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Lightning - August 2004
©2004 Pierre-Paul Feyte

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has survived US-sponsored demonstrations, general strikes, coup attempt, and, now, the recall referendum. That isn't good enough for the "opposition" who are claiming, surprise, surprise, that yesterday's referendum was fraught with irregularities, so rather than settling once and for all the protests, these sore losers, backed with US funding, will continue their attempts to overthrow the democratically elected leader. Having failed in their previous attempts, is assassination the last resort?

Chavez claims referendum victory

President Hugo Chavez has claimed a "victory for the Venezuelan people" after the release of results indicating he won a referendum on his rule.

Officials from the National Electoral Council said that, with 94% of ballots counted, Mr Chavez had 58% of the vote.

Opponents rejected the partial results as a fraud, insisting they had won.

But it now seems clear an opposition attempt to force him from office has failed, as have previous attempts, the BBC's James Menendez in Caracas says.

There was a large turnout for the vote, in which Venezuelans were asked whether Mr Chavez should serve out the remaining two-and-a-half years of his term.

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Venezuelan opposition rejects Chavez's victory

www.chinaview.cn 2004-08-16 18:01:55

CARACAS, Aug. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- The Venezuelan opposition rejected President Hugo Chavez's victory in a referendum over his mandate Monday and said they would contest the outcome.

"We firmly and categorically reject the result ... we're going to collect the evidence to prove to Venezuela and the world the gigantic fraud which has been committed against the will of the people," opposition leader Henry Ramos Allup told a news conference.

Two of the five National Election Council (CNE) directors announced they disagreed with the results because the ballots had not been properly audited.

"One cannot consider as official the partial results which partof the CNE leadership wants to announce," said Sobella Mejia, one of the council's officials.

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Comment: The results were predictable, that the opposition would cry "Fraud at polls" if they lost. They did, and their war-cry will be heard round the world. The New York Times, which claims to be the American "paper of record", is misleading their readers with the following story:

Chávez Is Declared the Winner in Venezuela Referendum

By JUAN FORERO
Published: August 16, 2004

CARACAS, Venezuela, Aug. 16 — Venezuelans have voted to keep Hugo Chávez as their president, electoral authorities said early this morning after 18 hours of voting that tested Venezuelan democracy and the patience of voters.

The national electoral council president, Francisco Carrasquero, announced at 4 a.m. that Mr. Chávez had won the backing of 58 percent of voters, with 42 percent supporting the opposition's drive to recall him.

But the opposition, which soon after the polls closed at midnight had giddily predicted victory, said that the government had cheated and that it had won by a wide margin. The Organization of American States and the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which monitored the election and conducted their own highly accurate voting samples, had not commented on the dispute as of 8:30 a.m.

"We categorically reject the results," Henry Ramos, spokesman for the Democratic Coordinator, the umbrella of 27 political parties that opposes the government, said in a televised announcement. "They have perpetrated a gigantic fraud against the will of the people."

Holding a microphone and standing in a balcony of the Miraflores presidential palace, Mr. Chávez spoke to a throng of supporters in a predawn address, telling them that the "the Venezuelan people have spoken."

"The Venezuelan people have spoken and the people's voice is the voice of God!" Mr. Chávez said. He was also conciliatory toward the opposition, which he has called "squalid ones" and a "rancid oligarchy" in the past.

"This is a victory for the opposition," the president said. "They defeated violence, coup-mongering and fascism. I hope they accept this as a victory and not as a defeat."

Bloomberg News reported that crude oil futures fell from record highs after the vote was announced. There had been concerns in the oil markets that a defeat would have disrupted supplies from this country, the world's fifth-largest exporter of oil and a key supplier to the United States.

Brent crude oil for September delivery, which expires today, fell as much as 58 cents, or 1.3 percent, on London's International Petroleum Exchange and was down 43 cents to $43.45 at 12:04 p.m. local time, Bloomberg said.

With about 60 percent of Venezuelans voting, the results appear to permit Mr. Chávez to finish out the two years left on his tumultuous term, which began after he won re-election in 2000.

The results were issued just four hours after polls closed in the election, the first in Latin America that would have permitted the recall of an elected leader. The voting was sluggish, as huge numbers of Venezuelans swamped 8,394 polling sites.

The victory means that Venezuela will continue to be led by a pugnacious former paratrooper who has riled the United States with his sharp attacks on the Bush administration, his leftist policies and his friendship with President Fidel Castro of Cuba.

Mr. Chávez has declared itself at odds with nearly all facets of American policy in Latin America, such as its military aid to neighboring Colombia and its efforts to expand free trade agreements across the region. But Mr. Chávez has said that Venezuela would continue to provide the United States with the 1.5 million barrels of crude that it receives from this country daily, about 14 percent of the total amount of oil the United States imports.

The stakes in the election were huge.

The opposition promised that ousting Mr. Chávez would revive a battered economy that shrank by nearly 20 percent in two years and do away with a leader who had kept Venezuelans in a state of constant commotion since he was first elected in 1998 on a promise of transforming this country.

Mr. Chávez's government pledged that it would continue with its so-called Bolivarian revolution, named after the country's independence wars hero, Simón Bolivar, purging elites from institutions and funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into health and social programs.

Under a blazing sun for most of the day on Sunday, voters waited hours — in some cases as many as 10 hours — to cast their ballots. Newly obtained fingerprint scanners used to ensure against fraud slowed the process considerably, with several voters — including Mr. Chávez — repeatedly having to place their fingers on a digital pad before a computerized registry could be made.

Voters also had to provide a manual fingerprint, to ensure their names were on precinct-wide lists of registered voters and then cast their ballot on new touch-screen machines.

The sheer size of the electorate seemed to have taken electoral authorities by surprise, with political analysts predicting that the abstention rate would come out to about 20 percent.

"You have to be patient," sighed Alvaro Sucre, a volunteer poll watcher for an anti-Chávez group, as he talked with two foreign reporters while affluent voters waited to cast ballots in the afternoon on Sunday. "People have worked hard for this and they will be ready to wait until midnight if need be to exercise their rights."

In the end, that is exactly what happened after electoral authorities ruled that voting booths, which had been scheduled to close at 4 p.m., would remain open until midnight to accommodate all voters.

"This is the largest turnout I have ever seen," said former President Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center in Atlanta monitored the electoral process and has observed dozens of elections worldwide.

Buoyed by high oil prices that have left Venezuela awash in cash this year, Mr. Chávez's government worked for victory by embarking on a $1.7 billion social spending program that includes offering everything from literacy classes and expanded school hours to medical house calls and subsidized food.

The government also spent handsomely on a sophisticated campaign that scared Venezuelans into believing a "yes" vote for the recall would be a vote for American imperialism and the corrupt political parties that had ruled this country in the past.

"If yes wins, everything will go backwards, and that's why we need to say, no," María Arevalo, 43, a seamstress in a poor neighborhood, said moments before casting her ballot for the president. "We have worked so hard for all of this."

In the 23rd of January housing project, a sprawl of Soviet-style buildings where Mr. Chávez himself voted, Yanursy Palencia, 45, said she could not bare to see her president thrown out.

"I admire him, I respect him, and he has helped his people," she said after voting.

But the voting, if anything, showed clearly that millions of Venezuelans — not just the very rich, as Mr. Chávez contends — want him out.

So though the opposition seems to have fallen short, it has clearly demonstrated to the government that it has alienated much of the populace. Mr. Chávez's challenge will, in part, be to show that he can be conciliatory, instead of demeaning, as many Venezuelans charge. Some political analysts, even those who see positive policies in the Chávez government, believe it may be hard for the president.

"He cannot resist a fight," Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington-based policy group, said in a recent interview. "He's a taunting man, with almost a kind of childish irresponsibility."

Mr. Birns added that Mr. Chávez must learn that his mannerisms infuriate opponents, to the point where it is counterproductive for his own government. "Is he wise enough to learn?" Mr. Birns wondered.

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Comment: Notice the sleazy remarks throughout this article. The campaign led by Chavez is labeled a "sophisticated campaign that scared Venezuelans into believing a 'yes' vote for the recall would be a vote for American imperialism and the corrupt political parties that had ruled this country in the past." Unfortunately, for the NYT, this is indeed the case, but Americans are not known for having a very accurate understanding of the role of the country in the world, particularly Latin America. It was only 31 years ago that the Nixon Administration murdered another democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. How many kids are taught that in US schools?

Then there are the remarks about Chavez from Mr. Birns. What exactly is Chavez's "irresponsibility"? To ignore the wishes of the US and to take money from Venezuela's oil and to use it to improve the condition of Venezuela's poor. This is why Chavez is described as "leftist". Further, the "commotion" in Venezuela is the result of the opposition, financed by the US: general strikes, a coup attempt, demonstrations, etc. But if the New York Times had bothered to read what the Council on Hemispheric Affairs had to say about Chavez, they would have read the following:

The highly controversial Hugo Chavez has caused concern both at home and abroad with his aggressive populist message and his seemingly demagogic style. Lashing out at both his political rivals and their Washington supporters, the Venezuelan leader has overruled congress with wide-ranging presidential decrees, installed political cronies into the Supreme Court and attacked civil organizations that do not condone his Bolivarian vision. Yet, Chavez has always managed to remain within the country's constitutional framework.

Chavez' opponents view such actions as manifestations of his anti-democratic tendencies that will gradually undermine Venezuela's constitutional base. Yet, while this criticism of the government is at times merited, Chavez' controversial leadership has also been marked by a number of positives. These include a renewed concern for the country's lower class, which has historically been ignored by corrupt political parties which now oppose Chavez. These groups made certain that the billions of dollars in earnings by the state-owned oil company were not spent on the infrastructural needs of the poor.

Unlike his opponents, Chavez has instituted social programs, ranging from subsidized food to much-needed public-work projects as well as enhanced medical and health services, making good on his campaign pledges to improve the lives of the nation's poor. "A lot of poor people who have never voted before will come out this Sunday for Chavez because of what he's delivered," stated Eva Golinger, a Venezuelan expatriate who has seen the government's programs in action, in a recent New York Daily News article.

[...] While the opposition has accused Chavez of instituting autocratic and self-interested policies, its own political history illustrates its willingness to place class interests above the nation's well-being. Chavez' election to the presidency ended the fourth Venezuelan Republic, during which the country's two traditional parties, Acción Democrática and the Christian Democratic Party, shamelessly embezzled government funds and promoted an environment of cronyism and nepotism, while concerns for the country's poor were essentially ignored.

Might the Times be accused of judicious editing to create a certain impression in the minds of their readers? The description of the activities of the old-line political parties certainly sounds to us like it matches the description given by Chavez in his "sophisticated campaign". Perhaps if the Venezuelan people find this "scary", it is because they remember all too well what life was like under the old regime.

From Central America to Iraq

Noam Chomsky
Khaleej Times, August 6, 2004

ONE moral truism that should not provoke controversy is the principle of universality: We should apply to ourselves the same standards we apply to others - in fact, more stringent ones. Commonly, if states have the power to do so with impunity, they disdain moral truisms, because those states set the rules.

That's our right if we declare ourselves uniquely exempt from the principle of universality. And so we do, constantly. Every day brings new illustrations.

Just last month, for example, John Negroponte went to Baghdad as US ambassador to Iraq, heading the world's largest diplomatic mission, with the task of handing over sovereignty to Iraqis to fulfil Bush's 'messianic mission' to graft democracy to the Middle East and the world, or so we are solemnly informed.

But nobody should overlook the ominous precedent: Negroponte learned his trade as US ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s, during the Reaganite phase of many of the incumbents in Washington, when the first war on terror was declared in Central America and the Middle East.

In April, Carla Anne Robbins of The Wall Street Journal wrote about Negroponte's Iraq appointment under the heading Modern Proconsul. In Honduras, Negroponte was known as 'the proconsul', a title given to powerful administrators in colonial times." There, he presided over the second largest embassy in Latin America, with the largest CIA station in the world at that time - and not because Honduras was a centrepiece of world power.

Robbins observed that Negroponte has been criticised by human-rights activists for "covering up abuses by the Honduran military" - a euphemism for large-scale state terror - "to ensure the flow of US aid" to this vital country, which was "the base for President Reagan's covert war against Nicaragua's Sandinista government."

The covert war was launched after the Sandinista revolution took control in Nicaragua. Washington's professed fear was that a second Cuba might develop in this Central American nation. In Honduras, proconsul Negroponte's task was to supervise the bases where a terrorist mercenary army - the Contras - was trained, armed and sent to overthrow the Sandinistas.

In 1984, Nicaragua responded in a way appropriate to a law-abiding state by taking its case against the United States to the World Court in the Hague. The court ordered the United States to terminate the 'unlawful use of force' -- in lay terms, international terrorism -- against Nicaragua and to pay substantial reparations. But Washington ignored the court, then vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions affirming the judgment and calling on all states to observe international law.

US State Department legal adviser Abraham Sofaer explained the rationale. Since most of the world cannot be "counted on to share our view", we must "reserve to ourselves the power to determine" how we will act and which matters fall "essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the United States, as determined by the United States" - in this case the actions in Nicaragua that the court condemned.

Washington's disregard of the court decree and its arrogance towards the international community are perhaps relevant to the current situation in Iraq. The campaign in Nicaragua left a dependent democracy, at an incalculable cost. Civilian deaths have been estimated at tens of thousands - proportionately, a death toll "significantly higher than the number of US persons killed in the US Civil War and all the wars of the 20th century combined," writes Thomas Carothers, a leading historian of the democratisation of Latin America.

Carothers writes from the perspective of an insider as well as a scholar, having served in Reagan's State Department during the 'democracy enhancement' programmes in Central America. The Reagan-era programmes were 'sincere' though a 'failure', according to Carothers, because Washington would tolerate only "limited, top-down forms of democratic change that did not risk upsetting the traditional structures of power with which the United States has long been allied."

This is a familiar historical refrain in the pursuit of visions of democracy, which Iraqis apparently comprehend, even if we choose not to. Today, Nicaragua is the second-poorest country in the hemisphere (above Haiti, another main target of US intervention during the 20th century). About 60 per cent of Nicaraguan children under age two are afflicted with anaemia from severe malnutrition - only one grim indication of what is hailed as a victory for democracy.

The Bush administration claims to want to bring democracy to Iraq, using the same experienced official as in Central America. During Negroponte's confirmation hearings, the international terrorist campaign in Nicaragua received passing mention but is considered of no particular significance, thanks, presumably, to the exemption of our glorious selves from the principle of universality.

Several days after Negroponte's appointment, Honduras withdrew its small contingent of forces from Iraq. That might have been a coincidence. Or maybe the Hondurans remember something from the time when Negroponte was there that we prefer to forget.

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Suppress the Vote?

The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is alive and thriving in Florida.

By BOB HERBERT

The big story out of Florida over the weekend was the tragic devastation caused by Hurricane Charley. But there's another story from Florida that deserves our attention.

State police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd "investigation" that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November.

The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Gov. Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March.

"We did a preliminary inquiry into those allegations and then we concluded that there was enough evidence to follow through with a full criminal investigation," said Geo Morales, a spokesman for the Department of Law Enforcement.

The state police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes. Some of those questioned have been volunteers in get-out-the-vote campaigns.

I asked Mr. Morales in a telephone conversation to tell me what criminal activity had taken place.

"I can't talk about that," he said.

I asked if all the people interrogated were black.

"Well, mainly it was a black neighborhood we were looking at - yes,'' he said.

He also said, "Most of them were elderly."

When I asked why, he said, "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview."

Back in the bad old days, some decades ago, when Southern whites used every imaginable form of chicanery to prevent blacks from voting, blacks often fought back by creating voters leagues, which were organizations that helped to register, educate and encourage black voters. It became a tradition that continues in many places, including Florida, today.

Not surprisingly, many of the elderly black voters who found themselves face to face with state police officers in Orlando are members of the Orlando League of Voters, which has been very successful in mobilizing the city's black vote.

The president of the Orlando League of Voters is Ezzie Thomas, who is 73 years old. With his demonstrated ability to deliver the black vote in Orlando, Mr. Thomas is a tempting target for supporters of George W. Bush in a state in which the black vote may well spell the difference between victory and defeat.

The vile smell of voter suppression is all over this so-called investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Joseph Egan, an Orlando lawyer who represents Mr. Thomas, said: "The Voters League has workers who go into the community to do voter registration, drive people to the polls and help with absentee ballots. They are elderly women mostly. They get paid like $100 for four or five months' work, just to offset things like the cost of their gas. They see this political activity as an important contribution to their community. Some of the people in the community had never cast a ballot until the league came to their door and encouraged them to vote."

Now, said Mr. Egan, the fear generated by state police officers going into people's homes as part of an ongoing criminal investigation related to voting is threatening to undo much of the good work of the league. He said, "One woman asked me, 'Am I going to go to jail now because I voted by absentee ballot?' "

According to Mr. Egan, "People who have voted by absentee ballot for years are refusing to allow campaign workers to come to their homes. And volunteers who have participated for years in assisting people, particularly the elderly or handicapped, are scared and don't want to risk a criminal investigation."

Florida is a state that's very much in play in the presidential election, with some polls showing John Kerry in the lead. A heavy-handed state police investigation that throws a blanket of fear over thousands of black voters can only help President Bush.

The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is alive and thriving in the Sunshine State.

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GOP Lawmaker,"Suppress the Vote"

Well, somebody finally said it out loud; it's better for the GOP if fewer blacks vote. In this case, it was a Michigan GOP Lawmaker who spoke aloud what some of us already knew was the 'pubs unspoken sentiment.

Democrats on Wednesday denounced a Republican lawmaker quoted in a newspaper as saying the GOP would fare poorly in this year's elections if it failed to "suppress the Detroit vote."

State Rep. John Pappageorge, R-Troy, acknowledged using "a bad choice of words" but said his remark shouldn't be construed as racist.

Pappageorge, 73, was quoted in July 16 editions of the Detroit Free Press as saying, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election."

"I'm extremely disappointed in my colleague," state Sen. Buzz Thomas, D-Detroit, told reporters Wednesday during a conference call. "That's quite clearly code that they don't want black people to vote in this election."

Blacks comprise 83 percent of Detroit's population, and the city routinely gives Democratic candidates a substantial majority of its votes.

How many different ways are there to interpret the representative's comments other than racist?

In an attempt to explain, the representative only seemed to dig himself in deeper.

"In the context that we were talking about, I said we've got to get the vote up in Oakland (County) and the vote down in Detroit. You get it down with a good message. I don't know how we got them from there to "racist,"' Pappageorge said. "If I have given offense in any way to my colleagues in Detroit or anywhere, I apologize."

Only a Republican would defend the notion of "getting the vote down," and the idea that America is better off if fewer people vote.

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"We're in deep fecal matter" Department, Part 2,982,784

Goss's Wish List

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 6:39 p.m. ET Aug. 11, 2004

Aug. 11 - Rep. Porter Goss, President Bush's nominee to head the CIA, recently introduced legislation that would give the president new authority to direct CIA agents to conduct law-enforcement operations inside the United States—including arresting American citizens.

The legislation, introduced by Goss on June 16 and touted as an "intelligence reform" bill, would substantially restructure the U.S. intelligence community by giving the director of Central Intelligence (DCI) broad new powers to oversee its various components scattered throughout the government.

But in language that until now has not gotten any public attention, the Goss bill would also redefine the authority of the DCI in such a way as to substantially alter—if not overturn—a 57-year-old ban on the CIA conducting operations inside the United States.

The language contained in the Goss bill has alarmed civil-liberties advocates. It also today prompted one former top CIA official to describe it as a potentially "dramatic" change in the guidelines that have governed U.S. intelligence operations for more than a half century.

"This language on its face would have allowed President Nixon to authorize the CIA to bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters," Jeffrey H. Smith, who served as general counsel of the CIA between 1995 and 1996, told NEWSWEEK. "I can't imagine what Porter had in mind."

Goss himself could not be reached for comment today. But a congressional source familiar with the drafting of Goss's bill said the language reflects a concern that he and others in the U.S. intelligence community share—that the lines between foreign and domestic intelligence have become increasingly blurred by the war on terrorism.

Comment: Recent arrests of kids with skateboards indicate the direction the US is going. If 12 year olds are handcuffed and taken off to jail, what rights are people accused of more serious crimes going to have. The appearance of "free speech zones", where protestors are cordoned off under police surveillance, "for their own safety", does not bode well for liberties in the US.

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"We're in deep fecal matter" Department, Part 2,982,785

F.B.I. Goes Knocking for Political Troublemakers

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: August 16, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been questioning political demonstrators across the country, and in rare cases even subpoenaing them, in an aggressive effort to forestall what officials say could be violent and disruptive protests at the Republican National Convention in New York.

Comment: Yeah, right.

F.B.I. officials are urging agents to canvass their communities for information about planned disruptions aimed at the convention and other coming political events, and they say they have developed a list of people who they think may have information about possible violence. They say the inquiries, which began last month before the Democratic convention in Boston, are focused solely on possible crimes, not on dissent, at major political events.

But some people contacted by the F.B.I. say they are mystified by the bureau's interest and felt harassed by questions about their political plans.

"The message I took from it," said Sarah Bardwell, 21, an intern at a Denver antiwar group who was visited by six investigators a few weeks ago, "was that they were trying to intimidate us into not going to any protests and to let us know that, 'hey, we're watching you.' ''

The unusual initiative comes after the Justice Department, in a previously undisclosed legal opinion, gave its blessing to controversial tactics used last year by the F.B.I in urging local police departments to report suspicious activity at political and antiwar demonstrations to counterterrorism squads. The F.B.I. bulletins that relayed the request for help detailed tactics used by demonstrators - everything from violent resistance to Internet fund-raising and recruitment.

Comment: So info on demonstrators goes to the counterterrorism squads. We imagine that Bush means it when he says that if you aren't with us, yer agin us, including American citizens who try and use their long forgotten Constitutional Rights of protest and free speech.

In an internal complaint, an F.B.I. employee charged that the bulletins improperly blurred the line between lawfully protected speech and illegal activity. But the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, in a five-page internal analysis obtained by The New York Times, disagreed.

Comment: Why are we not surprised. This is the same Justice Department, what a joke of a name, that found excuses for torture. When they're done doing it to the Iraqis, they'll do it to Americans.

The office, which also made headlines in June in an opinion - since disavowed - that authorized the use of torture against terrorism suspects in some circumstances, said any First Amendment impact posed by the F.B.I.'s monitoring of the political protests was negligible and constitutional.

The opinion said: "Given the limited nature of such public monitoring, any possible 'chilling' effect caused by the bulletins would be quite minimal and substantially outweighed by the public interest in maintaining safety and order during large-scale demonstrations."

Comment: Because it is "limited", it is legal, seems to be the logic. And, sure, in the grand scheme of things, a few thousand people who are willing to stand behind their ideas and principles and protest the growing tyranny in the US isn't much. At the same time, it is everything. The Powers That Be know very well that they might inspire others, they might serve as an example. So let's stamp them out while they are still a limited number.

Those same concerns are now central to the vigorous efforts by the F.B.I. to identify possible disruptions by anarchists, violent demonstrators and others at the Republican National Convention, which begins Aug. 30 and is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of protesters.

Comment: Oh, yeah. Them. The anarchists and the violent demonstrators, and then that really scary category of "others" who are "possibly" going to disrupt the Republican Convention. Let's mobilise against them. Let's whip up the hysteria in the public so that anyone suspicious will be reported to police.

In the last few weeks, beginning before the Democratic convention, F.B.I. counterterrorism agents and other federal and local officers have sought to interview dozens of people in at least six states, including past protesters and their friends and family members, about possible violence at the two conventions. In addition, three young men in Missouri said they were trailed by federal agents for several days and subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury last month, forcing them to cancel their trip to Boston to take part in a protest there that same day.

Interrogations have generally covered the same three questions, according to some of those questioned and their lawyers: were demonstrators planning violence or other disruptions, did they know anyone who was, and did they realize it was a crime to withhold such information.

A handful of protesters at the Boston convention were arrested but there were no major disruptions. Concerns have risen for the Republican convention, however, because of antiwar demonstrations directed at President Bush and because of New York City's global prominence.

With the F.B.I. given more authority after the Sept. 11 attacks to monitor public events, the tensions over the convention protests, coupled with the Justice Department's own legal analysis of such monitoring, reflect the fine line between protecting national security in an age of terrorism and discouraging political expression.

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Electromagnetic and Informational Weapons: The Remote Manipulation of the Human Brain

by Mojmir Babacek
GlobalResearch

In October 2000, Congressman Denis J. Kucinich introduced in the House of Representatives a bill, which would oblige the American president to engage in negotiations aimed at the ban of space based weapons.

In this bill, the definition of a weapons system included:

"any other unacknowledged or as yet undeveloped means inflicting death or injury on, or damaging or destroying, a person (or the biological life, bodily health, mental health, or physical and economic well-being of a person)… through the use of land-based, sea- based, or space-based systems using radiation, electromagnetic, psychotronic, sonic, laser, or other energies directed at individual persons or targeted populations for the purpose of information war, mood management, or mind control of such persons or populations"(15).

As in all legislative acts quoted in this article, the bill pertains to sound, light or electromagnetic stimulation of the human brain.

Psychotronic weapons belong, at least for a layman uninformed of secret military research, in the sphere of science fiction, since so far none of the published scientific experiments has been presented in a meaningful way to World public opinion.

That it is feasible to manipulate human behavior with the use of subliminal, either by sound or visual messages, is now generally known and acknowledged by the scientific community.

This is why in most countries, the use of such technologies, without the consent of the individual concerned, is in theory banned. Needless to say, the use of these technologies is undertaken covertly, without the knowledge or consent of targeted individuals.

Devices using light for the stimulation of the brain constitute another mechanism whereby light flashing under certain frequencies could be used to manipulate the human psychic.

As for the use of sound, a device transmitting a beam of sound waves, which can be heard only by persons at whom the beam of sound waves is targeted, has been reported in several news media. In this case, the beam is formed by a combination of sound and ultrasound waves which causes the targeted person to hear the sound inside his head. Such a procedure could affect the mental balance of the targeted individual as well as convince him that he is, so to speak, mentally ill.

This article examines the development of technologies and knowledge pertaining to the functioning of the human brain and the way new methods of manipulation of the human mind are being developed.

Electromagnetic energy

One of the main methods of manipulation is through electromagnetic energy.

In the declassified scientific literature only some 30 experiments have been published supporting this assumption (1),(2). Already in 1974, in the USSR, after successful testing within a military unit in Novosibirsk, the Radioson (Radiosleep) was registered with the Government Committee on Matters of Inventions and Discoveries of the USSR, described as a method of induction of sleep by means of radio waves (3), (4), (5).

In the scientific literature, technical feasibility of inducing sleep in a human being through the use of radio waves is confirmed in a book by an British scientist involved in research on the biological effects of electromagnetism (6). A report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on nonionizing radiation published in 1991 confirms that:

"many of biological effects observed in animals exposed to ELF fields appear to be associated, either directly or indirectly, with the nervous system…" (2).

Among the published experiments, there are those where pulsed microwaves have caused the synchronization of isolated neurons with the frequency of pulsing of microwaves. For example, a neuron firing at a frequency of 0.8 Hz was forced in this way to fire the impulses at a frequency of 1 Hz. Moreover, the pulsed microwaves contributed to changing the concentration of neurotransmitters in the brain (neurotransmitters are a part of the mechanism which causes the firing of neurons in the brain) and reinforcing or attenuating the effects of drugs delivered into the brain (1).

The experiment where the main brain frequencies registered by EEG were synchronized with the frequency of microwave pulsing (1,2) might explain the function of the Russian installation Radioson. Microwaves pulsed in the sleep frequency would cause the synchronization of the brain's activity with the sleep frequency and in this way produce sleep.

Pulsing of microwaves in frequency predominating in the brain at an awakened state could, by the same procedure, deny sleep to a human being.

A report derived from the testing program of the Microwave Research Department at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research states:

"Microwave pulses appear to couple to the central nervous system and produce stimulation similar to electric stimulation unrelated to heat".

In a many times replicated experiment, microwaves pulsed in an exact frequency caused the efflux of calcium ions from the nerve cells (1,2). Calcium plays a key role in the firing of neurons and Ross Adey, member of the first scientific team which published this experiment, publicly expressed his conviction that this effect of electromagnetic radiation would interfere with concentration on complex tasks (7).

Robert Becker, who had share in the discovery of the effect of pulsed fields at the healing of broken bones, published the excerpts from the report from Walter Reed Army Institute testing program. In the first part "prompt debilitation effects" should have been tested (8). Were not those effects based on the experiment by Ross Adey and others with calcium efflux?

British scientist John Evans, working in the same field, wrote that both Ross Adey and Robert Becker lost their positions and research grants and called them "free-thinking exiles" (6). In 1975, in the USA, a military experiment was published where pulsed microwaves produced, in the brain of a human subject, an audio perception of numbers from 1 to 10 (9). Again the possibility to convince an individual that he is mentally ill is obvious. The testing program of American Walter Read Army Institute of Research, where the experiment took place, counts with "prompt auditory stimulation by means of auditory effects" and finally aims at "behavior controlled by stimulation" (8).

Let us assume that the words delivered into the brain were transcribed into ultrasound frequencies. Would not then the subject perceive those same words as his own thoughts?

And would this not imply that that his behavior was being controlled in this way through the transmission of ultrasound frequencies? In this regard, the American Air Force 1982 "Final Report On Biotechnology Research Requirements For Aeronautical Systems Through the Year 2000" states:

"While initial attention should be toward degradation of human performance through thermal loading and electromagnetic field effects, subsequent work should address the possibilities of directing and interrogating mental functioning, using externally applied fields…" (10).

Several scientists have warned that the latest advances in neurophysiology could be used for the manipulation of the human brain.

In June 1995, Michael Persinger, who worked on the American Navy's project of Non-lethal electromagnetic weapons, published a scientific article where he states:

"the technical capability to influence directly the major portion of the approximately six billion brains of the human species without mediation through classical sensory modalities by generating neural information within a physical medium within which all members of the species are immersed… is now marginally feasible" (11).

In 1998, the French National Bioethics Committee warned that "neuroscience is being increasingly recognized as posing a potential threat to human rights" (12). In May 1999 the neuroscientists conference, sponsored by the UN, took place in Tokyo. Its final declaration formally acknowledges that :

"Today we have intellectual, physical and financial resources to master the power of the brain itself, and to develop devices to touch the mind and even control or erase consciousness…We wish to profess our hope that such pursuit of knowledge serves peace and welfare" (13).

On the international political scene, in the last few years, the concept of remote control of the human brain has become a matter of international and intergovernmental negotiation. In January 1999, the European Parliament passed a resolution where it called "for an international convention introducing a global ban on all developments and deployments of weapons which might enable any form of manipulation of human beings." (14)

Already in 1997, nine states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) addressed the UN, OBSE and the states of the Interparliamentary Union with the proposal to place at the agenda of the General Assembly of the United Nations, the preparation and adoption of an international convention "On Prevention of Informational Wars and Limitation of Circulation of Informational Weapons" (16), (3).

Informational Weapons

The initiative was originally proposed, in the Russian State Duma, by Vladimir Lopatin (3). V. Lopatin worked, from 1990 to 1995, in sequence, in the standing committees on Security respectively of the Russian Federation, Russian State Duma and of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), specializing in informational security.(3). The concept of informational weapon or informational war is rather unknown to the world general public. In 1999, V. Lopatin, together with Russian scientist Vladimir Tsygankov, published a book „Psychotronic Weapon and the Security of Russia" (3). There we find the explanation of this terminology:

"In the report on the research of the American Physical Society for the year 1993 the conclusion is presented that psychophysical weapon systems…can be used… for the construction of a strategic arm of a new type (informational weapon in informational war)…"

Among many references on this subject, we refer to Materials of the Parliament Hearings "Threats and Challenges in the Sphere of Informational Security", Moscow, July 1996, "Informational Weapon as a Threat to the National Security of the Russian Federation" (analytical report of the Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation), Moscow, 1996 and a material "To Whom Will Belong the Conscientious Weapon in the 21st Century", Moscow, 1997. (17).

In 2000 V. Lopatin introduced, after two other authors, the third in order bill on the subject of "Informational and Psychological Security of the Russian Federation". Lopotin's findings were reviewed by the Russian newspaper Segodnya:

"…Means of informational-psychological influence are capable not only of harming the health of an individual, but, also of causing, according to Lopatin, 'the blocking of freedom of will of human being on the subliminal level, the loss of the ability of political, cultural and social self identification, the manipulation of societal consciousness, which could lead to the destruction of a sense of collective identify by the Russian people and nation'" (16).

In the book "Psychotronic Weapons and the Security of Russia", the authors propose among the basic principles of the Russian concept of defense against the remote control of the human psyche not only the acknowledgement of its existence, but also the fact that the methods of informational and psychotronic war are fully operational ("and are being used without a formal declaration of war") (18). They also quote the record from the session of the Russian Federation's Federal Council where V. Lopatin stated that psychotronic weapon can

"cause the blocking of the freedom of will of a human being on a subliminal level" or "instillation into the consciousness or subconsciousness of a human being of information which will trigger a faulty or erroneous perception of reality" (19).

In that regard, they proposed the preparation of national legislation as well as the establishment of legal international norms "aimed at the defense of human psyche against subliminal, destructive and informational manipulations" (20).

Moreover, they also propose the declassification of all analytical studies and research on the various technologies. They warned that, because this research has remained classified and removed from the public eye, it has allowed the arms race to proceed unabated. It has thereby contributed to increasing the possibility of psychotronic war.

Among the possible sources of remote influence on human psyche, the authors list the "generators of physical fields" of "known as well as unknown nature" (21). In 1999 the STOA (Scientific and Technological Options Assessment), part of the Directorate General for Research of the European Parliament published the report on Crowd Control Technologies, ordered by them with the OMEGA foundation in Manchester (UK) (22, http://www.europarl.eu.int/stoa/publi/pdf/99-14-01-a_en.pdf ).

One of four major subjects of the study pertained to the so-called "Second Generation" or "non lethal" technologies:

"This report evaluates the second generation of 'non-lethal' weapons which are emerging from national military and nuclear weapons laboratories in the United States as part of the Clinton Administration's 'non-lethal' warfare doctrine now adopted in turn by NATO. These devices include weapons using… directed energy beam,…radio frequency, laser and acoustic mechanisms to incapacitate human targets" (23) The report states that „the most controversial non-lethal‘ crowd control … technology proposed by the U.S., are so called Radio Frequency or Directed Energy Weapons that can allegedly manipulate human behavior… the greatest concern is with systems which can directly interact with the human nervous system" (24). The report also states that „perhaps the most powerful developments remain shrouded in secrecy" (25).

The unavailability of official documents confirming the existence of this technology may be the reason why the OMEGA report is referencing, with respect to mind control technology, the internet publication of the author of this article (26 http://www.europarl.eu.int/stoa/publi/pdf/99-14-01-a_en.pdf ).

Similarly, the internet publication of the director of the American Human Rights and Anti-mind Control Organization (CAHRA), Cheryl Welsh, is referenced by the joint initiative of the Quaker United Nations Office, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, and Programme for Strategic and International Security Studies, with respect to non-lethal weapons (27).

On September 25th, 2000, the Committee on Security of the Russian State Duma discussed the addendum to the article 6 of the Federal law On Weapons. In the resolution we read:

"The achievements of contemporary science… allow for creation of measured methods of secret, remote influencing on the psyches and physiology of a person or a group of people" (28). The committee recommended that the addendum be approved. The addendum to the article 6 of the Russian Federation law "On Weapons" was approved on July 26, 2001. It states:

"within the territory of the Russian Federation is prohibited the circulation of weapons and other objects… the effects of the operation of which are based on the use of electromagnetic, light, thermal, infra-sonic or ultra-sonic radiations…" (29).

In this way, the Russian government made a first step to stand up to its dedication to the ban of mind control technology.

In the Doctrine of Informational Security of the Russian Federation, signed by president Putin in September 2000, among the dangers threatening the informational security of Russian Federation, is listed

"the threat to the constitutional rights and freedoms of people and citizens in the sphere of spiritual life… individual, group and societal consciousness" and "illegal use of special means affecting individual, group and societal consciousness" (30). Among the major directions of the international cooperation toward the guaranteeing of the informational security is listed „the ban of production, dissemination and use of 'informational weapon‘ " (31).

The foregoing statement should be interpreted as the continuing Russian commitment to the international ban of the means of remote influencing of the activity of the human brain.

Similarly, in the above mentioned report, published by the STOA, the originally proposed version of the resolution of the European Parliament calls for:

"an international convention for a global ban on all research and development… which seeks to apply knowledge of the chemical, electrical, sound vibration or other functioning of the human brain to the development of weapons which might enable the manipulation of human beings, including a ban of any actual or possible deployment of such systems."(32)

Here the term "actual" might easily mean that such weapons are already deployed.

Among the countries with the most advanced military technologies is the USA which did not present any international initiative demanding the ban of technologies enabling the remote control of human mind. (The original version of the bill by Denis J. Kucinich was changed.)

All the same, according to the study published by STOA, the US is the major promoter of the use of those weapons. Non lethal technology was included into NATO military doctrine due to their effort: "At the initiative of the USA, within the framework of NATO, a special group was formed, for the perspective use of devices of non-lethal effects" states the record from the session of the Committee on Security of the Russian State Duma (28).

The report published by STOA states: "In October 1999 NATO announced a new policy on non-lethal weapons and their place in allied arsenals" (33). "In 1996 non-lethal tools identified by the U.S. Army included… directed energy systems" and "radio frequency weapons" (34) - those weapons, as was suggested in the STOA report as well, are being associated with the effects on the human nervous system.

According to the Russian government informational agency FAPSI, in the last 15 years,U.S. expenditures on the development and acquisition of the means of informational war has increased fourfold, and at present they occupy the first place among all military programs (17),(3).

Though there are possible uses of informational war, which do not imply mind control, the US Administration has been unwilling to engage in negotiations on the ban on all forms of manipulation of the human brain. This unwillingness might indeed suggest that the US administration intends to use mind control technologies both within the US as well as internationally as an instrument of warfare.

One clear consequence of the continuation of the apparent politics of secrecy surrounding technologies enabling remote control of the human brain is that the governments, who own such technologies, could use them without having to consult public opinion. Needless to say, any meaningful democracy in today's world could be disrupted, through secret and covert operations. It is not inconceivable that in the future, entire population groups subjected to mind control technologies, could be living in a "fake democracy" where their own government or a foreign power could broadly shape their political opinions by means of mind control technologies.

Comment: In our opinion, these technologies are already being used in the US on its population. Do we have any "proof"? No - but then other than digging in Congressional Reports on reports of the development of the technology, we don't really expect the mainstream press to discuss this, do we?

But when we look at the phenomenon of "alien abductions" in the 80s, and couple that with the rise at the same time of reports of Satanic Ritual Abuse, we have cause to wonder. In both cases, victims are kidnapped, taken into a place where they are put on some form of table or altar, upon which certain physical abuse is practised by shrouded or mysterious figures. It sounds to us like some form of story beamed out to the public that is unpacked in people's minds and given meaning according to their belief system. For more on this, see Laura Knight-Jadczyk's book Ancient Science.

REFERENCES

1) Handbook of Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields, 1996, CRC Press Inc., 0-8493-0641-8/96, - pg. 117, 119, 474- 485, 542-551, 565 at the top and third and last paragraph

2) World Health Organization report on non-ionizing radiation from 1991, pg. 143 and 207-208

3) V. Lopatin, V Cygankov: „Psichotronnoje oružie i bezopasnost Rossii", SINTEG, Russian Federation, Moscow, ISBN 5-89638-006-2-A5-2000-30, list of the publications of the publishing house you will find at the address http://www.sinteg.ru/cataloghead.htm

4) G. Gurtovoj, I. Vinokurov: „Psychotronnaja vojna, ot mytov k realijam", Russsian Federation, Moscow, „Mysteries", 1993, ISBN 5-86422-098-1

5) With greatest likelihood as well the Russian daily TRUD, which has organized the search for the documents, Moscow, between August 1991 and end of 1992 6) John Evans: Mind, Body and Electromagnetism, the Burlington Press, Cambridge, 1992, ISBN 1874498008, str.139

7) Robert Becker: "Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life", William Morrow and comp., New York, 1985, pg. 287

8) Robert Becker: "Cross Currents, teh Startling Effects of Electromagnetic Radiation on your Health", 1991, Bloomsburry Publishing, London, Great Brittain, ISBN 0- 7475-0761-9, pg. 304, Robert Becker refers to Bioelectromagnetics Society Newsletter, January and February 1989

9) Don R. Justesen, 1975, Microwaves and Behavior, American Psychologist, March 1975, pg. 391 - 401

10) Dr. Nick Begich and Jeane Maning: "Angels Don't Play This HAARP, Advances in Tesla Technology", Earthpulse Press, 1995, ISBN 0-9648812--0-9, pg. 169

11) M. A. Persinger: „On the Possibility of Directly Lacessing Every Human Brain by Electromagnetic Induction of Fundamental Algorythms", Perception and Motor Skills, June1995,, sv. 80, str. 791-799

12) Nature, vol.391, 22.1.1998,str.316, „Advances in Neurosciences May Threaten Human Rights"

13) Internet reference at the site of the United Nations University and Institute of Advanced Studies in Tokyo does not work any more, to verify the information it is necessary to find the document from the 1999 UN sponsored conference of neuroscientists in Tokyo, you may inquire at the address unuias@ias.unu.edu 14) http://www.europarl.eu.int/home/default_en.htm?redirected=1 . click at Plenary sessions, scroll down to Reports by A4 number –click, choose 1999 and fill in 005 to A4 or search for Resolution on the environment, security and foreign policy from January 28, 1999

15) http://thomas.loc.gov./ and search for Space Preservation Act then click at H.R.2977

16) Russian daily Segodnya, 11. February, 2000, Andrei Soldatov: „Vsadniki psychotronitscheskovo apokalypsa" (Riders of Psychotronic Apokalypse)

17) See ref. 3), pg. 107

18) See ref. 3) pg. 97

19) See ref. 3), pg. 107

20) See ref. 3), pg. 108

21) See ref. 3) pg. 13

22) http://www.europarl.eu.int/stoa/publi/pdf/99-14-01-a_en.pdf

23) see ref. 22 pg. XIX or 25

24) see ref. 22 pg. LIII or 69

25) see ref. 22 pg. XLVII or 63, aswell pg. VII-VIII or 7-8, pg. XIX or 25, pg. XLV or 61

26) see ref. 22) pg. LIII or 69, note 354

27) http://www.unog.ch/unidir/Media Guide CAHRA and Cheryl Welsh are listed at the page 24

28) Document sent by Moscow Committee of Ecology of Dwellings. Telephone: Russian Federation, Zelenograd, 531-6411, Emilia Tschirkova, directrice

29) Search www.rambler.ru , there "poisk" (search) and search for "gosudarstvennaja duma" (State Duma) (it is necessary to type in Russian alphabet), at the page which appears choose "informacionnyj kanal gosudarstvennoj dumy" (Informational Channel of the Russian State Duma), there "federalnyje zakony podpisanyje prezidentom RF" (Federal laws signed by president of the Russian Federation), choose year 2001 and search 26 ijulja, è. N 103-F3 (July 26, 2001, number N 103- F3) , "O vnesenii dopolnenija v statju 6 federalnogo zakona ob oružii" (addendum to the article 6 of the Federal law on weapons)

30) Search www.rambler.ru and then (type in Russian alphabet) "gosudarstvennaja duma", next "informacionnyj kanal gosudarstvennoj dumy" (informational channel of the State Duma), next search by use of "poisk" (search) Doktrina informacionnoj bezopasnosti Rossii" "Doctrine of the Informational Security of the Russian Federation) there see pg. 3 "Vidy informacionnych ugroz bezopasnosti Rossijskkoj federacii" (Types of Threats to the Informational Security of the Russian Federation)

31) See ref. 30, pg. 19, "Mìždunarodnoje sotrudnièestvo Rossijskoj Federacii v oblasti obespeèenija informacionnoj bezopasnoti" (International Cooperation of the Russian Federation in Assuring the Informational Security"

32) See ref.22, pg. XVII or 33

33) See ref.22, pg. XLV or 61

34) See ref.22 pg. XLVI or 62

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In war on terror, an expanding citizens' brigade

The model will be taken national in September, says Eric Schultz, project director for USAonwatch, which provides terrorism-awareness training for Neighborhood Watch groups across the country. Off the nation's coasts, recreational boaters scan the waters for "suspicious" acts, from scuba diving in unlikely places to yachtmen sketching bridges or ports. Manhattan's doormen learn how to spot packages that may contain biological weapons.

In Pennsylvania, amusement park operators train to recognize unusual phone calls or inappropriate requests for information. Call them the new "first responders" in the war on terror. As average Americans, from truck drivers to handymen, are increasingly standing sentry, they're swelling the ranks of a citizens' army, always poised and on guard. Last week, terror warnings sent law-enforcement officers fanning out across five financial buildings in Manhattan, Washington, and Newark.

But grass-roots groups form another wall of defense, mobilizing in a nationwide watch for suspicious activity - from the supermarket to the state fair.

To some, it's the most effective, pervasive counterterrorism strategy there is. But even as officials warn that limousines or helicopters may be the next big targets, some worry that a sharp-eyed citizens' force could turn into an army of hypervigilant spies, one that may ultimately trample on civil rights. The model will be taken national in September, says Eric Schultz, project director for USAonwatch, which provides terrorism-awareness training for Neighborhood Watch groups across the country. Then there are Highway Watch, America's Waterway Watch, and Airport Watch. More than 10,000 truck drivers have joined Highway Watch, an American Trucking Association (ATA) initiative that trains drivers to notice and report emergency or suspicious situations on the road.

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'Citizens on Patrol' Introduced

There was also a new group introduced to the public Tuesday. The Fairmont VFW has organized a group called Citizens on Patrol, or COP. "They've served their country in wars, and now they are serving their community," said Fairmont Police Chief Greg Brolsma. "One thing we wanted to do for the post is to become more involved in the community," said Joe McAleavy, one of the COP members. "The vets, they serve their country in a time of war and coming home, they want to keep serving the community. While (community organizations) come to us for money, we want to be more proactive; we need to get outside the walls of the VFW.

Without the community, we wouldn't be here." McAleavy and about a dozen VFW members are involved in the COP project. They were able to work with the Fairmont Police Department to organize the citizens' patrol. The group is beginning with simple tasks such as house watches. However, they will have a vehicle with a police radio to contact the proper authorities in case of any emergencies.

"We're just getting started ... but we'll do patrols as long as we're comfortable doing so," McAleavy said. "We hope that when people see us in our blue shirts, they'll know that we're looking out for them so they won't have to worry about their parks or their homes. It's all about making this a safer community, and we're doing it just by watching."

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The 9/11 Commission & Civil Liberties: "We Need an American Secret Police"

The ambition to curtail the civil liberties of Americans is not new, but it looks as though the Bush Administration has moved that goal within reach. Former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski accurately reflects the sentiments of many elites who believe that freedom is basically a "nuisance" that disrupts the smooth functioning of empire.

Politicians and corporate "bigwigs" know exactly where they want to steer the country and don't like the obstructions that naturally appear in a democracy. They also prefer to have institutions in place to monitor the behavior of groups who may pose a potential threat to their continuing prosperity and power. This being so, corporate powerbrokers and their apologists in the "punditocracy" normally tilt towards autocratic governance.

So, we shouldn't be surprised wh! en Brzezinski blithely reminds us that are just "too democratic at home." His remarks are noteworthy not simply because of their "undisguised contempt for personal liberty", but also because they articulate a view that was widely held among elites even prior to 9-11. The great strides the administration has made in eviscerating the Constitution, have all been made in the name of "national security"; the "sacred cow" of demagogues. It is understandable that they would reiterate this same mantra to dismantle the legal protections we all (used to) take for granted.

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US to redeploy 100,000 troops and shut bases

President George Bush will announce tomorrow that the US military will pull up to 100,000 troops out of Europe and Asia in the biggest redeployment since the end of the Cold War. The plan will see a number of US bases in Germany closed down, and troops returned home or redeployed to Eastern Europe.

The redeployment - first reported by The Observer in February last year in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq - will be presented by Bush as a logical response to the war on terrorism when he addresses the 2.6 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars at its annual convention in Cincinnati.

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Comment: Hmmm. Now, despite the claim that this redeployment of 100,000 troops is to enable the US to "better fight the war on terror", the fact is that, the "war on terror" is a massive hoax designed to cow the US public into submission. So what might these troops really be needed for...?

Freedom is Not Safety - Police State, USA

By Rep. RON PAUL
August 10, 2004

Last week's announcement that the terrorist threat warning level has been raised in parts of New York, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C., has led to dramatic and unprecedented restrictions on the movements of citizens. Americans wishing to visit the U.S. Capitol must, for example, pass through several checkpoints and submit to police inspection of their cars and persons.

Many Americans support the new security measures because they claim to feel safer when the government issues terror alerts and fills the streets with militarized police forces. As one tourist interviewed this week said, "It makes me feel comfortable to know that everything is being checked." It is ironic that tourists coming to Washington to celebrate the freedoms embodied in the Declaration of Independence are so eager to give up those freedoms with no questions asked.

Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens' lives. This doesn't stop governments, including our own, from seeking more control over and intrusion into our lives. As one Member of Congress stated to the press last week, "people who don't want to be searched don't need to come on Capitol grounds." What an insult! The Capitol belongs to the American people who pay for it, not to Congress or the police.

It is worth noting that the government rushes first to protect itself, devoting enormous resources to make places like the Capitol grounds safe, while just beyond lies one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the nation. What makes Congress more worthy of protection from terrorists than ordinary citizens?

To understand the nature of our domestic response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, we must understand the nature of government. Government naturally expands, and any crises ­ whether real or manufactured ­ serve to justify more and more government power over our lives. Bureaucrats have used the tragedy of 9/11 as an excuse to seize police powers sought for decades, such as warrantless searches, Internet monitoring, and access to bank records. It should be no surprise that the recently released report of the 9/11 Commission has but one central recommendation: bigger government and more spending at home and abroad.

Every new security measure represents another failure of the once-courageous American spirit. The more we change our lives, the more we obsess about terrorism, the more the terrorists have won. As commentator Lew Rockwell of the Ludwig von Mises Institute explains, terrorists in effect have been elevated by our response to 9/11: "They are running the country. They determine our civic life. They shape our private life. They decide how public resources are spent. They may dictate who gets to be the next president. It should be obvious that the government doesn't object. Not at all. The government benefits, by getting ever more reason for ever more money and power."

Every generation must resist the temptation to believe that it lives in the most dangerous time in American history. The threat of Islamic terrorism is real, but it is not the greatest danger ever faced by our nation. This is not to dismiss the threat of terrorism, but rather to put it in perspective. Those who seek to whip the nation into a frenzy of fear do a disservice to a country that expelled the British, fought two world wars, and stared down the Soviet empire.

Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.

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KISS YOUR INTERNET GOOD-BYE

By Servando González
NewsWithViews.com
April 6, 2003

In a short, but forceful article, Peter Sparacino pointed out that constitutional tools are no longer valid in our losing battle against a government out of control, rapidly becoming a totalitarian dictatorship. According to Sparacino, neither the ballot box, nor the jury box can be used to stop its advances -- not even the cartridge box. The only thing left to fight
back, he states, is freedom of the press.

But, as media critic A.J. Liebling rightly expressed, freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. Though in theory the opportunity to own his own printing press was open to every American citizen, in practice just a few, and lately only the very rich and powerful, were able to own one.

Granted, the media monopoly was never total, and many small presses proliferated, but the big ones, later joined by the network TV channels, just played the game, giving the false image of independent thinking. But suddenly, less than ten years ago, a technological breakthrough changed the rules of the game in a radical way, bringing about what media guru Marshal McLuhan envisioned more than thirty years ago: the global village. This revolutionary new medium is the Internet.

The Internet is a totally new type of communication medium that has changed our lives. It allows for easy, fast, and cheap exchange of ideas in an optimum way. Thanks to the Internet, owning your own press is as cheap as $20 a month. Almost anybody can afford it.

As soon as the people realized the power of the tool they had in their hands, many began using the Internet not only to gather the information they wanted, but also to become themselves providers of information. Sites offering the most surprising, contradictory, interesting, and useful information mushroomed, soon to be followed by many offering not-so-useful, in-your-face, sometimes disgusting or plainly gross content. But, even with its nasty aspects, the Internet radically changed the way most of us get the daily news.

Initially, the powerful media giants, both in printed and TV form, ignored the Internet as a curiosity or a passing fad. But sites like the Drudge Report, NewsMax, or WorldNetDaily, just to mention a few of the most successful, soon began attracting more and more readers, while newspapers like the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times began losing theirs. Soon after, the big TV networks experienced their own dramatic loss of viewers.

Faced with the strong, unexpected competition, the media giants joined the Internet bandwagon, but they were in for a big surprise. Contrary to the traditional printed media and TV, where money plays a cardinal role -- only the very rich can afford to hire the qualified personnel and promote and market the product -- the Internet seems to be a pure product of the human intellect. As the extraordinary success of the Drudge Report indicates, most people don't visit a site because it has a fancy design or is professionally made, but because it is a place where they can find provoking, non-mainstream ideas that make them think; exactly the type of thinking they were not able to find in the orchestrated, self-censored mainstream media. Consequently, a site made by a housewife right from her kitchen in Hot Springs, Arkansas, or by an almost unknown journalist from his home office in Oregon or Florida, can compete on equal footing with the New York Times. This is exactly how extraordinarily successful sites like the Drudge Report and WorldNetDaily were born. Like the Colt .44 in the Old West, the Internet became the great equalizer.

But the people who control the media monopoly were not going to see their power challenged without a fight. After their initial skepticism and scorn, and their failed attempts to extend their media monopoly to the Internet, they began a subtle process of infiltration. For example, I was surprised when, in June, 2001, the notorious Alexander Haig Jr. joined NewsMax's advisory board. It is probably only a coincidence, but lately NewsMax has become a sort of mouthpiece for the Republican Party and an uncritical provider of the Bush administration's propaganda. Its most recent no-brainer is a "boycott France" campaign. I stopped visiting the site several weeks ago. On the other hand, if only half of what I found in this article is true, perhaps NewsMax's problems have deeper roots than I thought.

There is a saying in Latin America: "A los periodistas se les paga o se les pega." ("Journalists: you buy them or you hit them.") I don't think it is much different here. I expect that after some unsuccessful attempts to derail some of the most successful sites, just to bring an example, the media powers will try to buy them. But, even though I don't think it would be easy for them to do it, and they may resort to strong arm tactics, the bottom line is that, because of its inherent characteristics -- the Internet is an off-shoot of the Arpanet, a military communications decentralized nodular network designed to survive a full scale nuclear attack on the U.S. -- the Internet is uncontrollable. It is a Hydra of innumerable heads.

They can keep buying and coercing people and eventually may get control over the most successful Internet sites, but other people will come forward, and their sites will rapidly become extremely successful. The attempts of the media monopolists to control the Internet the way they managed to get control of the printed press, the TV channels, and, most recently, am radio, will never be successful. Currently, they are extremely concerned about such a powerful tool in the hands of the American people. The Internet has become a growing obstacle
to their plans.

Therefore, what will they do? Very simple: They will destroy it. The only solution to solve the Internet's growing challenge to the media monopoly is to shut it down and throw the key away.

How it will happen? One of these days, out of the blue, the Internet will be used for launching a devastating terrorist attack on the United States. Somehow, this cyberattack will cost the lives of scores of American citizens. In order to avoid more damage, the government, putting to good use the recently approved anti-terrorist laws, will shut the Internet down and ban the use of the Internet as we know it.

But most government agencies rely heavily on the Internet. How can they function without it? No problem. The replacement already exists; it is called Internet 2, reportedly a consortium being led by more than 200 universities working in partnership with industry and government to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies, accelerating the creation of tomorrow's Internet. But, contrary to the deceptive techno-babbling rhetoric, Internet 2 is nothing more than a controlled Internet, similar to the one currently in place in totalitarian countries like China and Cuba.

Internet 2 will be fully controlled by the state. In order to access it, or to have e-mail access, you must be a member of, or be affiliated to, any of the government-authorized organizations and have a sort of security clearance. Internet 2 will be out of the reach of the general public, and every person trying to have unauthorized access to Internet 2 will be charged with terrorist activities, and severely penalized

The unavoidable fact is that the Internet is incompatible with a totalitarian system of government. Therefore, either we are a bunch of delusionary paranoids, and what we see happening in this country is only a figment of our feverished imagination, and, consequently, the Internet will not be banned, or we are right, and it will disappear. Actually, the disappearance of the current free Internet will serve as a litmus test that will accurately mark our final loss of freedom.

The banning of the Internet, the cancellation of the Second Amendment rights, and the closing of our borders -- not to stop illegals from entering the country, but to stop Americans from fleeing it -- in exactly that order, will be important steps in the implementation of this evil plan.

In the meantime, hope for the best, and enjoy the Internet while you can.

© 2003 Servando González - All Rights Reserved

Servando González is a Cuban-born American writer. Among his most recent books are The Secret Fidel Castro: Deconstructing the Symbol and The Nuclear Deception: Nikita Khrushchev and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Currently he is working on Fidel Castro Supermole, the second volume of a trilogy he is writing on Castro. E-Mail: servando@earthlink.net

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Biometrics extending into everyday life

Corporate world embracing the advantages of technology such as iris and fingerprint scanning

Stuffing something in a public locker is not usually a memorable experience. You drop a coin, take the key and move on. 'Biometric seemed the most logical choice... people don't lose their finger.' But at the Statue of Liberty, recently reopened after a two-year closure, stashing a package offers a glimpse into the future. To rent and use lockers, visitors touch an electronic reader that scans fingerprints. 'It's easy,' Taiwanese visitor Yu-Sheng Lee, 26, said after stowing a bag. 'I think it's good. I don't have to worry about a key or something like that.'

Like nearly every other tourist at the statue that day, this was Mr Lee's first experience with biometrics - the identification of an individual based on personal characteristics such as fingerprints, facial features or iris patterns. While the technology is not new, it is only now creeping into everyday life. Over the next few years, people will be asked to use it in everything from travel settings to financial transactions.

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WaPo and NYT Duel on Sigificance of National Congress

Juan Cole

One of the wonderful things about the internet is that it is easier than ever to see lots of news reports on the same event and to get a sense of the different angles that reporters work in reporting them.

There is a night and day difference between how John Burns of the New York Times reports the national congress held Sunday and the version given us of that event by Rajiv Candrasekaran of the Washington Post.

Burns's says that the convention was a mess, disrupted by repeated mortar fire and by angry delegates who stormed the stage to denounce the Allawi government and demand it cease military operations in Najaf. One senses that Burns himself, who does not suffer fools gladly, may have almost gotten caught by the incoming mortars and perhaps was not in a good mood as a result. His angle on the story is that the disruptions faced by the convention mirror the other failures of the US in Iraq, including the failure, despite repeated attempts, to root out the Sadr movement.

Candrasekaran presents an almost panglossian story of the triumph of democracy-- noisy, disruptive, but still triumphant. He reports that the delegates said they had secured from Allawi a promise to suspend military action until further negotiations could take place, and he seems even to believe that Allawi gave such an undertaking and would abide by it! He also reports that the almost 1200 delegates will select 81 representatives, and that 19 seats had been awarded to the Interim Governing Council members originally appointed by Paul Bremer.

He does not note that originally, 20 seats were to be appointive. I take it that Ahmad Chalabi's has fallen vacant because he is under a legal cloud. Why don't we deserve to be told this? And, doesn't anyone but me object to 19 seats being set aside for American appointees who were never elected by anyone?

Al-Jazeerah says that 100 Shiites out of the 1200 angrily resigned because of the US miltiary operations in Najaf. Neither of the American reports mention any resignations. Al-Hayat clears up the mystery, reporting that about 100 delegates walked out of the first session in protest, but came back to attend the second session.

I think Burns's story more accurately reflects the Iraqi reality. I don't think the conference is any significant check on the executive, as Candrasekaran argues it is. Allawi will do as he pleases and ignore this weak Duma. The conference had to be held almost furtively for fear it would be blown up, and it almost was anyway. Many of Iraq's major cities are being bombed semi-regularly by the US Air Force-- Fallujah, Samarra, Kut, Najaf, etc.

The reports on CNN suggest that Allawi is on the verge of sending Iraqi troops into the Shrine of Ali in Najaf, despite any pledges he gave the delegates.

Note, too, that CNN's headline news reported repeatedly on Sunday afternoon and evening that the Mahdi Army fighters holed up in the shrine of Ali were "foreign fighters." This allegation is Allawi's propaganda, and simply untrue. The Mahdi Army are Iraqi Shiite ghetto youth. They are not foreigners. There may be a sprinkling of Iranian volunteers among them, but the number is tiny.

Likewise, CNN appears to have been the victim of a second-hand psy-ops campaign, insofar as it is referring to the guerrillas as "anti-Iraqi forces." The idea of characterizing them not as anti-American or anti-regime but "anti-Iraq" was, according to journalist Nir Rosen, come up with by a PR company contracting in Iraq. Nir says that they were told that no Iraqis would fall for it. So apparently it has now been retailed to major American news programs, on the theory that the American public is congenitally stupid.

The American public has no idea how bad it is in Iraq because it gets lots of contradictory reports and has no way of wading through or evaluating them. On the evidence of Sunday, I'd advise them to keep their eyes on what John Burns says. He is a veteran war correspondent with his eyes open. If he thinks things in Iraq are bad, they likely are.

Meanwhile, on Monday morning US warplanes and tanks attacked targets in Najaf again, and warplanes bombed Fallujah, causing several deaths. The Allawi government forced all independent journalists to leave Najaf on Sunday, so that the only reporting we will have on operations there will come from journalists embedded with the US forces.

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US 'bounty hunter' claims FBI links

Monday 16 August 2004, 15:17 Makka Time, 12:17 GMT

An alleged American bounty-hunter on trial for running a private jail, kidnapping and torturing prisoners in Afghanistan has accused FBI agents of seizing evidence proving his links to US authorities.

Jonathon Idema told an Afghan court on Monday the US Federal Bureau of Investigation had taken hundreds of videotapes, photos and documents from the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS).

The "evidence" detailed his links with the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, the US Defence Department and US-led forces, he said.

"In front of the judge is the receipt that the FBI signed. Why did the judge allow the FBI to take evidence from the NDS?" Idema questioned, alleging that 500 pages of documents, 200 videotapes and at least 400 photographs had been seized.

"Now it's at the US embassy where no one is ever going to see it."

Idema, wearing dark sunglasses and a khaki army shirt with a US flag on the shoulder, was in the dock with co-defendants Brent Bennet, Edward Caraballo and their four Afghan partners.

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Pentagon says it can't document $1.8b

Pentagon auditors have found that Halliburton Co. cannot properly document more than $1.8 billion worth of work done under its contracts in Iraq and Kuwait, US Army officials said yesterday. The latest setback for the Houston-based oil services company came in an audit by the Defense Contract Auditing Agency, which also found that the company's system for generating cost estimates used in negotiations with the government was ''inadequate."

The agency recommended that government-contracting officials demand fixes within 45 days and seek more detailed information during negotiations with Halliburton, which has contracts worth as much as $18.2 billion in Iraq to feed and house troops and restore the country's oil infrastructure.

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Ordered to just walk away

The national guardsman peering through the long-range scope of his rifle was startled by what he saw unfolding in the walled compound below. From his post several stories above ground level, he watched as men in plainclothes beat blindfolded and bound prisoners in the enclosed grounds of the Iraqi Interior Ministry. He immediately radioed for help. Soon after, a team of Oregon Army National Guard soldiers swept into the yard and found dozens of Iraqi detainees who said they had been beaten, starved and deprived of water for three days.

In a nearby building, the soldiers counted dozens more prisoners and what appeared to be torture devices -- metal rods, rubber hoses, electrical wires and bottles of chemicals. Many of the Iraqis, including one identified as a 14-year-old boy, had fresh welts and bruises across their back and legs.

The soldiers disarmed the Iraqi jailers, moved the prisoners into the shade, released their handcuffs and administered first aid. Lt. Col. Daniel Hendrickson of Albany, Ore., the highest ranking American at the scene, radioed for instructions. But in a move that frustrated and infuriated the guardsmen, Hendrickson's superior officers told him to return the prisoners to their abusers and immediately withdraw. It was June 29 -- Iraq's first official day as a sovereign country since the U.S.-led invasion. [...]

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KERRY, Israel, Jews, and the Middle East

By Mark Bruzonsky
Aug 11, 2004, 08:55

3 August 2004: John Kerry's Middle East policies have already been heavily mortgaged, if not downright sold, to those who have the greatest interest and power in controlling what the U.S. does in the crucial Middle East region and in determining where American arms, monies, and covert actions flow in the future -- powerful American Jews closely associated with Israel.

True today's Republican party is also heavily mortgaged when it comes to the Middle East -- but to different groups and persons. The Republicans are mortgaged to the Christian evangelical community and to the hard-line Jewish Zionist neocon lobby which has managed as never before to place so many of its key operatives in leading positions at the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department, and the National Security Council as well as important media connections. To name a few names: Wolfowitz, Feith, Abrams, Perle, Libby, Zakheim, Frum, Kristol, Krauthammer, Altman, Podhoretz, and many others.

Today's Democratic party is similarly mortgaged but to competing groups comprised of Jewish Zionist 'liberals' long associated with the Israeli ! Labor party and what use to be seriously called 'the peace process'. To name a few names: Ross, Indyk, Berger, Spielberg, Saban, Albright, Rubin, Grossman, Laipson, Lieberman, Streisand, Miller and many others.

The Washington game being played today is among many of the same operatives who have been around for decades now, and they all know instinctively at this point how the game of political musical power chairs is played when the other party comes to power. Those who have been waiting in the wings at various holding operations including foundations, think-tanks, universities, and law firms simply exchange places with those who in effect then form another new shadow government when out of power politely awaiting again their next turn.

With the various right and left arms of the Israeli-Jewish lobby firmly in control of both political parties in the U.S. when it comes to Middle East policies, the lobby is assured that the key position! s at the White House, Congress, the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, and CIA will always be held by approved members of their club, albeit some more 'liberal' (Democrats) and some more 'conservative' (Republicans). Maybe even more importantly to the Israelis, no one unacceptable to them can ever get a top policy job in today's Washington the way things have been arranged and organized by the big money men coupled to their large assortment of policy professionals and de facto as well as de jure lobbyists and 'journalists'. [...]

If Kerry is elected and the Democrats take back executive power in Washington it will be a return to the old Carter-Clinton policies when it comes to the Middle East. It's all very reminiscent of how the extended Israeli-Jewish lobby infiltrated the Clinton campaign a decade ago, and the Carter campaign long before that, making sure that whomever resides in the White House is controlled (or if need be checkmated) by them, as well as by Congress, no matter what other pressures for independent policies there might be. [...]

The reality is that the much-touted American '! two-party system' is in actuality closer to a single large corporate establishment party with two intermingling branches; so much so in fact that sometimes key players are confused which party they belong to and even change sides in midstream. [...]

To sum up... At this point in history one can think of the basic political alignment in the U.S. and the Middle East as follows:

Republicans - tied to the Likud in Israel, the evangelical right and the neocons at home, the super wealthy 'client regimes' in the region, and now masquerading with the 'democracy' theme that hardly anyone beyond American shores takes seriously.

Democrats - tied to the Labor party and remnants in Israel, the pro-Israel labor movement and Jewish 'liberals' at home (small in numbers but extremely important in the media, money, and power circles), many of the 'client regimes' in the region (even if now trying to find alternative strongman regimes), and masquerading with the 'peace process' theme that hardly anyone anymore really finds credible beyond American and some European shores.

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Flashback: Were the 9-11 Hijackers Really Arabs? Maybe Not

Were those hijackers really Arabs? Would Israeli agents carry out a suicide mission that could cost American Jewish lives? Consider these little-known facts...

Exclusive To American Free Press
By Michael Collins Piper

In 1986 the New York-based leader of the terrorist Jewish Defense League, Victor Vancier, gave a prophetic hint of what may have been finally played out on Sept. 11, 2001:

If you think the Shiites in Lebanon are capable of fantastic acts of suicidal terrorism, the Jewish un derground will strike targets that will make Ameri cans gasp: "How could Jews do such things?"

According to Vancier, quoted by Robert I. Friedman in The Village Voice on May 6, 1986, his allies were "desperate people" who "don't care if they live or die."

Considering this warning it is entirely conceivable the "Middle Eastern" men described by passengers on the airliners were not Arabs at all.

Evidence to be explored suggests that instead, these hijackers could well have been Israeli-sponsored fundamentalist Jewish fanatics (posing as "bin Laden Arabs") hoping to instigate an all-out U.S. war against the Arab world.

"Jewish suicide bombers? Impossible!" cry critics. However, the fact is that there is a "suicide tradition" that is a much-revered part of Jewish history—going back to the famous mass suicide at Masada by Jewish zealots.

But in modern times, Israeli suicide missions have been undertaken. In The Other Side of Deception former Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky described one 1989 venture: the participants were "all volunteers" advised that there was effectively "no possibility of rescue should they be caught."

And what about the Arabic language heard on one airplane's black box?

Consider a formerly secret CIA assessment, Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services, dated March 1979, which reported that it is a long-standing policy for Israeli intelligence to disguise Jews as Arabs:

One of the established goals of the intelligence and security services is that each officer be fluent in Arabic. A nine-month, intensive Arabic language course is given annually . . . to students . . .

As further training, these Mossad officers work in the [Israeli-controlled Arab lands] for two years to sharpen their language skills. . . .

Many Israelis have come from Arab countries where they were born and educated and appear more Arab than Israeli . . .

By forging passports and identity documents of Arab and western countries and providing sound background legends and cover, Mossad has successfully sent into Egypt and other Arab countries Israelis disguised and documented as Arabs or citizens of European countries. . . . These persons are also useful for their ability to pass completely for a citizen of the nation in question. The Israeli talent for counterfeiting or forging foreign passports and documents ably supports the agent's authenticity.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Jack Anderson, a supporter of Israel, wrote on Sept. 17, 1972 that:

Israeli agents—immigrants whose families had lived in Arab lands for generations—have a perfect knowledge of Arab dialects and customs. They have been able to infiltrate Arab governments with ease.

On Sept, 29, 1998, Yossi Melman, writing in Israel's Ha'aretz, revealed that:

Shin Bet agents, who worked undercover in the Israeli-Arab sector in the 1950s, went as far as to marry Muslim women and have children with them, in an attempt to continue their mission without raising suspicion.

In fact, serious questions have been raised about the identities of the Sept. 11 "Arab hijackers."

While the media reported the ringleader's passport conveniently landed atop rubble eight blocks from "Ground Zero," The Orlando Sentinel also reported that at least four men identified as hijackers are not dead and had nothing to do with the attacks.

In The New Yorker on Oct. 8, Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh pointed out:

Many of the investigators believe that some of the initial clues about the terrorists' identities and preparations, such as flight manuals, were meant to be found. A former high-level intelligence official told me, "Whatever trail was left was left deliberately—for the FBI to chase."

Why Arabs would plant evidence implicating their own is a point mainstream media chooses not to address.

Nor has the media ever ballyhooed the "hero" who tipped off the FBI where the hijackers' car (conveniently filled with "evidence") was parked.
And for those who would doubt that Israel would endanger American Jews via terrorism, consider this: hard-line Israelis are willing to kill Jews if it means assuring Israel's survival.

The late Rabbi Meir Kahane—founder of the Jewish Defense League and one spiritual mentor of fundamentalists who support Ariel Sharon—exemplifies those willing to sacrifice other Jews to guarantee Israel's future.

Kahane called for killing "Hellenist [i.e. Western-oriented] spiritually sick [Jews] who threaten the existence of Judaism." That would include those working in slick offices in the World Trade Center, living on Long Island, rather than kibbutzing in Israel.

Israeli journalist Yair Kotler reports in Heil Kahane that Kahane wrote: "the adoption of foreign, gentilized [i.e. non-Jewish] concepts by a Jewish state . . . opens the door to a national tragedy."

In his book, Time to Go Home, Kahane called for all Jews to "go home" to Israel—the only safe place for Jews. Those who refused to "go home" were expendable. The CIA's 1979 report on Israeli intelligence says this widely-held view mirrors "the aggressively ideological nature of Zionism."

In fact, this Jewish attitude toward the West (exactly what the media says is the Islamic attitude) has support at the Mossad's top levels.

Robert Friedman revealed that "high-ranking members of Mossad" were directing Kahane and that the "cen tral player" was former Mossad operations chief (and later prime minister) Yitzhak Shamir, an outspoken critic of America.

When Kahane said America would become "the major enemy of Israel," due to "economic disintegration, which no administration can stem," he enunciated a pop ular Israeli view.

In his Kahane biography, The False Prophet, Robert I. Friedman noted that Kahane's beliefs "have taken root and have become ‘respectable.' " and that Ariel Sha ron is one of the "most potent supporters" of such ex tremism.

In the Oct. 15 issue of The New Republic, Israeli writer Yossi Klein Halevi echoed this view:

The destruction of the World Trade Center has partially rehabilitated, if only by default, the Zionist promise of safe refuge for the Jewish people.

In the last year, it had become a much-noted irony that Israel was the country where a Jew was most likely to be killed for being a Jew. For many, the United States had beckoned as the real Jewish refuge; in a poll taken just before the bin Laden attacks, 37 percent of Israelis said their friends or relatives were discussing emigration. That probably changed on Sept. 11.

I was among the thousands of Israelis who crowded Kennedy Airport on the weekend after the attack, desperate to find a flight to Tel Aviv. "At least we're going back where it's safe," people joked.

Everyone seemed to have a story about an Israeli living in New York who just barely escaped the devastation. If this could happen in Manhattan, the reasoning went, you might as well take your chances at home.

What Halevi describes reflects the widespread ideology known as "catastrophic Zionism" which rejects America, saying Israel is the only safe Jewish refuge.

In The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right Israeli scholar Ehud Sprinzak found that these views are "a major school" of modern Israeli thought.

Sprinzak described the Israeli movement, Sikarikin, which honors ancient Jews who "conducted a systematic terror campaign against Jewish moderates who were ready to come to terms with the Romans on questions of religious purity." Israelis consider these terrorists "the symbolic de fenders of religious and nationalist purity."

Another popular rabbi, Israel Ariel, will risk massive loss of Jewish lives to achieve the "elimination" of the Arab countries to guarantee Israel's survival. The hawkish rabbi proclaims:

There is a ruling that a war is permitted as long as no more than one-sixth of the nation be killed. And this was stated in relation to an ordinary war, a fight between neighbors.

A war for Eretz Israel does not depend on the number of casualties. The command is "Ase!" ("Do it!"), and you may be sure that the number of casualties will thus be minimal.

As far as non-Jews, Sprinzak cites Rabbi David Bar-Haim who declares the concept Jews and non-Jews are equals "stands in total contrast to the Torah of Moses, and is derived from a total ignorance and an assimilation of alien Western values."

Ben-Haim cites 10 religious authorities who "repeatedly proposed that Gentiles are more beast than human," whereas, "only two authorities recognize non-Jews as full human beings created in the image of God."

Bear in mind: these comments from supposed "allies" represent widespread opinion in Israel's military and intelligence services.

Did Ariel Sharon help orchestrate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to instigate all-out U.S. war against Israel's enemies? Don't discount it.

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Countdown to World War Three

By Henry Makow Ph.D.

Illuminati Master Plan

As fighting resumes in the holy city of Najaf, more may hinge on the outcome than we realize.

In a provocative article, Joe Vialls reveals that Iran and Saddam's Iraq have had a covert military alliance and began joint preparations for this war after the Gulf War ended in 1991.

Iran already has nuclear capability and recently threatened to "wipe Israel off the map" if Israel attacked its nuclear facilities. Vialls says the cleric Al Sadr is tied to the Iranians.

"As we shall see, if Moqtada al-Sadr is killed or maimed, we will be into an altogether new and exceedingly lethal ball game," says Vialls.

As you know, a large part of the US fleet is out of port and probably near Iran. Many observers believe there will be a US attack on Iran after the US election, no matter who wins. Iran has a military alliance with Russia.

These events should be seen in the perspective of a letter written by Albert Pike, the Grand Commander of American Freemasonry in 1871 and published in 1925. The letter foresaw three world wars designed to bring about Illuminati world hegemony.

Each war planted the seeds of the next. For example, the Second World War was designed to ensure the destruction of Germany, the expansion of Communist Russia and the establishment of the State of Israel. It unfolded exactly as Pike described and set the stage for number three.

"The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the "agentur" of the "Illuminati" between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World," Pike wrote.

"Argentur" means "agent." The same term is used in another Illuminati document "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" which dates from the same period.

The key point here is these wars are contrived. They are caused by "agentur of the Illuminati" on both sides. These agents owe their first loyalty to the Illuminati not to their countries.

Their aim is to destroy their respective countries and profit from the carnage.

Pike continues: "The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other."

The rest of the world will be drawn in. "Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion..."

At this point they will be constrained to accept the Luciferian one-world government.

Iran is rumored to have missiles that could reach England. I suspect China is also being built up by the illuminati to attack and destroy the USA.

See "Elite Sets the Stage for World War Three"

Pike's complete letter and more background can be found on an excellent web site "Three World Wars.com" operated by Michael Haupt of Cambridge UK. Readers who object that the terms Nazism and Zionism were not known in 1871 should remember that the Illuminati invented both these movements.

The Illuminati refers to a tightly organized network of family dynasties representing Anglo American and European aristocracy and Jewish finance joined by intermarriage, belief in the occult, and hatred of Christianity. Freemasonry is their instrument. They care nothing for their non-Illuminati brethren, Jewish or not. They will destroy billions as they create a neo feudal world characterized by superrich, soldiers and serfs.

"Taking Sides"

The Iraq war and a possible larger conflagration with Iran are a trap engineered by the Illuminati to destroy both the Moslem world and Israel, and possibly the U.S. Thus the real enemy is not Israel, America or Islam who are being manipulated. The real enemy is the Illuminati and their agents, bent on destroying and enslaving mankind.

For example, the Second World War was choreographed. Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill and Hitler were all Illuminati. They were actually on the same side. Humanity ignorantly slaughtering itself was on the other side.

As Pike's letter indicates, the Nazis were intended to lose and the Communists to gain control of Eastern Europe. This is why the Nazis made so many stupid blunders on the Eastern Front and deliberately alienated the anti Communist Russians.

Similarly today, George Bush, John Kerry, Tony Blair, Ariel Sharon, Gerhard Schroeder are Freemasons. I am guessing but I expect Vladimir Putin and some significant Iranian leaders are also tied to the Illuminati. They may not be aware of the big picture but if they deviate, they will be assassinated like Israeli PM, Yitzhak Rabin who was also a Freemason.

Sadaam Hussein is rumoured to be a high-ranking Freemason with longstanding business ties to George H.W. Bush and the CIA. This would explain why Bush didn't remove him in 1991; and why there are reports he was secretly airlifted out of the country in the first days of the 2003 war.

The current Iraq war was planned years in advance to discredit and mire the U.S. in a Vietnam-style war and set it and Israel up for confrontation with a nuclear-armed Iran backed by Russia and possibly China.

Osama Bin Laden is probably also Illuminati. See "Bush, Bin Laden Serve the Same Master" and "Osama bin London""Osama bin London"

The whole Iranian Islamic Republic was put in place by the Illuminati. See Peter Goodgame's comprehensive report: "The Globalists and the Islamists."

Thus while the majority of people on both sides may believe in their cause, and be willing to fight and die, history suggests war is always a hoax aimed at destroying the righteous on both sides, and establishing the power of the Illuminati in a one-world government.

"Out of these troubled times, our objective: a new world order can emerge," President George H. W. Bush told the U.N. on September 11^th 1990. "Today, that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we have known."

In 1992, George H.W. Bush told White House reporter Sarah McClendon: "If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched."

We cannot understand the world until we appreciate that most leaders are traitors and that mankind is victim of a diabolical conspiracy on an unspeakable scale. It's time we stopped taking sides and addressed the real enemy.

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Flashback: On the Eve of Destruction

He caused a furor - so does Avraham Burg regret his harsh, apocalyptic remarks on the failures of Zionism? Not one bit: 'I am directing all my energy to the central effort of saving Israel from the occupation, of saving Zionism from itself.'

By Ari Shavit
Haaretz
14/11/2003

Suddenly, at the end of the summer, the Israeli left reappeared. After three years of dormancy, after three years of shock and paralysis and losing its way, the Israeli left awoke - upon the collapse of the hudna (cease-fire) - to new life.

Avraham (Avrum) Burg, too, awoke to new life. Two years after losing the contest for leadership of the Labor Party and half a year after losing the comfortable position of Knesset Speaker, Burg woke up one morning in August and, after a dawn conversation with his wife Yael, a radical, decided that it was impossible to go on like this any longer. That something had to be done. To be said. That it was time to shake up the world. At 5:30 A.M. he went into his office, which overlooks the Judean Hills, and within less than an hour, typed into his laptop 1,000 words that would generate a furor in the Jewish-Zionist world in the month that followed.

In Hebrew the article was called "Zionism Now." In English [in the Forward on August 29, and in The International Herald Tribune on September 6] it was entitled "A failed Israeli society is collapsing." In French and German, too, it reads as an extraordinarily harsh indictment of the Zionist state, one written by the person who until not long ago was the head of the Zionist movement.

He's a very energetic fellow, Avrum. At 48, he is light of foot, sometimes light of mind and a bit hyperactive. He's a quick study and is quick with responses, and he possesses a great deal of the charm of Israeli directness. He's an articulate politician of devastating sound bites. However, unlike the past, when Burg's sound bites helped him chew his way into the top echelon of the Israeli establishment, into the heart of the sated elite that tilts a bit left of center, his sound bites are now trenchant and acerbic and almost apocalyptic. They're the sound bites of someone who is returning from power to protest. From the political to the moral. From the grays of the complex to the black and white of what brooks no argument.

Does he want to retract the harsh things he said? Is he bothered at the use that inveterate Israel-haters made of his remarks? Not in the least. Sitting in the pleasant dining area of his home in the community of Nataf, Burg says he is at harmony with himself as he has never been before. Only now does he understand how much he disliked the person he became within the political grinder. Only now does he understand that the establishment fluff that pampered and warmed him also deadened him morally and distanced him from his inner truth. So now he is basking in a feeling of great tranquillity. Of mental peace. And he goes on to say the harsh things that he says about Israel without any hesitation and without flinching, a smile on his lips.

Your article generated a furor in the Jewish world. Many people had the feeling that the former chairman of the Zionist Movement had crossed the lines and become a post-Zionist.

Burg: "Even when I was chairman of the Zionist movement, I was unable to say what was Zionist and what was post-Zionist. My worldview does not allow me to accept Orthodoxy - of either the Jewish or the Zionist variety. Therefore, if Zionism today means Greater Israel, not only am I a post-Zionist, I am an anti-Zionist. If Zionism is Netzarim and Kiryat Arba, I am an anti-Zionist. I do not accept the type of Zionism that took Judaism, with all its dazzling beauty, and turned it into the worship of trees and stones. When I look around today, my feeling is that Netzarim has become an altar, God has become a Moloch and our children have become sacrifices: human sacrifices to terrible idol worship."

In your article you describe Israel as a dark and cruel nationalist state. Do you feel that Israel is becoming a new South Africa? That the Israelis are the new Afrikaners?

"We are living in a country that is undergoing a process of moral decay. What frightens me the most is that we are not paying attention to the process that we are going through. Without noticing, we are continually distancing ourselves, a little more and then a little more, from the place we were. Suddenly an F-16 warplane is about to attack a building in which there are innocent people, and some army commanders say that despite this, they sleep well at night. What is happening is that we are increasingly coming to resemble our enemies. We are losing the feeling and the sensitivity that were our conscience.

"In the streets of our cities, especially Jerusalem, I see slogans calling for `Death to the Arabs' that the municipality no longer bothers to erase. I see terrible graffiti - racist and Kahanist - that we accept offhandedly. We don't even take note of them. The cancerous process is devouring us. The Zionist perversion embodied by the settlers and the right wing has terminally affected every fabric of our life and hasn't left any place that is not affected by the nationalist consciousness. If our last remaining healthy cells do not rise up and stem the virus, we will no longer exist. We will simply no longer exist."

Have things gone that far? Do you see a process of destruction? Does the former chairman of the Zionist Movement really believe that Zionism is dead?

"The current channel is taking us to that. Maybe we will be Israelis. Or Jews. But we will not be Zionists who are continuing the Zionism that created the state. Consider two simple tests. Does the State of Israel fit the contour lines envisaged by Theodor Herzl? No. Does the State of Israel meet the criteria and the values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence? No. That is the truth. That is the basic truth from which we have been fleeing for the past 35 years."

I find two dimensions in what you are saying: a dimension of moral outrage and an apocalyptic dimension.

"That's right. That is my frame of mind. I think nationalist Zionism has taken us to terrible places from which it will be very hard for us to extricate ourselves. Look, I go through agony every time my children go out to the German Colony neighborhood of Jerusalem [where the suicide bombing at Hillel Cafe occurred]. On the other hand, what really scares me is the day, which is not far off, when the Palestinian baby will be born who will turn the Jews in this country into a minority. What are we going to do then? What are we going to do when we no longer have the excuse and the strength of being a majority?

"I think every generation has its formative truth. And the formative truth of this generation is that between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the Jews are going to become a minority. That is what we have to cope with. But the government of Israel and Israeli politics are not succeeding in coping with that truth. In the past three years we have reached a state of mute shock. A situation of no words. There is nothing to say. That's why I wrote the article. Because I reached the conclusion that for the past three years, we have said nothing."

Throughout your political career you have projected a certain energetic optimism, which has sometimes been a bit immature and at other times frivolous. Do you want to tell me that you have really become a pessimist? Are you really all that gloomy?

"When you ask Israelis today whether their children will be living here 25 years down the road, you don't get an unequivocally positive answer. You don't hear a booming yes. On the contrary: Young people are being encouraged to study abroad. Their parents are getting them European passports. Whoever can checks out possibilities of working in Silicon Valley in California; whoever has the wherewithal buys a house in London. So that slowly but surely, a society is developing in Israel which isn't certain that the next generation will live here. A whole society is living here that has no faith in its future.

"What is actually happening is that the leading Israeli class is shrinking, because it is no longer ready to pay for the caprices of the government. It is no longer willing to bear the burden of the settlements and the burden of the transfer payments. But what we're getting in the meantime is not a revolt in the streets, it's a quiet revolt of people leaving, getting out. It's a revolt of taking the laptop and the diskette and moving on. So if you look up and look around, you will see that the only people who are staying here are those who have no other option. The economically weak and the fundamentalists are staying. Before our eyes Israel is becoming ultra-Orthodox, nationalist and Arab. It is becoming a society that has no sense of a future, no narrative and no forces to maintain itself."

Okay. That's a reasonable concern. But your article, which was disseminated all over the world, used terms that are almost hostile. You described Israel as a building that exists on a foundation of human insensitivity. You described it as a country lacking justice. You talked about the Palestinians being trampled under the Israeli boot. Those are terrible expressions - expressions of a person who has himself undergone a process of complete alienation vis-a-vis the society he is supposed to represent.

"My words come from a place of pain, not a place of hostility. They are words of trenchant self-criticism. When I write about Israel I write not about others, but about myself. But I truly feel that we do not see what is happening outside our window. In the morning, when I travel in the hills around the community where I live, I see children of 8 and 10 and 12 walking in search of work. And when a Border Police Jeep arrives, these kids hide under bushes and rocks, scared. So I don't think we can go on saying that we are beautiful and moral because we went through a Holocaust 60 years ago. I don't think it's possible to go on saying we are beautiful and moral because we were persecuted for 2,000 years. Today we are involved in a horrific reality. We look bad. Truly bad."

Do you think Israel has become a state of evil?

"No. We are not a state of evil or a society of evil. But we have lost the sensors of evil. We are obtuse. We are blind. We do not feel and we do not see. Just last week I visited a well-known high school in Jerusalem. A good many of the students I spoke to told me appalling things. They said: When we are soldiers, we will kill old people, women and children without giving it a thought. They said: We will expel them, we will put them on planes and fly them to Iraq. We will fly hundreds of thousands of them. Millions. And most of the students in the audience applauded those opinions. They supported them even when I pointed out that that is how people talked 60 years ago in Europe. So I am really worried. I am even alarmed. I think that we are internalizing a normative approach that is not ours. We are coming increasingly to resemble our enemies."

One of the criticisms of your article was that you crossed the lines and thereby served Israel's enemies.

"That criticism is immaterial to me. I didn't see one Israel-hater in Damascus or Malaysia who became anti-Semitic because Avrum Burg said so-and-so. The unfavorable attitude toward Israel that exists today in the international community stems in part from the policy of the government of Israel. So if Israel-haters used me, that's fine as far as I am concerned. I am a lot more worried that, because of the fear of what Israel-haters will say, we will not wash our laundry outside, and then we stop washing laundry altogether, and then things start to stink. Look around and see how much things stink."

When you write in your article, "Israel, having ceased to care about the children of the Palestinians, should not be surprised when they come washed in hatred and blow themselves up in the centers of Israeli escapism," you are, after all, justifying terrorism. When you write, "They spill their own blood in our restaurants in order to ruin our appetites, because they have children and parents at home who are hungry and humiliated," you are in effect justifying murder.

"I am not justifying terrorism. As a citizen of Israel and as a citizen of the West, terrorism is my enemy. But amid the tremendous noise of the explosions and the investigations and the despair, we no longer hear anything. We are unfeeling. And I tell you that I can't sleep nights because I feel that I am an occupier. I tell you that no serious war against terrorism is being waged here today. Because Israel is now fighting terrorism in terms of tons. How many tons did I drop on terrorism today? And tonnage of bombs is not a war on terrorism. It is the expression of a policy of revenge that is out to satisfy the base instincts of public opinion.

"I want you to understand: It's clear to me that we have to wage war on terrorism. But a war against terrorism is quiet, daring, crafty and mute. It is not a festival of declarations to hit them again and again. Nor can a war on terrorism succeed if you don't open windows and allow the other society to breathe a little air of hope. Therefore, as long as Israel only uses brute force, without generating any hope, it is not confronting the true infrastructure of terrorism. The time has come for us to understand that not all the Palestinians are terrorists and not all the Palestinians are Hamas, and that some of the people who are fighting us are doing so because of Israel's insensitivity."

If that's so, Israel bears the responsibility for a suicide bomber blowing himself up in Cafe Hillel and a woman terrorist blowing herself up in Maxim Restaurant in Haifa.

"I go to Cafe Hillel with my family. I visit the owners of Maxim restaurant every New Year's. So when a suicide bomber blows himself up in places like that, he is out to kill me, too. He doesn't distinguish between good and bad; when he blows himself up he is attacking all of us. It's clear to me that from the moment a terrorist straps on an explosives belt it is my duty to kill him. At this late moment he is the person whom you must kill before he kills you.

"But what I am saying is that this terrorist attack should be thwarted long before this, and what I am asking myself is whether Israel did enough to prevent the attack in the two years that preceded it. What I am asking myself is whether Israel is doing enough so that a child who is now two years old will not blow himself up in another 15 or 20 years. We have responsibility in this area. Even if 60 percent of the responsibility devolves on the Palestinians and only 40 percent on us, we nevertheless have 100 percent responsibility.

"After three years of war I cannot ignore our part in preventing peace. I cannot ignore the fact that in our cabinet today there are ministers of war. One of them wants a war in Damascus and another wants war with the whole Arab world and a third just loves war. I feel a duty to create some sort of alternative to the politics of despair and violence. I think it is very dangerous to entrust our fate to those who do not understand that peace is in our benefit. Peace is the best security means that exists."

The attempt to create an alternative led you to Geneva. But when you and your friends formulated the Geneva Accords, you effectively gave in to Palestinian terrorism. You agreed to give the Palestinians what they did not get before the intifada - the Temple Mount, for example.

"It took me three weeks until I agreed to accept the draft of the Geneva Accords. It was hard for me because in the past, I was in fact critical of [former prime minister] Ehud Barak for his concessions in Jerusalem. But the truth is that I changed. My anxiety about the destruction of Israel is so palpable today that I am ready to make more concessions. I am directing all my energy to the central effort of saving Israel from the occupation; of saving Zionism from itself.

"I found two proper things in the accords themselves. One is that we are giving up the symbol of the Temple Mount while they are giving up the symbol of the right of return. That is a huge exchange of symbols with tremendous meaning. The second thing is the expansion of the suffocation belt around Jerusalem in return for the expansion of the suffocation belt around Gaza. In the end, then, my thinking was that this was a proper move of symbol vs. symbol: Jerusalem vs. Gaza."

What you are saying is very nice, but inaccurate. According to the Geneva draft document, Israel explicitly forgoes the Temple Mount, but the Palestinians do not explicitly forgo the right of return.

"We must not confuse dreams with practicalities. Just as no Palestinian will forgo the dream of Greater Palestine, so I have not abandoned the dream of building the Temple. But the decision we took jointly is not to allow those dreams to become concrete policy. We decided that in the realm of concrete policy, the Jews will not build the temple in this era and the Palestinians will not return to Jaffa. That is the essence of the deal: dream in return for dream, practicality in return for practicality."

Still, if we take the Geneva document together with your article, it's clear that you have undergone a process of political radicalization. Two years ago you ran for chairman of the Labor Party on the basis of an almost centrist platform, and now you are at the farthest extremity of the far left. Have you really changed that much or have you conducted a totally cynical public campaign since then?

"Both. After the contest in the Labor Party I looked within and analyzed what happened to me. One of the things I found was that I ran a tactical campaign, but fled from addressing substance and essence. My working assumption was that [U.S. President George] Bush was elected without saying anything and [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon was elected without saying anything, so maybe it would work for me, too. So when I took stock after being defeated, I reached the conclusion that for too many years, I was geared too much to the political side and too little to my inner truths. My campaign was wrongheaded because it was a campaign of personal popularity without genuine content.

"My attempt to seize the center and my refraining from going all the way to the end with my views made me a cosmetic candidate lacking true positions. So in the final analysis, the lesson I drew was that in such a difficult period, I have to speak my truth unvarnished. If there is no other choice, I prefer to lose over truths than to be elected for emptiness."

You are playing a double game, Avrum, isn't that right? On the one hand, you are a cunning politician who is adept at navigating the turgid waters of Israeli politics, but at the same time, you insist on playing the prophet. On standing up against the state and the government and the Zionist movement and uttering an adolescent cry of moral outrage.

"I don't think my politics is adolescent. The Israeli adolescent escapes the Israeli challenge by going off to India and South America. I am doing exactly the opposite. I am taking the bull by the horns and refusing to let it go. I am not putting a knapsack on my back and running away from the battle. I think these are truly terrible times. I think we are at a watershed. On one side is destruction, on the other side salvation and renewal. But the space between the two options is getting constantly narrower. The threat of destruction is more concrete than ever before. In this situation, even if it's not pleasant and even if it's not popular, I am no longer willing to remain silent. I am obliged to do everything in my power so that Israel will return to itself; so that Israel will come home from the occupation."

Comment: What this particular Israeli politician fails to understand or accept is that Israel has become a fascist brutal state under the very deliberate stewardship of certain people that claim to represent the Jewish people, but who in reality are planning war in Israel and Palestine and the destruction en masse of the Israeli and Palestinian people.

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Israeli Espionage: When a Honey Trap Goes Bad A Governor Resigns

By John Anast
Al-Jazeerah, August15 ,2004

With the news out that in fact James McGreevey is, by his own admission, a homosexual; the Mossad honey trap has become somewhat unglued. Golan Cipel, the object of the Mr. McGreevy's affection, worked for the Israeli consulate in New York in the 1990 's and other posts in a capacity to serve the Israeli espionage service and its targeting of American politicians and the American political system.

Notwithstanding all the self-serving political rhetoric spewing from democratic lips attempting to relegate the matter to a personal issue between two men, there are larger and in deed more relevant issues to our Nation's security to discern. It is a glimpse into the world of Israeli espionage targeted against the United States, its politicians, and its people.

Despite recent numerous pronouncements by both public and private figures alike that Mr. McGreevey's sexual preference came as a shock, to the contrary it was widely known in political and business circles that the ex-governor had a per chant for male sex partners. There were any number of swirling allegations regarding his sexual exploits, not the least of which that the ex-governor broke his leg at a New Jersey beach during a homosexual act gone awry.

With the knowledge of the ex-governors preference for men, Mossad activated Cipel to lure McGreevey into a compromising position for exploitation, extortion and blackmail purposes. It is alleged that in a pre-arranged visit to Israel, organized by New Jersey Jewish organizations, Mr. McGreevey was introduced to the Jewish homosexual, Mr. Cipel at a political function.

In its zeal to penetrate the Governors office and homeland security, Mossad demanded that Cipel, an Israeli citizen who lacked any requisite experience or security clearances, be appointed to run New Jersey's homeland security office. In that position Mr. Cipel could have not only obtained information on US security procedures, but also been in a position to access sensitive investigative information, methods and sources relative to US efforts to thwart Israeli espionage against the United States. New Jersey is still reeling from the Israeli espionage ring which was housed in Urban Movers that collapsed soon after it was discovered on 11 September, and more recently by the detention of two (2) Israelis, working for a New Jersey moving company, caught with classified submarine fuel near a US base in Tennessee where the fuel is manufactured.

Investigators should not limit their investigation to Cipel and his activities but should also be reviewing every appointment made by the McGreevey administration and especially those dealing with homeland security, to ensure that additional Israeli moles are not in-place conspiring espionage against the State of New Jersey and our Nation. Investigators should also be reviewing if telephone calls from the ex-governors home and office were logged by Amdocs, and if that information was shared with Israeli agents in Israel, as Amdocs is an Israeli company based in the United States which monitors and tracks most calls made within our Nation.

This should be a wake-up call to every local, state and federal agency to demand that all meetings public or private by any official, and or any member of their staff, and any foreign national, or any person holding dual citizenship be made part of the public record as a matter of law. It would also enhance security in the State of New Jersey to make it mandatory that the Division of Motor Vehicles include the place of birth, and any dual citizenship the recipient may hold. It would likewise increase security to tag every foreign visitor to the United States to know and monitor their whereabouts at all times.

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Storm story

Beyond our best calculations lies a force over which we have no control

By John Kaminski
skylax@comcast.net

I live in a mobile home. It leaks. The ants really own it and I just rent it from them.

In many ways it suits a messy bachelor like myself. It's kind of like a little boat, but because it's jammed with so many books and things, I'm tired of bumping into stuff. Maybe someday I'll move into a yurt.

Low maintenance living allows me to spend virtually all my time reading and writing on the Internet. It's such an honor for me to have made so many genuine friends because of that. And I dearly appreciate all those recent inquiries about my well-being that my sudden unscheduled absence from the e-mail circuit has triggered.

Probably the major drawback about living in a mobile home is its fragility, especially in regard to heavy weather. Florida is hurricane country, and I always watch the weather forecasts with a keen interest. The 70-foot-tall pine tree that shelters my lanai with scented boughs and numerous sapling offspring is, in high winds, a potential bomb.

So when the Weather Channel tells me five days in advance that a tropical depression named Charley somewhere down around St. Kitts is on track to arrive in my hometown, I do take notice.

We in South Florida were more than adequately warned that a major disaster could befall us on Friday the 13th. The forecasters were soothsayers, in this instance.

Trouble is, everybody in this neighborhood has been lulled into a false sense of security. Hurricanes never come here. They sometimes fake like they're going to, but always veer off or vaporize before they actually hit. Many people suspect some kind of geomagnetic magic protects this region from harm.

It was probably this kind of thinking that cost a good many people their lives in Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte on this savage Friday the 13th, August 2004.

I've experienced numerous hurricanes, as a child in Massachusetts, as a young adult in Texas, and more recently in Florida, with the dreadful Andrew. So they scare me. I know what the power of those winds is like. Like an airplane taking off, when it shifts into second gear, is what.

I packed my car with books, papers, mementos and my computer, and by mid- Thursday evening was ready to roll on out of here, not far, just to higher ground and stronger walls, my sister's house, just up the road in western Port Charlotte.

I watched the local news station until 1 a.m. (Channel 2 in Fort Myers, excellent weather guys), and noticed that the leading edge of thunderstorms was about a half hour south of Marco Island, more than a hundred miles to the south of me. Time to get some sleep.

A series of loud thunder salvos woke me at 3 a.m. and I bolted upright. Visons of Armageddon danced in my brain. Visions of drowning.

The leading edge was moving fast, but it passed, and a grim calm followed. I obsessed about storm surge as Charley churned closer, and at 4 a.m. called my sister and told her we had about a two-hour window to get the hell out of here and bolt across the state to West Palm Beach.

Then, the TV guys reported the storm had moved a tenth of a degree of longitude to the west, and I calmed down a little. It was a good indication. After packing my computer and the last of my things, I headed to my sister's at 6 a.m. She was riveted to the TV. We talked it over, decided the storm would pass to the west of us about 60 miles out to sea, and decided to stay.

I slept for three hours. When I awoke, neighbors were chatting, and everyone seemed calm. Tense hours passed with edgy banter. At 2 p.m., as Charley's eye came careening over Captiva Island (created a new island as it did by cutting the existing island in half), the forecast changed radically. The fairly threatening Category Two storm had been upgraded to a monster Category Four, with winds of 145 mph (on TV tonight they say the killer winds that hit Punta Gorda might have been 155). The fairly threatening storm surge prediction of 7- 10 feet had been boosted to 10-15 feet (elevation of my sister's house is 13 feet, about a mile from the Myakka River, which near its mouth is the western half of Charlotte Harbor; she lives about a mile from the water).

And worse — the new predicted track had it aimed right at us. I was panicking. Repetitive calculations flitted through my brain like a jukebox gone mad. I had serious visions of being up to my chest in water — in her kitchen! — by 8 p.m. Then my sister came up with a great idea. Her office. It was on the fifth floor in the solidest building in Port Charlotte, a five- story cement behemoth on the main drag, Route 41.

So off we went, armed with peanut butter sandwiches and a weather radio (but not a flashlight) as the storm cycled closer.

For awhile we were content, if nervous. At least we were safe from the storm surge (which never actually happened). But as the day wore on — second by second — we began to realize that even the most rational, well-considered decision ultimately meant nothing when arrayed against the unfathomable and momentous caprice of Nature, which forever moves at her own speed, in her own direction, for reasons no one can ever anticipate.

We knew we were in real trouble when we noticed the pictures hanging on the wall of this formidably solid concrete building swinging back and forth like a pendulum. Looking out the windows we soon tired of the random debris amongst white foam flitting spastically across our field of vision.

The came the giant crunches. Roof blowing off. And the creaks and groans and the building rocking so hard that we had to hang onto something. More slams from the roof, and my sister saying, "We've got to go down a floor, in case the whole roof goes." It was still dry at that point, but when we made our way down the stairwell, water was dripping down the middle all the way from the roof to the ground, the wind whistled like that groaning man in the Munsch painting, and an occasional crunch from above rattled the fillings in my teeth. We hid in a fourth floor men's room, but only for a few moments, as water seeped through the ceiling, and we heard the distant sounds of heavy crashes.

"Let's keep heading down," my sister urged. "We can't stay here." I had to agree, and once again we were back in the leaky stairwell, negotiating the treacherous steps. At some point the fire alarm began its incessant blaring as we made it down to the second floor.

My sister was so brave. Hobbled by sciatica, wielding my metal baseball bat as a crutch, she plodded forth through pain in every step and suppressed panic in every step. We made it to the second floor, and thankfully found a family comfortably ensconced in the regional headquarters of a delicatessen chain — Obee's — and they welcomed us in.

Blissfully, we could barely hear the fire alarm, which filled the rest of the building with the banshee howl of the apocalypse. We kicked back a bit and got on the cellphones to assorted relatives and friends, all of whom were safe in unmolested locations.

Even more blissfully, it was at this point that the winds began to subside. We wouldn't learn until much later that we were only three miles from where literally dozens of mobile parks, close to the edge of lower Charlotte Harbor, were reduced to rubble by 120-mile-per-hour winds. TV reports said rescuers couldn't even get in to find the bodies.

With the winds lessening, I chanced a return to the fifth floor to retrieve our gear. My sister had been right. The floor was covered with water and most of the ceiling tiles had fallen. Two of the Obee's teens helped me cart our stuff back down to our second-floor sanctuary.

As time passed and the winds lessened, I poked my head outside from the ground floor, checked out my sister's car and saw that an Airborne delivery box had bashed out the back window. The box lay nearby. I tried to move it. It weighed about 300 pounds. Finally with the help of a muscular teenager also seeking shelter in the building, we managed to move it out of the way.

About that time the fire department arrived. I tried to tell them what I knew but they stoically didn't want to hear it. They had their own procedures. But the lead firefighter ordered me not to go back in the building. Yeah right, with my hobbled sister in there. I snuck around to another door, used her key, and found my way back to her before the fireguys found her in our comfortable sanctuary at Obee's. We gathered up our stuff and crept down the watery stairwell. Then the firefighters helped us down, and we got the hell out of there.

We speculated that the building would be condemned, for all the swaying it had undergone surely had destroyed its structural integrity. My sister, a Realtor, kvetched about all the real estate records and personal items she would have liked to retrieve from her office, now likely unobtainable if the building were to be condemned.

So we drove through lots of broken glass, shattered tree limbs and downed traffic lights back to her house, which was undamaged but without power. My nephew, who had been safely ensconced with his girlfriend up in North Port, arrived, and we went out and cut some brush that blocked the entrance to my sister's subdivision.

Finally, he stood guard at my sister's while I reloaded my car and drove off to check the status of my humble abode. It was a relief to see virtually no damage and only scrambled tree branches in my driveway. The fact that my power was still out was a very minor irritant. Even though I was sweating like a pig with no A/C, I had no trouble falling asleep.

Due to the medical needs of my sister, I wasn't able to re-hook-up my computer for another 24 hours, and then when I did it took me another four hours to start it. But start it did. And here I am.

Even though Hurricane Charley scared the living feces out of us, our ordeal seems trivial compared to the shocking savagery of nature that cost at least 15 people their lives in circumstances we could totally relate to only a few miles from where we were doing our crazy dance with the elements.

It's easy to second-guess these kinds of panicky decisions. Stay or go. Fight or flight. But with a hurricane, the right decision can still be wrong, and vice versa.

I am still in a placid kind of shock, as I dash off this diary to reassure my friends that I am safe. Two immediate reflections come to mind.

The first was shared by both me and my sister — but not spoken — while we were stuck on that fifth floor, feeling that building sway back and forth like some amusement park ride from hell. The thought was like we would soon be riding the building down to the ground, just like some towering inferno or — and I say this meaning no disrespect — a World Trade Center tower.

The second was the last look I took out the fifth floor window as we headed toward the stairwell on our journey toward safety — and sanity. What I saw was a kind of ethereal washing machine, a white churning mist, not unlike surf, flecked with fragments of flying rubble, tree limbs, pieces of signs, debris. It was a vision of hell I hope I never see again.

We were lucky. Others, not so far away from us and just as innocent, were not.

Let us now say a little prayer for all those who surely made logistical decisions as well-considered as mine, but who, opposed by the cold impartiality of ever-inscrutable nature, were unable to escape the vicious twist of meteorological fate that will forever be known as Hurricane Charley.

John Kaminski is a writer who lives on the west coast of Florida, which normally is very pleasant place to live. His new book, "The Perfect Enemy," will hopefully be available in a few weeks.

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Nanomachines Getting RNA Parts

Biological building blocks encouraged to self-assemble into complex shapes

Scaffold-like structures have been built from RNA in a small but important step for exploiting biology to build nanoscale machines.

Aiming to create scaffolding for the components of nanotech devices, researchers from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana are taking advantage of the built-in properties of RNA, which in cells transmits genetic information from DNA into proteins.

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S.A. Zoo Weighs-In on Chupacabra Debate

Posted By: CyberBob
8/11/2004 9:51:09 PM

Is it a Chupacabra or not? WOAI.com is getting answers about a bizarre animal shot in Elmendorf.

Bones from a mystery animal shot by an Elmendorf rancher have been taken to an expert from the San Antonio Zoo. But can he tell what it is?

John Gramieri, the Mammal Curator at the San Antonio Zoo, doesn't think it's the Chupacabra. It's definitely unique, but he thinks it's a mix between a dog and a coyote.

Devin MacAnally shot the Elmendorph Beast after it ate dozens of his chickens. The animal has a blue-grey coloring, is almost hairless, has a short mane and large fangs.

"It's clearly a member of the dog family, a family candidate," explains Gramieri.

Gramieri says he can't tell what type of canine, but that it could be mixed with coyote that has very weird teeth.

"For whatever reason, this animal had a very poor fusion in the front here, so it allowed that lower jaw to spread in a way that is not normal for any mammal, actually," Gramieri told WOAI.

But what about the creature's color? A blue-grey hairless coat that's unlike any dog or coyote?

"It apparently had some very bad skin ailment," said Gramieri. "And that skin ailment made it go bald except for the top of its body."

So there's no Chubacabra endorsements from the San Antonio Zoo, but MacAnally continues to believe it's something extra special. He knows its one man's opinion versus his, so he'll wait for the DNA results due back in the next few weeks to find out exactly what it is.

"I want this one to be a new species - or at least something that somebody has never seen in a cross between two different ones," MacAnally said with a smile.

MacAnally says in the past few weeks he's gotten calls from other people claiming to have seen similar creatures around their properties. That's possible, according to the Gramieri. Gramieri believes that there are more out there.

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