As many of you know,
Signs of the Times is not supported by major funding like
many other news sites, and is not affiliated with any
government, political group, corporation, or news agency.
SOTT is financed by any donations we receive as well as
money out of our own pockets. The benefit of this setup
is that we do not have any sponsors that might introduce
unwanted bias into our work. The
obvious and major drawback is that we do not have the
funding to do all the things we would like to do for our
readers.
Almost one year ago, SOTT created the P3nt4gon Str!ke presentation, which has now been viewed by
well over 300,000,000 people worldwide, and is available
in nine different languages. Recently, we wrote and produced
the song You
Lied, performed by Away
With the Fairys. We also recorded our first ever podcast,
beginning a project which we had been trying to get off
the ground for over a year.
A
SOTT editor poses next to his computer
To produce the Signs page, we work very long days (often
upwards of 14-16 hours) without pay. We do it because
we love it, and because our readers often write to tell
us how they have benefited from our work. In order to
continue expanding our work and deepen our analysis and
understanding of our world, we need to enlarge our library.
There are many books we would like to have that we cannot
afford. With our increasing use of sound files and our
future projects that include video, we have and will continue
to incur higher bandwidth costs. As well, the Signs page
and related projects are created on several computers
which are each upwards of five years old. They are very
slow, increasingly unreliable, and won't support regular
podcasts and videos.
Unfortunately, we do not have the financial means to
purchase the books we need, much less new equipment. Current
donations only support our basic needs and living expenses.
In order to continue producing the Signs page, the podcast,
Flash presentations, and expand our operations further,
we need your support.
At the moment, we are preparing six Signs of the
Times Commentary books. These books are collections
of SOTT commentary grouped according to theme. They will
be available for sale soon, and any proceeds will go towards
helping to cover our increasing operating costs.
Our target, based on estimated costs for all the necessary
materials, upgrades, and operating costs for the coming
year is 28,000 euros.
--
Here's How You Can Help Signs of the Times --
Any donation you
can make will help us to continue to produce and improve
the Signs page.
If you donate 50 euros
(approximately US$60; click
here for current exchange rate), you will be a Bronze
Supporter.
Bronze
Supporters will receive a complementary
copy of the 911 Conspiracy Signs
Commentary book.
If you donate 100
euros, you will be a Silver
Supporter.
Silver
Supporters will receive a complementary copy
of 911 Conspiracy, US Freedom, and The
Media.
Donations
of 175 euros will qualify you as a Gold
Supporter.
Gold
Supporters will receive the entire set of
six commentary books: 911 Conspiracy, The
Human Condition, The Media, Religion,
US Freedom, and The Work.
Donations of 250 euros will
qualify you as a Platinum Supporter.
Platinum
Supporters will receive the entire set of
six commentary books: 911 Conspiracy, The
Human Condition, The Media, Religion,
US Freedom, and The Work. In addition,
they will receive one other book of their choice free
from our bookstore.
We have more projects like our podcast in
the works - but we need your
help to make them a reality!
Thank
you in advance from the editors and the rest of the team
at Signs of the Times!
In our
latest podcast, (left to right) editors Henry See,
Scott Ogrin, and Joe Quinn discuss the latest on the
second round of London Bombings with an update
on the London Bombings of 7/7.
We also discuss the global implications of the so-called
"War on Terror" and the motivations behind the attacks.
Below
are some of the articles cited so that you can read
the material yourselves.
It is why they so
desperately need "hate crimes" legislation,
and an "Anti-Defamation League" to defame
anyone who opposes their racist crimes of apartheid
and genocidal mass murder. It is why they require and
consistently rely on the best intelligence organization
in the world, which, when it partners with our own CIA,
creates the false flag operations necessary to incite
Americans to war, and which has also resulted in the
total destruction of our basic human freedoms via the
USA PATRIOT Act. The terrorist acts perpetrated against
US and the slaughter of over 3,000 Americans on September
11, 2001, was just such an operation.
Human lives mean absolutely nothing to these sociopathic,
lying, conniving psychopaths. They have bribed and bought
the loyalty of virtually every member of Congress, both
in the Senate and the House of Representatives. They
have annexed Washington, D.C. and rendered it a mere
suburb of Tel Aviv. They control the White House. They
have taken over and commandeered our own Pentagon, and
conspired and arranged to have our own military fight
wars selected and deemed necessary by their vicious,
cruel and inhumane government. They call themselves
"Israel," yet another atrocity, this one an
historical and sacrilegious falsehood directed at the
Old Testament.
As perceived enemies of the Bush regime draw near to
expose the latter's disloyalty, lies, treason and its
collaboration in false flag operations to ignite wars
orchestrated by Israel, Zionists will smear, whine,
deny, flee, bribe, discredit, blackmail and conceivably
even kill to avoid both the exposure of their conspiratorial
activities as well as the resultant total elimination
of their influence. Should Americans ever find out precisely
what happened on 9-11, their power will be forever neutralized
and they will eventually be totally destroyed. Yet the
truth will set US free!
Israel's
primary mission here is to protect the criminal
regime of President George W. Bush. It is Bush
and his support from Congress that is directing our
youth to fight and die for Israel, the ploy being that
once "our ally" gets total control of the
Middle East, oil accessibility will be a "cakewalk."
Nonsense! When our troops were running low on ammunition,
Israel offered ammunition they acquired free from the
American taxpayer - but for a price! Israel is not our
ally - Israel is now America's most dangerous enemy!
Israel, and more to the point, Zionism, is indeed the
tool of the Illuminati. And we're not talking about
Dan Brown's [Angels & Demons - The Da Vinci Code]
ancient Illuminati cult - we're talking about the Council
on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg,
Skull and Bones, Thule Society, etc. The Rothschild-Rockefeller
international bankers plotting the New World Order have
acquired untold wealth by orchestrating wars, thereby
generating the enormous military spending on the part
of the belligerents for whom they provide funding. A
World War III would fit quite nicely into their plans
for the human race; the United States of what?
So, as Bush enemies approach, Zionism strikes! Congressman
John Conyers' inquiry into the Downing
Street Memo was crushed by the usual charges of
"anti-Semitism" from the usual anti-think/pro-Israel
shills, schmucks and schlocks. The domination of our
corporate establishment mainstream media by Zionists
and dual-loyalty Jews supports the ring of protection
the Bush regime needs to conduct its war crimes against
humanity. This is why there was little or hardly any
mention of the Memo in the MSM. This is why there's
no journalistic follow-up on the AIPAC scandal or the
White House/Washington pedophile ring.
As acts of conspiracy are uncovered distractions and
smears will increase. No sooner had I pointed this out
and the London bombings followed. And as I also pointed
out afterwards, there was Israel again, smack, dab in
the middle of things along with Benjamin Netanyahu.
When terrorism strikes, can Israel and its Mossad be
far away?
Now we learn that we have a "shoot-to-kill"
policy on the part of London police; and where did they
learn such brutal, cold-blooded techniques in unjustly
and violently terminating human life? From
the "experts" of course: Israel!
These are the same "experts" who encouraged
US to ignore all international laws and moral standards,
precisely as they have, to commit torture and atrocities
against both POWs and rounded-up civilians. These are
the "experts" who taught US how to use female
interrogators to sexually humiliate Muslims so they
no longer wished to return to their homes and people.
These are the demolition
"experts" who have crushed people and
homeowners to death while they were still inside their
homes using huge D9 Caterpillar bulldozers, and killing
old people and those on crutches who were unable to
evacuate in a timely fashion.
These are the same world-renowned demolition "experts"
who planted explosives in Larry Silverstein's leased
buildings: the WTC towers and Building 7. They are the
ones who took such pride in their handiwork that they
danced
in the streets, hooted, and high-fived each other
celebrating when the towers collapsed killing 3,000
of our own with our government's help. They laughed
while we died. And they are laughing still. They are
Israel.
Relatives say Met admits that, contrary to reports,
electrician did not leap tube station barrier
Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian shot dead
in the head, was not wearing
a heavy jacket that might have concealed a bomb, and
did not jump the ticket barrier when challenged by
armed plainclothes police, his cousin said yesterday.
Speaking at a press conference after a meeting with
the Metropolitan police, Vivien Figueiredo, 22, said
that the first reports of how her 27-year-old cousin
had come to be killed in mistake for a suicide bomber
on Friday at Stockwell tube station were wrong.
"He used a travel card," she said. "He
had no bulky jacket, he was wearing a jeans jacket.
the original reports that de Menezes was wearing a
bulky jacket, failed to respond to police instructions
and jumped the tube turnstiles all came from the Metropolitan
police themselves and now appear to be completely false,
or rather, they deliberately lied to cover their collective
ass. So what then is the truth of this most disturbing
incident? Well, let's look at a case history.
On January 30, 1972, soldiers from the British Army's
1st Parachute Regiment opened fire on unarmed and peaceful
civilian demonstrators in the city of Derry, Northern
Ireland. The marchers were demanding equal civil rights
in terms of housing, jobs and education for the marginalised
nationalist (Irish) population of Northern Ireland.
The resulting death toll reached 13 with a number of
others wounded. Among the dead were a 17 year old boy
and a 65 year old man, most of the victims were shot
in the back.
In the years since the atrocity, debate has raged about
who to blame for the murders. Naturally, the British
government initially carried out a whitewashed inquiry
which exonerated the paratroopers and their CO and accepted
the soldier's claims that they only responded after
coming under fire. Since then, these claims have been
proven to be false. A rather less biased inquiry was
opened on 3 April 1999 in order to assess new information
that had since come to light and is ongoing. The best
result that can be expected from the inquiry is that
it will rule that the British soldiers were to blame
and that due to lack of discipline or the tension of
the day or unknown variables, the soldiers lost control
and simply opened fire indiscriminately. Most people
will probably accept this as closure on the event. Such
a ruling however, will leave the truth untold.
The British Paratroop regiment is acknowledged as one
of the best trained and most disciplined of the British
military. For this reason the idea that such a group
of trained killers would arbitrarily and en masse disregard
specific orders and fire on clearly unarmed civilians
is hardly believable. The only reasonable explanation
therefore is that the soldiers were acting on specific
orders when they gunned down thirteen people that day
- orders that, more than likely, originated in the psychological
warfare department of the British military. Simply stated,
the aim of such brutality towards the civilian population
was collective psychological traumatisation, not only
of those directly involved in the march, but also the
wider nationalist population of N. Ireland who shared
the aspirations of the marchers.
To this end, the operation was more or less successful,
with the nationalist population of Northern Ireland
left reeling from such apparently state-sponsored savagery
in response to legitimate and reasonable demands. A
possible secondary or parallel objective was to force
the resurgent IRA into an organised campaign of paramilitary
resistance to the British presence and stranglehold
on the Northern Irish statelet, which is in fact what
resulted. Lest we forget, from a military-industrial
complex point of view, and despite the beliefs of the
average citizen, war is desirable and good business
practice. Military budgets must be justified after all.
Coming back to the murder of Charles de Menezes by
British special forces on a London train last Friday;
in the absence of any valid justification for the killing
of this innocent man and taking into consideration that
the Metropolitan police have now been exposed as having
lied about the details of the murder, the only reasonable
explanation is that this was a case of pre-meditated
state-sponsored murder, designed to send a clear, if
subliminal, message to the British public that they
really should be afraid, and the "terrorist threat"
may well be the least of their worries.
It is in the deliberate emotional traumatisation of
the general public that governments find their greatest
resource for the shaping of public opinion and the forcing
through of policies which, under normal circumstances,
would be immediately and intuitively rejected by the
public.
Yet another (!) cousin
of Jean Charles de Menezes has weighed in on his execution,
and states
that he was not wearing a bulky coat, but just a jean
jacket, and did not leap the subway turnstiles (these
are issues which could and should be answered by the release
of CCTV tapes). If he wasn't wearing a bulky coat, and
wasn't identified as one of the terror suspects when he
left his flat, British authorities are left with no good
reason for treating him as a terrorist, and in particular
as somebody who could be subject to summary execution.
Letting him get on a bus if they thought he was a potential
suicide bomber makes no sense, and then later deciding
he needed to be executed in the Israeli style makes even
less sense. All the emphasis on Israeli training seems
to be misdirection, as they did not follow any of the
logic of the Israeli approach. The Israeli method is supposed
to permanently incapacitate the bomber before he can do
any damage. It is also supposed to protect the police
by using a long-distance shot.
Instead, the London police gave him a great deal of time
to set off his bomb (after giving him a whole bus ride
on which to do so), forced him into an area where the
bomb would do more damage, fired shots at close range
where the police would be in danger, fired shots that
had the danger of setting off the bomb, and fired too
many shots if the intent was simply to kill him. If they
were learning from the Israelis, they didn't learn very
well. The only fact which reconciles their allowing him
on the bus, but later shooting him at such close range,
is that they knew he in fact didn't have a bomb. If they
knew he didn't have a bomb, what was their motive in executing
him?
At present, the London underground has an analogue
video network and video transmission at 180 stations.
Confirmed by new reports, there are close to two thousand
video cameras which monitor London's Underground and mainline
rail stations.
It is estimated that "the average Briton is
caught on various cameras up to 300 times on a normal
day." (The Age, 8 July 2005).
The key issue raised in this commentary refers to
videocameras inside the underground carriages. In most
European metro systems, the trains are equipped with a
videowatch installation, with video cameras inside each
carriage. The driver of the train is able to see inside
each of the carriages, and the digital video files would
be available to police investigators.
EVERY London bus and Underground train car has multiple
Video Cameras!
The Police claim the bus videos malfunctioned, but made
no similar claim about the video cameras in the Underground
train cars. The Muslim men are claimed to have ridden
from Luton to King's Cross where they split up to take
separate trains. I've also read it takes about 25 minutes
to ride from Luton station to where the bombs were detonated.
Therefore, there MUST be some 25 minutes continuous video
of first four men, riding from Luton, then video of each
(supposed) "Muslim" Bomber, seated with his
rucksack on each of the 3 separate Underground cars, riding
from King's Cross - to where the 3 bombs exploded SIMULTANEOUSLY!
If the London Police CANNOT produce those videos they
SHOULD possess, the accused 4 men, 3 supposedly with rucksack
bombs, were NOT on the Underground train cars, did NOT
detonate bombs! And the Police are LYING.
The 3 young men from Leeds apparently were innocent "patsies"
used in a "False Flag" phoney Blair Government
instigated "terrorist" attack! They weren't
suicide bombers, or deceived dupes. They WEREN'T on the
trains!
Instead of 3 falsely accused Muslim "patsies,"
either unidentified "others" must have carried
on and detonated the bombs - OR the bombs were ALREADY
concealed under seats, or UNDER the subway cars - and
detonated by REMOTE CONTROL!
Comment:
On 9/11, the videos from the security cameras were removed.
We have yet to see any of them, only an out-of-focus,
misdated selection from a security camera in the Pentagon
parking lot. Now the missing video game appears to be
reoccurring.
If the purpose of a suicide-terrorist attack is not
to die, but to kill and to inflict the maximum number
of casualties on the target society, why do they die?
If the purpose of the suicide bomber is to end the
occupation of his country, why is the suicide tactic
not as old as war and territorial occupation itself?
If the purpose of the suicide bomber is to end the
occupation of his country and to inflict the maximum
number of casualties on the target society why are the
targets so disparate and scattered, without a clear
relation to the occupation?
Why are suicide bombings publicized before any proof
is brought by investigation?
For me these questions underline the illogical nature
of suicide bombings. I believe to find logic you have
to see the suicide bomber as a fabrication of the Zionists
for their own purposes:
To demonize Islam
To make Muslims look stupid, fanatical, and murderous.
To create worldwide terrorism that they can claim
has nothing to do with Israel, but everything to do
with Islam.
To attack those who think themselves to be allies,
but are not, e.g. America, Spain, Britain.
To shift the blame for any bombing Zionists perpetrate
onto the Muslims, simply by calling it a suicide bombing.
To control public opinion in favor of Israel as
the most grieved victim of terrorism.
To justify apartheid in Israel.
To justify war in the Middle East with the spoils
of war accruing to themselves, while the costs are borne
by their “allies”. [...]
Israel Uses the Myth as a Cover to Attack "Allies"
[Israel uses the suicide bomber myth as a cover] to
attack those who think themselves to be allies, but are
not, e.g. America, Spain, Britain.
In 1983 Israel invaded and occupied Lebanon. The US and
France had peacekeeping forces in place near the Beirut
airport. The US had a naval presence off the coast. Early
one Sunday morning, simultaneously, both the French and
American Marine barracks were bombed. The story was that
a truck had come at high speed through a gate and exploded,
killing hundreds of Marines. As the two bombings were
simultaneous one wonders why so little is said about the
French barracks especially if we are to think there were
simultaneous “truck bombs”; it would have been a neat
trick.
Suicide was not mentioned in the original reports, in
1983, but in the twentieth anniversary reports the bombing
of the US Marine barracks was said to have been done by
a “suicide bomber”, and elsewhere the words “terrorist
suicide bombing” were used. So by 2003 a simple bombing
had become a suicide bombing. I think that change is significant.
Using Professor Pape’s logic of suicide terrorism applied
to the situation in Lebanon we should wonder why the occupying
Israeli force was not targeted rather than the French
and Americans who were on the periphery as peacekeepers.
Just because a target is handy does not make it strategically
worthwhile. If the planning was so tight that simultaneous
truck bombs could hit these two marginal targets, why
not use that expertise and tonnage to hit the one perfect
target?
The Israelis had prior knowledge of a truck being outfitted
to carry a very large bomb but did not warn the Americans.(déjà
vu) This was reported by Mossad operative, Victor Ostrovsky
in his book By Way of Deception. The odd thing
about this story is not that the Israelis neglected to
warn the Americans, but that they could even imagine that
the Americans would be the target rather than themselves.
Why would they think that? The Israelis use the deception
of admitting some knowledge as a way of deflecting suspicion
away from themselves as perpetrators. In this case the
admission of prior knowledge reveals more than disregard,
it reveals an inconsistency that makes me believe they
were the bombers.
Israel's Suicide Bomber Myth is an Organic Process
With Three Components: Reality, Fantasy and Purpose
[KingKangaroo:] If Israel did invent the suicide bomb,
why did they wait so long to use the tactic at home?
The invention of a myth does not happen in a meeting of
the Knesset, nor does it come out of the imagination of
one person or a think tank. It is an organic process
that is a mix of reality, fantasy, and purpose.
A good example of this organic process is the example
I gave earlier of the bombings in 1983 of the US and French
military barracks at the Beirut airport. I believe it
was Israel that carried out the attacks. The Israelis
did not want the US and France to intermeddle in Israel’s
attack on the Palestinians who had fled to Lebanon. The
US and France were their allies, so an attack could not
be seen to come from the Israelis. The bombing was done
under the pretense that two truck bombs were detonated
simultaneously as they ran into the barracks. Of course
the trucks, if there were any, were demolished, and the
drivers, if there were any, were blown up. The story of
who did the bombing was in the hands of the Israelis who
fabricated the whole thing to cover themselves.
So the Israelis had the purpose to make their meddlesome
allies leave. The reality was the bombing, and
the fantasy was the fabrication that hid the truth.
Today this would be called a “suicide bombing”; in 1983
it was not. You can see that it is only the characterization
that has changed, not the action.
I do not know the event that marks the beginning of the
suicide bomber myth. Bombings can be made suicidal retroactively,
making it even more difficult to pinpoint its beginnings.
One thing I can say with confidence is that it was not
an actual suicide that prompted the new formula, but almost
serendipitously the Israelis found the suicide twist to
their terrorism myth to be very useful..
The primary use of the suicide bomber myth is to demonize
the Palestinians. Israel had fought three successful wars
against the inhabitants of Palestine in 1948, 1967, and
1973. The Palestinians had been disarmed, dispossessed,
and forced into refugee camps in Gaza, Jordan, and the
West Bank. After 1973 what the Israelis had on their hands
was akin to Indian Reservations in the US, but with millions
of people in the small territory. This did not satisfy
the Israelis who wanted the whole lot to move into neighboring
countries leaving Israel to the Israelis.
The injustice and inequality of this situation was too
obvious for the Israelis to pursue their goals without
condemnation by the world. It was pathetic to listen to
Israelis whine about being threatened by the awful Palestinians
who wanted to “push Jews into the sea”. It was necessary
to make these rag-tag Palestinians look menacing, dangerous,
and fanatical to justify Israel’s continued expansion
and relentless punishment of these defeated people.
Blaming the Palestinians for terrorist actions, like the
murder of the Israeli Olympic athletes at Munich, was
Israel’s original ploy, but ambitious actions like that
were costly and difficult. Gradually the elaborate terrorism
of Abu Nidal gave way to the modest but equally effective
suicide bomber. The purpose of making the Palestinians
look wantonly murderous, unpredictable and fanatical is
realized by this myth, justifying all manner of retribution
and Israel’s continued expansion. This ogranic process
goes on. As we speak, the myth of the Palestinian suicide
bomber is taking on its new form in London; as it has
in Madrid, Kenya, Tanzania, New York and other farflung
places -wherever the [Israelis/Zionists] find it useful.
The Fairy Tale Blocks Serious Questions
The moment people stop believing in the suicide bomber
fairy tale, the sooner they'll start to ask some serious
questions.
Remember how we all used to believe the holocaust tales?
There are all those pictures, all that testimony, all
those books written, all those memorials built. It is
in textbooks and encyclopedias. It is taught in school.
Can't we handle the possiblity that the "Islamic fundamentalist,
suicide bomber" may also be a lie? We should look at everything
with the same skepticism we developed in dealing with
the holocaust myth, especially those things that come
from the same source. [...]
Treason and the Myth
[Mariner:] Since the U.S. Intel people know this -
IF the Israelis masterminded the bombing of the Marine
Barracks - they know it and are engaged in Treason by
not making it known.
A fine example of such treason is the case of the USS
Liberty. Knowledge went beyond Intelligence all the way
to LBJ who gave the order for the rescuers to turn back.
The Intifada is Real and Justified, Not to Confuse
with the Suicide Bomber Fable
Of course the Palestinian resistance is real and thoroughly
justified. It is the fabricated "suicide bomber" that
I seek to discredit. The myth is used to make the Palestinians
and Muslims look stupid and effete. It is also the method
by which they are set up as patsies for every act of terrorism
Israel chooses. The forty foot high security wall replete
with guard towers was justified by the myth of the “suicide
bomber”. Don’t confuse this cheap fable with the true
courage of real people.
It is Very Hard and Rare to Overcome Survival Instinct
and Commit Suicide
[MrSpock:] The suicide bomber as a fabrication of the
Zionists? How? Who dies?
Muslims, and sacrificial others. Part of what makes the
"suicide bomber" preposterous is that no important Jewish
target has ever been hit.
Suicide is absolutely unnatural; it is an aberration in
creatures whose instinct is to survive. It is not easy
to override that instinct. It is so contrary to instinct
that stories of suicide for a cause are few and always
make us marvel: the samurai who falls on his sword as
penance for a loss in battle, the kamikaze pilot who knows
he goes to certain death, the Roman who prefers death
by his own hand to the humiliation of being killed by
his enemies. There have been Christian and Buddhist martyrs
who use suicide as a demonstration of belief and/or protest.
All these are distinct from the unwilling martyrdom of
dying in conflict.
The fact that suicide for a cause is so exceptional in
our history is one thing that makes me question the burgeoning
phenomenon of the “Muslim suicide bomber”. The Japanese
Kamikaze pilot is understandable as a cultural phenomenon
with roots in the concept of the samurai, but again, this
is so exceptional that we look in awe on those whose sense
of duty is so strong. Can we find a similar antecedent
for this peculiar type of martyrdom among Muslims in these
last fourteen centuries, keeping in mind the difference
between dying in battle and an intentional suicide? I
don't think so.
Are there any other instances of intentional martyrdom
in all our history that have been met with such cruel
derision and mockery as the “Muslim suicide bomber” of
our time? Doesn’t such a reaction by itself make this
case extraordinary?
That suicide for a cause is anti-instinctual, exceedingly
rare, and when found, traceable to its cultural antecedents,
makes me very skeptical that hundreds, perhaps thousands,
of such cases would spring forth quite suddenly in a people,
no matter what the provocation.
Professor Pape tries to avoid the question of religion
in his article because he wants us to think that the occupation
of territory in the Middle East is sufficient to cause
this phenomenon. It cannot be. And Gabor would like to
make the case for Islam as the sufficient cause of suicide
bombing, and that cannot be either, for many of those
purported to be suicides are not religious.
As for the Palestinian family whose son or daughter is
said to have been a suicide bomber, are they not very
much like families everywhere whose children die in battle?
They desperately want to see that the death meant something,
had some good in it. That is not hard to understand. Also
familiar to all are the leaders who praise the dead, speaking
of their heroism. It keeps up morale.
Neither of us has access to evidence for or against suicide
bombings and cannot hope to prove anything one way or
the other. What I have tried to do is look at it historically,
psychologically, and rationally. I stand by my assertion
that the “Muslim suicide bomber” is a myth. As you said
about the Muslims, “They don't deny the suicide bombers,
they are trying to explain it.” I am trying to explain
it too, it needs a lot of explaining.
The Vulgar 72 Virgin Myth [Has No Basis in Islam]
[Judson:]...[the parents] desperately want to see that
the death meant something, had some good in it. That is
not hard to understand
How many times have you heard an American bring up the
idea that suicide bombers are motivated by the thought
of 72 virgins waiting for them in heaven? What audacious
and gratutitous cruelty, how heartless, how vulgar. Is
that what they would like to say to the parents of a son
or daughter who has been killed in the struggle against
the Zionists? And how much more horrible is it to think
that they were not suicides but homicides? Americans should
keep their smutty fantasies to themselves.
The Suicide Bomber Never Really Hurts the Enemy
[grizzle:] No important Jewish target has ever been
hit. Kind of like the IRA isn't gunning for the queen
and family.
Not quite. Take the example that is in this morning’s
news:
A suicide bomber blew himself up among a group of teens
near a shopping mall in the seaside city of Netanya on
Tuesday, killing himself and two others in the second
such attack since a truce was declared five months ago.
...The blast went off shortly before 7 p.m. near the Sharon
Mall in Netanya. Police said a preliminary investigation
indicated the bomber blew himself up among a group of
teenagers crossing a busy intersection.
Unidentified teenagers crossing a street is not an important
Jewish target. But this is typical for bombings in Israel.
The victims are often not even Israelis, let alone important
Israelis. Reports of victims and damage are deliberately
vague, merely giving an impression, not facts or pictures.
Asian and South American workers, other Palestinians,
and what seems to be a favorite target - Russian immigrants
are the usual victims.
After thinking carefully about suicide as a tactic and
putting yourself in the place of a person contemplating
this ultimate sacrifice – how would you choose a target
to make your death worthwhile - useful to force an end
to the occupation of your country? Would you blow yourself
up in a shopping mall toy store, the entrance to a super
market, a bus stop, near a hitchhiking post, in a restaurant
frequented by foreigners, outside a shopping mall? It
may not be possible to get through the security to hit
the Knesset while in session, but surely you could come
up with something better than a mall toy store.
The pathetic nature of the targets reinforces the idea
that Muslims are stupid. But for me it reinforces the
doubt that Muslims are suicide bombers.
The Suicide Hijacker--Similar Myth
[grizzle:] Palestinian vs Israeli is not 9/11 or 7/7.
I doubt Muslims were involved in the latter two, unless
they were the non-religious CIA shill type.
I do not believe that Muslims were involved in 9/11, but
wasn't the notion of the suicide bomber the direct antecedent
of the suicide hijacker? I believe there were no hijackers
involved in 9/11. But for all those who buy the hijacker
scenario the preparation they have been given to believe
that Muslims have no qualms about suicide leads directly
to the conclusion that Muslims must be the culprits.
Palestinian vs. Israeli is not 9/11, 7/7, 3/11, USS Cole,
Nairobi, Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings, the shoebomber,
Beslan school, suicide bombings in Iraq, etc. If they
are not Palestinian vs. Israeli, perhaps the Israeli part
of the equation is what should be examined. The Israelis
invented and perpetuate this myth, complete with the bombed-out
bus tour of Europe and the US. It is not hard for them
to come up with these tales, just think for a moment about
the absolutely Byzantine concoctions provided by very
ordinary Jews as they manufacture their holocaust tales.
Muslims Did Not Use Suicide as a Method in Previous
Wars
[MrSpock:] So the person believes that he won't really
die, only go "to another place". Isn't that what all religion
is all about? Of course it is. Muslims just happened to
"activate" this belief in a larger than average percentage.
Islam has been around for 1400 years. Is suicide a religio-cultural
tradition? Looking only at history in the last 150 years
can you point to suicide as a method of fighting the enemy?
The French experience with Muslim terrorists in Algeria
had its bombers, but no suicide bombers. The English experience
in fighting the Arabs in 1918 in Iraq was fierce, but
no suicide bombers. Israel has been fighting the Palestinians
since 1948, where are the Muslim suicide bombers in those
years between 1948 and 1985? If it were a religious predilection
it would not have made a sudden appearance in Israel within
the last twenty years. Islam is a worldwide religion,
fighting battles in places far from the Palestinian conflict
– before 1985 where were the Muslim suicide bombers outside
of Israel?
In addition, it is the case that many of the so-called
suicide terrorists are not religious. How can a religion
induce a person to commit suicide with the promise of
honor in heaven if that person is not a believer?
You agreed with my statement “Suicide is absolutely unnatural;
it is an aberration in creatures whose instinct is to
survive. It is not easy to override that instinct.. But
just to add another dimension to our survival instinct,
think of what you know about mothers. Is it not the case
that protection of her young is primary? It is not difficult
for us to imagine a mother who sacrifices herself for
her child, we can understand that. But can we imagine
a mother of two small children ready to commit suicide
for a cause? A mother would not have the inducement of
“72 virgins waiting on the other side” as Muslim haters
mockingly cite.
Getting involved in a case by case dispute over hundreds,
possibly thousands of these reports is not possible for
us. I am just not willing to accept at face value the
reports of suicide bombers coming out of the Middle East
for all the reasons I have discussed. I do not have to
present an alternative explanation for every death that
has been attributed to a suicide bomber to cast doubt
on the stories. It would be akin to disputing the six
million figure for the holocaust by examining each of
the six million. The story can be undercut in other ways.
I have tried to do that.
Embarrassing Reality Check
Robert Pape
Ph.D., Chicago, 1988
Major Areas of Interest:
Selected Publications:
- The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism" in APSR (2003);
- Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War;
- "Explaining Costly International Moral Action: Britain's
Sixty-Year Campaign against the Atlantic Slave Trade"
(with Chaim Kaufmann) in International Organization (1999).
Robert A. Pape is Associate Professor of Political Science
at the University of Chicago specializing in international
security affairs. His publications include Bombing
to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War
(Cornell 1996), "Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work,"
International Security (1997), "The Determinants of International
Moral Action," International Organization (1999). His
commentary on international security policy has appeared
in The New York
Times, New Republic, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times,
and Bulletin
of Atomic Scientists,
as well as on Nightline, ABC News with Peter Jennings,
and National Public Radio. Before coming to Chicago in
1999, he taught international relations at Dartmouth College
for five years and air power strategy for the USAF's School
of Advanced Airpower Studies for three years. He received
his Ph. D. from the University of Chicago in 1988 and
graduated summa cum laude and Phi Betta Kappa from the
University of Pittsburgh in 1982. His current work focuses
on the effect of technological change on conflict and
cooperation among major powers and the theory and practice
of suicide terrorism.
Impatient says: When suicide terrorism is exposed as a
hoax won't all these accolades be a little embarrassing?
I mean, really - The Theory and Practice of Suicide
Terrorism? I''m afraid it is worse than being an
expert in Gender Issues and is right up there with Holocaust
Studies. Passé doesn't quite describe how it will look
when the truth is known.
Epilogue by Cyte
The Koran states that the punishment for murder is execution
unless the survivors waive it. The punishment for suicide
is eternal Hell and there is no way out.
I once met a suicide-promoting cleric in an Arab country
and listened to him for a while. He was not an Arab, but
he wanted to look like one. He spoke like one. He coordinated
with local intelligence and the Mossad. And nobody touched
him. He talked to young men about suicide. He was a suicide
talk trainer. The boys talked about suicide and were
all incarcerated, but the Israeli myth of the suicide
bomber was born.
I don't think that there are suicide trainers, but suicide-talk
trainers. I believe that videos declaring intent to go
on a suicide mission are staged under drugs or under torture.
=============== Liberty Forum poster "impatient" presented compelling
arguments on this
thread that the suicide bomber is a myth and cannot
exist in reality. "Impatient" refuted professor Robert
Pape's research on the subject. I have only weaved his
comments together and added section headings, an epilogue
and a few comments between square brackets.
Cyte
Comment:
We repeat once again a citation from a report written
by elite US army officers at the Army School of Advanced
Military Studies that gave the following description for
Mossad:
"Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning.
Has capability to target US forces and make it look
like a Palestinian/Arab act." [Washington Times,
September 10, 2001]
Notice the date. We have no doubt that there are many
elements in important posts within the US government and
military that are horrified by what the neocons are doing.
Where many commentators are hoping these Patriotic elements
will soon do something about the Bush Reich, we think
the history of US intelligence activities doesn't amke
that much of a democratic alternative. There have been
many countries overthrwn, their leaders assassinated,
and their people put into poverty by these so-called Patriotic
elements before the neocons tooks over the reins of power.
This is a story about
disappearing terrorists, nonexistent bags, and botched
investigations, but most of all, this is a story about
magic bombs.
It's Crime Scene Investigation 101. It's the basic law
of physics. It's so elementary, my dear Watson, that even
a dancer who was dazed from the shock of being seated
directly over the spot where one of the bombs was planted
in the London tube carriage two weeks ago could figure
it out.
In a seemingly innocuous article in the British
newspaper Cambridge Evening News, 32 year-old dance
instructor Bruce Lait, in an interview from his hospital
bed, said that "The policeman
said 'mind that hole, that's where the bomb was'. The
metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath
the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag,
but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was,
or any bag."
Read that last part again, very slowly, and let it sink
in. "The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb
was underneath the train." "They seem to think
the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody
being where the bomb was, or any bag."
And the British authorities on the crime scene missed
that, and just assumed that it was a carry-on bomb? C'mon,
how many times have you seen that bad TV show where the
eccentric detective figures out that the crime was an
"inside job" because the glass was outside the
broken window, not inside where it should have been. I
repeat: Crime Scene Investigation 101. Basic physics.
While describing the scene, Lait said about he and his
dance partner Crystal Main, "Out of that whole carriage,
I think Crystal and I were the only ones who were not
seriously injured, and I think we were nearest the bomb."
He went on to describe those sitting closest to him
and Main when the bomb went off. "I remember an Asian
guy, there was a white guy with tracksuit trousers and
a baseball cap, and there were two old ladies sitting
opposite me." He described the woman whose body was
lying on top of him when he regained consciousness as
a "middle-aged woman who had blonde curly hair, was
dressed in black, and could have been a businesswoman."
Again, play close attention here. "We were nearest
the bomb." An Asian guy, a white guy, two old ladies,
and a blond businesswoman......and two dancers.
So.....if the bomb was in a bag carried
on by the terrorist, how could two dancers be "nearest
the bomb"? And why didn't the person who was the
closest eyewitness see the bomber, or even ANYONE, sitting
where the bomb went off? Why was the metal pushed upwards
if the bomb was inside of the train carriage?
Let's put this in perspective, piece by piece:
"The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was
underneath the train."
"I don't remember anybody being where the bomb
was, or any bag."
"We were nearest the bomb."
An Asian guy, a white guy, two old ladies, and a blond
businesswoman......and two dancers.
Here we go again. Another terrorist event with more
questions than answers, questions that the major media
(yet again) aren't even asking.
Hell, I'll even take a stab at answering them:
The metal was pushed upwards because THE BOMB WAS UNDERNEATH
THE TRAIN.
Lait didn't remember seeing anyone, or a bag that could
be holding a bomb, near the point of detonation because
there was no bomber sitting there, there was no bag. THE
BOMB WAS UNDERNEATH THE TRAIN.
An Asian guy, a white guy, two old ladies, and a blond
businesswoman......and two dancers. There was no Islamic
radical, no Mideastern terrorist sitting in that carriage.
THE BOMB WAS UNDERNEATH THE TRAIN.
Dance partners Bruce Lait and Crystal Main were nearest
the bomb.....again, no Islamic radical, no Mideastern
terrorist sitting in that carriage. THE BOMB WAS UNDERNEATH
THE TRAIN.
We were praised by some, and criticized by others, for
posting an article by Jeff Buckley (entitled "London
Calling") the day after the first London bombings
two weeks ago that questioned the motives behind the bombings,
and that asked readers to view the inevitable "official
government response" with a healthy grain of skepticism.
Here's how Jeff so aptly put it:
"So, when you see the headlines dominated by
this story and the mounting evidence of lies, deception,
and treason being forever pushed to the back burner,
be sure to ask yourself, 'Who benefits from this?' Before
you throw your support behind administrations that only
have doublespeak, deceit, and death to show for their
efforts, be sure to ask yourself, 'Who benefits from
this?' And, before you allow yourself to be steamrolled
and swept away by the inevitable surge of jingoistic
retaliatory euphoria, be sure to ask yourself, 'Who
benefits from this?'"
"Who benefits from this?"
So here we are, barely two weeks (and another "symbolic"
bombing episode) later, and the voices of the Far Right
are busy spinning this as yet another excuse for the war
in Iraq.....even though the suspected terrorists are Pakistanis.
(Sound familiar? The 9/11 terrorists were mostly from
Saudi Arabia, so...."Let's bomb Iraq!")
"Who benefits from this?"
Here we are barely two weeks later, and the disciples
of doublespeak are busy blaming a group of suicide bombers
with carry-on bags, even though those who died are the
most unlikely group of "suicide bombers" ever
to commit an act of terrorism.
"Who benefits from this?"
Here we are barely two weeks later, and Bush and Company
is using the London bombings to.....successfully.....push
through the renewal of the Patriot Act. "Screw the
Constitution, they're bombing us!"
The official spinmeisters are either ignoring the signs
that something is just not right here, or dismissing those
of us who are questioning the official response as the
usual bunch of fringe conspiracy theorists.
Well guess what? If we don't keep asking the hard questions,
and demanding honest, straightforward answers to those
questions, then no one will. They've deceived us a million
times before, and if honest Americans....and Englanders....don't
continue to hold our public officials accountable for
their actions and demand the truth, then they will continue
to spoon feed us lie after lie after lie....until we eventually
all suffocate under the weight of mass deception. And
THAT'S the Faulking Truth.
AN INTERVIEW of a British
teenager broadcast on a Pakistani television network
has thrown into doubt investigators’ claims that
all the three London bombers of Pakistani descent visited
Pakistan last year. According to the investigators,
the three bombers had died in the July 7 attacks.
But 16-year-old Hasib Hussain, a namesake of one of
the putative bombers and of Pakistani descent, said
in the interview that a photograph of a passport purporting
to show bomber Hasib Hussain, 19, was his, and not that
of the ‘bomber’.
The photo, together with documents showing that Hasib
and two other bombers visited Pakistan last year, was
published in newspapers on Monday.
“I first saw my photograph on Channel 4 [British
TV network) and I was terrified,” Hasib Hussain,
the teenager said in the interview with the ARY network
on Thursday.
“I didn’t want people
looking at me saying ‘hey, you are supposed to
be dead’,” he said, “or someone saying
that there goes the London bomber.”
On Monday, Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency
(FIA) said Hasib Hussain, carrying a British passport,
had arrived in Karachi from Riyadh on July 15 last year.
The father of Hasib (the interviewee) said that the
family had indeed visited Karachi last year.
He urged the British and Pakistani authorities to clear
up the confusion.
An FIA official told the BBC: “We have nothing
to say on the matter at this stage.” —BBC
"Operation Kratos":
London Met Police Special Operations Unit "Shoot
to Kill"
The cold blooded murder of Jean Charles de Menezes,
in the Stockwell underground was no accident. London
Metropolitan Police had approved a policy of "shoot
to kill":
"a controversial tactic deployed only in the most
extreme circumstances but one police have been preparing
to use for the last two weeks.".
The shoot to kill policy was undertaken under the auspices
of "Operation Kratos", named after the mythical
Spartan hero. It was carried out by the London Metropolitan's
elite SO19 firearms unit often referred to as the Blue
Berets. The latter are described as the equivalent to
the US SWAT teams, yet in this particular case, they
were not wearing uniforms.
The training of the S019 marksmen was patterned on that
of Israel. They had been briefed "by officers who
had been to Israel to meet their counterparts there
and pick up tips gleaned from the experience of dealing
with Hamas bombers".
"During the Kratos briefings, the Met team were
told that, contrary to their normal arms training, they
should fire at the head rather than the chest. Although
the chest is easier to hit, it is not as reliable in
causing instant death, giving a bomber a chance to detonate
his device.... "(The Scottish Daily Record, 23
July, 2005).
The "Israeli counterparts" refers to Israel's
National Police (INP), Shin Bet (the Israel Security
Agency) and Israel's Ministry of Internal Security.
But the police antiterrorist operations conducted by
the INP against Hamas and Islamic Jihad are carried
out in close coordination with the Military (Israeli
Defense Force) and Mossad. Israel has also collaborated
in the training of members of the FBI and the LAPD.
Top law enforcement officers of the FBI were trained
in Israel under a program sponsored by the The Jewish
Institute for National Security.
Rosie Cowan, Vikram
Dodd and Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday July 25, 2005
The Guardian
Britain's most senior
policeman remained defiant last night over the new "shoot-to-kill"
policy for dealing with suspected suicide bombers, despite
the killing last week of an innocent man by armed officers.
Sir Ian Blair, the Scotland Yard commissioner, apologised
to the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the 27-year-old
Brazilian who died after being shot five times in the
head at close range by police on board a tube train
at Stockwell, south London, on Friday.
But he admitted more people
could die at the hands of police marksmen in the escalating
battle against terrorism. Openly discussing the
shift in police tactics for the first time, Sir Ian
defended the policy of "shoot to kill in order
to protect", saying it was
necessary to shoot suspects in the head if it was feared
they might trigger devices on their body.
"The Metropolitan police accepts full responsibility
for this," he said. "To the family I can only
express my deep regrets. What we have got to recognise
is that people are taking incredibly fast-moving decisions
in life threatening situations. There is no point in
shooting in someone's chest because that is where the
bomb is likely to be. There is no point in shooting
anywhere else if they fall down and detonate it. The
only way to deal with this is to shoot to the head."
The block of flats in Tulse Hill, south London, where
Mr Mr De Menezes lived, was under surveillance following
the discovery of its address in a rucksack containing
one of four bombs which failed to explode in the capital
last Thursday.
He was followed for several miles by undercover officers.
According to eyewitnesses, he bolted after being confronted
by armed officers at the tube station, resulting in
a chase and him being shot on the train. Mr De Menezes'
family branded the police "stupid and incompetent",
insisting they had no reason to suspect him.
Alex Pereira, his cousin, said: "He was 100% good
guy who never did anything wrong and had no reason to
run. What the police have shown is that they are incapable
and stupid." [...]
Wakey Wakey!
SOTT
An important note to
humanity:
Drop the remote for a minute and listen up. Over the
past few years, we have gone to significant lenghts
to highlight the fact that for most people on the planet,
living what has come to be known as 'a normal life'
will soon be untenable. Quite apart from the fact that,
since Bush came to power, terror attacks, war, death
and suffering, the passing of new draconian legislation
and a general aura of fear have all descended like a
black pall over most of the world, the past few years
has been witness to a seriously sharp rise in the number
of reported meteorite sightings and impacts.
What might be the cause of such a spike? Well, we could
be forgiven for thinking that it is just that; an innocuous
spike that will soon settle down. However, if we factor
in historical, geological and paleontological evidence
which suggests that our planet has in the past undergone
regular cyclical catastrophes that have metoerite impacts
(among other natural cataclysms) as their defining aspect,
AND that we seem to be overdue for another one, the
recent spate of space rocks visiting our planet's skies
and surface paints a rather different picture.
It seems more than a concidence also that this rise
in near earth comets, bollides and meteorites appears
to be occuring in concert with a definite increase in
the 'heat' in both political and climatological terms.
The conclusion we draw from this is that events on
earth may well be mirrored in the cosmos/solar system,
or, as it has been said, "Disasters involve cycles
in the human experiential cycle [...] The human cycle
mirrors cycle of catastrophe. Earth benefits in form
of periodic cleansing. Time to start paying attention
to the signs. They are escalating. They can even be
'felt' by you and others, if you pay attention."
So if we do NOT want a major bombardment of heavenly
bodies, we might all think about waking up to the truth
of what is really happening on our planet and the deliberate
machinations of the power elite who are aware of such
events and are doing everything in their power to prevent
you and I from figuring it out.
YREKA - At 2:20 Tuesday afternoon, callers began
alerting Yreka police and the Siskiyou County Sheriff's
Department to a "fire ball" that had come
from the sky and believed to have landed near the
city's corporation yard.
A golfer at the Rogue Valley Country Club in Medford,
Ore. was getting ready to make a shot off the second
tee, when he reported seeing a flaming object with
"blue and red flames coming off of it,"
fall from the sky. That observer thought that the
object had fallen somewhere near Shady Cove, Ore.
Callers also contacted the National Weather Service
offices in Medford and Roseburg, Ore. to report the
sighting.
PORTLAND -- According to the Cascade Meteorite Lab
at Portland State University, a fireball streaked
across the sky at 2:17 p.m.
The fireball was seen in Portland, Medford and most
likely most places in between.
A fireball is a meteorite that has entered our atmosphere
and is burning up. Most times it burns up totally
before hitting the ground but once in a while we get
a meteorite that lands on earth.
If you saw the fireball, the lab would like to hear
from you. You can call them at (503) 287-6733.
FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. -- An unusual rock that fell
out of the sky, through a shed and into a tractor
earlier this month appears to be a meteorite, says
a director with the Geological Survey of Canada. [...]
An afternoon picking strawberries took a bizarre
twist for Adeline Kelly on July 17 when a chunk of
rock plummeted from the sky, penetrating the tin roof
of a shed and piercing the manifold of a tractor on
her and her husband's Montney ranch, just north of
Fort St. John. The stone bounced several times after
landing. Adeline searched for the object and eventually
found a small, rough-surfaced black and grey stone
with specks of diamond-like material embedded in it.
Part of the stone had shattered, but much of it was
still intact.
Australia and the United States
have been secretly negotiating a new international pact
on greenhouse gas emissions to replace the Kyoto Protocol,
which they refused to sign, a minister said Wednesday.
The negotiations have also involved China, India and
South Korea, according to a report in The Australian
newspaper.
Environment Minister Ian Campbell said details of the
deal and the countries involved would be announced soon.
Greenhouse gases trapping heat in the atmosphere are
blamed for global warming, seen as one of the world's
greatest environmental dangers, and the refusal by the
United States and Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol
was widely condemned.
"The countries that are involved in any future
proposal will be announced when we announce the details
of the proposal," Campbell told reporters, adding
that this would be "in the very near future".
"Australia is, and I reassure the Australian people,
working on something that is more effective post-Kyoto,"
Campbell said. [...]
One of the US arguments against the present Kyoto format
is that it does not require big developing countries
such as China and India to make targeted emissions cuts
-- an absence that Bush says is unfair and illogical.
But developing countries say historical
responsibility for global warming lies with nations
that industrialised first, and primarily with the United
States, which by itself accounts for a quarter of all
global greenhouse-gas pollution.
The new alliance will bring together nations that account
for more than 40 percent of the world's greenhouse gas
emissions, The Australian said. [...]
By KATHY MATHESON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 26, 2005; 9:52 PM
PHILADELPHIA -- A blistering heat
wave gave Philadelphia summer school students the equivalent
of a snow day Tuesday as temperatures climbed into the
upper 90s and so many homeowners cranked up their air
conditioners that their power grid set a record.
As a large swath of the United States suffered through
another miserably hot day, several western states and
parts of the Midwest began to feel the relief of a cold
front pushing out what had been days of triple-digit
temperatures.
But for the East, the cooler temperatures weren't expect
to arrive until Thursday.
That likely means another early dismissal Wednesday
for Philadelphia students stuck in summer school classrooms,
many without air conditioning, officials said.
The demand for cooling was evident at PJM Interconnection
LLC, which coordinates the movement of electricity between
13 states ranging from Illinois to North Carolina. The
power grid reported setting a record Tuesday with a
peak load of 135,000 megawatts - enough to power 108
million homes under normal conditions.
"It was 120 (degrees) in the direct sunlight,"
said Walt Arrison, a surveyor at the construction site
who kept a small key chain thermometer in his pocket.
Already the heat has been blamed for deaths across
the country, including 28 in the Phoenix area alone,
most of them homeless people.
At least four deaths have been blamed on the heat in
Missouri, including a woman found Sunday in a home without
air conditioning. Two young children left in hot cars
died in Oklahoma. A 29-year-old hiker died Monday in
Kentucky. And a 48-year-old woman was found dead Tuesday
in her non-air-conditioned apartment in Cincinnati.
[...]
BOMBAY - Landslides and floods
killed at least 30 people in India's western state of
Maharashtra, leaving dozens more missing, and crippled
normal life in the nation's financial hub, Bombay, a
state official said on Wednesday.
Most fatalities in the industrial powerhouse state
were in the coastal districts of Raigad and Ratnagiri,
where several villages were cut off after heavy monsoon
rains.
Maharashtra's relief secretary, Krishna Vatsa, said
the government had called in the army, navy and air
force to assist thousands of people who were stranded
and to pull out possible survivors of landslides.
"We have not been able to reach some villages
where more than several dozen people may be missing
in landslides," Vatsa told Reuters, confirming
at least 30 deaths in Raigad and Ratnagiri and adding
that electricity, telephone links and transport connections
had been cut off to those districts.
Press Trust of India reported 54 fatalities in Raigad
district alone due to floods and landslides. In coastal
Maharashtra, officials and media reported more than
1,700 people had been rescued since Tuesday.
Trading on Bombay's bond and currency markets was cancelled
and Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deskmukh declared
a state holiday saying conditions were very bad. The
government asked people to stay at home as further heavy
rains were forecast.
"The situation is so grave (that despite) these
human efforts, we are not in a position to reach out
to the people who are in the districts," Deskmukh
told NDTV television.
Late on Tuesday, another official said that in the
village of Juigao, about 150 km (95 miles) south of
Bombay, 150 villagers were feared buried after a landslide.
BOMBAY FLOODED
In Bombay -- home to the Bollywood movie industry --
and its suburbs, thousands of office workers had to
stay overnight in hotels, and schools were shut on Wednesday
as rain continued overnight, flooding roads and stalling
hundreds of cars. [...]
For quite some time now we have been
sounding the warning bells that all is not well on the big blue
marble, yet billions have carried on with "normal life", ignoring
the growing signs that "normal life" seems set to get very
"abnormal" indeed. Until now, those immersed in illusion could
dismiss the evidence that changes of a global nature were afoot,
telling themselves that their governments, in their benevolence,
would surely warn the people if this were true. Well the government
has issued just such a warning, although we are pretty sure that
benevolence has little to do with it. Information of this nature is
not done for the good of the people but rather as part of the plan
to tighten control.
Little pieces of the truth
are being let out to gradually acclimatise the population. We have
seen this at work since the events of September 11, 2001. The USA
is unrecognisable compared to the pre-9/11 era, yet the majority of
the population has accepted that more and more of their rights must
be sacrificed in order to engage the "War on terror." We often
compare this to boiling a frog. Rather than plopping the frog in
boiling water, the heat is raised one degree at a time, allowing
the frog to become accustomed to the change. In this way, there is
no fight, no shock of awareness that alerts the frog to his
danger.
This
is happening on a planet-wide scale. There are more and more
reports of unusual phenomenon: UFOs,
water pipes bursting into flame,
meteors lighting up the skies, and now a report
on the climatic catastrophe awaiting us before 2020.
Now
that some measure of "disclosure" of the truth has arrived, the
choice confronting humanity has been made very stark indeed.
Confirmation of the truth that our Earth is due for some major
upheavals, threatening the lives of millions, or billions, will
surely play directly into the hands of the proponents of religious
fundamentalism the world over, swelling the ranks of those begging
to be "saved". Others will embrace even further the continued lies
and deceit of their elected (or unelected) officials, hoping
against hope that salvation will come from that quarter, forgetting
the words of H.L. Mencken when he said:
"The
urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the
urge to rule it."
We
wonder when people are going to realise that humanity has no
allies, there are no "saviors", no one is going to come and take us
away from it all.
Why
would we even want a savior? What a complete waste of time our
lives would be if we are born simply to sit back and wait for
someone else to take responsibility for us. Life is futile until we
learn to be useful to creation, until we learn to create something
that is uniquely from and of ourselves.
Do
we not aspire to BE? To contribute something real to
existence by learning to DO something REAL, to
create something REAL? Life is an opportunity for us to
learn, to choose and to develop, not to run from. To BE we
must learn how to DO; we may be able to DO by
developing WILL, and WILL is developed by
gathering KNOWLEDGE and then applying that
knowledge.
We
all give to existence through the knowledge we carry, how much of
the truth of reality we perceive, and, then, how we are able to
apply this knowledge. With this in mind, we might ask ourselves:
what is the nature of that which I am giving? Am I gathering
objective knowledge and pursuing individual creativeness in the
faith that I can possibly Be and Do? Am I asserting my existence,
or am I immersing myself further into illusion and lies and
negating my very right to existence by sending out a mental call
for someone else to come and "save" me in some way?
With
reality poised to intrude on all of our personal subjective lives,
billions will probably flee further into lies and illusion provided
by their "leaders". The question we need to answer is: do we truly
want to add to their number?
· Secret report warns
of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism
Mark
Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
Sunday February 22, 2004
The Observer
Climate change over the
next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions
of lives in wars and natural disasters..
A
secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The
Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath
rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by
2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread
rioting will erupt across the world.
The
document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet
to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to
defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies.
The threat to global stability vastly
eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its
contents.
'Disruption and
conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon
analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human
life.'
The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush
administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change
even exists. Experts said that they will also make
unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national
defence is a priority.
The
report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser
Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military
thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a
sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military
under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Climate change 'should be
elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security
concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and
former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug
Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.
An imminent
scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would
challenge United States national security in ways that should be
considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year
widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major
upheaval for millions.
Last
week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large
body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked
science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it
did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the
report for four months was a further example of the White House
trying to bury the threat of climate change.
Senior climatologists,
however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in
forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening
phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to
sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic
change.
A
group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to
voice their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying
drive to get the US to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told
The Observer that American officials appeared extremely sensitive
about the issue when faced with complaints that America's public
stance appeared increasingly out of touch.
One
even alleged that the White House had written to complain about
some of the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony
Blair's chief scientific adviser, after he branded the President's
position on the issue as indefensible.
Among those scientists
present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber,
former chief environmental adviser to the German government and
head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall
Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's
internal fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush
to accept climatic change.
Sir
John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office
- and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change
to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that
sort of message, then this is an important document
indeed.'
Bob
Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the
Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.
'Can
Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort
of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single
highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group,
generally speaking it is conservative. If climate
change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he
has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to
listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added
Watson.
'You've got a
President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac
river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty
scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,'
said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace.
Already, according to
Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population
than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and
energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging
the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic
conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and
mass migration of populations that could soon be
repeated.
Randall told The Observer
that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would
create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a
national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy
to point your guns at and we have no control over the
threat.'
Randall added that it was already possibly too late to
prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know
exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we
would not know for another five years,' he said.
'The
consequences for some nations of the climate change are
unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels
would be worthwhile.'
So
dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may
prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry
is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists
disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry
uses the Pentagon report in his campaign.
The fact that
Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause.
Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank
dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office
of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect
his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the
Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile
defence.
Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political
interference, said that the suppression of the report was a
further instance of the White House trying to
bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this
government should stop burying its head in the sand on this
issue.'
Symons said the Bush
administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil
companies was vital in understanding why climate change was
received sceptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is
ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy
and oil companies,' he added.
Comment:
We do not doubt that this information has been known by a select
few for many years. The Bush administration, as the above article
states, has deliberately buried and ridiculed any evidence that
serious earth changes were on the cards. The question then is, why
now? And more importantly, what will be their "rescue plan" for
their citizens...
· Future wars will be
fought over the issue of survival rather than religion, ideology or
national honour.
· By 2007 violent
storms smash coastal barriers rendering large parts of the
Netherlands uninhabitable. Cities like The Hague are abandoned. In
California the delta island levees in the Sacramento river area are
breached, disrupting the aqueduct system transporting water from
north to south.
· Between 2010 and
2020 Europe is hardest hit by climatic change with an average
annual temperature drop of 6F. Climate in Britain becomes colder
and drier as weather patterns begin to resemble Siberia.
· Deaths from war and
famine run into the millions until the planet's population is
reduced by such an extent the Earth can cope.
· Riots and internal
conflict tear apart India, South Africa and Indonesia.
· Access to water
becomes a major battleground. The Nile, Danube and Amazon are all
mentioned as being high risk.
· A 'significant drop'
in the planet's ability to sustain its present population will
become apparent over the next 20 years.
· Rich areas like the
US and Europe would become 'virtual fortresses' to prevent millions
of migrants from entering after being forced from land drowned by
sea-level rise or no longer able to grow crops. Waves of boatpeople
pose significant problems.
· Nuclear arms
proliferation is inevitable. Japan, South Korea, and Germany
develop nuclear-weapons capabilities, as do Iran, Egypt and North
Korea. Israel, China, India and Pakistan also are poised to use the
bomb.
· By 2010 the US and
Europe will experience a third more days with peak temperatures
above 90F. Climate becomes an 'economic nuisance' as storms,
droughts and hot spells create havoc for farmers.
· More than 400m
people in subtropical regions at grave risk.
· Europe will face
huge internal struggles as it copes with massive numbers of
migrants washing up on its shores. Immigrants from Scandinavia seek
warmer climes to the south. Southern Europe is beleaguered by
refugees from hard-hit countries in Africa.
· Mega-droughts affect
the world's major breadbaskets, including America's Midwest, where
strong winds bring soil loss.
· China's huge
population and food demand make it particularly vulnerable.
Bangladesh becomes nearly uninhabitable because of a rising sea
level, which contaminates the inland water supplies.
Readers
who wish to know more about who we are and what we do may visit
our portal site Quantum
Future
Remember,
we need your help to collect information on what is going on in
your part of the world!