Senate to investigate chemical assessment program
WASHINGTON - A Senate committee is looking into a report that says the Bush administration is hampering the ability of Environmental Protection Agency scientists to assess the health dangers of toxic chemicals.
The head of the EPA's pesticide and toxic chemical office was to testify Tuesday before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, along with an official of the Government Accounting Office that has just concluded an investigation of the EPA's chemical risk assessment program.
The GAO report, obtained by The Associated Press, said the EPA's ability to conduct timely, science-based risks assessments was being undermined by allowing greater involvement in the process by non-scientists, often in secret.
The administration's decision to give the Defense Department and other agencies an early role in the process adds to years of delay in acting on harmful chemicals and jeopardizes the program's credibility, the GAO concluded.
At issue is the EPA's screening of chemicals used in everything from household products to rocket fuel to determine whether they pose serious risk of cancer or other illnesses.
A review process begun by the White House in 2004 and imposed formally by the EPA earlier this month is adding more speed bumps for EPA scientists, the GAO said in its report.
GAO investigators said extensive involvement by EPA managers, White House budget officials and other agencies has eroded the independence of EPA scientists charged with determining the health risks posed by chemicals.
Many of the deliberations over risks posed by specific chemicals "occur in what amounts to a black box" of secrecy because the White House claims they are private executive branch deliberations, the report said.
The Pentagon, the Energy Department, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and other agencies — all of which could be severely affected by EPA risk findings — are being allowed to participate "at almost every step in the assessment process," the GAO said.
Those agencies, their private contractors and manufacturers of the chemicals could face new restrictions on using the chemicals and be saddled with major cleanup requirements, depending on the EPA's scientific determinations. The risks data is widely used by EPA and states to determine levels of regulation and cleanup standards.
"By law the EPA must protect our families from dangerous chemicals," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the Senate committee's chairwoman. "Instead, they're protecting the chemical companies."
The EPA's risk assessment process "never was perfect," Boxer said in an interview Monday. "But at least it put the scientists up front. Now the scientists are being shunted aside."
The White House said the GAO is wrong in suggesting that the EPA has lost control in assessing the health risks posed by toxic chemicals.
"Only EPA has the authority to finalize an EPA assessment," Kevin F. Neyland, deputy administrator of the White House budget office's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote in response to the GAO. He called the inter-agency process "a dialogue that helps to ensure the quality" of the reviews.Ha... very funny, would that be all the Bush administration is hampering?
MAYDAY ALERT! -- Terror Drills Could Go Live!>By Dr. James H. Fetzer
Major William B. Fox
Captain Eric H. May
SFC Donald BuswellThe name "false flag" comes from the old pirate's ruse of flying another country's flag during an attack, thereby shifting blame for the attack to a party that had nothing to do with it. Governments use false flag attacks to push their nations into dictatorship or war. As military experts, we fear that national terror drills, scheduled for May 1-8, could be used to camouflage a false flag attack in the United States.
Strategic Signals
Yesterday an American-flagged ship fired on the Iranian Navy, and now Pentagon sources say that they have been ordered to prepare attack plans. Admiral "Fox" Fallon, the Centcom commander who opposed war with Iran, has been ousted in favor of Bush loyalist General David Petraeus, who has spent the last month accusing Iran for our increasing problems with the Iraqi resistance.
Saudi Arabia has been preparing for nuclear fallout from an attack on Iran since last month, when Dick Cheney paid a visit. Israel has just finished its largest-ever domestic war drills. Israel and the Bush administration are insisting that Syria and North Korea are nuclear collaborators. Syria is preparing for the contingency of an Israeli attack. Iran is preparing for the contingency of a US attack. US government insiders speculate that Bush has promised Israel an expanded Middle East war before he leaves office.
The Neo-Cons are pounding their war drums again, according to Dr. James H. Fetzer, the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, and he believes that nothing would help them spread their imperial war in the Middle East as much as another 9/11.
He has just published "9/11 and the Neo-Con Agenda." The article is a must-read introduction for anyone wanting to understand the origins and aims of the " global war on terror."
Domestic Discord
Inside the US, Bush approval ratings are well below 30%, and approval ratings for the U.S. Congress and mainstream media are even lower. Over three quarters of the American people believe that the country is on the wrong track, and just as many want to end the quicksand war in the Middle East. The economy is crashing as fuel prices are skyrocketing. The Establishment is losing its grip on power. It would take another 9/11 to make the nation forget its domestic woes and resume its lost zeal for the Neo-Con "new American century" of foreign wars and a domestic police state.
In his much-discussed February article, "False Flag Prospects, 2008," Captain Eric H. May documented the disturbing fact that military and police exercises were occurring at the same time as the 9/11 US attacks in 2001 and the 7/7 UK bombings in 2005. In that prescient article, he designated the Pacific Northwest as one of the top three target zones for the next US false flag attack, and the Pacific Northwest will be the target of terror drills May 1-8.
Should a major event occur during the drills, the Bush administration is prepared to implement National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 51, which establishes dictatorship "in the event of a man-made or natural catastrophe." It is an extraordinary measure, and the White House has stonewalled Homeland Security Committee members from the House of Representatives who wanted to read it. One of those members, Oregon's Peter DeFazio summed up the feeling of many Americans about NSPD 51 when he said "Maybe the people who think there's a conspiracy out there are right."
Fears that a false flag attack might result in martial law are nourished by last week's militaristic Operation Sudden Impact, reported by Infowars.net writer Steve Watson: "Three States Subjected to Martial Law Sweeps"
National Level Exercise 8-02
NLE 2-08 will involve the very highest levels of Homeland Security and the US Northern Command. Both "Homesec" and "Northcom" were established by the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11 to take control of the nation in the event of another terrorist attack. They will be joined by FEMA in the May 1-8 exercise, which is one of the two largest terror drills scheduled this year.
On Thursday, May 1, the exercise begins in Washington, when an explosion collapses the Alaska Way viaduct in downtown Seattle and damages surrounding buildings. Twenty minutes later, terrorists explode a hijacked tanker ship filled with highly toxic chemicals at the Seattle Ferry Terminal. Deadly gas soon permeates downtown Seattle.
Emergency responders come in waves. Police and firemen, first to arrive, are quickly overwhelmed. The state deploys its 22-member Civil Support Team, a National Guard unit, to assess the damage and coordinate support. Later, 100 soldiers from a chemical battalion based in Yakima arrive to rescue, decontaminate and treat survivors. Finally, 5,000 troops arrived to handle logistics and security.
On Monday, May 5, the scenario shifts to Oregon where VX, the most toxic nerve agent ever synthesized, erupts from the Umatilla Army Depot.
The next day, terrorists blow up a chemical tanker in Ferndale, Washington. The county sheriff requests national support, and a Marine Corps chemical warfare detachment from Ft. Lewis, Washington responds.
According to sources at Northcom, NLE 2-08 will involve "robust play," with "surprise injects" of unanticipated events in which participants are "stretched to the limit" and have "everything thrown at them except the kitchen sink." All of this makes it easier for the exercise to "go live" by having a real catastrophe occur.
As the Pacific Northwest scenario is playing out, Washington, DC will be simulating a catastrophic hurricane as part of the same exercise. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to suggest that this puts Dick Cheney back in the bunker he occupied during 9/11.
Citizens interested in understanding how local, state and national levels of the military can be manipulated into working against us should read "The Real Drill" by Major William B. Fox, about Portland area terror drills last year.
Mission of Conscience
Many American citizens are deeply concerned about police militarization, and about government and media preconditioning of our nation for future terror attacks and martial law. We recommend that they monitor NLE 2-08 closely. Armed with cell phones, cameras and the Internet, they are the single greatest deterrent against false flag terror.
If we, the co-authors of this alert, are in error about anything, then we invite reasonable officials to investigate us and our assertions at the very highest levels. In the past we have too often met with hostility, evasion or deception by officials involved in terror drills. We have been stonewalled when we have requested access to an extended schedule of unclassified military and police terror drills.
We believe that there is a pattern of official retaliation against patriotic service members who ask questions about 9/11 and false flags.
In 2006, Sergeant First Class Donald Buswell, an Army military intelligence NCO, suggested that 9/11 might have been a false flag operation. Within a month the decorated 40-year-old Iraq war veteran suffered a freak pulmonary embolism, which nearly killed him. After he was released from the hospital, his command accused him of disloyalty for his remarks, and subjected him to an extensive military investigation. Ultimately, he was fully exonerated, and the now-retired Buswell has become widely known on the Internet as the "9/11 NCO." Stephen Webster, writing for The Lone Star Iconoclast, gained national attention with his story about Buswell, "Under Fire! U.S. Army Intelligence Analyst Targeted for Suggesting New Independent 9/11 Investigation."
The duty to keep the government honest isn't optional for those of us who have taken an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It has always been difficult, and even dangerous, to serve the American people. We call on all active-duty soldiers, police and first responders to obey their oaths by asking questions that need to be asked, and by thinking twice before blindly carrying out orders that may result in an a false flag attack against their country. We urge leaders of those soldiers, police and first responders to explain that diligence is not disloyalty, and that no one ceases to be a free American citizen by putting on a uniform.
Issuing an alert -- as we are doing now -- is not an instance of "crying wolf," as Bush administration apologists often assert. As military-trained experts, we are convinced that the US 9/11 and UK 7/7 attacks were set up under the camouflage of terror drills. The existence of a wolf is not in question. The wolf of false flag terror has killed our fellow citizens and frightened our country into needless wars. It's our mission of conscience to keep it from striking again.Dr. James H. Fetzer and Major William B. Fox are former Marine Corps officers. Captain Eric H. May and Sergeant First Class Donald Buswell are former members of Army intelligence.
Memorandum of Agreement between the governments of the United States of America and Israel-Oil, March 26, 1979.The oil supply arrangement of September 1, 1975, between the Governments of the United States and Israel, annexed hereto, remains in effect. A memorandum of agreement shall be agreed upon and concluded to provide an oil supply arrangement for a total of 15 years, including the 5 years provided in the September 1, 1975 arrangement.
The memorandum of agreement, including the commencement of this arrangement and pricing provisions, will be mutually agreed upon by the parties within sixty days following the entry into force of the Treaty of Peace between Egypt and Israel.
It is the intention of the parties that prices paid by Israel for oil provided by the United States hereunder shall be comparable to world market prices current at the time of transfer, and that in any event the United States will be reimbursed by Israel for the costs incurred by the United States in providing oil to Israel hereunder.
Experts provided for in the September 1, 1975 arrangement will meet on request to discuss matters arising under this relationship.
The United States administration undertakes to seek promptly additional statutory authorization that may be necessary for full implementation of this arrangement.
M. Dayan
For the Government of Israel
Cyrus R. Vance [at the time, Secretary of State]
For the Government of the United States
Annex to the Memorandum of Agreement concerning 0il
ANNEX
Israel will make its own independent arrangements for oil supply to meet its requirements through normal procedures. In the event Israel is unable to secure its needs in this way, the United States Government, upon notification of this fact by the Government of Israel, will act as follows for five years, at the end of which period either side can terminate this arrangement on one-year's notice.
(a) If the oil Israel needs to meet all its normal requirements for domestic consumption is unavailable for purchase in circumstances where no quantitative restrictions exist on the ability of the United States to procure oil to meet its normal requirements, the United States Government will promptly make oil available for purchase by Israel to meet all of the aforementioned normal requirements of Israel. If Israel is unable to secure the necessary means to transport such oil to Israel, the United States Government will make every effort to help Israel secure the necessary means of transport.
(b) If the oil Israel needs to meet all of its normal requirements for domestic consumption is unavailable for purchase in circumstances where quantitative restrictions through embargo or otherwise also prevent the United States from procuring oil to meet its normal requirements, the United States Government will promptly make oil available for purchase by Israel in accordance with the International Energy Agency conservation and allocation formula, as applied by the United States Government, in order to meet Israel's essential requirements. If Israel is unable to secure the necessary means to transport such oil to Israel, the United States Government will make every effort to help Israel secure the necessary means of transport.
Israeli and United States experts will meet annually or more frequently at the request of either party, to review Israel's continuing oil requirement.
Source: Israeli Foreign Ministry Under a 1975 Memorandum of Understanding the USA guaranteed all Israel's oil needs in the event of a crisis. This Memorandum of Understanding is quietly renewed every five years. It commits U.S. taxpayers to maintain a strategic U.S. reserve for Israel, equivalent to $3 billion in 2002 dollars. Special legislation was enacted to exempt Israel from restrictions on oil exports from the USA. Moreover, the U.S. government agreed to divert oil from the USA, even if this causes domestic shortages. The U.S. government also guaranteed delivery of oil in U.S. tankers if commercial shippers become unable or unwilling to carry oil from the USA to Israel.The British built the Kirkuk-to-Haifa pipeline in 1927. In 1934, they completed a 12-inch pipeline from the Kirkuk fields to Al-Haditha on the Euphrates River. At that point the pipeline forked. One branch went through Syria to Tripoli (Lebanon). The other went across Jordan to Haifa. The British built refineries at both Tripoli and Haifa to handle this Iraq oil. (In World War II, Germany wanted to get control of this oil.)
In 1945 the British added a parallel 16-inch pipeline in Syria. When Jews started to invade Palestine in 1945, Syria shut down its branch to Tripoli. Iraq shut down all oil from from Kirkuk to Haifa. At that point, most of northern Iraq’s oil went to the Turkish port city of Gihan, which was okay with the USA, since Turkey was a U.S. ally against the USSR. Turkey collect transit fees for this oil.
In 1947 the British oil refinery at Haifa still handled trickles of oil from miscellaneous areas, and still employed some 1,700 Arab workers, plus 360 Jewish employees. The Arab and Jewish workers formed a union to oppose British tyranny. Then the UN General Assembly created Israel. Immediately IRGUN (aka ETZEL, commanded by Menachem Begin), plus the Hagana and other terrorist groups moved in. IRGUN had bombed the King David Hotel the year before, and they started massacring Arabs in Haifa and elsewhere. They also killed British people.
In 1952, western oil companies built two new lines through Syria to Tripoli. The pipeline to Haifa was allowed to decay. Pieces of it were dismantled. Various interests used the pieces to build water pipelines.
In 2003, Bush invaded Iraq, partly to revive the pipeline to Haifa, and partly to bring oil deals to his personal friends, such as Ray L. Hunt. Small American oil companies like Hunt Oil will extract Kurdish oil as soon as Mosul and Kirkuk are broken off from Iraq... Mosul is the first stop for Kirkuk oil. From there the pipeline will go through an Arab part of Iraq. Americans will guard those sections for Israel. Then the pipeline will enter Jordan and continue to Haifa.
When the Haifa pipeline opens back up, Jordan, not Israel, will collect hefty transit fees. Kurdish oil will go to Europe via Israel, not Turkey. This is one reason why the Turks are threatening to invade. The minute Bush invaded Iraq, the Turks realized that the pipeline to Haifa would be opened back up. Therefore the Turks tried to make deals with Central Asian states (such as Azerbaijan) to get new pipelines to Turkey, but now Iran and Russia have foiled Turkish plans by forming the new alliance of Caspian Sea states. Turkey feels squeezed. This is yet another reason why they are threatening to invade northern Iraq.
I do not know who is building the Haifa pipeline. The logical choice is Bechtel Inc., but Bechtel has never been fond of working with Israelis. Therefore it is probably Halliburton, or perhaps an Israeli company.
Shortly after the 2003 invasion, Benjamin Netanyahu (who was then the Israeli finance minister) boasted, “Soon you will see Iraqi oil flowing to Haifa. It is just a matter of time until the pipeline is reconstituted, and Iraqi oil will flow to the Mediterranean. It's not a pipe dream.”
Netanyahu was punished for this outburst, since the Haifa pipeline was supposed to be secret. Netanyahu longs to be back in power, and constantly shoots off his mouth in the hope of being seen as an “insider.” Most recently he did this by announcing the 6 Sep 07 Israeli air attack on Syria, at a time when Israel wanted to keep that a secret. This is why Netanyahu is persona non grata among Israelis. When AIPAC holds its giant conventions in Washington every spring, AIPAC does not allow Netanyahu to open a booth in the convention center, or hold press conferences there...
For the last several years, most people, even Arabs, have been skeptical about the pipeline to Haifa, since they cannot face the reality of an Iraq partition. However, Kurds are not Arabs.
Shiite oil in the south will continue to go through terminals in the Basra area. This will hep provide cover for the northern pipeline to Israel.
Egypt also has a pipeline from Iraq. It also goes through Jordan, but it does not end in Haifa. The Jordanians and Israelis will close that pipeline when the new pipeline to Haifa is complete. This will increase Israeli power over Egypt.
Eventually the American public will learn about the Haifa pipeline. The U.S. government will tell the peasants, “This is the safest way to get oil to the Mediterranean,” and the American peasantry will accept it.
At first the Israelis will buy Kurdish crude, and will eventually own it. Here’s how… Israel will pay for Kurdish crude by extending credit, which will make the Barzani clan fabulously wealthy. This will also allow the Kurds as a whole to enjoy a brief period of prosperity. In this way, Kurds will become addicted to the pipeline. Soon the Israeli debt load will pile up, and the Israelis will “reschedule” their loans (credits) to the Kurds. That is, the Israelis will forgive some of the debt in exchange for greater control of the Kurdish crude. After that, the Israelis will repeat the cycle, extending more credit (debt) to the Kurds each time, until the Israelis have it all.
International bankers control mankind by addicting mankind to debt. Their “credits” are like heroin. Loans give you a “high,” but you soon become addicted, and a slave. You will do anything, and kill anyone, to get another “fix.” With each “fix” you become more enslaved.
The Kirkuk-to-Haifa pipeline will have to cross Jordan, which won’t be a problem, since Jordan has long cooperated with Israel, and will get hefty transit fees, as I noted above. Amman, the capitol, is already a second Tel Aviv. Mossad has a huge office at the Amman airport. When NGOs and humanitarian organizations want to send aid to Iraq, most aircraft must go through Amman. This allows Israel's Mossad to log everything. After Israel finished raping Lebanon in 2006, all aircraft to Beirut had to detour to Amman for a Mossad inspection. This is still largely the case.
The Kirkuk oil fields contain perhaps 40 percent of Iraq’s oil. This will quadruple Israel’s power in the region. The Israelis will become completely self-sufficient for oil supplies, and will have enough excess to sell to Europe. They will buy oil cheap from the Kurds, and sell it high to Europe. This will increase Israel's power over Europe.
At first, Israel will offer Kurdish oil at a discount, in order to help Europe adjust to its new master. Then Israel will start to squeeze Europe, wringing more and more concessions from them...Abdul-Alhazred | Sat, 2007-10-20 22:52
Nuclear fuel markets and the looming oligarchNatural uranium contains 0.7 percent of U-235 atoms, against 99.3 percent of mostly U-238 atoms. To use it as nuclear fuel the proportion of U-235 atoms has to be increased to 3 to 5 percent. To do so, the uranium must first be purified and converted into a gas. In this form, batteries of centrifuges can filter out a few of the heavier U-238 atoms in a long and energy swallowing process. Risks in the enrichment process are those of the chemical industries and not so much the low radiation. This uranium is not suitable to make bombs. For bombs you need a degree of enrichment of at least 90 percent. [21] If a country, as for instance Iran, decided to develop such highly enriched uranium, it could take 3 to 5 years to produce sufficiently for a bomb. Besides, according to scientists, for high enrichment much larger centrifuge facilities are used. The oft-repeated but mistaken belief, that one could fabricate unnoticed highly enriched uranium in a civil nuclear plant, now serves Bush’ contention that enrichment should remain in the hands of world’s nuclear-weapon states.
Birth of a new world order
The idea of limiting enrichment capability to the nations that already have it is not entirely new. The accusations against Iran, the successful misleading of journalists, politicians and diplomats had created the ideal circumstances to speed up its realization. The idea appeared in a UN brochure in 2004. Then it was still in the form of a call for a voluntary and time-limited moratorium on the construction of new facilities for enrichment and reprocessing. In February 2005, the United Nations further elaborated the idea as the Multilateral Nuclear Approach (MNA). Already in April 2005, Ambassador Kenzo Oshima of Japan’s mission to the UN put the question, “if the MNA would not unduly affect the peaceful use of nuclear energy by those non-nuclear-weapon states that carry out nuclear activities in faithful and transparent compliance with their NPT obligations.”
On February 6 2006 the US’ Department of Energy announced its version of the idea in their plan for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). The following day, at the Oarai Conference in Japan, this GNEP is presented as an idea of IAEA’s head El Baradei and a proposal of Bush. And, of course, such a supreme idea should not lack of glamour. So, a few days later, DOE compliments itself as follows: “Finally, the partnership arrangement between fuel-cycle and reactor-only states envisioned by GNEP will help supply the world with clean electrical power by offering non-fuel-cycle nations commercially competitive and reliable access to nuclear fuel, in exchange for their commitment to forgo the development of enrichment and recycling technologies. “
Questionable elements
The new world order comes in the form of new safeguards within the IAEA control system (that enable the permanent monopoly or oligarchy of nuclear fuel markets globally by a few). Considering the spirit of the Additional Protocol, we should not count on equal rights or fair relations.
Within the Non-Proliferation Treaty countries, only the nuclear-weapon states, plus Germany, the Netherlands and Japan have enrichment facilities today. The rest of the NPT countries would see their rights to enrich uranium taken away. In exchange, they will get the solemn promises of the nuclear-weapon states, that the latter will always deliver the nuclear fuel. Promises? Weren’t these the countries that promised in 1968 to strive for their nuclear disarmament? As we know, they did not keep their word up to now. Worse, France has even developed a new generation of nuclear weapons to make the step to nuclear war easier and progressive. This year, France and the US are still using their nuclear arsenal to threaten the world. Should non-nuclear-weapon states should now give up more rights and become dependent of IAEA’s club of nuclear fuel suppliers?
To seduce non-nuclear-weapon states, this new plan promises lower electricity prices. Today, on a global scale, enrichment facilities would have about twice the capacity the world needs. By preventing the construction of new enrichment facilities, a better use could be made of the existing capacities. This would enable lower prices for enriched uranium, and thus for electricity. Should we believe these words? The enrichment industries are not driven by the concern to lower world’s electricity prices. In spite of the world’s over-capacity, the Europeans are considerably expanding their production in the UK, Netherlands and Germany. They strive for more market share and more profit! And if by new IAEA regulations no new competitors are allowed into the market, this can only result in excessive pricing of enriched uranium, and thus of electricity.
The new plans foresee a highly regulated and closely monitored fuel supply distribution system. The IAEA would become the intermediate between fuel producing and fuel consuming members. At first glance, this may look like a trustworthy construction, since the IAEA is a UN body. However, the IAEA is also the policeman in the system. I do not think it is wise to let policeman trade with the parties they should inspect. Besides, the UN is not some sort of democratic and integer government that would be able to guarantee its policeman’s impartiality.
The plans for the distribution system recommend minimal national stocks and joint regional buffers in different host-countries. Strange, isn’t it? The purpose of minimal stocks inside the countries and regional stocks elsewhere is hard to defend as a security issue. Even with enormous stocks of 3.5 percent enriched uranium you cannot produce any nuclear weapon. Why would the IAEA want countries to dispose of only small quantities of fuel at a time? I fear there is only one plausible answer: to keep the non-nuclear-weapon states in a firm grip. That is a lot of power for our NPT-watchdog. This power goes far beyond what is needed for their inspections. Even far beyond the needs of a safe nuclear fuel distribution system. This is pure power to overrule nations’ sovereignty. If a nation does anything that the watchdog or its masters do not want, the fuel tap can simply be closed to obtain its immediate submission. It smells like a dictatorship on world-level. Of course, the fuel supplying countries will never be affected. They produce their own fuel.
In theory the master of the IAEA is the United Nations Organization. But does it work that way in reality? The IAEA has a difficult role, because it cannot ignore tensions and conflicts of interest between NPT members. The IAEA’s independence from parties’ national interests is constantly under strain. Its limited budget forces the IAEA to make choices, which are influenced by occurring conflicts and funds donors. During the embargo against Iraq, we witnessed an IAEA driven crazy by Bush, who demanded each time more and more thorough controls. The dog was sent out over and over to make sure Iraq could be safely invaded. Although the IAEA has the obligation to keep all sensitive information from their investigations undisclosed, the US military constantly received sensitive information, with which they prepared the invasion in 2003. (And finally, to invade Iraq, Bush simply overruled the UN’s Security Council…)
Today, we see the same US influence in the IAEA’s investigations in Iran. Bush shouts and the dog runs to search for the stick. The rules for the new world order are presented as “an idea of El Baradei and a proposal of Bush.”. I presume that both plans, the IAEA’s Multi-National Approach (NMA) and Bush’ Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), will merge into a final version dictated by the US.
Of course, getting a firm grip on all non-nuclear-weapon states as soon as they get addicted to nuclear energy is a major strategic coup. But there are far more advantages for the nuclear fuel suppliers. United under the umbrella of the IAEA, the market will be completely regulated. As all of them cooperate in the same organizations and all of them will be interested in the highest possible earnings, together they will set world’s nuclear fuel price. Just like today’s world’s oil prices are decided on the market places of IPE and NYMEX, nuclear fuel prices will be decided by the happy few.
Now comes the tricky part. Nuclear fuel has to be paid for. The question is: in what currency (or currencies) will the customers have to pay? These currencies will become the most needed and wanted currencies in the world. You can compare it to today’s US-dollar.
Apparently these currencies have not been decided yet. But, if each fuel supplier asks to be paid in its own currency, the world would widely accept Japanese yens, Chinese Yuan renminbi, Russian Rubles, euros, English pounds and US-dollars. There will probably be some preferential order due to each supplier’s capacity to deliver nuclear fuel. Each of these countries will know the advantages of the supply of their currencies to the rest of the world. Of course, in the long run, each of them will also experience the negative effects on their economies and, after decades, let their currency collapse to get rid of the built up debt. In short, this is what can happen with multiple world currencies. However, the fact that the plans mention, that the IAEA should become the intermediary between suppliers and customers, makes it reasonable to suppose that the IAEA will decide in which currency the customers will have to pay. Bush surely hopes that this will be the dollar. When nuclear fuel has to be paid exclusively in dollars, demand for US-dollars and therewith the US hegemony will be assured for many decades to come.
The UN theatre
With the project for a new world order prepared discreetly in the background, we now have an anti-Iranian alliance of the US and E3. They smell the opportunity for a coup to seize world’s nuclear fuel markets. To succeed, they would just need some legal sauce on the prohibition of uranium enrichment by non-nuclear-weapon states, with Iran as example. And a UN Security Council resolution would be enough, if it legalizes IAEA’s stand that it can forbid countries to enrich uranium.
Of course, they would make it impossible for Iran to stay within the Non-Proliferation Treaty then. To succeed in their coup, they will have to take care, that Iran does not leave the organization before a resolution is successfully voted. For if so, there would not be any ground for a resolution anymore. Countries outside the Non-Proliferation treaty, like Israel, India, Pakistan, Cuba and Brazil are free to enrich uranium and do what they want.
The question is: will the US and E3 succeed in seducing Russia and China? In the event, that such a coup of the nuclear-weapon states could succeed, it would probably put the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the UNO under enormous strain. These organizations might loose all credibility and see many non-nuclear-weapon states leave. The result may be the opposite of what these organizations were designed for.
Oil and the 9/11 SagaA few days later, on December 18, speaking at the Capitol, Bush joked about his new relationship with some congressional leaders: "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier....just so long as I'm the dictator."
Just a slip of the tongue? Not really. In July 1998, about governing Texas, he said already: "A dictatorship would be a lot easier." And on July 26, 2001, speaking once again about his struggles with Congress he repeated: "a dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier."
Well, for the ambitious plans of the neoconservatives, the US Congress was a major hurdle to clear. The budget of the military had shrunk by 40 percent after the Cold War and with the wars they had in mind they would need a lot more money.
How would they get the budget they wanted? If the US would be attacked, there would be no problem. They would receive all the budget, political support and public sympathy they needed. But, as written in their document, without a new Pearl Harbor things would go slowly.
When Bush started his presidency, many neoconservatives considered Iraq as the first target to hit. In their document of September 2000 they had named Iraq as a "potential rival" of the US.
First Target Iraq?
Iraq has the world's second largest oil reserves. The country was exhausted. It had tried to conquer Iran from 1980 to 1988, had invaded Kuwait in 1990, had been defeated by Operation Desert Storm in 1991, and a subsequent UN embargo had brought the Iraqi economy to a standstill and the population to the edge of starvation.
Since 1996, the Oil For Food program of the UN had brought some relief for the Iraqi people. The country had been disarmed. Extensive weapon inspections had concluded the country formed no threat anymore. Well, at least, not military. In 2000, Saddam had still found a trick to hit the main pillar of US hegemony, the dollar. He started to sell his oil in euros, instead of dollars.
Afghanistan back on the agenda
However, not even a week after George W. Bush had been declared winner of the elections, Afghanistan was back on the international agenda. UN SC resolution 1333 of December 19, 2000, imposed the sanctions the UN had promised more than a year before, if the Taliban would not hand over Osama bin Laden before November 14, 1999.
Afghanistan in the Caspian context
Geopolitically, Afghanistan had become a more urgent target. Since 1996, the US had experienced severe setbacks in their ambition to control gas and oil on the East side of the Caspian Sea and was loosing influence. The lack of control over Afghanistan was leading to severe complications.
As mentioned earlier, the problems had started in February 1996, when Afghan president Rabbani signed a contract with UNOCAL's competitor BRIDAS for the construction of the gas pipeline through Afghanistan, between Turkmenistan and Pakistan. In March 1996, the US tried to block this deal, putting pressure on Pakistan and telling them they should grant exclusive rights to UNOCAL. This resulted in a diplomatic clash with the Pakistani government.
Still, in the same month, Pakistan officially agreed to allow a proposed Iranian pipeline to run over Pakistani territory on its way to India, thus enabling Iranian gas sale to India. The gas would come from Iran's giant South Pars Field in the Persian Gulf and cross the South of Iran
from West to East through a pipeline still to be constructed.
Meanwhile, in February 1996, Turkmenistan had showed it did not want to depend exclusively on the delayed Afghan pipeline project and had signed a contract with Turkey to supply Turkmen gas via a pipeline to be constructed along the North coast of Iran. If necessary, Turkey would be able to absorb all the Turkmen gas.
Iranian-Libyan Sanctions act
With these two aforementioned Iranian pipelines, the Afghan pipelines would become more or less useless. To prevent the construction of the Iranian pipelines the US Congress passed the Iranian-Libyan Sanctions act, threatening anyone who would help Iran to construct them, and forbid transactions with Iran of $ 4 million or higher. That was on June 18, 1996.
Nevertheless on August 30, 1996 Turkey signed a 20-year deal to buy gas from Iran. The Turkish president would be punished for his Islamic solidarity by a military coup forcing him to resign. That was on June 18, 1997.
With the Iranian-Libyan Sanctions act in place, another US company, Enron, expanded its activities in the region. In Uzbekistan, Enron had obtained a contract for 11 gas fields. In April 1997, George W. Bush himself had intervened to help Enron obtain Uzbeki contracts. Enron counted on a US controlled pipeline through Afghanistan to export a part of the Uzbek gas to its power plant in India.
The US threatened sanctions and blocked the completion of the Turkish pipeline connection to Iran, therefor the gas deliveries from Iran to Turkey were delayed several years. In August 2000, Iran and Turkey agreed the gas deliveries would start on July 30, 2001, which would be a few days before the expiration date of the Iranian-Libyan Sanctions act.
Despite the Iranian-Libyan Sanctions act, the construction of the northern pipeline had started on the East side of Iran. With Iranian funding, Iran and Turkmenistan opened an international pipeline connection of 200 km by the end of 1997.
Subsea shortcut avoiding Iran
To frustrate further development of the Iranian pipeline to Turkey, the US came up with an idea for an alternative route from Turkmenistan, crossing the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and from there to Turkey. Enron did the study for this project.
By that time it appeared as if the Afghan pipeline project would be abandoned. In June 1998, Enron withdrew from its Uzbek gas projects [41] and in December UNOCAL withdrew from its consortium for the Afghan pipeline.
The US threats did not prevent big companies like Shell and Total from signing deals with Iran for exploration of oil and gas. Nevertheless, Shell withdrew from its pipeline project in Northern Iran.
The undersea pipeline crossing the Caspian Sea now existed on the drawing table, but in the waters the five surrounding countries (Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran) had not yet come to an agreement about each other's borders, and thus about the ownership of oil fields. As long as this would last, according to an existing agreement of 1940, Russia and Iran would have to agree with the pipeline project first. And they did.
In 2000, the Turkmen president had blamed the US for the delay in the trans-Caspian pipeline and had resumed gas deliveries to Russia. That May, president Putin had even come to Turkmenistan to offer extended deals for several years. Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan, the oil from the Tengiz field (world's sixth largest oil field) was going to be pumped via Russia to the Black Sea.
Wealthy actors and influences
George W. Bush sworn in
On January 20, 2001, George W. Bush was sworn in as president of the US. He is the son of ex-president George H.W. Bush. The family is from Texas and has close ties with the oil and energy related companies there. These companies have contributed a lot to Bush's election campaign.
Companies contributing to election campaigns is a common phenomenon in the US. The financial support for a candidate's campaign determines how much marketing they can afford and, ultimately, their chances to win an election. Of course, when these companies invest a lot of money, they expect something in return when their candidate wins, such as nominations within the administration, influence for big business orders or favourable laws and amendments.
Enron
Enron had been the biggest contributor of the Bush 2000 election campaign. In fact, the company had generously contributed to both father and son's election campaigns since 1985. Enron's chairman, Kenneth Lay, had close personal contacts with the Bushes. He had even been a sleeping guest at the White House. During these years, Enron had expanded from a regional energy supplier to a giant multinational company, and the seventh biggest in the US.
Although loaded with debts caused by its giant investments abroad, Enron always showed splendid results. How? In 1997 the Securities and Exchange Commission had exempted Enron from the Investment Company Act of 1940 that prohibits US companies from leaving debt from overseas projects off the books. At the same time Andy Fastow, Enron's senior vice president of finance, had started his "creative" financing.
Since 1993, in India, Enron had invested $ 2.9 billion for a power plant near Bombay. Originally it had counted on cheap supply of gas from Turkmenistan via the planned pipeline through Afghanistan. The power plant project had turned into a nightmare.
Enron had faced severe criticism over their contemptuous way of doing business. They had experienced severe opposition from the local population after hiring police officers to beat down protests of opponents. Charges had been filed against the company for human right violations.
Last but not least, Enron’s deliveries to the regional electricity company were invoiced more than double the price of power from other suppliers. Taking into account the real cost beared by the regional electricity company, Enron's price was even 700 percent higher. The regional electricity company could not pay Enron's bills anymore. As retaliation, in January 2001, Enron had cut the power to 200 million people in Northern India, while demanding three times the normal price. (Around the same time, Enron was provoking power cuts in California as well, to force higher prices.
In 1997 Enron had started gas projects in Uzbekistan, for which George W. Bush had had personal contacts with the Uzbek ambassador.
As soon as the Bush administration was in place, vice president Cheney would reward Enron for their support during the elections. Enron's chairman, Kenneth Lay, had a wish list that was almost entirely included in Cheney's proposals for the new US energy policy. [55] Cheney also intervened to help Enron collect a $64 million debt for its power plant near Bombay, during a meeting with Indian opposition leader Sonia Ghandi in Washington on June 27 2001.
Enron - Bin Laden
Enron had also connections with the construction firm BinLadin from Saudi Arabia, with which it constructed a power plant in the Gaza strip. (The power plant would not be finished before Enron's bankruptcy in December 2001.)
Bin Laden - Carlyle Group
The wealthy Bin Laden family is well known to the Bush family. Salem bin Laden supplied part of the money for George W. Bush’s first oil company, Arbusto, in 1978. His father, George H.W. Bush, joined the Carlyle group after being US' president, and developed relations with the Bin Laden company. He met the family in November 1998 and in January 2000.
Bin Laden also invested in the Carlyle group. H.W. Bush still met with Shafig bin Laden, Osama's brother, on September 10, 2001, the day before the attacks, at the annual investor conference of the Carlyle Group. Like Enron, Carlyle had grown tremendously.
In the early 1990s son Bush had been member of the board of a catering service company for airliners. Carlyle had bought the catering company. Although the catering service crashed, Carlyle grew to be an important defence contractor in the US. A bunch of well-known former politicians, including George W. Bush father, former UK Prime Minister John Major and former president of the Philippines Mister Ramos, are making a lot of money from the "war on terror".
Osama
There is a terrible lot of information available about bin Laden's son, Osama. However, almost all of it comes from sources that cannot be verified, like comments by unknown people who would have known him or met him. Other stories are based on allegations by people who have big business interests in the "war on terrorism", like the Bush. One step further, you find the comments by officials "convinced" that everything that has been said about Osama is true.
On the other extremity, there is the image Osama draws of himself in an interview by CNN reporter Peter Arnett in 1997. According to this interview he is, first of all, a man of faith, who understands people who fight against the US soldiers that came to steal the oil and who attacked the Islamic religion. He denies having organized any attacks against the US himself. (Many people will remember a videotape with “Osama's confession”, that he knew about the attacks of 9/11 in advance, which turned out to be a fake.
Osama would become Bush's key excuse to invade Afghanistan. On September 17, 2001 Bush would declare Osama bin Laden was wanted "dead or alive".
Why did Osama bin Laden stay in Afghanistan? Here too, different sources give different stories. He had already been in Afghanistan during the eighties, helping the mudjahedeen fight against the Soviet occupation (as did the US). Back in Saudi Arabia in 1989, he had opposed the king's alliance with the US.
When his passport was confiscated, he at first fled back to Afghanistan, and then settled in Sudan in 1992, where all Muslims were welcome after a regime change the year before. In 1994, because of his support to fundamentalist Muslim movements, Saudi Arabia revoked his citizenship and froze his funds.
After the assassination attempt against Egyptian president Mubarak in Ethiopia on June 26, 1995, Sudan was accused of being behind it. The relations between Egypt and Sudan deteriorated in the current of 1995.
At this point, let us jump to Afghanistan. In February 1996 things went wrong for the US pipeline project in Afghanistan. President Rabbani of Afghanistan contracted the Argentinean BRIDAS instead of UNOCAL for the construction and exploitation of the gas pipeline. For the US, to get the pipeline project back in the hands of UNOCAL, Rabbani would have to disappear. But who could be accused if Rabbani were killed?
Back to Sudan. March 8, 1996, the US suddenly asked Sudan to extradite Osama. It did not specify to which country. Since the Saudis took his passport and nationality away, Osama had few options. On May 18, 1996, he left Sudan and returned to Afghanistan.
Years afterward, many people were still wondering why he had not been arrested at that occasion.
In Afghanistan, events would take a different turn. From March 20 to April 4, 1996, Taliban leaders had held a shura (meeting) and concluded with a jihad against Rabbani. Osama arrived on May 18, but would not get involved. On September 27, the Taliban conquered Kabul and president Rabbani fled and joined the Northern alliance. At that moment things must have looked hopeful for the UNOCAL pipeline project. Unfortunately for them, in November 1996 BRIDAS signed a new contract with the Taliban.
Ultimately this would lead to the Taliban being evicted from power. Clinton would not attack Afghanistan after the US embassy bombings in Africa in 1998, maybe thanks to Monica Lewinsky. Bush did, after "the catastrophic and catalysing events" of 9/11.
After having used the presence of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan as his key excuse to invade the country, Bush would state, on March 13, 2002, he wasn't truly that concerned about Osama bin Laden.
Karzai
After the US conquest of Afghanistan (or at least of its capital), UNOCAL's advisor Hamid Karzai would be appointed Chairman of the interim administration of Afghanistan. On June 16, 2002, even before there was an elected president, Karzai would sign an official agreement with Turkmenistan and Pakistan for a gas pipeline through Afghanistan.
But even if the gas pipeline would come too late to transport Turkmen gas to Pakistan, Afghanistan remains an interesting booty. It has its own gigantic gas field south of the Turkmen field, near Mazar e Sharif. It has also several oil fields and coal. Furthermore, in the 1970s British geologists had already found 1600 locations with minerals.
Preparations for 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan
Timing of the attacks
As noticed above, the timing for the attacks on the US embassies in Africa helped Clinton, as it drew away the attention from his threatening conviction of perjury in the Monica Lewinsky affair, and focused on the common enemies: the terrorists.
The invasion of Afghanistan would have to wait for the next US president. Between 1998 and 2001 there was enough time to plan everything carefully. Below we will notice, that the attacks of 9/11 occurred at the very moment everything was in place. The only thing missing was a pretext to get support from Congress, from the US population and the rest of the world…
Military preparations
For the US to invade Afghanistan at the other side of the world was a delicate operation. Step by step the US had pushed its influence and control in the former Soviet republics. US oil and gas related companies had started up activities in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and the U.S. military had gained influence in the region, challenging Russia and China in their backyards.
Already in 1997, north of Afghanistan, the US had considerably expanded its military "cooperation" with Kazakhstan, which forms the buffer with Russia. In 1999, closer to Afghanistan, the US expanded its presence in Kyrgyzstan, and in Uzbekistan, one of Afghanistan's direct neighbours. In April 14-15, 2000, Uzbek and US troops conducted joint military exercises.
East of Afghanistan the US administration has strong ties with the Pakistani intelligence service. Its director, Lieutenant-General Mahmoud Ahmad, was with U.S. officials the week before and during the attacks of 9/11. On the west side, F-15s were based in Saudi-Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey and the Fifth fleet was permanently based in the Persian Gulf.
For the war in Afghanistan, huge transports of troops and material had to be organized well before the invasion. On November 7, 2000, the day all US-citizens were occupied with the election of their president, the UK announced its biggest military exercise since the Gulf War, operation Swift Sword (Saif Sareea in Arabic), involving 24,000 troops and a lot of heavy material.
The exercise took place on the coast of Oman, a strategic location, since all oil tankers from the Persian Gulf region (Saudi-Arabia, the United Arabic Emirates, Qatar, Quait, Iraq and Iran) have to cross the Gulf of Oman. Here the UK maintains a War Material Storage. The exercice had been scheduled from September 15 until the end of October 2001, The UK would start moving troops and material to Oman in August 2001. The UK participated in the invasion.
From October 8 until the end of October, 2001 another military operation was planned in Egypt: NATO Operation Bright Star. It was the world's largest exercise including more than 11 Nations, and more than 70,000 troops (among which 23,000 from the US) participating.
Among several other "coincidental" military moves towards Afghanistan, we notice that on July 23, 2001, the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson was sent out from Bremerton (on US West coast) to the Arabian Sea. It arrived just in time to launch the first air strikes on Afghanistan on October 7, 2001.
Diplomatic preparations
On the diplomatic front, to lower the risk of upsetting China, on June 19 2001, Bush had proposed to attend the APEC summit in Shang Hai and was expected to meet president Zemir between October 15 and October 21 2001. (Bush's meeting with presidents Zemir and Putin took place on October 20, 2001)
Besides, in 2001 China was completing its bilateral agreements with all 37 WTO members to become a full WTO-member. China wanted to become member since many years. China's bilateral agreement with Mexico would be the last and this would complete China's membership. In July 2001 Bush would polish his relations with Mexico, "lobbying" against US unfair import restrictions on Mexican trucks.
This was probably not only to get the Mexicans in the right mood to sign with China, but also because Mexico would be a member of the UN Security Council in 2002 and 2003. China reached its bilateral agreement with Mexico and became a WTO member on September 13, 2001.
Bush's unmanned systems
In the summer of 1999, a number of US embassies on the African continent were closed for the weekend because of suspicious people hanging around. A few days later Clinton had issued its order prohibiting commercial transactions with the Taliban. A few months later George W. Bush presented his ideas of defence "on the troubled frontiers of technology and terror."
He said, "In the air, we must be able to strike from across the world with pinpoint accuracy - with long-range aircraft and perhaps with unmanned systems."
In September 1999 Bush still said "perhaps". He was still considering. This was at a time when the market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's) for both military as well as civil aviation was rapidly developing. By 2001 there were more than 60 types of UAVs world wide, from small models to big planes.
At the time of Bush's speech in 1999, the US was developing the Global Hawk, a military UAV with a wing span comparable to a Boeing 737, which had made its first flight from Edwards Air Force Base, CA on 28 February 1998. After Bush became president, on April 23, 2001 the Global Hawk made a historical first unmanned test flight to Australia.
9/11
Not all of the material about 9/11 has been released to the public. Some of the reliable evidence has been confiscated by the CIA. Statements of officials often turned out to be contradictory. And, in particular about possible advanced knowledge, the White House has confiscated dozens of documents from the 9/11 Commission. It doesn't make truth finding easier.
The official version of the events on 9/11 involves a very high number of coincidences that facilitated the "success" of the attacks.
*A nationwide military exercise, Global Guardian, originally planned for November 2001, is in full swing, creating confusion between exercises and real-world events.
*A large-scale military exercise, Vigilant Guardian, is taking place and involves all of NORAD, that normally sends fighter jets after civil airplanes several times a week, when flight control operators report incidences.
*The Vigilant Guardian exercise simulates an air attack on the United States.
*NORAD is also running a planned real-world operation named Operation Northern Vigilance, for which many NORAD fighters are located in Alaska and Canada.
*Operation Northern Vigilance also creates false blips on radar screens at least until the second plane crashes into the World Trade Centre.
*In Washington a planned National Reconnaissance Office exercise involves a scenario of an airplane as a flying weapon.
*The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is flying across the Atlantic on the way to Europe.
*The Federal Emergency Management Agency Director is at a conference in Montana.
*FAA hijack coordinator, who has to contact the National Military Command Centre in case of hijacks, is in Puerto Rico and cannot be reached.
*All of the FBI's anti-terrorist and top special operations agents are, together with the members of the CIA's anti-terrorist task force, on a training exercise in Monterey, California.
*For the day of 9/11, the commander of the National Military Command Centre had requested to be replaced by someone without experience.
*For FAA's new National Operations Manager it is the first day on the job.
*The hijackers can board without trouble, since the official no-fly list is only used for international flights and, curiously, not for domestic flights.
*Informed a few minutes after the start of the first hijack (Flight 11), American Airlines top management decide to "keep it quiet".
*Boston flight controllers do not follow normal procedures and waste time by contacting various military bases, instead of NORAD.
*After NORAD is finally informed, two F-15s will remain on the ground and only take off when Flight 11 already crashes into the WTC.
*For various reasons F-16s will only arrive on the scene after the last plane has crashed.
*A decision is taken to ground not only civil airplanes, but also all military planes.
*The presumed hijacker pilot of flight 77 was not able to fly a Cessna without difficulty in August, but succeeded to spiral down a Boeing 757 and hit the Pentagon a few meters above the ground on September 11.
*The President doesn't give any orders responding to the attack until just before the last plane crashes.
Above I only mentioned those coincidences that facilitated the success of the attacks. If I were to build a story on such series of coincidences, no one would believe me. Well, I would not either. Keeping the things in their context, it makes more sense to look at them as facts, and not as coincidences.
All released details show that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out with military precision. However, the hijackers on the planes would have been improvised pilots without the extraordinary skills needed to fly in the way that has been reported.
In addition, they would not have been intelligent enough to foresee the reactions triggered by their actions. Apparently they had so little political awareness, that they had not heard about the neoconservatives waiting for such a "catastrophic and catalysing event" to speed up US' conquests.
The success of the plan relied on a lot of advanced knowledge of the situation that day, like the confusion offered by planned military exercises and the scenarios played by them, like the confusion offered by fake radar blibs, like traffic controllers lacking of primary radar images in specific areas, like the absence of several experienced officers in the command chains responding to the hijacks, like the absence of armed jet fighters to frustrate their plans.
All this seems more likely to be the work of a more influential and well trained organization, an organization willing to provide the justification for the neoconservatives' conquest plans, with Afghanistan as the first target.
It does not seem likely to me, that such an organization would let the success of its operation depend on the improvised skills of the hijackers. It makes more sense to suppose the hijackers were not in control. (In spite of an overheard phrase in the cockpit of the fourth plane, having been translated as "Pull it down" and by officials interpreted as "Crash the plane" It seems more likely the operation was conducted on the “troubled frontier of technology and terror”, and that technology had taken over the controls.
Transponders
The two types of planes used, the Boeing 757 and 767, can be controlled remotely. Robert Ayling, a former boss of British Airways, suggested in the Financial Times a few days after 9/11, that those aircraft can be commandeered from the ground and controlled remotely in the event of a hijack. On 9/11 the remote control would have been in the hands of the wrong people.
If we look closer to the remote control scenario, we notice that if the published details about the transponders are right:
1. The transponder of the second 767 is turned off shortly after the first 767 crashes.
2. The transponder of the second 757 is turned off shortly after the first 757 crashes.
So, it looks as if one remote pilot handled the two 767s one after the other, and another remote pilot handled the two 757s one after the other. ( 9/11 Commission Report, P.32, 8:47 & 9:41)
It has also been reported that a C-130 military cargo plane was tailing flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon. The same C-130 was behind flight 93 when it crashed. Did the plane play a role? Or was it just a coincidental tourist, flying around while all other planes had been ordered to land?
The hijackers hijacked?
Although the official story expects us to believe the hijackers wanted to fly into the WTC and the Pentagon, the released pieces of cockpit conversations offer no indications to support this theory. Although mountains of stories and counter-stories have been published about the hijackers, I did not find a single verifiable element.
If the hijackers were to support some Arabic or Islamic cause, they would probably have been in a stronger position if they had returned to airports with four planes and hundreds of US citizens in their might. They could have negotiated the release of political prisoners. They could have demanded a retreat of US forces from Saudi Arabia. They could have pleaded any cause they were after.
Did the hijackers really have in mind to strike the WTC and the Pentagon or were they overruled by the organization that had "contracted" them? Will we find out? According to the official story, all radio contact and overhearing of cockpit conversations stopped before the planes made their final approach to the WTC and the Pentagon. If the hijackers were to create the biggest possible spectacle, wouldn't they have shouted a last accusation against the US? Or a last glorious prayer to Allah? Or were they surprised and in panic when they flew into the buildings?
Conclusion
The Afghan pipelines are only one step in US political moves to take over the influence in the oil and gas rich former Soviet republics. Consuming 25 percent of the world oil consumption, their imperialism is first of all about energy. Today the US already relies for over 60 percent on foreign oil, a percentage that is quickly increasing. The neoconservative ideas to transform the US into a "dominant force" do not come out of nowhere.
The thought that they needed a "catastrophic and catalysing event" was not just motivated by the personal financial benefits several of them get from the war industries. It was also a sign of panic of a nation facing drying up oil wells and preparing itself to conquer foreign oil wells until the last drip is gone.
Remark:
Today the US seems more interested in a long lasting occupation of Afghanistan. This way they can exploit the Afghan reserves at a convenient moment in the future. Also, they keep the power to decide if Pakistan and India may, or may not profit from gas and oil from the Caspean Sea, from Turkmenistan or from Afghanistan. About Iraq too, I get more and more the impression, that today’s purpose is to make the war last as long as possible. As long as the Iraqi oil reserves do not reach world markets, oil prices remain high, while in the mean time the value of the mentioned reserves continue to increase. As long as oil and gas is sold in US-dollars, the benefit is for the US. These changes in politics have to do with the the fact the US have become aware that oil wells are drying up. Since 2001 the US makes a rapid switch to nuclear energy. At the same time they appropriate a dominant role on the world market for nuclear fuel. At this very moment a strategic coup takes place to divide the market and close it hermetically by imposing new rules. For this, Iran is the pretext and the test case.
America and its one bad apple
Old pre-1970 US Dollar bill with promisory note.
New post-1970 US Dollar bill; where's the promise?At the dawn of civilization, the earliest way to get something that you needed was called barter. I give you a cow and you build me a hut to live in. But what if I want a tiny hut? Do I give you half a cow? Placing a standard value on goods and services was first achieved through the use of currency, or money. Almost every culture has money. Ancient cultures used everything from sea shells and beads to huge circular stones to buy and sell. Eventually, precious metals were used and more recently the standard currency has been based on gold.
The value of precious metal is determined by its weight. Instead of carrying chunks or nuggets of gold and silver, early empires made standard "coins" of the metals and set a standard value in the marketplace. Coins were great for most transactions, but they were heavy and wore out your pants pockets quickly. Soon a new idea, paper money, was invented.
The original idea behind paper money was convenience. Each piece of paper represented a specific weight of a precious metal, usually silver or gold, that was kept somewhere in a treasury. If an individual wanted to, he could exchange the paper money for the gold or silver that it represented. It was all based on trust and a promise. In fact, the early paper money in America was called a "promissory note."
If you can find old dollar bills, you will read the promise written on each note. You will also notice that the notes are numbered. In this way, each note is unique and represents a corresponding weight of silver or gold in the US Treasury vaults.
On a global scale, when someone in America bought something from a foreign country, they would pay in US dollars. The foreign company would then go to their local bank and exchange the dollars for their local currency. When foreign banks had a surplus of US dollars, they would then exchange them for gold. This meant that the US Treasury was always needing to acquire more gold to replenish its vaults and maintain the "gold backed" dollars in circulation.
Prior to 1971 the dollars of the US were trusted all over the world. Each dollar was based on 1/35th ounce of gold, held in the US Treasury. The value of gold was fixed by law at 35 dollars = 1 ounce, so the value of each dollar was very stable. This made the dollar attractive as an international currency. But in 1971 this all changed.
The Nixon Legacy -- fiat money
The Vietnam War was a painful time for America. We're still paying for the sins of our past leaders -- quite literally. The war was so expensive (estimated at $500 Billion) that America didn't have sufficient dollars in print to pay the bills for the disaster (The gold reserve only had about 30 Billion). But Nixon had a plan. Why not just print more dollars? Never mind that there isn't enough gold on reserve to back each note. Just print as much as you need to pay the bills.
To do this he needed to change the law. So he did. The new system is called "fiat money" and is defined as follows: "Definition: Fiat money is money that is intrinsically useless; is used only as a medium of exchange." He ended the system of "promissory notes," ended the fixed value of gold and allowed the system of "supply and demand" to set the value of both gold and American currency. But wait! There's more!
Enter Oil: Black Gold
Back in the early 1970's, America produced most of the oil it needed. Texas oil fields were active and a far cry from the rusted rigs you can still see there today. We imported a fixed amount, about 25%, from foreign countries, but our thirst for oil was getting stronger. Nixon knew that America and every developing nation in the world would need more oil in the future. He also knew that OPEC, the handful of countries that produced foreign oil, wanted the limits of American imports lifted so they could sell more. So he cut a deal.
The cap on 25% imported oil was lifted in exchange for the agreement that oil, purchased from any country in the world, would be bought only with American dollars. OPEC agreed and almost immediately there was a strong demand for dollars throughout the globe. This demand was not based on the value of gold but on the value that each dollar had in the marketplace. Since anyone who wanted oil had to have dollars, the dollar remained strong.
Another thing that helped pull this scheme off was the fact that gold, held by the US Treasury, went from its fixed value of $35/ounce to its present value of over $600/ounce. Of course a cup of coffee was once 5¢ and now my Starbucks Latte-Macchiato-double-Skim is close to $5!
Coffee, Automobiles and Computers: The Plot Thickens
Oil is a big import but not the biggest. Americans buy so many things from foreign countries that it is staggering to imagine. In 1973 the US sold more goods to foreign countries than it bought. But in each successive year the tables have turned.
All of these goods are bought with "fiat dollars," meaning that the currency itself is worthless since it can never be exchanged for gold or silver. Of course, a foreign country could exchange it for something else -- something that was produced by America, like... hmm... (anyway). As the chart above shows, American exports, although representing 1.25 million dollars every two seconds, are insignificant.
Fiat dollars remain in circulation mainly because they are needed to buy oil. For this reason lots of countries keep huge supplies of dollars in their reserves. It has become a way of storing their national wealth. The fact that US dollars represent foreign national wealth adds to their value.
Good Is Bad: Bad Is Good
This kind of system turns traditional logic on its head. Like, a trade deficit is supposed to be a bad thing, right? Wrong. It's actually good for the dollar! Imagine what would happen if everyone started using their dollars to buy things from America. The US would be flooded with dollars which would cause inflation and, besides, we don't have enough goods and services to exchange for all those foreign US fiat dollars! In fact, America is technically, as of last year, bankrupt!
And what about higher oil prices... bad? No way. That keeps those pesky foreign flat US dollars "out there" and in high demand. It's very good for the dollar. Globalization, Nafta and Free Trade? Yep, they're also good for the dollar since they perpetuate the demand for greenbacks.
The whole system is kept running smoothly by global central banks who monitor the supply and demand for dollars on a daily -- even hourly -- basis. If there are too many dollars "out there" in the world, the US buys its own currency to create a scarcity. If there are too few, it sells more dollars or buys more foreign goods to replenish the supply.
If this is beginning to sound like a classic "pyramid scheme," you're starting to get the picture. But sooner or later, someone has to pay.
Houston, we have a problem!
Imagine what would happen if the oil producing countries in OPEC decided to sell oil in some other currency besides US dollars! What if they changed the system to use the Euro, the Franc or the Yen? What would happen if no one needed US dollars anymore? Hang on tight, it's already started.
Iraq
On November 6, 2000, Saddam Hussein switched the oil currency from the US dollar to the Euro. Two years later the Euro was rising in value while the dollar was sinking so low that the International Monetary Fund warned of the dollar's imminent collapse. The solution: Iraq was invaded on the pretext of developing weapons of mass destruction, the oil fields were seized and the newly installed government returned to the US dollar standard on March 19, 2003. Other nations, who held large dollar reserves, joined the coalition and contributed troops to pull this off.
Venezuela
Hugo Chavez has recently announced plans to nationalize the country's oil industry. Although Venezuela is a major oil producer and a member of OPEC, they have sold their oil to Cuba and other regional countries without the use of dollars and often in a barter exchange for domestically produced products. In 2001, Venezuela's ambassador to Russia announced that Venezuela was considering switching to oil sales in the Euro. Within one year the American government was seeking a regime change and America has been accused by Chavez of attempting to assassinate him in a failed coup attempt backed by the CIA.
Russia
Since June 8, 2006, Russia's Putin has been selling its reserves of US dollars. This has been done slowly to diminish any dramatic effect on the global supply, but it represents a decision of Russia to divest itself of a dollar reserve. The world market has taken notice.
China
An unprecedented signal from senior Chinese leaders that the Asian economic giant might abandon the U.S. dollar sent shock waves through the markets today as the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 360 points and the greenback fell to a record low against the euro.
November 19,2007:
Xu Jian, a Chinese central bank vice director, told a conference in Beijing, "The dollar is "losing its status as the world currency." Meanwhile, at the same meeting, Cheng Siwei, vice chairman of China's National People's Congress, said, "We will favor stronger currencies over weaker ones, and will readjust accordingly."
Craig R. Smith, CEO of Swiss America Trading Corp., told WND he's been in the investment business for 30 years and has "never seen people more nervous."
Alarmed by today's economic news, he dispatched a note to brokers with a warning of ominous potential consequences if China and other trading partners abandon the dollar.
"If that were to happen, all bets are off, and we will be in a depression that makes 1929 look like child's play," he said, "or we will experience Weimar Republic inflation as the dollar makes extreme moves toward devaluations."
India
The Taj Mahal may have been built as a testament to love but some hard-headed business decisions are now holding sway at India's most famous monument. First among them is that the US dollar is no longer welcome.
With parts of the American economy in turmoil and the dollar rapidly losing its long-held position as the currency of choice, Indian authorities have calculated they are losing considerable sums of money by allowing foreign tourists to pay using greenbacks.
A statement by India's Ministry for Tourism and Culture said the government had decided to act "in view of the international practices and also to avoid any anomaly on account of falling exchange rates of the US dollar vis-a-vis the rupee and the consequent fall in revenues".
Until the change, foreign tourists visiting the Taj Mahal in Agra, south-west of Delhi, could enter by paying a fixed $5 (£2.45) fee Ð a price that was set when the dollar was worth around R50. But with the dollar having fallen by 12 per cent this year against the rupee and the current exchange rate closer to R39 to the dollar, the government has now fixed the entry price for foreigners at R250 Ð more than $6.
"These rates have been fixed in line with international practices," a ministry spokesman said. "It will avoid any anomaly on account of falling dollar-rupee exchange rates."
The ruling will affect around 120 sites overseen by the Archaeological Society of India, of which 27 Ð including the Taj Mahal Ð are World Heritage sites. The new rates are expected to be introduced as soon as this week to avoid a loss of income as the value of the dollar continues to fall.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Libya
Other oil producing countries have already stated that they will begin moving from the dollar to the Euro. Indonesia, Malaysia and Libya have already started this transition. Other countries like China and Japan are also beginning to convert a portion of their reserves to the Euro.
Iran
The US buys no oil from Iran following the hostage crisis in the 1970s. But Iran is a major global oil producer and, therefore, a major player in the "fiat dollar" scheme. In 1999 Iran announced plans to sell its oil in Euros. It actually started doing this in the spring of 2003. Iran sells about a third of its oil to European countries, the remaining share is largely bought by China. Following the announcement by Iran, the country was called an "axis of evil" by Bush and is currently the target of threats over its development of nuclear energy. At this writing, the US Navy has a large fleet in the Persian Gulf with contingency plans for an attack. Undoubtedly the desired outcome is regime change and re-establishment of the fiat dollar scheme.
UPDATE!
TEHRAN, December 8 (RIA Novosti) - Iran has stopped selling its oil for U.S. dollars, the Iranian ISNA news agency said on Saturday, citing the country's oil minister.
"In line with a policy of selling crude oil in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, the sale of our country's oil in U.S. dollars has been completely eliminated," ISNA reported Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari as saying.
He also said "the dollar is no longer a reliable currency."
Iran is the world's fourth-largest crude oil producer.
At a November summit of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries heads of state, Iran proposed that oil sales be carried for a variety of currencies, excluding dollars, but was not supported by any other members except Venezuela.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had previously called the U.S. currency a "worthless piece of paper."
2007 has seen a significant fall in the value of the U.S dollar against other major world currencies.
Tensions remain high between Iran and the U.S., which has accused the Islamic Republic of attempting to build a nuclear weapon, as well as providing insistence to insurgents in Iraq.
The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), published on Monday, stated that Tehran had put a stop to weapons production in 2003, although it was continuing to enrich uranium.
The report contradicted a previous U.S. intelligence assessment in 2005 which said that Iran was actively pursuing a nuclear bomb.
U.S. President George W. Bush remained hawkish, despite the report, saying on Tuesday that, "Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the know how to make a nuclear weapon."
When asked if military action remained an option, the president answered, "The best diplomacy - effective diplomacy - is one in which all options are on the table."
OPEC
Oil leaders' private debate televised by mistake!
[Sunday November 18, 2007]
'Kill the cable, kill the cable,' shouted the security guard as he burst through the double doors into the media room at the Intercontinental Hotel in Riyadh, followed by Saudi police. It was too late.
A private meeting of OPEC leaders, gathered this weekend in Riyadh for the cartel's third meeting in its 47-year history, had just been broadcast to the world's media for more than half an hour after a technician had mistakenly plugged the TV feed into the wrong socket. The facade of unity that the cartel so carefully cultivates to a world spooked by soaring oil prices was shattered.
Sometimes, such innocent mistakes can have far-reaching economic and political consequences. Commodity and currency traders said this weekend that oil prices would surge again tomorrow - possibly breaking the $101 per barrel record set in the late 1970s - while the already battered dollar would fall further on the back of the unintentional broadcast.
On Friday night, during what the participants thought were private talks, Venezuela's oil minister Venezuela Rafael Ramirez and his Iranian counterpart Gholamhossein Nozari, argued that pricing - and selling - oil using the crippled dollar was damaging the cartel.
They said OPEC should formally express its concern about the weakness of the dollar when the cartel makes its official declaration at the close of the summit today. But the Saudis, the world's largest oil producers and de facto head of OPEC, vetoed the proposal. Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, warned that even the mere mention to journalists of the fact that leaders were discussing the weak dollar would cause the US currency to plummet.
Unfortunately his words and those of everyone at the meeting were being broadcast via a live television feed to a group of astonished reporters. 'I couldn't believe it,' said one who was there. 'When I realized they didn't know they were being broadcast live, I frantically started taking notes.'
OPEC only realized that the leaders' row was being broadcast to the world when the Reuters news agency put out a report of the argument.
The weakness of the dollar is one reason why oil prices are so high, as cartel members seek to compensate for their lower earnings. This means a further drop in the dollar is likely to be accompanied by a rise in oil prices.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan does not produce oil; however they are strategically located in an area where a proposed pipeline from the oil rich regions in the Caspian Sea would deliver the oil to the Indian Ocean. In his previous article, Rudo de Ruijter outlined how resistance to this plan triggered the American war with Afghanistan.
What Does It All Mean?
I used to believe that politicians and big business were evil. They always seemed to act without regard for the common people. It's always the innocent families and civilians that are left homeless, killed or maimed because of some decision made behind closed doors. I used to think it was the elite, super-rich who were protecting their wealth and greed for oil money at our expense. I blamed them for everything from wars to preventing the development of free energy.
While I still believe this is true, I now see the big picture and it frightens me.
Oil and dollars have become the blood of our present civilization. A collapse of this fiat dollar system will not only destroy America's economy and lifestyle but it will have devastating impact throughout the entire planet. Since virtually all wealth is based on this dollar-for-oil scheme, a collapse of the system will send the entire world into an economic depression. This is what the politicians and decision makers are trying to avert. But the collapse is predictable and inevitable.
Forecast: U.S. dollar could plunge 90%
Published: Nov. 19, 2007 at 2:16 PM
RHINEBECK, N.Y., Nov. 19 (UPI) -- A financial crisis will likely send the U.S. dollar into a free fall of as much as 90 percent and gold soaring to $2,000 an ounce, a trends researcher said.
"We are going to see economic times the likes of which no living person has seen," Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente said, forecasting a "Panic of 2008."
"The bigger they are, the harder they'll fall," he said in an interview with New York's Hudson Valley Business Journal.
Celente -- who forecast the subprime mortgage financial crisis and the dollar's decline a year ago and gold's current rise in May -- told the newspaper the subprime mortgage meltdown was just the first "small, high-risk segment of the market" to collapse.
Derivative dealers, hedge funds, buyout firms and other market players will also unravel, he said.
Massive corporate losses, such as those recently posted by Citigroup Inc. and General Motors Corp., will also be fairly common "for some time to come," he said.
He said he would not "be surprised if giants tumble to their deaths," Celente said.
The Panic of 2008 will lead to a lower U.S. standard of living, he said.
A result will be a drop in holiday spending a year from now, followed by a permanent end of the "retail holiday frenzy" that has driven the U.S. economy since the 1940s, he said.
WASHINGTON - A Senate committee is looking into a report that says the Bush administration is hampering the ability of Environmental Protection Agency scientists to assess the health dangers of toxic chemicals.
