Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
A "Humanitarian War" on Syria? Military Escalation. Towards a Broader Middle East-Central Asian War?
"As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan." General Wesley Clark
An extended Middle East Central Asian war has been on the Pentagon's drawing board since the mid-1990s.
As part of this extended war scenario, the US-NATO alliance plans to wage a military campaign against Syria under a UN sponsored "humanitarian mandate".
Escalation is an integral part of the military agenda. Destabilization of sovereign states through "regime change" is closely coordinated with military planning.
There is a military roadmap characterised by a sequence of US-NATO war theaters.
War preparations to attack Syria and Iran have been in "an advanced state of readiness" for several years. The Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 categorizes Syria as a "rogue state", as a country which supports terrorism.
A war on Syria is viewed by the Pentagon as part of the broader war directed against Iran. President George W. Bush confirmed in his Memoirs that he had "ordered the Pentagon to plan an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and [had] considered a covert attack on Syria" (George Bush's memoirs reveal how he considered attacks on Iran and Syria, The Guardian, November 8, 2010)
This broader military agenda is intimately related to strategic oil reserves and pipeline routes. It is supported by the Anglo-American oil giants.
The July 2006 bombing of Lebanon was part of a carefully planned "military road map". The extension of "The July War" on Lebanon into Syria had been contemplated by US and Israeli military planners. It was abandoned upon the defeat of Israeli ground forces by Hizbollah.
Israel's July 2006 war on Lebanon also sought to establish Israeli control over the North Eastern Mediterranean coastline including offshore oil and gas reserves in Lebanese and Palestinian territorial waters.
The plans to invade both Lebanon and Syria have remained on the Pentagon's drawing board despite Israel's setback in the 2006 July War: "In November 2008, barely a month before Tel Aviv started its massacre in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military held drills for a two-front war against Lebanon and Syria called Shiluv Zro’ot III (Crossing Arms III). The military exercise included a massive simulated invasion of both Syria and Lebanon" (See Mahdi Darius Nazemoraya, Israel's Next War: Today the Gaza Strip, Tomorrow Lebanon?, Global Research, January 17, 2009)
The road to Tehran goes through Damascus. A US-NATO sponsored war on Iran would involve, as a first step, a destabilization campaign ("regime change") including covert intelligence operations in support of rebel forces directed against the Syrian government.
A "humanitarian war" under the logo of "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) directed against Syria would also contribute to the ongoing destabilization of Lebanon.
Were a military campaign to be waged against Syria, Israel would be directly or indirectly involved in military and intelligence operations.
A war on Syria would lead to military escalation.
There are at present four distinct war theaters: Afghanistan-Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine and Libya.
An attack on Syria would lead to the integration of these separate war theaters, eventually leading towards a broader Middle East-Central Asian war, engulfing an entire region from North Africa and the Mediterranean to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The ongoing protest movement is intended to serve as a pretext and a justification to intervene militarily against Syria. The existence of an armed insurrection is denied. The Western media in chorus have described recent events in Syria as a "peaceful protest movement" directed against the government of Bashar Al Assad, when the evidence confirms the existence of an armed insurgency integrated by Islamic paramilitary groups.
From the outset of the protest movement in Daraa in mid-March, there has been an exchange of fire between the police and armed forces on the one hand and armed gunmen on the other. Acts of arson directed against government buildings have also been committed. In late July in Hama, public buildings including the Court House and the Agricultural Bank were set on fire. Israeli news sources, while dismissing the existence of an armed conflict, nonetheless, acknowledge that "protesters [were] armed with heavy machine guns." (DEBKAfile August 1, 2001. Report on Hama, emphasis added)
"All Options on the Table"
In June, US Senator Lindsey Graham (who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee) hinted to the possibility of a "humanitarian" military intervention directed against Syria with a view to "saving the lives of civilians". Graham suggested that the "option" applied to Libya under UN Secuirty Council resolution 1973 should be envisaged in the case of Syria:
“If it made sense to protect the Libyan people against Gadhafi, and it did because they were going to get slaughtered if we hadn’t sent NATO in when he was on the outskirts of Benghazi, the question for the world [is], have we gotten to that point in Syria, ...
We may not be there yet, but we are getting very close, so if you really care about protecting the Syrian people from slaughter, now is the time to let Assad know that all options are on the table,” (CBS "Face The Nation", June 12, 2011)
Following the adoption of the UN Security Council Statement pertaining to Syria (August 3, 2011), the White House called, in no uncertain terms, for "regime change" in Syria and the ouster of President Bashar Al Assad:
"We do not want to see him remain in Syria for stability's sake, and rather, we view him as the cause of instability in Syria," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Wednesday.
"And we think, frankly, that it's safe to say that Syria would be a better place without President Assad," (quoted in Syria: US Call Closer to Calling for Regime Change, IPS, August 4, 2011)
Extended economic sanctions often constitute a leadup towards outright military intervention. A bill sponsored by Senator Lieberman was introduced in the US Senate with a view to authorizing sweeping economic sanctions against Syria. Moreover, in a letter to President Obama in early August, a group of more than sixty U.S. senators called for "implementing additional sanctions... while also making it clear to the Syrian regime that it will pay an increasing cost for its outrageous repression."
These sanctions would require blocking bank and financial transactions as well as "ending purchases of Syrian oil, and cutting off investments in Syria's oil and gas sectors." (See Pressure on Obama to get tougher on Syria coming from all sides - Foreign Policy, August 3, 2011).
Meanwhile, the US State Department has also met with members of the Syrian opposition in exile. Covert support has also been channelled to the armed rebel groups.
Dangerous Crossroads: War on Syria. Beachhead for an Attack on Iran
Following the August 3 Statement by the Chairman of the UN Security Council directed against Syria, Moscow's envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin warned of the dangers of military escalation:
"NATO is planning a military campaign against Syria to help overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad with a long-reaching goal of preparing a beachhead for an attack on Iran,...
"[This statement] means that the planning [of the military campaign] is well underway. It could be a logical conclusion of those military and propaganda operations, which have been carried out by certain Western countries against North Africa," Rogozin said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper... The Russian diplomat pointed out at the fact that the alliance is aiming to interfere only with the regimes "whose views do not coincide with those of the West."
Rogozin agreed with the opinion expressed by some experts that Syria and later Yemen could be NATO's last steps on the way to launch an attack on Iran.
"The noose around Iran is tightening. Military planning against Iran is underway. And we are certainly concerned about an escalation of a large-scale war in this huge region," Rogozin said.
Having learned the Libyan lesson, Russia "will continue to oppose a forcible resolution of the situation in Syria," he said, adding that the consequences of a large-scale conflict in North Africa would be devastating for the whole world. "Beachhead for an Attack on Iran": NATO is planning a Military Campaign against Syria, Novosti, August 5, 2011)
Dmitry Rogozin, August 2011
While Libya, Syria and Iran are part of the military roadmap, this strategic deployment if it were to carried out would also threaten China and Russia. Both countries have investment, trade as well as military cooperation agreements with Syria and Iran. Iran has observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Escalation is part of the military agenda. Since 2005, the US and its allies, including America's NATO partners and Israel, have been involved in the extensive deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems. The air defense systems of the US, NATO member countries and Israel are fully integrated.
The Role of Israel and Turkey
Both Ankara and Tel Aviv are involved in supporting an armed insurgency. These endeavors are coordinated between the two governments and their intelligence agencies.
Israel's Mossad, according to reports, has provided covert support to radical Salafi terrorist groups, which became active in Southern Syria at the outset of protest movement in Daraa in mid-March. Reports suggest that financing for the Salafi insurgency is coming from Saudi Arabia. (See Syrian army closes in on Damascus suburbs, The Irish Times, May 10, 2011)
The Turkish government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan is supporting Syrian opposition groups in exile while also backing the armed rebels of the Muslim Brotherhood in Northern Syria.
Both the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) (whose leadership is in exile in the UK) and the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) are behind the insurrection. Both organizations are supported by Britain's MI6. The avowed objective of both MB and Hizb-ut Tahir is ultimately to destabilize Syria's secular State. (See Michel Chossudovsky, SYRIA: Who is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating a Pretext for a US-NATO "Humanitarian Intervention", Global Research, May 3, 2011).
In June, Turkish troops crossed the border into northern Syria, officially to come to the rescue of Syrian refugees. The government of Bashar Al Assad accused Turkey of directly supporting the incursion of rebel forces into northern Syria:
"A rebel force of up to 500 fighters attacked a Syrian Army position on June 4 in northern Syria. They said the target, a garrison of Military Intelligence, was captured in a 36-hour assault in which 72 soldiers were killed in Jisr Al Shoughour, near the border with Turkey.
“We found that the criminals [rebel fighters] were using weapons from Turkey, and this is very worrisome,” an official said.
This marked the first time that the Assad regime has accused Turkey of helping the revolt. ... Officials said the rebels drove the Syrian Army from Jisr Al Shoughour and then took over the town. They said government buildings were looted and torched before another Assad force arrived. ...
A Syrian officer who conducted the tour said the rebels in Jisr Al Shoughour consisted of Al Qaida-aligned fighters. He said the rebels employed a range of Turkish weapons and ammunition but did not accuse the Ankara government of supplying the equipment." (Syria’s Assad accuses Turkey of arming rebels, TR Defence, Jun 25 2011)
The Israel-Turkey Military Cooperation Agreement
Israel and Turkey have a military cooperation agreement which pertains in a very direct way to Syria as well to the strategic Lebanese-Syrian Eastern Mediterranean coastline (including the gas reserves off the coast of Lebanon and pipeline routes).
Already during the Clinton Administration, a triangular military alliance between the US, Israel and Turkey had unfolded. This "triple alliance", which is dominated by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, integrates and coordinates military command decisions between the three countries pertaining to the broader Middle East. It is based on the close military ties respectively of Israel and Turkey with the US, coupled with a strong bilateral military relationship between Tel Aviv and Ankara. ....
The triple alliance is also coupled with a 2005 NATO-Israeli military cooperation agreement which includes "many areas of common interest, such as the fight against terrorism and joint military exercises. These military cooperation ties with NATO are viewed by the Israeli military as a means to "enhance Israel's deterrence capability regarding potential enemies threatening it, mainly Iran and Syria." (See Michel Chossudovsky,"Triple Alliance": The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon, August 6, 2006)
Meanwhile, the recent reshuffle within Turkey's top brass has reinforced the pro-Islamist faction within the armed forces. In late July, The Commander in Chief of the Army and head of Turkey's Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Isik Kosaner, resigned together with the commanders of the Navy and Air Force.
General Kosaner represented a broadly secular stance within the Armed Forces. General Necdet Ozel has been appointed as his replacement as commander of the Army the new army chief.
These developments are of crucial importance. They tend to support US interests. They also point to a potential shift within the military in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood including the armed insurrection in Northern Syria.
"New appointments have strengthened Erdogan and the ruling party in Turkey... [T]he military power is able to carry out more ambitious projects in the region. It is predicted that in case of using the Libyan scenario in Syria it is possible that Turkey will apply for military intervention." ( New appointments have strengthened Erdogan and the ruling party in Turkey : Public Radio of Armenia, August 06, 2011, emphasis added)
MB Rebels at Jisr al Choughour
Muslim Brotherhood Rebels at Jisr al Shughour Photos AFP June 16, 2011
[Note: this photo is in many regards misleading. Most of the rebel gunmen are highly trained with modern weapons.]
The Extended NATO Military Alliance
Egypt, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia (within the extended military alliance) are partners of NATO, whose forces could be deployed in a campaign directed against Syria.
Israel is a de facto member of NATO following an agreement signed in 2005.
The process of military planning within NATO's extended alliance involves coordination between the Pentagon, NATO, Israel's Defense Force (IDF), as well as the active military involvement of the frontline Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Egypt: all in all ten Arab countries plus Israel are members of The Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.
We are at a dangerous crossroads. The geopolitical implications are far-reaching.
Syria has borders with Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. It spreads across the valley of the Euphrates, it is at the crossroads of major waterways and pipeline routes.
Syria is an ally of Iran. Russia has a naval base in North Western Syria (see map).
Establishment of a base in Tartus and rapid advancement of military technology cooperation with Damascus makes Syria Russia's instrumental bridgehead and bulwark in the Middle East.
Damascus is an important ally of Iran and irreconcilable enemy of Israel. It goes without saying that appearance of the Russian military base in the region will certainly introduce corrections into the existing correlation of forces.
Russia is taking the Syrian regime under its protection. It will almost certainly sour Moscow's relations with Israel. It may even encourage the Iranian regime nearby and make it even less tractable in the nuclear program talks.( Ivan Safronov, Russia to defend its principal Middle East ally: Moscow takes Syria under its protection, Global Research July 28, 2006)
World War III Scenario
For the last five years, the Middle East-Central Asian region has been on an active war footing.
Syria has significant air defense capabilities as well as ground forces.
Syria has been building up its air defense system with the delivery of Russian Pantsir S1 air-defense missiles. In 2010, Russia delivered a Yakhont missile system to Syria. The Yakhont operating out of Russia's Tartus naval base "are designed for engagement of enemy's ships at the range up to 300 km". (Bastion missile systems to protect Russian naval base in Syria, Ria Novosti, September 21, 2010).
The structure of military alliances respectively on the US-NATO and Syria-Iran-SCO sides, not to mention the military involvement of Israel, the complex relationship between Syria and Lebanon, the pressures exerted by Turkey on Syria's northern border, point indelibly to a dangerous process of escalation.
Any form of US-NATO sponsored military intervention directed against Syria would destabilize the entire region, potentially leading to escalation over a vast geographical area, extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with Tajikistan and China.
In the short run, with the war in Libya, the US-NATO military alliance is overextended in terms of its capabilities. Whiel we do not forsee the implementation of a US-NATO military operation in the short-term, the process of political destabilization through the covert support of a rebel insurgency will in all likelihood continue.
Source http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25955
An extended Middle East Central Asian war has been on the Pentagon's drawing board since the mid-1990s.As part of this extended war scenario, the US-NATO alliance plans to wage a military campaign against Syria under a UN sponsored "humanitarian mandate".
Escalation is an integral part of the military agenda. Destabilization of sovereign states through "regime change" is closely coordinated with military planning.
There is a military roadmap characterised by a sequence of US-NATO war theaters.
War preparations to attack Syria and Iran have been in "an advanced state of readiness" for several years. The Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 categorizes Syria as a "rogue state", as a country which supports terrorism.
A war on Syria is viewed by the Pentagon as part of the broader war directed against Iran. President George W. Bush confirmed in his Memoirs that he had "ordered the Pentagon to plan an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and [had] considered a covert attack on Syria" (George Bush's memoirs reveal how he considered attacks on Iran and Syria, The Guardian, November 8, 2010)
This broader military agenda is intimately related to strategic oil reserves and pipeline routes. It is supported by the Anglo-American oil giants.
The July 2006 bombing of Lebanon was part of a carefully planned "military road map". The extension of "The July War" on Lebanon into Syria had been contemplated by US and Israeli military planners. It was abandoned upon the defeat of Israeli ground forces by Hizbollah.
Israel's July 2006 war on Lebanon also sought to establish Israeli control over the North Eastern Mediterranean coastline including offshore oil and gas reserves in Lebanese and Palestinian territorial waters.
The plans to invade both Lebanon and Syria have remained on the Pentagon's drawing board despite Israel's setback in the 2006 July War: "In November 2008, barely a month before Tel Aviv started its massacre in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military held drills for a two-front war against Lebanon and Syria called Shiluv Zro’ot III (Crossing Arms III). The military exercise included a massive simulated invasion of both Syria and Lebanon" (See Mahdi Darius Nazemoraya, Israel's Next War: Today the Gaza Strip, Tomorrow Lebanon?, Global Research, January 17, 2009)
The road to Tehran goes through Damascus. A US-NATO sponsored war on Iran would involve, as a first step, a destabilization campaign ("regime change") including covert intelligence operations in support of rebel forces directed against the Syrian government.
A "humanitarian war" under the logo of "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) directed against Syria would also contribute to the ongoing destabilization of Lebanon.
Were a military campaign to be waged against Syria, Israel would be directly or indirectly involved in military and intelligence operations.
A war on Syria would lead to military escalation.
There are at present four distinct war theaters: Afghanistan-Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine and Libya.
An attack on Syria would lead to the integration of these separate war theaters, eventually leading towards a broader Middle East-Central Asian war, engulfing an entire region from North Africa and the Mediterranean to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The ongoing protest movement is intended to serve as a pretext and a justification to intervene militarily against Syria. The existence of an armed insurrection is denied. The Western media in chorus have described recent events in Syria as a "peaceful protest movement" directed against the government of Bashar Al Assad, when the evidence confirms the existence of an armed insurgency integrated by Islamic paramilitary groups.
From the outset of the protest movement in Daraa in mid-March, there has been an exchange of fire between the police and armed forces on the one hand and armed gunmen on the other. Acts of arson directed against government buildings have also been committed. In late July in Hama, public buildings including the Court House and the Agricultural Bank were set on fire. Israeli news sources, while dismissing the existence of an armed conflict, nonetheless, acknowledge that "protesters [were] armed with heavy machine guns." (DEBKAfile August 1, 2001. Report on Hama, emphasis added)
"All Options on the Table"
In June, US Senator Lindsey Graham (who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee) hinted to the possibility of a "humanitarian" military intervention directed against Syria with a view to "saving the lives of civilians". Graham suggested that the "option" applied to Libya under UN Secuirty Council resolution 1973 should be envisaged in the case of Syria:
“If it made sense to protect the Libyan people against Gadhafi, and it did because they were going to get slaughtered if we hadn’t sent NATO in when he was on the outskirts of Benghazi, the question for the world [is], have we gotten to that point in Syria, ...
We may not be there yet, but we are getting very close, so if you really care about protecting the Syrian people from slaughter, now is the time to let Assad know that all options are on the table,” (CBS "Face The Nation", June 12, 2011)
Following the adoption of the UN Security Council Statement pertaining to Syria (August 3, 2011), the White House called, in no uncertain terms, for "regime change" in Syria and the ouster of President Bashar Al Assad:
"We do not want to see him remain in Syria for stability's sake, and rather, we view him as the cause of instability in Syria," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Wednesday.
"And we think, frankly, that it's safe to say that Syria would be a better place without President Assad," (quoted in Syria: US Call Closer to Calling for Regime Change, IPS, August 4, 2011)
Extended economic sanctions often constitute a leadup towards outright military intervention. A bill sponsored by Senator Lieberman was introduced in the US Senate with a view to authorizing sweeping economic sanctions against Syria. Moreover, in a letter to President Obama in early August, a group of more than sixty U.S. senators called for "implementing additional sanctions... while also making it clear to the Syrian regime that it will pay an increasing cost for its outrageous repression."
These sanctions would require blocking bank and financial transactions as well as "ending purchases of Syrian oil, and cutting off investments in Syria's oil and gas sectors." (See Pressure on Obama to get tougher on Syria coming from all sides - Foreign Policy, August 3, 2011).
Meanwhile, the US State Department has also met with members of the Syrian opposition in exile. Covert support has also been channelled to the armed rebel groups.
Dangerous Crossroads: War on Syria. Beachhead for an Attack on Iran
Following the August 3 Statement by the Chairman of the UN Security Council directed against Syria, Moscow's envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin warned of the dangers of military escalation:
"NATO is planning a military campaign against Syria to help overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad with a long-reaching goal of preparing a beachhead for an attack on Iran,...
"[This statement] means that the planning [of the military campaign] is well underway. It could be a logical conclusion of those military and propaganda operations, which have been carried out by certain Western countries against North Africa," Rogozin said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper... The Russian diplomat pointed out at the fact that the alliance is aiming to interfere only with the regimes "whose views do not coincide with those of the West."
Rogozin agreed with the opinion expressed by some experts that Syria and later Yemen could be NATO's last steps on the way to launch an attack on Iran.
"The noose around Iran is tightening. Military planning against Iran is underway. And we are certainly concerned about an escalation of a large-scale war in this huge region," Rogozin said.
Having learned the Libyan lesson, Russia "will continue to oppose a forcible resolution of the situation in Syria," he said, adding that the consequences of a large-scale conflict in North Africa would be devastating for the whole world. "Beachhead for an Attack on Iran": NATO is planning a Military Campaign against Syria, Novosti, August 5, 2011)
Dmitry Rogozin, August 2011
While Libya, Syria and Iran are part of the military roadmap, this strategic deployment if it were to carried out would also threaten China and Russia. Both countries have investment, trade as well as military cooperation agreements with Syria and Iran. Iran has observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Escalation is part of the military agenda. Since 2005, the US and its allies, including America's NATO partners and Israel, have been involved in the extensive deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems. The air defense systems of the US, NATO member countries and Israel are fully integrated.
The Role of Israel and Turkey
Both Ankara and Tel Aviv are involved in supporting an armed insurgency. These endeavors are coordinated between the two governments and their intelligence agencies.
Israel's Mossad, according to reports, has provided covert support to radical Salafi terrorist groups, which became active in Southern Syria at the outset of protest movement in Daraa in mid-March. Reports suggest that financing for the Salafi insurgency is coming from Saudi Arabia. (See Syrian army closes in on Damascus suburbs, The Irish Times, May 10, 2011)
The Turkish government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan is supporting Syrian opposition groups in exile while also backing the armed rebels of the Muslim Brotherhood in Northern Syria.
Both the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) (whose leadership is in exile in the UK) and the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) are behind the insurrection. Both organizations are supported by Britain's MI6. The avowed objective of both MB and Hizb-ut Tahir is ultimately to destabilize Syria's secular State. (See Michel Chossudovsky, SYRIA: Who is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating a Pretext for a US-NATO "Humanitarian Intervention", Global Research, May 3, 2011).
In June, Turkish troops crossed the border into northern Syria, officially to come to the rescue of Syrian refugees. The government of Bashar Al Assad accused Turkey of directly supporting the incursion of rebel forces into northern Syria:
"A rebel force of up to 500 fighters attacked a Syrian Army position on June 4 in northern Syria. They said the target, a garrison of Military Intelligence, was captured in a 36-hour assault in which 72 soldiers were killed in Jisr Al Shoughour, near the border with Turkey.
“We found that the criminals [rebel fighters] were using weapons from Turkey, and this is very worrisome,” an official said.
This marked the first time that the Assad regime has accused Turkey of helping the revolt. ... Officials said the rebels drove the Syrian Army from Jisr Al Shoughour and then took over the town. They said government buildings were looted and torched before another Assad force arrived. ...
A Syrian officer who conducted the tour said the rebels in Jisr Al Shoughour consisted of Al Qaida-aligned fighters. He said the rebels employed a range of Turkish weapons and ammunition but did not accuse the Ankara government of supplying the equipment." (Syria’s Assad accuses Turkey of arming rebels, TR Defence, Jun 25 2011)
The Israel-Turkey Military Cooperation Agreement
Israel and Turkey have a military cooperation agreement which pertains in a very direct way to Syria as well to the strategic Lebanese-Syrian Eastern Mediterranean coastline (including the gas reserves off the coast of Lebanon and pipeline routes).
Already during the Clinton Administration, a triangular military alliance between the US, Israel and Turkey had unfolded. This "triple alliance", which is dominated by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, integrates and coordinates military command decisions between the three countries pertaining to the broader Middle East. It is based on the close military ties respectively of Israel and Turkey with the US, coupled with a strong bilateral military relationship between Tel Aviv and Ankara. ....
The triple alliance is also coupled with a 2005 NATO-Israeli military cooperation agreement which includes "many areas of common interest, such as the fight against terrorism and joint military exercises. These military cooperation ties with NATO are viewed by the Israeli military as a means to "enhance Israel's deterrence capability regarding potential enemies threatening it, mainly Iran and Syria." (See Michel Chossudovsky,"Triple Alliance": The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon, August 6, 2006)
Meanwhile, the recent reshuffle within Turkey's top brass has reinforced the pro-Islamist faction within the armed forces. In late July, The Commander in Chief of the Army and head of Turkey's Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Isik Kosaner, resigned together with the commanders of the Navy and Air Force.
General Kosaner represented a broadly secular stance within the Armed Forces. General Necdet Ozel has been appointed as his replacement as commander of the Army the new army chief.
These developments are of crucial importance. They tend to support US interests. They also point to a potential shift within the military in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood including the armed insurrection in Northern Syria.
"New appointments have strengthened Erdogan and the ruling party in Turkey... [T]he military power is able to carry out more ambitious projects in the region. It is predicted that in case of using the Libyan scenario in Syria it is possible that Turkey will apply for military intervention." ( New appointments have strengthened Erdogan and the ruling party in Turkey : Public Radio of Armenia, August 06, 2011, emphasis added)
MB Rebels at Jisr al Choughour
Muslim Brotherhood Rebels at Jisr al Shughour Photos AFP June 16, 2011
[Note: this photo is in many regards misleading. Most of the rebel gunmen are highly trained with modern weapons.]
The Extended NATO Military Alliance
Egypt, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia (within the extended military alliance) are partners of NATO, whose forces could be deployed in a campaign directed against Syria.
Israel is a de facto member of NATO following an agreement signed in 2005.
The process of military planning within NATO's extended alliance involves coordination between the Pentagon, NATO, Israel's Defense Force (IDF), as well as the active military involvement of the frontline Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Egypt: all in all ten Arab countries plus Israel are members of The Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.
We are at a dangerous crossroads. The geopolitical implications are far-reaching.
Syria has borders with Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. It spreads across the valley of the Euphrates, it is at the crossroads of major waterways and pipeline routes.
Syria is an ally of Iran. Russia has a naval base in North Western Syria (see map).
Establishment of a base in Tartus and rapid advancement of military technology cooperation with Damascus makes Syria Russia's instrumental bridgehead and bulwark in the Middle East.
Damascus is an important ally of Iran and irreconcilable enemy of Israel. It goes without saying that appearance of the Russian military base in the region will certainly introduce corrections into the existing correlation of forces.
Russia is taking the Syrian regime under its protection. It will almost certainly sour Moscow's relations with Israel. It may even encourage the Iranian regime nearby and make it even less tractable in the nuclear program talks.( Ivan Safronov, Russia to defend its principal Middle East ally: Moscow takes Syria under its protection, Global Research July 28, 2006)
World War III Scenario
For the last five years, the Middle East-Central Asian region has been on an active war footing.
Syria has significant air defense capabilities as well as ground forces.
Syria has been building up its air defense system with the delivery of Russian Pantsir S1 air-defense missiles. In 2010, Russia delivered a Yakhont missile system to Syria. The Yakhont operating out of Russia's Tartus naval base "are designed for engagement of enemy's ships at the range up to 300 km". (Bastion missile systems to protect Russian naval base in Syria, Ria Novosti, September 21, 2010).
The structure of military alliances respectively on the US-NATO and Syria-Iran-SCO sides, not to mention the military involvement of Israel, the complex relationship between Syria and Lebanon, the pressures exerted by Turkey on Syria's northern border, point indelibly to a dangerous process of escalation.
Any form of US-NATO sponsored military intervention directed against Syria would destabilize the entire region, potentially leading to escalation over a vast geographical area, extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with Tajikistan and China.
In the short run, with the war in Libya, the US-NATO military alliance is overextended in terms of its capabilities. Whiel we do not forsee the implementation of a US-NATO military operation in the short-term, the process of political destabilization through the covert support of a rebel insurgency will in all likelihood continue.
Source http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25955
Terrorism is Not a Muslim Monopoly
First, there is nothing new about terrorism. In 1881, anarchists killed the Russian Tsar Alexander II and 21 bystanders. In 1901, anarchists killed US President McKinley as well as King Humbert I of Italy.
World War I started in 1914 when anarchists killed Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. These terrorist attacks were not Muslim. Terrorism is generally defined as the killing of civilians for political reasons.
Going by this definition, the British Raj referred to Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and many other Indian freedom fighters as terrorists. These were Hindu and Sikh rather than Muslim.
Guerrilla fighters from Mao Zedong to Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro killed civilians during their revolutionary campaigns. They too were called terrorists until they triumphed.
Nothing Muslim about them. In Palestine, after World War II, Jewish groups (the Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang) fought for the creation of a Jewish state, bombing hotels and installations and killing civilians.
The British, who then governed Palestine, rightly called these Jewish groups terrorists. Many of these terrorists later became leaders of independent Israel — Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon.
Ironically, these former terrorists then lambasted terrorism, applying this label only to Arabs fighting for the very same nationhood that the Jews had fought for earlier.
In Germany in 1968-92, the Baader-Meinhoff Gang killed dozens, including the head of Treuhand, the German privatisation agency. In Italy, the Red Brigades kidnapped and killed Aldo Moro, former prime minister.
The Japanese Red Army was an Asian version of this. Japan was also the home of Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist cult that tried to kill thousands in the Tokyo metro system using nerve gas in 1995.
Source
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Hong Kong scientists ‘show time travel is impossible’
HONG KONG — Hong Kong physicists say they have proved that a single photon obeys Einstein's theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light -- demonstrating that outside science fiction, time travel is impossible.
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research team led by Du Shengwang said they had proved that a single photon, or unit of light, "obeys the traffic law of the universe".
"Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light," the university said on its website.
"Professor Du's study demonstrates that a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light, also obeys the traffic law of the universe just like classical EM (electromagnetic) waves."
The possibility of time travel was raised 10 years ago when scientists discovered superluminal -- or faster-than-light -- propagation of optical pulses in some specific medium, the team said.
It was later found to be a visual effect, but researchers thought it might still be possible for a single photon to exceed light speed.
Du, however, believed Einstein was right and determined to end the debate by measuring the ultimate speed of a single photon, which had not been done before.
"The study, which showed that single photons also obey the speed limit c, confirms Einstein's causality; that is, an effect cannot occur before its cause," the university said.
"By showing that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light, our results bring a closure to the debate on the true speed of information carried by a single photon," said Du, assistant professor of physics.
"Our findings will also likely have potential applications by giving scientists a better picture on the transmission of quantum information."
The team's study was published in the US peer-reviewed scientific journal Physical Review Letters.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/24/hong-kong-scientists-show-time-travel-is-impossible/
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research team led by Du Shengwang said they had proved that a single photon, or unit of light, "obeys the traffic law of the universe".
"Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light," the university said on its website.
"Professor Du's study demonstrates that a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light, also obeys the traffic law of the universe just like classical EM (electromagnetic) waves."The possibility of time travel was raised 10 years ago when scientists discovered superluminal -- or faster-than-light -- propagation of optical pulses in some specific medium, the team said.
It was later found to be a visual effect, but researchers thought it might still be possible for a single photon to exceed light speed.
Du, however, believed Einstein was right and determined to end the debate by measuring the ultimate speed of a single photon, which had not been done before.
"By showing that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light, our results bring a closure to the debate on the true speed of information carried by a single photon," said Du, assistant professor of physics.
"Our findings will also likely have potential applications by giving scientists a better picture on the transmission of quantum information."
The team's study was published in the US peer-reviewed scientific journal Physical Review Letters.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/24/hong-kong-scientists-show-time-travel-is-impossible/
Former Governor Jesse Ventura: ‘We’re a fascist nation now’
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura lambasted Friday at a federal court hearing "un-American" security procedures implemented at airports across the nation in 2010.He filed a lawsuit with the Transportation Security Administration in January, claiming their use of pat down searches at airport security checkpoints is unconstitutional. Pioneer Press reported that a lawyer for Ventura argued in federal court that the searches violate his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable and unwarranted searches.
The Justice Department has filed a motion to have the lawsuit dismissed, claiming that the searches are legal and that they can only be challenged in a federal appeals court.
"In a free country, you should never feel comfortable being searched," Ventura told the Justice Department lawyer Tamara Ulrich. "This is not the country I was born in. We're a fascist nation now."
The former professional wrestler had a titanium hip implanted in 2008 that sets off metal detectors at airport checkpoints. Since 2010, new TSA procedures require him to undergo invasive physical pat down searches when he sets off the device.
The body imaging scanners and pat down procedure implemented by the TSA have received intense scrutiny amid reports of travelers feeling humiliated and traumatized.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/23/former-governor-jesse-ventura-were-a-fascist-nation-now/
Monday, July 18, 2011
Why is the Most Wasteful Government Agency Not Part of the Deficit Discussion?
Published on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 by On the Commons
Republicans ignore incompetence, bloat and corruption at the Pentagon
by David Morris
In all the talk about the federal deficit, why is the single largest culprit left out of the conversation? Why is the one part of government that best epitomizes everything conservatives say they hate about government—- waste, incompetence, and corruption—all but exempt from conservative criticism?
Of course, I’m talking about the Pentagon. Any serious battle plan to reduce the deficit must take on the Pentagon. In 2011 military spending accounted for more than 58 percent of all federal discretionary spending and even more if the interest on the federal debt that is related to military spending were added. In the last ten years we have spent more than $7.6 trillion on military and homeland security according to the National Priorities Project.
In the last decade military spending has soared from $300 billion to $700 billion.
When debt ceilings and deficits seem to be the only two items on Washington’s agenda, it is both revealing and tragic that both parties give a free pass to military spending. Representative Paul Ryan’s much discussed Tea Party budget accepted Obama’s proposal for a pathetic $78 billion reduction in military spending over 5 years, a recommendation that would only modestly slow the rate of growth of military spending.
Indeed, the Republican government battering ram appears to have stopped at the Pentagon door. This was evident early on. As soon as they took over the House of Representatives, Republicans changed the rules so that military spending does not have to be offset by reduced spending somewhere else, unlike any other kind of government spending. It is the only activity of government they believe does not have to be paid for. Which brings to mind a bit of wisdom from one of their heroes, Adam Smith. “Were the expense of war to be defrayed always by revenue raised within the year … wars would in general be more speedily concluded, and less wantonly undertaken.”
The Tea Party revolution has only strengthened the Republican Party’s resolve that the Pentagon’s budget is untouchable. An analysis by the Heritage Foundation of Republican votes on defense spending found that Tea Party freshmen were even more likely than their Republican elders to vote against cutting any part of the military budget.
What makes the hypocrisy even more revealing is that the Pentagon turns out to be the poster child for government waste and incompetence.
In 2009 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found “staggering” cost overruns of almost $300 billion in nearly 70 percent of the Pentagon’s 96 major weapons. What’s more, the programs were running, on average, 21 months behind schedule. And when they were completed, they provided less than they promised.
The Defense Logistics Agency had no use for parts worth more than half of the $13.7 billion in equipment stacked up in DOD warehouses in 2006 to 2008.
And these are only the tips of the military’s misspending iceberg. We really don’t know how much the Pentagon wastes because, believe it or not, there hasn’t been a complete audit of the Pentagon in more than 15 years.
In 1994, the Government Management Reform Act required the Inspector General of each federal agency to audit and publish the financial statements of their agency. The Department of Defense was the only agency that has been unable to comply. In fiscal 1998 the Department of Defense used $1.7 trillion of undocumentable adjustments to balance the books. In 2002 the situation was even worse. CBS News reported that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted, “we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.”
Imagine that a school district were to reveal that it didn’t know where it spent its money. Now imagine the Republican response. Perhaps, “Off with their desktops!”
How did Congress’ respond to DOD’s delinquency? It gave it absolution and allowed it to opt out of its legal requirement. But as a sop to outraged public opinion Congress required DOD to set a date when it would have its book sufficiently in order to be audited. Which the Pentagon dutiful did, and missed every one of the target dates. The latest is 2017 and DOD has already announced it will be unable to meet that deadline.
Adding insult to injury, last September, the GAO found that the new computer systems intended to improve the Pentagon’s financial oversight are themselves nearly 100 percent or $7 billion over budget and as much as 12 years behind schedule!
The Pentagon is not just incompetent. It is corrupt. In November 2009 the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), the federal watchdog responsible for auditing oversight of military contractors, raised the question of criminal wrongdoing when it found that the audits that did occur were riddled with serious breaches of auditor independence. One Pentagon auditor admitted he did not perform detailed tests because, “The contractor would not appreciate it.”
Why would the Pentagon allow its contractors to get away with fraud? To answer that question we need to understand the incestuous relationship between the Pentagon and its contractors that has been going on for years, and is getting worse. From 2004 to 2008, 80 percent of retiring three and four star officers went to work as consultants or defense industry executives. Thirty-four out of 39 three- and four-star generals and admirals who retired in 2007 are now working in defense industry roles — nearly 90 percent.
retired general working for defense
Generals are recruited for private sector jobs well before they retire. Once employed by the military contractor the general maintains a Pentagon advisory role.
“In almost any other realm it would seem a clear conflict of interest. But this is the Pentagon where…such apparent conflicts are a routine fact of life”, an in-depth investigation by the Boston Globe concluded.
U.S. military spending now exceeds the spending of all other countries combined. Knowledge military experts argue that we can cut at least $1 trillion from the Pentagon budget without changing its currently expressed mission. But a growing number believe that the mission itself is suspect. Economic competitors like India and China certainly approve of our willingness to undermine our economic competitiveness by diverting trillions of dollars into war and weapons production. Some argue that all this spending has made us more secure but all the evidence points in the opposite direction. Certainly our $2 trillion and counting military adventures in the Middle East and Afghanistan and Pakistan have won us few friends and multiplied our enemies.
Defense experts Gordon Adams and Matthew Leatherman, writing in the Washington Post offer another argument against unrestrained military spending.
“Countries feel threatened when rivals ramp up their defenses; this was true in the Cold War, and now it may happen with China. It’s how arms races are born. We spend more, inspiring competitors to do the same — thus inflating defense budgets without making anyone safer. For example, Gates observed in May that no other country has a single ship comparable to our 11 aircraft carriers. Based on the perceived threat that this fleet poses, the Chinese are pursuing an anti-ship ballistic missile program. U.S. military officials have decried this “carrier-killer’‘ effort, and in response we are diversifying our capabilities to strike China, including a new long-range bomber program, and modernizing our carrier fleet at a cost of about $10 billion per ship.”
For tens of millions of Americans real security comes not from fighting wars on foreign soil but from not having to worry losing their house or their job or their medical care. As Joshua Holland, columnist for Alternet points out 46 states faced combined budget shortfalls this year of $130 billion, leading them to fire tens of thousands of workers and cut off assistance to millions of families. Just the supplemental requests for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan this year were $170 billion.
What is perhaps most astonishing of all is that cutting the military budget is wildly popular. Even back in 1995, when military spending was only a fraction of its present size, a poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes reported that 42 percent of the US public feeling that defense spending is too high and a majority of Americans were convinced that defense spending “has weakened the US economy and given some allies an economic edge.”
This March Reuters released a new poll that found the majority of Americans support reducing defense spending.
The next time you hear Republicans insist they want to ferret out government waste and reduce spending and stamp out incompetence ask them why the one part of government that exemplifies everything they say is wrong with government is the one part of government they embrace most heartily.
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/12
Republicans ignore incompetence, bloat and corruption at the Pentagon
by David Morris
In all the talk about the federal deficit, why is the single largest culprit left out of the conversation? Why is the one part of government that best epitomizes everything conservatives say they hate about government—- waste, incompetence, and corruption—all but exempt from conservative criticism?
Of course, I’m talking about the Pentagon. Any serious battle plan to reduce the deficit must take on the Pentagon. In 2011 military spending accounted for more than 58 percent of all federal discretionary spending and even more if the interest on the federal debt that is related to military spending were added. In the last ten years we have spent more than $7.6 trillion on military and homeland security according to the National Priorities Project.
In the last decade military spending has soared from $300 billion to $700 billion.
When debt ceilings and deficits seem to be the only two items on Washington’s agenda, it is both revealing and tragic that both parties give a free pass to military spending. Representative Paul Ryan’s much discussed Tea Party budget accepted Obama’s proposal for a pathetic $78 billion reduction in military spending over 5 years, a recommendation that would only modestly slow the rate of growth of military spending.
Indeed, the Republican government battering ram appears to have stopped at the Pentagon door. This was evident early on. As soon as they took over the House of Representatives, Republicans changed the rules so that military spending does not have to be offset by reduced spending somewhere else, unlike any other kind of government spending. It is the only activity of government they believe does not have to be paid for. Which brings to mind a bit of wisdom from one of their heroes, Adam Smith. “Were the expense of war to be defrayed always by revenue raised within the year … wars would in general be more speedily concluded, and less wantonly undertaken.”
The Tea Party revolution has only strengthened the Republican Party’s resolve that the Pentagon’s budget is untouchable. An analysis by the Heritage Foundation of Republican votes on defense spending found that Tea Party freshmen were even more likely than their Republican elders to vote against cutting any part of the military budget.
What makes the hypocrisy even more revealing is that the Pentagon turns out to be the poster child for government waste and incompetence.
In 2009 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found “staggering” cost overruns of almost $300 billion in nearly 70 percent of the Pentagon’s 96 major weapons. What’s more, the programs were running, on average, 21 months behind schedule. And when they were completed, they provided less than they promised.
The Defense Logistics Agency had no use for parts worth more than half of the $13.7 billion in equipment stacked up in DOD warehouses in 2006 to 2008.
And these are only the tips of the military’s misspending iceberg. We really don’t know how much the Pentagon wastes because, believe it or not, there hasn’t been a complete audit of the Pentagon in more than 15 years.
In 1994, the Government Management Reform Act required the Inspector General of each federal agency to audit and publish the financial statements of their agency. The Department of Defense was the only agency that has been unable to comply. In fiscal 1998 the Department of Defense used $1.7 trillion of undocumentable adjustments to balance the books. In 2002 the situation was even worse. CBS News reported that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted, “we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.”
Imagine that a school district were to reveal that it didn’t know where it spent its money. Now imagine the Republican response. Perhaps, “Off with their desktops!”
How did Congress’ respond to DOD’s delinquency? It gave it absolution and allowed it to opt out of its legal requirement. But as a sop to outraged public opinion Congress required DOD to set a date when it would have its book sufficiently in order to be audited. Which the Pentagon dutiful did, and missed every one of the target dates. The latest is 2017 and DOD has already announced it will be unable to meet that deadline.
Adding insult to injury, last September, the GAO found that the new computer systems intended to improve the Pentagon’s financial oversight are themselves nearly 100 percent or $7 billion over budget and as much as 12 years behind schedule!
The Pentagon is not just incompetent. It is corrupt. In November 2009 the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), the federal watchdog responsible for auditing oversight of military contractors, raised the question of criminal wrongdoing when it found that the audits that did occur were riddled with serious breaches of auditor independence. One Pentagon auditor admitted he did not perform detailed tests because, “The contractor would not appreciate it.”
Why would the Pentagon allow its contractors to get away with fraud? To answer that question we need to understand the incestuous relationship between the Pentagon and its contractors that has been going on for years, and is getting worse. From 2004 to 2008, 80 percent of retiring three and four star officers went to work as consultants or defense industry executives. Thirty-four out of 39 three- and four-star generals and admirals who retired in 2007 are now working in defense industry roles — nearly 90 percent.
retired general working for defense
Generals are recruited for private sector jobs well before they retire. Once employed by the military contractor the general maintains a Pentagon advisory role.
“In almost any other realm it would seem a clear conflict of interest. But this is the Pentagon where…such apparent conflicts are a routine fact of life”, an in-depth investigation by the Boston Globe concluded.
U.S. military spending now exceeds the spending of all other countries combined. Knowledge military experts argue that we can cut at least $1 trillion from the Pentagon budget without changing its currently expressed mission. But a growing number believe that the mission itself is suspect. Economic competitors like India and China certainly approve of our willingness to undermine our economic competitiveness by diverting trillions of dollars into war and weapons production. Some argue that all this spending has made us more secure but all the evidence points in the opposite direction. Certainly our $2 trillion and counting military adventures in the Middle East and Afghanistan and Pakistan have won us few friends and multiplied our enemies.
Defense experts Gordon Adams and Matthew Leatherman, writing in the Washington Post offer another argument against unrestrained military spending.
“Countries feel threatened when rivals ramp up their defenses; this was true in the Cold War, and now it may happen with China. It’s how arms races are born. We spend more, inspiring competitors to do the same — thus inflating defense budgets without making anyone safer. For example, Gates observed in May that no other country has a single ship comparable to our 11 aircraft carriers. Based on the perceived threat that this fleet poses, the Chinese are pursuing an anti-ship ballistic missile program. U.S. military officials have decried this “carrier-killer’‘ effort, and in response we are diversifying our capabilities to strike China, including a new long-range bomber program, and modernizing our carrier fleet at a cost of about $10 billion per ship.”
For tens of millions of Americans real security comes not from fighting wars on foreign soil but from not having to worry losing their house or their job or their medical care. As Joshua Holland, columnist for Alternet points out 46 states faced combined budget shortfalls this year of $130 billion, leading them to fire tens of thousands of workers and cut off assistance to millions of families. Just the supplemental requests for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan this year were $170 billion.
What is perhaps most astonishing of all is that cutting the military budget is wildly popular. Even back in 1995, when military spending was only a fraction of its present size, a poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes reported that 42 percent of the US public feeling that defense spending is too high and a majority of Americans were convinced that defense spending “has weakened the US economy and given some allies an economic edge.”
This March Reuters released a new poll that found the majority of Americans support reducing defense spending.
The next time you hear Republicans insist they want to ferret out government waste and reduce spending and stamp out incompetence ask them why the one part of government that exemplifies everything they say is wrong with government is the one part of government they embrace most heartily.
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/12
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Iran is Not The Threat. Israel is The Threat, American Imperialism is The Threat
A Powerful revolutionary Interview..."Governments should fear their people.!"
RT never posted this on YouTube for some reason??
Ken O'Keefe, [real living hero] an activist based in Gaza, said the uprising in Egypt is no surprise, taking into consideration the situation in the country.
"Wherever you oppress people, wherever you deny them basic human rights, wherever the inequity in the distribution of wealth is as perverse as it is in North Africa, the people will eventually rise up and it's promising to see that people have started the process of shedding off the brutal and corrupt dictate of Mubarak," he said.
As for the diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks, O'Keefe said he wouldn't doubt that the US had been involved, but the blame should still be laid on the Egyptian leadership. He also added that he is not going to give credence to all WikiLeaks cables.
"WikiLeaks has perpetuated all sorts of illusions, including the illusion that Iran is the threat. Iran is not the threat. Israel is the threat, American imperialism is the threat, British complicity and support for those institutions is the threat, not Iran, and WikiLeaks has been instrumental in perpetuating that threat," O'Keefe said. "Also, the so-called leader of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has marginalized and attempted to ridicule those of us who can see the truth of 9/11. So, I am not going to buy everything that WikiLeaks produces."
Friday, May 13, 2011
US inmate executed with animal drug
Authorities in the US state of Mississippi have executed a prisoner with a new drug used to euthanize animals, following similar practices in other states.
Benny Joe Stevens, 52, became the first man to be executed with pentobarbital in Mississippi. The new drug replaced sodium thiopental, which is facing a nationwide shortage.
Stevens, who was convicted in 1999 of killing four people, including his ex-wife and her husband, was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. local time on Tuesday (0022 GMT on Wednesday) at the State Penitentiary at Parchman, the Associated Press reported.
“Forgive me … what I did was a terrible thing. There's no forgiveness for what I did,” said Stevens.
The new drug has been used in several states over the past week, including Texas, Ohio and South Carolina.
The animal drug is expected to be used in the execution of Rodney Gray on May 17 and Robert Simon Jr. on May 24.
In 2010, 46 people were executed in the United States, six fewer than the previous year, according to the center data.
AO/AKM
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179335.html
Benny Joe Stevens, 52, became the first man to be executed with pentobarbital in Mississippi. The new drug replaced sodium thiopental, which is facing a nationwide shortage.
Stevens, who was convicted in 1999 of killing four people, including his ex-wife and her husband, was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. local time on Tuesday (0022 GMT on Wednesday) at the State Penitentiary at Parchman, the Associated Press reported.
“Forgive me … what I did was a terrible thing. There's no forgiveness for what I did,” said Stevens.
The new drug has been used in several states over the past week, including Texas, Ohio and South Carolina.
The animal drug is expected to be used in the execution of Rodney Gray on May 17 and Robert Simon Jr. on May 24.
In 2010, 46 people were executed in the United States, six fewer than the previous year, according to the center data.
AO/AKM
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179335.html
Amnesty slams flawed US penal system
Amnesty International has called attention to the US and its failing human rights record due to its use of flawed detention and execution systems.On Friday, Amnesty International slammed the US for its indefinite detentions in Afghanistan and at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, as well as its flawed capital punishment system, AFP reported.
"Scores of men remained in indefinite military detention in Guantanamo as [US] President [Barack] Obama's one-year deadline for closure of the facility there came and went," the report recently released by the body said.
The organization's annual global human rights report points to the execution of 46 people over the past year, in which the guilt of several of the defendants remained questionable. Some cases also included unclear proof of legal representation and mental impairment.
According to Amnesty International, of the 173 men currently detained at Guantanamo Bay, only three had been convicted under a military commission system, "which failed to meet international fair trial standards."
"Military commission proceedings were conducted in a handful of cases, and the only Guantanamo detainee so far transferred to the US mainland for prosecution in a federal court was tried and convicted,” the report added.
Upon taking office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to stop military commissions in order to close down the facility by 2010; however, this has not happened yet.
The organization accuses US authorities of also blocking efforts to “secure accountability and remedy for crimes under international law committed against detainees previously subjected to the USA's secret detention and rendition program.”
As for Afghanistan, the reports criticizes the US for holding “hundreds” at the US airbase in Bagram without due process and for subjecting some to “torture and ill-treatment, including prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, and exposure to extreme temperatures.”
The report further voiced concern over the “excessive force” used by US law enforcement. The use of Taser guns by police officers led to the death of some 45 people last year.
The country's health care system was also among the matters mentioned in the report. “Hundreds of women continue to die from preventable pregnancy-related complications,” as a result of a lack of proper health care coverage, the report added.
SZH/HGH/MMN
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179692.html
Tehran hosts anti-terror conference
More than 150 foreign experts and elite are attending the International Conference on Global Alliance against Terrorism for a Just Peace (GAATJP) in Tehran.
The conference, which opens on Saturday, will focus on efforts aimed at uprooting terrorism in the region. Hundreds of Iranian experts will also attend the two-day conference which will wrap up in Tehran on Sunday.
Tehran hosted four exhibitions of posters and caricatures on just peace, as well as exhibitions of photos of the families of the victims of terror attacks in Iran and the Middle East ahead of the on GAATJP on Friday.
The conference comes nearly ten years after the United States initiated the so-called 'war on terror,' which has failed to bring peace and stability to the region.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179755.html
The conference, which opens on Saturday, will focus on efforts aimed at uprooting terrorism in the region. Hundreds of Iranian experts will also attend the two-day conference which will wrap up in Tehran on Sunday.
Tehran hosted four exhibitions of posters and caricatures on just peace, as well as exhibitions of photos of the families of the victims of terror attacks in Iran and the Middle East ahead of the on GAATJP on Friday.
The conference comes nearly ten years after the United States initiated the so-called 'war on terror,' which has failed to bring peace and stability to the region.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179755.html
Sharia Law Threat: Right-Wing Boogeyman
Frank Gaffney and his friends can relax: Sneaky Muslims aren't going to impose Sharia Law on the US and take away their bacon cheeseburgers. It's impossible.
But you'd never know that from what's pouring out of outfits like Gaffney's Center for Security Policy, from Fox News or from right-wing bloggers across the land, all of whom say the threat is real -- real enough to spawn 15 proposed state and federal laws against it.
Here's how Gaffney described what he calls the threat to the New York Senate's Homeland Security and Military Affairs Committee on April 8th: ."The threat...is best described, I believe, as a politico-legal-military threat whose express purpose is to have it imposed world-wide, subject to a theocratic ruler called a Caliph. That is of course a program that is completely at odds with our Constitution, our form of government, our way of life, our freedoms."
I'll admit that sounds pretty grim. Even if it does seem a lot like the threat of Global Communism I used to hear about as a kid.
The truth? Sharia is religious law, and no religious law can be imposed on the US without amending the Constitution -- twice -- to repeal both the opening clause of the First Amendment, and the Supremacy Clause in Article 6.
So how can Sharia Law be imposed on the US? No one seems to know. Or at least, nobody who's pushing the claim would talk to me about it, though they seemed eager to tell me how bad it would be.
These non-talkers included Gaffney's COO, Christina Brim, who even came to the phone to tell me she wouldn't talk to me; Rex Duncan, who sponsored an Oklahoma law last year forbidding Sharia Law from being used in the state; Newt Gingrich (famously afraid of "Islamic atheists"); the Thomas More Center; and NewsMax, Town Hall, and The National Review magazines, all of which have been vocal about the so-called danger but wouldn't explain why there's anything to it..
Meanwhile, the so-called examples of how Sharia Law is already being used in American courts are frauds. Take a look at them and you find out what they're talking about are arbitrations -- not trials under civil or criminal law. And two parties in an arbitration can agree to be bound by Star Fleet regulations without crossing the Constitution.
This includes the most recent so-called example of Sharia law being imposed on America, in Tampa, where in late March a judge ruled that Sharia could be applied in an arbitration over money between two parties--from the same mosque--only to be overruled the next day by a higher court. That event triggered a frenzy in the right wing blogosphere -- all, oddly, written almost exactly the same way.
The same goes for the so-called 85 Sharia Courts in England that are often raised as an example of how bad things already are: These are arbitration panels, conducted under the authority of the British courts -- not Sharia law courts.
And in fact, similar arrangements are a long-standing commonplace in America jurisprudence -- all of them operating under the authority of state and federal laws.
Until the 1920s, for instance, the legal system of the entire state of Utah was largely conducted in Bishop's Courts, operating under the authority of the Church of Latter Day Saints -- courts that are still in use in more limited ways. Native American reservations -- actually, sovereign nations -- govern themselves. So do religious communities like Kiryas Joel in Orange County, N.Y., a home to the Satmar sect of Hasidic Jews.
So what are Gaffney and friends talking about? No one knows, really. But that hasn't stopped 15 laws forbidding international laws, including Sharia Law, from being put before state legislatures and the US House of Representatives.
That count includes Duncan's Oklahoma law, which he called "...a first strike" to prevent something he admitted had never happened. That law was approved by 72 percent of Oklahoma voters in a referendum last November, but was then ruled unconstitutional under the First Amendment. It's now on appeal.
In response to that objection the anti-Sharia folks merely edited their language to forbid international law from being considered in US courts and dropping the Sharia reference. This includes one before the US House of Representatives, H.R. 973, proposed by Florida's Sandy Adams, whose office didn't return calls requesting comment.
There's only one problem here: Modern business is international, the parties to a contract can choose which laws govern their contract, and typically in any international deal, the laws that govern a contract include foreign laws.
So if, say, an Oklahoma company wanted to sell something to a company in Kuwait, Kuwati law could apply--and be honored in American courts, All these laws would do, says Avery Katz, who teaches contract law at Columbia Law School, is force the parties to conduct their business elsewhere--probably London, where the problem wouldn't exist. But, he adds, this could add extra costs to the deal, which could kill it altogether.
So, what's up here? You have to assume these lawmakers are smart guys. Certainly, Frank Gaffney and his ilk are smart guys. They have to know that as far as this issue goes, there's no there there. So why are they bothering?
Well, ginning up an empty issue like this does several things for them.
One is the reality of the news business. Even in the 24-hour news cycle, there's only 24 hours in a day, and every minute or column inch spent covering this is a minute or column inch not spent covering, say, how lobbyists are gutting the Dodds-Frank Bill and leaving the American financial system vulnerable to another disaster like 2007-2008.
Then there's the politics. "It's clearly an effort to stir the pot and keep the noise level up," says Matt Duss, a policy analyst with the Center for American Progress. "They just have to keep people freaked out about this even though they know it can never happen, and the Democrats have to respond."
And then, there's the money. Right wing politics is a business with a simple business plan: Sell people the idea they're under imminent threat, tell them you're fighting to stop it, and ask them for money. It's worked like a charm for the National Rifle Association.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-reinbach/sharia-law-threat-just-th_b_848975.html
But you'd never know that from what's pouring out of outfits like Gaffney's Center for Security Policy, from Fox News or from right-wing bloggers across the land, all of whom say the threat is real -- real enough to spawn 15 proposed state and federal laws against it.
Here's how Gaffney described what he calls the threat to the New York Senate's Homeland Security and Military Affairs Committee on April 8th: ."The threat...is best described, I believe, as a politico-legal-military threat whose express purpose is to have it imposed world-wide, subject to a theocratic ruler called a Caliph. That is of course a program that is completely at odds with our Constitution, our form of government, our way of life, our freedoms."
I'll admit that sounds pretty grim. Even if it does seem a lot like the threat of Global Communism I used to hear about as a kid.
The truth? Sharia is religious law, and no religious law can be imposed on the US without amending the Constitution -- twice -- to repeal both the opening clause of the First Amendment, and the Supremacy Clause in Article 6.
So how can Sharia Law be imposed on the US? No one seems to know. Or at least, nobody who's pushing the claim would talk to me about it, though they seemed eager to tell me how bad it would be.
These non-talkers included Gaffney's COO, Christina Brim, who even came to the phone to tell me she wouldn't talk to me; Rex Duncan, who sponsored an Oklahoma law last year forbidding Sharia Law from being used in the state; Newt Gingrich (famously afraid of "Islamic atheists"); the Thomas More Center; and NewsMax, Town Hall, and The National Review magazines, all of which have been vocal about the so-called danger but wouldn't explain why there's anything to it..
Meanwhile, the so-called examples of how Sharia Law is already being used in American courts are frauds. Take a look at them and you find out what they're talking about are arbitrations -- not trials under civil or criminal law. And two parties in an arbitration can agree to be bound by Star Fleet regulations without crossing the Constitution.
This includes the most recent so-called example of Sharia law being imposed on America, in Tampa, where in late March a judge ruled that Sharia could be applied in an arbitration over money between two parties--from the same mosque--only to be overruled the next day by a higher court. That event triggered a frenzy in the right wing blogosphere -- all, oddly, written almost exactly the same way.
The same goes for the so-called 85 Sharia Courts in England that are often raised as an example of how bad things already are: These are arbitration panels, conducted under the authority of the British courts -- not Sharia law courts.
And in fact, similar arrangements are a long-standing commonplace in America jurisprudence -- all of them operating under the authority of state and federal laws.
Until the 1920s, for instance, the legal system of the entire state of Utah was largely conducted in Bishop's Courts, operating under the authority of the Church of Latter Day Saints -- courts that are still in use in more limited ways. Native American reservations -- actually, sovereign nations -- govern themselves. So do religious communities like Kiryas Joel in Orange County, N.Y., a home to the Satmar sect of Hasidic Jews.
So what are Gaffney and friends talking about? No one knows, really. But that hasn't stopped 15 laws forbidding international laws, including Sharia Law, from being put before state legislatures and the US House of Representatives.
That count includes Duncan's Oklahoma law, which he called "...a first strike" to prevent something he admitted had never happened. That law was approved by 72 percent of Oklahoma voters in a referendum last November, but was then ruled unconstitutional under the First Amendment. It's now on appeal.
In response to that objection the anti-Sharia folks merely edited their language to forbid international law from being considered in US courts and dropping the Sharia reference. This includes one before the US House of Representatives, H.R. 973, proposed by Florida's Sandy Adams, whose office didn't return calls requesting comment.
There's only one problem here: Modern business is international, the parties to a contract can choose which laws govern their contract, and typically in any international deal, the laws that govern a contract include foreign laws.
So if, say, an Oklahoma company wanted to sell something to a company in Kuwait, Kuwati law could apply--and be honored in American courts, All these laws would do, says Avery Katz, who teaches contract law at Columbia Law School, is force the parties to conduct their business elsewhere--probably London, where the problem wouldn't exist. But, he adds, this could add extra costs to the deal, which could kill it altogether.
So, what's up here? You have to assume these lawmakers are smart guys. Certainly, Frank Gaffney and his ilk are smart guys. They have to know that as far as this issue goes, there's no there there. So why are they bothering?
Well, ginning up an empty issue like this does several things for them.
One is the reality of the news business. Even in the 24-hour news cycle, there's only 24 hours in a day, and every minute or column inch spent covering this is a minute or column inch not spent covering, say, how lobbyists are gutting the Dodds-Frank Bill and leaving the American financial system vulnerable to another disaster like 2007-2008.
Then there's the politics. "It's clearly an effort to stir the pot and keep the noise level up," says Matt Duss, a policy analyst with the Center for American Progress. "They just have to keep people freaked out about this even though they know it can never happen, and the Democrats have to respond."
And then, there's the money. Right wing politics is a business with a simple business plan: Sell people the idea they're under imminent threat, tell them you're fighting to stop it, and ask them for money. It's worked like a charm for the National Rifle Association.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-reinbach/sharia-law-threat-just-th_b_848975.html
Friday, May 6, 2011
Mosque bombing suspect shot dead in confrontation with FBI in Oklahoma
It will be interesting to see how much attention this case receives on, say, Fox News. Considerably less than if it had been a Muslim suspected of carrying out a bombing who had been shot by the FBI, I’ll bet.
WJXT Jacksonville, 4 May 2011
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A St. Johns County man wanted in the bombing of a Jacksonville mosque was shot and killed Wednesday when he pulled a weapon as agents tried to serve an arrest warrant in northwest Oklahoma, FBI officials said.
Sandlin Matthew Smith, 46, was suspected of setting off a pipe bomb at the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida nearly one year ago.
Investigators said Smith had been on the run for the last few days after acquaintances of Smith, both in northeast Florida and out of the area, tipped them off that he was involved in the mosque bombing and was in Oklahoma.
FBI Special Agent Jeff Wescott said agents learned late Tuesday that Smith was staying in a tent in a park in the rugged foothills of the Glass Mountains, near Fairview, in northwest Oklahoma.
“During the overnight hours, the Oklahoma City FBI SWAT team, along with the assistance of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, set up a perimeter around the area,” Wescott said.
Agents said that Smith refused to surrender and pulled out a firearm. Agents opened fire and killed Smith, FBI officials said. The agents involved weren’t injured.
Wescott said Smith was carrying an AK-47 when he was killed. Authorities found remnants of a crude pipe bomb at the scene, and shrapnel from the blast was found a hundred yards away.
Smith was facing several federal charges, including damage to religious property and possession of a destructive device, in connection with the May 10, 2010, bombing.
Source : islamophobiatoday
If video is not working then Watch Oklahoma coverage of event Here
WJXT Jacksonville, 4 May 2011
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A St. Johns County man wanted in the bombing of a Jacksonville mosque was shot and killed Wednesday when he pulled a weapon as agents tried to serve an arrest warrant in northwest Oklahoma, FBI officials said.
Sandlin Matthew Smith, 46, was suspected of setting off a pipe bomb at the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida nearly one year ago.
Investigators said Smith had been on the run for the last few days after acquaintances of Smith, both in northeast Florida and out of the area, tipped them off that he was involved in the mosque bombing and was in Oklahoma.
FBI Special Agent Jeff Wescott said agents learned late Tuesday that Smith was staying in a tent in a park in the rugged foothills of the Glass Mountains, near Fairview, in northwest Oklahoma.
“During the overnight hours, the Oklahoma City FBI SWAT team, along with the assistance of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, set up a perimeter around the area,” Wescott said.
Agents said that Smith refused to surrender and pulled out a firearm. Agents opened fire and killed Smith, FBI officials said. The agents involved weren’t injured.
Wescott said Smith was carrying an AK-47 when he was killed. Authorities found remnants of a crude pipe bomb at the scene, and shrapnel from the blast was found a hundred yards away.
Smith was facing several federal charges, including damage to religious property and possession of a destructive device, in connection with the May 10, 2010, bombing.
Source : islamophobiatoday
If video is not working then Watch Oklahoma coverage of event Here
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The Ongoing Plot To Creat Greater Israel
"Greater Israel"--from the Nile to the Euphrates--from the Bible, of course..
"Our task consists of preparing the Israeli army for the new war approaching in order to achieve our ultimate goal, the creation of an Israeli empire." -Moshe Dayan, 1952, Israeli Defense (War) Ministerby Zen Gardner
Yes, this U.S.-hosted parasitic pagan creation of the Illuminati called Is-ra-el (read Is=Isis, Ra=sun god, El=Saturn deity) is working to metastasize in order to so-called "fulfill a promise given to Abraham", their purported ancestor.
Hebrew scholar Levnoch Osman said when defining the aims of Zionism:
"In our eternal Book of Books (the Torah), the lofty ethical teachings of which are cherished by all mankind [give me a break-Z], the land of Israel is described not as a long, narrow strip of land with wavy, crooked borders, but as a state with broad natural borders. God has promised to Patriarch Abraham the following:
"I give unto them the land where they have sown their seed, from the river of Egypt unto the great river of Euphrates’ (Genesis 15:18). And so, in order to realize the words of this prophecy, the Israeli state had to continue, not in the borders it has today but within its broad historical boundaries."Right. Might start to have an argument if you were "Abraham's seed", if you even believe the origins of that "promise".
Who are these people that claim to be so special?
Future IDF Chief of Staff, Moshe Dayan, as a 'Noter' and wearing a metal emblem of the 'Ghaffir' (early Zionist police force) on his Slavic kolpak hat. Clear Turkish and East European derivation.
Let's look at some true history you'll never get in school today.
The vast majority of people who call themselves Jews today are Ashkenazi Jews. Unlike the Sephardim, who are Jews descended by blood through Abraham, the Ashkenazim are actually a Turkic people descended from Khazars who had converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages, prior to their westward migrations centuries later into eastern and central Europe and eventually on to Palestine. This, in a nutshell, is the main theme of Arthur Koestler's book The Thirteenth Tribe.Looks like we're back to square one, as their answer to this and any challenge on any level is always ultimately the same old accusatory mantra that's been deliberately burned into the human psyche and sends the sheeple running for cover:
The Turkic roots of the Ashkenazim undermine their claims of entitlement in the Holy Land according to scriptures in the Holy Bible. And so the very idea that most modern day "Israelis" are not even of the blood of Abraham is considered a national security threat to the Zionist state because their pretensions of being racial heirs of the Almighty's promises and blessings to Abraham have been annihilated by an extensive historical record.
"ANTI-SEMITE!"
Another problem--they're not Semites either.
In spite of all this screaming, Zionists are the true anti-semites, murdering their truly Semitic Palestinian population for decades. They even persecute their own minority of true Sephardic Jews of Israel, many of whom are anti-Zionist. Remember, there's a difference between a Jew and a Zionist. Many Zionists are not Jews, and many Jews are not Zionists. They use their "Jewishness" for a cover, to the serious detriment of the very ethnic group they supposedly champion, the sly devils.
So too, the term "anti-semitism" is rendered void of meaning and useless, at least insofar as it is employed by the Turkic Ashkenazim as propaganda. Ironically, their Palestinian Arab victims are real Semites along with the Sephardic Jews, Arabs in general and a few other groups, all of the blood of Abraham. At best, the Turkic Khazar-derived Ashkenazim are very long lost cousins of the Semitic folk, and have limited commonality with them in their genes along with the common house-fly and a host of other creatures of the Almighty's vast creation. (source)
Israel Born and Bathed in Blood
Israel's history, both old and new, is bathed in blood. More insidious, Zionist Talmudic teachings and doctrines tell its adherents that they are superior to all others, and that killing the inferior "goyim" is completely justified and nothing to feel any compunction about.They will do anything, commit any atrocity, and all in the name of Zionism. But no, no. To question them is to commit the most heinous act of treason against humanity.
Talk about reversing the truth. And all this has been engineered by decades of propaganda.
“The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief” -Jacques Ellui
The Plot Towards 'Greater Israel'
The author of the following point wrote about these things in 1968. Since then, to make things worse, warring Israel has amassed billions of dollars of US-supplied state of the art weaponry including a huge nuclear arsenal--all while screaming about its neighbors being the threat. Typical.By guile, treachery and bloodletting, the Zionists plot to annex all of Jordan, virtually all of Syria, half of Iraq and a large part of Saudi Arabia and all of the rich cotton lands of the Nile Valley. It would be a simpler matter then to grab Yemen, Aden, Muscat, Qatar and Oman with their rich oil development. Israel is already well advanced in the development of its first nuclear warhead. Source
Enter Egypt and Libya
Let's look at this map of "greater Israel". Remember, Libya just west of Egypt is considered the gateway to Egypt throughout history, while Egypt is considered the heart of the Arab world.
Here's Libya's very strategic position. I wonder why the NWO is invading? Gain, or neutralize with "friendly governments", these territories and the rest will follow.
The U.S. is already occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia is an American/Zionist puppet, as is Jordan. Lebanon's been neutered and Syria surrounded.
All while well-armed, American-backed and UN sanctioned Israel is smack in the middle causing all the problems.
Now let's see where the U.S. air and military bases are...
Looks like their imaginary boundaries are moving even farther east...
Over 50 U.S. airbases...insane...and this was in 2008! Remember, the U.S. is Israeli Zionism's puppet so you can pretty much count that Israeli territory in the making in a sense. The US and Israel have become one and the same. Just ask a fundamentalist Zionist Christian who's proud to send American youth to die for this mythical cause.How bamboozled can you get.
Iran clearly in the way
Let's see how the U.S. was positioned even then to wage war on Iran. The days are counting down.
U.S. military bases circa 2008. Imagine now, plus the US Fleet
Is "Greater Israel" just another smokescreen justification?
Perhaps the Zionists are using this "Greater Israel" concept as an interim step of some sort. It certainly works the same old religious guilt justification synapses that rallies Zionist Jews and brain-washed conservative Christians alike. Hell, "God told me do it. Expand, dammit!" (Isn't that was mass murderers often say? Just ask the Jesuits--same wicked credo as Mossad.)
Nothing like a "Holy Crusade" to get the blood flowing.
As is the case with all of these manufactured myths and ideologies such as the "chosen people", the idea of a "greater Israel" is in effect nothing new. It's really just another excuse to keep striking out, another Zionist religious smokescreen to justify anything and everything Zionist.
And they'll stop at nothing, including staged terrorist events which they've done for decades, their greatest feat to date being 9/11. But we're not done yet.
(And no, they don't need to inhabit these lands for them to be Israeli, any more than Romans had to populate the lands ruled by Caesar.)
But it does add to the justification to keep arming themselves to the teeth. Much like the U.S. fake "cold war" threat to arm themselves for this world-wide takeover, and now the phony war on terror to justify the NWO militarization and clampdown on their real enemy--the world population.
Epilogue
The U.S. is the main military arm of the NWO, at least for now. They answer to the globalist cabal of which Zionism is an integral part, for occult, satanic reasons. A nasty bloodline runs strong among the Khazarian Ashkenazis, but it is not the only powerful bloodline lineage, such as that of the European so-called royals running through history right on down to today's monarchies, premiers and American presidents.
The march towards global domination by these elites is on. It is accelerating, and we're seeing the outcropping of these powerful forces at work in the Middle East, concurrent to a manipulated global financial meltdown, drastic earth changes, and a worldwide societal awakening happening in parallel.
But don't hand me this BS that these are God's Chosen people. These wicked Zionists don't even believe in a true creator God...they believe in lust, power, hate and greed. Many well intentioned people, Jews and non-Jews, are deceived by this ploy.
But don't you be deceived-- these full blown Zionist manipulators advancing this phony cause are Satan's own spawn with nothing but the worst of intentions for humanity.
"By their fruits shall you know them." - Jesus
Case in point: Horrific "anti-personnel" weapons being unleashed on defenseless Palestinians
They will reap what they sow. The law of karma cannot be escaped.Please do your part to help expose them and the NWO agenda and bring the light of Truth to the world.
by Zen Gardner at beforeitsnews.com
-Zen
www.zengardner.com
-Zen
www.zengardner.com
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Assad forms new Syrian government
Assad also ordered the release of hundreds of protesters detained over the past couple of weeks but said those who committed crimes "against the nation and the citizens" would remain in jail.
Adel Safar, a former agriculture minister, will lead the new government while veteran diplomat Walid al-Moualem remains as foreign minister, Syria's state news agency reported.
Click here for more of Al Jazeera's special coverage
The announcement follows a deal allowing Syria's army to enter the restive coastal city of Baniyas and claims by human rights groups that several people detained by security forces had been tortured.
The state-run SANA news agency reported that snipers fired on a Syrian military patrol in Baniyas, killing one soldier and wounding another.
"There was a deal on Wednesday between Syrian officials and city residents for the army to enter Baniyas imminently to restore order," Rami Abdel Rahman, president of Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), told AFP by telephone.
"Security agents will refrain from patrolling neighbourhoods to make arrests, and the hundreds of people arrested in Baniyas will be released," he added.
"Elements of armed gangs," some of whom he said were close to security and intelligence services and "have caused unrest in order to create dissension, will be prosecuted", he said.
Al Jazeera's Rula Amin, reporting from Damascus, the capital, said people were waiting to see if the pledge to release all the political prisoners will be fulfilled.
"This is one of the demands of the protesters to release all the prisoners. Also people are watching how the government will be dealing with the protesters in tomorrow's protests," she said.
Celebratory scenes
Our correspondent spoke of a celebratory scene as the Syrian army entered Baniyas.
"People were chanting the people and the army are one; they were throwing rice at them; they were welcoming and celebrating their arrival. The scene there is of a calming tension not escalation, "she said.
She added that "the residents of the town have been fearing these gunmen, four residents have been killed, one soldier was killed today and another one injured".
"According to the government, two days ago nine soldiers were gunned down. So it is a highly volatile situation that the government is trying to contain, and it seems like the people of Baniyas are co-operating and engaging in the government efforts."
Al Jazeera talks to to Marwan Kabalan, a professor of political science, about the latest situation in Syria
Security forces had encircled Baniyas, 280km northwest of Damascus since deadly clashes there on Sunday. Government forces killed at least four people and wounded 17 when they strafed a residential area of the town with gunfire for hours, witnesses said.
Nine soldiers were killed when their patrol was ambushed outside the town, SANA news agency said.
Scores of people were also wounded in the unrest and hundreds reportedly arrested in Baniyas and the nearby village of Baida.
Assad on Thursday appealed for calm in a meeting with a delegation from the city of Daraa, which has been the focal point for anti-government protests.
Our correspondent said: "We spoke to members of the delegation that met with the ... president, and they said that the meeting went well. But they won't elaborate on whether a deal has been reached. It seems like there are some fine details that need to be worked out."
Protests demands
Amin said the protesters had told the president to give them a deadline when their demands will be met.
"Some of their demands are specific to Daraa and others are to do with the rest of Syria [such as] more political freedom, the right to have peaceful protests and the release of all the prisoners that have been detained in the past three months.
"What the government wants is an end to the protests, and even if it acknowledges their right to protest it should be done peacefully. The government wants to put a stop to vandalism and attacks to public property.
"It seems from the people in Daraa that the government is seriously trying to contain [the situation in] Daraa because that is where it all started. If they manage to calm the situation in Daraa, the government believes it will be able to contain the situation throughout Syria."
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/04/201141414535764169.html
US public supports Palestine statehood
It becomes clearer every day that Binyamin Netanyahu's government is terrified by the prospect that the Palestinians are planning to unilaterally declare a state later this year. In fact, it is safe to say that no other proposed Palestinian action has ever shaken up any Israeli government the way that the idea of a unilateral declaration has.
According to Haaretz, Prime Minister Netanyahu is so frightened at the prospect of a Palestinian declaration that he is considering withdrawing Israeli forces (not settlers, of course) from the West Bank as an inducement to prevent the Palestinians from acting:
Netanyahu is weighing a withdrawal of Israel Defence Forces troops from the West Bank and a series of other measures to block the "diplomatic tsunami" that may follow international recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders at the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Netanyahu's fear is well-placed. Here is Haaretz newspaper columnist Ari Shavit describing what would follow a unilateral Palestinian declaration:
At that moment, every Israeli apartment in Jerusalem's French Hill neighbourhood will become illegal. Every military base in the West Bank will be contravening the sovereignty of an independent UN member state. The Palestinians will not be obligated to accept demilitarisation and peace and to recognise the occupation.
That is true. But it is also true that an internationally recognised Palestinian state, with a flag flying at the United Nations, would level the playing field for negotiations.
Ever since Israeli-Palestinian negotiations began in 1993, they have been fundamentally unbalanced. On one side is the most powerful military force in the Middle East, backed to the hilt by the United States. On the other is a stateless people who control no territory, have no military, and are barely surviving economically.
That would change once a Palestinian state is declared. Of course, that new state would be weak and vulnerable, but it would have international law on its side, just as Israel does within the pre-1967 borders.
Diplomatically, the two sides would finally be equal; negotiations between the two sides would be government-to-government, not between a powerful state and a supplicant.
Negotiations would have to take place simply because a Palestinian declaration does not, in and of itself, resolve such issues as mutual security, refugees, Jerusalem, and the rest. It simply ensures that such negotiations would, at long last, be serious.
Of course, a September declaration is no done deal. The Palestinians will first need to achieve unity so that the Palestinian state includes both the West Bank and Gaza.
Although the International Monetary Fund now says that the West Bank alone already could constitute a viable Palestinian state, that is true only economically and not politically. A viable Palestinian state must include Gaza and be contiguous.
Palestinian unity will be difficult to achieve for many reasons, including the deep personal animosity between the leaders of Hamas and Fatah, the two rival Palestinian factions.
An important first step toward unity would be for Hamas to adhere to a full cease-fire with Israel starting now (the last thing the Palestinian Authority wants is to declare a state that is at war with Israel).
In fact, during the past week Hamas has been sending feelers to Israel about ending the violence between the two sides, which Israel has ignored.
It is not that Israel wants the strikes and counter-strikes to continue, it is that Netanyahu and company understand that a permanent cease-fire will foster the Palestinian unity necessary for a declaration of statehood.
In fact, it is beginning to appear that preventing a unilateral declaration is Israel's primary diplomatic goal, one that informs all its policies relating to Palestinians. (For their part, Palestinians view Israel's nervousness about the prospect of a declaration as confirmation that it is precisely the right strategy to achieve a state and peace with Israel.)
Of course, the Obama administration is likely to do everything it can to thwart the Palestinians' plans. AIPAC is already working on congressional letters calling on Obama to stop the declaration and, no doubt, an overwhelming majority of the House and Senate will sign on. (The 2012 election is looming and candidates and incumbents are highly focused on fundraising.)
The good news is that the United States cannot use its veto to prevent Palestinian recognition by the United Nations. For Palestine, as for Israel in 1947, it is the General Assembly that confers statehood and not the Security Council. The administration would have to use the other tools in its kit to thwart the declaration; it has no veto.
On the other hand, maybe, just maybe, the administration will recognise that a unilateral declaration of statehood could be the one device that would achieve its oft-stated goal in the Middle East: "two states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security".
American support for Palestinian state
The American people seem to be getting it. According to a poll released on Monday by the right-wing Israel Project, only 51 per cent of Americans oppose a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence. Fifty four per cent favour a Palestinian state achieved through negotiations.
For those familiar with polling on matters relating to Israelis and Palestinians, the results are startling. The percentage of support for the Israeli position is usually in the high 70s, while support for the Palestinians is in the teens. Suddenly there is a major shift, and this in a poll sponsored by an organisation that clearly did not want to see findings like these.
Perhaps the Obama administration will come around too.
The United States should support the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, followed by serious negotiations. The alternative has been tried over and over again and it always fails.
Why not try something that may actually achieve peace and security for two peoples who, like everyone else, are entitled to it?
It is time for President Obama to deliver on the promise he made in Cairo to use his authority not to defend the deadly status quo but to end it.
MJ Rosenberg is a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network. The above article first appeared in Foreign Policy Matters, a part of the Media Matters Action Network.
You can follow MJ on twitter @MJayRosenberg.
This article was first published by Foreign Policy Matters.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Israel admits it used phosphorus weapons
The Israeli government has admitted that it used controversial phosphorus weapons in its attacks against targets during its month long war in Lebanon this summer.
The chemical can be used in shells, missiles and grenades and causes horrific burning when it comes into contact with human flesh.
White phosphorus (WP) weapons are not forbidden by international law but some human rights groups believe they should be re-classified as chemical weapons and banned.
The Israeli admission was made by the cabinet minister, Jacob Edery, who was questioned on the subject by Zahava Gal-On, a member of the Knesset.
Mr Edery told Ms Gal-On: "The IDF [Israel Defence Force] holds phosphorus munitions in different forms. The IDF made use of phosphorus shells during the war against Hizbullah in attacks against military targets in open ground."
Ms Gal-On said that her original question to the government related to suspicions that Israel has been using experimental weapons in Gaza so she was surprised when she was offered a confirmation that Israel had used phosphorus weapons in Lebanon. "My original question was about the use of Dime [dense inert metal explosives] weapons by Israel in Gaza but instead I was given the answer to a different question," she said. "The use of phosphorus weapons in Lebanon is shocking and unacceptable."
Mr Edery said that the Israeli army uses phosphorus weapons according to the rules of international law. However, there have been numerous reports that Israeli phosphorus munitions injured and killed civilians in Lebanon.
The war began on July 12 when Hizbullah abducted two Israeli soldiers from the Israel-Lebanon border. Israeli forces entered Lebanon in pursuit and launched air strikes on Lebanon. Hizbullah then began firing rockets into northern Israel.
Throughout the war, Israel was accused of using controversial weapons, including WP and cluster munitions against civilian targets. Both sides were accused of war crimes in their attacks on civilians by the human rights group, Human Rights Watch.
Unexploded cluster bombs in Lebanon have regularly killed and maimed civilians since the end of the war. Rami Ali Hussein Shibly, 12, was killed and his nine-year-old brother brother, Khodr, injured yesterday by a cluster bomb as they picked olives in Halta. He was 21st person to be killed by the bomblets since the fighting ended.
WP is used by armies for producing smoke screens and as an incendiary. The phosphorus ignites on contact with air and gives off a thick smoke. If the chemical touches skin it will continue to burn until it reaches the bone unless deprived of oxygen.
Many soldiers believe that white phosphorous grenades are more effective in clearing buildings than those that use high explosive because they are more likely to disable the targets.
Amir Peretz, the Israeli defence minister said yesterday that Israel would continue to carry out reconnaissance flights over Lebanon because Hizbullah continues to smuggle arms from Syria. The United Nations has criticised Israel for its continued violations of Lebanese air space
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/23/israel
Army Bombards Gaza, One Resident Wounded
Three consecutive air strikes were carried out against the “tunnels area” along the Gaza-Egypt border, in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
At first, the Air force fired several missiles at a siege-busting tunnel in Yibna refugee camp, in Rafah.
Shortly afterwards, the Air Force carried out two consecutive air strikes targeting areas near Salah ed-Deen Gate and al-Barazil neighborhood in Rafah. One resident was wounded and was moved to Abu Youssef Al Najjar Hospital, in Rafah.
The third attack was carried out when the Air Force fired at least one missile at an open area, east of al-Zeitoun neighborhood, south of Gaza city; damage was reported, no injuries.
On Wednesday at dawn, Israeli soldiers invaded several areas in the occupied West Bank, broke into and searched several homes and kidnapped three residents from the central West Bank city of Ramallah, and from Jenin, in the northern part of the West Bank.
Soldiers also installed several roadblocks and searched dozens of vehicles while inspecting the ID card of the drivers and the passengers.
http://www.imemc.org/article/61016?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Libyan rebels, hoping for one state, prepare for two
BENGHAZI, Libya — "One Libya, with Tripoli as its capital" is spray-painted on walls around this rebel city and glides off the tongues of opposition leaders. Moammar Gaddafi will fall in a week, they predict, two at the most, and they’ll build a new country then.
But as weeks stretch into months and progress on the battlefield stalls, this rebel-held area of Libya is settling into its status as a de facto separate state.
Since the February uprising that ended Gaddafi’s rule here, schools and many businesses have remained closed. But police are back on the streets, hospitals are functioning and shops are slowly reopening. Behind the scenes, opposition leaders are feverishly courting international partners as they work to set up a political and economic system for a period of division that some quietly admit may stretch on indefinitely.
A tanker arrived in the rebel-held port of Tobruk on Tuesday to load oil for export, the first time that has happened in nearly three weeks. Although it is unclear whether the rebels will be able to export enough oil to keep the east afloat economically, the tanker’s arrival marked a symbolic step in the rebels’ journey from accidental revolutionaries to governors and statesmen.
Also on Tuesday, rebel leaders for the first time welcomed to Benghazi an official U.S. envoy, who is here both to meet opposition leaders and provide assistance to the fledgling council that runs affairs in the east. [Story on A11.]
For the United States and other Western powers, the rebel efforts to build the rudiments of a nation in eastern Libya reflect the reality of a military stalemate — one in which NATO could be ensnared for months or more.
"We don’t like it, we don’t want it, but this scenario might happen," said Fathi Baja, the rebels’ head of international affairs.
When the uprising began, "people didn’t have a slight idea of what they wanted to do, other than that they knew they wanted Gaddafi to go," Baja said. "Now, as we start to create some political entities here and there, and we try to start some economic life and create an army, we find ourselves in another stage, and we understand that it might take a little time."
It is no small task. During nearly 42 years of rule by Gaddafi, economic and political power was entrenched in Tripoli and civil society was virtually nonexistent. The east, which had long been resistant to Gaddafi’s rule, was badly neglected.
"The whole of Libya is living in the Middle Ages," said opposition spokeswoman Iman Bugaighis, "but especially the east."
Mustafa Gheriani, an opposition spokesman, said that when Gaddafi’s forces pulled out amid the uprising, "we thought it would be like Egypt — that we have ministries, we have an institution that was running. And we found that there was nothing."
Now, the Transitional National Council — composed of 31 representatives, nominated by each of the towns in the east — is responsible for creating a political, economic and military infrastructure from scratch, a task complicated by the fact that a war is going on just a couple of hours’ drive away.
The council includes a crisis management team, which functions as a cabinet. Many of its members have lived abroad, including an economics minister who abruptly left his position as a University of Washington professor in February.
The team is learning as it goes, and putting out fires almost daily. This week, team members dealt with a spat between the rebels’ top military leaders as well as an attack on an oilfield that the rebels are counting on for revenue. They also hosted diplomats from Italy, which formally recognized the rebels on Monday, and from Great Britain, which they hope will follow. France and Qatar have already recognized the rebels as Libya’s legitimate government.
With plans to draft a constitution and electoral laws, opposition leaders are consulting with experts in the United States and Europe. The leaders say they want a democratic system, including freedom of expression, multiple political parties and an independent judiciary.
On Monday the economics minister, Ali Tarhouni, presented a $1.5 billion, four-month budget that includes salaries for soldiers and civil employees. For such a budget to be sustainable, the east will need to start selling from its ample oil fields.
Libya has long relied on oil, and the rebel government is working hard to resume exports. Qatar has agreed to market the oil, but Libya’s Central Bank and National Oil Corporation were hit with U.N. sanctions last month because of associations with Gaddafi’s family. The rebels have asked the United Nations to exempt them from the sanctions, arguing that both entities have split from Tripoli’s version, though they have retained their names in anticipation of reunification.
Until then, the proceeds will go into an escrow account and the opposition will withdraw them in the form of food, medicine and other humanitarian aid, which would not violate the sanctions, Tarhouni said.
Even if sanctions are lifted, it is unclear whether rebel-controlled oil will be sufficient to sustain this region, which is home to roughly 2 million people. Before the uprising, the country was producing 1.6 million barrels a day. Now, the rebels claim to be producing 100,000 to 130,000.
"It’s not enough," Baja said.
Although the bulk of Libya’s oil riches lie in fields in the central or eastern parts of the country, the biggest export terminals have been trading hands in the fighting. Ports at Ras Lanuf, Brega and Es Sider are either beyond the rebels’ grasp or too heavily contested to be useful to their cause. The tanker that arrived for loading Tuesday came in at Tobruk, which is safely in rebel hands but has limited ability to export.
"They have been talking about larger volumes, but I don’t think they can do that," said Greg Priddy, an oil analyst at the Eurasia Group.
"The bottom line is, this is a trickle. This isn’t enough to move the needle on the world oil market," Priddy added. "But it is a substantial amount of money for the provisional government." At today’s prices, he said, rebel leaders could earn about $100 million a month, enough to buy some basic foodstuffs.
One fact that simplifies shipments from Tobruk: The oil is likely coming from the Sarir field, which is operated by Libyans, not foreigners. That means production can proceed without outside companies.
But on Monday a facility that feeds oil to Tobruk was sabotaged, presumably by Gaddafi’s forces. The damage to production has not yet been assessed, but the attack underscored the east’s fragility. For now its leaders live in semi-hiding, with bodyguards and safe houses, and the east is dependent on NATO airstrikes to keep Gaddafi’s forces at bay.
The rebels’ plans, whether for what will be one state or two, include a more diverse economy. Until now, 96 percent of Libya’s revenue has come from oil; leaders here say they would like to add tourism, agriculture and solar energy.
"Libya will never be a superpower economically," Tarhouni said. "It will be a small, independent state, democratic, somewhat diversified."
- bahrampourt@washpost.com
Staff writer Steven Mufson in Washington contributed to this report.
http://uruknet.info/?p=m76566&fb=1
Jewish guerrillas told British: quit Palestine or die
Fighters were led by future Israeli premier Marcus Leroux A pamphlet warning Britons to leave the Middle East or face death has come to light in a stash of illicit propaganda.
The document does not hail from Basra or Baghdad, nor was it penned by the Islamists of al-Qaeda or the al-Mahdi Army. It was found in Haifa, about 60 years ago, and it was issued by the underground group led by Menachem Begin – the future Prime Minister of Israel and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
The document, which surfaced at an auction house this week, is addressed to “the soldiers of the occupation army” and aimed at British soldiers serving in Palestine, then under the British Mandate, preceding the establishment of Israel in 1948. The print has faded and the paper has discoloured since it was unearthed from a grove of trees in Haifa in the summer of 1947. Yet the language and the concerns remain current.
Bombings and murders by underground groups, such as Begin’s Irgun, hastened the British withdrawal and the United Nations declaration that led to the founding of modern Israel.
Irgun propaganda targeted the British Army’s wavering morale, already dented by the bomb attack on the Mandate’s headquarters – the King David Hotel in Jerusalem – which killed 91 people.
In the document, Irgun tells British troops: “It is unavoidable that many Jewish soldiers and many British soldiers should fall. And it is only fair that these people know at least why they may be killed.”
It adds: “Most of you have been in this country for quite a long time. You have learned what the word ‘terrorist’ means, some of you may even have come into direct contact with them (and heartily desire not to repeat the experience). But what do you know about them? Why does a young man go underground?”
It then draws a parallel with what would have happened if, seven years earlier, Britain had been overrun by Nazi Germany. “Remember 1940. Then it seemed quite possible that your island country would be conquered and subjugated by Hitler hordes . . . what would you have done? Would you have gone underground?” The pamphlet says that the occupation is “illegal and immoral” and “parallel to the mass assassination of a whole people”, in language that echoes that used on a note pinned to the booby-trapped bodies of two British intelligence officers executed by Irgun that same summer.
The pamphlet came from a stash confiscated and burnt by cyptographers from the Royal Signals regiment. Corporal Raymond Smith found them buried in a secluded grove marked by a white Star of David and was ordered to destroy them, but took one as a memento. A collector acquired the document from Corporal Smith, and brought it to Mullock’s auctioneers in Shropshire.
Richard Westwood-Brookes, Mullock’s historical documents specialist, said the pamphlet was a remarkable find, which “ amounted to a manifesto for terrorist action”. He added: “It also raises the question as to who are ‘terrorists’ and who are ‘freedom fighters’. It’s a debate which raged through the troubles of Northern Ireland and continues in the Middle East.”
Begin’s Irgun set aside its differences with Haganah, a rival underground Jewish group led by David Ben Gurion – the first Prime Minister of Israel, who once likened Begin to Adolf Hitler.
Begin forged a political career as a hardliner, but, after becoming Prime Minister, signed the Camp David agreement with Egypt in 1979.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4360655.ece
The document does not hail from Basra or Baghdad, nor was it penned by the Islamists of al-Qaeda or the al-Mahdi Army. It was found in Haifa, about 60 years ago, and it was issued by the underground group led by Menachem Begin – the future Prime Minister of Israel and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
The document, which surfaced at an auction house this week, is addressed to “the soldiers of the occupation army” and aimed at British soldiers serving in Palestine, then under the British Mandate, preceding the establishment of Israel in 1948. The print has faded and the paper has discoloured since it was unearthed from a grove of trees in Haifa in the summer of 1947. Yet the language and the concerns remain current.
Bombings and murders by underground groups, such as Begin’s Irgun, hastened the British withdrawal and the United Nations declaration that led to the founding of modern Israel.
Irgun propaganda targeted the British Army’s wavering morale, already dented by the bomb attack on the Mandate’s headquarters – the King David Hotel in Jerusalem – which killed 91 people.
In the document, Irgun tells British troops: “It is unavoidable that many Jewish soldiers and many British soldiers should fall. And it is only fair that these people know at least why they may be killed.”
It adds: “Most of you have been in this country for quite a long time. You have learned what the word ‘terrorist’ means, some of you may even have come into direct contact with them (and heartily desire not to repeat the experience). But what do you know about them? Why does a young man go underground?”
It then draws a parallel with what would have happened if, seven years earlier, Britain had been overrun by Nazi Germany. “Remember 1940. Then it seemed quite possible that your island country would be conquered and subjugated by Hitler hordes . . . what would you have done? Would you have gone underground?” The pamphlet says that the occupation is “illegal and immoral” and “parallel to the mass assassination of a whole people”, in language that echoes that used on a note pinned to the booby-trapped bodies of two British intelligence officers executed by Irgun that same summer.
The pamphlet came from a stash confiscated and burnt by cyptographers from the Royal Signals regiment. Corporal Raymond Smith found them buried in a secluded grove marked by a white Star of David and was ordered to destroy them, but took one as a memento. A collector acquired the document from Corporal Smith, and brought it to Mullock’s auctioneers in Shropshire.
Richard Westwood-Brookes, Mullock’s historical documents specialist, said the pamphlet was a remarkable find, which “ amounted to a manifesto for terrorist action”. He added: “It also raises the question as to who are ‘terrorists’ and who are ‘freedom fighters’. It’s a debate which raged through the troubles of Northern Ireland and continues in the Middle East.”
Begin’s Irgun set aside its differences with Haganah, a rival underground Jewish group led by David Ben Gurion – the first Prime Minister of Israel, who once likened Begin to Adolf Hitler.
Begin forged a political career as a hardliner, but, after becoming Prime Minister, signed the Camp David agreement with Egypt in 1979.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4360655.ece
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