard that a young Connecticut girl who had received yet, not responded to all known treatments for Lyme Disease, and who was dying, was sent to the inhouse isolation ward at Plum Island and "emerged" from that Animal Facility, totally CURED OF LYME DISEASE. When I first began the investigation into Plum Island and its connection to the New York outbreak of Kunjin/West Nile-like disease, I never imagined that Plum island would be so immersed in biowar projects. In any event, I now know why it was designated a biolevel 5 facility. At the time, 1970, it was illegal to work with mycoplasma in the Continental US. As Plum island was and is a top secret biowar facility, and it is an island, it was designated biolevel 5 and given the funding to proceed with mycoplasma research. So, indeed, Plum Island is a biolevel 5 facility.
August 30,2001 Plum Island Update
The Plum Island upgrade to biolevel 4 has not occurred as of this writing. There is now a citizen watchdog group overseeing the upgrade and the activities at Plum Island. It was my hope that the committee would monitor Plum Island and there would be safeguards in place. I have recently learned that Plum Island IS doing research on Nipah virus. Nipah virus, in the paramyxovirus group along with Hendra virus is a biolevel 4 pathogen. In other words, labs working with this virus mandate a biolevel 4 designation. This designation is required because Nipah is zoonotic, jumping species barrier from animal to man, and, has no cure or preventive vaccine. So, why is a lab who claims to be only a biolevel 3 and not a level 5, working on a biolevel 4 pathogen? Is the fact that they are an island status and a biolevel 5 a factor in their working on Nipah? How many other biolevel 4 pathogens are being studied at Plum Island? Remember, Plum Island is less then 2 miles from Long Island's coast. Birds and probably bats fly to and from the island. Nipah is a virus that is vectored by bats. It joins Hendra, another paramyxovirus and Tioman, also paramyxovirus, as a bat vectored virus. Although it is in the paramyxovirus family, Nipah and Hendra, and Tioman are in a separate group. I wrote to Dr. Daniel Rock who heads the Nipah research unit and, as of this writing, have not had a response to my mail. I am wondering where the watch dog group is and why are they not monitoring the Nipah research. I hope that we can get a response from Plum Island regarding their Nipah research in a biolevel 3 lab. According to APHIS/ARS, Plum Island needs funds to upgrade the facility JUST TO MAINTAIN ITS BIOLEVEL 3 DESIGNATION. This is the same facility that is working on a biolevel 4 pathogen?
AJV states that it “recognizes the powerful role of U.S. policy in the region and believes that the United States’ unconditional support of Israeli government policy is profoundly harmful to the cause of peace with justice. We will work to promote a U.S. policy that is consistent with international law and human rights. We will work to combat the myth of American Jewish consensus in support of Israeli government policy.”~~Another Jewish Voice
"You must be celebrating,” the interviewer from a popular radio station told me after Netanyahu’s speech. “After all, he is accepting the plan which you proposed 42 years ago!” (Actually it was 60 years ago, but who is counting?)
The front page of Haaretz carried an article by Gideon Levy, in which he wrote that “the courageous call of Uri Avnery and his friends four decades ago is now being echoed, though feebly, from end to end (of the Israeli political spectrum).”
I would be lying if I denied feeling a brief glow of satisfaction, but it faded quickly. This was no “historic” speech, not even a “great” speech. It was a clever speech.
It contained some sanctimonious verbiage to appease Barack Obama, followed right away by the opposite, to pacify the Israeli extreme right. Not much more.
* * *
NETANYAHU DECLARED that “our hand is extended for peace.”
In my ears, that rang a bell: in the 1956 Sinai war, a member of my editorial staff was attached to the brigade that conquered Sharm-al-Sheikh. Since he had grown up in Egypt, he interviewed the senior captured Egyptian officer, a colonel. “Every time David Ben-Gurion announced that his hand was stretched out for peace,” the Egyptian told him, “we were put on high alert.”
And indeed, that was Ben-Gurion’s method. Before every provocation he would declare that “our hands are extended for peace”, adding conditions that he knew were totally unacceptable to the other side. Thus an ideal situation (for him) was created: The world saw Israel as a peace-loving country, while the Arabs looked like serial peace-killers. Our secret weapon is the Arab refusal, it used to be joked in Jerusalem at the time.
This week, Netanyahu wheeled out the same old trick.
* * *
I DO NOT underrate, of course, the significance of the chief of the Likud uttering the two words: “Palestinian state”.
Words carry political weight. Once released into the world, they have a life of their own. Unlike dogs, they cannot be called back.
In a popular Israeli love song, the boy asks the girl: “When you say no, what do you mean?” One could well ask: When Netanyahu says yes, what does he mean?
But even if the words “Palestinian state” passed his lips only under duress, and when Netanyahu has no intention at all of turning them into reality, it is still important that the head of the government and the chief of the Likud was compelled to utter them. The idea of the Palestinian state has now become a part of the national consensus, and only a handful of ultra-rightists reject it directly. But this is only the beginning. The main struggle will be about turning the idea into reality.
* * *
THE ENTIRE speech was addressed to one single person: Barack Obama. It was not designed to appeal to the Palestinians. It was quite clear that the Palestinians are only the passive object of a discussion between the President of the USA and the Prime Minister of Israel. Except in some tired old clichés, Netanyahu spoke about them, not to them.
He is ready, so he says, to conduct negotiations with the “Palestinian community”, and that, of course, “without preconditions”. Meaning: without Palestinian preconditions. On Netanyahu’s part, there are plenty of preconditions, every one of which is designed to make certain that no Palestinian, no Arab and indeed no Muslim will agree to enter negotiations.
Condition 1: The Arabs have to recognize Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people” (and not just “a Jewish state”, as many in the media erroneously reported.) As Hosny Mubarak has already answered: No Arab will accept this, because it would mean that 1.5 million Arab citizens of Israel are cut off from the state, and because it would deny in advance the Right of Return of the Palestinian refugees - the main bargaining chip of the Arab side.
It should be remembered that when the United Nations resolved in 1947 to partition Palestine between a “Jewish state” and an “Arab state”, they did not mean to define the character of the states. They were just stating facts: there are two mutually hostile populations in the country, and therefore the country has to be divided between them. (Anyhow, 40% of the population of the “Jewish” state was to consist of Arabs.)
Condition 2: The Palestinian Authority must first of all establish its rule over the Gaza Strip. How? After all, the Israeli government prevents travel between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and no Palestinian force can pass from one to the other. And the solution of the problem by establishing a Palestinian unity government is also ruled out: Netanyahu flatly declared that there would be no negotiations with a Palestinian leadership that includes “terrorists who want to annihilate us” – his way of referring to Hamas.
Condition 3: The Palestinian state will be demilitarized. This is not a new idea. All peace plans that have been put forward up to now speak about security arrangements that would protect Israel from Palestinian attacks and Palestine from Israeli attacks. But that is not what Netanyahu has in mind: he did not speak about mutuality, but about domination. Israel would control the air space and the border crossings of the Palestinian state, turning it into a kind of giant Gaza Strip. Also, Netanyahu’s style was deliberately overbearing and humiliating: he obviously hopes that the word ‘demilitarized” would be enough to get the Palestinians to say “no”.
Condition 4: Undivided Jerusalem will remain under Israeli rule. This was not proposed as an opening gambit for negotiations but presented as a final decision. That by itself ensures that no Palestinian, nor any Arab or even any Muslim, could accept the proposal.
In the Oslo Agreement, Israel undertook to negotiate about the future of Jerusalem. It is an accepted legal rule that if one undertakes to negotiate, one accepts to do so bona fide, on the basis of give and take. Therefore, all peace plans provide that East Jerusalem - wholly or partly – will be returned to Arab rule.
Condition 5: Between Israel and the Palestinian state there will be “defensible borders”. These are code-words for extensive annexations by Israel. Their meaning: no return to the 1967 borders, not even with a swap of territory that would allow for some of the large settlements to be joined to Israel. In order to create “defensible borders”, a major part of the occupied Palestinian territories (which altogether make up just 22% of pre-1948 Palestine) will be absorbed into Israel.
Condition 6: The refugee problem will be solved “outside the territory of Israel”. Meaning: not a single refugee will be allowed to return. True, all realistic people agree that there can be no return of millions of refugees. According to the Arab peace initiative, the solution must be “mutually agreed” – which means that Israel has to agree to any solution. The assumption is that the two parties will agree on the return of a symbolic number. This is a highly charged and sensitive matter, which must be treated with prudence and the utmost sensitivity. Netanyahu does the opposite: his provocative statement, devoid of all empathy, is clearly designed to bring about an automatic refusal.
Condition 7: No settlement freeze. The “normal life” of the settlers will continue. Meaning: the building activity for the “natural increase” will go on. This illustrates the saying of Michael Tarazy, a legal advisor to the PLO: “We are negotiating about sharing a pizza, and in the meantime Israel is eating it.”
All this was in the speech. No less interesting is what was not in it. For example, the words: Road Map. Annapolis. Palestine. The Arab peace plan. Occupation. Palestinian Sovereignty. Opening of the Gaza Strip border crossings. Golan Heights. And, even more important: there was not a hint of respect for the enemy who must be turned into a friend, in the words of the ancient Jewish saying.
By Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom.
After hiding out for about 8 months, in order to evade an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity, issued by the International Criminal Court, George W. Bush has finally been found hiding out in the Pakistani mountains with his old buddy, Osama bin Laden.
He has already been tried in absentia and found guilty of multiple crimes and for causing the Iraqi Holocaust and will be hanged once his appeals run out.
Former VP Dick Cheney who has gone through his 5th heart transplant and who has shot three more of his buddies in hunting “accidents” and who has told President Obama to “f*ck off” for the tenth time, decided to volunteer for the US Army in order to make up for draft dodging during the Vietnam War. The Army might take him up on the offer and use him as a bayonet dummy during basic training.
Donald Rumsfeld, extremely depressed in not being able to get buses to stop and pick him up during his commute in Washington DC, died of an overdose of drugs. Not officially verified yet, but rumors are that he ingested a bucket full of aspartame and injected himself with large quantities of Tamiflu, his bird flu pandemic vaccine.
Condi Rice has gone through her third wife while teaching at Stanford. She had two children in her last two marriages with Randy Bean and Dick Cheney’s daughter Mary Cheney, who had divorced her first wife. She also had the tenth oil tanker named after her by a Saudi Arabian firm.
It was a “shocking” day when Alberto Gonzales, George Bush’s personal lawyer, was found tied to a cross with a black hood covering his body and attached to live electric wires.
The newly re-elected President Obama has undone about 20% of the unconstitutional laws passed during the 8 years of “George Bush’s Dictatorship” as the time is now called since it was proven in court that both of his elections were stolen.
Let's connect some dots today, boys and girls to learn about the HIGHEST POSSIBLE TREASON that has happened in this country.
THIS IS AS REAL AND AS UGLY AS IT CAN GET.
Dot #1 China begins its covert war on the FREE American republic in the 1950's by taking over much of the PHARMACEUTICAL DRUG manufacturing for American and British Big Pharma. This is an outgrowth of the Rothschild's OPIUM RING PROCESSING by the British West Indies company during the 1800's, and is brokered by the "City of London" and Washington D.C.
Dot #2 Arch-illuminist and satanist Henry Kissinger "normalizes" trade relations with China during the Nixon years.
Dot #3 Eventual LDS (Mormon) Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, via the church-owned Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii, establishes a "hard currency" pipeline with Bejing, exchanging bank "trade credits" for CIA/BRITISH MI6 DRUG SERVICES RENDERED into hard GOLD AND SILVER while hiding behind the cloak of "World Religion". This is facilitated via the LDS-Church built and controlled "Shenzhen Special Economic Zone" adjacent to Hong Kong. When Hinckley is made LDS President, his first "official" visit as "World Prophet" is to China, where the Chinese Communist leaders give him a hero's welcome and a confetti parade. (See attached paper --- "Pensees of a Puzzled Pilgrim" pp 5-6 and Desert News, June 1, 1996 article: "President Hinckley Visits China").
Dot #4 Arkansas natives Bill Clinton and Sam Walton massively increase contracts with China's factories over 2,000%. This results in a tremendous imbalance of trade with China. Thanks to the Mormon "Special Economic Zone" -- China's communist leaders begin amassing incredible "real" wealth in gold and silver.
Dot #5 China purchases TRILLIONS of dollars worth of U.S. Treasury Bills and Bonds, paying for it with gold and silver provided by the Shenzhen Economic Zone exchanges. Much of the U.S. "national debt" is purchased from the private "Federal Reserve" banks in this manner.
Dot #6 Dr. Jeff Taubenberger of the U.S. Institute of Pathology in Ft. Dedrick MD, (The world headquarters for biologic weapons development) successfully maps the genome of the 1918 killer "flu" virus responsible for the 1918 "pandemic" that killed millions. The worst killer virus ever to plague mankind is now ready to be used as a covert "weapon" disguised as a natural "influenza" mutations.
Dot #6 July, 2005: The Illuminati-conrolled United Nations announces that the world is long over-due for an "influenza pandemic". The H5N1 "Avian Flu" is wrongfully demonized as a COVER.
Dot #7 December 2005: The Chinese Defense Minister, Chi Haotiaon delivers a speech to the Chinese military leaders outlining the inevitable "expansion" of China into Canada, the U.S., and Australia -- He justifies this because of Chinese racial "superiority" and thus "emminent domain". To accomplish this, American would first have to be "Cleansed" by means of a powerful "biological weapon" --- causing 150 -200 MILLION AMERICAN DEATHS!!! The plan would be enacted AFTER the symbolic OLYMPIC GAMES beginning at the sacred day of 8-08-08 are concluded. China begins buying oil and gas futures, spiking the worldwide prices to historic levels.
Dot #8 March 13, 2008: A secret meeting is conducted for the U.S. House and Senate. Agents of the Club of Rome give a preview of upcoming events to elected officials who first swear an oath of secrecy. The traitors are briefed that the economy will begin its collapse in October, 2008 -- and will TOTALLY collapse in mid 2009. As events unfold in 2009-2010, Congress was told of the real possibily of massive civil unrest and even Civil War being waged. Detention camps constructed to imprison civil 'agitators'. See http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/34877 for the complete meeting agenda.
Dot #9 In September, 2008 -- as soon as the Olympics are concluded, China stops buying oil and gas futures while dumping U.S. Treasury bills and bonds. Gasoline prices plummet, while the U.S. mortgage loan money becomes tightly constricted. The Club of Rome's agenda is being implemented perfectly.
Dot #10 In October, just as explained in March, the economy indeed begins its collapse with mortgage banks going bankrupt as the Chinese dump their U.S. Securities. This causes a world-wide "rush to liquidity" as money supplies DRASTICALLY tighten.
Dot #11 Billions of worthless U.S. Government "bailout" debit entries are given to bolster failing U.S. Banks. These are "worthless" because China now controls most of the U.S. "REAL" wealth in the form of gold and silver. China refuses to continue investing credit loans to the U.S. Treasury.
Dot #12 Barack Hussein Obama is elected, promising "Change you can believe in." After taking office in January, Obama sends Hillary Clinton on a critical mission to China and helps write H.R. 45 -- a complete grab of America's guns ala Adolph Hitler. State leaders who understand what Clinton and Obama agenda with China is about, are seeking legal "Sovereignty" to prevent the loss of property to a foreign power.
Dot #13 China agrees to continue investing in U.S. Treasury Bills only after securing the right of "eminent domain" to physically repossess foreclosed American PRIVATE PROPERTY. This move is the equivalent of an unconditional surrender following a bloody war. This also gives the Chinese military the LEGAL RIGHT to use biological weaponry to "Clean up America all at once". It gives them the legal right to use deadly force in removing trespassing Americans from occupying Chinese real estate.
Connect these 13 evil dots, and this is what you get:
FEDS GRANT EMINENT DOMAIN AS COLLATERAL TO CHINA FOR U.S. DEBTS
BEIJING, China -- Sources at the United States Embassy in Beijing China have just CONFIRMED that the United States of America has tendered to China a written agreement which grants to the People's Republic of China, an option to exercise Eminent Domain within the USA, as collateral for China's continued purchase of US Treasury Notes and existing US Currency reserves.
The written agreement was brought to Beijing by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and was formalized and agreed-to during her recent trip to China.
This means that in the event the US Government defaults on its financial obligations to China, the Communist Government of China would be permitted to physically take -- inside the USA -- land, buildings, factories, perhaps even entire cities - to satisfy the financial obligations of the US government.
Put simply, the feds have now actually mortgaged the physical land and property of all citizens and businesses in the United States. They have given to a foreign power, their Constitutional power to "take" all of our property, as actual collateral for continued Chinese funding of US deficit spending and the continued carrying of US national debt.
This is an unimaginable betrayal of every man, woman and child in the USA. An outrage worthy of violent overthrow.
-------------- UPDATE 1:40 pm EST
Eminent Domain is the power of government to TAKE private property for public use without the consent of the property owner. Under our Constitution, the government can only "take" when providing "just compensation" for what they've taken.
Who decides what constitutes "just compensation?" The government!
Homeowners who felt the government was not paying them enough for property in past "takings" have filed lawsuits. In absolutely every such case, the value placed upon the property by the government was upheld by the courts.
Our federal government has now granted to China, this power to "take"our homes and businesses in the event the US Gov't defaults on its debts. Let's play this out as a worst case scenario. . . .
The US Gov't goes belly-up and China comes in and says, "they owed us $2 Trillion in Treasury Notes and another $2 Trillion in actual cash money which is now worthless. We are taking the entire state of Hawaii and the entire state of California in lieu of this bad debt. "
With the stroke of a Chinese chop stick, Hawaii and California -- all the land and buildings in those states -- are now owned by China.
The "taking" would be a "valid public use" because it was "taken" in payment of the public debt!!!!
China could then turn around and declare the value of all that land to be worth. . . . . I dunno, ten cents on a dollar?
For your $200,000 house, you get a Chinese check for $20,000.
Needless to say, the property owners would go ballistic and demand "just compensation" for what was taken. Who gets to decide what is "just?" China! Don't think you got a fair price for what they took? No problem, sue China.
You'll lose.
People who live in those states and own their land outright, might be able to negotiate with China to "rent" back their own property, as long as the property owner continued to pay all his taxes; but the land and buildings would belong to China.
This is what our own Government has just done to us and it is the single most vile act of betrayal in the history of human existence.
------------- SECOND UPDATE 3:48 PM
In early February nine U.S. States began the process of re- asserting their Sovereignty pursuant to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the US Constitution; declaring null and void any actions by Congress that violated the Constitution.
The states took action to make certain the feds couldn't give away cities or the states themselves!
This situation is going to get VERY ugly, VERY fast as one sovereign power (the feds) try to literally give away the land of other sovereign powers, (the states). This is the type of thing that starts Civil War.
Our present federal government makes the treachery and betrayal of Benedict Arnold look like child's play.
After Donald Rumsfeld testified on the Hill about Abu Ghraib in May, there was talk of more photos and video in the Pentagon's custody more horrific than anything made public so far. "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse," Rumsfeld said. Since then, the Washington Post has disclosed some new details and images of abuse at the prison. But if Seymour Hersh is right, it all gets much worse.
Hersh gave a speech last week to the ACLU making the charge that children were sodomized in front of women in the prison, and the Pentagon has tape of it. The speech was first reported in a New York Sun story last week, which was in turn posted on Jim Romenesko's media blog, and now EdCone.com and other blogs are linking to the video. We transcribed the critical section here (it starts at about 1:31:00 into the ACLU video.) At the start of the transcript here, you can see how Hersh was struggling over what he should say:
"Debating about it, ummm ... Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out."
"It's impossible to say to yourself how did we get there? Who are we? Who are these people that sent us there? When I did My Lai I was very troubled like anybody in his right mind would be about what happened. I ended up in something I wrote saying in the end I said that the people who did the killing were as much victims as the people they killed because of the scars they had, I can tell you some of the personal stories by some of the people who were in these units witnessed this. I can also tell you written complaints were made to the highest officers and so we're dealing with a enormous massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there and higher, and we have to get to it and we will. We will. You know there's enough out there, they can't (Applause). .... So it's going to be an interesting election year."
Notes from a similar speech Hersh gave in Chicago in June were posted on Brad DeLong's blog. Rick Pearlstein, who watched the speech, wrote: "[Hersh] said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, 'You haven't begun to see evil...' then trailed off. He said, 'horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run.' He looked frightened."
So, there are several questions here: Has Hersh actually seen the video he described to the ACLU, and why hasn't he written about it yet? Will he be forced to elaborate in more public venues now that these two speeches are getting so much attention, at least in the blogosphere? And who else has seen the video, if it exists -- will journalists see and report on it? did senators see these images when they had their closed-door sessions with the Abu Ghraib evidence? -- and what is being done about it?
(Update: A reader brought to our attention that the rape of boys at Abu Ghraib has been mentioned in some news accounts of the prisoner abuse evidence. The Telegraph and other news organizations described "a videotape, apparently made by US personnel, is said to show Iraqi guards raping young boys." The Guardian reported "formal statements by inmates published yesterday describe horrific treatment at the hands of guards, including the rape of a teenage Iraqi boy by an army translator.")
LONDON (Reuters) - Gamers beware: Keeping too tight a grip on the console and furiously pushing the buttons can cause a newly identified skin disorder marked by painful lumps on the palms, Swiss scientists said Tuesday.
Called "PlayStation palmar hidradentitis" by the scientists, the skin disorder can cause painful lesions on the palms similar to patches found on the soles of children's feet after taking part in heavy physical activity, they said.
"The tight and continuous grasping of the hand-grips together with repeated pushing of the buttons produce minor but continuous trauma to the (palm) surfaces," Vincent Piguet and colleagues at University Hospitals and Medical School of Geneva reported in the British Journal of Dermatology.
A spokesman for Sony Corp, which makes the PlayStation, noted the study involved one person and said the company had sold hundreds of millions of the consoles since the product was introduced in 1995.
"As with any leisure pursuit there are possible consequences of not following common sense, health advice and guidelines, as can be found within our instruction manuals," Sony spokesman David Wilson said.
"We would not wish to belittle this research and we will study the findings with interest, but this is the first time we have ever heard of a complaint of this nature."
Excessive gaming is already seen as a public health issue, sparking addictive behavior that can lead to a range of psychological problems, the researchers said.
Other researchers have identified acute tendonitis from playing too much of Nintendo Co Ltd's Wii, and now a disorder related to the PlayStation can be added to the list, the team said.
Their study described the case of a 12-year-old girl who attended the Geneva hospital with intensely painful lesions on her hands, which she had developed four weeks earlier. She had no other lesions anywhere else on her body.
After questioning, the doctors discovered that several days prior to the appearance of the lesions the girl had started to play a game on her PlayStation for several hours each day.
The researchers suspected that grasping the console's hand-grips together with repeated pushing of the buttons produced minor but prolonged injury to the palm of the girl's hands, which can be made worse by sweating during a tense game.
The doctors recommended the girl stop playing and she recovered fully after 10 days, the researchers said.
"If you're worried about soreness on your hands when playing a games console, it might be sensible to give your hands a break from time to time, and don't play excessively if your hands are prone to sweating," Nina Goad of the British Association of Dermatologists said in a statement.
It was as if they had stepped on a mine, but there was no shrapnel in the wound. Some had lost their legs. It looked as though they had been sliced off. I have been to war zones for 30 years, but I have never seen such injuries before.
—Dr. Erik Fosse, Norwegian cardiologist who
worked in Gaza hospitals during the recent war.
What Dr. Fosse was describing was the effects of a U.S. “focused lethality” weapon that minimalizes explosive damage to structures while inflicting catastrophic wounds on its victims. While the weapon has been used in Iraq, Gaza was the first test of the bomb in a densely populated environment.
The specific weapon—the GBU-39—is a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) and was developed by the U.S. Air Force, Boeing Corporation, and University of California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2000. The weapon wraps the high explosives HMX or RDX with a tungsten alloy and other metals like cobalt, nickel or iron, in a carbon fiber/epoxy container. When the bomb explodes, the container evaporates and the tungsten turns into micro-shrapnel that is extremely lethal up to about 60 feet.
Tungsten is inert, so it does not react chemically with the explosive. While a non-inert metal like aluminum would increase the blast, tungsten actually limits the explosion.
Within the weapon’s range, however, it is inordinately lethal. According to Norwegian doctor Mad Gilbert, the blast results in multiple amputations and “very severe fractures. The muscles are sort of split from the bones, hanging loose, and you also have quite severe burns.”
Those who survive the initial blast quickly succumb to septicemia and organ collapse. “Initially, everything seems in order … but it turns out on operation that dozens of miniature particles can be found in all their organs,” says Dr. Jam Brommundt, a German doctor working in Kham Younis, a city in southern Gaza. “It seems to be some sort of explosive or shell that disperses tiny particles … that penetrate all organs, these miniature injuries, you are not able to attack them surgically.” According to Brommundt, the particles cause multiple organ failures.
If, by some miracle, victims do survive, they are almost to certain develop rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), a particularly deadly cancer that deeply embeds itself into tissue and is almost impossible to treat. A 2005 U.S. Department of health study found that tungsten stimulated RMS cancers even in very low doses. Out of 92 rats tested, 92 developed the cancer.
While DIMEs were originally designed to avoid “collateral” damage generated by standard high explosive bombs, the weapon’s lethality and profound long-term toxicity hardly seems like an improvement. And in Gaza, the ordinance was widely used. Al-Shifta alone has seen 100 to 150 such patients.
Was Gaza a test of DIME in urban conditions?
Dr. Gilbert told the Oslo Gardermoen,“There is a strong suspicion I think that Gaza is now being used as a test laboratory for new weapons.”
The characteristics of the GBU-39 are likely to make it a go-to weapon in the future. The bomb is small and light—less than six feet long and only 285 pounds—that means an aircraft can carry four times as many weapons. It can also be dropped 60 miles from its target. Internal wings allow the bomb to navigate to its target. It can penetrate three feet of reinforced concrete. It can also be mounted on drones, like the Predator and the Reaper, and compared to other weapons systems, is a bargain.”
Marc Garlasco, Human Rights Watch’s senior military advisor, says “It remains to be seen how Israel has acquired the technology, whether they purchased weapons from the United States under some agreement, or if they in fact licensed or developed their own type of munitions.”
In fact, Congress approved the $77 million sale of 1.000 GBU-39s to Israel in September, 2008, and the weapons were delivered in December. Israel was the first foreign sales of the DIMES.
DIME weapons are not banned under the Geneva Conventions because they have never been officially tested. However, any weapon capable of inflicting such horrendous damage is normally barred from use, particularly in one of the most densely populated regions in the world.
For one thing, no one is sure about how long the tungsten remains in the environment or how it could affect people who return to homes attacked by a DIME. University of Arizona cancer researcher Dr. Mark Witten, who investigates links between tungsten and leukemia, says that in his opinion “there needs to be much more research on the health effects of tungsten before the military increases its usage.”
DIMEs were not the only controversial weapons used in Gaza. The Israeli Self-Defense Forces (IDF) also made generous use of white phosphorus, a chemical that burns with intense heat and inflicts terrible burns on victims. In its vapor form it also damages breathing passages International law prohibits the weapon’s use near population areas and requires that “all reasonable precautions” be taken to avoid civilians.
Israel initially denied it was using the chemical. “The IDF acts only in accordance with what is permitted by international law and does not use white phosphorus,” said Israel’s Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi on Jan. 13.
But eyewitness accounts in Gaza and Israel soon forced the IDF to admit that they were, indeed, using the substance. On Jan 20, the IDF confessed to using phosphorus artillery shells as smoke screens, as well as 200 U.S.-made M825A1 phosphorus mortar shells on “Hamas fighters and rocket launching crews in northern Gaza.”
Three of those shells hit the UN Works and Relief Agency compound Jan. 15, igniting a fire that destroyed hundreds of tons of humanitarian supplies. Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City was also hit by a phosphorus shell. The Israelis say there were Hamas fighters near the two targets, a charge that witnesses adamantly deny.
Donatella Rovera of Amnesty International said, “Such extensive use of this weapon in Gaza’s densely-populated residential neighborhoods … and its toll on civilians, is a war crime.”
Israel is also accused of using depleted uranium ammunition (DUA), which in a UN sub-commission in 2002 found in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the International Convention Against Torture, the Conventional Weapons Convention, and the Hague Conventions against the use of poison weapons.
DUA is not highly radioactive, but after exploding some of it turns into a gas that can easily be inhaled. The dense shrapnel that survives also tends to bury itself deeply, leaching low-level radioactivity into water tables.
Other human rights groups, including B’Tselem, Gisha, and Physicians for Human Rights, charge that the IDF intentionally targeted medical personal, killing over a dozen, including paramedics and ambulance drivers.
The International Federation for Human Rights called upon the UN Security Council to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court for possible war crimes.
While the Israelis dismiss the war crimes charges, the fact that the Israeli cabinet held a special meeting on Jan 25 to discuss the issue suggests they are concerned they could be charged with “disproportionate” use of force. The Geneva Conventions require belligerents to at “all times” distinguish between combatants and civilians and to avoid “disproportionate force” in seeking military gains.
Hamas’ use of unguided missiles fired at Israel would also be a war crime under the Conventions.
“The one-sidedness of casualty figures is one measure of disproportion,” says Richard Falk, the UN’s human rights envoy for the occupied territories. A total of 14 Israelis have been killed in the fighting, three of them civilians killed by rockets, 11 of them soldiers, four of the latter by “friendly fire.” Some 50 IDF soldiers were also wounded.
In contrast, 1330 Palestinians have died and 5450 were injured, the overwhelming number of them civilians.
“This kind of fighting constitutes a blatant violation of the laws of warfare, which we ask to be investigated by the Commission of War Crimes,” a coalition of Israeli human rights groups and Amnesty International said in a joint statement. “The responsibility of the state of Israel is beyond doubt.”
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann would coordinate the defense of any soldier or commander charged with a war crime. In any case, the U.S. would veto any effort by the UN Security Council to refer Israelis to the International Court at The Hague.
But, as the Financial Times points out, “all countries have an obligation to search out those accused of ‘grave’ breaches of the rules of war and to put them on trial or extradite them to a country that will.”
That was the basis under which Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested in Britain in 1998.
“We’re in a seismic shift in international law,” Amnesty International legal advisor Christopher Hall told the Financial Times, who says that Israel’s foreign ministry is already examining the risk to Israelis who travel abroad.
“It’s like walking across the street against a red light,” he says. “The risk may be low, but you’re going to think twice before committing a crime or traveling if you have committed one.”
Chilling warning; social websites harm children's brain
Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.
Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred.
The claims from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield will make disturbing reading for the millions whose social lives depend on logging on to their favourite websites each day.
But they will strike a chord with parents and teachers who complain that many youngsters lack the ability to communicate or concentrate away from their screens.
More than 150million use Facebook to keep in touch with friends, share photographs and videos and post regular updates of their movements and thoughts.
A further six million have signed up to Twitter, the 'micro-blogging' service that lets users circulate text messages about themselves.
But while the sites are popular - and extremely profitable - a growing number of psychologists and neuroscientists believe they may be doing more harm than good.
Baroness Greenfield
Baroness Greenfield, an Oxford University neuroscientist and director of the Royal Institution, believes repeated exposure could effectively 'rewire' the brain.
Experts are concerned children's online social interactions can 'rewire' the brain
Computer games and fast-paced TV shows were also a factor, she said.
'We know how small babies need constant reassurance that they exist,' she told the Mail yesterday.
'My fear is that these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.'
Her comments echoed those she made during a House of Lords debate earlier this month. Then she argued that exposure to computer games, instant messaging, chat rooms and social networking sites could leave a generation with poor attention spans.
'I often wonder whether real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitised and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf,' she said.
Lady Greenfield told the Lords a teacher of 30 years had told her she had noticed a sharp decline in the ability of her pupils to understand others.
'It is hard to see how living this way on a daily basis will not result in brains, or rather minds, different from those of previous generations,' she said.
She pointed out that autistic people, who usually find it hard to communicate, were particularly comfortable using computers.
'Of course, we do not know whether the current increase in autism is due more to increased awareness and diagnosis of autism, or whether it can - if there is a true increase - be in any way linked to an increased prevalence among people of spending time in screen relationships. Surely it is a point worth considering,' she added.
Psychologists have also argued that digital technology is changing the way we think. They point out that students no longer need to plan essays before starting to write - thanks to word processors they can edit as they go along. Satellite navigation systems have negated the need to decipher maps.
A study by the Broadcaster Audience Research Board found teenagers now spend seven-and-a-half hours a day in front of a screen.
Educational psychologist Jane Healy believes children should be kept away from computer games until they are seven. Most games only trigger the 'flight or fight' region of the brain, rather than the vital areas responsible for reasoning.
Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood, said: 'We are seeing children's brain development damaged because they don't engage in the activity they have engaged in for millennia.
'I'm not against technology and computers. But before they start social networking, they need to learn to make real relationships with people.'
Bank of America and Citigroup won’t live to see May. The two banks will be nationalized in the coming weeks, and we think that the announcement can come as soon as tomorrow evening (Friday evenings are when major bank announcements and failures occur).
The US government has already committed half a trillion dollars to these two firms which is more than 10 times the amount it would cost to buy and control both companies. The market doesn’t believe that $500 billion is enough to save these companies. All the kings horses and all the kings men can’t put humpty dumpty back together again.
Today both banks made fresh new lows with Citi closing at $2.51 and Bank of America closing at $3.93. The 1 year charts below show the short term price movements. You should understand that when a bank stock’s chart looks like this, even a HEALTHY bank would be in trouble. Nobody wants their deposits tied up in a company that trades at $2. The outflows of deposits from Bank of America and Citi must be catastrophic.
On September 15, 2008, $550 BILLION disappears from the American banking system in a matter of hours and Congress is choosing to NOT look into this theft? Why?
Let's narrow down the suspects. We can leave Iran, Syria and North Korea off the list, since if any of those states had been in on this heist, Bush would have went on national TV, addressing the nation about the actions of one of these "rogue" nations and said he had directed the Pentagon to take any and all necessary actions to recover the purloined loot.
That has not happened, either with Bush or Obama.
So, what other nation would have the balls to steal that much money from Americans?
It would be a nation that attacked one of our ships in broad daylight, firing rockets, large caliber machine guns and dropping napalm on the ship in a brutal and savage attack that lasted 75 minutes. They would be so sadistic that they would machine gun survivors trying to escape, even shooting up the life rafts.
An attack that murdered 34 of our people.
It would be a country that has sent an army of spies to steal sensitive military info and financial data from the USA, at the same time, always proclaiming that the USA is their "best friend."
A country that, thru the use of tremendous amounts of money and threats, has taken over the US Congress.
A country that sent some of its intelligence operatives to a New Jersey state park on 9/11, to "document" that tragic event.
A country who's leaders said that 9/11 was very good for them.
A country that is well known for its use of "false-flag" attacks against its allies, to get those allies enraged and fighting wars for that nation.
A country that is so paranoid, it thinks the entire world is out to get them, and has threatened to nuke the entire world, using their "Sampson" option.
Hmmm, wonder what nation could be so depraved, sadistic and immoral? Any guesses?
At 2 minutes, 20 seconds into this C-Span video clip, Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania explains how the Federal Reserve told Congress members about a “tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the United States, to the tune of $550 billion dollars.” According to Kanjorski, this electronic transfer occured over the period of an hour or two.
Here is a transcript of what Kanjorski says in the video:
On Thursday Sept 15, 2008 at roughly 11 AM The Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw down of money market accounts in the USA to the tune of $550 Billion dollars in a matter of an hour or two.
It was an electronic run on the banks. The treasury intervened but had they not closed down the accounts they estimated that by 2 PM that afternoon. Within 3 hours. $5.5 Trillion would have been withdrawled and collapsed and within 24 hours the world economy.
Who's the Terrorist? A Song from the Heart of Gaza
Who's the terrorist? I'm the terrorist?! How am I the terrorist when you've taken my land? Who's the terrorist? You're the terrorist! You've taken everything I own while I'm living in my homeland
You're killing us like you've killed our ancestors You want me to go to the law? What for? You're the Witness, the Lawyer, and the Judge! If you are my Judge I'll be sentenced to death You want us to be the minority? To end up the majority in the cemetery? In your dreams! You're a Democracy? Actually it's more like the Nazis Your countless raping of the Arab's soul Finally impregnated it Gave birth to your child His name: Suicide Bomber And then you call him the terrorist?
You attack me but still you cry out When i remind you it was you who attacked me You silence me and shout: "Don't they have parents to keep them at home?" "But you let small children throw stones!" WHAT?! You must have forgotten you buried our parents under the rubble of our homes And now while my agony is so immense You call me the terrorist?
Who's the terrorist? I'm the terrorist? How am I the terrorist When you've taken my land?! Who's the terrorist? You're the terrorist! You've taken everything I own while I'm living in my homeland
Why terrorist?! Because my blood is not calm It's boiling! Because I hold my head for my homeland You've killed my loved ones Now I'm all alone My parents driven out But I will remain to shout out I'm not against peace Peace is against me It's going to destroy me You don't listen to our voices You silence us and degrade us And who are you?! And when did you become ruler? Look how many you've killed and how many orphans you've created
Our mothers are crying Our fathers are in anguish Our land is disappearing And I'll tell you who you are! You grew up sported We grew up in poverty Who grew up with freedom? And who grew up in continument? We fight for Our freedom But you've made that a crime And you, the terrorist call me the terrorist!
Who's the terrorist? I'm the terrorist? How am I the terrorist When you've taken my land?! Who's the terrorist? You're the terrorist! You've taken everything I own while I'm living in my homeland
So, when will I stop being a terrorist?! When you hit me and I turn the other cheek How do you expect me to thank the one who harmed me?! I tell you what! You tell me how you want me to be! Down on my knees with my hands tied up My eyes to the ground Surrounded by bodies Houses destroyed Families driven out Our children orphaned Our freedom chained up
You oppress You kill We bury We'll remain patient We'll suppress our pain Most importantly you feel secure Just relax and leave us all the pain You see our blood is like that of dogs NOT EVEN When dogs die they receive sympathy So our blood is not as valuable as a dog's No - My blood is valuable And I will continue defending myself Even if you call me a terrorist
When the new government forms after yesterday's elections, it will receive an economy in crisis. Moreover, treasury officials are terrified, not of the giant deficit this year, but of giant deficits in the following years, which would be the road to ruin.
The figures are frightening. Tax collection in 2009 will fall as much as NIS 40 billion ($10 bn) short of earlier estimates. The budget is already short about NIS 10 billion ($2.5 bn) to meet costs because of Operation Cast Lead and other past and future demands from the defense establishment.
Almost a third of that NIS 10 billion ($2.5 bn) comes from the military campaign in the Gaza Strip, and never mind that it's over. It cost NIS 3 billion ($0.75 bn), which has to come from somewhere.
Then there is an amount to be allocated to the leverage funds, which are supposed to be joint government-private vehicles (still in the envisioning stage) to rescue businesses in trouble. These funds are supposed to lend troubled companies about NIS 5 billion ($1.25 bn) (although some observers now think the state can get away with lending less).
A third element is around NIS 1.5 billion ($375 million) to cover the demands of coalition partners in the new government, say people in the Finance Ministry.
The upshot is that with tax collection falling far short of the estimates on which the 2009 budget was based, and with costs surging far above expectations, the 2009 budget is apparently about NIS 50 billion ($12.5 bn) short. And that, dear reader, is equivalent to 7% of Israel's gross domestic product.
The 2009 deficit, which should have been 1% of GDP, will likely be 5%, no more, because Israel simply cannot allow itself a larger deficit.
The Finance Ministry plans to slash budgets by about NIS 8 billion ($2.0 bn) from defense spending, education, welfare and healthcare.
How much these essentials can be spared depends on the next government's support for reducing defense spending.
The government plans to finance the deficit by raising money through further local bond issues, and overseas too, by utilizing U.S. guarantees to raise money at relatively low cost. It would step up the activities of the Israel Bonds organization.
The treasury would prefer to raise money by taking advantage of the rest of the $9 billion in guarantees granted to Israel by the United States in 2003, during the second intifada.
That gave Israel the right to issue $9 billion worth of bonds on the U.S. market, repayment of which is guaranteed by Washington. American backing for the bonds means that the interest Israelis have to pay on the bonds is as low as possible - just a hair above the rates on comparable bond issues backed by the Federal Reserve. Israel has used only $4.4 billion of the guarantees. The last time the state issued bonds in the United States backed by the guarantees was in 2004.
However, the United States plans to deduct $1 billion out of the remaining $4.6 billion, to punish Israel for its investments in territories beyond the Green Line.
If Jerusalem can't reverse that decree, it will still have $3.6 billion in guarantees. In any case, the Finance Ministry wouldn't blow the whole amount inside a year: It would probably spread the amount to 2010 and perhaps 2011 as well.
Everybody at Finance agrees that Israel's problem isn't just a giant deficit this year. It's the state of the economy in the following years.
The Finance Ministry does not dismiss the importance of the deficit in 2009, but it's a lot more worried about the deficit of 2010.
We can deal with a one-time high deficit, say officials, but a high, multiyear deficit could destroy Israel.
The aim of the 2009 budget, which will be approved in May at the earliest, and that of 2010, which (hopefully) should be submitted for cabinet approval in August or September, is to attain manageable deficits and decrease them over time.
The Finance Ministry says that if the world begins to emerge from its crisis in 2009 or 2010, Israel could achieve modest economic growth.
But ministry chieftains say the way to keep spending under control is to trim the defense budget. It's not a new idea, yet it's a revolutionary vein of thought. What we have is top Finance Ministry people admitting up front that Israel can't increase its defense budget by NIS 100 billion in 10 years. The new government, they believe, is going to face hard choices on this issue.
IN JANUARY 2, 1998, David Cole renounced Holocaust revisionism and all of the work that he had done for the cause of historical truth. Many people are wondering what happened. What brought on this change of heart? From all appearances it was a result of threats made against him by the Jewish Defense League (JDL).
In response to his public comments that there are serious flaws in the popularly accepted quasi-historical accounts of the Holocaust, they launched a campaign of hate against him that produced an old-fashioned signed statement of recantation. This campaign included a vicious and threatening diatribe, "Monstrous Traitor," that offered a reward for his home address and was posted on the JDL Website for some weeks or months. When Cole offered them a statement of reversal of the offending opinions, they took down the page aimed at inciting violence toward him and replaced it with the statement of acceptable thought. The JDL used terror tactics openly, and it worked.
Intolerance, threats and force are not typically a good atmosphere in which to find truth. Irrespective of this encounter with intellectual muggers, his work will stand or fall on its own merits in the long term. The film "David Cole interviews Dr. Franciszek Piper" is every bit as valid now as it was prior to the strong-arm intimidation of the man who made it.
The conclusions of David Cole's film have been confirmed recently in Robert Jan Van Pelt and Deborah Dwork's, "Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present." According to Van Pelt and Dwork:
"Visitors [to Auschwitz] are not told that the crematorium they see is largely a postwar reconstruction." (p.363)
We await Van Pelt and Dwork's retraction, but will not be holding its breath in the meantime.
IN REGARD TO ANYTHING relating to the Middle East or Jewish subjects, the USA has many of the characteristics of a totalitarian country and many of the groups who call themselves "liberal" or "peace camp" or "radical" are on that subject the most intolerant, the most totalitarian, the most dishonest and racist. . . . A totalitarian society not only does not tolerate a freedom of opinion, but it cultivates by all means in its power a "received opinion," which all have to parrot, not only without checking it, but often without any understanding of what it means.
Perhaps some Americans will think that I exaggerate. But the danger of a totalitarian regime was always thought to be exaggerated before it arrived. Only afterwards, when it was too late, was it found that the society was already totalitarian in some aspects which were merely enlarged.
There is only one sure antidote to the totalitarian danger: To fight all aspects of totalitarianism in all the parts of one's society and to follow always the dictum of Socrates that the unexamined life is not worth living, and therefore with the utmost freedom and without fear of any blackmail to examine everything in the light of a universal concept of justice, applicable equally to all human beings.
- Israel Shahak
In forging their own brand of totalitarianism in the U.S., the Zionists continue to manipulate the victims of the Nazi holocaust as their chief weapon.
- Alfred Lilienthal
Commentary
WHILE THIS PAGE is ostensibly about David Cole, his case really only serves as an illustration of a problem seldom discussed in public, and therefore not known to most of the public. Cole's experience demonstrates graphically a fairly benign instance of the methods used around the world, day in and day out, to relentlessly and ruthlessly quash attempts by honest people to examine in detail a historical event of legitimate interest to a great many, if not all people in the West and Middle East. The concern about this is not mollified by the fact that many of those who engage in this program of intimidation through slander, mass propaganda and physical threats do so in sincerity, with a firm conviction that what they do has a greater good which more than justifies its wrongs. We ignore these wrongs at the risk of our legitimate rule of law and our own freedoms. The seeming dichotomy of great wars fought by opposing religions who both seek to convey the love of their God to all people, and who will slaughter millions of them to do that, is no mystery if you look at it from the zealot's or fanatic's perspective. The fact that others do not see the greater good at work is due to their own spiritual shortcomings he tells himself, and in the land of the heathen you do what you must to survive and keep the faith. Whatever you must.
Our position on this affliction of the fanatic is a simple one. The one universal good that outweighs all others must be a person's right to follow any life path they choose so long as they offer no infringement on the rights of others. Our Declaration of Independence speaks of the inalienable rights we all have to our lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness, which is to say the sanctity of our own bodies, freedom of movement and association, and freedom of thought.Those who seek to deprive others of any of these outside the unfortunate but necessary repressions of the State we call justice earn for themselves what they gave. The principle is that of equity at its most basic level. As you deprive others of their liberty, so shall society see that you are deprived in equal measure, because there is no justification for any individual to take away any other individual's freedoms, even to the smallest part. That power is and must be confined to our mechanisms of government.
The right to harbor unpopular, even intolerant beliefs, and the right to express them are protected by the Constitution, which spells out the unqualified right of all Americans to unfettered freedom of speech. But intimidation aimed at silencing speech, and thus infringing on that right, be it through slander, threats or force, is not so protected. In fact, people who used those exact methods of intimidation to keep blacks from voting found themselves jailed for conspiring to deprive others of their lawful civil rights.
The basis for this was a post-Civil War law passed to address widespread abuses of that kind. That law has expanded quite liberally to include now a variegated collection of non-enumerated rights, such as going to school or working at a job, free of harassment aimed at depriving you of those opportunities. It is not necessary to argue about whether everything falling under this aegis is a legitimate "right" in order to see the illegitimacy of how it is applied, because we will look in a direction that should be a given, toward the inarguable central rights, to see how they fare in the protection game.
It is fashionable now to approve the increasing scope of civil rights law, yet some attempt to make the case that applying it to portions of the Bill of Rights is not proper or not needed. A common rationale is that differences of opinion are private matters that government should not, cannot be involved in. A valid point when only differences of opinion are present, invalid when coercion is applied to limit or deny freedom of speech or deprive someone of their livelihood (such as black-balling dissident authors in the publishing industry). Once coercion enters, the argument is without logic, for if government oversight is valid for protecting any one right then it is valid for all. Politically selected application of justice is a repugnant practice that coarsens and weakens all involved.
Yet that is exactly what is taking place in this country today. Holding generally unpopular views on a number of topical subjects can put you in a class where Justice is truly blindfolded. No one seems to see the blatant abuses committed by those who oppose those views, including vicious beatings on the steps of courthouses, arson, letter-bombs, terrorizing with threats of harm. If you happen to be pushing a topic deemed by popular opinion to be so lacking in merit that it somehow poses a danger to the citizenry, you will find little interest on the part of authorities to address these crimes or lessen their occurrence. This is nothing less than state and public sanctioned vigilantism, or terrorism, and it has no place in societies that would call themselves civilized
One of the hottest areas for this is Holocaust historical revisionism, which to a newcomer seems an oddity. (Emotions run high over history ?? That's the class you sleep in.) Attempts to point out glaring inconsistencies in the popular and now institutionalized account bring howls of rage from those who disagree. If the initial rage isn't enough to make someone cease and desist (which it often is), then the ante is raised and will keep on being raised to whatever level is needed to silence the target. It may start with simple slander, automatic and unfounded labels of "anti-Semite", "denier", "hater", "Nazi" and more are pasted on with the often expressed intent of destroying resolve and/or career, legitimate aims because the target is deemed "unfit" to be a member of any decent society. Those who don't give up are then marginalized by campaigns to convince the public of their evil and 100% erroneous views, their universally undesirable nature. When these aren't effective enough, then threats of injury or death are employed, such as with David Cole. At the extreme end, people are killed, like American-Arab peace activist Sami Odeh, murdered by a letter-bomb of suspected Zionist origin.
The open existence of and tolerance shown for this despicable practice fouls our national social fabric immensely. This is a major thing we'd like to see the public become aware of and hopefully say, "You know, this seems pretty un-American to me. And even if I'm wrong about that, it sucks to allow people to hurt others because they don't like their opinions. And I believe government should give some attention to what's going on." The rest of our job would then be very easy, as frightened people with much knowledge of the truth of the matter could at last speak openly. We might turn out to be right, and we might be wrong. But it would be settled quickly and we could quit hassling about it. Those who claim their feelings are so tender that this can't be allowed would be over it before you know it, and life would go on a little more peacefully.
If getting rid of a death-threat by giving in to coercion was what it took for Cole to regain peace of mind, we understand and neither resent nor condemn, only empathize. No one should be faced with an ultimatum to choose between their beliefs and their personal safety in the United States of America. That is a despicable, and in our minds, criminal affair.
We are all forced to recite a government mandated litany affirming a nonsensical collective belief in non-existent Arab terrorists every time we board an airplane. While we dociley play these sheep-like roles in the instillment of our own "good think," the real terrorists operate publicly and unhindered because they belong to any of a number of designated groups whose excesses one is forbidden to criticize, however legitimately or temperately.
It is disturbing to realize how very far this nation, and much of the Western world, has fallen from the fiery spirit which threw off the yokes of ancient tyrranies in the 18th and 19th centuries, ushering in the Age of Enlightenment. That light now dims because we are all too willing to take "Give me liberty or give me death!" and Newspeak convert it to, "Give me liberty at any cost except personal discomfort or civic involvement." This is how it comes to be that good men stand and say nothing, how in fact we came to be where we are now.
But let us return to the matter at hand, David Cole's run-in with the dark side of the strident opposition to open examination of a historical issue. Addressing the possibility that this complete reversal of belief was sincere, then we hope David Cole is successful in his new endeavors whatever they may be. Perhaps we'll meet on opposite sides in some future debate forum. That would be a treat, because David was always a worthy opponent; quick, well informed, and with a gift for public speaking. He'll do well in any situation, because he has enough intelligence to sort truth from pretense all by himself.
As long as the moral vigilantes and intellectual terrorists among us allow him to, that is.
Forty-Six Important Unanswered Questions Regarding the Nazi Gas Chambers
By David Cole
FOREWORD
Professor Deborah Lipstadt, author of Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, is the leading voice on college campuses and in the media arguing against intellectual freedom with regard to the holocaust controversy. She is passionate -- well, obsessive -- about not wanting to exchange views with revisionists.
"[A]t times," she writes, "I have felt compelled to prove something I knew to be true. I had constantly to avoid being inadvertently sucked into a debate that is no debate and an argument that is no argument." She adds that revisionism is "totally irrational . . . not responsive to logic" and that "evidence plays no role" in revisionist research.
I'm going to go out on a limb here. I know that Deborah Lipstadt and hundreds of other trained scholars with access to the relevant archives in Europe and the old Soviet Union have studied the Nazi gas chambers for half a century and know everything there is to know about them. Despite this universally accepted fact, I am presenting here a few questions about the notorious homicidal gassing chambers that are being raised by a young scholar named David Cole.
David Cole traveled to Europe twice to make on-site inspections of the still extant "gas chambers." The lady who financed each of these little expeditions wanted me to go with Cole to direct the project. I thought that would be a nifty idea. I'd never been to Europe and here was my chance. But Cole kept telling me he could handle it on his own. After awhile I got the message. He didn't want me to go. In the end, each time he went alone, or rather he and a camera woman. I think he was right. He didn't need direction from me. He handled his responsibilities very well on his own.
When you read David Cole's 46 unanswered questions about the Nazi gas chambers you may feel yourself hard-pressed -- despite what Deborah Lipstadt would have you believe -- to find them totally irrational, not responsive to logic, or that evidence plays no role in their design. Of course, you are probably not the towering intellectual that Deborah Lipstadt is, so if you find a few or perhaps more than a few of the 46 questions disturbing in their logic and rationality, precisely because they are based on the physical evidence commonly used to identify the "gas chambers," why not ring up Professor Lipstadt at Emory University and ask her for the correct answers to these interesting puzzles?
Then pass her answers on to me. I'll run them by David Cole and see what he has to say about them. Maybe we'll be able to post Lipstadt's criticisms of the 46 Questions here, along with David's response to her criticisms. In the academy they call this process peer review. Ms. Lipstadt would probably point out to you that David Cole is not part of the "academy." Let's not call it peer review then. Let's just call it talking it over. Tell her you have 46 questions about the German gassing chambers and you would like to talk them over with her.
Bradley R. Smith 9 October 1995
The Zyklon-B Issue
AT THE FORMER concentration camps of Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau, we find the following scenario: The buildings which used to serve as the camp delousing facilities still have extremely high traces of the gas Zyklon B, which was used in these buildings to disinfest clothing, mattresses, etc. Also, there is heavy blue staining on the walls both inside the delousing chambers, INSIDE the hallways between the delousing chambers, and OUTSIDE the building, on the EXTERIOR WALLS of the delousing facilities.
However, the interiors of the Krema 1 gas chamber (Auschwitz Main Camp) and the Krema 2 and 3 gas chambers (Auschwitz-Birkenau), where hundreds of thousands if not millions of people are said to have been gassed, show only minute traces of Zyklon B and no blue staining.
Also, the Auschwitz camp barracks and offices, which were fumigated with the Zyklon B from time to time, show similarly minute traces of the gas, and no blue staining.
(1) What explanation can there be for the low levels of traces, and absence of blue staining, in the homicidal gas chambers?
(2) If one suggests that the Zyklon traces in the homicidal gas chambers have been "weathered away", how can one explain the traces and staining on the OUTSIDE of the delousing complexes...traces which have NOT been weathered away after fifty years?
(3)It has been suggested that the amount of Zyklon B needed to kill people, even cumulative millions of people, would not leave traces as strong as the amount needed to kill lice in the delousing chambers. But when we factor in the Zyklon B traces still existing in the camp barracks and offices, we see that infrequent gassings will still leave SOME traces. Thus, we have the traces in the camp offices and barracks, which reveal what levels of traces would remain, fifty years after the fact, in rooms which were gassed infrequently.
Then we have the delousing chambers, which reveal what levels of traces would remain, fifty years after the fact, in rooms which were gassed frequently. Can it not be expected that the levels of traces in the homicidal gas chambers, while perhaps not being as high as those in the delousing rooms, would AT LEAST be substantially higher than the traces in the buildings which were only fumigated infrequently? Yet the traces in Kremas 1, 2 and 3 are not markedly higher than the office and barracks traces. Does this not suggest that the traces which DO exist in Kremas 1, 2 and 3 come from the same fumigation routine that all the other buildings went through?
(4)Once one has fashioned an explanation for the minute traces and no blue staining in Kremas 1, 2 and 3 at Auschwitz, how does one THEN explain the HIGH levels of Zyklon B traces and DEEP, FLOOR-TO-CEILING blue staining in three of the four Majdanek gas chambers? Far fewer people are said to have been killed at Majdanek than at Auschwitz. The four Majdanek gas chambers would never have had to handle the workload of Kremas 1,2 and 3. Yet whereas Kremas 1,2 and 3 have only minute traces and no blue staining, three of the four Majdanek gas chambers have heavy traces and deep blue staining. How could gassing a GREATER amount of people (at Auschwitz) leave minute traces and no blue staining, yet gassing a much SMALLER amount (at Majdanek) leave heavy traces and deep blue staining?
(5)The gas chambers at the Majdanek camp not only have heavy Zyklon B blue stains on the INSIDE, but also on the OUTSIDE walls, as well. What could account for this? The delousing facilities at Birkenau have heavy blue staining on their outside walls, staining which is said to come from the mattresses which were propped up against the outside walls and beaten after delousing (to rid them of Zyklon B residue). Do the heavy blue stains on the outside walls of the Majdanek gas chambers therefore suggest that these rooms were used as delousing facilities? Isn't the building which contains the gas chambers labeled the "Bath and Disinfection" complex? If, as with Auschwitz, it is said that gassing people wouldn't leave blue stains on the INSIDE walls of a homicidal gas chamber, how then, at Majdanek, could gassing people leave heavy blue stains not only on the INSIDE walls but also on the OUTSIDE ones as well?
(6) To sum up the Zyklon B issue, we can take an overview of the Nazi gas chambers and their respective states RE Zyklon B traces:
Krema 1 (Auschwitz Main Camp): Minute traces, no blue staining
Krema 2 (Auschwitz-Birkenau): Minute traces, no blue staining
Krema 3 (Auschwitz-Birkenau): Minute traces, no blue staining.
Majdanek gas chambers 1, 3 and 4: Heavy traces, heavy blue staining (on inside and outside walls).
Dachau gas chamber: No traces, no blue staining.
Mauthausen gas chamber: No traces, no blue staining.
The revisionist explanation for the above is:
Kremas 1, 2 and 3 were not used as gas chambers; -- the only Zyklon B they saw was from the routine camp fumigations.
Majdanek rooms 1, 3 and 4 were delousing rooms, like the ones at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The Dachau gas chamber was a shower.
The Mauthausen gas chamber was a shower
What theory can be offered which explains the wildly divergent states of the gas chambers re Zyklon B traces, while still supporting the concept of mass homicidal gassings at these camps?
Unanswered Questions Regarding the Physical Evidence at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp (Poland)
(7) Why was the area between Kremas 2 and 3, the area where thousands of people were marched daily to their deaths, left completely unfenced? The ditches which run the length of the camp perimeter would make a person invisible both to ground fire AND fire from the guard tower. Why would the Nazis risk an attempted escape, especially considering the fact that many inmates were gassed after they had been in the camp for a while, and knew what their fate would be if marched into either of those buildings? Doesn't the Auschwitz State Museum claim that the inmates would often "riot" as they were being marched toward Kremas 2 and 3?
(8) Why were Kremas 2 and 3 not hidden in any way from the view of the inmates? Isn't it claimed at the Auschwitz State Museum that gassings were stopped at Krema 1 (Auschwitz Main Camp) and moved to Birkenau because the inmates were starting to get an idea of the homicidal purpose of Krema 1? Why then were Kremas 2 and 3 put in plain sight of all sectors of the Birkenau camp, with no camouflage of any kind? Wouldn't this just create hundreds of thousands of "eyewitnesses", with everyone in the camp becoming well aware of the exterminations (and with many of these inmates later transferred to other camps in other parts of Europe to "spread the word" about the gassing program)? How could this profit the Nazis?
(9) It is claimed that there were four holes on the roofs of Kremas 2 and 3, which served as Zyklon B induction holes. The best piece of evidence that these holes ever existed is found in the U.S. aerial photos taken of Auschwitz during the war. Is there any discrepancy between the size of these holes as depicted in the U.S. aerial photos, and the size of the holes as depicted on the model of the Krema 2 gas chamber (on display at the Auschwitz State Museum and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum), the size as theorized by Jean-Claude Pressac in his book "Auschwitz; Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers", the size as depicted in the movie "Triumph of the Spirit" (which recreated a gassing at Krema 2), and the size as described over the decades by eyewitnesses? Indeed, can it be said that the holes as depicted in the aerial photos are ridiculously large...larger than what would have been needed for pouring in a can of Zyklon B gas?
(10) Why are the four holes not present today in the roof slab of Krema 2? The roof slab, though collapsed, is intact and both the top and underside of the roof are still visible. There are two crudely chiseled holes at opposite ends of the roof slab (one is more like a huge crack than a hole), but the other two holes are non existent, and the underside of the roof, with the two-by-fours lining the ceiling still visible, shows no sign of two holes having ever been present. There are also no traces of the two holes on the top of the roof. How can the absence of the two holes, and any traces of the two holes, be explained?
(11) What circumstances would produce the Krema 2 roof slab as we now see it, with two holes visible and the other two non-existent? If the Nazis attempted to erase the traces of the roof holes, why did they stop after two? Why would they expend much effort to erase all traces of two of the roof holes, then not make any effort to erase the two which survived the demolition?
(12) Could the still existing roof holes have been added after the liberation, by the Soviets or Poles? Doesn't Pressac admit that these two holes don't correspond with the positions of the holes in the aerial photos (Pressac says that this might be because the roof "shifted" during demolition, but even if the roof "shifted", that wouldn't account for why these holes, which were supposed to run in a straight line down the middle of the roof, have changed their positions, and are no longer in a straight line down the middle of the intact roof slab)? These holes are in incredibly bad condition; their edges are consistently rough, with not an inch of smoothness left. And they are no longer circular. They look like someone took a jack-hammer and roughly hammered through the roof slab. It is explained by Auschwitz State Museum officials that the demolition of the roof is what accounts for the awful condition of the holes (that is, they USED to be round and smooth until the demolition).
But if one observes the wreckage of the "undressing room" roof slab, which was similarly destroyed and is now in even worse shape than the gas chamber roof slab, one sees the remains of the undressing room front ventilation hole, which is still round and smooth even after the demolition and fifty years of laying around as rubble. Why did the undressing room roof hole survive intact, while the two still existing gas chamber roof holes emerged from the demolition without even the slightest trace that they had once been round and smooth? If we consider that the two still existing gas chamber roof holes don't correspond with their supposed position on the roof, can we theorize that MAYBE these two holes were chiseled in after the liberation? It is now admitted by the Auschwitz State Museum that the Soviets, after liberation, drilled four "Zyklon B induction holes" in the roof of Krema 1 (Auschwitz Main Camp). One needn't assume bad faith on the part of the Soviets (they might have honestly believed that they were "restoring" the roof to the state in which it had once been), but this act clearly establishes that the Soviets DID in fact drill post-liberation "Zyklon B induction holes" in roofs that, at that time, had none. Is it possible that this accounts for the two sloppy "Zyklon B induction holes" in the roof slab of the Krema 2?
(13) It is said that the Nazis destroyed Kremas 2 and 3 in order to hide the proofs of their gas chambers. But what "proof" of gassings would have been provided by Krema 2 if Krema 2 had not been dynamited? There are no heavy Zyklon B traces or blue stains on the walls, and great care was obviously taken to remove even the slightest trace of two of the Zyklon B induction holes. The Krema 2 gas chamber would have resembled an ordinary morgue. Was the destruction of Krema 2 an attempt to hide the evidence of a gas chamber, or simply the destruction of a cremation facility in the face of the advancing Soviets? Were cremation facilities at other camps, camps that were never claimed to have gas chambers, also destroyed?
(14) If one is to believe that four Zyklon B induction holes were at one time in the roof slab of Krema 2, it must be assumed that the Nazis went through great pains to meticulously hide any traces of at least two of those holes. Yet we are told that when the Soviets, after liberation, "reopened" the Zyklon B induction holes in the Krema 1 gas chamber state (at the time of liberation, it was being used as an air-raid shelter), they know exactly where to "reopen" the four holes because the traces where these holes had been were STILL VISIBLE. The idea that the Zyklon B induction hole traces were still visible is supported by the Auschwitz State Museum officials, and by author Jean-Claude Pressac. Why didn't the Nazis attempt to "cover-up" THOSE holes, especially keeping in mind that the Krema 1 gas chamber had been abandoned as a gas chamber AT LEAST a year before liberation, giving the Nazis more than enough time to erase the traces.
The Nazis were apparently able to do an incredibly good job of erasing the hole traces in the Krema 2 roof, even though time was short (the Nazis knew the Soviets were advancing, and they were busy making preparations to abandon the camp), yet we are told that they did NOT attempt to likewise cover up the hole traces in the Krema 1 roof slab, even though they had at least a year to do so. Why would the Nazis do such a fastidiously good job of hiding the existence of Zyklon B induction holes in a roof that they were then going to dynamite (Krema 2), yet allow the hole traces to remain in a roof that was left intact for the advancing Soviets (Krema 1)? Isn't that backwards?
Unanswered Questions Regarding the Physical Evidence at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp (Austria)
(15) The gas chamber at concentration camp Mauthausen (in Austria) has no locks on the doors, and no holes or fittings where locks may once have been. The doors can be opened from inside or outside. How could human beings have been gassed in this room?
(16) The peepholes in the two Mauthausen gas chamber doors have no hemispherical metal grid covering the glass, as would have been necessary to prevent the victims from knocking out the glass and causing a gas leak. There are no holes or fittings where a grid might once have been. Doesn't Pressac write extensively about the need for such hemispherical grids? Doesn't Pressac recount survivor testimony regarding the need for such grids during a homicidal gassing? With no grid, what stopped the inmates from knocking out the glass, using either their hands or the ample shower piping in the chamber?
(17) Why are there no Zyklon B traces, or blue stains, in this chamber?
(18) The hole in the ceiling of this chamber, through which the Zyklon B crystals were supposedly poured, is small enough to be blocked by the inmates hands, and the ceiling is low enough for them to block the hole. How could the Zyklon B be effectively poured in?
(19) There is a large drain in the floor of this room. There are no holes or fittings where a cover for this drain might have been attached. What would stop the victims from brushing the Zyklon B crystals down this drain?
(20) Unlike the Dachau "fake shower room", which indeed has fake shower heads (which were directly screwed into the concrete to a maze of water pipes which run the length of the ceiling AND across the walls. Doesn't this room resemble a real shower room? How do we know it wasn't?
(21) What would have been the wisdom of construction a fake shower room with such a maze of pipes running across the ceiling and walls? Wouldn't the victims have torn these fixtures down? Doesn't Pressac write about how the victims in the Auschwitz gas chambers would destroy the electrical fixtures and anything else in the chamber? Wouldn't the pipes serve as perfect weapons with which to smash a hole through the unguarded peepholes (not to mention the doors have no locks)? And if the prisoners didn't wish to block the Zyclon B induction hole with their hands, the showers heads would've fit inside the hole nicely. Why wasn't the "fake shower heads screwed directly into the ceiling" method (a la Dachau) employed here?
(22) Considering the absence of Zyklon B traces, locks on the doors, peephole covers, and a viable means of pouring in the Zyklon B, and factoring in the floor drain and the water pipes and genuine shower heads in this room, why can't we assume this was a genuine shower room?
Unanswered Questions Regarding the Physical Evidence at the Dachau Concentration Camp (Germany)
(23) The method of Zyklon B induction for the Dachau gas chamber is claimed to be via two chutes carved through one of the walls, through which the Zyklon B would be poured. What would have stopped the victims from putting their backs against the mouths of these chutes, thus preventing the crystals from entering the room?
(24) If the crystals WERE able to enter the room, the two chutes are located just above two large drains in the floor. There are no holes or fittings where covers for these drains might have been. What would stop the crystals from falling down the drains?
(25) There is a mystery room (not open to the public but visible through several windows) adjoining the gas chamber room. This room appears to have water and steam pipes which appear to lead into the gas chamber. Was the gas chamber room actually a shower? What is the purpose of this "mystery room"? What can be gained by ignoring this room which, it stands to reason, must have had SOME purpose?
(26) It is often said that the Nazis tried to hide the evidence of their extermination program by speaking in code, and rarely speaking of the exterminations on the record. It is similarly held that, as it became clear that they were losing the war, the Nazis tried to destroy the proofs of their crimes (the destruction of the four Birkenau Kremas is said to have been part of this "cover-up"). How, then, does one explain the Dachau gas chamber? The obviously false shower heads are incontrovertible proof of the homicidal purpose of this room. It is impossible not explain away the fake shower heads/a homicidal gas chamber. Yet we are to believe that this gas chamber was NEVER USED. And we are also supposed to believe that the room in its present state is exactly as the U.S. Army found it when the camp was liberated. Now, the details of the liberation of Dachau are well known: Dachau was not taken in some surprise attack. The guards at Dachau knew that the Americans were on their way. Therefore, we are asked to believe that the Nazis, KNOWING the camp would be surrendered, left the gas chamber room (which was not even being USED as a gas chamber) in a state which unashamedly points to its homicidal purpose. Why were the fake shower heads not removed?
Why was there no attempt at a "cover-up," like at Auschwitz? Unlike the Auschwitz gas chambers, THIS one was not even in use! What good was an unused room which only served to scream to the world "the Nazis are gassing the Jews"? Why would the Nazis, who were NOT using the "gas chamber" to kill people, leave it in this blatantly homicidal state, especially as the Americans drew closer? Keep in mind that, with the fake shower heads, this room was also impossible to us as a SHOWER. Therefore, this room served NO PURPOSE: it wasn't used as a gas chamber, and couldn't be used as a shower. We are asked to accept that the Nazis kept a large, USELESS room in one of the more important buildings in the Dachau camp (the "gas chamber" is located in the building which houses the Zyklon B clothing fumigation cubicles) and that this room remained UNUSED for years but was never stripped of the fake shower heads which pointed irrefutably to the Nazi's murderous intentions.
Surely, understanding the great pains the Nazis took to keep their gassing/extermination plans a secret, and the great pains they supposedly took at OTHER camps to "hide their crimes" once the Allies were advancing (i.e. the destruction of Kremas 2 through 5 at Auschwitz), we can expect that they would have performed the very simple task of removing the fake shower heads (and perhaps plastering over the marks where the shower heads had been). Why didn't the Nazis do this?
There might be a simple answer to the Dachau shower head issue. The height of the ceiling in the "Dachau gas chamber" is presently 7.6 feet. However, in Document L-159, No. 47 of the 79th Congress, 1st Session (Exhibit NO. USA-222; IMT, XXXVII, p. 621), which details the U.S. Army's investigation of the Dachau camp after liberation, the ceiling of this room is measured at 10 feet high. The fake shower heads which exist today embedded in the 7.6 foot high ceiling are made of sheet metal. Document No. 47 describes the 10 foot high ceiling as having "brass fixtures", which might very well have been genuine shower heads and pipes but which, in any event, are long absent from the ceiling of this room. Basically, sometime between the liberation of Dachau, and the media blitz regarding the "Dachau gas chamber", a 10 foot high ceiling with bass fixtures became a 7.6 foot high ceiling with cone-shaped sheet metal fake shower heads. How? I think we can take a guess!
Remember that the record of the U.S. Army (and the U.S. government, for that matter) is not very good when it comes to being honest about Dachau. If we are to assume that the Army created a fraudulent "gas chamber", it helps to understand that there is already proof that the Army was less than honest when presenting Dachau to the world. Most notable in this respect is the photographic sleight-of-hand which is still employed today (especially at the Weisenthal Center's high-tech "Museum of Tolerance" here in L.A.) where a photo of a door to one of the Dachau ZYKLON B FUMIGATION CUBICLES, complete with poisonous gas warning, skull and crossbones, and gassing schedule, is shown (often with a soldier standing in front) along with the caption that this is the door to the Dachau "HOMICIDAL" gas chamber (thus giving the impression that Zyklon B gas was used in the alleged homicidal gas chamber). This is pure fraud, and not the kind of fraud that the Army could have perpetrated "by accident". In pictures released by the Army, the doors to the small fumigation cubicles were portrayed as the doors to the alleged homicidal gas chamber...and this is something that doesn't happen by accident. For people like my mother and her family, Jews living in the U.S. during the forties, it's the Dachau gas chamber propaganda that they most clearly remember as their first exposure to the concept of homicidal gas chambers.
Unanswered Questions Regarding the Physical Evidence at the Majdanek Concentration Camp (Poland)
(27) Gas chamber 1 has two doors, both of which open INTO the gas chamber room. How can a homicidal gas chamber have two doors which open IN? Wouldn't the bodies be pressed up against the doors, as described numerous times by eyewitnesses?
(28) The main door into the gas chamber 1 has no locks. It can be opened from either the inside or the outside. There are no holes or fittings where a lock might have been. What stopped the inmates from opening this door?
(29) Gas chamber 1 has a plate glass window in it. There are no holes or fittings around the window where bars or any other kind of cover might once have been. Since the plaster around the window is covered with blue stains, we know that it is the plaster that existed during the time Zyklon B gas was used in this room. If there WERE bars or any other type of cover attached to this window, why are there no traces? What would have stopped the inmates from trying to climb out the window, or breaking the window and causing a gas leak?
(30) There is a room INSIDE gas chamber 1. Why would there be a separate room INSIDE a gas chamber? Doesn't this room indicate that gas chamber 1 was used for something OTHER than killing people?
(31) Gas chambers 2 and 3 are designed backwards. Chamber 2 has a Zyklon B induction hole in the ceiling, but no Zyklon B traces or blue stains. Chamber 3 has heavy, floor-to-ceiling Zyklon B traces and blue stains, but no Zyklon B induction hole. And, like the roof of Krema 2 at Auschwitz, the ceiling shows no sign of a hole having ever been there. Why would chamber 2 have a Zyklon B induction hole and no traces, and chamber 3 plenty of traces but no hole?
(32) The ceilings in chambers 2 and 4 are low enough so that the Zyklon B induction holes could have been blocked by the victims. What would have stopped the inmates from blocking the holes?
(33) The doors to chambers 2,3 and 4 are built to latch from the outside AND the inside. The latches can be opened from either side. Does this suggest that the rooms were used for something other than killing people?
(34) Getting back to the issue of hemispherical grids covering the peepholes, it is said that the point of these grids was to prevent the inmates from breaking the glass of the peepholes and causing a gas leak. Yet the hemispherical grids attached to the peepholes on the doors of chambers 2, 3 and 4 are attached on the OUTSIDE of the doors. These grids wouldn't prevent someone INSIDE the room from breaking the glass...but they WOULD prevent someone OUTSIDE the room from doing so. Why are the grids not on the inside? Does this contradict with the statements by Pressac and the eyewitnesses regarding the need for grids in a homicidal gas chamber?
(35) The Majdanek camp is built on a hill. At the top of the hill is the camp crematorium. At the opposite end of the camp, at the bottom of the hill, is the "Bath and Disinfection" complex, which houses the gas chambers. From the Nazi's point of view, what was the wisdom in putting the gas chambers at the opposite end of the camp from the ovens, and at the bottom of the hill (after each gassing, the dead bodies would have to have been dragged up the hill, the length of the entire camp, to the ovens)?
(36) As the Nazis were preparing to abandon the Majdanek camp, they destroyed the crematorium building. Why were the gas chambers not similarly destroyed? Why would the Nazis leave their weapons of mass murder intact for the world to see? How hard would it have been for the Nazis to destroy the gas chambers, just like they did the crematorium building? At least, shouldn't the Nazis have filled in the Zyklon B induction holes, which serve as direct proofs of homicidal gassings? Either way, the destruction of the crematorium is clear proof that the Nazis had both the time and the ability to demolish buildings in the camp if they wanted to. Why were the gas chambers not demolished?
(37) In his book "Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers", Jean-Claude Pressac publishes a photo of the Majdanek gas chambers, with the caption "Photograph taken at the Majdanek concentration camp in June 1979, showing one of the disinfestation gas chambers thought to be a homicidal gas chamber." On page 555, he also has this to say about the Majdanek gas chambers: "I am sorry to say, and I am not the only one in the West, that the Majdanek homicidal and/or delousing gas chambers are still waiting for a true historian, which is mildly upsetting in view of the fact that the camp fell into the hands of the Russians intact in 1944." Do these comments suggest that the gas chambers at Majdanek may in fact have been disinfestation gas chambers? At least, don't these comments suggest that there has not yet been a thorough investigation into the purpose of these rooms? **
(38) To sum up the Majdanek gas chamber issue: If we take Pressac's comments and then factor in the doors that don't lock, the doors that open INTO the gas chamber, the doors with latches that can be manipulated from both the outside AND the inside, the window in gas chamber 1, the room inside gas chamber 1, the lack of any Zyklon B induction hole in gas chamber 3, the lack of any Zyklon B traces in gas chamber 2 (which DOES have a "Zyklon B induction hole"), the heavy blue stains on the OUTSIDE of the building, and the location of the building, at the bottom of a hill, at the opposite end of the camp from the crematorium, is it reasonable to suggest that these rooms were delousing chambers?
In what can only be considered an unfortunate example of how major disputes between Holocaust historians are shielded from the public, the same room Pressac describes in his book as a "disinfestation gas chamber" is featured in the book "The World Must Know," the official book of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., written by Museum director Dr. Michael Berenbaum. In that book, Berenbaum describes the room as a HOMICIDAL gas chamber and, what's more, a CASTING of this room was made for display AT THE MUSEUM, as PROOF of the homicidal gas chambers! Thus, in both Berenbaum's book AND in the Museum itself, the ONLY material proof given of homicidal gassings is THIS ROOM, a room Pressac staunchly believes to be a disinfestation gas chamber (in fact, in his Auschwitz book, Pressac actually RIDICULES those who say that this Majdanek room is proof of homicidal gassings, and criticizes everyone from the man who prosecuted Faurisson in France to the Majdanek State Museum personnel for perpetuating a fraud).
But does anyone give a damn that the general public, all the millions, might be receiving fraudulent information? Some might suggest that disputes such as these should be kept private so as not to shake the public's confidence in Holocaust history, or in the Holocaust historians. But don't you think we have a RESPONSIBILITY not to knowingly feed the public falsehoods or unproven claims disguised as unquestioned facts? Don't you think we have a responsibility to be honest about our research? If not, what makes us any different from the "historians" of the Soviet Union, or Hitler's Germany, who knowingly tailored their research to produce a politically expedient conclusion? When the ends begin justifying the means, watch integrity go flying out the window.
As bad as the public misinformation about Majdanek is, the Stalin-esque purging of Pressac's "Auschwitz; Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers" from the official record is worse. This master-work of historiography, once loudly heralded in the press (see enclosed clippings), is NOW nowhere to be found when references to Pressac are made. A recent article in "Publishers Weekly," detailing a forthcoming U.S. Holocaust Museum book containing 29 original essays from Holocaust scholars including Berenbaum and Pressac, not only neglects to mention Pressac's gas chamber book, but seems to suggest that Pressac's conversion from revisionist to gas chamber believer came only recently, as he was researching his just-published "slim volume" about the Auschwitz crematorium. The entire period of the 1980's, which Pressac spent researching his gas chamber book after his "conversion", is omitted.
Yet scholars around the world continue to use Pressac's gas chamber book (if they're lucky enough to have one of the few copies), mainly because, even if one disagrees with Pressac's conclusions, his book is STILL the best (and the only) single source for the blueprints, construction slips, alteration plans, and inter-office communiques regarding the Auschwitz "gas chambers". Neither side in this debate agrees entirely with Pressac...but for the gas chamber supporters, his book is an embarrassment because it IS so thorough. It is the most thorough work yet produced about the gas chambers, yet Pressac cannot find that elusive objective proof of gassings. So now, apparently, the historians have just decided to pretend the book doesn't exist. I've always referred to the Pressac gas chamber book as the most popular book that never existed!
Four Unanswered Questions About Stutthof
When preparing the original 38 questions, I didn't bother with the tiny Stutthof "gas chamber" because so few people take it seriously anymore. Stutthof was the camp where the Nazis supposedly made the "human soap.". When the soap story was dropped, so was much of the testimony about the Stutthof "gas chamber." However, recently an NBC prime-time news show, "The Crusaders," decided to revive this rarely mentioned "homicidal gas chamber," producing a segment about Stutthof that played up the existence of an intact gas chamber at the camp. This segment of "The Crusaders" has now been adopted as part of California's public school Holocaust-education curriculum. Therefore, I thought a brief overview of, and a few questions about, the Stutthof "gas chamber" were in order
Brief Overview: The Stutthof concentration camp, located 35 km east of Gdansk, was designed for Polish civilians and designated as a "civilian internees camp." The Stutthof "gas chamber," a relatively small building (8 meters long, 3 meters wide, and 2.30 meters high) located next door to the camp crematorium (which was destroyed as the Nazis abandoned the camp, and has been rebuilt by the Poles) has walls soaked both inside and out with the tell-tale blue staining that comes from repeated Zyklon B usage. There is a stove and chimney outside, for heating the interior. Inside, a long clay heating conduit runs the length of one wall. This building was clearly a delousing gas chamber. The Zyklon granules would be placed on the heating conduit, and the stove would be fired up. The conduit would become hot, and the granules would release their gas. The two doors would then be opened for natural ventilation. This is an "old style" German Zyklon B delousing chamber, built before the more modern chambers, like the ones at Dachau, were designed (the newer, more energy efficient chambers came equipped with Zyklon evaporators, which would heat the granules on a kind of hot plate, and blow the gas onto the clothes, mattresses, etc. This was more energy efficient because it was a waste of fuel to heat an ENTIRE ROOM when it was only the ZYKLON GRANULES that needed to be warmed up. These Zyklon evaporators remain at Dachau today, in the delousing chambers of "Barrack X.").
The "evidence" of homicidal usage of the Stutthof gas chamber is a "Zyklon B induction hole" in the roof. We are told that the Zyklon would be poured in through the this hole on the heads of the unsuspecting victims. The roof of this chamber is accessible only via ladder.
Let's pause to read what Pressac has to say about Stutthof:
"It is not known when this gas chamber FOR DELOUSING PRISONERS' EFFECTS (emphasis his) was installed. Its dimensions are close to the standard dimensions of those erected by BOOS or DEGESCH...From 22nd June to the beginning of November 1944, it was used as a HOMICIDAL gas chamber for groups of about 100 people, Zyklon B being poured in through a small opening of 15 cm diameter in the roof, a system apparently introduced on the advice of SS Lieutenant Colonel Rudolf Hoess, former commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau and at that time head of Department D1 of the WVHA-SS (SS Economic Administration Head Office). While the history of this gas chamber is known from TESTIMONIES reported by Father Krzysztof Dunin-Wasowicz, there has been no scientific examination of the "murder weapon" since 1945, which means that we do not know how the chamber functioned as a delousing installation and are unable to provide material proof of its criminal use.
(Pressac cont.) The number of victims is estimated at one or two thousand. The visit (to Stutthof) did not greatly impress us." (Pressac; "Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers" pages 539-540)
The Stutthof Museum personnel agree with Pressac's claim that this was FIRST AND FOREMOST a delousing chamber, used as such for years, only LATER "converted"into a homicidal one.
Now, let's ask some questions, picking up from where we left off in the "38 Questions"
(39) The Stutthof "gas chamber" has a large floor drain right in the middle of the room, DIRECTLY BELOW the "Zyklon B induction hole." Any granules dropped through this hole would automatically go right down the drain. What's more, the floor of this room is DEPRESSED in the middle, where the drain is, so that any water or, in this case, Zyklon granules, would automatically roll into the drain. what would stop the Zyklon granules from going down the drain, since they were being poured into the room directly over this drain? And, if a few granules missed the drain, wouldn't they simply roll, or couldn't the inmates brush them, down the drain?
(40) The roof of this room is low enough so that a tall person could reach up and block the "Zyklon B induction hole." However, the thoughtful Nazis, by installing the heating conduit that runs the length of on wall, have made it possible for ANYONE, of whatever height, to stand on this conduit and block the hole. What would stop the inmates from blocking the "Zyklon B induction hole," especially since they would be EXPECTING foul play (this room was the official Stutthof delousing chamber, known as such by all the inmates. No Stutthof inmate would expect to be given a "shower" in this room, and indeed the Stutthof Museum makes no claims about such a deception (neither do the eyewitnesses)?
(41) Why was this building - a clear "proof" of Nazi crimes, what with its " Zyklon B induction hole," - not DESTROYED as the Nazis evacuated the camp? Amazingly, the crematorium RIGHT NEXT DOOR was blown up, and, in fact, one side of the gas chamber building was actually HIT by shrapnel from the exploding crematorium. Yet the gas chamber was allowed to remain intact, even though, as reported by the Stutthof survivor interviewed on the "Crusaders" TV show, at the end of the war the Nazis were ordered to KILL EVERY INMATE at Stutthof, in order to erase any evidence of the gassings (by killing all the eyewitnesses). For some unknown reason, this order was never carried out, and the Stutthof inmates were evacuated west.
Why would the Nazis BLOW UP the crematorium, yet leave the "homicidal" gas chamber standing? Why would the Nazis decide to KILL EVERY INMATE in order to "cover up" their crimes, yet leave the PHYSICAL EVIDENCE of those crimes standing? Why wouldn't the Nazis AT LEAST cover up the "Zyklon B induction hole," which would serve as CLEAR AND INDISPUTABLE PROOF of homicidal usage (unless we dare to imagine that this hole was put in by the Soviets/Poles, as they ADMIT doing at the building the Nazis abandoned knowing it was soon to fall into Soviet hands. Considering the great pains that the Nazis went through to "cover up" the gassings elsewhere, how hard would it have been to dynamite THIS building along with the crematorium just a few yards away?
(42) Since personal testimony is all we have to go on regarding the homicidal usage of this chamber, and since much of this testimony also mentions the "human soap" - which has long been officially debunked - what evidence do we have that the testimony about the Stutthof homicidal gas chamber is any more reliable than the testimony about the human soap?
I could add one more question (but I won't), something about the fact that the Stutthof gas chamber is located in full view of all the inmates, inmates who were NOT destined for extermination, and not, to a great extent, Jewish. Strangely, the secrecy-obsessed Nazis also seemed obsessed with conducting their homicidal gassings in the most open, noticeable places possible...especially at the non-"extermination" camps (at Mauthausen, another non-extermination camp, the "gas chamber" is right in the middle of the inmate barracks), thus hoping, I suppose, to create tens or hundreds of thousands of "eyewitnesses" to something the Nazis would not even discuss privately in coded transmissions. Go figure.
The following four questions are based on personal meetings I had during my last trip to Europe in October of 1994. In Lublin, Poland, I met with Tomasz Kranz, Curator of the Majdanek State Museum. I spoke at length with Mr. Kranz, who has been Curator for ten years, in his office on the Majdanek concentration camp site, Two weeks later, in a suburb outside Paris, I met with Jean-Claude Pressac, the celebrated Holocaust author who has become perhaps the man most recognized with defending the gas chamber theory. I met with Mr. Pressac in his office, and got to spend roughly six hours discussing gas chambers, Holocaust history, the demands of publishing in the mainstream, and much more.
For the purpose of this list of questions, I have chosen four simple ones based on these meetings.
(43) Majdanek Curator Tomasz Kranz had to admit, after I raised the same questions I've raised in this list, that the biggest Majdanek "gas chamber," chamber #1, was not intended or used homicidally. Big revelation. With the doors, window, and everything else that precludes homicidal usage, this is a conclusion even a five year old child would come to. Although Kranz could offer no evidence for homicidal usage in the other three chambers, chamber #1 was the only one he was willing to completely jettison as a homicidal room. Pressac went further. He is only willing to even CONSIDER homicidal gassings in chamber #3. Of course, he has no evidence. What's more, he admits that the Soviets laid down fake "gas piping" in chamber #3 to give the room the appearance of a homicidal gas chamber. This is certainly in keeping with Soviet precedent regarding the mishandling and faking of important historical evidence. Pressac could offer no REAL evidence for gassings in this room. But my question is: Why does Curator Tomasz Kranz continue to allow this room to be represented to tourists and the world as a homicidal gas chamber, when he privately acknowledges it never was? If there is agreement that this room was never homicidally used, why continue to promote it as a death chamber? If the Majdanek Curator and Europe's most well known Holocaust author express such uncertainty about homicidal usage of this and the other rooms, why are people like me who ask basic questions like these labeled as anti-Semitic irrational cranks? If, as Pressac believes, rooms 1,2 and 4 were not homicidal gas chambers, what evidence is there that anyone was killed in room 3?
(44) At Auschwitz Birkenau, the rooms in Kremas 4 and 5 that are supposed to have been used as homicidal gas chambers all had drains in the floor that led right into the camp sewage system. These floor drains can still be seen today. Since, in these "gas chambers," it is said that the Zyklon pellets were dumped in loose, what stopped the pellets from going down the drain or being kicked or brushed down by the victims? Pressac was aware of this problem. He has tried to prove that the Zyklon pellets would present no problem. He has tried to prove that the Zyklon pellets would present no danger in the camp sewer, since the water would (in his opinion; this is a debatable point) "neutralize" the poison so it wouldn't present a danger when going through Birkenau's large sewage treatment plants. But Pressac misses the point; the question of just how harmful the Zyklon would be in the sewer is SECONDARY to the point that if the Zyklon is IN the sewer that means it's NOT in the gas chamber doing the job the Nazis intended! If the victims can dump the Zyklon into the sewer, that means they themselves won't be gassed. How could these rooms have functioned as homicidal gas chambers?
(45) There is a large square manhole in the floor of the Krema 1 "gas chamber" at the Auschwitz Main Camp. The manhole has a concrete cover with a metal handle. It is possible for anybody of normal or even below-normal strength to lift off the lid, and the manhole is large enough for anyone of any size to climb down. What would stop the victims from climbing down the manhole to either escape the gas chamber via the sewer OR at least escape the gas? And even if escape wasn't possible, what would stop the victims from kicking or brushing the Zyklon B pellets down the manhole and closing the cover? There is something I should mention here, since several times I've talked about the possibility of the victims brushing the pellets down floor drains of in this, the worst case yet, a manhole. Zyklon B can kill a human being quite effectively when its gas is INHALED. It kills through the lungs. It doesn't kill through the skin (unless it is in contact with the skin for a very long period of time and in a very high concentration). Therefore, the pellets could easily be handled by victims in a gas chamber without posing any threat to the victims via absorption through the skin. In fact, a Zyklon mixture was frequently brushed directly onto people's arms and legs during disinfestation procedures at Auschwitz, and Zyklon was also used in a liquid solution to bathe people in for delousing. As for the Zyklon pellets giving off their gas, it should be remembered that Zyklon B begins giving off gas when warmed. The hotter it is, the quicker the evaporation.
Yet Kremas 1 ( and 2 and 3) were not only UNHEATED but partially or completely UNDERGROUND! All three rooms were used or designed as morgues; they were MEANT to be cold all the time. It has never been explained just how the Zyklon was heated, especially in the freezing winter months. The best that the other side can do is say that the body temperatures of the victims warmed the rooms. But that would take time, and the "confession" of Auschwitz Commandant Hoess speaks of a very swift process - herd 'em in, drop down the gas, ventilate the room. No time mentioned to let the victims warm up the room. Zyklon pellets dropped down into a cold room, landing on the cold floor, would not only give off gas slowly, but would be safe to brush down a drain or manhole. What would stop the inmates from doing this? (For the record, there is a floor drain in the Krema 1 "gas chamber" AS WELL as a manhole...but with a manhole of that size, the drain becomes almost irrelevant!)
In 1992 I ran my manhole question past Dr. Franciszek Piper, Senior Curator of the Auschwitz State Museum, and he had no answer. When I ran it by Pressac, he thought I was trying to put one over on him; he didn't believe there WAS a manhole in Krema 1! I was floored that he had never seen it. We argued about this for some time until I had to go through his files and find a picture of Krema 1 and POINT OUT the damn manhole. Now HE was floored. "Over the last ten years I've been to Krema 1 more times than I can possibly count," he said (in French, of course), " and I've never noticed the manhole!"
"The next time you go, Jean-Claude," I responded, "you should look down!" "Ah, that is the problem David," he said. "You look down while I look up." Well, for the record, I look up too. My aim is to notice things, to take these gas chambers seriously; to walk into these rooms and ask three questions:
"How is this gas chamber supposed to have worked?" "What would have happened if it worked that way?," "What evidence is there that it did?"
The mainstream historians gloss over the difficult questions. They have nothing to gain by challenging their own beliefs. As a result, all too often they don't pay attention to the crucial details of their own stories. They come up with their conclusion first, and then they only pay attention to the evidence that supports that conclusion. They don't look at ALL the evidence.
As a result, the mainstream Holocaust historians have only had to explain the problems and discrepancies in their story (like the absence of Zyklon B traces) after revisionists have pointed out these problems. Mainstream Holocaust historians have never tried to explain problems with the gas chamber story willingly; they've always had to be prodded into doing so. (This, by the way, is not a situation unique to Holocaust history. The value of a society where dissent is allowed to exist is that often times it is the existence of two or more opposing sides to an issue that prompts and encourages the search for the truth; each side critiques the other side mercilessly and, therefore, the public is made aware of possible flaws in ALL sides. If a school of thought is insulated from criticism, as Holocaust history is in all the countries where questioning the gas chambers in an illegal and punishable offense, that school of thought can remain unchecked for errors).
As for the manhole, apparently the other side has not yet been able to rationalize its presence in as supposedly homicidal gas chamber. I welcome their attempts. Maybe there's something I'M missing. It doesn't matter to me if one proceeds with the hypothesis that there were homicidal gas chambers, or with the hypothesis that there weren't. As long as we search in good faith for the facts. The only crime is to wish away the difficult questions, pretending they don't exist and slandering the people who do nothing more than ask them.
(46) Another thing I learned from Pressac is that he believes that the Krema 1 "gas chamber" had THREE "Zyklon B induction holes," running in a straight line in the ceiling. But the Auschwitz State Museum believes that there were FOUR holes, running in two lines of two holes. When the Poles and Soviets put holes in the Krema 1 roof after liberation, this is the version they installed; four holes in two lines. This is the version that can be seen today in Krema 1. But Pressac says they're wrong; it was THREE holes in a straight line. Who's right? Were there three holes or four? And how do we know that there were ever ANY holes? There are no holes present in any of the aerial photos, and there were no holes when the Soviets liberated the camp.
The important question is; HOW can such a debate (three holes or four?) among major Holocaust scholars exist in the first place? It is only because hard evidence for gassings at Auschwitz is so lacking that something like this can still be an issue fifty years later. Whatever the evidence for gassings at Krema 1, it is apparently not good ENOUGH evidence to provide a description of the gas chamber that all scholars can agree on. Now, it would be one thing if we had tons of SUPPLEMENTARY evidence (i.e. Zyklon B traces in the walls that were heavier than all the other rooms, evidence of people entering the building en masse and never coming out, a special ventilation system and heating equipment, or German coded transmissions or documents talking about gassings, etc.); then we could at least say "Well, we know there were gassings, we're just not sure about the design of the gas chamber." But there is no supplementary evidence. We have no description of the Krema 1 murder weapon, but we ALSO have no evidence of any murders in Krema 1. Even the best prosecutor in the world would be hard pressed to get a conviction were this case to be tried in any standard American court.
All that we have are testimonies. And just a few. Yet Pressac spends much of his gas chamber book demolishing these testimonies as false. We have the testimony of camp Commandant Hoess, the man who SHOULD have been able to provide us with the best description of the Krema 1 gas chamber, but Pressac, Hilberg, Lipstadt, Chris Browning, and most other Holocaust scholars dismiss his account as unreliable, fabricated, or just plain false. So what's left? Pressac searches in vain for ANY hard evidence to reproduce in his chapter on Kremas 1, and ends up with nothing. As a result, this chapter is perhaps the most awkward in Pressac's book. Pressac begins the chapter by affirming his belief in homicidal gassings in this room, but then goes on to offer no evidence, and what's more he doubts the credibility of the testimonies, which are the only evidence he offers. One is left saying "Jean-Claude Pressac believes in Homicidal gassings in Krema 1...I'm just not sure why."
What I try to do is look at the evidence that calls gassings into question (the manhole, the floor drain, the lack of Zyklon B traces, the absence of documentary evidence, the lack of evidence in the aerial photos, the lack of ventilation, the fact that the room is extremely cold, etc. etc.) and weigh that against any evidence FOR gassings (a few testimonies which the experts themselves doubt). You can see how a debate over the design of this "gas chamber" can still be raging among mainstream historians; it is because of the lack of evidence.
And it is therefore legitimate to ask, "If you don't know whether there were three or four holes, how do you know that there were ANY holes?"
For many (or some) of us that were subject to intensive Holocaust conditioning as kids in American public schools, we saw films of hundreds and thousands of piled bodies from old WWII footage a few times a year - year in, year out. We were told they were Jews that had been murdered, gassed mostly, by the Nazis. I recall seeing my first one of these films in the early 1970’s when I was about nine or ten years old.
It went on for my entire education in the Boston area and then in high school in Columbia, Md. when my family had moved. In 1978 when the NBC television miniseries “Holocaust” was required watching for my social studies class, it seemed perfectly natural that we were expected to sit through four nights of television that even Elie Wiesel called “untrue, offensive, cheap.”
As a kid, I always felt a little sledgehammered after being subjected to those movies in the darkened classroom, surrounded by my fellow students with the teacher sitting in the back to keep an eye on us to make sure we didn’t fool around or otherwise be distracted from the Important Information that was being injected into our still-forming minds. Dark rooms under veil of authority are very conducive to making certain that attention is given to what’s to be taken in.
What was being funneled into our brains was a steady diet of grainy black and white movies of Jews being herded through towns like cattle, bodies being bulldozed into pits, mass trench shootings, prisoners that looked like the walking dead, emaciated corpses piled like firewood. If you had a similar experience in school, you know of what I speak. Then there was usually some kind of after-lesson given by the teacher when we were at our most traumatized. Bad Nazis. Nice teacher.
And we all took it in, without question. Six million Jews died in gas chambers, were made into soap, burned in ovens. Four million Jews died in Auschwitz. Nazis made lampshades out of Jewish skin. Gas chambers in Germany. And thus was the core of my childhood education of the Holocaust. I never questioned what I’d been taught. I had no reason to. Leaving any idea of academia behind in 1980 when high school was over, I went along with my merry little life and to be honest, I didn’t think much about the Holocaust again.
That changed for me in the late 1990’s when I learned, via the internet and my own research afterwards, that the number of dead at Auschwitz had been revised downward from four million to one million, but the overall six million Jewish dead still stood as gospel. Or maybe five million as of now. It was six million no questions asked when I was a kid.
Anyway, over time I also learned that the soap stories had been deprecated, Jews hadn’t been made into lampshades after all and there hadn’t really been any gas chambers on German soil. Having to unlearn this new information was coupled with learning that people were being charged with and going to jail for having the wrong opinion about history when it came to the Holocaust by publicly stating that there was no evidence for mass exterminations of Jews by gas chamber.
Frankly, life was easier before the blinders came off. What had all of these people done to the Holocaust stories of my youth?
We all know what a gas chamber is. It can be defined. We know them from 1930’s gangster flicks, Perry Mason shows, etc. For better or worse, gas chambers have been a meme for decades, even before World War Two. The first person executed by gas chamber in the US was a native born Chinese named Gee Jon in 1924. The last person executed by gas chamber in the US was in 1999, a German national named Walter LaGrand. Life’s funny like that.
It’s difficult to find a hard and fast definition of the term holocaust denial, though the term is used on a daily basis in the international media. As an aside that might have meaning or not, a google search for gas chamber yields fewer results than a google search for holocaust denial. I’ll leave it to the reader to pull that one apart.
So is there evidence of mass extermination of Jews by gas chamber? There’s much eyewitness and anecdotal evidence. There’s Yankel Wiernik’s “A Year In Treblinka”, published in 1945. In it, he claims that 1200 people were put into rooms that were about 400 square feet and gassed. This displays one of the difficulties of anecdotal evidence. Fitting 1200 people in what is essentially a small garage is a little difficult to imagine.
The most approachable analysis I’ve found is David Cole’s “The Truth Behind The Gates Of Auschwitz” (Part I, Part II). Cole’s Forty-Six Important Unanswered Questions Regarding the Nazi Gas Chambers is also helpful. In it, he asks the simply legitimate question, “If you don’t know whether there were three or four holes, how do you know that there were ANY holes?” It should be noted that Cole, who is Jewish, was apparently forced by threat and blackmail by the Jewish Defense League into recanting his research and withdrawing from ever speaking of the Holocaust again.
A quiz:
1. How many Chinese died in World War Two? 2. How many Russians died in World War Two? 3. How many Americans died in World War Two? 4. How many Jews died in World War Two?
You most likely know the answer to #4 without having to look it up. Most of us would have to look up the other answers too. I guess it was more important for us to learn some things rather than others.
It took me until a couple of years ago to realize that our conditioning is so deep that when the programmed individual is asked to consider what evidence exists for gas chambers, what the programmed individual hears is, “No Jews were killed by the Nazis”. That’s exactly how the programming is supposed to work. It makes possible the use of the term ‘Holocaust denier’ to keep the unconditioned sheep out of the fold.
In High American Culture of the 21st Century, there’s few greater curses thrown than that of “Holocaust Denier”. It’s gotten people deported and jailed in foreign countries while multi-billion ripoff artists are sentenced to their mansions.
This conditioning is often protected through an emotional reaction. Many people get downright angry when gas chambers and evidence are brought up in the same sentence. We see this same reaction in people that have an overarching attachment to religious or political systems also. It’s not a rational, reasoned reaction to a rational, reasonable request. For others, the reaction is one of apathy. Apathy protects the conditioning by ensuring that the source of the conditioning won’t be examined and thus, the conditioning remains.
This Holocaust conditioning is the vicegrip of a perception that lends itself to much evil being allowed to happen. By at least examining what one thinks one does or doesn’t know about the Holocaust, that grip is broken just a little bit and perception can be allowed to change rather than dictated to.
“In forging their own brand of totalitarianism in the U.S., the Zionists continue to manipulate the victims of the Nazi holocaust as their chief weapon.” - Alfred Lilienthal
The way Ron Paul tells it, his more than 30 years of speaking and writing about money, inflation, and the Federal Reserve System attracted only limited interest outside libertarian and constitutionalist circles. The subject, and Paul as its spokesman, were scarcely to be found in the media, even—or perhaps especially—on the business networks.
But Paul’s 2008 presidential bid changed that. Suddenly the Fed was on the table for discussion for the first time since Congress established it in 1913. With Paul making the evils of central banking and fiat money a theme of his campaign, the issue took on a vigor that few expected. Even calling for the Fed’s outright abolition was longer unheard of on the television news networks.
When Paul first raised the issue in his campaign, he had no idea what he was tapping into. “I didn’t realize people your age knew so much about money and inflation,” he told a rally at the University of Pittsburgh last year. “But it gets the largest applause at college campuses. I figured the first time it happened [at the University of Southern California] it was an accident. … But then at the University of Michigan, they started to burn Federal Reserve Notes.”
To Paul’s surprise, some of his loudest applause lines involved salvos against the Fed. Chants of “End the Fed!” greeted his denunciations of the economic damage the central bank was unleashing. An underappreciated reason for Paul’s fundraising prowess was his outspoken opposition to the Fed, a subject that had long been off limits in American politics. Eventually, a national organization called End the Fed, with local chapters around the country, gave institutional expression to the issue, sponsoring a series of demonstrations against the central bank in 39 cities last November.
This is a new phenomenon on the Right. The libertarian and conservative think tanks that liberally invoke the names of Austrian School economists like F.A. Hayek have tended to ignore these men’s opposition to central banking, a position too politically incorrect even for those who pride themselves on their willingness to defend unpopular positions. The Ludwig von Mises Institute and the Foundation for Economic Education have been among the handful of exceptions to this rule, providing the scholarly infrastructure to convert what was sometimes an inchoate unease about the Fed among Paul supporters into well-honed arguments.
Unlike in the past, moreover, commentators with high media profiles now defend this view of money and central banking. Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, may be the best known of these. Schiff foretold the crisis before it happened, including the bankruptcy of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. His books Crash Proof and The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets, both of which have sold well, take an Austrian approach to current conditions. A grassroots movement is even trying to draft Schiff, a resident of Connecticut, to run for U.S. Senate against Chris Dodd in 2010.
Schiff isn’t alone. Famed investor Jim Rogers calls for the abolition of the Fed when he’s a guest on business networks. Indeed, he predicts the Fed’s demise sometime in the next ten years. Another Austrian analyst all over television and the print media is James Grant, editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer. Similarly high-profile is Mish Shedlock, whose Global Economic Trend Analysis blog takes a reliably anti-Fed position.
It’s not surprising that arguments against the Fed are finally resonating. Since the crisis began in 2007, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke has engaged in all manner of emergency activity, much of it unprecedented and of such dubious legality that even some of those who may reject or be unfamiliar with arguments against the Fed have begun to wonder about the unaccountable power this institution wields over the economy.
For example, John Hussman of Hussman Funds accused the Fed of going beyond its legal boundaries when it offered a $30 billion “non-recourse loan” to J.P. Morgan, which was secured by the worst of Bear Stearns’s mortgage debt. The Fed is supposed to provide liquidity to the banking system or shore up the solvency of a non-bank institution. This loan was neither. J.P. Morgan was in no financial trouble: it was “effectively offered a subsidy by the Fed at public expense.”
Shedlock is even more blunt: “The Fed simply does not care whether its actions are illegal or not. The Fed is operating under the principle that it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission. And forgiveness is just another means to the desired power grab it is seeking.”
The most significant argument against the Fed, though, is not political but economic. The Austrian view is that a central bank is not merely unnecessary but harmful. There is no need for a monopoly institution, by means of artificial money creation, to prevent the natural and healthy phenomenon of falling prices. There is likewise no need for a “lender of last resort” for the banking industry any more than for the personal computer industry or the shellfish industry. As long as the banking system is run on sound principles—an unlikely outcome, while there is a central bank with powers to prop up unsound banks—there is no reason for the bankruptcy of one or two major banks to provoke a systemic crisis, as can happen under the Fed system.
Then there are the problems that stem from artificial money creation. Not only do people on fixed incomes suffer from the rising prices that increases in the money supply bring about, but the process of money creation inevitably enriches politically well-connected groups at the expense of everyone else. The powerful are in a position to receive the newly created money first and spend it before prices have commensurately risen. Still other problems are discussed in the major Austrian treatments of money, including Mises’s Human Action and Murray Rothbard’s The Case Against the Fed.
Under a commodity standard, people could save for the future by accumulating gold and silver coins. The coins’ value appreciated over time because of their natural increase in purchasing power, as the relatively slow increase in the production of precious metals was outpaced by the much faster increase in the production of other goods and services. Today, only a fool would try to save for the future by piling up dollar bills. Everyone is forced to enter the financial markets, which are risky even for knowledgeable investors, in order to prevent the value of his retirement savings from vanishing before his eyes.
Austrian business cycle theory, which Paul has made a point of explaining, blames the central bank for the boom-bust cycle. (And yes, it can also account for financial panics that occurred before the Fed was established.) Under fiat money, currency without commodity backing, the central bank can artificially lower interest rates by increasing the supply of money—and thus the funds banks have available to lend—through the banking system. This is supposed to stimulate the economy. What it actually does is mislead investors into embarking on investments that the artificially low rates seem to validate but that cannot be sustained under existing economic conditions. Unprofitable investments are made to seem profitable, and over time the result is the squandering of untold resources in lines of investment that should never have been begun.
If lower interest rates are the result of increased saving by the public, those greater saved resources provide the means with which to see the additional investment through to completion. But the situation is very different when lower interest rates result from the Fed’s creation of new money out of thin air. In that case, lower rates do not reflect an increase in the pool of savings from which investors can draw. Fed tinkering, in other words, does not increase the real stuff in the economy. The additional investment that the lower rates encourage therefore leads the economy down a path that is not sustainable.
That is how the Austrians knew the present bust was coming. The preceding boom had been based not on real factors but on bubble conditions created by the Fed’s artificial credit expansion. It had to end in a bust, as Mises and Hayek said. That’s also what they said in 1928 and 1929, as respectable opinion hastened to assure everyone that business cycles were a thing of the past.
To be sure, while the Fed is slowly but surely becoming an issue for discussion in politics and the media, as yet only a small segment of the population opposes—or indeed knows much about—the central bank. But because this issue is one about which most Americans are lethargic or uninformed, that small and growing segment can influence public life on a scale out of proportion to its numbers. And the presence of this once-excluded point of view makes it harder for the regime to pretend that economic crises have no cause, that no person or institution is to blame for them, and that the federal government and its central bank have the solutions.
Paul is said to be finishing a book on the Federal Reserve for 2009 release. If it should become a bestseller, the profile of the anti-Fed campaign will be raised still higher.
The End the Fed movement likewise is pressing forward. Organizer Steven Vincent says the group is coordinating a series of rallies in 40 cities on April 25, to be followed by an event at the National Press Club at which they will present the fruits of their nationwide petition campaign in support of Congressman Paul’s Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act.
As the economic crisis continues to worsen, it will become harder and harder to portray old-school Keynesianism as “change,” and the potential audience for the Austrian message will only grow. That, one hopes, is a silver lining to the disaster the Fed has unleashed.
AMSTERDAM, Jan 9 (IPS) - On the phone from Gaza, Zahrah Salem shares the news she has just seen, that so many at the White House were “deeply saddened” by the death of the cat India Willie (see picture above). Why, she asks, is nobody at the White House deeply saddened by the death of so many children in Gaza.
After a pause she says, “At least the cat did not die hungry, like the children in Gaza.”
Zahrah Salem, 64, has four children and 15 grandchildren to worry about. Day after day of bombing brings blessing they are still there. “We all sleep in one room,” she says. “So if we die, we die together. What if we die and the children don’t, we don’t want to leave them behind to suffer.”
These days the injuries suffered by this IPS correspondent at the hands of the Israelis on trying to return home to Gaza seem trivial in the face of what is going on in Gaza. And in the face of the fears over the fate of family and friends back home.
From the comfort of a hospital in Amsterdam, thoughts seem focussed day and night on survivors, on who might perhaps be in hospital in Gaza – lucky enough to make it to hospital, lucky enough perhaps to be still there. And on what a very different place a hospital in Gaza can be from one in Amsterdam.
“We do not receive patients, we receive remains,” says Ahmed Abdelrahman, a staff nurse at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The sound of ambulance sirens screams into the phone as we speak. “It is a job sometimes to put limbs together in the morgue, to find out which body part belongs to who.”
Staff risk their lives to save the injured. “We have been shot at many times as we evacuate injured people or collect bodies,” says Abdelrahman. “I have as we speak eight calls from the east side from people who are bleeding, including two women. But our ambulance crew was fired on by the Israelis as they went to help.”
Dr. Mawia Hassanien, head of emergency services at Shifa Hospital says at least 12 emergency workers have been killed and 32 injured. Eleven ambulances have been destroyed.
The injured who are brought to hospital successfully find little treatment possible. The Egyptian authorities have opened the Rafah crossing briefly on a few occasions to allow in medical supplies. But that is a small fraction of what Gaza needs.
Many in Gaza, including Hamas members, say they do not know what to do to stop this. Some scattered groups not under Hamas control continue to fire rockets into Israel. These rockets have killed four and injured 40, and spread serious anxiety among Israelis in Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba, Sderot and some other towns in western Negev.
But the rockets are only an excuse for Israel to destroy the Palestinian structure, Gazans say. An Israeli military spokesman has said the Israeli Defence Forces trained for the attack 18 months at a model of the main city on a desert army base. “Our soldiers know all the back streets where the targets are,” he said.
Abu Ghasam, 42, of Buriej refugee camp, says he cannot understand the Israeli assault, and “why the people being killed are the civilians here, and not the ones launching the rockets.”
Ghasam, father of six, has little time to worry about these questions, though. His main concern is to use a few hours of ceasefire to buy bread for his children. He usually finds bakeries closed. For the safe, hunger is now becoming a greater problem, by the hour.
Zahrah Salem knew people close by who have been killed. She can see the mourning tents. “But I am afraid to go and pay condolences,” she says. “The Israeli planes are hitting us everywhere.”
She can hear them again and again, and she can hear the bombs and missiles come screaming down. But she does not close the window. If the bomb just misses you, there will be the glass splinters.
YEA, LIKE IN THE DRUG PUSHER TO THE JUNKIE!
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