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Thursday 27 November 2014

U.S. Celebrates 500th “Targeted Killing” Since 2002: 3,674 Dead including 473 Civilians

All Gov.

Another milestone has been reached in the ongoing war against suspected terrorists in the Middle East and elsewhere—the United States has launched 500 attacks, or “targeted killings” in governmentspeak. 

Micah Zenko at the Council on Foreign Relations published an accounting of attacks, overwhelmingly by drones, against people in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Although sources don’t always agree on the number of attacks, the realistic number reached through averaging is 500. The “targeted killings” aren’t as well targeted as they might be; 473 civilians are among the 3,674 who have died in the attacks.

Four hundred fifty of the attacks have come during the administration of President Barack Obama with George W. Bush ordering the first 50.

Despite all those attacks, the number of al-Qaeda affiliates remains about the same, according to the State Department. The only category where the numbers appear to have fallen is among Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, where the population has fallen from “several thousand” to 1,000.   

Last month, according to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, there were nine U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan and at least one and as many as three in Yemen. Between 33 and 83 people were reported to have been killed in the October strikes. Previous counts of those killed by drone strikes in Pakistan reveal that as few as 12% of the dead were identified as militants, according to the Bureau.
-Steve Straehley

To Learn More:
America’s 500th Drone Strike (by Micah Zenko, Council on Foreign Relations)
October 2014 Update: U.S. Covert Actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia (by Jack Serle and Abigail Fielding-Smith, Bureau of Investigative Journalism)
Total Drone Deaths in Pakistan Top 2,000 (by Steve Straehley, AllGov)


Tuesday 25 November 2014

Confronting the John F. Kennedy Assassination

Want to Know
 
Where Do We Find Hope When A Peacemaking President Is Assassinated?


By James W. Douglass, author of acclaimed book JFK and the Unspeakable


I believe this experiment we are doing into the dark truth of Dallas (and of Washington, D.C.) can be the most hopeful experience of our lives. But, it does require patience and tenacity to confront the unspeakable. We, first of all, need to take the time to recognize the sources in our history for what happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
'Plausible deniability'
The doctrine of "plausible deniability" in an old government document provides us with a source of the assassination of President Kennedy. The document was issued in 1948, one year after the CIA was established, and 15 years before JFK's murder. That document, National Security Council directive 10/2, on June 18, 1948, "gave the highest sanction of the [U.S.] government to a broad range of covert operations" — propaganda, sabotage, economic warfare, subversion of all kinds — that were seen as necessary to "win" the Cold War against the Communists. [1]
In the 1950s, under the leadership of CIA Director Allen Dulles, the doctrine of "plausible deniability" became the CIA's green light to assassinate national leaders, conduct secret military operations, and overthrow governments that our government thought were on the wrong side in the Cold War. "Plausible deniability" meant our intelligence agencies, acting as paramilitary groups, had to lie and cover their tracks so effectively that there would be no trace of U.S. government responsibility for criminal activities on an ever-widening scale.
Truman warns about the CIA
The man who proposed this secret, subversive process in 1948, diplomat George Kennan, said later, in light of its consequences, that it was "the greatest mistake I ever made." [2] President Harry Truman, under whom the CIA was created, and during whose presidency the plausible deniability doctrine was authorized, had deep regrets. He said in a statement on December 22, 1963:
"We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it." [3]
Truman later remarked: "The CIA was set up by me for the sole purpose of getting all the available information to the president. It was not intended to operate as an international agency engaged in strange activities." [4]
One assumption behind Kennan's proposal unleashing the CIA for its war against Communism was that the Agency's criminal power could be confined to covert action outside the borders of the United States, with immunity from its lethal power granted to U.S. citizens. That assumption proved to be wrong.
During the Cold War, the hidden growth of the CIA's autonomous power corresponded to the public growth of what was called a fortress state. A democratic national security state is a contradiction in terms.
The insecure basis of our security then became weapons that could destroy the planet. To protect the security of that illusory means of security, which was absolute destructive power, we now needed a ruling elite of national security managers with an authority above that of our elected representatives.
So from that point on, our military-industrial managers made the real decisions of state. President Truman simply ratified their decisions and entrenched their power, as he did with the establishment of the CIA, and as his National Security Council did with its endorsement of plausible deniability. 
Kennedy sacks CIA leaders
We know how JFK reacted to the CIA's setting him up. He was furious. When the enormity of the Bay of Pigs disaster came home to him, he said he wanted "to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds." [5]
He ordered an investigation into the whole affair, under the very watchful eyes of his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy. He fired CIA Director Allen Dulles, Deputy Director Richard Bissell, Jr., and Deputy Director General Charles Cabell. That was a huge decision — firing the top of the CIA's hierarchy, including the legendary leader who had come to personify the agency, Allen Dulles.
The president then took steps "to cut the CIA budget in 1962 and again in 1963, aiming at a 20 percent reduction by 1966." [6] He was cutting back the CIA's power in very concrete ways, step by step.
JFK alienates CIA and Pentagon
JFK had to confront the unspeakable in the Missile Crisis in the form of total nuclear war. At the height of that terrifying conflict, he felt the situation spiraling out of control, especially because of the actions of his generals.
The White House tapes show Kennedy questioning and resisting the mounting pressure to bomb Cuba coming from both the Joint Chiefs and the Executive Committee of the National Security Council. At the same time, John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, the two men most responsible for the Cuban Missile Crisis, seemed locked in a hopeless ideological conflict. The U.S. and Soviet leaders had been following Cold War policies that now seemed to be moving inexorably toward a war of extermination.
Kennedy and Khrushchev: Two enemies become peacemakers
Yet, as we have since learned, Kennedy and Khrushchev had been engaged in a secret correspondence for over a year that gave signs of hope. Even as they moved publicly step by step toward a Cold War climax that would almost take the world over the edge with them, they were at the same time smuggling confidential letters back and forth that recognized each other's humanity and hoped for a solution. They were public enemies who, in the midst of deepening turmoil, were secretly learning something approaching trust in each other.
On what seemed the darkest day in the crisis, when a Soviet missile had shot down a U2 spy plane over Cuba, intensifying the already overwhelming pressures on Kennedy to bomb Cuba, the president sent his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, secretly to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. RFK told Dobrynin, as Dobrynin reported to Khrushchev, that the president "didn't know how to resolve the situation. The military is putting great pressure on him... Even if he doesn't want or desire a war, something irreversible could occur against his will. That is why the President is asking for help to solve this problem." [6]
In his memoirs, Khrushchev recalled a further, chilling sentence from Robert Kennedy's appeal to Dobrynin: "If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power." [7]
At a moment when the world was falling into darkness, Kennedy did what from his generals' standpoint was intolerable and unforgivable. JFK not only rejected his generals' pressures for war. Even worse, the president then reached out to their enemy, asking for help. That was treason.
When Nikita Khrushchev had received Kennedy's plea for help in Moscow, he turned to his Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and said, "We have to let Kennedy know that we want to help him."
Khrushchev stunned himself by what he had just said: Did he really want to help his enemy, Kennedy? Yes, he did. He repeated the word to his foreign minister:
 "Yes, help. We now have a common cause, to save the world from those pushing us toward war." [8]
How do we understand that moment? The two most heavily armed leaders in history, on the verge of total nuclear war, suddenly joined hands against those on both sides pressuring them to attack. Khrushchev ordered the immediate withdrawal of his missiles from Cuba, in return for Kennedy's public pledge never to invade Cuba and his secret promise to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey — as he would in fact do.
When President Kennedy stood up to the Pentagon, the CIA, and the military-industrial complex, he was treated as a traitor. His attempt to save the planet from the weapons of his own nation was regarded as treason. The doctrine of “plausible deniability” allowed for the assassination of a president seen as a national security risk himself.
Committing heresy for peace
 At American University on June 10, 1963, President Kennedy proposed an end to the Cold War. Kennedy's rejection of "a Pax Americana" was an act of resistance to the military-industrial complex. The military-industrial complex was totally dependent on "a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war." [9]
That Pax Americana policed by the Pentagon was considered the system's indispensable, hugely profitable means of containing and defeating Communism. At his own risk, Kennedy was rejecting the foundation of the Cold War system.
Kennedy said he wanted to negotiate a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union in Moscow — in their capitol, not ours — as soon as possible. To clear the way for such a treaty, he said he was suspending U.S. atmospheric tests unilaterally.
Kennedy's strategy of peace penetrated the Soviet government's defenses far more effectively than any missile could have done. The Soviet press, which was accustomed to censoring U.S. government statements, published the entire speech all across the country. Soviet radio stations broadcast and rebroadcast the speech to the Soviet people. In response to Kennedy's turn toward peace, the Soviet government even stopped jamming all Western broadcasts into their country.
His speech was received less favorably in his own country. The New York Times reported his government's skepticism: "Generally there was not much optimism in official Washington that the President's conciliation address at American University would produce agreement on a test ban treaty or anything else." [10]
In contrast to the Soviet media that were electrified by the speech, the U.S. media ignored or downplayed it. For the first time, Americans had less opportunity to read and hear their president's words than did the Russian people. A turn-around was occurring in the world on different levels. Whereas nuclear disarmament had suddenly become feasible, Kennedy's position in his own government had become precarious.
Nuclear test ban treaty
President Kennedy's next critical conflict with his national security state, propelling him toward the coup d'etat he saw as possible, was the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that he signed with Nikita Khrushchev on July 25, 1963, six weeks after the American University Address. The president had done an end run around the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He negotiated the Test Ban Treaty without consulting them, because they opposed it.
On September 20, Kennedy spoke to the United Nations. He suggested that its members see the Test Ban Treaty as a beginning and engage together in an experiment in peace:
 "Two years ago I told this body that the United States had proposed, and was willing to sign, a Limited Test Ban treaty. Today that treaty has been signed. It will not put an end to war. It will not remove basic conflicts. It will not secure freedom for all. But it can be a lever, and Archimedes, in explaining the principles of the lever, was said to have declared to his friends: 'Give me a place where I can stand — and I shall move the world.'" [11]
JFK reaches out to Cuba
In the month leading up to the assassination, Kennedy and Castro actually began a dialogue on normalizing U.S.-Cuban relations, through the mediation of French journalist Jean Daniel who personally visited both men. Daniel was actually eating lunch with Castro in his home on November 22, conveying Kennedy's hopeful words, when the Cuban premier was phoned with the news of Kennedy's death. Castro's somber comment to Daniel was: "Everything is changed. Everything is going to change." [12]
JFK's top-secret order to begin withdrawal from Vietnam
Kennedy decided on his policy of withdrawal from Vietnam, against the arguments of most of his advisers, at a contentious National Security Council meeting on October 2. When Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was leaving the meeting to announce the withdrawal to the White House reporters, "the President called to him, 'And tell them that means all of the helicopter pilots, too.'" [13]
In fact, it would not mean that at all. After JFK's assassination, his withdrawal policy was quietly voided. In light of the future consequences of Dallas, it was not only John Kennedy who was murdered on November 22, 1963, but 58,000 other Americans and over three million Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians.
The Steel Crisis
In a head-on confrontation with the ruling elite of Big Steel, JFK ordered the Defense Department to switch huge military contracts away from the major steel companies to the smaller, more loyal contractors that had not defied him. After the big steel companies bitterly backed down from their price raises, JFK and his brother, Robert, were denounced as symbols of "ruthless power" by the Wall Street power brokers at the center of the military-industrial complex.
In an editorial titled, "Steel: The Ides of April" (the month in which Kennedy faced down the steel executives), Henry Luce's Fortune magazine called to readers' minds the soothsayer's warning in Shakespeare of the assassination of Julius Caesar. Fortune was warning Kennedy that his actions had confirmed the worst fears of corporate America about his presidency, and would have dire consequences. As interpreted by the most powerful people in the nation, the steel crisis was a logical prelude to Dallas. It was another Bay of Pigs.
JFK reaches out to third world
Yet another Bay of Pigs was Kennedy's diplomatic opening to the fiery Third-World leadership of President Sukarno of Indonesia. Sukarno was "the most outspoken proponent of Third World neutralism in the Cold War." He had actually coined the term "Third World." The CIA wanted Sukarno dead. It wanted what it saw as his pro-communist "global orientation" obliterated. During Eisenhower's presidency, the CIA repeatedly tried to kill and overthrow Sukarno but failed.
Most significantly, three days before his assassination, President Kennedy said he was willing to accept Sukarno's invitation to visit Indonesia the following spring. His visit to Indonesia would have dramatized in a very visible way Kennedy's support of Third World nationalism, a sea change in U.S. government policy.
JFK's Indonesian policy was also killed in Dallas, with horrendous consequences. After Lyndon Johnson became president, the CIA finally succeeded in overthrowing Sukarno in a massive purge of suspected Communists that ended up killing 500,000 to one million Indonesians.
Kennedy's proposal for a joint U.S.-Soviet moon landing
In his September 20, 1963, speech to the United Nations, JFK once again stated his hope for a joint expedition to the moon. However, neither American nor Soviet military leaders, jealous of their rocket secrets, were ready to accept his initiative. Nikita Khrushchev, siding with his own rocket experts, felt he was still forced to decline Kennedy's proposal.
That further visionary step to end the Cold War also died with Kennedy. The United States went to the moon alone. U.S. and Soviet rockets continued to be pointed at their opposite countries rather than being joined in a project for a more hopeful future. Sergei Khrushchev said, "I think if Kennedy had lived, we would be living in a completely different world."
JFK meets the Quakers
In the final weeks of his presidency, President Kennedy took one more risky step toward peace. It can be seen in relation to a meeting he had the year before with six Quakers who visited him in his office. Among their challenges to him was a recommendation that the United States offer its surplus food to the People's Republic of China. China was considered an enemy nation. Yet it was also one whose people were beset by a famine.
Kennedy said to the Quakers, "Do you mean you would feed your enemy when he has his hands on your throat?" [14]
The Quakers said they meant exactly that. They reminded him it was what Jesus had said should be done. Kennedy said he knew that, and knew that it was the right thing to do, but he couldn't overcome the China lobby in Washington to accomplish it.
Nevertheless, a year and a half later in the fall of 1963, against overwhelming opposition, Kennedy decided to sell wheat to the Russians, who had a severe grain shortage. His outraged critics said in effect to him what he had said to the Quakers: Would you feed an enemy who has his hands on your throat?
Vice President Lyndon Johnson said he thought Kennedy's decision to sell wheat to Russia would turn out to be the worst political mistake he ever made. Today JFK's controversial decision "to feed the enemy" has been forgotten. In 1963, the wheat sale was seen as a threat to our security — feeding the enemy to kill us. [For solid evidence Johnson's involvement in the JFK assassination, see the History Channel documentary available here.]
The violent reaction to his decision was represented on Friday morning, November 22, 1963, by a threatening, full-page advertisement addressed to him in the Dallas Morning News. The ad was bordered in black, like a funeral notice. Among the charges of disloyalty to the nation that the ad made against the president was the question: "Why have you approved the sale of wheat and corn to our enemies when you know the Communist soldiers 'travel on their stomach' just as ours do?"
JFK talks about assassination
JFK read the ad before the flight from Fort Worth to Dallas, pointed it out to Jacqueline Kennedy, and talked about the possibility of his being assassinated that day. "But, Jackie," he said, "if somebody wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, nobody can stop it, so why worry about it?" [15]
Peacemaking was now at the top of his agenda as president. That was not the kind of leadership the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the military-industrial complex wanted in the White House. Given the Cold War dogmas that gripped those dominant powers, and given Kennedy's turn toward peace, his assassination followed as a matter of course.
So how can the why of his murder give us hope? Where do we find hope when a peacemaking president is assassinated by his own national security state?
The why of Kennedy’s assassination encircles the earth. Because John Kennedy chose peace on earth at the height of the Cold War, he was executed. But because he turned toward peace, in spite of the consequences to himself, humanity is still alive and struggling. That is hopeful, especially if we understand what he went through and what he has given to us as his vision.
A profile in courage
The void of the unspeakable is the dark abyss, the midnight reality of plausible deniability, that we face when we peer into our national security state's murder of President Kennedy. And that is precisely where hope begins.
At a certain point in his presidency, John Kennedy turned a corner and didn't look back. I believe that decisive turn toward his final purpose in life, resulting in his death, happened in the darkness of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Although Kennedy was already in conflict with his national security managers, the missile crisis was the breaking point.
At that most critical moment for us all, he turned from any remaining control his security managers had over him toward a deeper ethic, a deeper vision in which the fate of the earth became his priority. Without losing sight of our own best hopes in this country, he began to home in, with his new partner, Nikita Khrushchev, on the hope of peace for everyone on this earth. He made that commitment to life at the cost of his own.
What a transforming story that is.
And what a propaganda campaign has been waged to keep us Americans from understanding that story, from telling it, and from re-telling it to our children and grandchildren.
Because that's a story whose telling can transform a nation. But when a nation is under the continuing domination of an idol, namely war, it is a story that will be covered up. When the story can liberate us from our idolatry of war, then the worshippers of the idol are going to do everything they can to keep the story from being told. From the standpoint of a belief that war is the ultimate power, that's too dangerous a story. It's a subversive story. It shows a different kind of security than always being ready to go to war.
It's unbelievable — or we're supposed to think it is — that a president was murdered by our own government agencies because he was seeking a more stable peace than relying on nuclear weapons. It's unspeakable. 
For the sake of a nation that must always be preparing for war, that story must not be told. If it were, we might learn that peace is possible without making war. We might even learn there is a force more powerful than war. How unthinkable! But how necessary if life on earth is to continue.
That is why it is so hopeful for us to confront the unspeakable and to tell the transforming story of a man of courage, President John F. Kennedy. It is a story ultimately not of death, but of life — all our lives. In the end, it is not so much a story of one man as it is a story of peacemaking when the chips are down. That story is our story, a story of hope.

Important Note: To purchase the author's highly acclaimed book JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, click here. For a stunning History Channel documentary presenting powerful evidence that President Lyndon Johnson had a direct hand in the Kennedy assassination, click here. For documents on Kennedy stopping his generals from staging a terror attack in the U.S. and falsely accusing Cuba, click here. And for lots more reliable facts, videos, and revealing information on the John F. Kennedy assassination, click here.

References
[1] Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), p. 293.

[2] New York Times, March 18, 2005 in Keenan's obituary available at this link.

[3] Cited by Raymond Marcus, "Truman's Warning," in E. Martin Schotz, History Will Not Absolve Us: Orwellian Control, Public Denial, and the Murder of President Kennedy (Brookline, Mass.: Kurtz, Ulmer & DeLucia, 1996), pp. 237-38.

[4] U.S. News and World Report, July 25, 2004, Mission Impossible. Article available here. Originally in letter from Harry S. Truman to William B. Arthur, June 10, 1964.  Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman, edited by Robert H. Ferrell (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), p. 408.

[5] New York Times, April 25, 1966, "C.I.A.: Maker of Policy, or Tool?", See a copy of this New York Times article at this link.

[6] Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University, 2000), pp. 618-19.

[7] Khrushchev Remembers, ed. Edward Crankshaw (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), p. 498. For a summary of a crucial meeting on this, click here.

[8] Ibid., p. 630.

[9] Norman Cousins, The Improbable Triumvirate (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972), p. 9. See also the PBS text of this speech at this link, and hear the audio under "American University Commencement Address" at this link.

[10] New York Times, June 12, 1963, p. 1. "Harriman to Lead Test-Ban Mission to Soviet [Union] in July." Article available at this link.

[11] Address by President John F. Kennedy to the UN General Assembly, September 20, 1963. Available for viewing at this link. Quote is in the second to last paragraph.

[12] Jean Daniel, "When Castro Heard the News," New Republic (December 7, 1963), p. 7.

[13] Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David F. Powers, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), p. 17.

[14] James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008), p. 324. Available for viewing at this link.

[15] O'Donnell and Powers, p. 25. See also the July 24, 2010 Dallas Morning News article which includes this story as reported by JFK aide and close friend Kenneth O'Donnell at this link.

UN: 1 in 3 human trafficking victims a child, crime goes mostly unpunished

RT

The number of children among human trafficking victims has increased from one in five to one in three over the last decade, according to a newly-released UN report. It also says the number of convictions for the crime is “extremely low.”

In its latest report, released on Monday, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says the child trafficking figure is particularly high in Africa and the Middle East, where it represents two-thirds of all human trafficking cases.

The watchdog acknowledges its estimates are based on a tip-of-the-iceberg official numbers, but says the figures can still give an idea of the scale of the problem.

"Unfortunately, the report shows there is no place in the world where children, women and men are safe from human trafficking," said UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov. 


Read more

Sunday 23 November 2014

Child abuse cases are 'tip of the iceberg' in sexual exploitation of young people, said Theresa May

Comment: No shit Theresa?

------------------------ 
The Independent

 The cases of child abuse exposed so far are only the “tip of the iceberg” of the extent of sexual exploitation of young people, the Home Secretary Theresa May has warned. 

Ms May spoke of her dismay over the number of abusers who have been able to operate with impunity both in the past and today.

She said it was impossible to assess whether the activities of a paedophile ring involving senior figures in public life were covered up in the 1980s, but insisted an independent inquiry into historical sex abuse would establish the full facts.

“It’s not possible to say whether there was a cover-up, that is why I think it is so important we have the inquiry so we get at the truth,” she told the Andrew Marr Show.

“There is a real issue here about how was it that in the past, but continuing today, the very institutions of the state that should be protecting children were not doing so. Why was it these abuses were able to take place and nobody was brought to justice as a result of that?” 

Read more 

See also: In Great Britain, Protecting Pedophile Politicians is a Matter of “National Security”

A Citigroup Banker Dies – Along With Responsible Press Reporting

Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall St. On Parade
 
Depending on where and when you got your news yesterday on the tragic death of Shawn D. Miller, a Managing Director of Wall Street mega bank, Citigroup, you were either emphatically told he died of a suicide or you were led to believe he was murdered. By late evening yesterday, the story had disintegrated into wild speculation. The New York Daily News ran this stunning headline, based on anonymous sources, at 9:22 p.m.: “Banker, 42, slashed his own throat in Manhattan bathtub during drug- and booze-filled bender: sources.”

It is becoming abundantly clear that if you work for a major Wall Street firm and die a sudden death, it will be shaped, molded, twisted and contorted until it fits with the suicide narrative – no matter how strongly the facts argue otherwise.

Read more

Twenty-six Things About the Islamic State (ISIL) that Obama Does Not Want You to Know About

The US led war against  the Islamic State is a big lie.

Going after ” Islamic terrorists”, carrying out a worldwide pre-emptive war to “Protect the American Homeland” are used to justify a military agenda.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is a creation of US 
intelligence. Washington’s “Counter-terrorism Agenda” in Iraq and Syria consists in Supporting the Terrorists.  

The incursion of the Islamic State (IS) brigades into Iraq starting in June 2014 was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence operation supported covertly by the US, NATO and Israel.

The counter-terrorism mandate is a fiction. America is the Number One “State Sponsor of Terrorism” .

The Islamic State is protected by the US and its allies. If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June.  


The  Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory (see map below). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, CF-18) it would have been  -from a military standpoint-  a rapid and expedient surgical operation  

In this article, we address 26 concepts which refute the big lie.  Portrayed by the media as a humanitarian undertaking, this large scale military operation directed against Syria and Iraq has resulted in countless civilian deaths. 

It could not have been undertaken without the unbending support of  the Western media which has upheld Obama’s initiative as a counter-terrorism operation.  

THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF AL QAEDA

1. The US has supported Al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations for almost half a century since the heyday of the Soviet Afghan war. 

2. CIA training camps were set up in Pakistan.  In the ten year period from 1982 to 1992, some 35,000 jihadists from 43 Islamic countries were recruited by the CIA to fight in the Afghan jihad.
“Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad.”
3. Since the Reagan Administration, Washington has supported the Islamic terror network. 

Ronald Reagan called the terrorists “freedom fighters”. The US supplied weapons to the Islamic brigades.  It was all for “a good cause”: fighting the Soviet Union and regime change, leading to the demise of a secular government in Afghanistan.

Ronald Reagan meets Afghan Mujahideen Commanders at the
White House in 1985 (Reagan Archives)

4. Jihadist textbooks  were  published by the University of Nebraska. “. “The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings”

5. Osama bin Laden, America’s bogyman and founder of Al Qaeda was recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihadist war against Afghanistan . He was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp.

Al Qaeda was not behind the 9/11 Attacks. September 11, 2001 provided a justification for waging a war against Afghanistan on the grounds that Afghanistan was a state sponsor of terrorism, supportive of Al Qaeda. The 9/11 attacks were instrumental in the formulation of the “Global War on Terrorism”.

THE ISLAMIC STATE (ISIL)

6. The Islamic State (ISIL) was originally an Al Qaeda affiliated entity created by US intelligence with the support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-’Āmah ( رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة‎).

China unlikely to join Obama's anti-ISIS coalition: Report
7. The ISIL brigades were involved in the US-NATO supported insurgency in Syria directed against the government of  Bashar al Assad.

8.  NATO and the Turkish High Command were responsible for the recruitment of ISIL and Al Nusrah mercenaries from the outset of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011. According to Israeli intelligence sources, this initiative consisted in:
“a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011.)
9.There are Western Special Forces and Western intelligence operatives within the ranks of the ISIL. British Special Forces and MI6 have been involved in training jihadist rebels in Syria.

10. Western military specialists on contract to the Pentagon have trained the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons.
“The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. ( CNN Report, December 9, 2012)
11. The ISIL’s practice of beheadings is part of the US sponsored terrorist training programs implemented in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

12. Recruited by America’s ally, a large number of ISIL mercenaries are convicted criminals released from Saudi prisons on condition they join the ISIL. Saudi death row inmates were recruited to join the terror brigades.

13. Israel  has supported  the ISIL and Al Nusrah brigades out of the Golan Heights.

Jihadist fighters have met Israeli IDF officers as well as Prime Minister Netanyahu. The IDF top brass tacitly acknowledges that “global jihad elements inside Syria” [ISIL and Al Nusrah] are supported by Israel. See image below:

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon next to a wounded mercenary, Israeli military field hospital at the occupied Golan Heights’ border with Syria, 18 February 2014″

Inline images 1
SYRIA AND IRAQ

14 The ISIL are the foot soldiers  of the Western military alliance. Their unspoken mandate is to wreck havoc and destruction in Syria and Iraq, acting on behalf of their US sponsors.
15. US Senator John McCain has met up with jihadist terrorist leaders in Syria. (see picture right)


16.  The Islamic State (IS) militia, which is currently the alleged target of  a US-NATO bombing campaign under a “counter-terrorism” mandate, continues to be supported covertly by the US.  Washington and its allies continue to provide military aid to the Islamic State.

17. US and allied bombings are not targeting the ISIL, they are bombing the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria including factories and oil refineries.

18.  The IS caliphate project is part of a longstanding US foreign policy agenda to carve up Iraq and Syria into separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, a Republic of Kurdistan.

THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM (GWOT)

19. “The Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) is presented as a “Clash of Civilizations”, a war between competing values and religions, when in reality it is an outright war of conquest, guided by strategic and economic objectives.

20 U.S. sponsored Al Qaeda terror brigades (covertly supported by Western intelligence) have been deployed in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia and Yemen.

original
By Mchel Chossudovsky

These various affiliated Al Qaeda entities in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa  and Asia are CIA sponsored “intelligence assets”. They are used by Washington to wreck havoc,  create internal conflicts and destabilize sovereign countries.

21 Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabab in Somalia, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) (supported by NATO in 2011),  Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM),  Jemaah Islamiah (JI) in Indonesia,  among other Al Qaeda affiliated groups are supported covertly by Western intelligence.

22. The US is also supporting Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organizations in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region of China. The underlying objective is to trigger political instability in Western China.

Chinese jihadists are reported to have received “terrorist training” from the Islamic State “in order to conduct attacks in China”. The declared objective of these Chinese-based jihadist entities (which serves the interests of the US)  is to establish a Islamic caliphate extending into Western China. 

 (Michel Chossudovsky, America’s War on Terrorism, Global Research, Montreal, 2005, Chapter 2).
HOMEGROWN TERRORISTS

23 The Terrorists R Us:  While the US is the unspoken architect of the Islamic State,  Obama’s holy mandate is to protect America against ISIL attacks.

24 The homegrown terrorist threat is a fabrication.  It is promoted by Western governments and the media with a view to repealing civil liberties and installing a police state. The terror attacks by alleged jihadists and terror warnings are invariably staged events. They are used to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

In turn, the arrests, trials and sentences of “Islamic terrorists” sustain the legitimacy of America’s Homeland Security State and law enforcement apparatus, which has become increasingly militarized.

The ultimate objective is to instill in the minds of millions of Americans that the enemy is real and the U.S. Administration will protect the lives of its citizens.

25.  The “counter-terrorism” campaign against the Islamic State has contributed to the demonization of Muslims, who in the eyes of Western public opinion are increasingly  associated with the jihadists.

26  Anybody who dares to question the validity of the “Global War on Terrorism” is branded a terrorist and subjected to the anti-terrorist laws.

The ultimate objective of the “Global War on Terrorism” is to subdue the citizens, totally depoliticize social life in America, prevent people from thinking and conceptualizing, from analyzing facts and challenging the legitimacy of the inquisitorial social order which rules America.
The Obama Administration has imposed a diabolical consensus with the support of its allies, not to mention the complicit role of the United Nations Security Council.  The Western media has embraced the consensus; it has described the Islamic State as an independent entity, an outside enemy which threatens the Western World.

The Big Lie has become the Truth. 

Say no to the “Big Lie”. Spread the message.

The truth is ultimately a powerful weapon.

Please help us continue. We rely on the support of our readers.

Consider donating to Global Research. For Peace and Truth in Media, Michel Chossudovsky

Friday 21 November 2014

It's official: US stole Ukraine's gold

Dmitry Orlov
Club Orlov

This just in: it turns out that the rumors were right after all. At least part of the reason the US State Dept./CIA staged a coup in Ukraine that overthrew its democratically elected government and installed a neo-Nazi puppet regime was to steal Ukraine's gold. Rumor had it that shortly after the coup the gold was quietly loaded onto a plane that took it to the US. And now comes the official revelation: Ukraine has no gold reserves left. The gold was sold to pay for a failed military campaign in Eastern Ukraine, and to prop up the fake paper gold market for a little bit longer. One would expect that once the fix is off, the price of gold will skyrocket, the US dollar will drop like a rock, and Americans will need to add the word “hyperinflation” to their list of national woes.

Wall Street Stunned As Iceland Dares To Jail Banker Involved In 2008 Crash

Zero Hedge 

The impossible is possible. Never say never. Wall Street bankers are staring agog at headlines coming from Europe where, in Iceland, the former chief executive of one of the largest banks in the country which was involved in crashing the economy in 2008 has been sentenced to jail time. As Valuewalk reports, in receiving a one year prison sentence, Sigurjon Arnason officially became the first bank executive to be convicted of manipulating the bank’s stock price and deceiving investors, creditors and the authorities between Sept. 29 and Oct. 3, 2008, as the bank’s fortunes unwound, crashing the economy with it. It appears he was as shocked by the verdict as Wall Street-ers are, "this sentence is a big surprise to me as I did nothing wrong." It was likely all for the people's own good...


 
 
Via ValueWalk,

Some thought it would never happen. But in Iceland, the former chief executive of one of the largest banks in the country which was involved in crashing the economy in 2008 has been sentenced to jail time.

Iceland banker the first to manipulate bank’s stock price

In receiving a one year prison sentence, Sigurjon Arnason officially became the first bank executive to be convicted of manipulating the bank’s stock price and deceiving investors, creditors and the authorities between Sept. 29 and Oct. 3, 2008, as the bank’s fortunes unwound, crashing the economy with it.  Landsbanki was one of three banks that had tallied nearly $75 billion in debt before the final curtain was drawn.

What, me guilty? was the bank executive’s response upon learning of his fate. “This sentence is a big surprise to me as I did not nothing wrong,” Arnason was quoted as saying in a Reuters article after he learned of his punishment.  Amason had not decided if he was going to appeal the decision to the supreme court, as the appeal process might take longer than his sentence.

Other Iceland bank executives also convicted

The Reykjavik District Court had lopped off nine months of Arnason’s sentence, saying they were suspended.  Other bank executives involved in the situation were convicted: Ivar Gudjonsson, the former director of proprietary trading at the bank, along with Julius Heidarsson, a former broker at the bank. They each received nine-month sentences and six of those nine months were immediately suspended by the court.

All pleaded innocent to the charges, as the the fallout from the 2008 crisis continues to this day in the north Atlantic island and around the world.  As a sign of thawing in the crisis, Reuters reported that earlier in the week Landsbanki, the successor to the failed Landsbankinn, agreed to extend a deadline to restructure bonds to the end of the year. If a bond restructuring agreement is reached, it could help the government lift capital controls which were imposed due to the crisis.

NIST Coverup: 9/11 Commission Report Exposed As Government Conspiracy To Hide USA Involvement

‘Official’ NIST Report Shattered by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth White Paper

 
Michael Thomas
State of the Nation


Once again the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (A&E) have produced an indisputable white paper which exposes the official NIST Report as a deliberate coverup.

This authoritative document reveals so much fraudulent data and fake science, so many fabricated theories and false conclusions, that NIST will never be taken seriously again.

When over two thousand architects and engineers coalesce around the notion that the US Federal Government has perpetrated such a fraud on the American people, there exists an immediate mandate to fully investigate the 9/11 terrorists attacks.  Numerous high integrity investigations have now shown that the government used taxpayer money to purposefully fabricate the 9/11 Commission Report[1].  The bogus NIST Report is just one of several which was concocted to deceive the American people regarding the most destructive and murderous terrorist attacks ever committed on US soil.

september-9-11-attacks-anniversary-ground-zero-world-trade-center-pentagon-flight-93-collapsing-tower_40003_600x450
The following table of contents from the recently released A&E white paper offers a quick glance at some of the most serious factual errors and omissions contained in the NIST Report.  Detailed explanations of each bullet point delineated below can be found at the following link: ‘Official’ NIST Report Shattered by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth White Paper
WTC 7 – THE THIRD SKYSCRAPER 
  1. OMISSION OF GIRDER STIFFENERS SHOWN ON FRANKEL DRAWING #9114
  2. OMISSION OF THREE LATERAL SUPPORT BEAMS ON THE 13TH FLOOR G3005 BEAM
  3. WTC 7 COLLAPSE AT FREE-FALL ACCELERATION IS NOT EXPLAINED
  4. VIDEOS OF THE COLLAPSE OF WTC 7 BETRAY NIST’S COMPUTER MODEL
  5. CLAIMS OF INVESTIGATING CONTROLLED DEMOLITION WITHOUT TESTING FOR EXPLOSIVE RESIDUES
  6. CHANGES OF STATEMENTS ON COMPOSITE BEAMS AND SHEAR STUD USE BETWEEN DRAFTS
  7. REFUSING OF FOIA REQUESTS 
ALL THREE BUILDINGS 
  1. NEGLIGENCE IN SALVAGING STEEL 
  2. IGNORING THE RESULTS OF FEMA 403, APPENDIX C 
  3. INVOLVEMENT IN NOT SAVING STEEL FOR INVESTIGATION 
  4. FIRE SIMULATIONS AND DURATIONS ARE EXAGGERATED
  5. NO DISCUSSION OF THE MOLTEN METAL FOUND IN THE RUBBLE OF THE THREE COLLAPSED BUILDINGS. 8
  6. REFUSAL TO TEST FOR EXPLOSIVE RESIDUE 
  7. FAILURE TO FOLLOW STANDARD FIRE INVESTIGATION PROTOCOL 
THE TWIN TOWERS
  1. STRIPPING OF THE FIRE PROOFING IS EXAGGERATED
  2. PRE-COLLAPSE STEEL TEMPERATURES ARE EXAGGERATED 
  3. TESTED FLOOR ASSEMBLIES DID NOT FAIL 
  4. INITIATION OF COLLAPSE – “INWARD BOWING” WAS INDUCED ARTIFICIALLY
  5. COLUMN STRESS DUE TO LOAD REDISTRIBUTION IS NOT SUFFICIENT TO CAUSE FAILURE
  6. NO EXPLANATION GIVEN FOR HORIZONTAL PROPAGATION OF COLLAPSE 
  7. WTC 1 TILT OCCURRED AFTER SYMMETRICAL COLLAPSE FOR AT LEAST TWO STORIES
  8. NO JOLT – CONTINUOUS ACCELERATION OF COLLAPSE WAS IGNORED
  9. NO PILE DRIVER IS OBSERVED IN VIDEOS 
  10. COLUMN LOADS WERE CALCULATED FOR WORST CASE, NOT ACTUAL IN-SERVICE LOADS
  11. MOLTEN METAL OBSERVED POURING OUT OF THE CORNER OF WTC 2 REMAINS UNRESOLVED[2]
Each one of the 25 problem areas listed above stands as a serious assault on the government’s official narrative.  Many of them serve to outright disprove some of the most critical of the NIST Report claims.  All taken together it can now be stated categorically that the causes of the World Trade Center building collapses are not what the 9/11 Commission Report delineated.  Therefore, the only irrefutable conclusion is that the Bush Administration coordinated a premeditated coverup, after executing what amounts to a classic “inside job”.

Evidence And Testimony Points To A US Federal Government Conceived, Coordinated And Covered Up 9/11 False Flag Operation

Because of the number and profundity of the falsified claims and fictitious findings contained in the NIST Report, there can only be one conclusion: That the US Federal Government coordinated and participated directly in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  This only remaining and most reasonable deduction has been since corroborated by many credible witnesses.  Experts and authorities inside and outside government have presented their evidence and offered their testimony clearly demonstrating US Government involvement.

In light of these revelations, perhaps it is time to heed the recommendations of the editor of this extremely consequential white paper.  As follows:
“In recent years, various members of the AE911Truth team have been working on a white paper titled “Areas of Specific Concern in the NIST WTC Reports.” Last month they finally completed the document. Its 25 concise points offer the most convincing proof that the reports produced by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on the September 11, 2001, destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings were unscientific and fraudulent. The authors of “The 25 Points” designed the document to provide material that would compel the convening of a grand jury. Whether or not a grand jury is ever impaneled in any jurisdiction, though, readers of this white paper have the duty and privilege of acting as a virtual grand jury in all jurisdictions. After weighing the evidence meticulously laid out in “The 25 Points,” readers can, by their resulting actions, help determine whether there will one day be a new, fully funded, truly independent, wholly transparent, and unimpeachably honest investigation of 9/11.”[2]
There are many who have gone much further than this suggestion. In light of the overwhelming amount of evidence that proves — scientifically, anecdotally and circumstantially — that the US Federal Government perpetrated the 9/11 attacks as a calculated false flag operation, a new investigation must be commenced. In addition to a new 9/11 Presidential Commission being established, Congressional hearings must be initiated post haste. Likewise, a special prosecutor must be appointed by the Obama Administration if the current government is to retain even a modicum of credibility.

01-911
Crime of the Millennium = Historic Failure of Government

The US Government-sponsored 9/11 attacks on its own citizenry represent not only unrivaled crimes against America, they also represent crimes against humanity. Particularly because of the number of wars[3], which have been predicated on this false flag operation, must these crimes against the people of the world be prosecuted within the International Court of Justice at the Hague.  The government crimes of 9/11 ought to be further prosecuted within the realm US Common Law, since the current US Criminal Justice System appears to be unable to faithfully carry out its statutory duties on behalf of the American people.

In the end, 9/11 will go down in world history as perhaps the greatest deception by a government ever committed against a nation.  Not only was it a gross violation of the public trust and profound breach of the social contract, it represents an unparalleled and unprecedented failure of government on every level.  A careful analysis of the public record clearly indicates that government officials at the federal, state, county and municipal levels were complicit by their actions and inactions on 9/11/01.

Because the 9/11 coverup continues to this very day, the Mainstream Media has also indicted itself.  The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal are just a few of the dominant print news outlets that have betrayed the American people by maintaining this biggest coverup in USA history.  Likewise, all the major networks, such as CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and FOX, have actively participated in covering up this crime of the millennium.

Conclusion

The US Federal Government has broken the covenant that exists between the citizenry and its governing bodies and institutions.  Because of the shocking manner in which human life was taken on September 11, 2001, those responsible must be identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  Likewise, in view of the stunning controlled demolition of the World Trade Center Complex and destruction at the Pentagon, those organs of government which participated in any way must be held held accountable and brought to justice.

Not to act on the undeniable information[4] disseminated by the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth will only embolden the actual 9/11 perps.  They have already shown the world how much death and destruction they are willing to inflict throughout the world by way of unprovoked wars based on the 9/11 false flag attacks.  Therefore, why would they hesitate to carry out more false flag operations, just as they have every year since that fateful September day in 2001.

There is a moral imperative which accompanies the A&E white paper.  Once the American people become aware of the truth surrounding 9/11[5], there comes a solemn responsibility to act on it.  Because many of the same co-conspirators are still in positions of authority throughout government, it is incumbent upon law enforcement to detain them until the wheels of justice can turn.

Nothing less than a safe and secure future of the United States of America depends upon taking the necessary action in response to 9/11 truth. An unwillingness and/or reluctance to face these grim realities do not constitute a sufficient excuse for inaction.  Only by being proactive in systematically addressing the 9/11 truths stated by the A&E will the nation reclaim its soul.  Until then, We the People remain hostage to a secret cabal that continues to wage illegal wars in our name with our hard-earned tax dollars.

More importantly, the failure to respond appropriately will expose future generations to all sorts of schemes which will further deprive them of their rights … their freedoms … and their dignity.

Michael Thomas
November 19, 2014


State of the Nation

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

Author’s Note

The author is not unaware of the many other international and supranational co-conspirators who were also deeply involved in the implementation and coverup of the 9/11 attacks. The supporting links below provide many of the details regarding the various foreign state actors and secret organizations which were complicit. Hence, the neglect to mention the transnational scope of these crimes should not be construed as a free pass in this essentially global call for prosecution.

However, at the end of the day — every day — it is the US Federal Government that is ultimately responsible for national security. Protecting the citizens of this nation, preventing the destruction of major office buildings and safeguarding the Pentagon all fall within the jurisdiction of the Executive Branch. These same duties also fall within the purview of various other government entities. 

Therefore, they are all immediately responsible for what they did and/or what they did not do toward the prevention of, as well as in the investigation and prosecution of, these heinous crimes.

Endnotes:

[1] 9/11 Commission Report: The Most Ridiculous Conspiracy Theory Of All Time
[2] ‘Official’ NIST Report Shattered by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth White Paper
[3] September 11, 2001: The Crimes of War Committed “In the Name of 9/11″
[4] Over 2200 Architects And Engineers Demolish The ‘Official’ 9/11 Commission Report
[5] 9/11: The Ultimate Inside Job And False Flag Operation
Recommended Reading
9/11 TRUTH GOES NUCLEAR: Massive Download In Progress
9/11: Russia Presents Evidence Against US, UK And Israel Co-Conspirators
9/11 False Flag Operation: HUGE Tipping Point As State-Sponsored Terrorism Is Exposed
References
9/11 US Government Criminal Conspiracy: THERE IS NO DEBATE
9/11 Commission Report: Fraudulent Investigation And Intentional Coverup
9/11 Firefighter Blows WTC Building #7 Cover-Up Wide Open
9/11 VERDICT: Mainstream Media Guilty Of The Biggest Coverup In US History
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