ALSO SEE: "Parliamentary panel gives legal opinion on UK participation in CIA extraordinary renditions"
• Responsibility 'remains with British troops'
• Risks could lead to ban on rendition
By Duncan Campbell
www.guardian.co.uk
September 29 2008
British troops who hand over prisoners in Iraq to US military personnel could find themselves facing prosecution, according to a legal opinion compiled for parliament. The finding has led to calls for the British government to rethink its current policy and investigate how the US treats its prisoners, and whether torture is employed against them.
Earlier this year the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition sought legal opinion from Michael Fordham QC on whether a human rights violation would arise under the European convention on human rights (ECHR) and the 1998 Human Rights Act (HRA) if an individual in British detention in Iraq were handed over to US military personnel, "despite substantial grounds for considering that there is a real risk of that person being subjected to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment".
The conclusion reached by Fordham and his colleague Tom Hickman is that an offence would definitely have been committed. If acted on, the opinion could mean that UK troops would not be allowed to "render" detainees to the US military until it was clear that they would no longer face the possibility of torture or ill-treatment.
What prompted the inquiry was a statement made in February this year by Ben Griffin, a former SAS soldier who was on active service in Iraq. In his statement, Griffin said that he was "in no doubt" that individuals handed over to the US military "would be tortured". He cited what had happened to those detained at Guantánamo Bay, Bagram airbase and Abu Ghraib prison.
The opinion adds: "UK forces operating in Iraq are potentially also subject to UK criminal law, tort law and Iraqi law. Notably, the Criminal Justice Act 1988 makes it a criminal offence for a public official, whatever his nationality and wherever located, to commit an act of torture."
Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee which commissioned the report, said there had been a number of allegations that UK forces had been capturing people and handing them over to US authorities, knowing that these detainees were at risk of being tortured or mistreated.
"I commissioned a legal opinion to establish whether the UK acted unlawfully when they were handed over," said Tyrie. "I now have the answer. The UK remains legally responsible for the subsequent treatment of anybody who has been detained by the UK. It is likely that British policy on this area is not only ethically questionable but is also unlawful. The government now needs to radically rethink its policy on this issue."
Clive Stafford Smith, director of the legal action charity Reprieve, also welcomed the findings. "We are delighted that the all-party parliamentary group has recognised the illegality of British troops handing over prisoners to US custody in Iraq, " he said. "These prisoners promptly disappear into an unaccountable prison network in which over 20,000 prisoners are held for illegal interrogation and torture. If it is confirmed that this has been happening, the British government must immediately reveal how many people have been handed over, where they are now, and what has been done to them."
Paul Marsh, president of the Law Society, called on the government to investigate what happens to prisoners rendered from British custody. "Extraordinary rendition has been used by some states as a means of bypassing the formal justice system," said Marsh. "To do so is a breach of the rule of law and puts individuals at risk of ill-treatment. The Law Society calls on the UK government to look beyond assurances from other countries and positively investigate and monitor whether individuals rendered from British custody are receiving equivalent standards of due process. It is time we returned to our values in the rule of law."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/sep/29/military.law
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
2006 Reports: Neo-Nazis Infiltrating the US Military
See: "Hate Groups Are Infiltrating the Military, Group Asserts," NYT, July 7, 2006
Hate groups infiltrating the US military
The [SPLC] report cited accounts by neo-Nazis of their infiltration of the military, including a discussion on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront. "There are others among you in the forces," one participant wrote. "You are never alone."
An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units.
The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance's "military unit coordinator."
"Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' "
http://www.poormojo.org/pmjadaily/archives/009493.php
Hate groups infiltrating the US military
The [SPLC] report cited accounts by neo-Nazis of their infiltration of the military, including a discussion on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront. "There are others among you in the forces," one participant wrote. "You are never alone."
An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units.
The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance's "military unit coordinator."
"Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' "
http://www.poormojo.org/pmjadaily/archives/009493.php
Is Sarah Palin a John Birch Society Member?
By Bill Hahn 19 September 2008
http://www.jbs.org/index.php/jbs-news-feed/2995
An interesting event occurred late last night. Politico blogger Ben Smith contacted us to ask if a photo of Sarah Palin showed her with a copy of one of our publications.
Apparently the Palin family had released the photo to AP and the New York Times picked it up for an article last week. Politico was inaccurate in identifying the reprinted article as the cover of the magazine.
Clearly seen in the photo is a reprint of an article from The New American magazine back in 1995, entitled “Con-Con Call” in a three-ring binder in front of her. ...Story continues at the JBS website.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Reinforcing the "Islamo-Fascism" Lie: 'Obsession' DVD is a Scare Tactic
ALSO SEE: "Swift Boat Tactics from Clarion Fund Seem Designed to help McCain Campaign," makkah.wordpress.com, Sept. 17, 2008
" First shown on Fox News during the 2006 mid-term elections and on college campuses, the production shows a long series of unsubstantiated experts equating radical Muslim movements with the German Nazis. ... "
Des Moines Register
SEPTEMBER 28, 2008
We received a copy of a right-wing terror propaganda DVD bundled into our Sept. 14 Sunday Register, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West. I checked out the distributor, the Clarion Fund, and found that it is a New York-based group, an outfit that claims a 501c(3) nonprofit status despite an article recently on its Web site, since removed, that backed Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
We wondered when the scare tactics of the 2004 campaign would return. To coincide with Sept. 11, 28 million copies of the 60-minute film went out bundled with the ads in 70 newspapers in 14 swing states, including Iowa. First shown on Fox News during the 2006 mid-term elections and on college campuses, the production shows a long series of unsubstantiated experts equating radical Muslim movements with the German Nazis.
Despite two mild verbal disclaimers that not all Muslims are radical, there were two printed and verbal "quotes" about Muslim radicals planning to eventually occupy the White House. This is a not-so-subtle tie-in to the ideas behind the hate e-mail frequently passed along over the Internet this past year depicting Barack Obama as a Muslim, along with other supposedly despicable traits.
I would have thought the Register knew better than to pass along such drivel.
- Joann Estle, Washington
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080928/OPINION04/809280312/-1/NEWS04
•••••••
Newspaper-insert DVDs on 'radical Islam' stir up swing states
LA Times
Distribution of the controversial Clarion Fund documentary is pegged to 9/11, not the presidential election, the group says. Some see a 1st Amendment issue.
By DeeDee Correll, Special to The Times
September 28, 2008
Millions of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West were delivered over the last few weeks to homes in states whose votes will be critical in the presidential election, and more will be distributed through early October. Most of the 28 million DVDs were included as advertising inserts in newspapers. Some also were mailed directly to homes.
The campaign by Clarion Fund -- a nonprofit organization founded by filmmaker Raphael Shore "to educate Americans about issues of national security," its website says -- has prompted criticism of the newspapers for distributing what some describe as Muslim-bashing propaganda.
There are also accusations that the group is trying to influence the election in favor of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, cast by some as tougher on terrorism. One Islamic advocacy group recently filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, alleging that Clarion is abusing its tax-exempt status by engaging in politics.
"Any neutral observer would say this is a biased, one-sided, inflammatory portrayal that seeks to portray Muslims and Islam as Nazi-like," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council for American-Islamic Relations, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.
Hooper claims the DVD campaign aims to steer voters toward McCain.
"If you're able to raise the level of fear in the public about terrorism or national security, those people are more likely to skew toward John McCain," he said.
Hooper said he heard reports that some DVD recipients in Ohio also had received automated phone calls referencing the film and saying, "We hope you take it into consideration when you go into the voting booth."
Clarion spokesman Gregory Ross said the group had no involvement in such calls.
Ross called the DVD campaign a nonpartisan effort to show Americans the dangers they face. The timing of the distribution, he said, relates not to the election but to the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"It's a reminder that a 9/11 could happen again, and we need to remember the past," Ross said.
He said the group chose to distribute the DVD in swing states -- including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Michigan, Florida and North Carolina -- because that's where media attention is focused.
"That's where the press is these days, and we want to get the press engaged," Ross said.
Until recently, one Clarion website, RadicalIslam.org, had an article that expressed pro-McCain views. When questioned by the news media, Clarion took the article down. Its inclusion on the site, which has links to a number of articles, was an accident, Ross said.
"There was one article that slipped through the cracks," he said. He said the group had hired an editor to ensure it didn't happen again.
Ross declined to reveal how much Clarion had spent on the DVD campaign, but said it was in the "multimillions." He also would not name donors to the project. Ross said donations had risen sharply since the distributions began. Obsession is Clarion's first project; the nonprofit has financed a second film, The Third Jihad, due out next month.
About 70 newspapers have included or will include Obsession as a paid advertising insert. Of those approached, only a few refused, Ross said.
"We applaud those who have carried it and are willing to stand up to the radical Islamists," he said.
Most newspapers that have accepted the ad insert have defended the decision as a 1st Amendment issue. The Denver Newspaper Agency, which publishes the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News, seeks to "keep access as wide as possible" on issues-driven advertising, said spokesman Jim Nolan. That position doesn't connote support for the content of the ad, he said.
"Our business is to come down on the side of letting opinions be expressed," he said.
The News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., rejected the insert, calling the DVD "fear-mongering and divisive."
"Of course, it's not free speech," wrote the paper’s editor, John Robinson, on his blog.
"It's a paid advertisement making the case for one side of a complicated, controversial issue," he wrote, noting that the other side would go unheard unless it buys its own ads.
He continued: "Newspapers decide not to publish information every day. Most of the time we call it news judgment."
Some readers also haven't accepted newspapers' explanations for distributing the DVD.
"If I paid you to distribute an anti-Semitic DVD, would you be so obliging?" Laurel Thompson wrote in a letter to the editor of the Denver Post, which distributed more than 553,000 copies of the DVD in its Sept. 14 edition. "Or how about a DVD celebrating the courage of [Columbine High School killers] Harris and Klebold?"
Newspapers should not have accepted the advertising, said Marianne Weigand, 50, of Arvada, Colo., who complained to the Rocky Mountain News in a letter to the editor.
If she wanted to watch such a film, she would have sought it out, she said.
"If you're going to send something out, it's a sample of Tylenol, not a movie full of something so violent, something that not everybody wants to watch," Weigand said. "It's propaganda about terrorism. . . . I don't see anybody benefiting from watching that."
When the film was released in 2006, shown primarily on college campuses, its supporters called it eye-opening; opponents called it inflammatory and unfair. The documentary -- which begins with a disclaimer that "most Muslims are peaceful and do not support terrorism" -- draws a parallel between Islam and Nazism and shows images of Sept. 11 and the terrorist bombings in Madrid and London, as well as footage of suicide bombers, children chanting about jihad and crowds railing against America.
Muslims across the United States have expressed anger about the film and concern for their safety. At the Northeast Denver Islamic Center, Imam Abdur-Rahim Ali said the dominant emotion was disappointment.
"People shake their heads and say, 'Here we go, it's election time,' " he said. Though the McCain campaign has denied any involvement, Ali doesn't believe that.
"It's hate-mongering," he said. "I think good American citizens should stand up against that type of behavior. I love my country; I'd fight for it, I'd die for it."
deedee.correll@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/business/la-na-muslimvideo28-2008sep28,0,7890909.story?page=2
" First shown on Fox News during the 2006 mid-term elections and on college campuses, the production shows a long series of unsubstantiated experts equating radical Muslim movements with the German Nazis. ... "
Des Moines RegisterSEPTEMBER 28, 2008
We received a copy of a right-wing terror propaganda DVD bundled into our Sept. 14 Sunday Register, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West. I checked out the distributor, the Clarion Fund, and found that it is a New York-based group, an outfit that claims a 501c(3) nonprofit status despite an article recently on its Web site, since removed, that backed Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
We wondered when the scare tactics of the 2004 campaign would return. To coincide with Sept. 11, 28 million copies of the 60-minute film went out bundled with the ads in 70 newspapers in 14 swing states, including Iowa. First shown on Fox News during the 2006 mid-term elections and on college campuses, the production shows a long series of unsubstantiated experts equating radical Muslim movements with the German Nazis.
Despite two mild verbal disclaimers that not all Muslims are radical, there were two printed and verbal "quotes" about Muslim radicals planning to eventually occupy the White House. This is a not-so-subtle tie-in to the ideas behind the hate e-mail frequently passed along over the Internet this past year depicting Barack Obama as a Muslim, along with other supposedly despicable traits.
I would have thought the Register knew better than to pass along such drivel.
- Joann Estle, Washington
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080928/OPINION04/809280312/-1/NEWS04
•••••••
Newspaper-insert DVDs on 'radical Islam' stir up swing states
LA Times
Distribution of the controversial Clarion Fund documentary is pegged to 9/11, not the presidential election, the group says. Some see a 1st Amendment issue.
By DeeDee Correll, Special to The Times
September 28, 2008
Millions of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West were delivered over the last few weeks to homes in states whose votes will be critical in the presidential election, and more will be distributed through early October. Most of the 28 million DVDs were included as advertising inserts in newspapers. Some also were mailed directly to homes.
The campaign by Clarion Fund -- a nonprofit organization founded by filmmaker Raphael Shore "to educate Americans about issues of national security," its website says -- has prompted criticism of the newspapers for distributing what some describe as Muslim-bashing propaganda.
There are also accusations that the group is trying to influence the election in favor of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, cast by some as tougher on terrorism. One Islamic advocacy group recently filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, alleging that Clarion is abusing its tax-exempt status by engaging in politics.
"Any neutral observer would say this is a biased, one-sided, inflammatory portrayal that seeks to portray Muslims and Islam as Nazi-like," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council for American-Islamic Relations, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.
Hooper claims the DVD campaign aims to steer voters toward McCain.
"If you're able to raise the level of fear in the public about terrorism or national security, those people are more likely to skew toward John McCain," he said.
Hooper said he heard reports that some DVD recipients in Ohio also had received automated phone calls referencing the film and saying, "We hope you take it into consideration when you go into the voting booth."
Clarion spokesman Gregory Ross said the group had no involvement in such calls.
Ross called the DVD campaign a nonpartisan effort to show Americans the dangers they face. The timing of the distribution, he said, relates not to the election but to the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"It's a reminder that a 9/11 could happen again, and we need to remember the past," Ross said.
He said the group chose to distribute the DVD in swing states -- including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Michigan, Florida and North Carolina -- because that's where media attention is focused.
"That's where the press is these days, and we want to get the press engaged," Ross said.
Until recently, one Clarion website, RadicalIslam.org, had an article that expressed pro-McCain views. When questioned by the news media, Clarion took the article down. Its inclusion on the site, which has links to a number of articles, was an accident, Ross said.
"There was one article that slipped through the cracks," he said. He said the group had hired an editor to ensure it didn't happen again.
Ross declined to reveal how much Clarion had spent on the DVD campaign, but said it was in the "multimillions." He also would not name donors to the project. Ross said donations had risen sharply since the distributions began. Obsession is Clarion's first project; the nonprofit has financed a second film, The Third Jihad, due out next month.
About 70 newspapers have included or will include Obsession as a paid advertising insert. Of those approached, only a few refused, Ross said.
"We applaud those who have carried it and are willing to stand up to the radical Islamists," he said.
Most newspapers that have accepted the ad insert have defended the decision as a 1st Amendment issue. The Denver Newspaper Agency, which publishes the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News, seeks to "keep access as wide as possible" on issues-driven advertising, said spokesman Jim Nolan. That position doesn't connote support for the content of the ad, he said.
"Our business is to come down on the side of letting opinions be expressed," he said.
The News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., rejected the insert, calling the DVD "fear-mongering and divisive."
"Of course, it's not free speech," wrote the paper’s editor, John Robinson, on his blog.
"It's a paid advertisement making the case for one side of a complicated, controversial issue," he wrote, noting that the other side would go unheard unless it buys its own ads.
He continued: "Newspapers decide not to publish information every day. Most of the time we call it news judgment."
Some readers also haven't accepted newspapers' explanations for distributing the DVD.
"If I paid you to distribute an anti-Semitic DVD, would you be so obliging?" Laurel Thompson wrote in a letter to the editor of the Denver Post, which distributed more than 553,000 copies of the DVD in its Sept. 14 edition. "Or how about a DVD celebrating the courage of [Columbine High School killers] Harris and Klebold?"
Newspapers should not have accepted the advertising, said Marianne Weigand, 50, of Arvada, Colo., who complained to the Rocky Mountain News in a letter to the editor.
If she wanted to watch such a film, she would have sought it out, she said.
"If you're going to send something out, it's a sample of Tylenol, not a movie full of something so violent, something that not everybody wants to watch," Weigand said. "It's propaganda about terrorism. . . . I don't see anybody benefiting from watching that."
When the film was released in 2006, shown primarily on college campuses, its supporters called it eye-opening; opponents called it inflammatory and unfair. The documentary -- which begins with a disclaimer that "most Muslims are peaceful and do not support terrorism" -- draws a parallel between Islam and Nazism and shows images of Sept. 11 and the terrorist bombings in Madrid and London, as well as footage of suicide bombers, children chanting about jihad and crowds railing against America.
Muslims across the United States have expressed anger about the film and concern for their safety. At the Northeast Denver Islamic Center, Imam Abdur-Rahim Ali said the dominant emotion was disappointment.
"People shake their heads and say, 'Here we go, it's election time,' " he said. Though the McCain campaign has denied any involvement, Ali doesn't believe that.
"It's hate-mongering," he said. "I think good American citizens should stand up against that type of behavior. I love my country; I'd fight for it, I'd die for it."
deedee.correll@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/business/la-na-muslimvideo28-2008sep28,0,7890909.story?page=2
Bush, McCain and the Old Iran-Contra Team
The Gang's All HereBy PAM MARTENS
www.counterpunch.org/
September 17, 2008
The vetting of Sarah Palin for the McCain campaign by an Iran-Contra alumnus brought an epiphany. (See “The Man Who Vetted Palin.") The American people’s inability to control this crime spree we call the Bush administration is not because we’re lazy, narcissistic or willfully blind to human rights violations, as much of the world now views us.
It’s because we’ve been misidentifying this crime spree as “the Bush administration.” What we’re clearly confronting is the Iran-Contra Alumni Association masquerading as the Executive Branch, replete with domestic spying, dark ops, fake journalists, fake news reels, press intimidation, protester arrests, infiltration and torture. Their latest maneuver is the woman with zero foreign policy experience a heart beat from taking that 3 a.m. call. A call which, of course, they’ll answer for her as they have done for Bush II.
We can’t counter this massive operation with Code Pink, despite my undying gratitude for their bravery and brains. We need to give the pink slips to the Iran-Contra gang. We need a full blown Congressional Committee on Corruption in the Federal Government – a truth commission with subpoena power. And we need the hearings to air live, for however long it takes, to get to the bottom of this syndication of crime.
Here’s five top questions the Committee can put on its priority list: did the Iran-Contra gang shake down Bush II for keeping the secrets of Bush I; did Bush II just decide on his own to reward the Iran-Contra gang for not writing tell-all books and for demonstrating they value loyalty over lawfulness. Why did Senator McCain call Iran-Contra central casting to round out his campaign? Why are these lawyers that hold the secrets to Iran-Contra vetting Federal candidates and judges?
Here’s a look at the amazing reemergence of the cast of recycled characters from Iran-Contra days:
Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense: On December 6, 2006, the United States Senate voted 95-2 to confirm Mr. Gates, despite the fact that he occupies a full chapter, Chapter 16, in the “Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters.” Mr. Gates spent 26 years at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). When the Iran arms sales and illegal diversion of funds to the Contras and other unknown pockets were taking place right under his nose, he was the CIA’s deputy director for intelligence (DDI) from 1982 to 1986. Despite his murky history, he was recycled as Director of the CIA by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, who, let’s not forget, was also a former Director of the CIA.
The Independent Counsel’s report concedes that while there was not enough evidence to indict Mr. Gates for his role in Iran-Contra, the Independent Counsel, Lawrence E. Walsh, heavily implies Mr. Gates lied about what he knew and when he knew it.
During the 2006 confirmation hearings, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) questioned Mr. Gates about his role in Iran-Contra and Mr. Gates obfuscated, to say the least. Here are excerpts:
LEVIN: It is no secret that I voted against Dr. Gates' nomination to be director of central intelligence in 1991. I did so because I thought that he had been less than candid about the role that he played in the Iran-Contra affair. As I have said before, however, I, for one, intend to take a fresh and fair look at Dr. Gates' record…However, you gave a number of further explanations about these events and your lack of memory. You said that the matter had been investigated exhaustively by the Intelligence Committee. The key figures in the affair were interviewed or testified and affirmed that they had not shared important information with you…
However, there was one thing that you said in support of your answer which troubled me, and I wanted to give you an opportunity to comment on it. And that's when you said that the Iran-Contra independent counsel, after seven years of investigation, could not find a single witness to testify that my role in the matter was other than I described it…
GATES: Sure. I think the short answer, Senator, is: In the very short time that I had to prepare the answers to the questions that came from the committee, that it seemed, without having access to any of the documents or the records that I had seen before, that the best way to answer this current committee's question was simply to refer to the note to the response that I was invited to place in the record of the Iran-Contra report.
And the sentence that you quoted in terms of not finding any other witnesses was the central part of a three- or four-, I think, sentence response that I wrote to the report of the Iran-Contra independent counsel.
In other words, Mr. Gates refused to answer the question about his role in Iran-Contra while applying for one of the most important jobs in the United States; a job where he will take over for the train wreck left by Donald Rumsfeld to continue a war that has thus far cost hundreds of thousands of lives along with the credibility of the United States and left us a financial basket-case.
Mr. Gates assertion “that the Iran-Contra independent counsel, after seven years of investigation, could not find a single witness to testify that my role in the matter was other than I described it…” is more than a little problematic. The Independent Counsel did, indeed, find someone, namely Richard Kerr, a CIA colleague of Mr. Gates at the time. Here’s the relevant passage from the Independent Counsel’s report:
“…the evidence was clear that Gates's statements concerning his initial awareness of the diversion were wrong: Kerr brought him the information from Allen over a month earlier than Gates admitted. This would have been material because it suggested that the CIA continued to support [Oliver] North's activities without informing North's superiors or investigating. …In the end, although Gates's actions suggested an officer who was more interested in shielding his institution from criticism and in shifting the blame to the NSC than in finding out the truth, there was insufficient evidence to charge Gates with a criminal endeavor…”
Fred Fielding, White House Counsel: Mr. Fielding was appointed White House Counsel to President George W. Bush on January 9, 2007. Mr. Fielding was White House Counsel to President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1986, a period which saw secret Presidential “findings” that led the U.S. intelligence apparatus to illegally thwart the will of Congress with secret arms sales to Iran and illegal diversion of arms proceeds to the Nicaraguan Contras as well as millions in unaccounted for funds. The Contras were a U.S. funded mercenary army to a large degree, similar to Blackwater in Iraq. Mr. Fielding was a part of Blackwater’s legal team before becoming White House Counsel according to Legal Times. Blackwater is under criminal investigation over a Baghdad shooting by its armed guards that left 17 Iraqis dead.
During the period that Mr. Fielding was giving counsel to President Reagan, according to the International Court of Justice “the President of the United States authorized a United States government agency to lay mines in Nicaraguan ports; that in early 1984 mines were laid in or close to the ports of El Bluff, Corinto and Puerto Sandino, either in Nicaraguan internal waters or in its territorial sea or both, by persons in the pay and acting on the instructions of that agency, under the supervision and with the logistic support of United States agents; that neither before the laying of the mines, nor subsequently, did the United States Government issue any public and official warning to international shipping of the existence and location of the mines; and that personal and material injury was caused by the explosion of the mines...”
The man who admits in his autobiography, A Spy for All Seasons, that he was the mastermind behind planting mines in the ports of a country with which we were not at war is Duane R. “Dewey” Clarridge. This act was viewed as an act of terrorism by many. Mr. Clarridge was a career employee at the CIA. His major posts included chief of the Latin American Division, chief of the European Division and Chief of the Counterterrorism Center. On November 26, 1991, a federal Grand Jury indicted Mr. Clarridge on perjury charges as part of the Independent Counsel’s investigation. On December 24, 1992, George H.W. Bush pardoned Clarridge while his court case was ongoing. According to Clarridge, as reported in the Los Angeles Times, he was to be hired as a national security deputy in the Bush administration in 2001 but opposition arose (reported elsewhere as Democratic opposition).
John Negroponte: On January 5, 2007, John Negroponte was appointed Deputy Secretary of State after the President had previously appointed him to three other posts, including Director of National Intelligence, a post invented by the Bush administration. (On July 30, 2008, President Bush signed another of his notorious Executive Orders, Executive Order 13470, putting the Director of National Intelligence office and its budget under the direct control of the President of the United States, making it the “head of the Intelligence Community” and making the CIA subordinate to it.)
Negroponte was Ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985. He has been widely linked to turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in Honduras during that time, overseeing a Contra staging operation in the country, and falsifying reports to Congress on the existence of death squads operating in the country.
Elliott Abrams, Deputy National Security Advisor: In the first term of Bush II, Mr. Abrams held the post of Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs. On February 2, 2005, President George W. Bush appointed Mr. Abrams to the posts of Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy.
Mr. Abrams also occupies a full chapter in the Independent Counsel’s report, Chapter 25. Mr. Abrams held numerous posts in the Reagan administration, most notably Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American affairs beginning in July 1985. He became the chief cheerleader for aid to the Contras in Nicaragua. Mr. Abrams pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of withholding information in the Iran-Contra matter and admitted the following: he withheld from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) his knowledge of Oliver North's Contra activities. He also admitted that he withheld from HPSCI the fact that he had solicited $10 million in aid for the contras from the Sultan of Brunei. That would be the same $10 million that ended up in a private bank account and has yet to be adequately explained.
There is, of course, the typo explanation offered by Mark Belnick, a lawyer who assisted in the Senate investigation of Iran-Contra but was later himself tried in a 9-count indictment by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office for stealing millions from Tyco International while General Counsel. Mr. Belnick was acquitted. Mr. Abrams was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush on December 24, 1992.
This is just a small sampling of the Iran-Contra gang that found an equal employment opportunity waiting for them in jobs requiring background checks and security clearances in the Bush administration.
Equally troubling, Senator John McCain appears to be adopting a similar mind set. In addition to Arthur B. Culvahouse, the man who vetted Sarah Palin and read a treasure trove of classified Iran-Contra documents as White House Counsel to President Reagan, the McCain-Palin campaign web site lists another of their advisors as Robert (Bud) McFarlane. Mr. McFarlane is Chapter 1 in the Independent Counsel’s report. On March 11, 1988, Mr. McFarlane pleaded guilty to unlawfully withholding information from Congress about Oliver North’s Contra activities and foreign solicitation of funds. On December 24, 1992, President George H.W. Bush pardoned him.
What’s Bud McFarlane doing for the McCain campaign? He’s part of a “Truth Squad.” (Memo to Truth Squad: Focus your sights on Sarah Palin’s $40 Billion natural gas pipe dream that exists only on paper and in Republican convention speeches to 37 million Americans.)
McCain has also signed on Theodore (Ted) Olson to be Co-Chair of his Justice Advisory Committee to vet future Federal judges for lifetime appointments. Mr. Olson was Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the Reagan administration. During this time, he became the target of a different Independent Counsel investigation. Alexia Morrison investigated Mr. Olson for a potential coverup of Environmental Protection Agency conduct. No charges were brought. He then became President Reagan’s personal attorney representing him in the Iran-Contra matter, spending much time refusing to turn over documents. Mr. Olson is also the attorney who argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore, securing the 5 to 4 decision that put George W. Bush in the White House. Mr. Olson was appointed Solicitor General in the first term of George W. Bush.
The off balance sheet secrets that Wall Street has hidden away under this administration’s free market madness are now imploding and saddling our children with trillions more in national debt. The secrets that the Iran-Contra gang have hidden away for two decades are an equally dangerous brew, especially if they are now influencing the selection of Federal candidates and judges and creating new rogue operations to ensnare our country in more preemptive attacks.
Dark secrets and democracy cannot live side by side. The American people have waited long enough for the truth.
•••
Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years. She has no securities position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article. She writes on public interest issues from New Hampshire. She can be reached at pamk741@aol.com.
German Spies of WWII
www.carpenoctem.tv/
World War II had been over scarcely a week when a U.S. Army DC-3 touched down outside of Washington, D.C., ferrying a top-secret German cargo. Stepping off the plane, possibly disguised as an American general, was Nazi legend Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's master spy.
His slight physique - five feet eight, 130 pounds - belied his strategic importance to the U.S. officials who welcomed him with open arms. As chief of the Third Reich's Foreign Armies East, Gehlen had been Hitler's most senior officer on the Russian front. He had run an elaborate network of Nazi spies against the Soviet Union - the new villains in the budding Cold War.
Though he was forty-three years old, and Germany lay in ruin, Gehlen's best years were still ahead of him. He was about to make an offer that America's military and governing elites couldn't refuse: He would put his clandestine nexus of Nazi SS officers, underground fascist sympathizers, fugitive war criminals, and encyclopedic Soviet files into the service of Uncle Sam.
A shrewd survivor, Cehlen had buried his organization's plenary files on the USSR in the Austrian Alps as soon as Nazi Germany's collapse became imminent. Gehlen knew that the battle against communism would replace the war against fascist Germany as the overriding military and political goal of the capitalist West. "My view," he wrote in his memoir, "was that there would be a place even for Germany in a Europe rearmed for defense against Communism. Therefore we must set our sights on the Western powers, and give ourselves two objectives: to help defend against communist expansion and to recover and reunify Germany's lost territories." (Apparently, Gehlen's bargaining chip was so valuable, his host were willing to overlook the general's still-current ideas about Deustchland uber alles.)
Shortly after Germany's surrender to the Allies, Gehlen had descended from his Alpine retreat, audaciously turning himself over the American authorities. "I am head of the Section Foreign Armies East in German Army headquarters," he announced in his prepared speech. "I have information to give of the highest importance to your government."
"So have they all," snapped an army captain, who sent the arrogant, hot-tempered general packing to the camp at Salzburg with the rest of the Nazi prisoners. But he wouldn't stew there for very long. Within a month, with the Soviet Union demanding custody of Gehlen and his files, Hitler's spy master began to receive a stream of important American visitors.
At Fort Hunt near Washington, were an NCO butler and several white-jacketed orderlies catered to his needs, Gehlen conferred with President Truman's national security advisor, a gaggle of army intelligence generals, and Allen Dulles, a giant in America's wartime intelligence outfit, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Later Dulles would take the helm of the CIA.
After a year in Washington, Gehlen returned to the Father-land - not as a prisoner, but as an influential agent in America's anticommunist war of nerves with Russia. Gehlen took command of his old organization and became America's foremost intelligence source on the Soviet Union. His influence over American policy would be sweeping; and like the proverbial Faustian pact, there would be later reverberations: His exaggerated reports of Russian military strength would escalate the Cold War to dangerous peaks.
How the U.S. government came to collaborate with Gehlen and hundreds of other high-ranking Nazis is a rarely told chapter of American history. American officials, increasingly paranoid about the threat of Soviet influence in postwar Europe and around the world, found expedient soul mates in the Nazi scientists and SS officers they recruited. After all, Nazi Germany's fascists were vehemently opposed to communism, too. Invoking the exigencies of the Cold War, Dulles explained away any misgivings about hiring Gehlen: "He's on our side, and that's all that matters."
Even as the U.S. military was hunting down Nazi war criminals, other branches of the U.S. government were quietly enlisting many of the same fugitives. Project Paperclip was the U.S. War Department's code name for its secret importation of Nazi scientists, using sanitized, rewritten "records" to sneak the Germans through U.S. immigration. In Germany, many of those scientists had benefited from fatal experiments performed on prisoners at Dachau and from slave labor at other concentration camps. During the early 1980s the U.S. Department of Justice identified numerous Nazi veterans who were still living in America.
Truman's National Security Council issued classified directives sanctioning the use of former Nazi collaborators. The paper trail was subject to a massive coverup, and the complete history of America's dalliance with Nazis remains partially obscured. They may not have save Hitler's brain, as the B-movie conspiracy theory had it, but the Fuhrer's intelligence apparatus found a new host, transplanted onto America's spy and military agencies. It's ironic that when President Truman demobilized the OSS, he warned against setting up a permanent "Gestapo-like" intelligence agency, even as his administration was dotting the i's and crossing the t's on its make-work program for former and possibly not-so-former Nazis and their quislings.
Among the notorious Nazi fugitives quietly pardoned and employed by the postwar American government for intelligence work was Klaus Barbie, the SS "Butcher of Lyon." Barbie worked with Gehlen after the war and even lived for a time in the United States.
Though Gehlen promised his handlers, "on principle," that he wouldn't recruit former SS and Gestapo men, he immediately broke his official word, hiring at least six SS and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) veterans. And America's intelligence elite looked the other way.
Two of Gehlen's notorious postwar hires were Dr. Franz Alfred Six and Emil Augsburg, SS intelligence veterans involved in the mass extermination of Jews. They were both fugitive war criminals.
Franz Six was described by Adolf Eichmann as "a real eager beaver" when it came to the genocide of Jews. "The physical elimination of Eastern Jewry would deprive Jewry of its biological reserves," Six had announced at a conference on the so-called Jewish Question. He put his plan into practice in Smolensk, where his unit murdered some two hundred people in cold blood, among them "thirty-eight intellectual Jews who had tried to create unrest and discontent in the newly established Ghetto of Smolensk," he reported to headquarters.
Emil Augsberg, a staffer under SS chief Himmler, also had led a murder squad in Russia. According to his Nazi Party records, he achieved "extraordinary result…in special tasks," an SS euphemism for mass murder of Jews. Gehlen would find good use for Augsburg's specialty: overseeing assassinations behind "enemy" lines.
For the Gehlen Organization, both Six and Augsberg reactivated their Nazi spy networks in the Soviet Union and hired unemployed German intelligence veterans, many of whom were fellow fugitives. Gehlen must have realized that unofficial Allied policy favored the employment of war criminals: Augsberg was simultaneously moonlighting for several other U.S. intelligence agencies and a French government clandestine group, all the while serving in a private network of ex-SS officers.
When the U.S. Army's Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) caught up to Six, he was convicted of war crimes and got a twenty-year sentence. (Augsberg was luckier: the CIC didn't arrest him - it hired him.) After only four years in prison, though, Six won clemency - and U.S. permission to rejoin the Gehlen Organization as a valuable asset to Western security.
Gehlen's group not only formed the core in America's absorption of Hitler's espionage elite, it also helped midwife the newborn CIA: During the early postwar years, all of the Agency's anti-Soviet assets in Eastern Europe were managed and mastered by Gehlen. Sometimes his reports were retyped verbatim on CIA stationary and passed along to Truman. Gehlen also held great sway over NATO's intelligence and strategy. According to one estimate, the master spy generated 70 percent of NATO's information on the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Europe.
In effect, the West's bulwark against the USSR was utterly dependent on information flowing from an operation run by former Nazis - and said information was often spurious, at that.
In his sobering book on America's recruitment of Nazis, Blowback, Christopher Simpson notes that Gehlen's alarmist reports helped ratchet up tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War: "Gehlen provided U.S. Army intelligence and later the CIA with many of the dire reports that were used to justify increased U.S. military budgets and intensified U.S./USSR hostilities," Simpson writes.
Gehlen's exaggerated reports about an imminent Soviet attack - when in fact the Russians were still licking their postwar wounds - came close to touching off several times. According to Gehlen biographer E. H. Cookridge and others, in 1948Gehlen nearly convinced the United States that the Soviets were about to launch an assault on the West. He advised that the West would be wise to strike first. later, during the 1950s, his erroneous claims that the Soviets had outpaced America in the military buildup fueled fears about the so-called missile gap, which helped stoke up anticommie feelings to feverish levels.
"The [CIA] loved Gehlen because he fed us what we wanted to hear," former CIA officer Victor Marchetti told Simpson. "We used his stuff constantly, and we fed it to everybody else: the Pentagon; the White House; the newspapers. They loved it, too. But it was hyped up Russian boogeyman junk, and it did a lot of damage to this country."
Ironically, the Org also damaged the CIA's anti-Soviet work. The Org's underground groups were so riddled with Soviet double agents, that Western intelligence was compromised for decades. John Loftus, formerly the chief prosecutor of the Justice Department's Nazi-hinting section, summed up the Soviet infiltration of anti-East Bloc groups this way: "It really shows how Soviet intelligence was able to keep communism afloat for the last seventy years."
Intentionally or not, Gehlen undermined the very "national security" that had justified his recruitment in the first place.
Which brings us to some interesting, yet unsubstantiated, speculation. Some researchers proposed that Hitler's haughty spy master had a plan B, an ulterior motive beyond the personal survival instinct and rabid anticommunism. Conspiracy researcher Carl Oglesby contends that Gehlen's postwar organization operated as a cover for the Odessa, an international underground set up by deputy fuhrer Martin Bormann to preserve the defeated Nazi Reich. Oglesby calls Gehlen's group "by far the most audacious, most critical, and most essential part of the entire Odessa undertaking." Military intelligence historian (and espionage veteran) Colonel William Corson seconds this notion.
The Gehlen Org, Oglesby argues, provided a have for fleeing Odessa members by putting them on the American intelligence payroll - a brilliant gambit. More than a few of Gehlen's operatives were indeed Odessa members.
Oglesby's evidence is curious, if not entirely convincing. A declassified CIA document from the 1970s reports that while he was in a U.S. Army VIP prison camp in Wiesbaden, "Gehlen sought and received approval" for his deal with the Americans from Hitler's appointed successor, Admiral Karl Doenitz. "The German chain of command was still in effect," Oglesby concludes, "and it approved of what Gehlen was doing with the Americans."
Whether or not the Gehlen Org was a diversion to preserve an underground Nazi empire is an open question. But Gehlen did manage to attain his goal of splitting away from U.S. intelligence to serve the fledgling West German government. Gehlen's Org continues to live on, as Germany's BND intelligence service.
The Org's legacy also survives in America. The forty-year defense buildup that helped transform America into the world's largest debtor nation, as well as the ongoing exploits of Gehlen's godchild, the CIA, in the expedient realms of political assassination, propaganda, and covert operations certainly owe a debt to Hitler's master spy, and the men who signed him up to "our side."
http://www.carpenoctem.tv/cons/german.html
World War II had been over scarcely a week when a U.S. Army DC-3 touched down outside of Washington, D.C., ferrying a top-secret German cargo. Stepping off the plane, possibly disguised as an American general, was Nazi legend Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's master spy.
His slight physique - five feet eight, 130 pounds - belied his strategic importance to the U.S. officials who welcomed him with open arms. As chief of the Third Reich's Foreign Armies East, Gehlen had been Hitler's most senior officer on the Russian front. He had run an elaborate network of Nazi spies against the Soviet Union - the new villains in the budding Cold War.
Though he was forty-three years old, and Germany lay in ruin, Gehlen's best years were still ahead of him. He was about to make an offer that America's military and governing elites couldn't refuse: He would put his clandestine nexus of Nazi SS officers, underground fascist sympathizers, fugitive war criminals, and encyclopedic Soviet files into the service of Uncle Sam.
A shrewd survivor, Cehlen had buried his organization's plenary files on the USSR in the Austrian Alps as soon as Nazi Germany's collapse became imminent. Gehlen knew that the battle against communism would replace the war against fascist Germany as the overriding military and political goal of the capitalist West. "My view," he wrote in his memoir, "was that there would be a place even for Germany in a Europe rearmed for defense against Communism. Therefore we must set our sights on the Western powers, and give ourselves two objectives: to help defend against communist expansion and to recover and reunify Germany's lost territories." (Apparently, Gehlen's bargaining chip was so valuable, his host were willing to overlook the general's still-current ideas about Deustchland uber alles.)
Shortly after Germany's surrender to the Allies, Gehlen had descended from his Alpine retreat, audaciously turning himself over the American authorities. "I am head of the Section Foreign Armies East in German Army headquarters," he announced in his prepared speech. "I have information to give of the highest importance to your government."
"So have they all," snapped an army captain, who sent the arrogant, hot-tempered general packing to the camp at Salzburg with the rest of the Nazi prisoners. But he wouldn't stew there for very long. Within a month, with the Soviet Union demanding custody of Gehlen and his files, Hitler's spy master began to receive a stream of important American visitors.
At Fort Hunt near Washington, were an NCO butler and several white-jacketed orderlies catered to his needs, Gehlen conferred with President Truman's national security advisor, a gaggle of army intelligence generals, and Allen Dulles, a giant in America's wartime intelligence outfit, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Later Dulles would take the helm of the CIA.
After a year in Washington, Gehlen returned to the Father-land - not as a prisoner, but as an influential agent in America's anticommunist war of nerves with Russia. Gehlen took command of his old organization and became America's foremost intelligence source on the Soviet Union. His influence over American policy would be sweeping; and like the proverbial Faustian pact, there would be later reverberations: His exaggerated reports of Russian military strength would escalate the Cold War to dangerous peaks.
How the U.S. government came to collaborate with Gehlen and hundreds of other high-ranking Nazis is a rarely told chapter of American history. American officials, increasingly paranoid about the threat of Soviet influence in postwar Europe and around the world, found expedient soul mates in the Nazi scientists and SS officers they recruited. After all, Nazi Germany's fascists were vehemently opposed to communism, too. Invoking the exigencies of the Cold War, Dulles explained away any misgivings about hiring Gehlen: "He's on our side, and that's all that matters."
Even as the U.S. military was hunting down Nazi war criminals, other branches of the U.S. government were quietly enlisting many of the same fugitives. Project Paperclip was the U.S. War Department's code name for its secret importation of Nazi scientists, using sanitized, rewritten "records" to sneak the Germans through U.S. immigration. In Germany, many of those scientists had benefited from fatal experiments performed on prisoners at Dachau and from slave labor at other concentration camps. During the early 1980s the U.S. Department of Justice identified numerous Nazi veterans who were still living in America.
Truman's National Security Council issued classified directives sanctioning the use of former Nazi collaborators. The paper trail was subject to a massive coverup, and the complete history of America's dalliance with Nazis remains partially obscured. They may not have save Hitler's brain, as the B-movie conspiracy theory had it, but the Fuhrer's intelligence apparatus found a new host, transplanted onto America's spy and military agencies. It's ironic that when President Truman demobilized the OSS, he warned against setting up a permanent "Gestapo-like" intelligence agency, even as his administration was dotting the i's and crossing the t's on its make-work program for former and possibly not-so-former Nazis and their quislings.
Among the notorious Nazi fugitives quietly pardoned and employed by the postwar American government for intelligence work was Klaus Barbie, the SS "Butcher of Lyon." Barbie worked with Gehlen after the war and even lived for a time in the United States.
Though Gehlen promised his handlers, "on principle," that he wouldn't recruit former SS and Gestapo men, he immediately broke his official word, hiring at least six SS and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) veterans. And America's intelligence elite looked the other way.
Two of Gehlen's notorious postwar hires were Dr. Franz Alfred Six and Emil Augsburg, SS intelligence veterans involved in the mass extermination of Jews. They were both fugitive war criminals.
Franz Six was described by Adolf Eichmann as "a real eager beaver" when it came to the genocide of Jews. "The physical elimination of Eastern Jewry would deprive Jewry of its biological reserves," Six had announced at a conference on the so-called Jewish Question. He put his plan into practice in Smolensk, where his unit murdered some two hundred people in cold blood, among them "thirty-eight intellectual Jews who had tried to create unrest and discontent in the newly established Ghetto of Smolensk," he reported to headquarters.
Emil Augsberg, a staffer under SS chief Himmler, also had led a murder squad in Russia. According to his Nazi Party records, he achieved "extraordinary result…in special tasks," an SS euphemism for mass murder of Jews. Gehlen would find good use for Augsburg's specialty: overseeing assassinations behind "enemy" lines.
For the Gehlen Organization, both Six and Augsberg reactivated their Nazi spy networks in the Soviet Union and hired unemployed German intelligence veterans, many of whom were fellow fugitives. Gehlen must have realized that unofficial Allied policy favored the employment of war criminals: Augsberg was simultaneously moonlighting for several other U.S. intelligence agencies and a French government clandestine group, all the while serving in a private network of ex-SS officers.
When the U.S. Army's Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) caught up to Six, he was convicted of war crimes and got a twenty-year sentence. (Augsberg was luckier: the CIC didn't arrest him - it hired him.) After only four years in prison, though, Six won clemency - and U.S. permission to rejoin the Gehlen Organization as a valuable asset to Western security.
Gehlen's group not only formed the core in America's absorption of Hitler's espionage elite, it also helped midwife the newborn CIA: During the early postwar years, all of the Agency's anti-Soviet assets in Eastern Europe were managed and mastered by Gehlen. Sometimes his reports were retyped verbatim on CIA stationary and passed along to Truman. Gehlen also held great sway over NATO's intelligence and strategy. According to one estimate, the master spy generated 70 percent of NATO's information on the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Europe.
In effect, the West's bulwark against the USSR was utterly dependent on information flowing from an operation run by former Nazis - and said information was often spurious, at that.
In his sobering book on America's recruitment of Nazis, Blowback, Christopher Simpson notes that Gehlen's alarmist reports helped ratchet up tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War: "Gehlen provided U.S. Army intelligence and later the CIA with many of the dire reports that were used to justify increased U.S. military budgets and intensified U.S./USSR hostilities," Simpson writes.
Gehlen's exaggerated reports about an imminent Soviet attack - when in fact the Russians were still licking their postwar wounds - came close to touching off several times. According to Gehlen biographer E. H. Cookridge and others, in 1948Gehlen nearly convinced the United States that the Soviets were about to launch an assault on the West. He advised that the West would be wise to strike first. later, during the 1950s, his erroneous claims that the Soviets had outpaced America in the military buildup fueled fears about the so-called missile gap, which helped stoke up anticommie feelings to feverish levels.
"The [CIA] loved Gehlen because he fed us what we wanted to hear," former CIA officer Victor Marchetti told Simpson. "We used his stuff constantly, and we fed it to everybody else: the Pentagon; the White House; the newspapers. They loved it, too. But it was hyped up Russian boogeyman junk, and it did a lot of damage to this country."
Ironically, the Org also damaged the CIA's anti-Soviet work. The Org's underground groups were so riddled with Soviet double agents, that Western intelligence was compromised for decades. John Loftus, formerly the chief prosecutor of the Justice Department's Nazi-hinting section, summed up the Soviet infiltration of anti-East Bloc groups this way: "It really shows how Soviet intelligence was able to keep communism afloat for the last seventy years."
Intentionally or not, Gehlen undermined the very "national security" that had justified his recruitment in the first place.
Which brings us to some interesting, yet unsubstantiated, speculation. Some researchers proposed that Hitler's haughty spy master had a plan B, an ulterior motive beyond the personal survival instinct and rabid anticommunism. Conspiracy researcher Carl Oglesby contends that Gehlen's postwar organization operated as a cover for the Odessa, an international underground set up by deputy fuhrer Martin Bormann to preserve the defeated Nazi Reich. Oglesby calls Gehlen's group "by far the most audacious, most critical, and most essential part of the entire Odessa undertaking." Military intelligence historian (and espionage veteran) Colonel William Corson seconds this notion.
The Gehlen Org, Oglesby argues, provided a have for fleeing Odessa members by putting them on the American intelligence payroll - a brilliant gambit. More than a few of Gehlen's operatives were indeed Odessa members.
Oglesby's evidence is curious, if not entirely convincing. A declassified CIA document from the 1970s reports that while he was in a U.S. Army VIP prison camp in Wiesbaden, "Gehlen sought and received approval" for his deal with the Americans from Hitler's appointed successor, Admiral Karl Doenitz. "The German chain of command was still in effect," Oglesby concludes, "and it approved of what Gehlen was doing with the Americans."
Whether or not the Gehlen Org was a diversion to preserve an underground Nazi empire is an open question. But Gehlen did manage to attain his goal of splitting away from U.S. intelligence to serve the fledgling West German government. Gehlen's Org continues to live on, as Germany's BND intelligence service.
The Org's legacy also survives in America. The forty-year defense buildup that helped transform America into the world's largest debtor nation, as well as the ongoing exploits of Gehlen's godchild, the CIA, in the expedient realms of political assassination, propaganda, and covert operations certainly owe a debt to Hitler's master spy, and the men who signed him up to "our side."
http://www.carpenoctem.tv/cons/german.html
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Who is Henry Paulson?
" ... In 1970 ... Paulson entered the Nixon administration, working first as staff assistant to the assistant secretary of defense. In 1972-73, Paulson worked as office assistant to John Erlichman, assistant to the president for domestic affairs. Erlichman was one of the key figures involved in organizing President Richard Nixon’s notorious “plumbers” unit that carried out illegal covert operations against the president’s political opponents, including espionage, blackmail, and revenge. ... "By Tom Eley
www.wsws.org
23 September 2008
The plan to rescue the US financial industry arrogates virtually unlimited money and power over the financial affairs of the state to the office of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Paulson is a figure with a long history of intimate connections to the political and financial elite.
In 1970, fresh from the Masters program of the Harvard Business School, Paulson entered the Nixon administration, working first as staff assistant to the assistant secretary of defense. In 1972-73, Paulson worked as office assistant to John Erlichman, assistant to the president for domestic affairs. Erlichman was one of the key figures involved in organizing President Richard Nixon’s notorious “plumbers” unit that carried out illegal covert operations against the president’s political opponents, including espionage, blackmail, and revenge. Ehlichman resigned in 1973, and in 1975 he was convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury, and conspiracy, and was imprisoned for 18 months.
Utilizing his connections, Paulson went to work for Goldman Sachs in 1974. In a 2007 feature, the British newspaper the Guardian wrote, “Not only was he well connected enough to get the job [in the Nixon White House], but well connected enough to resign in the thick of the Watergate scandal without ever getting caught up in the fallout. He went straight to Goldman back home in Illinois.”
Paulson rose through the ranks of Goldman Sachs, becoming a partner in 1982, co-head of investment banking in 1990, chief operating officer in 1994. In 1998 he forced out his co-chairman Jon Corzine “in what amounted to a coup,” according to New York Times economics correspondent Floyd Norris, and took over the post of CEO.
Goldman Sachs is perhaps the single best-connected Wall Street firm. Its executives routinely go in and out of top government posts. Corzine went on to become US senator from New Jersey and is now the state’s governor. Corzine’s predecessor, Stephen Friedman, served in the Bush administration as assistant to the president for economic policy and as chairman of the National Economic Council (NEC). Friedman’s predecessor as Goldman Sachs CEO, Robert Rubin, served as chairman of the NEC and later treasury secretary under Bill Clinton.
Agence France Press, in a 2006 article on Paulson’s appointment, “Has Goldman Sachs Taken Over the Bush Administration?” noted that, in addition to Paulson, “[t]he president’s chief of staff, Josh Bolten, and the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Jeffery Reuben, are Goldman alumni.”
“But the flow goes both ways,” the article continued, “Goldman recently hired Robert Zoellick, who stepped down as the US deputy secretary of state, and Faryar Shirzad, who worked as one of Bush’s national security advisors.”
Prior to being selected as treasury secretary, Paulson was a major individual campaign contributor to Republican candidates, giving over $336,000 of his own money between 1998 and 2006.
Since taking office, Paulson has overseen the destruction of three of Goldman Sachs’ rivals. In March, Paulson helped arrange the fire sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase. Then, a little more than a week ago, he allowed Lehman Brothers to collapse, while simultaneously organizing the absorption of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America. This left only Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as major investment banks, both of which were converted on Sunday into bank holding companies, a move that effectively ended the existence of the investment bank as a distinct economic form.
In the months leading up to his proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Paulson had already used his office to dole out hundreds of billions of dollars. After his July 2008 proposal for $70 billion to resolve the insolvency of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed, Paulson organized the government takeover of the two mortgage-lending giants for an immediate $200 billion price tag, while making the government potentially liable for hundreds of billions more in bad debt. He then organized a federal purchase of an 80 percent stake in the giant insurer American International Group (AIG) at a cost of $85 billion.
These bailouts have been designed to prevent a chain reaction collapse of the world economy, but more importantly they aimed to insulate and even reward the wealthy shareholders, like Paulson, primarily responsible for the financial collapse.
Paulson bears a considerable amount of personal responsibility for the crisis.
Paulson, according to a celebratory 2006 BusinessWeek article entitled “Mr. Risk Goes to Washington,” was “one of the key architects of a more daring Wall Street, where securities firms are taking greater and greater chances in their pursuit of profits.” Under Paulson’s watch, that meant “taking on more debt: $100 billion in long-term debt in 2005, compared with about $20 billion in 1999. It means placing big bets on all sorts of exotic derivatives and other securities.”
According to the International Herald Tribune, Paulson “was one of the first Wall Street leaders to recognize how drastically investment banks could enhance their profitability by betting with their own capital instead of acting as mere intermediaries.” Paulson “stubbornly assert[ed] Goldman’s right to invest in, advise on and finance deals, regardless of potential conflicts.”
Paulson then handsomely benefited from the speculative boom. This wealth was based on financial manipulation and did nothing to create real value in the economy. On the contrary, the extraordinary enrichment of individuals like Paulson was the corollary to the dismantling of the real economy, the bankrupting of the government, and the impoverishment of masses the world over.
Paulson was compensated to the tune of $30 million in 2004 and took home $37 million in 2005. In his career at Goldman Sachs he built up a personal net worth of over $700 million, according to estimates.
After Paulson’s ascension to the treasury, his colleagues at Goldman Sachs carried on the bonanza. At the end of 2006, Paulson’s successor Lloyd Blankfein was handed over a $53.4 million year-end bonus, while 11 other Goldman Sachs executives raked in $150 million in year-end bonuses combined. That year, the top investment firms Goldman Sacks, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Stearns handed out $36 billion in bonuses. At the end of 2007, the executives of the same firms, excepting Merrill, were handed another $30 billion.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/paul-s23.shtml
SPORTS: "I'm a Fascist," says AC Milan Star Christian Abbiati
ALSO SEE: "Risieria San Sabba" AND "Italian Minister Pays Homage to Fascist Troops" AND "Homage to Mussolini Troops Fans Italy Fascist Row"
The ultimate goal of the far-right for the past 80 years, since Mussolini conceived of fascism, has been open fascist rule. Presumably, a majority of Americans will, in time, speak unabashedly of their allegiance to fascism. Can't happen here ? Recently, we've had Sarah Palin quoting domestic Nazi Westbrook Pegler before a national audience at a convention with the theme of America First, an allusion to a movement that gave the Germans a free pass to engage in world conquest, code words for totalitarianism. Italy, the uncubator of fascism, may be ahead of the United States, but give it a few more years and fascists stateside will have open rule, too, and outbursts like this will be commonplace. We're almost there ... - AC
John Hooper in Rome
The Guardian
Saturday September 27 2008
AC Milan Goalkeeper Christian Abbiati
One of Silvio Berlusconi's players at AC Milan has declared he is a fascist. Christian Abbiati, 31, an Italian international, said: "I am not ashamed to proclaim my political beliefs. I share [the] ideals of fascism, such as the fatherland and the values of the Catholic religion."
The goalkeeper's remarks, published today in Sportweek magazine, come amid debate over Italy's fascist past and rightwing present under the leadership of AC Milan's billionaire chairman. The minority partner in Berlusconi's parliamentary alliance, the Freedom People, is a party spun out of the country's neo-fascist movement. Some members remain unabashed apologists for the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini.
The defence minister, Ignazio La Russa, sparked a row this month after he paid tribute to Italian soldiers who fought alongside German troops in the second world war. His comments came after the mayor of Rome, Gianno Alemanno, told a magazine he did not consider fascism an "absolute evil". Berlusconi dodged a question on his own views, replying: "I think only of working to resolve the problems of the Italian people."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/27/italy.acmilan
The ultimate goal of the far-right for the past 80 years, since Mussolini conceived of fascism, has been open fascist rule. Presumably, a majority of Americans will, in time, speak unabashedly of their allegiance to fascism. Can't happen here ? Recently, we've had Sarah Palin quoting domestic Nazi Westbrook Pegler before a national audience at a convention with the theme of America First, an allusion to a movement that gave the Germans a free pass to engage in world conquest, code words for totalitarianism. Italy, the uncubator of fascism, may be ahead of the United States, but give it a few more years and fascists stateside will have open rule, too, and outbursts like this will be commonplace. We're almost there ... - AC
John Hooper in Rome
The Guardian
Saturday September 27 2008
AC Milan Goalkeeper Christian AbbiatiOne of Silvio Berlusconi's players at AC Milan has declared he is a fascist. Christian Abbiati, 31, an Italian international, said: "I am not ashamed to proclaim my political beliefs. I share [the] ideals of fascism, such as the fatherland and the values of the Catholic religion."
The goalkeeper's remarks, published today in Sportweek magazine, come amid debate over Italy's fascist past and rightwing present under the leadership of AC Milan's billionaire chairman. The minority partner in Berlusconi's parliamentary alliance, the Freedom People, is a party spun out of the country's neo-fascist movement. Some members remain unabashed apologists for the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini.
The defence minister, Ignazio La Russa, sparked a row this month after he paid tribute to Italian soldiers who fought alongside German troops in the second world war. His comments came after the mayor of Rome, Gianno Alemanno, told a magazine he did not consider fascism an "absolute evil". Berlusconi dodged a question on his own views, replying: "I think only of working to resolve the problems of the Italian people."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/27/italy.acmilan
Friday, September 26, 2008
USAID, key weapon in dirty war on Latin America
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD
www.granma.cu/ingles
September 26, 2008
IN a statement drafted in scrupulously selected terms and circulated with exceptional discretion, the so-called U.S. Aid for International Development (USAID) has publicly confessed to having squandered taxpayers’ money in its dirty war on Cuba.
It did so in the face of warnings by certain scandalized congress members and the embarrassing revelations of audits related to its counterrevolutionary groups regaled with tens of millions from its enormous budget.
The USAID is the same U.S. federal agency charged with fomenting subversion and espionage in Cuba to the tune of tens of millions, and which the Bush administration has just proposed to the island as the intermediary in a hypocritical and reduced offer of humanitarian aid in the wake of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.
With unusual candor, carefully calibrated by its legal advisers, the USAID has finally acknowledged that successive audits of its Cuba Program on the part of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2006 and its own Office of Inspector General (OIG) in 2007 pointed to serious mismanagement of its subsidies.
The USAID text, dated July 18 and signed by Stephen Driesler, deputy administrative assistant, confirms the total cynicism of this privileged apparatus in the dirty war being waged by the U.S. administration not only on Cuba, but on Latin America as a whole.
While it acknowledges its total irresponsibility in managing public funds supposedly directed to international humanitarian aid, it also attempts to conceal the criminal activities of many CIA operatives.
The document states, in general, that auditors found internal control problems both in USAID’s handling of subsidies and the capacity of the subsidiaries.
Of course, it does not mention that the scandal of successive cases of corruption in that organization –Frank Calzón alone, from the Center for a Free Cuba, was responsible for the disappearance of $500,000 – was so extensive that it prompted the untimely exit of the aptly named Adolfo Franco, top official for Latin America, and his right-hand man for Cuba, David Mutchler, both involved up to their necks in the fraud.
In noting how the Democracy Support Group (GAD) has just acknowledged that one of its employees used a credit card belonging to this pseudo-NGO for personal expenses, the statement is trying to minimize the extension of the fraud attributed to this beneficiary of its generosity.
Likewise, it avoids any reference to Freedom House, one of its most strategic subsidiaries, which taught Calzón the art of disappearing funds. A CIA and State Department front, Freedom House is famous for having sustained cover operations in Central America for many years, against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, as well as backing the ARENA Party in El Salvador and his death squads.
NOT JUST IN CUBA, BUT ALL OVER LATIN AMERICA
USAID’s public confession, put out for fear of some scrupulous congress member having an attack of nerves, leads one to notice more and more clearly how this agency is combining its actions throughout Latin America with the rest of imperial network of interference.
Dozens of its agents operate in the shadow of right-wing organizations, invented according to circumstances and sponsored by the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Freedom House itself and a whole series of fronts, always under CIA directives.
Created in 1961 with apparently legitimate ends, the USAID is officially dependent on the State Department, with a budget of $850 million per annum.
It currently has agents in 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean where it is operating, and many other strategic operations in various parts of the world.
In Haiti, the USAID is among a number of U.S. agencies that organized, directed and funded Haitian political organizations to provoke the kidnapping and grotesque eviction of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
In Venezuela, the agency was scandalously active in backing and financing the sectors responsible for the coup of April 11, 2002.
The uninterrupted squandering of the funds of USAID and its subsidiaries with coup-inspired operations is already in excess of $15 million, via the funding of hundreds of groups and mini-groups aligned with the U.S. embassy.
In Bolivia, the USAID program is focused on the country’s Balkanization and the funding of violent activities against the authority of the president. A few weeks ago, various farmers’ federations and five municipalities in the Cochabamba region, expelled agents from this organization after exposing their involvement in plotting a coup d’état.
CAVE OF KILLERS
The USAID has an extremely long history in Bolivia that illustrates the total falsity of its humanitarian pretensions.
In 1971, the CIA organized an assassination attempt on President Fidel Castro, taking advantage of the Cuban leader’s visit to Chile. This plot was put in the charge of an old buddy, Antonio Veciana.
This Alpha 66 terrorist, an accomplice in the Kennedy assassination, was then working in Bolivia, in the U.S. embassy as a USAID official.
Among the most repellent pages in the history of that U.S. organization in Latin America, it should be recalled how Dan Anthony Mitrione, a U.S. instructor in torture techniques, turned up in Uruguay with USAID credentials at the end of the 70s to train police for a secret program directed at destroying left-wing forces in all of Latin America.
By confessing that it lost control of its finances some time ago, the USAID is covering up the odious nature of the sum of its activities. Faithful executor of CIA plots, fervent collaborator in the secret plans of the State Department, the U.S. development agency is one of the empire’s principal weapons in maintaining its dominion over what it has been used to designating as its backyard.
Until the peoples of the continent, like in Cochabamba, decided that the times of interference were over.
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2008/septiembre/vier26/39usaid.html
www.granma.cu/ingles
September 26, 2008
IN a statement drafted in scrupulously selected terms and circulated with exceptional discretion, the so-called U.S. Aid for International Development (USAID) has publicly confessed to having squandered taxpayers’ money in its dirty war on Cuba.It did so in the face of warnings by certain scandalized congress members and the embarrassing revelations of audits related to its counterrevolutionary groups regaled with tens of millions from its enormous budget.
The USAID is the same U.S. federal agency charged with fomenting subversion and espionage in Cuba to the tune of tens of millions, and which the Bush administration has just proposed to the island as the intermediary in a hypocritical and reduced offer of humanitarian aid in the wake of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.
With unusual candor, carefully calibrated by its legal advisers, the USAID has finally acknowledged that successive audits of its Cuba Program on the part of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2006 and its own Office of Inspector General (OIG) in 2007 pointed to serious mismanagement of its subsidies.
The USAID text, dated July 18 and signed by Stephen Driesler, deputy administrative assistant, confirms the total cynicism of this privileged apparatus in the dirty war being waged by the U.S. administration not only on Cuba, but on Latin America as a whole.
While it acknowledges its total irresponsibility in managing public funds supposedly directed to international humanitarian aid, it also attempts to conceal the criminal activities of many CIA operatives.
The document states, in general, that auditors found internal control problems both in USAID’s handling of subsidies and the capacity of the subsidiaries.
Of course, it does not mention that the scandal of successive cases of corruption in that organization –Frank Calzón alone, from the Center for a Free Cuba, was responsible for the disappearance of $500,000 – was so extensive that it prompted the untimely exit of the aptly named Adolfo Franco, top official for Latin America, and his right-hand man for Cuba, David Mutchler, both involved up to their necks in the fraud.
In noting how the Democracy Support Group (GAD) has just acknowledged that one of its employees used a credit card belonging to this pseudo-NGO for personal expenses, the statement is trying to minimize the extension of the fraud attributed to this beneficiary of its generosity.
Likewise, it avoids any reference to Freedom House, one of its most strategic subsidiaries, which taught Calzón the art of disappearing funds. A CIA and State Department front, Freedom House is famous for having sustained cover operations in Central America for many years, against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, as well as backing the ARENA Party in El Salvador and his death squads.
NOT JUST IN CUBA, BUT ALL OVER LATIN AMERICA
USAID’s public confession, put out for fear of some scrupulous congress member having an attack of nerves, leads one to notice more and more clearly how this agency is combining its actions throughout Latin America with the rest of imperial network of interference.
Dozens of its agents operate in the shadow of right-wing organizations, invented according to circumstances and sponsored by the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Freedom House itself and a whole series of fronts, always under CIA directives.
Created in 1961 with apparently legitimate ends, the USAID is officially dependent on the State Department, with a budget of $850 million per annum.
It currently has agents in 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean where it is operating, and many other strategic operations in various parts of the world.
In Haiti, the USAID is among a number of U.S. agencies that organized, directed and funded Haitian political organizations to provoke the kidnapping and grotesque eviction of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
In Venezuela, the agency was scandalously active in backing and financing the sectors responsible for the coup of April 11, 2002.
The uninterrupted squandering of the funds of USAID and its subsidiaries with coup-inspired operations is already in excess of $15 million, via the funding of hundreds of groups and mini-groups aligned with the U.S. embassy.
In Bolivia, the USAID program is focused on the country’s Balkanization and the funding of violent activities against the authority of the president. A few weeks ago, various farmers’ federations and five municipalities in the Cochabamba region, expelled agents from this organization after exposing their involvement in plotting a coup d’état.
CAVE OF KILLERS
The USAID has an extremely long history in Bolivia that illustrates the total falsity of its humanitarian pretensions.
In 1971, the CIA organized an assassination attempt on President Fidel Castro, taking advantage of the Cuban leader’s visit to Chile. This plot was put in the charge of an old buddy, Antonio Veciana.
This Alpha 66 terrorist, an accomplice in the Kennedy assassination, was then working in Bolivia, in the U.S. embassy as a USAID official.
Among the most repellent pages in the history of that U.S. organization in Latin America, it should be recalled how Dan Anthony Mitrione, a U.S. instructor in torture techniques, turned up in Uruguay with USAID credentials at the end of the 70s to train police for a secret program directed at destroying left-wing forces in all of Latin America.
By confessing that it lost control of its finances some time ago, the USAID is covering up the odious nature of the sum of its activities. Faithful executor of CIA plots, fervent collaborator in the secret plans of the State Department, the U.S. development agency is one of the empire’s principal weapons in maintaining its dominion over what it has been used to designating as its backyard.
Until the peoples of the continent, like in Cochabamba, decided that the times of interference were over.
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2008/septiembre/vier26/39usaid.html
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Bush aides tied to talks on CIA interrogations
" ... the CIA began using harsh interrogation methods weeks before the Justice Department formally authorized the interrogation program in a secret memo dated Aug. 1, 2002. ... "
By Mark Mazzetti
International Herald Tribune
September 25, 2008
WASHINGTON: Senior White House officials played a central role in deliberations in the spring of 2002 about whether the Central Intelligence Agency could legally use harsh interrogation techniques while questioning an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah, according to newly released documents.
In meetings during that period, the officials debated specific interrogation methods that the CIA had proposed to use on Qaeda operatives held at secret prisons overseas, the documents show.
The meetings were led by Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, and attended by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top administration officials.
The documents provide new details about the still-murky early months of the CIA's detention program, when the agency began using a set of harsh interrogation techniques weeks before the Justice Department issued a written legal opinion in August 2002 authorizing their use. Congressional investigators have long tried to determine exactly who authorized these techniques before the legal opinion was completed.
The documents are a list of answers provided by Rice and John Bellinger 3rd, the former top lawyer at the National Security Council, to detailed questions by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is investigating the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody. Senator Carl Levin, the committee chairman, provided the documents to The New York Times, whose global edition is the International Herald Tribune.
ABC News first reported on the White House meetings in a broadcast earlier this year. Rice's answers to the questions shed some light on the internal deliberations among senior officials but do not present a clear picture of the positions taken by participants in the debate.
Some of the techniques proposed by the CIA - including waterboarding, which induces a feeling of drowning - came from a program used by the Pentagon to train U.S. pilots to withstand the rigors of captivity.
"I recall being told that U.S. military personnel were subjected in training to certain physical and psychological interrogation techniques and that these techniques had been deemed not to cause significant physical or psychological harm," Rice, now secretary of state, wrote in response to one question.
Still, Rice wrote that she had personally asked Ashcroft to review the program and "advise NSC principals whether the program was lawful."
Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, declined to comment on which officials attended the meetings in 2002. He said that Vice President Dick Cheney often attended meetings of the National Security Council's principals committee, a group that advises the president on national security.
The new documents do not specify dates for the White House meetings. Current and former officials have said that the CIA began using harsh interrogation methods weeks before the Justice Department formally authorized the interrogation program in a secret memo dated Aug. 1, 2002.
The officials said Justice Department lawyers gave oral guidance to the CIA before the secret memo was completed. But at one point during the summer of 2002, current and former intelligence officials have said, CIA lawyers ordered that the use of the harsh techniques be suspended until they were formally authorized by the Justice Department.
Bellinger, the former National Security Council legal adviser, wrote in a separate document released Wednesday that during the White House meetings, Justice Department lawyers frequently issued oral guidance to the CIA about the interrogation program. One who did was John Yoo, the principal author of the August 2002 memo, Bellinger said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/25/america/cia.php?pass=true
By Mark Mazzetti
International Herald Tribune
September 25, 2008
WASHINGTON: Senior White House officials played a central role in deliberations in the spring of 2002 about whether the Central Intelligence Agency could legally use harsh interrogation techniques while questioning an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah, according to newly released documents.
In meetings during that period, the officials debated specific interrogation methods that the CIA had proposed to use on Qaeda operatives held at secret prisons overseas, the documents show.
The meetings were led by Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, and attended by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top administration officials.
The documents provide new details about the still-murky early months of the CIA's detention program, when the agency began using a set of harsh interrogation techniques weeks before the Justice Department issued a written legal opinion in August 2002 authorizing their use. Congressional investigators have long tried to determine exactly who authorized these techniques before the legal opinion was completed.
The documents are a list of answers provided by Rice and John Bellinger 3rd, the former top lawyer at the National Security Council, to detailed questions by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is investigating the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody. Senator Carl Levin, the committee chairman, provided the documents to The New York Times, whose global edition is the International Herald Tribune.
ABC News first reported on the White House meetings in a broadcast earlier this year. Rice's answers to the questions shed some light on the internal deliberations among senior officials but do not present a clear picture of the positions taken by participants in the debate.
Some of the techniques proposed by the CIA - including waterboarding, which induces a feeling of drowning - came from a program used by the Pentagon to train U.S. pilots to withstand the rigors of captivity.
"I recall being told that U.S. military personnel were subjected in training to certain physical and psychological interrogation techniques and that these techniques had been deemed not to cause significant physical or psychological harm," Rice, now secretary of state, wrote in response to one question.
Still, Rice wrote that she had personally asked Ashcroft to review the program and "advise NSC principals whether the program was lawful."
Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, declined to comment on which officials attended the meetings in 2002. He said that Vice President Dick Cheney often attended meetings of the National Security Council's principals committee, a group that advises the president on national security.
The new documents do not specify dates for the White House meetings. Current and former officials have said that the CIA began using harsh interrogation methods weeks before the Justice Department formally authorized the interrogation program in a secret memo dated Aug. 1, 2002.
The officials said Justice Department lawyers gave oral guidance to the CIA before the secret memo was completed. But at one point during the summer of 2002, current and former intelligence officials have said, CIA lawyers ordered that the use of the harsh techniques be suspended until they were formally authorized by the Justice Department.
Bellinger, the former National Security Council legal adviser, wrote in a separate document released Wednesday that during the White House meetings, Justice Department lawyers frequently issued oral guidance to the CIA about the interrogation program. One who did was John Yoo, the principal author of the August 2002 memo, Bellinger said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/25/america/cia.php?pass=true
Coca-Cola & the Nazis/British Comedian Publicizes Coke's Nazi Past
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/AM483_95/projects/coke/coke2.htmlSometimes during one of the many reversal of fortune so characteristic for the North African theater of war, German troops on the offensive stumbled across a cache of Coca-Cola left behind by retreating Allied troops. But the welcome find came with a snag and thirsty throats stayed dry despite the heat: The enemy had forgotten to leave some ice as well, and since every German soldier knew that a bottle of Coca-Cola had to be consumed eiskalt, the booty remained worthless unless somebody came up with another method of refrigeration under the scorching African sun.
Luftwaffe-pilots stationed nearby eventually provided an ingenious answer to this let-down by wrapping wet towels around the bottles and tying them to the wings of their Messerschmidts 109F before take off. Once the fighters were airborne, evaporation and the lower temperature of higher altitudes cooled the precious load down. The subsequent scene upon the pilots' return to base must have been irresistible: The pilots hopped out of their planes, plucked ice- cold Coca-Colas from the wings, opened them and then let the brown juice run down their throats to celebrate the thirsty return from another successful mission.
So much for the commercial potential of this image. Once the vision wears off, however, another question demands an answer. Would anybody have suspected that this harmless war-anecdote exemplifies the Coca-Cola Company's dual roles during the Second World War? Leaving aside the accidental aspect of this incident in the North African desert, it is still a fact that the soft drinks giant from Atlanta, Georgia collaborated with the Nazi-regime throughout its reign from 1933 to 1945 and sold countless millions of bottled beverages to Hitler's Germany.
Unfortunately, this in itself seems neither surprising nor exciting. Cooperation if not outright collaboration with the Nazis was the rule for many transnational corporations with a stake in Germany and has been the subject of extensive research. Next to Standard Oil and I.G. Farben, for instance, Coke's story of peddling soda to opposing trenches appears tame.
The immorality of bottling Coca-Cola for the Nazis stands in no relation to STP's selling of aviation fuel to the German war machine, nor can it overshadow the oil- producer's cozy wartime relationship with Germany's chemical giant I.G. Farben. Simply put, Coca-Cola's infamous deeds were not the Second World War's only ones, nor were they particularly sinister. After all, Coke cannot be used to fly airplanes or make bombs.
The Coca-Cola Company's tale of questionable wartime conduct would thus be comparatively insignificant and not worth the effort of dwelling upon, were it not for the fact that its product, namely Coca-Cola, was and is a luxuary item whose commercial success is inseparably tied to a public image created through advertising. Like all other companies in the business of selling goods nobody really needs, the Coca-Cola Company's advertisements must reflect the desires of the times in order to defend its share of the mass-market. How Coca- Cola chose to define itself through advertising was crucial to its success during the war years in the United States and is the story of the previous chapter. Thanks to a relentless barrage of war-supportive advertising built upon the Company's credo that "It isn't what a product is, but what it does that interests us," Coca-Cola after December 1941 convinced Americans at the front and at home that drinking Coca-Cola was somehow synonimous with fighting against the enemies of freedom and democracy. Coke wanted to be understood as a morale- booster for the American effort.
There was a moral price attached to this sort of advertising, because Coca-Cola's managers failed to couple the new patriotic image with a correspondent curbing of its contradictory activities in Germany, the company's second biggest market. While Coke-drinking GI's and other U.S. citizens had their carbonated soft-drink sweetened with patriotic statements like the 1943 slogan "Universal Symbol of the American way of Life," German Coca-Cola men had been busy quenching the thirst of the Third Reich and its conquered territories for years. To say the least, catchwords like Universal and American Way of Life were at odds with the Nazis' pursuit of their own "universalist" goals.
However, for the Coca-Cola GmbH (Inc.) odds existed in order to be overcome. While establishing itself in Germany, a politically difficult, but potentially rewarding market of seventy million people, the company solved an overwhelming number of problems: In defiance of strong anti-American sentiments within the turbulent Weimar Republic, Coca-Cola entered the country at the onset of the Great Depresion in 1929. Despite the bad timing for launching a consumer product, Coca-Cola overcame the intense competition of Germany's breweries and cola-imitators, learned to combine its interests with those of Germany's Nazi-rulers after 1933 in an overall harmonic symbiosis and thus even managed the seemingly impossible task of surviving the war intact as an American-owned company.
What saved the Coca-Cola GmbH from being crushed by Germany's fascist rulers was that its corporate structure and advertising philosophy came naturally close to the Nazis' totalitarian ideas of a brave new world. The case of Coca-Cola thus goes beyond mere collaboration: before Hitler decreed the Principle of Leadership (Fuehreprinzip) in industry, which replaced collective bargaining by handing dictatorial powers to company directors, the Coca-Cola GmbH was already dominated by its own authoritarian leader.
Company and government interests subsequently overlapped: the Nazis regarded mass-production and mass-consumption as crucial building blocks of their new society. Coca-Cola's modern means of producing a uniform product could have only impressed them. Similar things can be said about Coke's advertising strategy, which again reflected values central to the National-Socialist society. Through the same modern channels that the Nazis used for propaganda; namely film, radio, mass- publications, and sports events, Coca-Cola appealed, among others, to workers, soldiers, and automobilists, target groups that are significant insofar as they epitomized the Nazis' idea of modernity.
7X and Merchandise #5 aside, these were the true secret ingredients for Coca-Cola's German success, fully confirmed by the company's sales figures: In the ten year period spanning 1929 and 1939, the company's annual sales of cases of beverage soared from zero to a staggering four million. Even during the war's difficult late stages the company didn't falter; in 1944 the company still produced a respectable two million cases of bottled beverages, selling them to a country that was being rapidly reduced to rubble.
Back in 1929, these achievements seemed all but impossible. Germany between the wars was a humiliated and revanchist country. Public sentiments for the World War I victor nation USA were ambiguous at best as Dan Diner's excellent essay on the history of anti-Americanism in Germany points out. Despite an undeniable trend toward the "`Americanization' of the economy, technology and culture," Germany was still seething with increasingly entrenched anti- American sentiments," a situation not conducive to the high profile marketing of American brands.
Fears of U.S. economic domination, a country perceived as both ultra-capitalist and culturally inferior, encompassed the whole of the political spectrum. Indeed, next to the desire to tear down the embattled republic, virulent anti-Americanism may have been the only characteristic shared by the many political extremists. Communist Reichstag member Clara Zetkin's ad hoc rejection of the Dawes Plan in 1923 provides an illustrative example for the enthusiastic response to anti- American rhetoric, for it was met by the unusual sound of standing ovations from the gentlemen ideologically most opposed to Communism, the National-Socialists. Zetkin began her impromptu speech by claiming that America was bent upon turning Germany into "a colonized country." "The United States," she continued, "represents sharp-eyed and reckless capitalists without any of the old traditions that still sometimes constrain capitalism in Europe, so that they would be the last to trip over the thin thread of moral qualms. No, [the U.S. wants] to capture the German labor force with American capital, [make] cheap labor [out of them] and to thus turn Germany into a colony of the United States. No illusions about this fact!"
Since such rhetoric met with the approval of politicians of all colors, it seems not too far-fetched to argue that the general public cannot have been too warm about the United States either. Quite to the contrary: America, as David Large sums it up, became the object of a revival of "a set of deprecatory images [...] because doing so afforded [Germans] a measure of self-respect at a time of great inner doubt." Large argues that, true to a tradition that continues to this day "America [became] a kind of composite symbol for all the things that Germans [found] unpalatable in their own country, which [was], after all, the most Americanized in Europe."
Given such hostile circumstances, the Company had no illusions that it had to distance Coca-Cola from its American roots, were the Coca-Colonization of Germany to be successful. One cannot help but note that this initial strategy departed radically from the marketing ploys of the years after 1945, when, as Ralph Willett points out "Coca-Cola [came] to symbolize America and American culture: [...] the identification was already so strong by 1948 that when non- Americans thought of democracy, it was claimed, they instantly called to mind Coca-Cola."
The post-war Americanized image stands in complete contrast to the pre-war situation, a factor which helps account for the inability of Germans to recall Coke's presence prior to the war. Indeed, Coca-Cola's original German marketing strategy so successfully disassociated the drink from its Atlanta roots that Hans Dieter Schaefer felt compelled to note six decades later "It is characteristic for the state of our mind that we associate Coca-Cola only with the years of the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle)."
But the failure to remember once the clock struck "Stunde Null" (zero hour) cannot alter the facts of history. Coke's German business began with Ray Rivington Powers in 1929. The expatriate American set up shop in the City of Essen in the Ruhrgebiet, Germany's industrial heartland "where the thirst of workers would need quenching." He had a difficult stand there: Not only did Powers face the powerful competition of cola-imitators Sinalco and Afri-Cola, he also had to convince Germans that Coca-Cola was a tasty alternative to their beer-drinking habits. This meant hard work. Hubert Strauf, an advertising man in the service of Powers, described how this eccentric six and a half feet tall man who had allegedly once claimed to "have done everything in the world but murder," "filled the first bottles himself with the help of just one worker. With him he then drove to the Ruhr to peddle the first bottles of Coca-Cola in Germany himself - the American with his beautiful Marengo topcoat and stiff hat, a hulking fellow who called out with a thick Southern accent: `Drinken Coca-Cola, kostlich und erfrescht.'(which approximately means: `Drink Coca-Cola, delicious and refreshing')"To properly introduce Coca-Cola in grammatically correct German, Powers printed up leaflets titled "Was ist Coca-Cola?" and had them distributed at sporting events and on the tables of restaurants in and around Essen. "When distraught proprietors threw them out, the Coke men doggedly replaced them," reports Mark Pendergrast and continues that "Many who picked up the folder expected to find an analysis of the ingredients and were angered when it simply said that Coke was a refreshing drink, but the endless repetition of the product name had its intended effect." The effect was that an increasing number of retailers carried Coca-Cola, most of them stashed beneath beer bottles so as not to anger the breweries that owned most restaurants and did not like potential competitors like Coca-Cola.
Thanks to the vigorous targeting of industrial workers with Hubert Strauf's slogan to "Mach doch mal Pause" (Come on, take a break) apparently derived from its U.S. pendant "The pause that refreshes" and a lot of hard work to open new outlets, Coca-Cola's annual sales rose to 111.000 cases four years later (see appendix). The Company had gained a small, but respectable foothold by the time the crucial year of 1933 came around.
It cannot be overemphasized, however, that a big portion of this success must be attributed to what the Coca- Cola ads failed to mention: Coke's U.S. roots. The Company had successfully established itself as a German brand in the unconscious mind of the soda-drinking public. The following anecdote shows just how successful the Company was in this respect: When a group of German prisoners of war debarked in Hoboken, New Jersey, in early 1945, one of the first things that caught their eyes was a large Coca-Cola sign.
This prompted excitement among the Germans and when one of the guards demanded an explanation for their behaviour, he received the answer: "We are surprised that you have Coca- Cola here too."
The twelve years separating 1933 from the end of the war provide an explanation for Coca-Cola's boom. One year after 1933, Coke's output had already more than doubled to 234,000 cases. This was no coincidence.
There were striking parallels between the Coca-Cola GmbH and the nation at large. Firstly, the business of Coca-Cola and the Reich was guided by similar-minded (and similar-looking) people: In Coke's case, the name of the man now in charge was Max Keith (pronounced Kite). According to the testimony of former employees, Keith's charisma and uncompromising nature invited more than one analogy to the Adolf Hitler. "He was a born leader and very charismatic," claims one. "You liked to work for him although he was almost a slave driver . . . . Oh, yes, I was scared of him. We all were, even aides who were older." Still, so the witness concludes, most of his followers "would have died for this man." Keith's own words definitely betray the fanatic in him: "I was full of activity and enthusiasm," he reported in 1963, "and the thing which then took possesion of all that was in me and which . . . has never lost its hold on me, was Coca-Cola. From then on and to all eternity, I was tied to this product for better and for worse."
It was mostly for the better that Keith was tied to Coke, because, as he himself recognized, "time marched with us." To quote Felix Gilbert, "At the time the Nazis took over, recovery from the recession was beginning" and Germany was economically prospering. The Nazis, through a massive public works system, which included "the construction of the systems of Autobahns, and . . . providing industry with armament contracts," were determined to keep the upward swing going and Germans content.
Economic prosperity, however, as catchwords like public works and infrastructure programs reveal, also meant the continued Americanization of Germany's economy under Hitler. Indeed, the dictator himself seems to have welcomed America's efficient methods of production. Hitler was, for instance, a proponent of mass-consumption, as shown by his statement from September 1941: "Frugality is the enemy of progress. Therein we we are similar to the Americans, that we are fastidious." Detlev Peukert underlines Hitler's pro- American stance, arguing that, not unlike the U.S., the Third Reich consciously aimed to represent "the dawning of the new achievement-orientated consumer society based on the nuclear family, upward mobility, mass media, leisure and an interventionist welfare state [. . .]."
The Nazis were thus not anti-modernists, but, according to Peukert, "Agrarian romanticism notwithstanding, [. . .] fostered enthusiasm for modern technology, not only because it needed it as part of its armoury for conquering Lebensraum, but also because the toughness, frictionless functionality and efficiency of the machine matched the ideal of the fighter and the soldier, the man hard as Krupp steel." Interestingly, Peukert assumes that the man "hard as Krupp steel" liked to quench his thirst with Coca-Cola, for in the same paragraph he mentions that "Even Coca-Cola consumption rose significantly in Germany in the thirties."
In other words, that Coca-Cola had tied its fortunes to the thirst of industrial workers paid out now, for the increasingly busy workers needed the pause that refreshed more than ever. The destruction of the trade unions resulted in longer working hours and Coke's chairman Max Keith himself recognized that "The requirements of the people were much higher than in the past . . . . They had to work harder, had to work faster, the technical equipment they had to handle required soberness." What soda could do a better job than a deliciously refreshing Coca-Cola?
Beside its industrial connection, modernization and newfound wealth opened additional avenues for Coke: refrigeration steadily invaded German households throughout the thirties which made home-consumption possible, whereas the massive infrastructure programs and the ensuing infatuation with the automobile allowed Coke to sell its products along Germany's vast network of new highways (see appendix). With the Company's dependency on restaurants removed, expansion proved limitless.
Coca-Cola's success was thus based on the needs of a modernizing and economically prospering totalitarian state. It was a stroke of luck that for strategy-purposes the company could consult with the Atlanta headquarters and imitate some of the New Deal ad campaigns pertinent to the German experience. This, however, is where the analogies with the United States must end, for it should be emphasized that neither Germany nor the Coca-Cola GmbH in Essen were turning distincly American under the Nazis. Far from it, Nazi- ideology thrived on a xenophobia that did not spare the U.S. and while Hitler might have been jealous of the efficieny of the U.S. economy, he was nevertheless rabidly anti-American in all other respects.
He openly described the United States as a "deeply lazy country full of racial problems and social inequities. . .", stating that his "feelings for America are full of hatred and antipathy; half Jewish, half negro and everything based on the dollar . . . Americans have the brain of a chicken. This land is a house of cards with an unequal standard of living. Americans live like swines, even if in a very luxurious pigsty."
During the 21 years of its existence in Germany, the producers of Coca-Cola could have easily constructed a mammouth concern. . . . with its own bottling plants, packaging, ice box producers, its own storage spaces, advertising companies and printing presses. They didn't do so but instead passed all contracts along to independent industries.
But Coke was not above moving behind the scenes and handing out bribes when their policy of limited greed failed to calm down xenophobic nazi-officials. Thus was the case when Hermann Goering in 1936 introduced a Four-Year Plan, which restricted imports to a bare minimum in order to make Germany self-sufficient and ready for war. When Coke's main lawyer could not convince the authorities that Coca-Cola was a German business which deserved government support, the company announced that it would from now on produce all of the concentrate's elements, with the exception of Merchandise No.5 and 7X, within Germany. When even this show of goodwill did not suffice to sway the government into granting an import exemption, the company turned to a frantic pulling of strings behind the scenes, which seems to have included a bribe for Goering. Coca-Cola gained the needed import license and saved itself from impending doom.
Coke's readiness to strike deals points to the second pillar of Coke's survival strategy which had a lot to do with the leadership of Max Keith, "the quintessential Coca-Cola man and Nazi-collaborator." Simply put, his strategy was to please the Nazis whenever possible and through whatever means necessary.
An abundance of examples shows how Coke's advertising supported the Third Reich. Hans Dieter Schaefer reports, for instance, that after the aggressive news broadcast by the Reichsrundfunk, silly advertising jingles propagating the evangelium of refreshment were next. Coke ads deliberately sought the close contact to the men in power. This meant that when the cover of a magazine sported a picture of the Fuehrer, chances were good that a Coke advertisement would grace the back of that cover. Even when visitors streamed into the Sportpalast to listen to one of Dr. Goebbels' infamous speeches, they had to pass by a large billboard urging them to drink "Coca-Cola eiskalt."
Max Keith left out no opportunity to ingratiate himself with Germany's leaders. Coca-Cola was one of the three official beverage sponsors with a Getraenkedienst (beverage service) at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and thus participated in an event the Nazis deliberately exploited to celebrate Germany's return to power and status. Moreover, to quote Ralph Willett, "By servicing the Olympices, Coca-Cola associated itself with the modernity of media technology, in the form of microphones, transmitter vans, and cameras for (respectively) radio broadcasts [. . .]. It was true that "the emphasis on sport [. . .] was in line with curent cultural ideology epitomized by the Berlin Olympics." Athletic competition was a Nazi ideal and the Coca-Cola GmbH cashed in heavily on this infatuation by becoming one of the biggest sponsors of sports events, most notably the annual Deutschlandrundfahrt (National Bycicle Championships) and the Soccer Cup.
In 1937, Keith succeeded in taking Coca-Cola literally into the heart of nazism. The occasion was the Reichsausstellung Schaffendes Volk, or Reich "A Working People" Exhibit. In this industrial exhibition reserved to the companies most loyal to the new order, the Coca-Cola GmbH, according to Mark Pendergrast, set up a functioning bottling plant, with a "miniature train carting Kinder beneath it, [. . .] at the very center of the fair, adjacent to the Propaganda Office."
The strategy of direct association with Nazi-leaders or of lending support to events propagandized by nazi-ideology sent a powerful subliminal message to both consumers and government by signaling that Coca-Cola was on Germany's side. Sometimes, however, it took a little more than that and it is interesting to note the circumstances under which Coca- Cola transgressed the boundaries of political neutrality in a more open show of support of the Nazis.
A flagrant example for such a transgression can be found in the October 1938 issue of the army-magazine Die Wehrmacht printed up to celebrate the annexation of the Sudetenland. In this (unfortunately unavailable) ad, Hans- Dieter Schaefer reports that a hand holds out a Coke bottle in front of a world map underlined by the caption Ja, Coca-Cola hat Weltruf (Yes, Coca-Cola enjoys international reputation) that goes on stating that `of the forty million automobilists from all over the world increasing attention is demanded,' which is the reason why they 'like to take advantage of the "pause that refreshes."' Schaefer quite correctly remarks that "this ad aimed at German soldiers and mixed a global point of view with a technologic-athletic perspective", but fails to point out the cynical effect of such a global point of view in a magazine dedicated to the glorification of Germany's recent annexations.
That such aggressive advertisements had become necessary was in part the result of the slanderous activities of Karl Flach, the boss of Afri-Cola. Intent on driving out the foreign competitor, Flach in 1936 began circulating flyers depicting Coca-Cola bottle caps from the U.S. with Hebrew inscriptions.
Although the inscriptions were nothing but an indication that Coke was kosher, the flyers claimed to prove that Coca-Cola was a Jewish company.
The damage was terrific and never quite contained as both the flyers and the rumor of Coke's Jewish owners continued to circulate over the years.
However, sales figures prove that most of the impact was only temporary and due to the bad publicity generated when, as Mark Pendergrast rightly asserts, "Nazi Party Headquarters hastily canceled their orders."
Pendergrast seems to be wrong, however, when he claims that "the entire business was in jeopardy" because the Atlanta headquarters had forbidden Keith "to print defensive literature." If Keith had been given such an order, he disregarded it, for he knew just like Coke's company lawyer Walter Oppenhof that nobody outside Germany "could have any conception" of the scope of the problem. Coca-Cola thus did attempt to regain status in the eyes of Germany's rulers by placing several ads denouncing the anti-semitic accusations in the Stuermer, the official Nazi publication renowned for its vicious attacks against Jews. These ads did not go unnoticed in the United States and produced angry headlines claiming that "Coca-Cola Finances Hitler."
It seems as if the only principle that the Coca-Cola GmbH never betrayed in its history of wheeling and dealing under the Nazis was the product itself.
The company fought the Nazi-bureaucracy tooth and nail to keep Coca-Cola unchanged after the Ministry of Economics in 1939 passed out rules demanding that bottles conform to a metric standard based on decimals.
Since the Coke bottle contained 180 cubic centimeters instead of 200, the Nazis promptly halted the production of new bottles, showing little understanding for the argument that the production of different-sized bottles would constitute an unacceptable drain on Germany's scarce glas resources.
Not surprisingly, the company found an ingenious and unscrupulous solution. With the help of Reinhard Spitzy, a well-connected former high official in the German Foreign Office, Coca-Cola manouvred to take advantage of the situation in the recently annexed Sudetenland, where German laws, including the packaging regulations, did not fully apply yet.
Spitzy recounts that when he asked the Gauleiter (District Leader) how the local glas industry was coping with the international embargo imposed on all German products after the annexation of Czechoslovakia, he received the answer: "My dear Party Comrade Spitzy, the situation of the glas industry is absolutely shitty, the machines run only a few hours a day." When Spitzy told him how unfortunate this was given that "the international company Coca-Cola urgently needs millions and millions of new bottles," the Gauleiter reacted predictably by engineering an import exemption for Coca-Cola bottles manufactured in the Sudetenland.
While this exemption could be regarded as the result of a successful act of opposition against the Nazi bureaucracy, one should not exaggerate the heroism in Coke's stand: by helping the Sudetendeutsche industries back on its feet, the Coca-Cola GmbH supported the Nazi-government in circumventing an international embargo designed to cripple its rule.
Stories like these illustrate how Coca-Cola achieved its success under the Nazis. Simply put, the Coca-Cola GmbH and the Nazis needed one another.
The former took advantage of the latter's economic and territorial expansionism, while the latter needed modern companies like Coca-Cola as role-models for mass-production. Underlying these overlapping interests was an undeniable ideological affinity that kept the relationship strong. The tale of the March 1938 concessionaire convention sums up best what is meant here. While Max Keith presided over the 1,500 people in attendance, German soldiers stormed across the Austrian border to execute the Anschluss. Mark Pendergrast's description of the event leaves no doubt that the swastika and the Coca-Cola logo rested next to each other comfortably.
Behind the main table, a huge banner proclaimed, in German, `Coca-Cola is the world-famous trademark for the unique product of the Coca-Cola GmbH.' Directly below, three gigantic swastikas stood out, black on red. At the main table, Max Keith sat surrounded by his deputies, another swastika draped in front of him.
Although acknowledging glorious past efforts, Keith urged his workers to forge onward into the future, never to be content until every citizen was a Coke consumer. "We know we will reach our goal only if we muster all our power in a total effort," he said. "Our marvelous drink has the power of endurance to continue this march to success." [. . .] The meeting closed with a "ceremonial pledge" to Coca-Cola and a ringing, three-fold "Sieg-Heil" to Hitler. Coca-Cola ?ber alles.
Given this overtly enthusiastic embrace of the Nazis, the fact that the Coca-Cola GmbH survived the oncoming war seems more a logical conclusion to this paper than a surprise in need of an explanation. Despite all the difficulties inherent in Coke's rise, by the time war broke out, Coke's situation was so secure that Max Keith could get himself "appointed to the Office of Enemy Property to supervise all soft drink plants, both in Germany and the captured teritory. As German troops overran Europe, Keith and Oppenhof followed, assisting and taking over the Coca-Cola businesses in Italy, France, Holland, Luxembourg, Belgium and Norway." Even that the war had cut off the supply of 7X and Merchandise #5 proved unimportant. Keith and his men countered by inventing Fanta to see them through the war, and thus created a success that still reverberates throughout the corners of the world where local bottling companies fill Fanta bottles.
Although it must be noted in all fairness that the Coca- Cola GmbH only in rare instances directly endorsed the Nazis, it is still a fact that the Coca-Cola GmbH went beyond mere opportunism to stay alive. Coca-Cola was part of the Nazi state. Should this paper have proven inadequate in pointing this out, plenty of other sources can. The survivors of the forced labourers kidnapped from the conquered territories will testify to that. Some of them were sent to work for Max Keith's Coca-Cola GmbH.
THE INDEPENDENT
http://www.sanderswood.com/viewer.cgi/press/press_images/20040526_coke_ind.2.jpg.html
No laughing matter: comedian advertises Coca-Cola's 'Nazi" past
By Ciar Byrne, Media Correspondent
26 May 2004
Coca-Cola adverts are to be found in the farthest corners of the globe promoting a happy, wholesome image, but now they are the subject of a new exhibition which links the soft drinks giant with Nazi Germany.
The comedian Mark Thomas and the artist Tracey Sanders-Wood, who curated the art show Coca-Cola's Nazi Adverts, which opened in central London yesterday, say the company advertised in Nazi papers, exhibited at Nazi trade fairs and opened bottling plants in Sudetenland shortly after the Nazis invaded Czechoslavia.
Coca-Cola has rejected any suggestion that it sympathised with the Nazi regime, although it admits it operated in Germany while Hitler was in power.
Artists and members of the public with artistic aspirations were invited to contribute to the exhibition. Their brief was to imagine Coca-Cola's adverts in Nazi Germany. Mr Thomas said: "Coke exists through advertising. That's why people drink the stuff. You can't escape it. What we wanted to do was to create an exhibition which made people think again every time they reached for a Coke.
"It's a very democratic exhibition. I mentioned it after gigs and we set up a website. If a work is submitted, it will be exhibited."
Images in the exhibition, which will include more than 400 pieces when it moves to the Foundry in east London next month, feature Coca-Cola symbols - the company's slogan and the Coke bottle - combined with Nazi slogans, propaganda and pictures of Adolf Hitler.
Predictably, it has not gone down well at Coca-Cola. "We reject out of hand the suggestion that as a company Coca-Cola ever sympathised in any way with the abhorrent acts or policies of the Nazi regime in Germany," said Tim Wilkinson, communications director for Coca-Cola Great Britain. "That is an unwarranted insult toward every person working for our company."
Coca-Cola has donated money to help those who were involved in forced labour during the Nazi years in Austria and Germany, but Mr Wilkinson said this was good corporate practice and not an admission of guilt.
Richard Niman, whose sculpture portraying Hitler as a little girl holding a doll has been on display at the Imperial War Museum in London since 1990, is involved with the project. He believes that focusing on Coca-Cola's past gives the show wider appeal. "You have to pick something big to make it have a more universal context. Hopefully it will embarrass Coca-Cola," he said.
Thomas, known for his attacks on the Government and on corporate Britain, has been compared with the American Michael Moore. He uses stand-up gigs and his Channel 4 show to decry miscarriages of justice and oppression.
He has forced the former armed forces minister Nicholas Soames to display a family heirloom, a mahogany three-tier buffet, at Christie's in London, under a law that made works of art available to the nation in lieu of inheritance tax, and has driven a tank into a McDonald's "drive-thru" restaurant.
He has also has set up an exhibition of contaminated sea- gull droppings at the Sellafield nuclear centre, and went to the Athens arms fair in 1998 posing as a PR consultant and encouraging dealers to put on a media-friendly spin.
Thomas's concerns centre on Coca-Cola's actions in Kerala in India, where it has come under fire from courts over water consumption at its bottling plant. Coca-Cola denies that it is responsible for depleted water reserves in the region.
Coca-Cola's Nazi Adverts is on show at the Nancy Victor Basement, 36 Charlotte Street, London W1 until 10 June. The exhibition will then move to the Foundry, 84-86 Great Eastern Street, London EC1.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Brown U.: SDS protests CIA, Raytheon Recruiters
A member of SDS, soaked in fake blood, represents the child of an Argentinian leftist allegedly ordered killed by the CIA in 1978Group simulates dead bodies
Nicole Dungca
Issue date: 9/24/08 Section: Campus News
Media Credit: Justin Coleman
Protesting the presence of representatives of the CIA and defense contractor Raytheon to recruit on campus, members of Students for a Democratic Society simulated dead bodies in the back of Sayles Hall during Tuesday's crowded Career Fair.
About seven protesters covered themselves in fake blood and held the names of people said to have been killed in connection with either the CIA or Raytheon. About 16 others handed out literature to passersby at the fair, which was sponsored by the Career Development Center. Five lied down near the adjacent booths of the two organizations, slightly obstructing the paths of students and creating some traffic in the back of the room, while two others were positioned near the entrance of the hall.
Protesters passed out small slips of paper that said "Raytheon Kills" because it produces weapons and is the fifth-largest military contractor in the world. The paper also declared the CIA to be "a human rights abuser" because of its "long history of illegal detainment and torture of civilians and overthrowing of democratically elected governments."
During much of the four-hour fair, students attending the fair passed by a male student in a white T-shirt and blue jeans lying next to a pool of fake blood as they filed into Sayles. Behind him, a cardboard sign read: "Child of Argentinian leftist killed in a CIA-ordered explosion with Raytheon radar detonator, 1978."
SDS members demonstrated inside Sayles for about 25 minutes before administrators and police officers asked the protestors to clean up the corn starch they had used in a demonstration and get up off the floor, citing health and safety concerns.
"They clearly made their point, but at what cost?" said Terry Addison, associate dean of student life. "They certainly have the right to protest - no one denies that - but it causes others to be unduly disrupted."
The SDS protest was largely aimed at the University, attempting to dissuade the CDC from inviting the companies back to campus, said Michael da Cruz '09, a member of the activist group. The CIA had an information session early this week, and Raytheon representatives said more employees would come to the school later this month.
"We've asked the CDC multiple times to stop inviting these companies that are widely regarded as gross human rights violators," da Cruz said. "We think Brown's better than that."
Last year, the group sent an e-mail to the CDC and dropped off a letter at its main office, asking them to stop inviting the companies, da Cruz said. "If they come and talk to us after this, we're more than happy to talk with them," he said. "Hopefully, at some point they'll get tired of us protesting and they'll be willing to talk with us."
Kimberly Delgizzo, director of the CDC, said she never received the letter and vaguely recalls reading an e-mail about a protest. In a brief interview after the career fair, she refused to comment on whether the protest would affect the relationship between the University and the targeted companies, but justified the center's reasons for allowing the companies to recruit.
"We at the CDC have an obligation to welcome recruiters who may be of interest to our students," she said. "Our students have a diverse range of interests."
SDS members also wanted to reach out to students, especially those interested in working for the two companies, SDS member Alexander Wankel '11 said. "We just want people to be aware of all these human rights issues associated with these organizations," he said.
Student reactions were mixed. While many stopped to read the cardboard signs and accepted the literature describing problems with Raytheon and the CIA, several gave the protesters little more than a second glance as they stepped over and maneuvered around them to pass.
Some seemed slightly annoyed. As Michelle Moses '09 accidentally stepped into a pool of the dyed corn starch, she grimaced. The protest was inconsiderate to some of the students, she felt.
"We're here trying to network and advance our career, and something like this really makes me lose my focus," she said.
She also doubted the effectiveness of SDS's approach. "I don't think it will be discouraging any of these companies from coming back," Moses said.
http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2008/09/24/CampusNews/Sds-Protests.Cia.Raytheon.Recruiters-3448919.shtml
Nazi Antibiotics - a Science Adventure Story
" ... The discovery of the first antibiotic was made in Germany, at the Bayer laboratories. Bayer became part of a company called IG Farben, which was the largest corporation in Europe in the 1930s and was infamous for its association with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. ... "
How to turn air into bread - and explosives
Posted by Jeff Baker
The Oregonian
September 03, 2008
Thomas Hager was researching the discovery of the first antibiotic when he learned about the machine that turns air into bread. It was just another day in the life of a "science-adventure" writer who'd rather write about science than practice it and rather live in Oregon than anywhere else.
Hager is the author of six books and many more magazine articles, most dealing with science and the history of science. He's written three books about Linus Pauling, Oregon's most famous scientist, and another book with his wife, Lauren Kessler, a journalism professor at the University of Oregon.
All that book-writing feeds on itself, which is what happened to Hager when he was working on his previous book, The Demon Under the Microscope. The discovery of the first antibiotic was made in Germany, at the Bayer laboratories. Bayer became part of a company called IG Farben, which was the largest corporation in Europe in the 1930s and was infamous for its association with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
Farben's first director was a man named Carl Bosch, a Nobel Prize-winner (with Fritz Haber) for a machine that, through a process called nitrogen fixation, makes fertilizer. Haber-Bosch machines capture nitrogen out of the air and allow billions more people to be fed than would otherwise be possible -- turning air into bread. The machines aren't all good, however. Nitrogen fertilizer is a huge source of pollution, responsible in part for "dead zones" in the ocean, and is also easily converted to gunpowder and TNT. Hager writes that Germany would have surrendered two years earlier in World War I without Haber-Bosch technology, and nitrogen fertilizer was used in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995.
It's a fascinating story, well-told by Hager in The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler (Harmony Books, $24.95, 316 pages). Hager is particularly sympathetic toward Bosch, "a tragic hero, a guy who had high aspirations and who hated Hitler."
Hager identifies with scientists and describes their work clearly and accurately thanks to a background that includes a degree in biology from Portland State and a graduate degree in microbiology and immunology from Oregon Health & Science University.
When it came time to begin his career as a research scientist, Hager, who grew up in Portland and now lives in Eugene, couldn't stand the thought of going out of state, where the jobs were. He turned his attention to writing and began a freelance career before starting work at the University of Oregon. He was the editor of Oregon Quarterly, the UO alumni magazine, and directed the university's office of communications. He left the school in 2003 and is now a full-time writer.
"I could do these science-adventure stories forever," he said, "because I love them."
http://blog.oregonlive.com/books/2008/09/how_to_turn_air_into_bread_and.html
How to turn air into bread - and explosivesPosted by Jeff Baker
The Oregonian
September 03, 2008
Thomas Hager was researching the discovery of the first antibiotic when he learned about the machine that turns air into bread. It was just another day in the life of a "science-adventure" writer who'd rather write about science than practice it and rather live in Oregon than anywhere else.
Hager is the author of six books and many more magazine articles, most dealing with science and the history of science. He's written three books about Linus Pauling, Oregon's most famous scientist, and another book with his wife, Lauren Kessler, a journalism professor at the University of Oregon.
All that book-writing feeds on itself, which is what happened to Hager when he was working on his previous book, The Demon Under the Microscope. The discovery of the first antibiotic was made in Germany, at the Bayer laboratories. Bayer became part of a company called IG Farben, which was the largest corporation in Europe in the 1930s and was infamous for its association with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
Farben's first director was a man named Carl Bosch, a Nobel Prize-winner (with Fritz Haber) for a machine that, through a process called nitrogen fixation, makes fertilizer. Haber-Bosch machines capture nitrogen out of the air and allow billions more people to be fed than would otherwise be possible -- turning air into bread. The machines aren't all good, however. Nitrogen fertilizer is a huge source of pollution, responsible in part for "dead zones" in the ocean, and is also easily converted to gunpowder and TNT. Hager writes that Germany would have surrendered two years earlier in World War I without Haber-Bosch technology, and nitrogen fertilizer was used in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995.It's a fascinating story, well-told by Hager in The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler (Harmony Books, $24.95, 316 pages). Hager is particularly sympathetic toward Bosch, "a tragic hero, a guy who had high aspirations and who hated Hitler."
Hager identifies with scientists and describes their work clearly and accurately thanks to a background that includes a degree in biology from Portland State and a graduate degree in microbiology and immunology from Oregon Health & Science University.
When it came time to begin his career as a research scientist, Hager, who grew up in Portland and now lives in Eugene, couldn't stand the thought of going out of state, where the jobs were. He turned his attention to writing and began a freelance career before starting work at the University of Oregon. He was the editor of Oregon Quarterly, the UO alumni magazine, and directed the university's office of communications. He left the school in 2003 and is now a full-time writer.
"I could do these science-adventure stories forever," he said, "because I love them."
http://blog.oregonlive.com/books/2008/09/how_to_turn_air_into_bread_and.html
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Digital TV: A Giveaway to Corporate Media
By Bruce Dixon, Black Agenda ReportSeptember 5, 2008
www.alternet.org
Digital TV means four to ten times as many channels for each and every broadcaster with no obligations to the public. The FCC quietly awarded broadcasters this colossal gift of public property worth $70-$80 billion during the Clinton administration back in 1996. In the 12 years since, under Democratic and Republican presidents alike, corporate broadcasters and their stooges at the FCC have diligently peddled the cover stories that digital TV is all about the advent of high definition television, and that the only nagging questions are how and whether enough converter boxes will be available for consumers who can't or won't buy brand new TVs.
In a final act of brazen misdirection to conceal this grand theft digital, FCC Commissioners are scheduled to tour dozens of cities between now and February 18, 2009, doing a lot of talking, but not much listening.
FCC Anounces 80 City "We're Not Listening" Digital TV Tour
All most of us know about the transition to digital TV are two things. The first thing we know is that some people will need converter boxes on their old TVs to receive the new digital broadcasts. The second thing we know is that digital broadcast technology will enable high definition TV. As far as corporate broadcasters and the FCC are concerned, that's all we need to know, and those are the boundaries of legitimate public discourse.
What the FCC and broadcasters are actively concealing from the public is that digital broadcasting technology enables thousands of new digital TV channels on the public broadcast spectrum, all of which broadcasters have allocated to themselves without the inconvenient public scrutiny issuing thousands of new station licenses might have attracted. Thus minorities and women, local entrepreneurs, colleges and universities, community, civic and labor organizations and local governments who otherwise might acquire a portion of the new digital TV channels and used them to broadcast local news, arts, information and public service in hundreds of U.S. markets have been frozen out of the chance to serve the public over the public's airwaves without even the bother of public explanation or debate.
Utterly captured by the private broadcasters it is supposed to police and regulate, the FCC has been tasked with selling this piece of grand theft digital as a public service, and farmed out the job to the notorious PR firm of Ketchum Communications.
According to PR Watch, Ketchum Communicaitons are past masters of corporate disinformation, responsible for a string of suspect activities including:
Drafting ads for tobacco firms denying the links between smoking and disease, and promoting the myth that low-tar cigarettes are somehow less deadly; Co-ordinating PR for the KOOL Jazz Festival, intended to pretty up the name of Big Tobacco; Running fake business-funded science organizations touting the "safety" of pesticides, hormones and food additives; Spying on, smearing and facilitating the firing of pro-environmental FDA scientists; Recommending, as early as the nineties, the labeling of environmentalists as "terrorists", and the suing of investigative journalists, and conducting a 30 city PR blitz against an EPA report on the health; Covertly hiring TV host and syndicated columnist Armstrong Williams to discredit public education and shill for the administration's No Child Left Behind Act, and manufacturing dozens of fake video news releases which were distributed to hundreds of TV stations where they were broadcast as news.
Predictably, Ketchum's elaborate "public education" campaign on digital TV makes no mention of any obligations broadcasters might have to serve the public over publicly owned spectrum. It is calculated to confine public input on the DTV transition to those things the public must do in order to passively consume whatever commercial broadcasters decide to give them.
As part of this campaign, the FCC has announced plans to send staffers and commissioners to 80 cities across the country in what looks suspiciously like a "Not Listening Tour" between now and February 18, 2009. With few exceptions, FCC staffers and commissioners will be totally unprepared to explain their complicity in handing over the digital airwaves to commercial broadcasters who not only don't have programming for the new channels, but who will probably squat on the new frequencies till some profitable use appears. For the most part, the FCC won't be entertaining questions about why broadcasters are not obligated to broadcast news, local public service or other local content on the new channels, or why consumers ought to prize high definition TV over high quality content. The FCC will be talking. But it won't be listening.
Back in 2003, the FCC's OK of unlimited consolidation of print and broadcast media inspired a wave of public revulsion which almost nobody predicted, and almost nobody in the mainstream print and broadcast media reported. Nonetheless, it resulted in millions of letters and emails to the FCC, millions more signatures on petitions to Congress, and consequent intervention by the courts and congress nullifying the FCC's decree. It also resulted, to hear some tell it, in the formation of a self-aware movement for media justice in cities and towns around the country. If such a movement really exists, this may be its defining moment. ....
Story continues
"Useless Eaters?": British 'Moralist' says Dementia Patients Have a 'Duty to Die'
By Hilary White9/23/2008
LifeSiteNews
(www.lifesitenews.com)
"If you're demented, you're wasting people's lives - your family's lives - and you're wasting the resources of the National Health Service."
LONDON, (LifeSiteNews) - In an interview, Baroness Mary Helen Warnock has said that people suffering dementia have a duty to commit suicide. Baroness Warnock, called the "philosopher queen", is regarded as Britain's leading moral philosopher. She said that she hopes people will soon be "licensed to put others down" who have become a burden on the health care system.
She told the Church of Scotland's Life and Work magazine, "If you're demented, you're wasting people's lives - your family's lives - and you're wasting the resources of the National Health Service." In another article for a Norwegian periodical, titled "A Duty to Die?" she suggests, "There's nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so [commit suicide] for the sake of others as well as yourself. In other contexts, sacrificing oneself for one's family would be considered good. I don't see what is so horrible about the motive of not wanting to be an increasing nuisance."
Baroness Warnock's comments come as prominent voices in Britain's House of Lords continue to advocate for legalised euthanasia and assisted suicide. Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, said she was concerned about the influence Warnock has. "Because of her previous experiences and well-known standing on contentious moral issues, Baroness Warnock automatically gives moral authority to what are entirely immoral view points."
Contemporary utilitarianism - the idea that individual lives are of no inherent value and can be sacrificed for the good of society - is widely held in modern academia and medical circles. The principles of utilitarianism form the foundation for the modern "bioethics" (of which Baroness is a prominent proponent) that has largely replaced traditional Natural Law medical ethics that follow the principle of "do no harm" in many modern national health care systems.
John Smeaton, director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, wrote that Warnock's comments are "a regression to the brutal ancient world, when enforced suicide as a punishment was commonplace."
Warnock's ideas, however, can also be traced to a period of history much closer to our own. In his book The Origins of Nazi Genocide: from Euthanasia to the Final Solution, US holocaust historian Henry Friedlander chronicled the growth and application of utilitarian and eugenic philosophies identical to Lady Warnock's.
Under the influence of utilitarian eugenic philosophies, also called "social Darwinism", German officials in the 1930s instituted a program of mass euthanasia for persons the state considered undesirable, labeling them "lebensunwertes leben": life unworthy of life and "useless eaters." Among the groups targeted for euthanasia were developmentally disabled people, disabled children, and elderly people suffering from dementia.
In Nazi Germany's Aktion T4 programme, in which the gas chamber technology was developed, patients "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination," were killed by physicians on the grounds that they were a burden to their families and to the state. After the war, the Nuremberg Trials found evidence that about 275,000 people had been euthanised.
An important part of the Nazi euthanasia program was a campaign of propaganda to convince the public that euthanasia was a "compassionate" solution for patients and their families and that it would control the costs of health care.
As one of the world's most prominent proponents of the "new" utilitarianism, in 2005, Baroness Warnock said that Britain should follow the Dutch euthanasia model in setting an age limit below which premature babies would not routinely be resuscitated. She said that only those infants who show a strong chance of living to be healthy should be allowed to survive.
Her interview this week was not the first time she has suggested that there is an obligation for suicide among seriously ill people. In 2004, she told the Times that parents who want to continue medical treatment for their seriously ill children should have to pay for it themselves. "I don't see what is so horrible about the motive of not wanting to be an increasing nuisance," she said. "I am not ashamed to say some lives are more worth living than others."Maybe it has to come down to saying: 'Okay, they can stay alive but the family will have to pay for it.' Otherwise it will be an awful drain on public resources," she said.
•••
http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=29538
Nazi Waffen SS veterans honored in Austria
afp.google.com
ULRICHSBERG, Austria (AFP) — Hundreds of neo-Nazi sympathisers honoured Waffen SS veterans at the 50th edition of the controversial Ulrichsberg gathering in southern Austria Sunday.
Grouped on top of the Ulrichsberg mountain in the Carinthia province, a stronghold of the far-right nationalist leader Jorg Haider, about 500 people paid homage to the Third Reich soldiers' "sense of sacrifice."
Among the supporters were representatives from veterans' groups and from the Austrian army, as well as younger neo-Nazis and retired soldiers carrying the banners of the Flemish SS volunteers.
"We want to promote peace and remember that a war does not have any winners, only victims," said Rudolf Gallob, the president of the Ulrichsberg Association, during a religious ceremony.
"But we also want to remind people that we only did our duty" in fighting with the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS after the Anschluss between Austria and Nazi Germany in 1938.
Skinheads from several European countries applauded the proceedings, while women served out schnapps to stave off the cold weather.
Held since 1958 amid tight security, the gathering sparks controversy every year, not least because of its official status. Anti-fascist demonstrators staged a protest near the venue Sunday.
Haider triggered international outrage at the event in 1995 when he paid tribute to the Waffen SS, describing it as a group "of honest citizens who knew how to stay true to their convictions."
Valentin Sima, a historian at Klagenfurt University, told AFP that since then, the event's organisers had asked that the more provocative elements of the gathering -- such as the Kameradschaft IV (Comradeship 4) -- a veterans organisation of former Waffen SS members, be toned down.
Appearances by Gudrun Burwitz, the daughter of the former Waffen SS chief Heinrich Himmler, have also become more rare, she added.
Nevertheless, the memorial on top of the Ulrichsberg mountain still carries commemorative plaques dedicated to the Kameradschaft IV as well as to Spanish, Flemish, Norwegian, Croatian and Danish Waffen SS volonteers.
Those who received the Ritterkreuz (Knights cross) -- the second highest military order of the Third Reich -- are also honoured.
Such is the controversy still surrounding the Ulrichsberg gathering that Haider, facing legislative elections in a week, chose not to deliver a speech at Sunday's 50th commemoration.
Harry Cooper, head of the American Neo-Nazi Sharkhunters organisation, who sent a delegation of 20 members, said the event was unique of its kind because one could still pay tribute to soldiers who has been "honourably defeated."
Meanwhile, Wolfgang Zinggl, an Austrian Green deputy who acted as an observer at the gathering, told AFP that his party had lodged a complaint over the commemorative plaques and the fact that the army had attended the event.
"It is also inexcusable that during this ceremony, there was not one word about the victims of Nazism, or the crimes of the Wehrmacht (army)," he added.
The owner of the site, Peter von Goess, whose father Leopold fought in the SS, said the complaint was "without purpose."
"Everything is perfectly legal. And the turnout, which attracted thousands of people in the past, is dwindling each year as more and more veterans die," he told AFP.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jq0wpaonzTeYLVwllhHQm6e3e4mg
ULRICHSBERG, Austria (AFP) — Hundreds of neo-Nazi sympathisers honoured Waffen SS veterans at the 50th edition of the controversial Ulrichsberg gathering in southern Austria Sunday.
Grouped on top of the Ulrichsberg mountain in the Carinthia province, a stronghold of the far-right nationalist leader Jorg Haider, about 500 people paid homage to the Third Reich soldiers' "sense of sacrifice."
Among the supporters were representatives from veterans' groups and from the Austrian army, as well as younger neo-Nazis and retired soldiers carrying the banners of the Flemish SS volunteers.
"We want to promote peace and remember that a war does not have any winners, only victims," said Rudolf Gallob, the president of the Ulrichsberg Association, during a religious ceremony.
"But we also want to remind people that we only did our duty" in fighting with the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS after the Anschluss between Austria and Nazi Germany in 1938.
Skinheads from several European countries applauded the proceedings, while women served out schnapps to stave off the cold weather.
Held since 1958 amid tight security, the gathering sparks controversy every year, not least because of its official status. Anti-fascist demonstrators staged a protest near the venue Sunday.
Haider triggered international outrage at the event in 1995 when he paid tribute to the Waffen SS, describing it as a group "of honest citizens who knew how to stay true to their convictions."
Valentin Sima, a historian at Klagenfurt University, told AFP that since then, the event's organisers had asked that the more provocative elements of the gathering -- such as the Kameradschaft IV (Comradeship 4) -- a veterans organisation of former Waffen SS members, be toned down.
Appearances by Gudrun Burwitz, the daughter of the former Waffen SS chief Heinrich Himmler, have also become more rare, she added.
Nevertheless, the memorial on top of the Ulrichsberg mountain still carries commemorative plaques dedicated to the Kameradschaft IV as well as to Spanish, Flemish, Norwegian, Croatian and Danish Waffen SS volonteers.
Those who received the Ritterkreuz (Knights cross) -- the second highest military order of the Third Reich -- are also honoured.
Such is the controversy still surrounding the Ulrichsberg gathering that Haider, facing legislative elections in a week, chose not to deliver a speech at Sunday's 50th commemoration.
Harry Cooper, head of the American Neo-Nazi Sharkhunters organisation, who sent a delegation of 20 members, said the event was unique of its kind because one could still pay tribute to soldiers who has been "honourably defeated."
Meanwhile, Wolfgang Zinggl, an Austrian Green deputy who acted as an observer at the gathering, told AFP that his party had lodged a complaint over the commemorative plaques and the fact that the army had attended the event.
"It is also inexcusable that during this ceremony, there was not one word about the victims of Nazism, or the crimes of the Wehrmacht (army)," he added.
The owner of the site, Peter von Goess, whose father Leopold fought in the SS, said the complaint was "without purpose."
"Everything is perfectly legal. And the turnout, which attracted thousands of people in the past, is dwindling each year as more and more veterans die," he told AFP.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jq0wpaonzTeYLVwllhHQm6e3e4mg
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Risieria San Sabba
(Painting: Death Sentence, by Deena Warner)www.popmatters.com
21 September 2008
For a designated national monument, Risiera San Sabba, in Italy, is not an easy place to find. While road signs in Trieste routinely point you toward restaurants, hotels, roman ruins, the town center, Castle Miramare, and so on, we saw only one sign for San Sabba, at the bottom of a long list of arrows pointing to other cultural destinations. This is not a surprise. The citizens of the city are probably not all that eager to be reminded of the former Nazi concentration camp in their midst.
In the end, we had to ask at the bureau how to get there, and even with her explicit directions it was hard to find. It’s a nearly entirely unmarked building down a small street that’s a difficult turn to see coming off the autostrada. The humdrum brick structure stands innocuously enough in a somewhat rundown part of town, down the street from a soccer stadium and next to a Lidl discount supermarket. A circus was set up around the corner. I happened to park our rental car next to the bricked over windows of a chamber now called “the death room,” where new inmates were processed by the Nazis amid corpses waiting to be cremated. Only a small plaque by the long gray corridor into the complex marks the site’s significance now, unless you count the swastika someone painted on the highway riser back by the autostrada. The fact that the site is a national monument but all but invisible suggests strongly the tension between remembering and forgetting that seems to characterize attitudes toward World War II atrocities and the methods by which the Holocaust was carried out within view of the ordinary life of civilians. Apartment buildings still stand in the blocks that surround San Sabba; they probably stood when the horrors were being carried out.
San Sabba’s ordinary exterior is a large part of what is awful about it now. It seems a perfect representation of the matter of fact way the Nazis assimilated killing into industrial organization. The building was originally a rice-husking factory; when the Nazis occupied the city they simply converted it into a different, horrific kind of factory, retrofitting in prison cells (some of which still remain) and installing a crematorium (which they dynamited as they fled when the city was liberated in 1945). At the site now, there are commemorative inscriptions, sculptures meant to evoke the crematorium smoke rising, an exhibition detailing the history of the Nazi occupation of the region, and a grim collection of inmate uniforms, confiscated property, a replica of a truncheon used to beat inmates to death, grainy photographs of the perpetrators. It wasn’t a lot to see, but it was enough. I started to understand why the place was so hard to find. Though we made a special effort to tour the place, I wanted nothing to do nothing but forget what I had seen after we left; I stayed up late that night watching whatever bad shows I could find on Slovenian television to keep my mind off it all. I never expected to be so grateful for old episodes of The X Files.
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/63624/risieria-san-sabba
Italian Minister Pays Homage to Fascist Troops
Tom Kington in Rome
The Guardian
September 9 2008
Ignazio La Russa has added to the row stirred up by Rome's mayor. Photograph: Pier Paolo Cito/AP
Italy's defence minister yesterday paid tribute to fascist soldiers who fought in Italy alongside German troops during the second world war, inflaming a row prompted on Sunday when Rome's mayor refused to condemn fascism as evil.
Speaking at an anniversary event marking Rome's resistance to Nazi occupation in 1943, the defence minister, Ignazio La Russa, yesterday chose to stress the patriotism of those Italians who fought against the advancing allied forces.
A day earlier, the mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, a former neo-fascist youth leader, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera he "did not and never has" considered fascism to be "absolute evil". That definition he saved for the racial laws passed by Italy's fascist government in 1938, which removed Jewish Italians from state jobs. "Fascism was a more complex phenomenon. Many people signed up in good faith," he argued.
Alemanno's comments drew criticism from the Italian Jewish community leader Renzo Gattegna, who said: "The racial laws were created by the fascist regime, and it therefore seems difficult to separate the two."
The leader of the centre-left opposition, Walter Veltroni, reminded Alemanno that Mussolini had destroyed Italian democracy before 1938; Veltroni also said he was resigning in protest from a committee, overseen by the city, to plan a Holocaust museum.
Both La Russa and Alemanno are members of Italy's National Alliance party, which has evolved from its "post-fascist" roots to join the political mainstream. It is now a coalition partner in the government of Silvio Berlusconi, which has been accused of a crackdown on immigrants and Gypsies since taking office in April.
Alemanno appeared to be on the retreat yesterday at the anniversary of the anti-fascist defence of Rome, claiming he had not sought to condone the "anti-democratic" tendency of the fascist government. But his party colleague, La Russa, then stood up to keep the row alive.
"I would betray my conscience if I did not recall that other men in uniform, such as the Nembo from the RSI [Italian Social Republic] army, also, from their point of view, fought in the belief they were defending their country," the minister said in a speech.
Anna Finocchiaro, the Senate opposition leader, said: "There is no such thing as good fascism and bad fascism."
After the allied landings in Sicily in 1943, Mussolini was dismissed by Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III before setting up the Italian Social Republic in the north, from where the allied advance was checked. As the Germans retreated in 1945, Mussolini was killed by Italian partisans.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/09/italy
The Guardian
September 9 2008
Ignazio La Russa has added to the row stirred up by Rome's mayor. Photograph: Pier Paolo Cito/APItaly's defence minister yesterday paid tribute to fascist soldiers who fought in Italy alongside German troops during the second world war, inflaming a row prompted on Sunday when Rome's mayor refused to condemn fascism as evil.
Speaking at an anniversary event marking Rome's resistance to Nazi occupation in 1943, the defence minister, Ignazio La Russa, yesterday chose to stress the patriotism of those Italians who fought against the advancing allied forces.
A day earlier, the mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, a former neo-fascist youth leader, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera he "did not and never has" considered fascism to be "absolute evil". That definition he saved for the racial laws passed by Italy's fascist government in 1938, which removed Jewish Italians from state jobs. "Fascism was a more complex phenomenon. Many people signed up in good faith," he argued.
Alemanno's comments drew criticism from the Italian Jewish community leader Renzo Gattegna, who said: "The racial laws were created by the fascist regime, and it therefore seems difficult to separate the two."
The leader of the centre-left opposition, Walter Veltroni, reminded Alemanno that Mussolini had destroyed Italian democracy before 1938; Veltroni also said he was resigning in protest from a committee, overseen by the city, to plan a Holocaust museum.
Both La Russa and Alemanno are members of Italy's National Alliance party, which has evolved from its "post-fascist" roots to join the political mainstream. It is now a coalition partner in the government of Silvio Berlusconi, which has been accused of a crackdown on immigrants and Gypsies since taking office in April.
Alemanno appeared to be on the retreat yesterday at the anniversary of the anti-fascist defence of Rome, claiming he had not sought to condone the "anti-democratic" tendency of the fascist government. But his party colleague, La Russa, then stood up to keep the row alive.
"I would betray my conscience if I did not recall that other men in uniform, such as the Nembo from the RSI [Italian Social Republic] army, also, from their point of view, fought in the belief they were defending their country," the minister said in a speech.
Anna Finocchiaro, the Senate opposition leader, said: "There is no such thing as good fascism and bad fascism."
After the allied landings in Sicily in 1943, Mussolini was dismissed by Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III before setting up the Italian Social Republic in the north, from where the allied advance was checked. As the Germans retreated in 1945, Mussolini was killed by Italian partisans.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/09/italy
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Convictions Reinstated in Mob Case
By BENJAMIN WEISER
NYT
September 18, 2008
The racketeering convictions of two retired New York City detectives who helped to kill at least eight men in their role as mob assassins were ordered reinstated on Wednesday by a federal appeals court. It ruled that a trial judge wrongly overturned the jury’s guilty verdicts two years ago.
The decision means that the two highly decorated detectives — Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa — will now face sentencing for their convictions in one of the most spectacular cases of police corruption in city history.
The two men seem certain to spend the rest of their lives in prison. In 2006, after they were convicted of racketeering conspiracy, the trial judge, Jack B. Weinstein of United States District Court in Brooklyn, issued but did not officially impose life prison sentences for each man.
Then, saying the five-year statute of limitations for racketeering had run out, the judge overturned the convictions despite what he called “overwhelming evidence” that the two men were “heinous criminals” who were guilty of the “most despicable crimes of violence and treachery.”
But in a 70-page opinion released on Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, concluded that Judge Weinstein’s view of the conspiracy was too narrow, and that it had continued to exist within five years of when the men were charged.
Although murders and other serious crimes that the men were accused of occurred in Brooklyn in the 1980s and 1990s, prosecutors used more recent and less serious charges — money laundering and narcotics distribution in Las Vegas in 2004 and 2005 — to bring the earlier acts under the umbrella of an ongoing criminal enterprise.
Judge Weinstein, in throwing out the men’s convictions, had found that the recent crimes were “singular, sporadic acts of criminality,” and could not be considered part of the earlier conspiracy, which included kidnapping, bribery and obstruction of justice. Because the older crimes dated back more than five years, the men, thus, could not be prosecuted for them.
“The government’s case against these defendants stretches federal racketeering and conspiracy law to the breaking point,” Judge Weinstein wrote.
Judge Weinstein had also decided that the earlier conspiracy ended when the two detectives retired and left the New York area and other co-conspirators were arrested.
But Judge Amalya L. Kearse, writing for the appellate panel, said Judge Weinstein’s views of the criminal enterprise were too restrictive, given the evidence presented at the trial.
For example, Judge Kearse said, even after the two detectives retired in the early 1990s, one gave his pager number to Burton Kaplan, a former associate of the Luchese crime family who was the government’s key witness and testified about the services that both detectives had provided to organized crime.
She said the appeals panel concluded that the criminal enterprise had not ended before 2000, and thus the prosecution was not disallowed. Joining in the decision were Judges Robert D. Sack and Peter W. Hall.
Benton J. Campbell, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, whose office had appealed the case, said: “We are gratified by the decision of the Court of Appeals reinstating the jury verdict against the two defendants, who can now be sentenced for the extremely serious crimes that they committed.”
A police spokesman had no comment. Lawyers for each of the two men, who have been held without bond, did not respond to phone messages seeking comment.
Prosecutors charged that the two men, who both joined the police force in 1969, had taken thousands of dollars to carry out the mob murders and to leak law enforcement information, disclosing the identities of witnesses and compromising investigations.
In the first of the mob killings, in 1986, the two detectives, driving in an unmarked police car and using a siren, pulled a jeweler named Israel Greenwald over on a Long Island road, according to a government brief summarizing the trial testimony.
The detectives told Mr. Greenwald that he was needed in a lineup concerning an automobile accident. They then drove him to a garage, where he was shot to death.
Prosecutors said the detectives had first offered their services to Mr. Kaplan through a cousin of Mr. Eppolito’s who was also a mobster.
Mr. Kaplan entered into an agreement with the detectives to pay them regularly.
“The defendants were paid $4,000 a month for information, and tens of thousands of dollars for murders and kidnappings,” the government brief said.
At the trial, the jury also found that the men murdered a capo in the Gambino family in his Mercedes-Benz on the Belt Parkway; and that they kidnapped a Staten Island man, put him in a trunk, and delivered him to another mobster who tortured him for hours before killing him.
Judge Kearse, in the decision, cited the payments to the detectives as one factor that supported the prosecution’s view that the conspiracy spanned the entire period of the indictment, from 1979 to 2005.
She said that the jury had been told the principal purpose of the enterprise, as the indictment charged, was to generate money for the detectives, through legal and illegal activities.
Judge Kearse also noted that prosecutors had told the jury that the two men had “received money for each crime in New York, and they broke the law for money in Las Vegas.”
Thus, she ruled, the jury could have inferred that the conduct was “sufficiently similar in purpose” to show that “the enterprise that began in New York continued to exist in Las Vegas.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/nyregion/18cops.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
NYT
September 18, 2008
The racketeering convictions of two retired New York City detectives who helped to kill at least eight men in their role as mob assassins were ordered reinstated on Wednesday by a federal appeals court. It ruled that a trial judge wrongly overturned the jury’s guilty verdicts two years ago.
The decision means that the two highly decorated detectives — Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa — will now face sentencing for their convictions in one of the most spectacular cases of police corruption in city history.
The two men seem certain to spend the rest of their lives in prison. In 2006, after they were convicted of racketeering conspiracy, the trial judge, Jack B. Weinstein of United States District Court in Brooklyn, issued but did not officially impose life prison sentences for each man.
Then, saying the five-year statute of limitations for racketeering had run out, the judge overturned the convictions despite what he called “overwhelming evidence” that the two men were “heinous criminals” who were guilty of the “most despicable crimes of violence and treachery.”
But in a 70-page opinion released on Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, concluded that Judge Weinstein’s view of the conspiracy was too narrow, and that it had continued to exist within five years of when the men were charged.
Although murders and other serious crimes that the men were accused of occurred in Brooklyn in the 1980s and 1990s, prosecutors used more recent and less serious charges — money laundering and narcotics distribution in Las Vegas in 2004 and 2005 — to bring the earlier acts under the umbrella of an ongoing criminal enterprise.
Judge Weinstein, in throwing out the men’s convictions, had found that the recent crimes were “singular, sporadic acts of criminality,” and could not be considered part of the earlier conspiracy, which included kidnapping, bribery and obstruction of justice. Because the older crimes dated back more than five years, the men, thus, could not be prosecuted for them.
“The government’s case against these defendants stretches federal racketeering and conspiracy law to the breaking point,” Judge Weinstein wrote.
Judge Weinstein had also decided that the earlier conspiracy ended when the two detectives retired and left the New York area and other co-conspirators were arrested.
But Judge Amalya L. Kearse, writing for the appellate panel, said Judge Weinstein’s views of the criminal enterprise were too restrictive, given the evidence presented at the trial.
For example, Judge Kearse said, even after the two detectives retired in the early 1990s, one gave his pager number to Burton Kaplan, a former associate of the Luchese crime family who was the government’s key witness and testified about the services that both detectives had provided to organized crime.
She said the appeals panel concluded that the criminal enterprise had not ended before 2000, and thus the prosecution was not disallowed. Joining in the decision were Judges Robert D. Sack and Peter W. Hall.
Benton J. Campbell, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, whose office had appealed the case, said: “We are gratified by the decision of the Court of Appeals reinstating the jury verdict against the two defendants, who can now be sentenced for the extremely serious crimes that they committed.”
A police spokesman had no comment. Lawyers for each of the two men, who have been held without bond, did not respond to phone messages seeking comment.
Prosecutors charged that the two men, who both joined the police force in 1969, had taken thousands of dollars to carry out the mob murders and to leak law enforcement information, disclosing the identities of witnesses and compromising investigations.
In the first of the mob killings, in 1986, the two detectives, driving in an unmarked police car and using a siren, pulled a jeweler named Israel Greenwald over on a Long Island road, according to a government brief summarizing the trial testimony.
The detectives told Mr. Greenwald that he was needed in a lineup concerning an automobile accident. They then drove him to a garage, where he was shot to death.
Prosecutors said the detectives had first offered their services to Mr. Kaplan through a cousin of Mr. Eppolito’s who was also a mobster.
Mr. Kaplan entered into an agreement with the detectives to pay them regularly.
“The defendants were paid $4,000 a month for information, and tens of thousands of dollars for murders and kidnappings,” the government brief said.
At the trial, the jury also found that the men murdered a capo in the Gambino family in his Mercedes-Benz on the Belt Parkway; and that they kidnapped a Staten Island man, put him in a trunk, and delivered him to another mobster who tortured him for hours before killing him.
Judge Kearse, in the decision, cited the payments to the detectives as one factor that supported the prosecution’s view that the conspiracy spanned the entire period of the indictment, from 1979 to 2005.
She said that the jury had been told the principal purpose of the enterprise, as the indictment charged, was to generate money for the detectives, through legal and illegal activities.
Judge Kearse also noted that prosecutors had told the jury that the two men had “received money for each crime in New York, and they broke the law for money in Las Vegas.”
Thus, she ruled, the jury could have inferred that the conduct was “sufficiently similar in purpose” to show that “the enterprise that began in New York continued to exist in Las Vegas.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/nyregion/18cops.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
US Soldier Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy in Iraqi Detainee Deaths
September 18, 2008
[JURIST] US Army Specialist Belmor Ramos pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy for his involvement in the killings of four unarmed Iraqi prisoners [NY Times report] west of Baghdad in 2007. In his confession, Ramos said he willingly took part in the killings as retribution for earlier deaths of US soldiers. As part of a plea agreement, Ramos was sentenced to seven months in prison, a term reduced from what a prosecutor in the case said would have otherwise been closer to 40 years. Ramos is also scheduled to have his rank reduced and to be dishonorable discharged from the army, but his lawyer is appealing those penalties. AP has more. BBC News has additional coverage.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/09/us-soldier-pleads-guilty-to-conspiracy.php
[JURIST] US Army Specialist Belmor Ramos pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy for his involvement in the killings of four unarmed Iraqi prisoners [NY Times report] west of Baghdad in 2007. In his confession, Ramos said he willingly took part in the killings as retribution for earlier deaths of US soldiers. As part of a plea agreement, Ramos was sentenced to seven months in prison, a term reduced from what a prosecutor in the case said would have otherwise been closer to 40 years. Ramos is also scheduled to have his rank reduced and to be dishonorable discharged from the army, but his lawyer is appealing those penalties. AP has more. BBC News has additional coverage.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/09/us-soldier-pleads-guilty-to-conspiracy.php
Friday, September 19, 2008
Nazi-Linked Corporations: Paying The Piper, Reaping The Returns
Also see: Corporate America and the Rise of Hitler
By Hans-Joachim Voth
www.resourceinvestor.com
18 Sep 2008
Around the globe, politically connected firms are more valuable. Nazi Germany was no different, though historians have lacked convincing evidence to prove that claim. This article shows that Nazi-linked firms reaped astoundingly large returns when Adolf Hitler came to power.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (voxEU.org) -- Few days defined the course of 20th century history as decisively as January 30th, 1933. With Adolf Hitler’s seizure of power in Germany, the course was set for another world war with millions of casualties, for genocide on an unprecedented scale, and for the abrupt end of Weimar’s vibrant cultural and intellectual life.
Who profited from the Nazi rise to power? Long before the first cabinet meeting was held under Chancellor Hitler, Communists had argued that the Nazi party was simply an instrument of capitalist forces. Memoirs of ambassadors and the investigations leading up to the Nuremberg trial seemed to confirm the complicity of many leading business men in the Nazi rise to power. This consensus was shattered a generation ago, when historians – Henry A. Turner (1985) most prominently among them – started to argue that there was no “smoking gun” linking big business and the Nazi party before 1933. Connections, he argued, had been isolated, were unrepresentative, and the total support given did not amount to much.
Instead of trawling the same overfished archives, Thomas Ferguson and I decided to look at what the financial markets saw when the Nazi party suddenly came to power (Ferguson and Voth 2005). Instead of having to assess the importance of every interaction between individuals, stock markets have the beauty that people have to put their money where their belief is. If the Nazi party’s rise to power made a big difference to the value of a firm that had given early support to the party, chances are that these contacts mattered.
Connected to the Nazis
Earlier academic work had focused mainly on the actions of managers. We broadened our definition of “connection”, by also analysing supervisory board members. Boards were particularly important in German public companies. Banks, for example, exercised power over affiliated companies through seats on supervisory boards. Any knowledgeable observer of the German corporate scene would have examined board composition to assess the political and economic positioning of a firm. An essential part of the work was to pin down supervisory board membership at the time of the takeover, which we did by analysing contemporary German sources.
In total, we found that 119 firms had connections with the Nazi party prior to January 1933. We counted leading businessmen as connected if they did one of three things:
Contributed funds to the Nazi party; Signed an appeal in the fall of 1932, directed to the German President Paul von Hindenburg, to make Hitler chancellor; and Contributed to two organisations designed to ’teach the Nazis economics’ – the Keppler Kreis and the Arbeitsstelle Schacht.
Financial support has long been regarded as the most important way in which big business aided the rise of the Nazi party. We go beyond this definition since an emerging consensus holds that membership contributions were the main source of party funding. While donating funds may have made a difference at critical junctures, it was probably not the most important form of support that Weimar’s business elite had to offer.
Hitler’s coming to office ultimately depended on the decision of the largely senile German President, Paul von Hindenburg. He personally loathed the “Bohemian corporal”. The conservative advisors around him were also sceptical about the Austrian firebrand. By organising an appeal to the President in the fall of 1932, when the Nazis had become the largest party in the German parliament, key players in the German business elite made Hitler a much more serious contender for power. Their backing lent an aura of respectability to “brown rabble”. By backing Hitler when and where it mattered most, German big business endorsed the radical movement’s suitability for office (Mommsen 2004).
Funding small policy units within the party worked in the same direction.
Prior to 1932, Nazi economic policy was largely dominated by cranks such as the party’s economist Gottfried Feder. His ideas included bills that would only keep their value if used constantly in transactions – to reduce incentives to keep “dead capital”. By raising the level of economic thinking in the Nazi party, businessmen made it a more serious contender for power.
Measuring performance
To measure performance, we collected the monthly stock price of 789 firms listed on the Berlin stock exchange. Prices were collected for the 10th of every month, from the day the exchanges opened again after the financial crisis of 1931 to May 1933.
We also collected information on the sector in which firms operated, the dividends they paid, their capital structure, and the overall market capitalisation. We defined 10 January 1933 as the last date before some investors may have suspected that the Nazi party might enter office. Some important meetings had already taken place by this date, but very few would have confidently predicted that on January 30th, Adolf Hitler would be German chancellor. As late as December 31st, many journalists who wrote “the year in review” columns had predicted that the Nazi wave had reached the high-water mark and would be receding.
How big was the Nazi premium?
As Figure 1 shows, there is little to suggest that stock market investors as a whole cheered the Nazi rise to power to a significant extent. But the effects of the party’s ascent are evident in the cross-section of returns.
Figure 1 Stock market indices, 1930-1933
Firms connected with the Nazi party outperformed unaffiliated firms massively. Their share prices rose by 7.2% between January and March 1933 (43% annualised), compared to 0.2% (1.2% annualised) for unaffiliated firms. The politically induced change was equivalent to 5.8% of total market capitalisation. This is a high number by international standards. Johnson and Mitton (2003) estimate that revaluation of political connections in Malaysia during the East Asian crisis wiped 5.8% of share values. While comparable in magnitude, it took 12 months for this change to occur.
Affiliated firms did better, no matter their mode of connection with the party. The return differential favouring connected firms existed for both small and large firms, for firms in nine out of eleven sectors, and for those with high and low dividend yields. We also examined if expected rearmament was to blame for the value of connections, using lists of potential defence contractors compiled by the German armed forces (Hansen 1978). Our finding persists.
Why it paid
Around the globe, politically connected firms are more valuable (Faccio 2006). Nazi Germany was no different, but the sheer magnitude of the connection premium is astounding. Why did early connections with the party pay off as handsomely as they did? We do not know if loyalty was rewarded with additional contracts, loans on favourable terms, or in some other way such as privileged access to foreign exchange.
What is clear is that not enough firms sought to affiliate with the Nazis prior to January 1933 to drive the expected benefit – as seen by stock market investors – down to zero. This means that either many firms expected the benefits from association to be low (the Nazi party’s rise to power may have been a genuine surprise), or that they would not contemplate giving support for a variety of political reasons.
References
Faccio, Mara, “Politically Connected Firms,” American Economic Review, 96 (1) (2006), 369–386.
Ferguson, Thomas and Hans-Joachim Voth, “Betting on Hitler – The Value of Political Connections in Nazi Germany,” April 2005, CEPR Discussion Paper 5021.
Hansen, Ernst Willi, Reichswehr und Industrie: Rüstungswirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und wirtschaftliche Mobilmachungsvorbereitungen 1923–1932 (Boppard am Rhein: Boldt, 1978).
Johnson, Simon, and Todd Mitton, “Cronyism and Capital Controls: Evidence from Malaysia,” Journal of Financial Economics, 67 (2) (2003), 351–382.
Mommsen, Hans, Aufstieg und Untergang der Republik von Weimar, 2nd ed. (Munich: Ullstein Heyne, 2004).
Turner, Henry A., German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1985).
http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=46278
By Hans-Joachim Voth
www.resourceinvestor.com
18 Sep 2008
Around the globe, politically connected firms are more valuable. Nazi Germany was no different, though historians have lacked convincing evidence to prove that claim. This article shows that Nazi-linked firms reaped astoundingly large returns when Adolf Hitler came to power.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (voxEU.org) -- Few days defined the course of 20th century history as decisively as January 30th, 1933. With Adolf Hitler’s seizure of power in Germany, the course was set for another world war with millions of casualties, for genocide on an unprecedented scale, and for the abrupt end of Weimar’s vibrant cultural and intellectual life.
Who profited from the Nazi rise to power? Long before the first cabinet meeting was held under Chancellor Hitler, Communists had argued that the Nazi party was simply an instrument of capitalist forces. Memoirs of ambassadors and the investigations leading up to the Nuremberg trial seemed to confirm the complicity of many leading business men in the Nazi rise to power. This consensus was shattered a generation ago, when historians – Henry A. Turner (1985) most prominently among them – started to argue that there was no “smoking gun” linking big business and the Nazi party before 1933. Connections, he argued, had been isolated, were unrepresentative, and the total support given did not amount to much.
Instead of trawling the same overfished archives, Thomas Ferguson and I decided to look at what the financial markets saw when the Nazi party suddenly came to power (Ferguson and Voth 2005). Instead of having to assess the importance of every interaction between individuals, stock markets have the beauty that people have to put their money where their belief is. If the Nazi party’s rise to power made a big difference to the value of a firm that had given early support to the party, chances are that these contacts mattered.
Connected to the Nazis
Earlier academic work had focused mainly on the actions of managers. We broadened our definition of “connection”, by also analysing supervisory board members. Boards were particularly important in German public companies. Banks, for example, exercised power over affiliated companies through seats on supervisory boards. Any knowledgeable observer of the German corporate scene would have examined board composition to assess the political and economic positioning of a firm. An essential part of the work was to pin down supervisory board membership at the time of the takeover, which we did by analysing contemporary German sources.
In total, we found that 119 firms had connections with the Nazi party prior to January 1933. We counted leading businessmen as connected if they did one of three things:
Contributed funds to the Nazi party; Signed an appeal in the fall of 1932, directed to the German President Paul von Hindenburg, to make Hitler chancellor; and Contributed to two organisations designed to ’teach the Nazis economics’ – the Keppler Kreis and the Arbeitsstelle Schacht.
Financial support has long been regarded as the most important way in which big business aided the rise of the Nazi party. We go beyond this definition since an emerging consensus holds that membership contributions were the main source of party funding. While donating funds may have made a difference at critical junctures, it was probably not the most important form of support that Weimar’s business elite had to offer.
Hitler’s coming to office ultimately depended on the decision of the largely senile German President, Paul von Hindenburg. He personally loathed the “Bohemian corporal”. The conservative advisors around him were also sceptical about the Austrian firebrand. By organising an appeal to the President in the fall of 1932, when the Nazis had become the largest party in the German parliament, key players in the German business elite made Hitler a much more serious contender for power. Their backing lent an aura of respectability to “brown rabble”. By backing Hitler when and where it mattered most, German big business endorsed the radical movement’s suitability for office (Mommsen 2004).
Funding small policy units within the party worked in the same direction.
Prior to 1932, Nazi economic policy was largely dominated by cranks such as the party’s economist Gottfried Feder. His ideas included bills that would only keep their value if used constantly in transactions – to reduce incentives to keep “dead capital”. By raising the level of economic thinking in the Nazi party, businessmen made it a more serious contender for power.
Measuring performance
To measure performance, we collected the monthly stock price of 789 firms listed on the Berlin stock exchange. Prices were collected for the 10th of every month, from the day the exchanges opened again after the financial crisis of 1931 to May 1933.
We also collected information on the sector in which firms operated, the dividends they paid, their capital structure, and the overall market capitalisation. We defined 10 January 1933 as the last date before some investors may have suspected that the Nazi party might enter office. Some important meetings had already taken place by this date, but very few would have confidently predicted that on January 30th, Adolf Hitler would be German chancellor. As late as December 31st, many journalists who wrote “the year in review” columns had predicted that the Nazi wave had reached the high-water mark and would be receding.
How big was the Nazi premium?
As Figure 1 shows, there is little to suggest that stock market investors as a whole cheered the Nazi rise to power to a significant extent. But the effects of the party’s ascent are evident in the cross-section of returns.
Figure 1 Stock market indices, 1930-1933Firms connected with the Nazi party outperformed unaffiliated firms massively. Their share prices rose by 7.2% between January and March 1933 (43% annualised), compared to 0.2% (1.2% annualised) for unaffiliated firms. The politically induced change was equivalent to 5.8% of total market capitalisation. This is a high number by international standards. Johnson and Mitton (2003) estimate that revaluation of political connections in Malaysia during the East Asian crisis wiped 5.8% of share values. While comparable in magnitude, it took 12 months for this change to occur.
Affiliated firms did better, no matter their mode of connection with the party. The return differential favouring connected firms existed for both small and large firms, for firms in nine out of eleven sectors, and for those with high and low dividend yields. We also examined if expected rearmament was to blame for the value of connections, using lists of potential defence contractors compiled by the German armed forces (Hansen 1978). Our finding persists.
Why it paid
Around the globe, politically connected firms are more valuable (Faccio 2006). Nazi Germany was no different, but the sheer magnitude of the connection premium is astounding. Why did early connections with the party pay off as handsomely as they did? We do not know if loyalty was rewarded with additional contracts, loans on favourable terms, or in some other way such as privileged access to foreign exchange.
What is clear is that not enough firms sought to affiliate with the Nazis prior to January 1933 to drive the expected benefit – as seen by stock market investors – down to zero. This means that either many firms expected the benefits from association to be low (the Nazi party’s rise to power may have been a genuine surprise), or that they would not contemplate giving support for a variety of political reasons.
References
Faccio, Mara, “Politically Connected Firms,” American Economic Review, 96 (1) (2006), 369–386.
Ferguson, Thomas and Hans-Joachim Voth, “Betting on Hitler – The Value of Political Connections in Nazi Germany,” April 2005, CEPR Discussion Paper 5021.
Hansen, Ernst Willi, Reichswehr und Industrie: Rüstungswirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und wirtschaftliche Mobilmachungsvorbereitungen 1923–1932 (Boppard am Rhein: Boldt, 1978).
Johnson, Simon, and Todd Mitton, “Cronyism and Capital Controls: Evidence from Malaysia,” Journal of Financial Economics, 67 (2) (2003), 351–382.
Mommsen, Hans, Aufstieg und Untergang der Republik von Weimar, 2nd ed. (Munich: Ullstein Heyne, 2004).
Turner, Henry A., German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1985).
http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=46278
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Obama Assassination Plot That "Wasn’t"
By Jeff Stein, CQ National Security Editorwww.cqpolitics.com
The “assassination plot” against Barack Obama surfaced and sunk so quickly it seems like a figment of my imagination. Did it really exist? One of the meth-head defendants, Nathan Johnson, said it did.
But the feds have declined to prosecute, citing “insufficient evidence.” That, in turn, has fueled all sorts of Oliver Stone-like insinuations, most implying that the U.S. attorney in Denver, Troy Eid, must be covering up something or other because, after all, he is part of the politically corrupted Justice Department.
Eid, they note, was quick to charge a Denver inmate with making death threats after he sent a powder-laced envelope to John McCain.
It’s true that Johnson, 32, gave an extraordinary jailhouse interview that drew little notice during the conventions hoopla, telling Denver television station CBS4 that his two racist pals, Shawn Adolph and Tharin Gartrell, had talked about killing Obama with a high-power rifle as he gave his acceptance speech outdoors at Invesco Field.
The suspects were seized in the early morning of Aug. 24, after police stopped a Dodge pickup they had noticed weaving on the highway.
Gartrell was at the wheel, police said.
Inside they found two high-powered rifles, including one with telescopic sights, along with radios, wigs, a bullet-proof vest, a high-magnification spotting scope, three identifications not belonging to Gartrell, and 44 grams of methamphetamine, according to news reports. One rifle had a threaded barrel so it could be fitted with a silencer.
Pretty persuasive, if circumstantial, evidence of an assassination plot, it seemed.
Then Brian Maass, a reporter for Denver TV station CBS4, scored a jailhouse interview with Johnson that, at first telling, sounded like rock-hard evidence of a plot.
Johnson told Maass there was a plot to kill Obama, “probably on the day of the acceptance speech.”
“So your friends were saying threatening things about Obama?” Maass asked.
“Yeah,” Johnson replied.
“It sounded like they didn’t want him to be president?”
“Yeah,” Johnson said.
He added, Obama “don’t belong in political office. Blacks don’t belong in political office. He ought to be shot.”
But when you watch the video more closely, the foundations of the plot stories start to sag. Johnson, sounding like his mind has been terminally addled by drugs, tells Maass that he came to the conclusion that there was a real assassination plot only after he’d been interrogated by the FBI “two or three times. “
“I did say that it would be from a high vantage point and that it would be with the named rifle,” he said. But he also says, “I told them I had no idea there was a plot, a plan, a conspiracy or anything like that . . . ”
“When the feds came and laid out everything on the table and how it looked,” he adds, “I was in agreement that they could have been up here to do something like that . . . how it was possible they could go through with it.”
As for statements attributed to him that a real plot had been set in motion, Johnson tells Maass, “I’m basing it off of their information . . . [what] the feds gave me, not the information I know.”
It hardly needs saying that U.S. Attorney Eid is livid at suggestions he failed to file assassination-related charges for political reasons.
“Had the evidence reached the threshold for probable cause required by the law (as well as ethical standards), I would have not hesitated to charge any or all of them for the alleged threat — as I would definitely do if new evidence emerges,” Eid said in a letter to an unnamed critic that his office provided to me. “It would have been disgraceful for me or any other prosecutor to charge someone for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Eid added, “There was no probable cause to support such a charge. To the extent you challenge my motives or those of the many investigating agents and career prosecutors who all reached this conclusion in this matter, you’re mistaken.”
My takeaway is that suspicions about Eid’s handling stem from confusion about what Eid means by “no probable cause.” The sniper rifles, radios, wigs, bullet-proof vest and phony IDs police found in Gartrell’s rented truck, coupled with Johnson’s statement that they talked about killing Obama, would seem to provide plenty of “probable cause” to file charges.
But what it really means, Eid’s spokesman Jeffrey Dorschner told me, is that a jury is unlikely to convict Adolph and Gartrell on the word of Johnson.
“You are relying on that guy’s reliability and testimony,” Dorschner said. A defense attorney, he added, “would tear him apart.” In any event, he added, the felony gun and drug charges the suspects are facing would send them away for longer terms than death threat charges.
But what about the weapons found in the truck? I asked.
A competent defense attorney would dismiss them as “tools of the drug trade,” Dorschner said.
End of story?
Evidently. Just a footnote in a presidential season that grows more bizarre by the day.
Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein@cq.com.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hsnews-000002944767&parm1=5&cpage=3
Leahy: Others Involved in Anthrax Attacks
Senator Tells FBI Director He Is Convinced Army Scientist Bruce Ivins Not Sole Offender
Also see: "PROJECT ANTHRAX & THE COVER-UP"
By JASON RYAN/ABC News
Sept. 17, 2008
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy told FBI Director Robert Mueller during testimony before his committee that he did not believe Army scientist Bruce Ivins acted alone in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
"I believe there are others involved, either as accessories before or accessories after the fact," said the Vermont Democrat who received an anthrax-tainted letter. "I believe that there are others out there. I believe there are others who could be charged with murder."
Mueller had testified earlier that, after reviewing the case file, he was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Ivins was the sole actor in the anthrax mailings that killed five people and sickened others.
"We have looked at every lead and followed every lead to determine whether anybody else was involved, and we will continue to do so," Mueller told Leahy.
During the last two days of testimony, Mueller asserted that the FBI's case against Ivins was solid. Ivins committed suicide in July, and the FBI and Justice Department have released numerous documents relating to the case that suggest Ivins was the anthrax attacker.
A key part of the case rests on the scientific comparison of anthrax Ivins used and anthrax that was mailed. The FBI also has released information that shows Ivins spent numerous hours alone in one of the biohazard suites at Fort Detrick in the months and days before the anthrax mailings.
Mueller has said the FBI will work with the National Academy of Science to have an independent review on the case.
When Leahy asked whether anthrax was produced at other locations besides defense contractor Battelle Ohio and at the military's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, Mueller confirmed that there were 15 labs in the United States and three overseas that had the ability to produce the Ames strain.
"It should be a concern of all Americans that biological weapons were used on the Congress and the American people," Leahy said.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, also pushed for the FBI to release more information on the investigation, noting, "Given all the time and money sunk into this investigation, I believe the American people deserve more than just a press conference and a few briefings."
Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5827600
Also see: "PROJECT ANTHRAX & THE COVER-UP"By JASON RYAN/ABC News
Sept. 17, 2008
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy told FBI Director Robert Mueller during testimony before his committee that he did not believe Army scientist Bruce Ivins acted alone in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
"I believe there are others involved, either as accessories before or accessories after the fact," said the Vermont Democrat who received an anthrax-tainted letter. "I believe that there are others out there. I believe there are others who could be charged with murder."
Mueller had testified earlier that, after reviewing the case file, he was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Ivins was the sole actor in the anthrax mailings that killed five people and sickened others.
"We have looked at every lead and followed every lead to determine whether anybody else was involved, and we will continue to do so," Mueller told Leahy.
During the last two days of testimony, Mueller asserted that the FBI's case against Ivins was solid. Ivins committed suicide in July, and the FBI and Justice Department have released numerous documents relating to the case that suggest Ivins was the anthrax attacker.
A key part of the case rests on the scientific comparison of anthrax Ivins used and anthrax that was mailed. The FBI also has released information that shows Ivins spent numerous hours alone in one of the biohazard suites at Fort Detrick in the months and days before the anthrax mailings.
Mueller has said the FBI will work with the National Academy of Science to have an independent review on the case.
When Leahy asked whether anthrax was produced at other locations besides defense contractor Battelle Ohio and at the military's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, Mueller confirmed that there were 15 labs in the United States and three overseas that had the ability to produce the Ames strain.
"It should be a concern of all Americans that biological weapons were used on the Congress and the American people," Leahy said.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, also pushed for the FBI to release more information on the investigation, noting, "Given all the time and money sunk into this investigation, I believe the American people deserve more than just a press conference and a few briefings."
Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5827600
Robert F Kennedy Jnr on Palin’s Quoting Fascist Westbrook Pegler
Devout Christian hockey mom quotes Nazi vermin - "we're number one," "conservatives" chant (first in ego-syntonic jingoism ...)See: "Palin Quotes Domestic Nazi Westbrook Pegler"
London Times
16 September 2008
A week or so ago, I blogged about Sarah Palin quoting a writer in her nomination speech. The writer, Westbrook Pegler, was known to be anti-semitic. Today I read this on the Huffingonpost.com by Robert F Kennedy Jnr:
‘Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that “some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies.”
It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list.’
http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/minor/2008/09/16/robert-f-kennedy-jnr-on-palins-use-of-a-quote/
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Who is Stephen Payne?
" ... Payne is also a founder and managing partner of Envion Worldwide ... Envion's senior advisor is none other than Frank Carlucci, chairman emeritus of the Carlyle Group. ... Another former member of Team Eagle and current member of Worldwide Strategic Partners is Brian Ettinger, a former legislative aide to Sen. Joe Biden. This is especially interesting because Biden's name came up in the influence-peddling sting operation. ... "By Lindsay Beyerstein
July 15, 2008
Stephen Payne continues to make Jack Abramoff look like a piker. You want a Republican super-lobbyist? I'll show you a super-lobbyist...
As you may have heard, Republican fundraiser and lobbyist Stephen Payne was caught on tape offering meetings with Dick Cheney and Condi Rice in exchange for a hefty donation to the George W. Bush presidential library. ...
Of course, the Bush administration and the library project are frantically trying to disassociate themselves from Payne.
My research confirms that Payne was about as plugged in as you can imagine. White House press secretary Dana Perino admitted that Payne has probably met with the president on a number of occasions, but she balked when reporters asked her about visitor logs that might establish how often, citing "lawsuits and stuff."
If even half of what Stephen Payne says about himself is true, there is no question that he had acces to the highest levels of the Bush administration. Payne was a Bush Pioneer in 2000 and 2004. He was also a member of Bush Cheney 04, George W. Bush for President, and Tom DeLay's Congressional Committee.
According to a cached copy of Payne's curriculum vitae that I found on the Worldwide Strategic Partners website (now scrubbed), Payne claims to have been George W. Bush's personal travel aide during his father’s 1988 Presidential campaign. Payne served as Senior Advisor to the NASA Administrator on White House and Congressional Affairs in 2001, according to the same document. If the old Worldwide Strategic Partners website is to be believed, Payne has accompanied Bush and Cheney on offical trips, as well as served as an advance man for them: "Currently, Mr. Payne assists the White House as a Senior Advance Representative traveling internationally in advance of and with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, including trips with President Bush to Jordan for the Red Sea Summit (Mid-East Peace Summit), and with Vice President Cheney to the Mid-East, Korea, Kazakhstan, and to Afghanistan for the historic swearing-in of President Hamid Karzai."
According to the same bio page and a WSP brochure obtained by the Sunday Times, Payne personally advised General Pervez Musharaff and helped secure billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan. I was able to confirm through public records that Payne was a registered lobbyist for the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and a member of a lobbying group called Team Eagle (formerly known as Team Barakat).
Gary PollandRepublican heavyweights Gary Polland and Tim Powers served alongside Payne on Team Eagle. All three were registered foreign agents of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
Another former member of Team Eagle and current member of Worldwide Strategic Partners is Brian Ettinger, a former legislative aide to Sen. Joe Biden. This is especially interesting because Biden's name came up in the influence-peddling sting operation.
When it comes to Republican bona fides, Polland's website bio says it all:
"Gary is on a first name basis with President Bush (he is called 'Chairman'), his political alliances are widespread from the White House, where he is friends with key Presidential assistants like Karl Rove to United States Senators Cornyn, Graham, Hutchison, and Kyl; and to House leaders like Eric Canter and Ted Poe. In Texas, Gary is an advisor to the GOP and its statewide office holders. Gary is also a key fundraiser for Republicans and is responsible for raising more than $3.35 million for Republican candidates and causes during the last ten years."
Polland is also a McCain fund raiser.
Tim Powers served Bush's Department of Commerce transition team in 2001. He's a former deputy director of legislative affairs for the Republican National Committee.
Payne's closest current ties to the executive branch appear to be through the Department of Homeland Security. According to the WSP brochure, Payne is a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, the Rice/Chertoff Commission on Visas, and Border Protection, and the Essential Technologies Task Force of DHS.
Another of Payne's claims to fame is that he is one of Latvia's Honorary General Consuls to the United States.
Payne is also a founder and managing partner of Envion Worldwide, a D.C.-based globally networked investment firm that "works to acquire and consolidate natural gas, petroleum, alternative energy, and other power generating assets." Envion's senior advisor is none other than Frank Carlucci, chairman emeritus of the Carlyle Group.
Payne is a strategic limited partner in MSH Ventures and where Carlucci is senior advisor. Payne is a co-founder of Alliance & Co., which appears to be led by most of the same people as Envion and MSH, including Carlucci.
Carlucci and Payne both serve on the board of the National Defense University. Payne is also the president of a firm called Advanced Clean Air Technologies, which allegedly holds an exclusive NASA patent to scrub emissions from coal plants.
These preliminary findings are only scratching the surface of Stephen Payne's strange network of influence.
[Original reporting, please credit Lindsay Beyerstein.]
http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2008/07/stephen-payne-c.html
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Erich Priebke: Romans Outraged by Nazi's Pageant Appearance
" ... Marini had prompted sharp criticism earlier in the year when he attempted to name Priebke to the pageant's jury, claiming he was doing so as part of a 'peace process.' ... "JTA Breaking News
09/16/2008
A video appearance at a beauty pageant by convicted Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke has provoked outrage. The organizer of the "Star of the Year" pageant, held last week in a small town near Rome, showed a film clip of the former SS officer, who greeted the audience and wished good luck to contestants.
Priebke, 95, is serving a life sentence under house arrest for his role in the World War II Nazi massacre of 335 Roman men and boys, including 75 Jews.
According to local media, several people in the audience reacted by shouting "for shame!" Local politicians and Jewish representatives quickly condemned the appearance, with some accusing pageant organizer Claudio Marini of using wartime tragedy as a publicity stunt.
"Speculating on the macabre notoriety of a war criminal is really the opposite of a beauty contest," Renzo Gattegna, the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. "And to this is added the cynicism of never considering the pain of the families of the victims."
Marini had prompted sharp criticism earlier in the year when he attempted to name Priebke to the pageant's jury, claiming he was doing so as part of a "peace process."
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/110397.html
Texas A&M JFK Study Questions Lone Gunman Theory
UPI/Sept. 14, 2008: "Dr. Cliff Spiegelman of Texas A&M University says the composition of bullet fragments from the Kennedy shooting did not match the composition of bullets from the same manufacturer. Spiegelman, a statistics professor, said the fragments found weren't nearly as rare as a government expert witness, Dr. Vincent Guinn, determined. He said all five fragments came from two bullets fired by Oswald. A third shot missed. 'The claim was made that those five fragments could only have come from two bullets,' Spiegelman said. 'Our research showed it could have been two or more. And if it is more than two, there is an increased likelihood that someone else provided one of them.' ... "http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/09/14/JFK_study_questions_lone_gunman_theory/UPI-24481221430548/
•••••••
JFK bullet analysis doesn't rule out more than one gunman
By MICHAEL E. YOUNG
Dallas Morning News
September 14, 2008
myoung@dallasnews.com
Use the latest scientific techniques to poke a hole or two in official findings on the Kennedy assassination and suddenly you have lots of new friends – and lots of enemies.
Cliff Spiegelman of Texas A&M University led a team of researchers that compared bullets from the John F. Kennedy assassination with ones from the same manufacturer. He says there could have been two or more gunmen.
Forty-five years after President John F. Kennedy was killed in a Dallas motorcade, the details surrounding his death remain topics of endless debate for those who see conspiracies and those who disagree.
Cliff Spiegelman will testify to that.
The professor of statistics at Texas A&M University organized a six-member team that compared the composition of bullet fragments from the JFK shooting with other bullets from the same manufacturer.
The group found that those fragments weren't nearly as rare as the government's expert witness concluded in 1976, when Dr. Vincent P. Guinn determined that all five fragments came from two bullets fired by Lee Harvey Oswald. A third shot missed.
"The claim was made that those five fragments could only have come from two bullets," Dr. Spiegelman said. "Our research showed it could have been two or more.
"And if it is more than two, there is an increased likelihood that someone else provided one of them."
Many of the test bullets showed the same "chemical composition," and one matched fragments from the assassination bullets, he said.
Hence the title of the group's paper: "Chemical and Forensic Analysis of JFK Assassination Bullet Lots: Is a Second Shooter Possible?" The team was honored by the American Statistical Association with its 2008 Statistics in Chemistry award.
The study doesn't say there were two or more gunmen, only that the single-gunman theory can't be supported by science. ...
[O]thers attacked details of the study, citing things like the bullets' manufacturer, mentioned at one point as Winchester, then as the Western Cartridge Co.
Stuart Wexler, a 32-year-old teacher from New Jersey, joined the team and provided the test bullets, acquired during a two-year search of eBay auctions, shooting sites and online newsgroups.
"Finding those bullets was incredibly tough," Mr. Wexler said. "There are a lot of Carcano rounds out there, but not a lot of Western Carcano rounds."
Yes, they were made by Western, which acquired Winchester in 1931, he said.
Even now, a year after the study's publication, Mr. Wexler is amazed at the response.
"There was a tremendous amount of buzz," he said. "Unfortunately, a number of the international headlines overstated our conclusions. Some of it was almost pure propaganda." ...
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/healthscience/stories/DN-jfkbullets_14met.ART0.Central.Edition1.26d943f.html
NATO, Propaganda Due and Gladio
" ... The Italian setup metastasized into other countries, building links with dictatorships like that of Argentina’s Jorge Videla and Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, and leading to terrorist actions all over the world. ... In the former West Germany, the U.S. and the Adenauer government did not shrink from working with Gen. Reinhard Gehlen’s secret network of former (?) Nazis ... "
NATO, an idea whose time has gone
Author: Emile Schepers
People's Weekly World
09/12/08 15:23
When NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was founded after World War II, its first secretary general, British general Lord Ismay, succinctly stated its real, original purpose: “To keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” In other words, NATO was supposed to be an instrument not for spreading democracy, but for maintaining geopolitical hegemony in Europe by the Western capitalist states. Very soon, of course, the idea of keeping the Germans “down” was scrapped, and Germany became a major actor in NATO military matters.
But now NATO is being repackaged for the media as a sort of organization of world crusaders for democracy. New NATO members have been recruited from former socialist states and former member states of the Soviet Union, under the slogan of “protecting” those countries’ freedom. NATO participated in the destruction of Yugoslavia and in the Gulf War and Afghanistan, and now may recruit Georgia, which is pretty far from the “North Atlantic.” It is no coincidence that the pattern of new and prospective NATO states forms a close ring around Russia, with an interesting proximity to major oil pipelines also.
While our corporate media paint a pretty picture of NATO, its real history shows it to be much closer to Lord Ismay’s depiction of a grouping aimed at issues of power, not democracy.
A particularly sinister aspect of NATO was what came to be called Operation Gladio (“gladius” means “sword” in Latin), for its Italian manifestation. This was (and probably still is) a NATO-sponsored top secret “stay behind” program, operating under various names in all the NATO countries and in several neutral ones, including Finland, Switzerland and Sweden. The official purpose was that if the USSR and its allies would some day overrun Western Europe (a thing that never happened, and was never going to happen), there would be clandestine networks of military and civil personnel who could disrupt, attack and eventually drive out the Soviet forces.
In reality Operation Gladio became a mechanism whereby fascist and criminal elements could be secretly mobilized, not against a foreign invasion, but against progressive and labor forces within each country. To this day, there has not been a full public airing of just exactly what arrangements were made under Gladio in every NATO country.
But we do know something about what Gladio did in Italy, and it has nothing to do with democracy, freedom or the rule of law.
In Italy, the original Gladio formed its clandestine networks on the basis of old fascists (Mussolini leftovers) and their younger imitators, the Mafia and other criminal organizations, and the extreme right wing of the Roman Catholic Church, including the well known organization Opus Dei. It had a close link to a corrupt Masonic lodge, Propaganda Due (or P2) to which key military and civilian officials belonged. Funding came partly from the CIA.
When Osama bin Laden was just a callow youth, the Gladio-P2 network carried out bombing campaigns which they then blamed on the far left. The idea of this “strategy of tension” was to maintain a high level of fear and uncertainty in the population, which would lead people to reject voting for the then-huge Italian Communist Party (PCI), and that might make a right-wing coup possible. Only the most violent of many such actions was the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan, which killed 17, and the 1980 bombing of the train station in Bologna, in which 85 innocent civilians died. There may have been a connection to the kidnapping and murder of Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978 as well: Moro had been working toward a “grand alliance” of his Christian Democratic Party with the PCI. He was killed by ultra-leftist terrorists, but Gladio sometimes manipulated such people and encouraged their terrorism, because it helped the “strategy of tension.”
The Italian setup metastasized into other countries, building links with dictatorships like that of Argentina’s Jorge Videla and Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, and leading to terrorist actions all over the world.
When the relationship between Propaganda Due and Gladio came to light, in the wake of the huge Vatican banking scandal (Banco Ambrosiano) which forms part of the plot of the movie “Godfather III,” there was a wave of indignation in and beyond Italy. When it was discovered that the CIA was funding much of the Gladio-type activity, and along with Britain’s MI6 was participating in planning functions, Italian authorities asked for clarification from the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations, which to date have not been given.
The NATO “stay behind” networks have been involved in many other undemocratic actions in the NATO countries and beyond, including massacres of leftist protesters in Turkey, the 1967 “colonels’ coup” in Greece, and, possibly, the assassination of African freedom fighters against Portuguese colonialism, Amilcar Cabral and Eduardo Mondlane. In the former West Germany, the U.S. and the Adenauer government did not shrink from working with Gen. Reinhard Gehlen’s secret network of former (?) Nazis when setting up equivalent structures.
We now see NATO incorporating more and more countries which are many long miles from the “North Atlantic” region. The pretext is to defend democracy against outside threats, but the reality is that the point of NATO’s sword is aimed at democratic and left-wing forces within the countries in which it establishes itself, as well as at economic and military rivals.
NATO is not a force for democracy, but its opposite. And far from being an organization for fighting terrorism, NATO itself stands accused of fomenting terrorism. It is time for it to go.
Emile Schepers is a social justice activist in Virginia.
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/13693/
NATO, an idea whose time has gone
Author: Emile Schepers
People's Weekly World
09/12/08 15:23
When NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was founded after World War II, its first secretary general, British general Lord Ismay, succinctly stated its real, original purpose: “To keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” In other words, NATO was supposed to be an instrument not for spreading democracy, but for maintaining geopolitical hegemony in Europe by the Western capitalist states. Very soon, of course, the idea of keeping the Germans “down” was scrapped, and Germany became a major actor in NATO military matters.
But now NATO is being repackaged for the media as a sort of organization of world crusaders for democracy. New NATO members have been recruited from former socialist states and former member states of the Soviet Union, under the slogan of “protecting” those countries’ freedom. NATO participated in the destruction of Yugoslavia and in the Gulf War and Afghanistan, and now may recruit Georgia, which is pretty far from the “North Atlantic.” It is no coincidence that the pattern of new and prospective NATO states forms a close ring around Russia, with an interesting proximity to major oil pipelines also.
While our corporate media paint a pretty picture of NATO, its real history shows it to be much closer to Lord Ismay’s depiction of a grouping aimed at issues of power, not democracy.
A particularly sinister aspect of NATO was what came to be called Operation Gladio (“gladius” means “sword” in Latin), for its Italian manifestation. This was (and probably still is) a NATO-sponsored top secret “stay behind” program, operating under various names in all the NATO countries and in several neutral ones, including Finland, Switzerland and Sweden. The official purpose was that if the USSR and its allies would some day overrun Western Europe (a thing that never happened, and was never going to happen), there would be clandestine networks of military and civil personnel who could disrupt, attack and eventually drive out the Soviet forces.
In reality Operation Gladio became a mechanism whereby fascist and criminal elements could be secretly mobilized, not against a foreign invasion, but against progressive and labor forces within each country. To this day, there has not been a full public airing of just exactly what arrangements were made under Gladio in every NATO country.
But we do know something about what Gladio did in Italy, and it has nothing to do with democracy, freedom or the rule of law.
In Italy, the original Gladio formed its clandestine networks on the basis of old fascists (Mussolini leftovers) and their younger imitators, the Mafia and other criminal organizations, and the extreme right wing of the Roman Catholic Church, including the well known organization Opus Dei. It had a close link to a corrupt Masonic lodge, Propaganda Due (or P2) to which key military and civilian officials belonged. Funding came partly from the CIA.
When Osama bin Laden was just a callow youth, the Gladio-P2 network carried out bombing campaigns which they then blamed on the far left. The idea of this “strategy of tension” was to maintain a high level of fear and uncertainty in the population, which would lead people to reject voting for the then-huge Italian Communist Party (PCI), and that might make a right-wing coup possible. Only the most violent of many such actions was the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan, which killed 17, and the 1980 bombing of the train station in Bologna, in which 85 innocent civilians died. There may have been a connection to the kidnapping and murder of Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978 as well: Moro had been working toward a “grand alliance” of his Christian Democratic Party with the PCI. He was killed by ultra-leftist terrorists, but Gladio sometimes manipulated such people and encouraged their terrorism, because it helped the “strategy of tension.”
The Italian setup metastasized into other countries, building links with dictatorships like that of Argentina’s Jorge Videla and Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, and leading to terrorist actions all over the world.
When the relationship between Propaganda Due and Gladio came to light, in the wake of the huge Vatican banking scandal (Banco Ambrosiano) which forms part of the plot of the movie “Godfather III,” there was a wave of indignation in and beyond Italy. When it was discovered that the CIA was funding much of the Gladio-type activity, and along with Britain’s MI6 was participating in planning functions, Italian authorities asked for clarification from the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations, which to date have not been given.
The NATO “stay behind” networks have been involved in many other undemocratic actions in the NATO countries and beyond, including massacres of leftist protesters in Turkey, the 1967 “colonels’ coup” in Greece, and, possibly, the assassination of African freedom fighters against Portuguese colonialism, Amilcar Cabral and Eduardo Mondlane. In the former West Germany, the U.S. and the Adenauer government did not shrink from working with Gen. Reinhard Gehlen’s secret network of former (?) Nazis when setting up equivalent structures.
We now see NATO incorporating more and more countries which are many long miles from the “North Atlantic” region. The pretext is to defend democracy against outside threats, but the reality is that the point of NATO’s sword is aimed at democratic and left-wing forces within the countries in which it establishes itself, as well as at economic and military rivals.
NATO is not a force for democracy, but its opposite. And far from being an organization for fighting terrorism, NATO itself stands accused of fomenting terrorism. It is time for it to go.
Emile Schepers is a social justice activist in Virginia.
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/13693/
Monday, September 15, 2008
On a Bad Case of Cranial Bleeding, the Birth of CSC & the Collapse of Fannie Mae
By Alex Constantine
This morning, the corporate world was disheartened to learn of the brain hemorrhage death of prominent business consultant Michael Hammer while riding a bicycle with a friend in Boston - one of the 25 "most influential" people in America, per Time magazine. Today's Wall Street Journal:
Hammer was revered by the business press, but his prescription for reengineering the corporation "had a dark side" - similar to the industrial contributions of Arthur Koestler - as the streamlining of processes often went hand in hand with reductions in jobs. "Often the term became jargon for mass layoffs. Mr. Hammer's rhetoric didn't help. 'It's basically taking an ax and a machine gun to your existing organization,' he said in a 1994 interview with Computerworld. He once told Forbes: "On this journey we'll carry our wounded and shoot the dissenters."
A fond farewell written by financial consultant Peter S. Cohan sheds light on the formation of Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), the federal/military contractor that vies with Blackwater for the Most-Corrupt-Business-of-the-Year Award. Cohan, writing at Bloggingstocks.com:
Now my own brain felt as though it was bleeding. Thought I'd been reading about an intellectual who had revolutionized business management, albeit there was that "dark side." And now an even darker element entered the picture - CSC - and Index Systems. Sleaze.
This came personified in the form of Thomas P. Gerrity, the former dean and Joseph J. Aresty Professor of Management at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to Wharton, he was the Chairman and CEO of the Index Group, the CSC subsidiary that grew out of Cohan's MIT project. Gerrity earned his S.B. and S.M. in EE from MIT in 1963 and 1964 respectively, attended Oxford University, was a Rhodes Scholar and received his Ph.D. from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1970.
Mr. Gerrity also served as a member of the Board of Directors of Fannie Mae Corporation from September 1991 to December 2006, and as the Chairman of the Audit Committee from January 1999 to May 2006. That's right, Fannie Mae - also in the news this morning because the federal government is bailiing it out.
Mr. Thomas P. Gerrity, we note, from CSC/Index, chaired the AUDIT committee at Fannie Mae ... responsible for oversight. The mind reels ...
Ooh! - There's the cranial bleeding sensation again - could it be that Michael Hammer was thinking about all of this when he keeled over on his bicycle and expired on the spot?
Was his last thought of Tom Gerrity and his departure from Fannie Mae two years ago, when he was forced out due to a very costly accounting scandal? The Washington Post reported:
The firm's accounting strategies smacked of Enron:
Gerrity had been perceived as a central participant in the Fannie Mae scandal for some time; so were other members of the board, and they are interesting in their own right:
Ultimately, federal charges against Gerrity etal. were dismissed. On August 1, 2007, the Washington Post reported:
Frederic V. Malek is of particular interest here - he was campaign manager of the Bush-Quayle campaign in 1992, and is only the deputy national finance chairman for John McCain’s current presidential campaign.
He's a Watergate holdover, a walking, talking conspiracy theory. "Malek," according to Medical World News, "was the son of a beer salesman in Berwyn, Illinois. He graduated from U.S. Military Academy in 1959. He served in Vietnam in the Special Forces, training South Vietnamese counterinsurgents. He left the Army in 1962 and married Marlene McArthur of San Francisco, and graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, and went to work at the management consultant firm, McKinsey & Co. He and several other consultants had plans to start their own firm, but one was 'drafted by Robert McNamara to help out at Defense.' ..." (Is Health Planning Too Vital to be Left to MDs? Medical World News, Jul. 31, 1970, pp. 16-18.)
And there are his political bona fidés:
More connections place him snugly among the Nixonites: "Malek's boss at the Office of Management and Budget in Aug. 1973 was Roy L. Ash, for whom the Ash Council was named. The Ash Council created the Environmental Protection Agency. Until 1972, Ash was the president of Litton Industries, one of whose numerous divisions, Litton Bionetics, was in the second year of a $10 million-plus contract to manage, operate and maintain the National Cancer Institute's Frederick Cancer Research Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland. (FASEB Newsletter, 1973 Aug;6(6):2-3.)"
Watergate:
Frederic V. Malek, President GW Bush's bud, placed him on the board of directors of a company controlled by The Carlyle Group as a favor to his father.
The connections go on: Sen. Frank Lautenburg, NSA, 9/11 ...
Was the late Michael Hammer thinking about them when his life was ended prematurely by a brain hemorrhage? I will stop now to avert a possible repetition - I expect to live a long life, and the shock of political realization in America can be damaging to one's constitution.
This morning, the corporate world was disheartened to learn of the brain hemorrhage death of prominent business consultant Michael Hammer while riding a bicycle with a friend in Boston - one of the 25 "most influential" people in America, per Time magazine. Today's Wall Street Journal:Michael Hammer (1948 - 2008)
Champion of 'Re-Engineering'
Saved Companies, Challenged Thinking
By CARI TUNA
September 6, 2008; Page A12
In the early 1990s, as personal computers, the Internet and cellphones began to transform the business landscape, Michael Hammer rose to prominence as the champion of the decade's trendiest management buzzword: "re-engineering."
Using new paradigms and technologies, companies were meant to redesign business processes from the ground up to meet goals faster and serve clients better.
Hammer and Company
Mr. Hammer, who died Thursday at age 60, gave the idea currency in an incendiary 1993 business best seller Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution. The book sold over two million copies, stoking the growth of a multibillion-dollar re-engineering movement and catapulting Mr. Hammer to the forefront of management consultancy. In 1996, Time featured him on its first annual list of America's 25 most influential people, and Forbes in 2002 ranked "Reengineering the Corporation" the third most influential business book of the past two decades.
Hammer was revered by the business press, but his prescription for reengineering the corporation "had a dark side" - similar to the industrial contributions of Arthur Koestler - as the streamlining of processes often went hand in hand with reductions in jobs. "Often the term became jargon for mass layoffs. Mr. Hammer's rhetoric didn't help. 'It's basically taking an ax and a machine gun to your existing organization,' he said in a 1994 interview with Computerworld. He once told Forbes: "On this journey we'll carry our wounded and shoot the dissenters."
A fond farewell written by financial consultant Peter S. Cohan sheds light on the formation of Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), the federal/military contractor that vies with Blackwater for the Most-Corrupt-Business-of-the-Year Award. Cohan, writing at Bloggingstocks.com:
"As it turns out, I have a professional connection to Hammer and his co-author, James A. Champy. Hammer taught me at MIT -- I took a course called Office Automation Systems from him in which he talked about the importance of imagining how a process would work if it could be re-imagined from scratch. And Champy hired me to work for the firm he co-founded with several MIT Sloan School professors -- Index Systems -- which grew dramatically after the Reengineering book was published. Index was ultimately acquired by Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC)."
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/09/05/reengineering-guru-dies/
Now my own brain felt as though it was bleeding. Thought I'd been reading about an intellectual who had revolutionized business management, albeit there was that "dark side." And now an even darker element entered the picture - CSC - and Index Systems. Sleaze.
This came personified in the form of Thomas P. Gerrity, the former dean and Joseph J. Aresty Professor of Management at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to Wharton, he was the Chairman and CEO of the Index Group, the CSC subsidiary that grew out of Cohan's MIT project. Gerrity earned his S.B. and S.M. in EE from MIT in 1963 and 1964 respectively, attended Oxford University, was a Rhodes Scholar and received his Ph.D. from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1970.
Mr. Gerrity also served as a member of the Board of Directors of Fannie Mae Corporation from September 1991 to December 2006, and as the Chairman of the Audit Committee from January 1999 to May 2006. That's right, Fannie Mae - also in the news this morning because the federal government is bailiing it out. Mr. Thomas P. Gerrity, we note, from CSC/Index, chaired the AUDIT committee at Fannie Mae ... responsible for oversight. The mind reels ...
Ooh! - There's the cranial bleeding sensation again - could it be that Michael Hammer was thinking about all of this when he keeled over on his bicycle and expired on the spot?
Was his last thought of Tom Gerrity and his departure from Fannie Mae two years ago, when he was forced out due to a very costly accounting scandal? The Washington Post reported:
Fannie To Settle Charges, Pay Fine
Some $400 Million In Penalties Are Part of Agreement
By Kathleen Day and Annys Shin/WP
Tuesday, May 23, 2006; Page D01
Mortgage giant Fannie Mae will pay about $400 million in penalties under an agreement with two federal agencies to settle charges related to its $10.8 billion accounting scandal, sources said yesterday.
The settlement would end a nearly three-year investigation by the SEC and OFHEO into widespread accounting manipulation by the company -- including the use of improper accounting techniques to maximize bonus pay for top executives. It would not cover potential SEC action against individuals involved in Fannie Mae's problems, nor does it end a criminal investigation by the Justice Department.
But for the company, it could mark a step toward resolving a controversy that has undermined its credibility as well as its stock price and has fueled efforts in the White House and Congress for stricter regulation.
The firm's accounting strategies smacked of Enron:
The company's troubles were first made public in 2004 after a preliminary probe by OFHEO alleged that Fannie manipulated earnings between 1998 and 2004 to smooth the growth of profits it reported to investors. ... A separate probe, prepared for the Fannie Mae board by former senator Warren B. Rudman and released in February, concluded that the company manipulated earnings throughout the period under review and found that in one case it was done to maximize bonus payments.
Gerrity had been perceived as a central participant in the Fannie Mae scandal for some time; so were other members of the board, and they are interesting in their own right:
... Last week, Fannie Mae said it will replace Thomas P. Gerrity as head of its audit committee at the end of the year. Gerrity ... has been audit committee chairman for seven years. Since the scandal broke in 2004, corporate governance watchdogs have urged Fannie Mae to replace its audit committee, which is responsible for overseeing the company's accounting and financial practices and the performance of its outside auditor. Most of the committee has turned over in the past two years. Xerox chairman and chief executive Anne M. Mulcahy left in September 2004. Then Thayer Capital Partners' Frederic V. Malek retired from the board at the end of last year. Presidential appointees William R. Harvey and Taylor C. Segue III were not reappointed. ...
Ultimately, federal charges against Gerrity etal. were dismissed. On August 1, 2007, the Washington Post reported:
A federal judge yesterday dismissed civil securities fraud charges against some current and former members of Fannie Mae's board, saying that investors had not presented specific enough allegations for those elements of their lawsuits to go forward. The charges were part of a tangle of litigation stemming from a multibillion-dollar accounting scandal at the government-chartered mortgage funding company. People who served on Fannie Mae's board remain defendants in lawsuits alleging a different offense -- that they breached their duties. ... The dismissed securities fraud charges involved directors who were on Fannie Mae's audit committee, including Thomas P. Gerrity, a professor and former dean at the Wharton School; Frederic V. Malek, a Washington financier; and Anne M. Mulcahy, chairman and chief executive of Xerox. Institutional investors had alleged that members of the audit committee "failed miserably" in the performance of their duties. The allegations about the committee "do not demonstrate the required state of mind of extreme recklessness," wrote Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Leon also dismissed charges against an insurance company, Radian Guaranty, which allegedly sold Fannie Mae a sham policy that helped Fannie Mae officers manipulate earnings. Radian "is merely a third party alleged to have provided Fannie Mae with the means to misrepresent its finances" and was not responsible for Fannie Mae's statements to investors, Leon wrote. http://securities.stanford.edu/news-archive/2007/20070801_Dismissal103806_Hilzenrath.html
Frederic V. Malek is of particular interest here - he was campaign manager of the Bush-Quayle campaign in 1992, and is only the deputy national finance chairman for John McCain’s current presidential campaign. He's a Watergate holdover, a walking, talking conspiracy theory. "Malek," according to Medical World News, "was the son of a beer salesman in Berwyn, Illinois. He graduated from U.S. Military Academy in 1959. He served in Vietnam in the Special Forces, training South Vietnamese counterinsurgents. He left the Army in 1962 and married Marlene McArthur of San Francisco, and graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, and went to work at the management consultant firm, McKinsey & Co. He and several other consultants had plans to start their own firm, but one was 'drafted by Robert McNamara to help out at Defense.' ..." (Is Health Planning Too Vital to be Left to MDs? Medical World News, Jul. 31, 1970, pp. 16-18.)
And there are his political bona fidés:
Malek was Chairman of Triangle Corporation, Columbia, SC, from 1967-1969. From 1969 to 1970 he was Deputy Under Secretary of the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare; Special Assistant to Pres. Richard Nixon from 1970-73; Deputy Director of the Committee to Re-Elect the President ("CREEP") in 1972; Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, 1973-74; Member of the White House Domestic Council, 1974-75; and in 1975, he left government and became Vice President of the Marriott Corporation.
More connections place him snugly among the Nixonites: "Malek's boss at the Office of Management and Budget in Aug. 1973 was Roy L. Ash, for whom the Ash Council was named. The Ash Council created the Environmental Protection Agency. Until 1972, Ash was the president of Litton Industries, one of whose numerous divisions, Litton Bionetics, was in the second year of a $10 million-plus contract to manage, operate and maintain the National Cancer Institute's Frederick Cancer Research Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland. (FASEB Newsletter, 1973 Aug;6(6):2-3.)"
Watergate:
"The Watergate scandal kept Nixon from fully carrying out his experiment in control, but his efforts were not forgotten. In fact, E. Pendleton James, who was in charge of Ronald Reagan's preinaugural talent search and then became assistant to the president for personnel, had worked under Fred Malek, Nixon's personnel chief. Malek was the author of the infamous 'Malek Manual,' a guide to political appointees, which emphasized a telling message: 'You cannot achieve management, policy or program control unless you have established political control.' ...Malek then went on to describe techniques designed to 'skirt around the adverse action proceedings' required to proceed against civil servants in a legal manner. All were designed 'to remove undesireable employees from their positions.'" (The President and the Executive Branch, by Joel D. Aberbach. UCLA Center for American Politics and Public Policy Occasional Paper Series 9 1-9.) William H. Taft IV was also a member of the Reagan transition team. (White House Transition Team. Washington Post, Feb. 18, 1980.)
Frederic V. Malek, President GW Bush's bud, placed him on the board of directors of a company controlled by The Carlyle Group as a favor to his father.
The connections go on: Sen. Frank Lautenburg, NSA, 9/11 ...
Was the late Michael Hammer thinking about them when his life was ended prematurely by a brain hemorrhage? I will stop now to avert a possible repetition - I expect to live a long life, and the shock of political realization in America can be damaging to one's constitution.
The Nazi Invasion of Lodz
Re Ghettostadt: Lodz and the Making of a Nazi City, By Gordon J. Horwitz, Belknap Press, 416 pp., $29.95Chronicle of an urban crime
www.irishtimes.com
September 13, 2008
A heart-rending account of the devastating impact the Nazi invasion had on the lives of the Jewish inhabitants of the Polish city of Lodz, writes Carla King
A FRIEND RECENTLY enthusiastically described 19th-century Lodz as "the Manchester of Poland", referring to its importance as a tex- tile-manufacturing city, its rapid growth and bustling atmosphere. A significant contribution to its dynamism came from its Jewish community, which made up around one-third of the city's population by the outbreak of the second World War, the majority being non-Jewish Poles, with other ethnic groups (including Germans) accounting for smaller proportions.
Though represented at all social levels, from the great industrialists and merchants, to a lively middle class, the bulk of the Jewish community was made up of poor artisans, craftsmen and employees in the clothing industry. Lodz Jewry had a vibrant cultural life, with Yiddish and Polish-language daily presses, artists and writers, cabaret and theatre.
The impact of the German invasion in September 1939 was immediate and, for Jewish residents, devastating. Within a fortnight Hitler was in the city and attacks on the Jewish community commenced. At first, direct and violent: physical abuse, looting, humiliation, coupled with legal curtailments of their rights; by the end of the year a plan had been elaborated for a complete restructuring of those parts of Eastern Europe already in Nazi hands.
Jews within the occupied areas were to be marginalised into ghettoes, while ethnic Germans living in the Soviet Union, the Baltic States and Eastern Poland were to be resettled in cities within the greater Reich. Thus the creation of the Lodz ghetto, early in 1940, was part of a wider scheme to Germanise the city, first known to the Nazis as Lodsch and subsequently renamed Litzmannstadt after a German Great War commander and Nazi supporter, Karl Litzmann.
While past historians of Nazi policies tended to focus on their destructive aspect, recent research has frequently highlighted what they were aiming to achieve. Horwitz effectively locates the treatment of Lodz's Jews within an, albeit perverted, idealism that planned to transform the city into a showcase German urban environment, the sixth largest in the Reich, with new houses, parks, sports facilities and theatres.
Its Polish residents were to be shunted out to designated areas in the suburbs but the confinement of the Jews to a ghetto to the north of the city, where they would be contained and controlled, was envisaged as indispensable to the public hygiene of the city, the Jewish population being portrayed as unclean, an immediate source of contagion to the rest of its inhabitants. Pending some unspecified arrangement - the Final Solution had not yet been elaborated - they were to be confined within a ghetto.
The process of establishing the ghetto was very rapid. By May 1st, 1940, those of Lodz's Jewish community who had not managed to escape, some 163,777 people, were corralled into a zone four kilometres square, sealed by barbed wire fences and patrolled by both Jewish police and Gestapo. The book's name refers to the ghetto-city that emerged, with bureaus for housing, care of orphans, a welfare bureau, a health department administering five hospitals, a schools department, a supply department to control the receipt, storage and distribution of food and fuel, a finance and economy division, a workshops bureau, a judicial system with a police force, prison and court system, and a central secretariat, headed by the ghetto's leader, Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski. A ghetto orchestra was eventually formed and a newspaper published.
Drawing on an impressive range of sources, including memoirs, diaries, Nazi material, such as administrative records, and contemporary film footage of the city, Horwitz traces the history of the ghetto from its establishment in 1940 to its final liquidation in August 1944, just four months before the Red Army entered the city. The main figure in the account is Rumkowski - arrogant, self-important, sexually predatory, but determined to ensure the survival of as many of the ghetto inhabitants as possible, and to that end, willing to cooperate with the Nazis.
He quickly realised that the only hope for survival was in the ghetto's inhabitants representing a source of income to the Nazis. Drawing on the skills of its people, workshops were established providing a range of goods, from furnishings to clothing, footwear and leather goods, paper products, metal works and millinery. Nevertheless, starvation and disease dogged the ghetto, with rising mortality levels, coupled with suicides of the despairing. The ghetto had to cope with an influx of almost 20,000 further people, Jews and Gypsies, brought from other parts of Europe.
Then, at the beginning of 1942, the deportations commenced. First the Gypsies disappeared from the ghetto; then the first batch of deportees was selected by the Resettlement Commission and shipped off, officially to an unknown destination, but in fact to the death camp at Chelmno. When possessions belonging to those executed were reclaimed by the Nazi administration and brought back to the ghetto for processing, workers employed in sorting them were able to recognise items and to realise that something had befallen their owners. In September 1942, the deportations specifically targeted the elderly, the infirm and children under 10. Adam Czerniakow, head of the Warsaw Jewish Council, faced in July 1942 with an order to assist in assembling children and others for deportation took his own life, but of course this didn't halt the process.
In Lodz, Rumkowski, faced with the same demand, presented their surrender as an inescapable sacrifice in the interest of saving at least a part of the community, and a total of 20,000 young, old and ill, were handed over, dragged from screaming, pleading parents and relatives, those resisting or discovered hiding shot on the spot. Throughout, Rumkowski gambled that he might, by cooperating with the Nazis and by supplying them with valuable sources of skilled labour, manage to preserve at least a remnant, if they could last out until the end of the war. Ultimately he lost, and he too perished with the liquidation of the ghetto, joining the transport when it became clear that he could not secure the freedom of his own relatives. Only a very few Jewish survivors remained when the Red Army reached the city.
In alternating sections, Horwitz provides a counterpoint between the burgeoning city of Litzmannstadt and the ghetto, the Nazi administration in the one, to take an example, cherishing its children, providing them with the best of schools, summer camps, sports facilities, and celebrating them, while simultaneously deporting and shooting the children of the other.
Horwitz, who is associate professor of history at Illinois Wesleyan University, has, in an earlier book, a study of the public's attitude to the Nazi concentration camp at Mauthausen (In the Shadow of Death: Outside the Gates of Mauthausen, 1991) pointed out the indifference and even hostility to the inmates on the part of much of the surrounding Austrian population. But here in Western Europe, a society that routinely deports refugees and asylum-seekers to face possible torture, imprisonment or death, have we any right to be complacent? Will future generations condemn our indifference as we wonder at the behaviour of the citizens of Litzmannstadt?
Beautifully produced, and well-illustrated with contemporary photographs, this is a powerful, though at times a heart-rending account that must be put alongside Harold Marcuse's Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp (2001) and Arno J Mayer's Why Did the Heavens Not Darken: The "Final Solution" in History (1988) as an indispensable source for anyone trying to comprehend this appalling time in European history.
• Carla King is a lecturer in modern history at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Lies Led to U.S. Bombing
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan | An American bombing that killed up to 90 Afghan civilians last month was based on false information that was provided by a rival tribe. And the bombing did not kill a single Taliban fighter, the president’s spokesman said Sunday.
The claim contradicted a U.S. contention that the Aug. 22 raid on the western village of Azizabad killed up to 35 Taliban fighters.
“There was total misinformation fed to the coalition forces,” Humayun Hamidzada, the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, told The Associated Press.
Afghan police arrested three suspects accused of giving the U.S. military false intelligence that led to the bombardment, the Interior Ministry has said.
An Afghan government commission found that up to 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, a finding backed by a preliminary U.N. report.
The operation, conducted by U.S. Special Forces and Afghan soldiers, targeted Afghan employees of a British security firm and their family members — the reason the U.S. military recovered weapons after the battle, Hamidzada said.
The U.S. has said its forces were fired on first during a raid that targeted and killed a known militant commander named Mullah Sidiq. But villagers say their homes were targeted because of false information provided by a rival tribesman named Nader Tawakil.
An Afghan parliamentarian has said Tawakil is in the protective custody of U.S. forces. The coalition has declined to comment.
The U.S. at first said that 30 militants and no civilians were killed. A formal military investigation found that the operation killed up to 35 militants and seven civilians.
But after video images showing at least 10 dead children and up to 40 other dead villagers surfaced last week, the U.S. said it would send a one-star general to investigate the strike.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/world/story/796873.html
KABUL, Afghanistan | An American bombing that killed up to 90 Afghan civilians last month was based on false information that was provided by a rival tribe. And the bombing did not kill a single Taliban fighter, the president’s spokesman said Sunday.
The claim contradicted a U.S. contention that the Aug. 22 raid on the western village of Azizabad killed up to 35 Taliban fighters.
“There was total misinformation fed to the coalition forces,” Humayun Hamidzada, the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, told The Associated Press.
Afghan police arrested three suspects accused of giving the U.S. military false intelligence that led to the bombardment, the Interior Ministry has said.
An Afghan government commission found that up to 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, a finding backed by a preliminary U.N. report.
The operation, conducted by U.S. Special Forces and Afghan soldiers, targeted Afghan employees of a British security firm and their family members — the reason the U.S. military recovered weapons after the battle, Hamidzada said.
The U.S. has said its forces were fired on first during a raid that targeted and killed a known militant commander named Mullah Sidiq. But villagers say their homes were targeted because of false information provided by a rival tribesman named Nader Tawakil.
An Afghan parliamentarian has said Tawakil is in the protective custody of U.S. forces. The coalition has declined to comment.
The U.S. at first said that 30 militants and no civilians were killed. A formal military investigation found that the operation killed up to 35 militants and seven civilians.
But after video images showing at least 10 dead children and up to 40 other dead villagers surfaced last week, the U.S. said it would send a one-star general to investigate the strike.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/world/story/796873.html
People Convicted in the Abramoff Investigation
By The Associated Press – Sep 4, 2008Lawmakers, lobbyists, Bush administration officials, congressional staffers and businessmen caught up in the Jack Abramoff public corruption probe:
• Abramoff was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison on charges of mail fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion. Since pleading guilty in 2006, the once-powerful lobbyist has cooperated with the federal investigation of influence-peddling in Washington. He is nearly two years into a six-year prison sentence in a criminal case out of Florida, where he pleaded guilty in January 2006 to charges of conspiracy, honest services fraud and tax evasion in the purchase of gambling cruise boats.
• John Albaugh, a one-time top aide to former Oklahoma Rep. Ernest Istook pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the House as part of the scandal. Albaugh admitted in federal court in Washington that he accepted meals and sports and concert tickets, along with other perks, from lobbyists in exchange for official favors. He is cooperating with investigators.
• Robert E. Coughlin II, a Justice Department official, pleaded guilty to conflict of interest. He admitted in federal court in Washington that he accepted meals, concert tickets and luxury seats at Redskins and Wizards games from a former Abramoff associate, lobbyist Kevin Ring, while helping the lobbyist and his clients. Coughlin is cooperating with investigators.
• Italia Federici, co-founder of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, was sentenced to two months in a halfway house, four years on probation and a $74,000 fine after agreeing to help federal investigators. She pleaded guilty to tax evasion and obstruction of a Senate investigation into Abramoff's relationship with officials at the Department of Interior.
• Former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison, acknowledged taking bribes from Abramoff. Ney was in the traveling party on an Abramoff-sponsored golfing trip to Scotland at the heart of the case against former White House official David Safavian. Ney was released in August — a year early — after completing treatment for alcohol problems.
• Former Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles, the highest-ranking Bush administration official convicted in the scandal, was sentenced to 10 months in prison for obstructing justice. He admitted lying to a Senate committee about his relationship with Abramoff, who repeatedly sought Griles' intervention at Interior on behalf of Indian tribal clients.
• Tony Rudy, lobbyist and one-time aide to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, pleaded guilty in March 2006 to conspiring with Abramoff. He is cooperating with investigators.
• David Safavian, the Bush administration's former top procurement official, was sentenced to 18 months in prison in October 2006. Safavian, the only scandal defendant to take his case to court, was found guilty of covering up his dealings with Abramoff. In July, a federal appeals court overturned his conviction. The Justice Department plans to retry him.
• Michael Scanlon, a former Abramoff business partner and DeLay aide, pleaded guilty in November 2005 to conspiring to bribe public officials in connection with his lobbying work on behalf of Indian tribes and casino issues. He is cooperating with investigators.
• William Heaton, former chief of staff for Ney, pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge involving a golf trip to Scotland, expensive meals, and tickets to sporting events between 2002 and 2004 as payoffs for helping Abramoff's clients. He cooperated with investigators and was sentenced to two years probation and a $5,000 fine.
• Neil Volz, a former chief of staff to Ney who left government to work for Abramoff, was sentenced to two years of probation, 100 hours of community service and a $2,000 fine after pleading guilty to conspiring to corrupt Ney and others with trips and other aid.
• Mark Zachares, former aide to Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, pleaded guilty to conspiracy. He acknowledged accepting tens of thousands of dollars worth of gifts and a golf trip to Scotland from Abramoff's team in exchange for official acts on the lobbyist's behalf.
• Roger Stillwell, a former Interior Department official, was sentenced to two years on probation in January after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge for not reporting hundreds of dollars worth of sports and concert tickets he received from Abramoff.
• Former Abramoff business partner Adam Kidan, sentenced in Florida in March 2006 to nearly six years in prison for conspiracy and fraud in the 2000 purchase of the Fort Lauderdale-based SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hk6rEyehi1HVooxq9nl4ykpx-r8AD93061I00
Palin: the Real Scandal
The Hockey Mom has an abysmal environmental record: " ... 'Even the Bush administration can't deny the reality of global warming.' ... 'The governor is aligning herself and the state of Alaska with the most discredited, fringe, extreme viewpoints by denying this.' Governor Palin would also like to bring open-cast coal mining to Alaska's Brooks Range Mountains, an act of environmental vandalism ... "
Palin has allowed big game hunters to shoot Alaska's bears and wolves from low-flying planes
By Leonard Doyle in Anchorage
Independent
6 September 2008
Seen from the air, Sarah Palin's state is an environmental wonderland. From Anchorage to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, there is a vast landscape of snow-capped peaks, fjords, crystal glaciers, coastal lagoons, wide river deltas and tundra.
The guardian of this wilderness – and Governor of Alaska – has, this week, become one of the most recognisable faces in the world. But behind her beaming smile and wholesome family values is a woman aligned with the big oil and coal firms that are racing to exploit Alaska's vast energy reserves. In the short term, that has bought her popularity at home.
"I love the woman," the pilot on our flight shouts over the noise of the engine, "especially what she wants to do with oil, we just have to drill more, there is no alternative. What's the point of leaving it all in the ground?"
It is a stance that guaranteed John McCain's new running mate a rapturous reception at the Republican convention this week where the response to the coming energy crisis was a chant of "drill, baby, drill".
But the woman who could soon be a 72-year-old's heartbeat away from the United States presidency has an environmental policy so toxic it would make the incumbent, George Bush, blush.
Mr McCain has stressed he is concerned about global warming and has come out against drilling in the Arctic reserve. But, in recent weeks, he has wobbled on the issue. And environmentalists are describing Mrs Palin, who denies climate change is man-made, as "either grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading".
She wants to start drilling. She wants to block US moves to list the polar bear as an endangered species. And she has allowed big game hunters to shoot Alaska's bears and wolves from low-flying planes.
The 44-year-old governor says a federal government decision to protect the polar bear will cripple energy development offshore. As a result, she is suing the Bush administration, which ruled the polar bear is endangered and needs protection.
The US Geological Survey says climate change has shrunk Arctic summer sea ice to about 1.65 million sq miles, nearly 40 per cent less than the long-term average between 1979 and 2000.
In such a situation it was unconscionable for Governor Palin to ignore overwhelming evidence of global warming's threat to sea ice, says Kassie Siegel of the Centre for Biological Diversity.
"Even the Bush administration can't deny the reality of global warming," Ms Siegel said. "The governor is aligning herself and the state of Alaska with the most discredited, fringe, extreme viewpoints by denying this."
Governor Palin would also like to bring open-cast coal mining to Alaska's Brooks Range Mountains, an act of environmental vandalism in the eyes of many.
The Palin administration has allowed Chevron to triple the amount of toxic waste it pours into the waters of Cook Inlet. This, even though the number of beluga whales in the bay has collapsed from 1,300 to 350 – the point of extinction – because of pollution and increased ship traffic.
On the Republican convention floor she said: "We Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas and take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska: We've got lots of both."
The fact that drilling won't solve every problem "is no excuse to do nothing at all", she said, putting the country on notice that "starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines ... build more nuclear plants ... create jobs with clean coal ... and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative sources".
Mrs Palin also took a swipe at Barack Obama's environmental stance saying: "What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?"
Her support in Alaska relies on squeezing more money for the state from the oil companies themselves. In Alaska, every man woman and child is in line for a bonus cheque of about $2,000 (£1,100) from the state's massive oil wealth fund. This is, in effect, a vote-buying machine for the would-be Vice-President.
Governor Palin wants nothing to hinder the oil companies. She maintains that polar bears are well managed and their population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation. And if the ice should go away, then they will adapt to living on the land.
Many oil companies abandoned Alaska when prices fell in the 1980s but they have been rushing back to drill and prospect areas that are among the least hospitable on earth. That spirit of the Klondike is already in full swing in Prudhoe Bay the epicentre of oil production and one of the world's largest industrial complexes. It's so big that BP, UPS and FedEx operate a special fleet of jets from Anchorage just to service to the region.
Hundreds of spills involving tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil and other petroleum products occur in the area each year. Decades-old spills are still a problem and 17,000 acres of wildlife and marine habitat have already been destroyed.
But Prudhoe is just a tiny fraction of the area being targeted by Governor Palin and the oil companies. A similar fate of environmental destruction awaits the entire coastal plain as well as the special areas of the western Arctic – home to migratory caribou herds, musk oxen, wolverines, grizzly and polar bears should a McCain-Palin administration be elected.
The oil boom has attracted oilmen from across America. One of them is Todd Palin, husband to the vice-presidential candidate who works for BP on Alaska's North Slope.
It is illegal to hunt polar bears, and that is not about to change. But in an area known as "Polar Bear Seas", from Point Hope on Alaska's far western edge to the pristine coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, one tenth of the world's polar bear population is at risk, as well as beluga and bowheaded whales and bearded and spotted seals.
Big game hunters are happy to pay lots of money to shoot wolves and bears from the air. They also chase them across the snow to the point of exhaustion and then land the planes on skis, shooting them from point-blank range. The animals are considered endangered across the "lower 48" states of America, but not Alaska. The hunters keep and sell the animals' pelts.
Last year, Mrs Palin proposed offering a bounty of $150 per wolf, as long as the hunter provided the wolf's foreleg as proof of the kill. The measure did not pass. She even spent $400,000 on a state-funded campaign to block attempts to end the hunt.
Its not just wildlife conservationists who object. Many ordinary Alaskans also condemn the practice as barbaric.
Trish Rolfe, who runs the Sierra Club's Alaska office, thinks Governor Palin has been a disaster for Alaska's environment. "The idea that she stands up to the oil companies is a joke," she says.
"The governor pays lip service to the issue of global warming but denies it is man made. She will not even spend money to help the Inupiaq villages which are about to fall into the sea."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/palin-the-real-scandal-920803.html
Palin has allowed big game hunters to shoot Alaska's bears and wolves from low-flying planesBy Leonard Doyle in Anchorage
Independent
6 September 2008
Seen from the air, Sarah Palin's state is an environmental wonderland. From Anchorage to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, there is a vast landscape of snow-capped peaks, fjords, crystal glaciers, coastal lagoons, wide river deltas and tundra.
The guardian of this wilderness – and Governor of Alaska – has, this week, become one of the most recognisable faces in the world. But behind her beaming smile and wholesome family values is a woman aligned with the big oil and coal firms that are racing to exploit Alaska's vast energy reserves. In the short term, that has bought her popularity at home.
"I love the woman," the pilot on our flight shouts over the noise of the engine, "especially what she wants to do with oil, we just have to drill more, there is no alternative. What's the point of leaving it all in the ground?"
It is a stance that guaranteed John McCain's new running mate a rapturous reception at the Republican convention this week where the response to the coming energy crisis was a chant of "drill, baby, drill".
But the woman who could soon be a 72-year-old's heartbeat away from the United States presidency has an environmental policy so toxic it would make the incumbent, George Bush, blush.
Mr McCain has stressed he is concerned about global warming and has come out against drilling in the Arctic reserve. But, in recent weeks, he has wobbled on the issue. And environmentalists are describing Mrs Palin, who denies climate change is man-made, as "either grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading".
She wants to start drilling. She wants to block US moves to list the polar bear as an endangered species. And she has allowed big game hunters to shoot Alaska's bears and wolves from low-flying planes.
The 44-year-old governor says a federal government decision to protect the polar bear will cripple energy development offshore. As a result, she is suing the Bush administration, which ruled the polar bear is endangered and needs protection.
The US Geological Survey says climate change has shrunk Arctic summer sea ice to about 1.65 million sq miles, nearly 40 per cent less than the long-term average between 1979 and 2000.
In such a situation it was unconscionable for Governor Palin to ignore overwhelming evidence of global warming's threat to sea ice, says Kassie Siegel of the Centre for Biological Diversity.
"Even the Bush administration can't deny the reality of global warming," Ms Siegel said. "The governor is aligning herself and the state of Alaska with the most discredited, fringe, extreme viewpoints by denying this."
Governor Palin would also like to bring open-cast coal mining to Alaska's Brooks Range Mountains, an act of environmental vandalism in the eyes of many.
The Palin administration has allowed Chevron to triple the amount of toxic waste it pours into the waters of Cook Inlet. This, even though the number of beluga whales in the bay has collapsed from 1,300 to 350 – the point of extinction – because of pollution and increased ship traffic.
On the Republican convention floor she said: "We Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas and take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska: We've got lots of both."
The fact that drilling won't solve every problem "is no excuse to do nothing at all", she said, putting the country on notice that "starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines ... build more nuclear plants ... create jobs with clean coal ... and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative sources".
Mrs Palin also took a swipe at Barack Obama's environmental stance saying: "What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?"
Her support in Alaska relies on squeezing more money for the state from the oil companies themselves. In Alaska, every man woman and child is in line for a bonus cheque of about $2,000 (£1,100) from the state's massive oil wealth fund. This is, in effect, a vote-buying machine for the would-be Vice-President.
Governor Palin wants nothing to hinder the oil companies. She maintains that polar bears are well managed and their population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation. And if the ice should go away, then they will adapt to living on the land.
Many oil companies abandoned Alaska when prices fell in the 1980s but they have been rushing back to drill and prospect areas that are among the least hospitable on earth. That spirit of the Klondike is already in full swing in Prudhoe Bay the epicentre of oil production and one of the world's largest industrial complexes. It's so big that BP, UPS and FedEx operate a special fleet of jets from Anchorage just to service to the region.
Hundreds of spills involving tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil and other petroleum products occur in the area each year. Decades-old spills are still a problem and 17,000 acres of wildlife and marine habitat have already been destroyed.
But Prudhoe is just a tiny fraction of the area being targeted by Governor Palin and the oil companies. A similar fate of environmental destruction awaits the entire coastal plain as well as the special areas of the western Arctic – home to migratory caribou herds, musk oxen, wolverines, grizzly and polar bears should a McCain-Palin administration be elected.
The oil boom has attracted oilmen from across America. One of them is Todd Palin, husband to the vice-presidential candidate who works for BP on Alaska's North Slope.
It is illegal to hunt polar bears, and that is not about to change. But in an area known as "Polar Bear Seas", from Point Hope on Alaska's far western edge to the pristine coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, one tenth of the world's polar bear population is at risk, as well as beluga and bowheaded whales and bearded and spotted seals.
Big game hunters are happy to pay lots of money to shoot wolves and bears from the air. They also chase them across the snow to the point of exhaustion and then land the planes on skis, shooting them from point-blank range. The animals are considered endangered across the "lower 48" states of America, but not Alaska. The hunters keep and sell the animals' pelts.
Last year, Mrs Palin proposed offering a bounty of $150 per wolf, as long as the hunter provided the wolf's foreleg as proof of the kill. The measure did not pass. She even spent $400,000 on a state-funded campaign to block attempts to end the hunt.
Its not just wildlife conservationists who object. Many ordinary Alaskans also condemn the practice as barbaric.
Trish Rolfe, who runs the Sierra Club's Alaska office, thinks Governor Palin has been a disaster for Alaska's environment. "The idea that she stands up to the oil companies is a joke," she says.
"The governor pays lip service to the issue of global warming but denies it is man made. She will not even spend money to help the Inupiaq villages which are about to fall into the sea."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/palin-the-real-scandal-920803.html
Moscow Bombing Work of Neo-Nazis?
(September 10, 2008)
Neo-Nazis may be behind the bombing of a funeral attended by Azeris in Moscow, according to a September 6, 2008 article in the national daily "Kommersant." One person died and two ended up in the emergency room after a bomb exploded at the Artizan restaurant in southeastern Moscow. Police are investigating the possibility that neo-Nazis set the bomb, but are also investigating other theories, including the possibility that a bomb went off accidentally. Azeris at the funeral, however, were adamant that the bombing was a racist attack. A group of neo-Nazis were sentenced to life in prison earlier this year for the deadly Cherkizov market bombing, which marked an escalation into terrorist tactics by far-right groups in Russia.
http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/091008Russ2.shtml
Neo-Nazis may be behind the bombing of a funeral attended by Azeris in Moscow, according to a September 6, 2008 article in the national daily "Kommersant." One person died and two ended up in the emergency room after a bomb exploded at the Artizan restaurant in southeastern Moscow. Police are investigating the possibility that neo-Nazis set the bomb, but are also investigating other theories, including the possibility that a bomb went off accidentally. Azeris at the funeral, however, were adamant that the bombing was a racist attack. A group of neo-Nazis were sentenced to life in prison earlier this year for the deadly Cherkizov market bombing, which marked an escalation into terrorist tactics by far-right groups in Russia.
http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/091008Russ2.shtml
Friday, September 12, 2008
Hoover and the FBI
" ...President Harry S. Truman wrote a memo on J. Edgar Hoover back in 1945. It stated that the FBI was moving in the direction of a Gestapo or Secret Police. ... "By Ed Brault
www.turlockjournal.com
9/12/2008
Located at 935 Pennsylvania Ave. NW stands a large modern building named after former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover who reigned over the FBI from 1924 until his death in 1972, for a grand total of 48 years. Congress has since placed a 10-year limit on directors of the FBI.
Senator Harry Reid and I want J. Edgar Hoover's name off that building, but Congress refuses. Obviously, I have no clout whatsoever with Congress. The senator said, and I quote, "J. Edgar Hoover's name on the FBI building is a stain on the building." Attorney General Laurence Silberman was a bit more harsh after discovering Hoover's secret files in 1974. "J. Edgar Hoover was like a sewer that collected dirt. I now believe he was the worst public servant in our history."
Even President Harry S. Truman wrote a memo on J. Edgar Hoover back in 1945. It stated that the FBI was moving in the direction of a Gestapo or Secret Police. He went on to say that the FBI was dabbling in sex life scandals and plain blackmail when they should be catching criminals. And finally, when President Nixon heard of Hoover's death, he said something so nasty I cannot repeat it here.
There can be no doubt that Hoover did a number of things that improved the FBI, so why all the controversy? During his lifetime, he was highly regarded by the general public, but also generated an army of enemies. It can all be summed up in the following statement: His critics asserted that he abused his power and exceeded the jurisdiction of the FBI. They also claim that he used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists and amassed secret files on political leaders and used illegal methods to collect evidence.
Hoover was something of a prima donna. When FBI agent Melvin Purvis received substantial public recognition for his successful efforts to capture and break up gangs back in the 1930s, a jealous Hoover maneuvered him out of the FBI. ...
STORY CONTINUES
Witness Changed Her Story During Rosenberg Spy Case
Also see: "Rosenberg Case: Spy's Unreliable Memoir was Fatal," www.canberratimes.com, 24/07/2008.
Also: "Declassified grand jury transcripts confirm frame-up of Ethel Rosenberg"
By Holly Watt
Washington Post
September 12, 2008; A04
A key prosecution witness whose testimony helped send Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair gave a different account at trial than she did before the grand jury in the famous Cold War spying case, according to documents released yesterday.
The revelations are contained in hundreds of pages of grand jury transcripts from the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 for providing the Soviet Union with secrets that may have led to its development of an atomic bomb. More than half a century after the transcripts were sealed, a New York court ordered publication of the testimony of 41 of the 45 grand jury witnesses, including such key figures as Ethel Rosenberg and Ruth Greenglass, who was married to Ethel's brother, David Greenglass.
Testimony by the Greenglasses at the Rosenbergs' 1951 trial was instrumental in convicting the couple and in providing the basis for condemning Ethel Rosenberg to death. At the trial, the Greenglasses stated that Ethel Rosenberg typed up notes about the atomic bomb that had been stolen by David Greenglass from the top-secret Los Alamos facility in New Mexico, where he worked. Those ostensibly were the notes turned over to the Soviets, directly linking Ethel Rosenberg to the spying.
In recent years, however, David Greenglass has recanted his testimony, and historians said yesterday that the newly published transcripts show "irreconcilable" differences between Ruth Greenglass's grand jury testimony in August 1950 and her testimony at the trial, suggesting that she had altered her story.
According to the grand jury transcripts, Ruth Greenglass, who said she had been recruited into spying by Julius Rosenberg, was asked, "Didn't you write [the information] down on a piece of paper?"
"Yes," she answered, "I wrote [the information] down on a piece of paper and [Julius Rosenberg] took it with him."
Ruth Greenglass was never tried; her husband served 10 years in prison. She died in April at age 84.
Ronald Radosh, professor emeritus of history at City University of New York, said information from a U.S. government decryption program called Vanona, which deciphered Russian codes, showed that Julius Rosenberg provided the Russians handwritten notes, not typewritten ones. This contradicted Ruth Greenglass's trial testimony and suggested that it was her own notes that were passed to the Soviets.
"What is important about the Vanona decrypt is that it substantiates what Ruth told the grand jury," Radosh said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091103887.html
Also: "Declassified grand jury transcripts confirm frame-up of Ethel Rosenberg"
By Holly WattWashington Post
September 12, 2008; A04
A key prosecution witness whose testimony helped send Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair gave a different account at trial than she did before the grand jury in the famous Cold War spying case, according to documents released yesterday.
The revelations are contained in hundreds of pages of grand jury transcripts from the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 for providing the Soviet Union with secrets that may have led to its development of an atomic bomb. More than half a century after the transcripts were sealed, a New York court ordered publication of the testimony of 41 of the 45 grand jury witnesses, including such key figures as Ethel Rosenberg and Ruth Greenglass, who was married to Ethel's brother, David Greenglass.
Testimony by the Greenglasses at the Rosenbergs' 1951 trial was instrumental in convicting the couple and in providing the basis for condemning Ethel Rosenberg to death. At the trial, the Greenglasses stated that Ethel Rosenberg typed up notes about the atomic bomb that had been stolen by David Greenglass from the top-secret Los Alamos facility in New Mexico, where he worked. Those ostensibly were the notes turned over to the Soviets, directly linking Ethel Rosenberg to the spying.
In recent years, however, David Greenglass has recanted his testimony, and historians said yesterday that the newly published transcripts show "irreconcilable" differences between Ruth Greenglass's grand jury testimony in August 1950 and her testimony at the trial, suggesting that she had altered her story.
According to the grand jury transcripts, Ruth Greenglass, who said she had been recruited into spying by Julius Rosenberg, was asked, "Didn't you write [the information] down on a piece of paper?"
"Yes," she answered, "I wrote [the information] down on a piece of paper and [Julius Rosenberg] took it with him."
Ruth Greenglass was never tried; her husband served 10 years in prison. She died in April at age 84.
Ronald Radosh, professor emeritus of history at City University of New York, said information from a U.S. government decryption program called Vanona, which deciphered Russian codes, showed that Julius Rosenberg provided the Russians handwritten notes, not typewritten ones. This contradicted Ruth Greenglass's trial testimony and suggested that it was her own notes that were passed to the Soviets.
"What is important about the Vanona decrypt is that it substantiates what Ruth told the grand jury," Radosh said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091103887.html
Homage to Mussolini Troops Fans Italy Fascist Row
By Stephen BrownSep 8, 2008
ROME (Reuters) - Italy's defence minister paid homage to pro-Nazi troops on Monday, the second senior conservative in two days to voice sympathy with fascism. Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa was speaking at an event marking the anniversary of Rome's resistance to Nazi occupation in 1943.
Rome's mayor, former neo-Nazi youth leader Gianni Alemanno, caused controversy on Sunday by saying he "does not and never has" considered fascism to be "absolute evil." Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government has faced accusations of racism and fascism since coming to office in May, mostly for its tough stance on illegal immigrants and crime.
Berlusconi's main allies are the National Alliance -- heirs to Benito Mussolini's fascists, who now present themselves as mainstream conservatives -- and the anti-immigrant Northern League. Alemanno and La Russa are from the National Alliance.
La Russa, speaking at a memorial for anti-fascists who fell defending Rome from German occupation, also recalled the "Nembo" parachute division from Mussolini's "Salo Republic" who fought alongside the Germans against the Allies.
"I would betray my conscience if I did not recall that other men in uniform, such as the Nembo from the RSI (Italian Social Republic) army, also, from their point of view, fought in the belief they were defending their country," the minister said.
Hundreds of Italian soldiers and civilians died in September 1943, just after an armistice was signed between the Allies and Italy, trying to stop the Germans from seizing control of Rome.
Italy's centre-left opposition accused La Russa and Alemanno of revisionism. Alemanno said in an interview published while he happened to be visiting Israel that while Mussolini's race laws "were absolute evil", the whole fascist movement could not be condemned in the same terms.
"Many people joined up in good faith and I don't feel like labeling them with that definition," said Alemanno, who has tried to defuse criticism of his neo-Nazi past by meeting Rome's Jewish community and visiting monuments to Nazi victims.
Mussolini ruled Italy for more than two decades, allying it with Nazi Germany and enacting anti-semitic laws that ousted Jews from schools and public jobs and ultimately led to the death of nearly 6,000 Italian Jews in Nazi camps.
Centre-left opposition leader Walter Veltroni, former mayor of Rome, protested at Alemanno's comments by resigning from a City Hall committee planning a Holocaust museum for Rome.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL873410120080908?sp=true
US Names Two Venezuelan “Narco-Terrorists"
Also see: "GHW Bush, a Mad Scientist & Pinochet's Cocaine," "The Vang Pao Files," "ADNAN KHASHOGGI - RICHARD PERLE'S NARCO-TERRORIST BUSINESS PARTNER," and "DEADLY DIVERSION: On Opium Trafficking, the CIA & the Challenger Disaster," etal.
New York Times
September 13, 2008
U.S. Calls Venezuelan Officials Rebel Supporters
By SIMON ROMERO
CARACAS, Venezuela — The United States stepped up the diplomatic skirmish with its left-wing adversaries in Latin America on Friday, saying it would expel the Venezuelan ambassador and declaring that Venezuela’s top two intelligence officials had supported the “narco-terrorist activities” of rebels in the region. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/world/americas/13venez.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
New York Times
September 13, 2008
U.S. Calls Venezuelan Officials Rebel Supporters
By SIMON ROMERO
CARACAS, Venezuela — The United States stepped up the diplomatic skirmish with its left-wing adversaries in Latin America on Friday, saying it would expel the Venezuelan ambassador and declaring that Venezuela’s top two intelligence officials had supported the “narco-terrorist activities” of rebels in the region. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/world/americas/13venez.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
Psychotronic Weapons: An Announcement to the Whole World by Chinese Victims
First of all,please permit us to introduce ourselves to you. We are some of the Chinese victims from dozens of regions and cities across China, who have been cruelly harassed ，tortured and persecuted in a covert way by the means of secret remote control on human body & brain. Among us, there are corporate employees,teachers,students, retirees and other intellectual workers and physical workers. Our suffering period ranges from several months till over 30 years.
Thanks to Internet that builds a bridge for us to know each other, and it is same sufferings bring us to work together.
A group of secret criminals who abuse their powers, arbitrarily use “the means of secret remote control on human body & brain”, illegally manipulate our bodies and brains covertly, and also cruelly torture and harass us psychologically and physically and persecute us days and nights so that a lot of victims live a very miserable and horrible life.
Secret criminals utilize the weapons of “secret remote control on human body & brain” and remotely influence us, and consequently our bodies suffer from “physiological diseases and physiological behaviors” caused artificially from their weapons such as aching, itching, coldness, hotness, trembling, unwell feeling and unhappiness, and so that our brains suffer harrassments and tortures from “acoasma and hallucination”. Besides, criminals do all they could to shamelessly steal and indecently spread our privacy in our brains in a abnormal psychology，and crazily do all they could to intimidate and humiliate victims. All these vices do a great harm us psychologically and physically. Therefore , some innocent victims was forced to hospitals especially for being forced to accept mental treatment, some innocent victims were forced to suicide because of intolerable secret tortures and insults, and others died of “strange fatal diseases” yielded by criminals secretly in a special trap.
Such secret crimes as the wide abuse of their powers, the illegal use of “the means of secret remote control on human body & brain” and illegal violation of fundamental human rights, have resulted horribly in atrocity or the unprecedented anti-human catastrophe of human rights technically. These crimes not only challenge severely Chinese constitution and laws, but also human conscience, the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is NOT permitted by all the human beings at all!
Owing to the above-mentioned cases, Chinese victims jointly lodged “a collective complaint to Chinese President Hu Jintao” (please see attachment 1) on 3rd Dec. 2007, and emailed it to the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, every ministries of the State Council, major news media and the legal community who we asked to deliver the complaints to Chinese President.
Subsequently, we jointly announced " An Open Letter to the Head of Chinese Secret Institution" on 5th May 2008.(Please see attachment 2)
Chinese Goverment has the undisputed responsibility to take an immediate investigation into the secret criminals who abuse their power, and to sternly punish them according to the clause of "the State respect and protect citizens'human rights" set out by Constitution of PRC China. However, unfortunately,so far we have not received any response on the issue.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN General Assembly passed and published Resolution 217A (III) on 10th December 1948) stipulates in the following relevant clauses that:
Article 3 Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 5 No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6 Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 12 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 19 Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
China is one of the creators of the United Nations, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a member of UN Human Right Council and one of the signers of UN Covenant on Human Rights. Therefore, China should seriously observe and enforce the relevant rules of UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
At present, the quantity of victims are increasingly rising around the globe. Thousands of victims strongly demand for an investigation into the sinful Hi-tech crimes which covertly violate human rights worldwide. A large quantity of the stated facts reveal that these secret fascist criminals are the common enemies of all the human beings who use Hi-tech means to arbitrarily secretly violate human dignity and fundamental human rights. The crazy secret Hi-tech crimes heavily threat and violate the fundamental rights of human livings in the world.
Challenged by the unprecedented worldwide catastrophe of human rights and the severe crimes of damaging human beings, we urge an immediate actions in union and bravely fight against the gangs of secret fascist criminals! We must disclose the horrible crimes which are covertly damaging human beings, and put them into the Judge Courtroom in International Criminal Court!!
Journalist and elites worldwide have the responsibility to provide supports for victims, the lawyers worldwide have the responsibility to stand by and offer a legal aid to victims.UN Human Right Council has the responsibility to safeguard human rights and to protect thinking right, sleeping right, health right and living right of all the human beings. International Criminal Court at Hague has the responsibility to carry out an investigation into the crimes denounced by victims, and to charge these secret fascist,the criminals who severely violate fundamental human rights with the Hi-tech Crime and the Antihuman Crime through and according to the relevant legal proceedings.
We, Chinese victims, support resolutely the global campaign of " Ban the abuse and torture of secret MIND CONTROL/PSYCHOTRONIC WEAPONS/Remote Human manipulation" through our practical actions. We strongly appeal for the United Nations to immediately stop the abuse of the means of the secret remote control on human body & brain which are used to cruelly harass and torture and persecute covertly common citizens.
We strongly urge the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to do his solemn duty to protect fundamental human rights of the whole world, and hold a urgent international conference on the ban of abusing “the means of secret remote control on human body & brain" so as to protect the validity of the UN Charter and UN Declaration & Covenant on Human Rights. Also, we demand for European Commission for Human Right to immediately put Article 27 of A40005/1999 into practice.
We strongly urge global news media to stand out to support justice, and to take a deep careful investigation into the secret Hi-tech crimes, and to expose truly the sinful facts of secret fascist criminals to the global people.
We strongly urge global legal community to stand out to offer a legal aid to all the victims and support justice based on the UN Charter and UN Declaration & Covenant on Human Rights.
We strongly urge UN Human Right Council to take an urgent investigation into these secret fascist criminals who arbitrarily use “the means of secret remote control on human body & brain” which have been crazily violating fundamental human rights.
We strongly urge International Criminal Court to take an immediate investigation into our complaints, and to charge these secret fascist criminals who heavily violate fundamental human rights with the Hi-tech Crime and the Antihuman Crime, and to make a historic great contribution to guarantee the fundamental human rights of all the human beings!!
With best regards，
Yours truly
Chinese victims' signatures as follows：
Nanjing Xin Zhongqing
13776686557 zwt762000@yahoo.com.cn （http://blog.sina.com.cn/xdj88）
Yunnan Wang Ronghai 15008719951 baiyun024@vip.qq.com
Hunan Li Chunze 13435768567 myinno@126.com
Dandong Gao Xiaowei 13898510756 cwzpp@yahoo.cn
Shanghai Yu Rongjian 13120847702 ayeeyo1226669043@yahoo.com.cn
Xiangfan Yu Feng 13995768279 yunfan201@sina.com
Guilin Yi Shenglin 13978302663 yfsb987@sina.com
Beijing Zhang Lei 13691103510 zlvever@yahoo.cn
Hubei Liu Wei 13597878369 liuw71@163.com
Shanghai Yu Lingbo 13321981271 lingbo-yu@163.com
Shandong Qi Changling 15154602071 635602318@qq.com
Guangzhou Jiang Jin 13535358871 65141399@qq.com
Hunan Guo Ruquan 15974413876 guoruquan163@yahoo.com.cn
Jiangsu Sun Wei 13917698052 108322515@QQ.com
Sichuan Zheng Yun 13559949568 854195278@qq.com
Zhejiang Cao Shijie 0576-86814070 847654242@qq.com
Fujian Gan Zhiheng （0596）2302076 gzhxwq.xwqgzh@yahoo.com.cn
Liaoning Shi Yu 0410-2828530 minamijie@163.com
Hebei Li Guanping 0310-2326981 ligp741212@163.com
Zhengzhou Zhao Feng 13903863768 zfhb369@yahoo.com.cn
Hunan Fan Li 13646218013 fan0769@yahoo.cn
Guangxi Qiu Yongjin 0778-2565332 qyjcvn@sina.com
Zhuhai Zhang Lu 15812708601 jamesroad9@sina.com
Yantai Sun Bo 15064528015 dcxq@tom.com
Anqing Zhou Lianhong 13685568645 372330036@163.com
Jiangxi Lai Qixing 13712207193 lgs369369@163.com
Zhumadian Yuan Yuan 13525333332 aney0011@yahoo.cn
Sicuan Chen Xiaoyi 15982732725 babyhl@vip.qq.com
Hubei Long Wei 13469765313 longwei_312657421@qq.com
Xuzhou Pei Weichuan 13033539006 105118758@qq.com
Heilongjiang sky 13634601784 928318548@qq.com
Nanning Huang Shanbing 843622736@qq.com
Germany Wenxiu Zhou +49 162 7550 955 zhouwenxiu@yahoo.com
Jingzhou Zhang Sihai 15927724461 739394881@qq.com.cn
Yichang Wang Yang 13307203797 972188722@qq.com
Qinhuangdao Ma Xinlan 13230383403 yunzhongyu546@163.com
Jiangxi Xiong Lu 0795-7032879/7585069 615806775@qq.com
Xuzhou Bai Lu 13685161290 bailu8585@sina.com
Fujian Lin Zhen 283704958@qq.com
Li Xuanwang tonyqq66@yahoo.cn
Kunming Ma Chao 18536361@qq.com
Anhui Peng Yishan 13275779355 pys624@126.com
Nanjing Chen Shiwei 13211355448 329588460@qq.com
Shanghai Liu Huamingzhi 13818051167 274735961@qq.com
Hubei Zhang Chengzhu 13545372812 793556424@qq.com
Hunan Zhu Zhuoxiong 13187326593 514546363@qq.com
Guizhou Xin Yu 865403168@qq.com
Hubei Ren Danting 13872825547 420663268@qq.com
Hebei Di Manqi zheduandechibang2008@yahoo.cn
Gilin Wang Yaqing 13894726370 picture_window@hotmail.com
Fujian Chenmei 0595-87058567 234824602@163.com
Thanks to Internet that builds a bridge for us to know each other, and it is same sufferings bring us to work together.
A group of secret criminals who abuse their powers, arbitrarily use “the means of secret remote control on human body & brain”, illegally manipulate our bodies and brains covertly, and also cruelly torture and harass us psychologically and physically and persecute us days and nights so that a lot of victims live a very miserable and horrible life.
Secret criminals utilize the weapons of “secret remote control on human body & brain” and remotely influence us, and consequently our bodies suffer from “physiological diseases and physiological behaviors” caused artificially from their weapons such as aching, itching, coldness, hotness, trembling, unwell feeling and unhappiness, and so that our brains suffer harrassments and tortures from “acoasma and hallucination”. Besides, criminals do all they could to shamelessly steal and indecently spread our privacy in our brains in a abnormal psychology，and crazily do all they could to intimidate and humiliate victims. All these vices do a great harm us psychologically and physically. Therefore , some innocent victims was forced to hospitals especially for being forced to accept mental treatment, some innocent victims were forced to suicide because of intolerable secret tortures and insults, and others died of “strange fatal diseases” yielded by criminals secretly in a special trap.
Such secret crimes as the wide abuse of their powers, the illegal use of “the means of secret remote control on human body & brain” and illegal violation of fundamental human rights, have resulted horribly in atrocity or the unprecedented anti-human catastrophe of human rights technically. These crimes not only challenge severely Chinese constitution and laws, but also human conscience, the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is NOT permitted by all the human beings at all!
Owing to the above-mentioned cases, Chinese victims jointly lodged “a collective complaint to Chinese President Hu Jintao” (please see attachment 1) on 3rd Dec. 2007, and emailed it to the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, every ministries of the State Council, major news media and the legal community who we asked to deliver the complaints to Chinese President.
Subsequently, we jointly announced " An Open Letter to the Head of Chinese Secret Institution" on 5th May 2008.(Please see attachment 2)
Chinese Goverment has the undisputed responsibility to take an immediate investigation into the secret criminals who abuse their power, and to sternly punish them according to the clause of "the State respect and protect citizens'human rights" set out by Constitution of PRC China. However, unfortunately,so far we have not received any response on the issue.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN General Assembly passed and published Resolution 217A (III) on 10th December 1948) stipulates in the following relevant clauses that:
Article 3 Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 5 No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6 Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 12 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Article 19 Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
China is one of the creators of the United Nations, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a member of UN Human Right Council and one of the signers of UN Covenant on Human Rights. Therefore, China should seriously observe and enforce the relevant rules of UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
At present, the quantity of victims are increasingly rising around the globe. Thousands of victims strongly demand for an investigation into the sinful Hi-tech crimes which covertly violate human rights worldwide. A large quantity of the stated facts reveal that these secret fascist criminals are the common enemies of all the human beings who use Hi-tech means to arbitrarily secretly violate human dignity and fundamental human rights. The crazy secret Hi-tech crimes heavily threat and violate the fundamental rights of human livings in the world.
Challenged by the unprecedented worldwide catastrophe of human rights and the severe crimes of damaging human beings, we urge an immediate actions in union and bravely fight against the gangs of secret fascist criminals! We must disclose the horrible crimes which are covertly damaging human beings, and put them into the Judge Courtroom in International Criminal Court!!
Journalist and elites worldwide have the responsibility to provide supports for victims, the lawyers worldwide have the responsibility to stand by and offer a legal aid to victims.UN Human Right Council has the responsibility to safeguard human rights and to protect thinking right, sleeping right, health right and living right of all the human beings. International Criminal Court at Hague has the responsibility to carry out an investigation into the crimes denounced by victims, and to charge these secret fascist,the criminals who severely violate fundamental human rights with the Hi-tech Crime and the Antihuman Crime through and according to the relevant legal proceedings.
We, Chinese victims, support resolutely the global campaign of " Ban the abuse and torture of secret MIND CONTROL/PSYCHOTRONIC WEAPONS/Remote Human manipulation" through our practical actions. We strongly appeal for the United Nations to immediately stop the abuse of the means of the secret remote control on human body & brain which are used to cruelly harass and torture and persecute covertly common citizens.
We strongly urge the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to do his solemn duty to protect fundamental human rights of the whole world, and hold a urgent international conference on the ban of abusing “the means of secret remote control on human body & brain" so as to protect the validity of the UN Charter and UN Declaration & Covenant on Human Rights. Also, we demand for European Commission for Human Right to immediately put Article 27 of A40005/1999 into practice.
We strongly urge global news media to stand out to support justice, and to take a deep careful investigation into the secret Hi-tech crimes, and to expose truly the sinful facts of secret fascist criminals to the global people.
We strongly urge global legal community to stand out to offer a legal aid to all the victims and support justice based on the UN Charter and UN Declaration & Covenant on Human Rights.
We strongly urge UN Human Right Council to take an urgent investigation into these secret fascist criminals who arbitrarily use “the means of secret remote control on human body & brain” which have been crazily violating fundamental human rights.
We strongly urge International Criminal Court to take an immediate investigation into our complaints, and to charge these secret fascist criminals who heavily violate fundamental human rights with the Hi-tech Crime and the Antihuman Crime, and to make a historic great contribution to guarantee the fundamental human rights of all the human beings!!
With best regards，
Yours truly
Chinese victims' signatures as follows：
Nanjing Xin Zhongqing
13776686557 zwt762000@yahoo.com.cn （http://blog.sina.com.cn/xdj88）
Yunnan Wang Ronghai 15008719951 baiyun024@vip.qq.com
Hunan Li Chunze 13435768567 myinno@126.com
Dandong Gao Xiaowei 13898510756 cwzpp@yahoo.cn
Shanghai Yu Rongjian 13120847702 ayeeyo1226669043@yahoo.com.cn
Xiangfan Yu Feng 13995768279 yunfan201@sina.com
Guilin Yi Shenglin 13978302663 yfsb987@sina.com
Beijing Zhang Lei 13691103510 zlvever@yahoo.cn
Hubei Liu Wei 13597878369 liuw71@163.com
Shanghai Yu Lingbo 13321981271 lingbo-yu@163.com
Shandong Qi Changling 15154602071 635602318@qq.com
Guangzhou Jiang Jin 13535358871 65141399@qq.com
Hunan Guo Ruquan 15974413876 guoruquan163@yahoo.com.cn
Jiangsu Sun Wei 13917698052 108322515@QQ.com
Sichuan Zheng Yun 13559949568 854195278@qq.com
Zhejiang Cao Shijie 0576-86814070 847654242@qq.com
Fujian Gan Zhiheng （0596）2302076 gzhxwq.xwqgzh@yahoo.com.cn
Liaoning Shi Yu 0410-2828530 minamijie@163.com
Hebei Li Guanping 0310-2326981 ligp741212@163.com
Zhengzhou Zhao Feng 13903863768 zfhb369@yahoo.com.cn
Hunan Fan Li 13646218013 fan0769@yahoo.cn
Guangxi Qiu Yongjin 0778-2565332 qyjcvn@sina.com
Zhuhai Zhang Lu 15812708601 jamesroad9@sina.com
Yantai Sun Bo 15064528015 dcxq@tom.com
Anqing Zhou Lianhong 13685568645 372330036@163.com
Jiangxi Lai Qixing 13712207193 lgs369369@163.com
Zhumadian Yuan Yuan 13525333332 aney0011@yahoo.cn
Sicuan Chen Xiaoyi 15982732725 babyhl@vip.qq.com
Hubei Long Wei 13469765313 longwei_312657421@qq.com
Xuzhou Pei Weichuan 13033539006 105118758@qq.com
Heilongjiang sky 13634601784 928318548@qq.com
Nanning Huang Shanbing 843622736@qq.com
Germany Wenxiu Zhou +49 162 7550 955 zhouwenxiu@yahoo.com
Jingzhou Zhang Sihai 15927724461 739394881@qq.com.cn
Yichang Wang Yang 13307203797 972188722@qq.com
Qinhuangdao Ma Xinlan 13230383403 yunzhongyu546@163.com
Jiangxi Xiong Lu 0795-7032879/7585069 615806775@qq.com
Xuzhou Bai Lu 13685161290 bailu8585@sina.com
Fujian Lin Zhen 283704958@qq.com
Li Xuanwang tonyqq66@yahoo.cn
Kunming Ma Chao 18536361@qq.com
Anhui Peng Yishan 13275779355 pys624@126.com
Nanjing Chen Shiwei 13211355448 329588460@qq.com
Shanghai Liu Huamingzhi 13818051167 274735961@qq.com
Hubei Zhang Chengzhu 13545372812 793556424@qq.com
Hunan Zhu Zhuoxiong 13187326593 514546363@qq.com
Guizhou Xin Yu 865403168@qq.com
Hubei Ren Danting 13872825547 420663268@qq.com
Hebei Di Manqi zheduandechibang2008@yahoo.cn
Gilin Wang Yaqing 13894726370 picture_window@hotmail.com
Fujian Chenmei 0595-87058567 234824602@163.com
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
The Jets and Giants and Nazi Collaborators
By Uriel Heilman
Sep 10,2008
Will a company with a Nazi past and a history of cooperating with Hitler win the naming rights for the new NFL stadium for the Giants and Jets?
More than six decades ago, Allianz, a Munich-based insurer and financial services company, insured facilities and personnel at concentration camps like Auschwitz and Dachau, had a chief executive who wore an SS uniform and served as Hitler’s economics minister, and refused to pay the life insurance policies of Jews, instead sending Jewish beneficiaries’ cash to Nazis.
Now Allianz wants its name atop the football stadium representing the hometown teams of the most Jewish city in America, and the world.
So far, no decision has been made, according to a report on the subject in Wednesday’s New York Times. The Giants and Jets have hired a crisis management firm to deal with possible problems arising from the sale of the stadium’s naming rights, which reportedly will go for $20 million to $30 million per year. Here’s what Richard Sandomir writes in the Times:
http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/2008/09/10/1605/the-jets-and-giants-and-nazi-collaborators/
Sep 10,2008
Will a company with a Nazi past and a history of cooperating with Hitler win the naming rights for the new NFL stadium for the Giants and Jets?More than six decades ago, Allianz, a Munich-based insurer and financial services company, insured facilities and personnel at concentration camps like Auschwitz and Dachau, had a chief executive who wore an SS uniform and served as Hitler’s economics minister, and refused to pay the life insurance policies of Jews, instead sending Jewish beneficiaries’ cash to Nazis.
Now Allianz wants its name atop the football stadium representing the hometown teams of the most Jewish city in America, and the world.
So far, no decision has been made, according to a report on the subject in Wednesday’s New York Times. The Giants and Jets have hired a crisis management firm to deal with possible problems arising from the sale of the stadium’s naming rights, which reportedly will go for $20 million to $30 million per year. Here’s what Richard Sandomir writes in the Times:
A deal with Allianz would not be easy to sell publicly, like Citigroup’s with the Mets. The possibility of an Allianz Stadium will make some people cringe, especially in a market that is home to many Jewish people, and in which the Tisch family, which owns half of the Giants, has supported many Jewish causes.
“There must be sensitivity to the psychological impact this would have,” said Elan Steinberg, a vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants. “Survivors are still alive. It would not be appropriate to affix the Allianz name to a stadium name in an area where a lot of survivors still living.”
…Even the best arguments in Allianz’s favor are imperfect. The teams can say that Allianz has done much to atone for its role before and during the war, but no amount of apologies or restitution to victims and survivors can make full amends for its past.
The teams can say Allianz participated in two major efforts that began in the 1990s to compensate slave and forced laborers as well as insurance policy holders — but only after pressure from the American government, state insurance regulators and Jewish groups, and class-action suits filed in federal court.
The teams refused to speak about Allianz, which has United States subsidiaries like Fireman’s Fund Insurance and Oppenheimer Capital, because a deal is not done. And Allianz refused to discuss the naming-rights negotiations.
http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/2008/09/10/1605/the-jets-and-giants-and-nazi-collaborators/
E-BOOK ONLINE: NATO's SECRET ARMIES: Operation Gladio And Terrorism In Western Europe, by Daniele Ganser
Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream
ALSO SEE: "The Farish Family's Auschwitz Profits and Connections," "The Killer Countess: Baron Heinrich Thyssen's Daughter," and "The Tainted Thyssen Dynasty"
By David Swanson
08/16/08
It's remarkably common for a grandson to take up his grandfather's major project. This occurred to me when I read recently of Thor Heyerdahl's grandson taking up his mission to cross the Pacific on a raft. But what really struck me was the BBC story aired on July 23rd, 2007, documenting President George W. Bush's grandfather's involvement in a 1933 plot to overthrow the U.S. government and install a fascist dictatorship. I knew the story, but had not considered the possibility that the grandson was trying to accomplish what his grandfather had failed to achieve.
Prescott Sheldon Bush (1895 to 1972) attended Yale University and joined the secret society known as Skull and Bones. Prescott is widely reported to have stolen the skull of Native American leader Geronimo. As far as I know, this has not actually been confirmed. In fact, Prescott seems to have had a habit of making things up. He sent letters home from World War I claiming he'd received medals for heroism. After the letters were printed in newspapers, he had to retract his claims.
If this does not yet sound like the life of a George W. Bush ancestor, try this on for size: Prescott Bush's early business efforts tended to fail. He married the daughter of a very rich man named George Herbert Walker (the guy with the compound at Kennebunkport, Maine, that now belongs to the Bush family, and the origin of Dubya's middle initial). Walker installed Prescott Bush as an executive in Thyssen and Flick. From then on, Prescott's business dealings went better, and he entered politics.
Now, the name Thyssen comes from a German named Fritz Thyssen, major financial backer of the rise of Adolph Hitler. Thyssen was referred to in the New York Herald-Tribune as "Hitler's Angel." During the 1930s and early 1940s, and even as late as 1951, Prescott Bush was involved in business dealings with Thyssen, and was inevitably aware of both Thyssen's political activities and the fact that the companies involved were financially benefiting the nation of Germany. In addition, the companies Prescott Bush profited from included one engaged in mining operations in Poland using slave labor from Auschwitz. Two former slave laborers have sued the U.S. government and the heirs of Prescott Bush for $40 billion.
Until the United States entered World War II it was legal for Americans to do business with Germany, but in late 1942 Prescott Bush's businesses interests were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Among those businesses involved was the Hamburg America Lines, for which Prescott Bush served as a manager. A Congressional committee, in a report called the McCormack-Dickstein Report, found that Hamburg America Lines had offered free passage to Germany for journalists willing to write favorably about the Nazis, and had brought Nazi sympathizers to America. (Is this starting to remind anyone of our current president's relationship to the freedom of the press?)
The McCormack-Dickstein Committee was established to investigate a homegrown American fascist plot hatched in 1933. Here's how the BBC promoted its recent story:
"Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush´s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression. Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy."
Actually, if you listen to the 30-minute BBC story, there is not one word of so much as speculation as to why this story is so little known. I think a clue to the answer can be found by looking into why this BBC report has not led to any U.S. media outlets picking up the story this week.
The BBC report provides a good account of the basic story. Some of the wealthiest men in America approached Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, beloved of many World War I veterans, many of them embittered by the government's treatment of them. Prescott Bush's group asked Butler to lead 500,000 veterans in a take-over of Washington and the White House. Butler refused and recounted the affair to the congressional committee. His account was corroborated in part by a number of witnesses, and the committee concluded that the plot was real. But the names of wealthy backers of the plot were blacked out in the committee's records, and nobody was prosecuted. According to the BBC, President Roosevelt cut a deal. He refrained from prosecuting some of the wealthiest men in America for treason. They agreed to end Wall Street's opposition to the New Deal.
Clearly the lack of accountability in Washington, D.C., did not begin with Nancy Pelosi taking Dubya's impeachment off the table, or with Congress' decision to avoid impeachment for President Ronald Reagan (a decision that arguably played a large role in installing Prescott Bush's son George H.W. Bush as president), or with the failure to investigate the apparent deal that George H.W. Bush and others made with Iran to not release American hostages until Reagan was made president, or with the failure to prosecute Richard Nixon after he resigned. Lack of accountability is a proud tradition in our nation's capital. Or maybe I should say our former nation's capital. I don't recognize the place anymore, and I credit that to George W. Bush's efforts to fulfill his grandfather's dream using far subtler and more effective means than a military coup.
Bush the grandson took office through a highly fraudulent election that he nonetheless lost. The Supreme Court blocked a recount of the vote and installed Dubya.
Prescott's grandson proceeded to weaken or eliminate most of the Bill of Rights in the name of protection from a dark foreign enemy. He even tossed out habeas corpus. The grandson of Prescott, that dreamer of the 1930s, established with very little resistance that the U.S. government can kidnap, detain indefinitely on no charge, torture, and murder. The United States under Prescott Bush's grandson adopted policies that heretofore had been considered only Nazi policies, most strikingly the willingness to openly plan and engage in aggressive wars on other nations.
At the same time, Dubya has accomplished a huge transfer of wealth within the United States from the rest of us to the extremely wealthy. He's also effected a major privatization of public operations, including the military. And he's kept tight control over the media.
Dubya has given himself the power to rewrite all laws with signing statements. He's established that intentionally misleading the Congress about the need for a war is not a crime that carries any penalty. He's given himself the right (just as Hitler did) to open anyone's mail. He's created illegal spying programs and then proposed to legalize them. Prescott would be so proud!
The current President Bush has accomplished much more smoothly than his grandfather could have imagined a feat that was one of the goals of Prescott's gang, namely the elimination of Congress.
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2008/08/16/bush_fulfills_his_grandfather_s_dream
By David Swanson08/16/08
It's remarkably common for a grandson to take up his grandfather's major project. This occurred to me when I read recently of Thor Heyerdahl's grandson taking up his mission to cross the Pacific on a raft. But what really struck me was the BBC story aired on July 23rd, 2007, documenting President George W. Bush's grandfather's involvement in a 1933 plot to overthrow the U.S. government and install a fascist dictatorship. I knew the story, but had not considered the possibility that the grandson was trying to accomplish what his grandfather had failed to achieve.
Prescott Sheldon Bush (1895 to 1972) attended Yale University and joined the secret society known as Skull and Bones. Prescott is widely reported to have stolen the skull of Native American leader Geronimo. As far as I know, this has not actually been confirmed. In fact, Prescott seems to have had a habit of making things up. He sent letters home from World War I claiming he'd received medals for heroism. After the letters were printed in newspapers, he had to retract his claims.
If this does not yet sound like the life of a George W. Bush ancestor, try this on for size: Prescott Bush's early business efforts tended to fail. He married the daughter of a very rich man named George Herbert Walker (the guy with the compound at Kennebunkport, Maine, that now belongs to the Bush family, and the origin of Dubya's middle initial). Walker installed Prescott Bush as an executive in Thyssen and Flick. From then on, Prescott's business dealings went better, and he entered politics.
Now, the name Thyssen comes from a German named Fritz Thyssen, major financial backer of the rise of Adolph Hitler. Thyssen was referred to in the New York Herald-Tribune as "Hitler's Angel." During the 1930s and early 1940s, and even as late as 1951, Prescott Bush was involved in business dealings with Thyssen, and was inevitably aware of both Thyssen's political activities and the fact that the companies involved were financially benefiting the nation of Germany. In addition, the companies Prescott Bush profited from included one engaged in mining operations in Poland using slave labor from Auschwitz. Two former slave laborers have sued the U.S. government and the heirs of Prescott Bush for $40 billion.
Until the United States entered World War II it was legal for Americans to do business with Germany, but in late 1942 Prescott Bush's businesses interests were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Among those businesses involved was the Hamburg America Lines, for which Prescott Bush served as a manager. A Congressional committee, in a report called the McCormack-Dickstein Report, found that Hamburg America Lines had offered free passage to Germany for journalists willing to write favorably about the Nazis, and had brought Nazi sympathizers to America. (Is this starting to remind anyone of our current president's relationship to the freedom of the press?)
The McCormack-Dickstein Committee was established to investigate a homegrown American fascist plot hatched in 1933. Here's how the BBC promoted its recent story:
"Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush´s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression. Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy."
Actually, if you listen to the 30-minute BBC story, there is not one word of so much as speculation as to why this story is so little known. I think a clue to the answer can be found by looking into why this BBC report has not led to any U.S. media outlets picking up the story this week.
The BBC report provides a good account of the basic story. Some of the wealthiest men in America approached Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, beloved of many World War I veterans, many of them embittered by the government's treatment of them. Prescott Bush's group asked Butler to lead 500,000 veterans in a take-over of Washington and the White House. Butler refused and recounted the affair to the congressional committee. His account was corroborated in part by a number of witnesses, and the committee concluded that the plot was real. But the names of wealthy backers of the plot were blacked out in the committee's records, and nobody was prosecuted. According to the BBC, President Roosevelt cut a deal. He refrained from prosecuting some of the wealthiest men in America for treason. They agreed to end Wall Street's opposition to the New Deal.
Clearly the lack of accountability in Washington, D.C., did not begin with Nancy Pelosi taking Dubya's impeachment off the table, or with Congress' decision to avoid impeachment for President Ronald Reagan (a decision that arguably played a large role in installing Prescott Bush's son George H.W. Bush as president), or with the failure to investigate the apparent deal that George H.W. Bush and others made with Iran to not release American hostages until Reagan was made president, or with the failure to prosecute Richard Nixon after he resigned. Lack of accountability is a proud tradition in our nation's capital. Or maybe I should say our former nation's capital. I don't recognize the place anymore, and I credit that to George W. Bush's efforts to fulfill his grandfather's dream using far subtler and more effective means than a military coup.
Bush the grandson took office through a highly fraudulent election that he nonetheless lost. The Supreme Court blocked a recount of the vote and installed Dubya.
Prescott's grandson proceeded to weaken or eliminate most of the Bill of Rights in the name of protection from a dark foreign enemy. He even tossed out habeas corpus. The grandson of Prescott, that dreamer of the 1930s, established with very little resistance that the U.S. government can kidnap, detain indefinitely on no charge, torture, and murder. The United States under Prescott Bush's grandson adopted policies that heretofore had been considered only Nazi policies, most strikingly the willingness to openly plan and engage in aggressive wars on other nations.
At the same time, Dubya has accomplished a huge transfer of wealth within the United States from the rest of us to the extremely wealthy. He's also effected a major privatization of public operations, including the military. And he's kept tight control over the media.
Dubya has given himself the power to rewrite all laws with signing statements. He's established that intentionally misleading the Congress about the need for a war is not a crime that carries any penalty. He's given himself the right (just as Hitler did) to open anyone's mail. He's created illegal spying programs and then proposed to legalize them. Prescott would be so proud!
The current President Bush has accomplished much more smoothly than his grandfather could have imagined a feat that was one of the goals of Prescott's gang, namely the elimination of Congress.
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2008/08/16/bush_fulfills_his_grandfather_s_dream
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Pentagon Investigated Lasers that put Voices in your Head
The full unclassified Army report, released under FOIA: Bioeffects of Selected Non-Lethal Weapons. (TY to Benjamin Parish for the lead)February 18, 2008
Pentagon Report Investigated Lasers that put Voices in your Head
by Lisa Zyga
A recently unclassified report from the Pentagon from 1998 has revealed an investigation into using laser beams for a few intriguing potential methods of non-lethal torture. Some of the applications the report investigated include putting voices in people's heads, using lasers to trigger uncontrolled neuron firing, and slowly heating the human body to a point of feverish confusion - all from hundreds of meters away.
A US citizen requested access to the document, entitled "Bioeffects of Selected Non-Lethal Weapons," under the Freedom of Information Act a little over a year ago. There is no evidence that any of the technologies mentioned in the 10-year-old report have been developed since the time it was written.
The report explained several types of non-lethal laser applications, including microwave hearing, disrupted neural control, and microwave heating. For the first type, short pulses of RF energy (2450 MHz) can generate a pressure wave in solids and liquids. When exposed to pulsed RF energy, humans experience the immediate sensation of "microwave hearing" - sounds that may include buzzing, ticking, hissing, or knocking that originate within the head.
Studies with guinea pigs and cats suggest that the mechanism responsible for the phenomenon is thermoelastic expansion. Exposure to the RF pulses doesn´t cause any permanent effects, as all effects cease almost immediately after exposure ceases. As the report explains, tuning microwave hearing could enable communicating with individuals from a distance of up to several hundred meters.
"The phenomenon is tunable in that the characteristic sounds and intensities of those sounds depend on the characteristics of the RF energy as delivered," the report explains. "Because the frequency of the sound heard is dependent on the pulse characteristics of the RF energy, it seems possible that this technology could be developed to the point where words could be transmitted to be heard like the spoken word, except that it could only be heard within a person´s head. In one experiment, communication of the words from one to ten using ´speech modulated´ microwave energy was successfully demonstrated. Microphones next to the person experiencing the voice could not pick up these sounds. Additional development of this would open up a wide range of possibilities."
The report predicts that communicating at longer distances would be possible with larger equipment, while shorter range signals could be generated with portable equipment. Putting voices in people´s heads could cause what the report calls "psychologically devastating" effects. The technology might even allow for communicating with an individual hostage surrounded by captors, although this would require "extreme directional specificity."
With another weapon, electromagnetic pulses could be used to disrupt the brain´s functioning, although this technology was still in the theoretical stages at the time.
Under normal conditions, all brain structures function with specific rhythmic activity depending on incoming sensory information. Sometimes, the brain synchronizes neuronal activity in order to focus on a specific task, but the degree of neuronal synchronization is highly controlled. However, under certain conditions (such as physical stress or heat stroke), more areas of the brain can fire in a highly synchronized manner, and may begin firing uncontrollably.
The report describes a method for replicating this highly synchronized neuron firing across distances of several hundred meters. High-voltage (100 kV/m) electromagnetic pulses lasting for one nanosecond could trigger neurons to fire, disrupting the body´s controlled firing activity. Short-term effects may include loss of consciousness, muscle spasms, muscle weakness, and seizures lasting for a couple minutes. These high-voltage pulsed sources, which would require an estimated frequency of 15 Hz, exist today.
Another form of non-lethal torture described in the report is microwave heating. By raising the temperature of the body to 41°C (105.8°F), humans can experience sensations such as memory loss and disorientation, and exhibit reduced aggression. According to the report, humans can survive temperatures up to 42°C (107.6°F), at which time prolonged exposure can result in permanent brain damage or death.
The microwave heating technique was tested on a Rhesus monkey, where a 225 MHz beam caused an increase in the animal´s body temperature. Depending on the dosage level, the temperature increase occurred within a time of 15 to 30 minutes. After the beam was removed, the animal´s body temperature decreased back to normal. The report suggests the technique could be useful for controlling crowds or in negotiations.
While the investigations reveal intriguing techniques for non-lethal torture, the report does not mention plans for carrying out specific experiments or studies in the future.
http://physorg.com/news122567894.html
Governor Palin Plays Watergate With Trooper Investigation
www.bloggernews.net
September 6th, 2008
In a bit of political skulduggery that would make Richard Nixon proud. Governor Sarah Palin tore a page from the Nixon administration’s election play book. She is attempting to delay the Alaska legislature from conducting an investigation into claims she violated ethical and personnel regulations, so much for her reformist claim of a transparent, ethical and accountable government. The sordid affair began last July when legislators first began discussing the need to investigate possible ethics charges.
At the time Palin flatly denied any wrongdoing and challenged the allegations by saying she welcomed a probe, “hold me accountable” were her exact words in fact.
The allegations under investigation are that she, her family or administration improperly pressured Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten, who had been in the middle of an ugly custody dispute with Palin’s sister.
The legislature took her up on the challenge but this week Palin’s high powered GOP lawyer demanded the Legislature stop its investigation, after having had the governor file an ethics complaint against herself. Which is a transparent attempt to turn the entire matter over to the Governors state personnel board, which we assume would begin all over and maybe even hire an independent investigator of its own sometime in the future, say November 5th?
This is a feeble and transparent attempt to delay and drag out the investigation until after voters decide the fate of her vice-presidential bid. Palin should honor her pledge to cooperate with the Legislature’s investigation, which is being conducted by respected former state prosecutor Steve Branchflower.
She can start by telling her aide Frank Bailey to talk to the legislative investigator. Or fire him if he doesn’t. Bailey was caught on an audio recording with a Public Safety Department official, pushing to get Wooten fired.
A spokeswoman for Palin said Bailey is on administrative leave but still on the state payroll, the Governor should direct him to cooperate with the legislative investigation if she has nothing to hide. And some are asking why Bailey is still on the states payroll to begin with, he bailed on a scheduled interview with the legislative investigator Wednesday?
The Legislature didn’t give its investigator the power to subpoena or compel testimony of witnesses. Subpoenas seemed unnecessary at the time, since it appeared till this week the governor and administration would be cooperating; I say it’s time to rethink the power of the subpoena.
The investigation was supposed to be all wrapped up by Oct. 31. That’s obviously bad timing from the standpoint of the McCain presidential campaign, just a few days before the national election. Voters deserve to know if the woman who may be the next vice president is a crook or not.
When Trooper gate started Palin’s response was let’s get it done. But Republican vice president candidate Palin is apparently hoping the facts will remain hidden till after the Presidential election.
P.S. Burton Blogger Nations
http://www.bloggernews.net/117655
September 6th, 2008
In a bit of political skulduggery that would make Richard Nixon proud. Governor Sarah Palin tore a page from the Nixon administration’s election play book. She is attempting to delay the Alaska legislature from conducting an investigation into claims she violated ethical and personnel regulations, so much for her reformist claim of a transparent, ethical and accountable government. The sordid affair began last July when legislators first began discussing the need to investigate possible ethics charges.
At the time Palin flatly denied any wrongdoing and challenged the allegations by saying she welcomed a probe, “hold me accountable” were her exact words in fact.
The allegations under investigation are that she, her family or administration improperly pressured Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten, who had been in the middle of an ugly custody dispute with Palin’s sister.
The legislature took her up on the challenge but this week Palin’s high powered GOP lawyer demanded the Legislature stop its investigation, after having had the governor file an ethics complaint against herself. Which is a transparent attempt to turn the entire matter over to the Governors state personnel board, which we assume would begin all over and maybe even hire an independent investigator of its own sometime in the future, say November 5th?
This is a feeble and transparent attempt to delay and drag out the investigation until after voters decide the fate of her vice-presidential bid. Palin should honor her pledge to cooperate with the Legislature’s investigation, which is being conducted by respected former state prosecutor Steve Branchflower.
She can start by telling her aide Frank Bailey to talk to the legislative investigator. Or fire him if he doesn’t. Bailey was caught on an audio recording with a Public Safety Department official, pushing to get Wooten fired.
A spokeswoman for Palin said Bailey is on administrative leave but still on the state payroll, the Governor should direct him to cooperate with the legislative investigation if she has nothing to hide. And some are asking why Bailey is still on the states payroll to begin with, he bailed on a scheduled interview with the legislative investigator Wednesday?
The Legislature didn’t give its investigator the power to subpoena or compel testimony of witnesses. Subpoenas seemed unnecessary at the time, since it appeared till this week the governor and administration would be cooperating; I say it’s time to rethink the power of the subpoena.
The investigation was supposed to be all wrapped up by Oct. 31. That’s obviously bad timing from the standpoint of the McCain presidential campaign, just a few days before the national election. Voters deserve to know if the woman who may be the next vice president is a crook or not.
When Trooper gate started Palin’s response was let’s get it done. But Republican vice president candidate Palin is apparently hoping the facts will remain hidden till after the Presidential election.
P.S. Burton Blogger Nations
http://www.bloggernews.net/117655
US Plan: Sabotaging Pakistan Political Process
(Translation)
Kashmir Watch, September 9
By Zaheerul Hassan
Mr. Asif Ali Zardari took Oath as 12th President of Pakistan and determined to make the history. Afghan President Kerazai also attended the oath ceremony. President Zardari was overwhelmingly elected on September 6, 2008 in a secret ballot just after the nine months of his wife Benazir Bhutto' assassination. Pakistan is the only nuclear-armed Islamic nation that is passing through its worst type of crises like; deteriorated economy , political instability, war on terror, judiciary problem, price hike and Kashmir Issue. September 6 is already known as Defence Day of Pakistan lets pray for his success to defend and bring the country out from the said crises.
The current wave of terrorism just at the time of presidential election seem to be an effort of sabotaging ongoing political process, creating anarchy , pressurizing and neutralizing newly elected government so that authorities should be unable to move in resolving issues. Former Pakistan government have taken all possible steps like negotiation with the local Taliban, sharing intelligence , handing over Al-Qaeda culprits to US and asking Afghan government for fencing of the border . Islamabad also providing logistic support to US led Nato Forces being front line US alley. But some how US intentionally failed to comprehend the Pakistan problems. Continue violations of our frontiers have been made by the Nato Forces despite having clear understanding between two allies that Pakistani will operate in her territory to tackle the militants. There are some indications that anti state elements are being supported by India and US to convert Pakistan into a failed state. For example Washington started interference in the internal politics. In this regard. prior to the elections US officials met top level political leaders and discussed the various internal issues with them. The series of violations of US led forces; degrading Pakistan political top brass through electronic media, favouring India in making her member of nuclear club and silence over Indian brutality in Kashmir depicts that American never like to see Pakistan as stable country.
During last quarter of 2007, American interference in Pakistan affairs was alarmingly visible from commencement of elections to its successful culmination. At the same time bomb blast and targets killing in Pakistan was remained on its climax. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto was one of the horrible incidents of during that period. After the conduct of election again US tried to interfere indulge they also tried their best to save Mushraff from the impeachment. In July 2oo8 during Prime Minster Gillani visit to Washington they presented the CIA reports that ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) had links with some groups of the Taliban due to which the US could not fully rely on the military operations being carried out by the Pakistani forces against the Taliban. The same issues were raised by US Secretary Defence Robert Gates and Speaker US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi during their meeting with the prime minister. However prime minister briefed the US leadership regarding the role of ISI and made it clear that the military forces and intelligence agencies of the country consider the war against terrorism their own war. In fact it was a CIA try to pitch the political and leadership against each other and degrading the ISI, Any how Prime Minster of Pakistan behaved very maturely by rejecting US point of view.
Again Pakistan tried to defuse the situation by announcing that in respect of Ramadan Pakistan Government unilaterally carryout cease fire in Swat and surrounding area against militants. The interior minister of Pakistan categorically mentioned that forceful action will be taken against the militants incase of any violation or attack carried out by them against government installations and security forces. But unfortunately militants kept on carrying out sabotage activities against security forces and innocent people of the area. The government option of cease firing has not been taken been seriously by them. To establish the writ of the government the recent ongoing swat operation is still continue since two months. As a result of operation heavy losses have been caused to lives and material. The militant’s organizations are being supported from across the border and equipped with latest weapons and equipment. Terrorists are being funded and getting trained under the supervision of Indian instructors in the camp established in Afghanistan. On August 23, 2008 militants hit one Armed Personal Carries with Rocket launchers that was busy in operation clean up in Swat and surrounding area. As result of said strike a very brave, professionally competent, religiously motivated and upright team member of The Volunteers Major Muhammad Ehsan along with Lieutenant Saleem and 10 other ranks embraced Shahadat.
Earlier on August 21, 2008 twin suicidal attacks occurred in front of the gates of Pakistan Ordinance Factory Wah located 30 Kilo meters away from Islamabad, in which more than 90 persons killed and 100 individuals sustained serious injuries. On August 19 in Dera Ismail Khan suicidal blasted himself when a large number of locals have gathered near hospital to launch a protest against the assassination of Shia leader Basit Ali earlier part of the same day. In this attack 32 individuals killed and more than 55 injured. It is worth mentioning here that violence in Bajure and suicidal incidents in Pakistan increased conspicuously in last few days, since Taliban activities have been intensified against Nato forces inside Afghanistan. In August 18 Nato soldiers have been killed and many injured inside the Afghanistan. Afghan government time again blamed involvement of ISI in abduction of Japanese and Kabul Blast. Afghan Foreign Minster blamed that training camps of Taliban are based in Pakistani area. Actually all this blaming by Afghan government is being carried out on the instruction of CIA, Raw and Khad, to cover their state terrorism and concealing their failure from other Nato allies.
Again, on September 6, 2008 Peshawar terrorist blasted Zangi Check Post through explosive loaded car resulted into killing of more than 38 people and many injured. On August 29, 2008 terrorist destroyed bridges leading to Kohat Road and also tried to hit the tunnel with the explosive laden vehicle. In last week of January 2008 local Taliban threatened to destroy the tunnel but did not succeed however serious damage has been caused to its interior portion. The selection of target and timing dictates that our traditional enemy in collaboration with its allies launching such type of actions to obliterate economy and de-stable Pakistan. Political leadership should display maturity to deal with the arising problems of security, instability and economy.
US launched two military incursions on September 5 and 8. In these incursions 37 people killed including women and children. Pakistan Prime Minster Yousaf Raza Gilliani, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Chief of Army Staff, Chairman joint Chief Staff Committee, Major General Athar Abbas, Chief Spoke’s man of Pakistan Army and whole political top brass strongly fated these cowardly acts. American envoy Anne W Paterson summoned and a strong protest was lodged by Pakistan Foreign Office. The launching of attacks on the occasions of presidential elections and Prime Minister Visit to US seem to be conspiracy against the political process. Moreover in this way, Washington gave message to our top most political authorities that they are leashed pushed about the stability of Pakistan. If current indulgence continues in this manner US direct intervention of a ground assault is not far away. President Zardari is soon visiting China and UNO. He must discuss the issue of terrorism with China and ask her to support Pakistan in resolving the economic and security problems instead looking towards US.
To push the US out from the region Russia must play her role. The government should take firm stand against incursion of US led NATO Forces. The supply line to NATO Forces be terminated incase of any future violation because any weaker stand over US interference will definitely prove to be a set back to the present political set up. US must feel responsibility and respect the sovereignty of Pakistan failing which will force Islamabad to take stern actions of shot down drowns. At the same time Pakistan Security Forces with the help of locals be given full liberty to eliminate the militants from FATA and other parts of the country. PPP and other parties should show political maturity to resolve the economical and other issues facing to nation. In short President Zardari and his government needs to move sensibly and all political Forces be taken with them to face the real enemy under this adverse security environment. and serves his country with honour and integrity.
http://www.kashmirwatch.com/showexclusives.php?subaction=showfull&id=1220977117&archive=&start_from=&ucat=15&var1news=value1news
Kashmir Watch, September 9
By Zaheerul Hassan
Mr. Asif Ali Zardari took Oath as 12th President of Pakistan and determined to make the history. Afghan President Kerazai also attended the oath ceremony. President Zardari was overwhelmingly elected on September 6, 2008 in a secret ballot just after the nine months of his wife Benazir Bhutto' assassination. Pakistan is the only nuclear-armed Islamic nation that is passing through its worst type of crises like; deteriorated economy , political instability, war on terror, judiciary problem, price hike and Kashmir Issue. September 6 is already known as Defence Day of Pakistan lets pray for his success to defend and bring the country out from the said crises.
The current wave of terrorism just at the time of presidential election seem to be an effort of sabotaging ongoing political process, creating anarchy , pressurizing and neutralizing newly elected government so that authorities should be unable to move in resolving issues. Former Pakistan government have taken all possible steps like negotiation with the local Taliban, sharing intelligence , handing over Al-Qaeda culprits to US and asking Afghan government for fencing of the border . Islamabad also providing logistic support to US led Nato Forces being front line US alley. But some how US intentionally failed to comprehend the Pakistan problems. Continue violations of our frontiers have been made by the Nato Forces despite having clear understanding between two allies that Pakistani will operate in her territory to tackle the militants. There are some indications that anti state elements are being supported by India and US to convert Pakistan into a failed state. For example Washington started interference in the internal politics. In this regard. prior to the elections US officials met top level political leaders and discussed the various internal issues with them. The series of violations of US led forces; degrading Pakistan political top brass through electronic media, favouring India in making her member of nuclear club and silence over Indian brutality in Kashmir depicts that American never like to see Pakistan as stable country.
During last quarter of 2007, American interference in Pakistan affairs was alarmingly visible from commencement of elections to its successful culmination. At the same time bomb blast and targets killing in Pakistan was remained on its climax. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto was one of the horrible incidents of during that period. After the conduct of election again US tried to interfere indulge they also tried their best to save Mushraff from the impeachment. In July 2oo8 during Prime Minster Gillani visit to Washington they presented the CIA reports that ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) had links with some groups of the Taliban due to which the US could not fully rely on the military operations being carried out by the Pakistani forces against the Taliban. The same issues were raised by US Secretary Defence Robert Gates and Speaker US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi during their meeting with the prime minister. However prime minister briefed the US leadership regarding the role of ISI and made it clear that the military forces and intelligence agencies of the country consider the war against terrorism their own war. In fact it was a CIA try to pitch the political and leadership against each other and degrading the ISI, Any how Prime Minster of Pakistan behaved very maturely by rejecting US point of view.
Again Pakistan tried to defuse the situation by announcing that in respect of Ramadan Pakistan Government unilaterally carryout cease fire in Swat and surrounding area against militants. The interior minister of Pakistan categorically mentioned that forceful action will be taken against the militants incase of any violation or attack carried out by them against government installations and security forces. But unfortunately militants kept on carrying out sabotage activities against security forces and innocent people of the area. The government option of cease firing has not been taken been seriously by them. To establish the writ of the government the recent ongoing swat operation is still continue since two months. As a result of operation heavy losses have been caused to lives and material. The militant’s organizations are being supported from across the border and equipped with latest weapons and equipment. Terrorists are being funded and getting trained under the supervision of Indian instructors in the camp established in Afghanistan. On August 23, 2008 militants hit one Armed Personal Carries with Rocket launchers that was busy in operation clean up in Swat and surrounding area. As result of said strike a very brave, professionally competent, religiously motivated and upright team member of The Volunteers Major Muhammad Ehsan along with Lieutenant Saleem and 10 other ranks embraced Shahadat.
Earlier on August 21, 2008 twin suicidal attacks occurred in front of the gates of Pakistan Ordinance Factory Wah located 30 Kilo meters away from Islamabad, in which more than 90 persons killed and 100 individuals sustained serious injuries. On August 19 in Dera Ismail Khan suicidal blasted himself when a large number of locals have gathered near hospital to launch a protest against the assassination of Shia leader Basit Ali earlier part of the same day. In this attack 32 individuals killed and more than 55 injured. It is worth mentioning here that violence in Bajure and suicidal incidents in Pakistan increased conspicuously in last few days, since Taliban activities have been intensified against Nato forces inside Afghanistan. In August 18 Nato soldiers have been killed and many injured inside the Afghanistan. Afghan government time again blamed involvement of ISI in abduction of Japanese and Kabul Blast. Afghan Foreign Minster blamed that training camps of Taliban are based in Pakistani area. Actually all this blaming by Afghan government is being carried out on the instruction of CIA, Raw and Khad, to cover their state terrorism and concealing their failure from other Nato allies.
Again, on September 6, 2008 Peshawar terrorist blasted Zangi Check Post through explosive loaded car resulted into killing of more than 38 people and many injured. On August 29, 2008 terrorist destroyed bridges leading to Kohat Road and also tried to hit the tunnel with the explosive laden vehicle. In last week of January 2008 local Taliban threatened to destroy the tunnel but did not succeed however serious damage has been caused to its interior portion. The selection of target and timing dictates that our traditional enemy in collaboration with its allies launching such type of actions to obliterate economy and de-stable Pakistan. Political leadership should display maturity to deal with the arising problems of security, instability and economy.
US launched two military incursions on September 5 and 8. In these incursions 37 people killed including women and children. Pakistan Prime Minster Yousaf Raza Gilliani, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Chief of Army Staff, Chairman joint Chief Staff Committee, Major General Athar Abbas, Chief Spoke’s man of Pakistan Army and whole political top brass strongly fated these cowardly acts. American envoy Anne W Paterson summoned and a strong protest was lodged by Pakistan Foreign Office. The launching of attacks on the occasions of presidential elections and Prime Minister Visit to US seem to be conspiracy against the political process. Moreover in this way, Washington gave message to our top most political authorities that they are leashed pushed about the stability of Pakistan. If current indulgence continues in this manner US direct intervention of a ground assault is not far away. President Zardari is soon visiting China and UNO. He must discuss the issue of terrorism with China and ask her to support Pakistan in resolving the economic and security problems instead looking towards US.
To push the US out from the region Russia must play her role. The government should take firm stand against incursion of US led NATO Forces. The supply line to NATO Forces be terminated incase of any future violation because any weaker stand over US interference will definitely prove to be a set back to the present political set up. US must feel responsibility and respect the sovereignty of Pakistan failing which will force Islamabad to take stern actions of shot down drowns. At the same time Pakistan Security Forces with the help of locals be given full liberty to eliminate the militants from FATA and other parts of the country. PPP and other parties should show political maturity to resolve the economical and other issues facing to nation. In short President Zardari and his government needs to move sensibly and all political Forces be taken with them to face the real enemy under this adverse security environment. and serves his country with honour and integrity.
http://www.kashmirwatch.com/showexclusives.php?subaction=showfull&id=1220977117&archive=&start_from=&ucat=15&var1news=value1news
Monday, September 08, 2008
Former Abramoff Associate Is Arrested
Indictment Charges Fraud, Conspiracy
Former lobbyist Kevin A. Ring, shown at a Senate panel hearing in 2005, said through his attorney yesterday that the government is trying to pressure him to provide evidence against others involved in a public corruption scheme. (By Alex Wong -- Getty Images)
By Carrie Johnson and Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post
Tuesday, September 9, 2008; Page A02
Former lobbyist Kevin A. Ring was arrested yesterday on conspiracy, fraud and obstruction-of-justice charges in connection with his alleged role in a four-year scheme to lavish tickets and trips on lawmakers and government officials in return for help for his clients.
Ring, 37, had worked hand in hand with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff on behalf of Indian tribes that sought to operate gambling casinos, describing the efforts in boastful private e-mails later used by prosecutors to build a criminal case against the lobbyists, according to an indictment unsealed yesterday.
Ring, a former aide to Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.), made a brief appearance yesterday in the federal courthouse in the District. Through his attorney, Ring pleaded not guilty and criticized the government, saying it was trying to pressure him to provide evidence against others.
"While Mr. Ring had been cooperating with officials for over two years, he simply could not plead guilty to crimes he did not commit," lawyer Richard A. Hibey said in a statement. "From that point, he was deemed uncooperative. Based on his decision to proceed to trial rather than plead guilty, Mr. Ring, his family, and his attorneys expected this indictment."
Authorities accused Ring of arranging campaign contributions for Doolittle, who is referred to as "Representative 5" in court papers, and of lying to investigators hired by Ring's former employer about his knowledge of a lucrative consulting job that lobbyists had arranged for the lawmaker's wife, Julie. Ring and Abramoff treated Doolittle's staff members to rock concerts, football games and meals at pricey restaurants, prosecutors say.
The indictment says Doolittle asked another lawmaker to write a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers in support of earmarks for one of Abramoff's clients, threw his weight behind a bill to grant Puerto Rico statehood status that would have benefited another client and opposed an anti-gambling measure that would have hurt one of Ring's clients.
In October 2000, Ring wrote Abramoff an e-mail describing Doolittle as "such a good soldier, doing everything we asked of him. . . . I know you are great about making sure he gets his fair share of contributions, but if [client] is feeling generous, this would be a very opportune time to get something" to him, according to the indictment.
Abramoff and Ring hosted fundraisers for Doolittle at the Capital Grille, a D.C. steakhouse, and arranged for Doolittle's wife to be paid $96,000 for fundraising and bookkeeping services, the indictment alleges.
Abramoff was sentenced to four years in prison last week for his role in the alleged conspiracy. Prosecutors have secured 13 guilty pleas in the corruption scandal centered on him.
Neither John Doolittle, who announced that he would not run for reelection after investigators raided his home last year, nor Julie Doolittle has been charged with a crime. Their attorneys issued a statement yesterday in which they "steadfastly" maintained their clients' innocence and questioned the strength of the allegations in the indictment.
"It is clear that portions of the Kevin Ring indictment were designed to make gratuitous references to the Congressman and his wife," David G. Barger and Michael R. Sklaire wrote. "This appears to have been done to titillate the public, with the foreseeable and therefore intended consequence of attempting to embarrass and pressure the Congressman."
Ring worked closely with Robert E. Coughlin II, a former legislative affairs official at the Justice Department who pleaded guilty to criminal conflict of interest in April for accepting meals and tickets from the lobbyist in exchange for advancing his clients' causes with other friendly officials at the department. Both men had worked on Capitol Hill for then-Sen. John D. Ashcroft (R-Mo.), who went on to serve as attorney general from 2001 to 2005.
At one point, Coughlin had served as deputy chief of staff for the department's criminal division, and several officials there have been recused from the case because they worked alongside him. The matter is being handled by career lawyers in the fraud and public integrity sections, the U.S. attorney's office in Maryland and the acting principal deputy of the criminal division.
Ring met with investigators more than 20 times and talked for more than 100 hours about his work with Abramoff. But the cooperation appears to have ended last year. That is when Justice Department lawyers "insisted that Mr. Ring plead guilty to various fraud and corruption-related offenses and to implicate others as the price of leniency," Hibey wrote.
Hibey said that he and others tried to arrange a way for Ring to turn himself in but that authorities ignored the request. They arrested Ring at his home in Kensington yesterday morning. Hibey said the arrest "is a harbinger of the overreaching that will characterize the government's prosecution of him."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090801302.html
Former lobbyist Kevin A. Ring, shown at a Senate panel hearing in 2005, said through his attorney yesterday that the government is trying to pressure him to provide evidence against others involved in a public corruption scheme. (By Alex Wong -- Getty Images)By Carrie Johnson and Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post
Tuesday, September 9, 2008; Page A02
Former lobbyist Kevin A. Ring was arrested yesterday on conspiracy, fraud and obstruction-of-justice charges in connection with his alleged role in a four-year scheme to lavish tickets and trips on lawmakers and government officials in return for help for his clients.
Ring, 37, had worked hand in hand with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff on behalf of Indian tribes that sought to operate gambling casinos, describing the efforts in boastful private e-mails later used by prosecutors to build a criminal case against the lobbyists, according to an indictment unsealed yesterday.
Ring, a former aide to Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.), made a brief appearance yesterday in the federal courthouse in the District. Through his attorney, Ring pleaded not guilty and criticized the government, saying it was trying to pressure him to provide evidence against others.
"While Mr. Ring had been cooperating with officials for over two years, he simply could not plead guilty to crimes he did not commit," lawyer Richard A. Hibey said in a statement. "From that point, he was deemed uncooperative. Based on his decision to proceed to trial rather than plead guilty, Mr. Ring, his family, and his attorneys expected this indictment."
Authorities accused Ring of arranging campaign contributions for Doolittle, who is referred to as "Representative 5" in court papers, and of lying to investigators hired by Ring's former employer about his knowledge of a lucrative consulting job that lobbyists had arranged for the lawmaker's wife, Julie. Ring and Abramoff treated Doolittle's staff members to rock concerts, football games and meals at pricey restaurants, prosecutors say.
The indictment says Doolittle asked another lawmaker to write a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers in support of earmarks for one of Abramoff's clients, threw his weight behind a bill to grant Puerto Rico statehood status that would have benefited another client and opposed an anti-gambling measure that would have hurt one of Ring's clients.
In October 2000, Ring wrote Abramoff an e-mail describing Doolittle as "such a good soldier, doing everything we asked of him. . . . I know you are great about making sure he gets his fair share of contributions, but if [client] is feeling generous, this would be a very opportune time to get something" to him, according to the indictment.
Abramoff and Ring hosted fundraisers for Doolittle at the Capital Grille, a D.C. steakhouse, and arranged for Doolittle's wife to be paid $96,000 for fundraising and bookkeeping services, the indictment alleges.
Abramoff was sentenced to four years in prison last week for his role in the alleged conspiracy. Prosecutors have secured 13 guilty pleas in the corruption scandal centered on him.
Neither John Doolittle, who announced that he would not run for reelection after investigators raided his home last year, nor Julie Doolittle has been charged with a crime. Their attorneys issued a statement yesterday in which they "steadfastly" maintained their clients' innocence and questioned the strength of the allegations in the indictment.
"It is clear that portions of the Kevin Ring indictment were designed to make gratuitous references to the Congressman and his wife," David G. Barger and Michael R. Sklaire wrote. "This appears to have been done to titillate the public, with the foreseeable and therefore intended consequence of attempting to embarrass and pressure the Congressman."
Ring worked closely with Robert E. Coughlin II, a former legislative affairs official at the Justice Department who pleaded guilty to criminal conflict of interest in April for accepting meals and tickets from the lobbyist in exchange for advancing his clients' causes with other friendly officials at the department. Both men had worked on Capitol Hill for then-Sen. John D. Ashcroft (R-Mo.), who went on to serve as attorney general from 2001 to 2005.
At one point, Coughlin had served as deputy chief of staff for the department's criminal division, and several officials there have been recused from the case because they worked alongside him. The matter is being handled by career lawyers in the fraud and public integrity sections, the U.S. attorney's office in Maryland and the acting principal deputy of the criminal division.
Ring met with investigators more than 20 times and talked for more than 100 hours about his work with Abramoff. But the cooperation appears to have ended last year. That is when Justice Department lawyers "insisted that Mr. Ring plead guilty to various fraud and corruption-related offenses and to implicate others as the price of leniency," Hibey wrote.
Hibey said that he and others tried to arrange a way for Ring to turn himself in but that authorities ignored the request. They arrested Ring at his home in Kensington yesterday morning. Hibey said the arrest "is a harbinger of the overreaching that will characterize the government's prosecution of him."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090801302.html
Death of Patriotism: How National Pride is 'Under Threat by a Global Super-Elite'
By LEO MCKINSTRYDaily Mail
23rd August 2008
Proud to be British: Olympic 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu
Patriotism is back in fashion. With the Union flag flying high over Beijing after the golden success of our Olympic athletes, the British public has been given a rare opportunity to indulge in unbridled expressions of national pride.
Yet, in our ever more globalised world, instinctive patriotism is being diluted. The concept of nationhood has been undermined by mass immigration and the imposition of the dogma of multi-culturalism.
Our economy is increasingly tied up with the global financial system, dominated by multinational giants which see borders as irrelevant. Supra-national bodies, such as the UN and the EU, have a mounting influence over our political governance.
The idea of national interest is sliding towards the dustbin of history.
Only last month, in a rhetorical and extravagant speech to the Israeli parliament, Gordon Brown called on the nations of the world to ensure that our era becomes ‘the century of the global community’.
In one overblown passage, he pledged to ‘make a reality of the vision of a global society in which we create global civic institutions that turn words of friendship into bonds of human solidarity’.
Not to be outdone, David Cameron has joined this enthusiasm for earnest globalism.
During his controversial visit to Rwanda last summer, when there was severe flooding in his own Oxfordshire constituency, he claimed: ‘There is no domestic or foreign any more. In this world today, we are all in it together.’
As Brown argued, a central part of this globalist vision is the creation of a new corporate and political network which would operate far beyond the level of individual nations.
Such a structure used to be the goal of Utopians, who believed that harmony on Earth could be achieved only by embracing world government.
H. G. Wells, the science fiction writer and socialist philosopher, was a passionate advocate of a ‘permanent world congress’ and specialised international agencies which would spell the end of the nation state.
Patriotism, he believed, was ‘mere flag-waving with no constructive duties’.
The establishment of the United Nations in the aftermath of World War II was seen by some as a move towards world government, but in the decades that followed, national self-rule remained as powerful as ever, fuelled in no small part by the Cold War, which deepened divisions between East and West.
But in the opening years of the 21st century, we may now actually be heading towards the creation of an informal kind of world government. This development has been accompanied by no fanfare or official edict.
Yet, hidden from the cameras and the public, crucial decisions about our lives are being taken by a global elite which has no roots in any single country.
This international group of business leaders, bankers and politicians might not be the official world congress that H. G. Wells envisaged, but it is perhaps all the more influential precisely because it operates behind the scenes at remote conferences and clandestine meetings.
The nature of this global elite is revealed in a new book by the American writer and political analyst David Rothkopf.
In Superclass, which has attracted wide interest in the United States, he argues that there are 6,000 people in this unique set who wield growing influence over the six billion people on our planet.
Apart from the fact that this elite is mainly white and male, what really distinguishes its members are the twin characteristics of enormous power and unprecedented wealth. Though many political leaders are included in Rothkopf’s 6,000-strong superclass, as well as the heads of the world’s two biggest religions, Islam and Christianity, the real power in the elite is derived not from formal office but from private enterprise.
Around two-thirds of its members are from commerce, such as the Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim Helu, one of the richest men in the world with a fortune worth more than £30billion.
Through his acumen, Helu now controls 94per cent of all Mexico’s landlines and 70per cent of his country’s internet market, a near monopoly that he has used to crush his competitors and boost his wealth to such an extent that his earnings last year were the equivalent of 8per cent of Mexico’s GDP.
The statistics concerning the riches of the global elite are staggering.
According to Rothkopf, the top 1 per cent of the world’s most prosperous people own 40per cent of the planet’s global wealth. Furthermore, the combined net worth of the 1,000 richest people in the world is twice that of the poorest 2.5 billion.
The massive influence of the bosses of the global multinationals is also reflected in the fact that at least a third of the world’s entire wealth — estimated to be worth £25trillion — is produced by just 250 companies.
As the process of globalisation accelerates, so the resources of the richest are becoming ever larger.
In Britain alone during the past 17 years, the super-rich have seen their income go up by an astonishing 600 per cent, at a time when retail prices increase by only 60 per cent.
The rise of the global elite has been made possible, in part, by the revolutionary changes in transport, communications and information technology over recent years.
Not only have these developments helped the rich and powerful transcend national boundaries, they have also reinforced the elite’s ability to distance itself from the public.
Equipped with their mobiles, bullet-proof limousines, luxury hotel suites and apartments, attendants, laptops and private jets, the superclass can move in a realm far beyond the gaze of ordinary citizens.
As Rothkopf points out, the Gulfstream private jet, costing around £28 million and customised to the user’s wishes, is the ultimate symbol of membership of the elite, treated by many executives ‘like very large BlackBerries’.
Whereas half the people of the world will never venture outside their own village during their lifetimes, the elite are continually whisked in luxury from one exclusive meeting to another.
The growth in private air travel has spurred the eagerness of the elite for their own conferences to discuss global affairs, such as the World Economic Forum at the snow-capped Swiss resort of Davos.
Like the elite itself, the annual Davos gathering is dominated by the major corporations, who each pay £150,000 in fees to support the forum — though politicians and celebrities are also keen attenders.
Typical of the latter group is the singer Bono, a veteran campaigner for Africa, who, like so many pop icons, manages to combine adolescent rebelliousness with insider status at the heart of the global Establishment, thanks to his wealth and fame.
Bono’s description of Davos as ‘fat cats in the snow’ might be more cutting if he were not one of the fattest cats on the celebrity circuit.
There have, of course, always been elites in every advanced society since the dawn of civilisation. The glories of ancient Rome and Athens were built on the achievements of a narrow patrician class, as was the Victorian British Empire.
But the crucial difference is that today’s global elite is not dedicated towards furthering any national interest, but the opposite.
Suspicious of nationalism, borders and sovereignty, it is driven by the desire to shape global economic forces for the furtherance of wealth creation, not least for themselves and their companies.
Sheltered from their own societies, they have more in common with each other than with people from their countries of origin.
Klaus Schwab, the founder of the Davos forum, argues that revolution in technology and markets means, ‘we are moving from a national dimension to a global dimension’, so new structures of international governance are inevitable.
The shift towards greater influence for the global elite can be
seen all around us. In the world’s ten biggest companies, 60per cent of their revenues came from outside their countries of origin, and 59per cent of their workforces were employed overseas.
The same picture can be seen just by taking a stroll down one of the most exclusive streets in London, Kensington Palace Gardens, ‘one of the showcase addresses of the superclass’, to use Rothkopf’s words.
ONE of the homeowners there is the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, who is said to have paid £30million for his house in 2004. Also living in the street are the British property mogul Jonathan Hunt and the Russian Len Blavatnik, who made his billions in oil and aluminium.
The idea of a sinister global elite, controlling world events, has long been the stuff of conspiracy theories. Extreme anti-Semites, including Nazis and Islamic hardliners, have clung to the belief that behind Western capitalism is a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.
Others have warned of malign global plots by the Catholic Church, the Freemasons or the CIA.
David Icke, the former BBC presenter turned eccentric campaigner, has even claimed that the world is governed by a secretive grouping called the Illuminati or Babylonian Brotherhood, a cadre of alien reptilians who can take human form.
In contrast to this outlandish nonsense, Rothkopf does not see anything especially sinister or conspiratorial in the emergence of the new global superclass.
He points out that their membership changes regularly, partly due to varying performances by businesses, partly because of loss of political office.
There is no sense of this new group being a closed shop, unlike plutocracies of the past whose membership depended on birth.
None of the new elite is a tyrant or a dictator bent on upholding totalitarianism. In fact, many — such as Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft — are philanthropists.
Neverrtheless, it would be wrong to be too sanguine about the influence of the superclass.
No matter how allegedly benign it is, the new elite is utterly unaccountable.
The point of democracy is that leaders should be accountable for their decisions, giving the public the ultimate say over the government.
That process is bypassed by the new elitists as they huddle together at Davos or the World Bank or UN.
The former U.S. Secretary of the Navy John Lehman once joked, misquoting the historian Edward Gibbon: ‘Power corrupts. Absolute power... is kind of neat.’
This might have been said in jest, but the march of globalisation is destroying political representation.
We have seen within the EU how the unelected institutions of Brussels have made a mockery of this in their determination to create a federal superstate run by an unaccountable elite.
The recent Lisbon Treaty will only hasten the decline of the national freedoms by strengthening the centralist powers of the EU Commission.
Nor can it be said that the new elite has been a great success in running the global economy.
For all its supposed expertise, this new breed has dragged the developed world to the precipice of recession through its irresponsible decisions and failure to oversee global markets effectively.
Meanwhile, the vast disparities in wealth across the world continue to worsen, making the ostentatious wealth of the elitists appear all the more obscene.
Above all, the new elite runs counter to human nature in its indifference to nationhood.
The super-rich might not care about national loyalties, but most ordinary citizens do, as the joy over the Olympics proves.
Contrary to what globalist sophisticates might think, there is nothing unedifying or crude about patriotism. The need for a sense of belonging is one of the most natural of all human impulses. And it is a noble sentiment, signifying a concern for one’s fellow countrymen and women.
Vague talk about global citizenship can never be a substitute for genuine patriotism. In the end, the triumph of the superclass will only destroy our freedom, our democracy and our very identity.
• SUPERCLASS: THE GLOBAL POWER ELITE AND THE WORLD THEY ARE MAKING by David Rothkopf is published by Little Brown at £20.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1048478/Death-patriotism-How-national-pride-threat-global-super-elite.html
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Pravda Op-Ed: "Bush, Cheney and Rice; Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels"
Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.Ru
21.08.2008
With what moral authority do these mainstays of the neoconservative, corporate elitist, greedy, self-interested Washington regime speak, when in their own closet there are skeletons labelled Abu Ghraib, Iraq, Guantanamo, mass murder, war crimes, illegal invasion, torture, illegal detention, disrespect for international law, denial of due process, rape...?
That Bush and Rice are wholly incompetent to hold their jobs has been patently obvious from the beginning, when Rice started off by making insulting and derogatory remarks whenever she mentioned Russia, yet while as National Security Advisor prior to 9/11 failed to provide any national security whatsoever. Talk about being downright abrasive and rude, hardly the behaviour required for a lady diplomat, but then again, nobody ever expected any better because she is not a diplomat, never was, never will be. She is a cheap, dimwitted guttersnipe, an apology for a lady and a human being and wholly unfit to hold the office and serve her country, both of which her very presence insults.
As regards Bush, well, one has only to go to the Bushisms website and the man comes across as a vapid and abject joke. True, he looks pretty good holding a plastic turkey and does appear to have the ability to improvise with kids on the White House lawn when left alone with them, appearing to be on the same intellectual level. Kind of like a retarded uncle who hangs around the ranch saying inanities but who nobody ever takes seriously.
As for Cheney, this eminence grise learned a long time ago to shut the f. up and do his evil deeds behind closed doors. Nice man. After all, here is the man with all the contacts among his neocon friends, the corporate elitists whose policies dictate what Washington does and how many people its foreign policies kill. Nice man. Rumour has it that not even his own family speak to him. And how clever he was when all those contracts were allocated without tender after the US military forces targeted civilian structures in Iraq. Nice man.
If this pig-headed trio of crypto-fascists was to focus on its own country’s deeds, then nobody would have anything to say. It is, after all, up to the people of the USA to vote for whoever they wish to lead them, deceive them, act against their interests, get the country hated in the international community, screw up its economy...whatever turns you on.
However, the constant intrusion into Russia’s sphere of interests, the barrage of lies they sell to the corporate media parading them as the truth, and the stream of insults and provocations that come from these legions of Baal cannot and will not go unanswered.
Just who do Bush and Rice think they are, considering they can tell Russia when to take its troops out of Georgia? Has the USA taken its troops from Iraq? Has Russia got concentration camps like Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay? Did Russia go after Saakashvili and hang him? Have Georgian soldiers been forced into human pyramids, had dogs set upon them, been raped, water-boarded, their food peed into or forced to eat disgusting things which go against their culture?
Did Saakashvili not declare a ceasefire and while he was doing so mass his troops, savagely attack Tskhinvali, destroy 85% of the city’s structures with military hardware and slaughter 2.000 civilians on 7/8 August?
In their failure to mention the cause of the current conflict once, Bush, Rice and the entire odious regime give their tacit approval to Georgia’s war crimes, just as they gave their tacit approval to the war crimes perpetrated in Iraq and elsewhere (CIA torture flights and ships, and Guantanamo Bay concentration camp).
Just how involved were the US military adviors that night when Georgian peacekeeping troops fired on their Russian colleagues and when the barrage of bombs and missiles killed 2.000 civilians, when Georgian tanks ran down old ladies, when Georgian US-trained troops threw grenades into basements full of huddled and terrified women and children? Was this what the US forces trained them for? And if yes, would anyone be surprised?
So, here it is, loud and clear, for Bush, Cheney and Rice to understand. If they think that like Goebbels, they can repeat the same lie time and time again until it becomes the truth, they are wholly wrong, as wrong as the miscalculated act of aggression against Russia, which led to the military forces they support being thrashed.
If they think that like Himmler, they can win hearts and minds through concentration camps and torture, history taught the Soviet Union (which lost 26 million of its sons and daughters freeing Europe from Fascist tyrrany) and the rest of the world a solemn lesson which forced the enlightened among us to vow never to allow the story to be repeated again.
Yet like Hitler, these three try. And they do not give up. And they keep on provoking time and time and time again.
Russia made a limited response to an act of provocation, its right under international law, in which 2.000 of its citizens were killed by US-trained Georgian troops in one night. Quite what this trio were thinking they would achieve that night, only they know. What they lost must have been big, given the soreness and arrogance in their voices today, and the attempts at self-justification.
And once again, Russia rules the roost, Russia calls the shots these days, Russia stands for respect for the law whereas Washington flouts it, Russia stands for peace whereas Washington stands for war, Russia defends debate, dialogue and disscussion while Washington favours antagonism, arrogance, bullying, belligerence, back-stabbing, chauvinism and skulduggery as its diplomatic tools, and Condoleeza Rice as its mouthpiece. What a sorry-looking business card.
The female is sooooooooo 1980s...
For two weeks now, they have been telling Russia what to do. Two weeks on, Russia is doing what it understands it must do and will leave Georgia as and when it sees fit. If Bush and Rice want to continue making fools of themselves by repeating the same thing over and over, it just proves their utter impotence to gain anything from yet another failed Washington policy. Has there ever been a successful one?
Credit for photo: Deesillustration.com
© 1999-2006. «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.
URL: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/106158-bushcheneyrice-0
PRAVDA.Ru
21.08.2008
With what moral authority do these mainstays of the neoconservative, corporate elitist, greedy, self-interested Washington regime speak, when in their own closet there are skeletons labelled Abu Ghraib, Iraq, Guantanamo, mass murder, war crimes, illegal invasion, torture, illegal detention, disrespect for international law, denial of due process, rape...?That Bush and Rice are wholly incompetent to hold their jobs has been patently obvious from the beginning, when Rice started off by making insulting and derogatory remarks whenever she mentioned Russia, yet while as National Security Advisor prior to 9/11 failed to provide any national security whatsoever. Talk about being downright abrasive and rude, hardly the behaviour required for a lady diplomat, but then again, nobody ever expected any better because she is not a diplomat, never was, never will be. She is a cheap, dimwitted guttersnipe, an apology for a lady and a human being and wholly unfit to hold the office and serve her country, both of which her very presence insults.
As regards Bush, well, one has only to go to the Bushisms website and the man comes across as a vapid and abject joke. True, he looks pretty good holding a plastic turkey and does appear to have the ability to improvise with kids on the White House lawn when left alone with them, appearing to be on the same intellectual level. Kind of like a retarded uncle who hangs around the ranch saying inanities but who nobody ever takes seriously.
As for Cheney, this eminence grise learned a long time ago to shut the f. up and do his evil deeds behind closed doors. Nice man. After all, here is the man with all the contacts among his neocon friends, the corporate elitists whose policies dictate what Washington does and how many people its foreign policies kill. Nice man. Rumour has it that not even his own family speak to him. And how clever he was when all those contracts were allocated without tender after the US military forces targeted civilian structures in Iraq. Nice man.
If this pig-headed trio of crypto-fascists was to focus on its own country’s deeds, then nobody would have anything to say. It is, after all, up to the people of the USA to vote for whoever they wish to lead them, deceive them, act against their interests, get the country hated in the international community, screw up its economy...whatever turns you on.
However, the constant intrusion into Russia’s sphere of interests, the barrage of lies they sell to the corporate media parading them as the truth, and the stream of insults and provocations that come from these legions of Baal cannot and will not go unanswered.
Just who do Bush and Rice think they are, considering they can tell Russia when to take its troops out of Georgia? Has the USA taken its troops from Iraq? Has Russia got concentration camps like Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay? Did Russia go after Saakashvili and hang him? Have Georgian soldiers been forced into human pyramids, had dogs set upon them, been raped, water-boarded, their food peed into or forced to eat disgusting things which go against their culture?
Did Saakashvili not declare a ceasefire and while he was doing so mass his troops, savagely attack Tskhinvali, destroy 85% of the city’s structures with military hardware and slaughter 2.000 civilians on 7/8 August?
In their failure to mention the cause of the current conflict once, Bush, Rice and the entire odious regime give their tacit approval to Georgia’s war crimes, just as they gave their tacit approval to the war crimes perpetrated in Iraq and elsewhere (CIA torture flights and ships, and Guantanamo Bay concentration camp).
Just how involved were the US military adviors that night when Georgian peacekeeping troops fired on their Russian colleagues and when the barrage of bombs and missiles killed 2.000 civilians, when Georgian tanks ran down old ladies, when Georgian US-trained troops threw grenades into basements full of huddled and terrified women and children? Was this what the US forces trained them for? And if yes, would anyone be surprised?
So, here it is, loud and clear, for Bush, Cheney and Rice to understand. If they think that like Goebbels, they can repeat the same lie time and time again until it becomes the truth, they are wholly wrong, as wrong as the miscalculated act of aggression against Russia, which led to the military forces they support being thrashed.
If they think that like Himmler, they can win hearts and minds through concentration camps and torture, history taught the Soviet Union (which lost 26 million of its sons and daughters freeing Europe from Fascist tyrrany) and the rest of the world a solemn lesson which forced the enlightened among us to vow never to allow the story to be repeated again.
Yet like Hitler, these three try. And they do not give up. And they keep on provoking time and time and time again.
Russia made a limited response to an act of provocation, its right under international law, in which 2.000 of its citizens were killed by US-trained Georgian troops in one night. Quite what this trio were thinking they would achieve that night, only they know. What they lost must have been big, given the soreness and arrogance in their voices today, and the attempts at self-justification.
And once again, Russia rules the roost, Russia calls the shots these days, Russia stands for respect for the law whereas Washington flouts it, Russia stands for peace whereas Washington stands for war, Russia defends debate, dialogue and disscussion while Washington favours antagonism, arrogance, bullying, belligerence, back-stabbing, chauvinism and skulduggery as its diplomatic tools, and Condoleeza Rice as its mouthpiece. What a sorry-looking business card.
The female is sooooooooo 1980s...
For two weeks now, they have been telling Russia what to do. Two weeks on, Russia is doing what it understands it must do and will leave Georgia as and when it sees fit. If Bush and Rice want to continue making fools of themselves by repeating the same thing over and over, it just proves their utter impotence to gain anything from yet another failed Washington policy. Has there ever been a successful one?
Credit for photo: Deesillustration.com
© 1999-2006. «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.
URL: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/106158-bushcheneyrice-0
RUSSIA: RACIST SHOOTING RAMPAGE
A man obsessed with racist ideas went on a shooting rampage in Perm, Russia, according to an August 29 report by the web site Newsru.com. The 28-year-old suspect allegedly shot a man to death and injured several others, selecting his victims on the basis of their ethnicity. He reportedly used a homemade gun to carry out the attacks. (Russia has strict gun control laws, and outside the North Caucasus, gun violence is relatively rare.) Police say they found grenades and neo-Nazi literature in the suspect's home. Rather than describing him as a member of an extremist group, the police painted a picture of a mentally ill man "obsessed with the theory racial superiority." It is unclear why he does not face hate crimes charges. He is held on murder and "hooliganism" charges.
Bigotry Monitor: Volume 8, Number 36
September 5, 2008
http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/090508BM.shtml
Bigotry Monitor: Volume 8, Number 36
September 5, 2008
http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/090508BM.shtml
Polish Agents Tell of CIA Jails
By Adam Easton
BBC News, Warsaw
Polish intelligence sources have for the first time confirmed that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ran a secret prison facility on Polish soil. The admission comes after a report found the CIA had operated prisons for terror suspects in Poland and Romania. Polish and Romanian officials denied the claims, but last month Warsaw launched a new inquiry into the matter.
In 2006, US President George W Bush admitted the CIA had held suspects in secret jails but he did not say where.
Two anonymous intelligence officers made the claims about facilities being located in Poland in the daily Dziennik. One of them states that between 2002 and 2005 the CIA held terror suspects inside a military intelligence training base in Stare Kiejkuty in north-eastern Poland. The officer says only the CIA had access to the isolated zone, which was used because it was a secure site far from major towns and was close to a former military airport.
'High-value detainees'
Both the then Prime Minister, Leszek Miller, and President, Aleksander Kwasniewski, knew about the base. ... However the officer says it was unlikely either man knew if the prisoners were being tortured because the Poles had no control over the Americans' activities. Both leaders have always denied the existence of any such base.
Last year a Council of Europe report quoted unnamed CIA sources as saying that "high-value detainees", including Khalid Sheik Mohammed - the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001 - had been interrogated in Poland. The current Polish government says it has no knowledge of the base but it has sanctioned a new investigation into the claims.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7601899.stm
Published: 2008/09/06 13:45:30 GMT
© BBC MMVIII
BBC News, Warsaw
Polish intelligence sources have for the first time confirmed that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ran a secret prison facility on Polish soil. The admission comes after a report found the CIA had operated prisons for terror suspects in Poland and Romania. Polish and Romanian officials denied the claims, but last month Warsaw launched a new inquiry into the matter.
In 2006, US President George W Bush admitted the CIA had held suspects in secret jails but he did not say where.
Two anonymous intelligence officers made the claims about facilities being located in Poland in the daily Dziennik. One of them states that between 2002 and 2005 the CIA held terror suspects inside a military intelligence training base in Stare Kiejkuty in north-eastern Poland. The officer says only the CIA had access to the isolated zone, which was used because it was a secure site far from major towns and was close to a former military airport.
'High-value detainees'
Both the then Prime Minister, Leszek Miller, and President, Aleksander Kwasniewski, knew about the base. ... However the officer says it was unlikely either man knew if the prisoners were being tortured because the Poles had no control over the Americans' activities. Both leaders have always denied the existence of any such base.
Last year a Council of Europe report quoted unnamed CIA sources as saying that "high-value detainees", including Khalid Sheik Mohammed - the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001 - had been interrogated in Poland. The current Polish government says it has no knowledge of the base but it has sanctioned a new investigation into the claims.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7601899.stm
Published: 2008/09/06 13:45:30 GMT
© BBC MMVIII
U.S. lawmakers want details of anthrax investigation
" ... New details of the investigation, revealed in recent interviews, raised questions about when the bureau focused on Ivins as the likely perpetrator and how solid its evidence was. In April 2007, after the mailed anthrax was genetically linked to Ivins's laboratory and after he was questioned about late-night work in the laboratory before the letters were mailed, prosecutors sent Ivins a formal letter saying he was "not a target" of the investigation. And only a week before Ivins died did agents first take a mouth swab to collect a DNA sample, officials said. ... "
STORY
STORY
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Israel: Swastika Tattoos Found in Candy Packages
Sold in Israeli drugstores (Photo: Shahar Amano)Tel Aviv parents astonished to discover Nazi symbol on stickers found in sweets sold at Super-Pharm drugstore chain; Holland-exported product immediately removed from shelves
Eli Senyor
www.ynetnews.com
08.22.08/Israel News
Parents who bought candies for their children at the Super-Pharm drugstore chain in Tel Aviv were surprised to discover swastika-decorated tattoo stickers inside.
The sweets came from Holland but received a hechsher (a kosher approval) from the Chief Rabbinate and have a Super-Pharm sticker on their wrapping.
Children who bought the raspberry-flavored sour stick candies received tattoos inside, some of which were imprinted with swastikas and skulls. As mentioned, these are imported candies, but the packaging promises in Hebrew that a gift can be found inside.
Yedioth Tel Aviv discovered that the candies with the stickers were sold in a number of Super-Pharm stores in the city.
The chain responded by saying, “As soon as the issue was brought to our attention, we removed the product from the shelves in order to return it to the supplier.”
The marketing company, Guri Import and Distribution Ltd., said in response that “the product is imported in a closed package from the manufacturer in Holland. We turned to the company that provided us with tattoos that were added to the clear packaging. As a result of complaints that the tattoos have pictures of swastikas, we stopped the distribution and sent our workers out to the stores to remove the packages from the shelves. We apologize to our customers for their distress."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3586212,00.html
Television Under the Swastika
Director: Michael KloftCast: Albert Speer, Robert Ley, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels
(2008) Rated: Unrated
US DVD release date: 19 August 2008 (First Run)
REVIEW
Friday, September 05, 2008
Exposé Ties Cases of Torture to Canada's Anti-Terror Strategy (Book Review)
Andrew DuffyThe Ottawa Citizen
August 31, 2008
Dark Days
By Kerry Pither
Penguin Group Canada, $35
On the morning of May 29, 2006, two senior members of Canada's security services appeared before the Senate committee on national security and defence. Jack Hooper, then deputy director of operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, sat beside RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli at the witness table.
Senator Hugh Segal had a question for them: Given the "legislative difficulties" they faced, how did the agencies balance the need to prevent violent attacks with their desire to prosecute terrorists?
Hooper, in response, described the creation of an RCMP-led task force that investigated Toronto's Ahmed El-Maati and a number of other terror suspects in the months after 9/11.
"The Crown advised there was not sufficient evidence to proceed with charges," he explained, "and the law enforcement community moved quickly into a diffuse-and-disrupt mode designed to prevent acts of violence from taking place."
Security agencies now use "other techniques" when it proves impossible to take a terror suspect to court, he said, adding: "This has represented something of a sea change for law enforcement agencies."
Kerry PitherZaccardelli readily agreed, saying CSIS and the RCMP approach security threats "with a much more extensive menu of options" than in the past. "Particularly since 9/11," he told the committee, "we have had to accept going to a disruptive mode because prevention is the most important thing."
In her compelling new book, Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror, Ottawa author Kerry Pither contends the agencies' disruption campaign is at the heart of a national security scandal that goes well beyond Maher Arar.
Dark Days argues that what happened to Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmed El-Maati and Muayyed Nureddin cannot be dismissed as coincidence or explained by the isolated errors of security agents. Rather, Pither contends, their Syrian ordeals were in keeping with the little known disruption policy introduced after 9/11.
All four men were detained and tortured in Syria while under investigation by the RCMP or CSIS for suspected links to terrorism. Despite exhaustive investigations, none has ever been charged with a crime in Canada.
Arar has been cleared of any connection to terrorism by a federal inquiry and awarded $10 million in compensation. The other men have launched lawsuits for the same kind of redress.
"The whole goal of the book," says Pither, an Ottawa human rights activist, "is to inform as many people as possible about what happened to all of these men and where Canada went wrong in the war on terror."
Pither has been consumed by the four cases ever since Maher Arar's wife, Monia Mazigh, walked into her office in May, 2003, to ask for help in securing the release of her husband.
Pither later worked as a communications strategist for Arar -- he writes a foreword to the book -- and for the three other Canadian Muslims tortured in Syria. She regards Dark Days as the next logical step in her five-year quest to inform Canadians about what was done in the name of national security. (Pither is donating proceeds from her book to Amnesty International.)
"The narrative the public was left with after the Arar Report was that an innocent man (Arar), was vindicated, that it was an isolated case, and it was mostly the Americans' fault," she says. "For me, that was really troubling because I knew it wasn't an isolated case."
Dark Days knits the four cases back together in a chronological narrative that takes the reader through their intertwined odysseys. The case of Ottawa's Abdullah Almalki is in many ways the most horrific.
Almalki was 16 years old when his family -- his father was a lawyer, his mother a teacher -- came to Ottawa from Syria in 1987. Abdullah graduated from Lisgar Collegiate, then obtained an electrical engineering degree from Carleton University. He married a fellow student, economics major Khuzaiman Kalifah, and they had five children (now six) while Abdullah launched a successful export business.
Almalki's first contact with CSIS came in the summer of 1998 when an agent phoned to arrange a meeting: she said some of his communications equipment had been found in the hands of the Taliban. He would meet with agents several times to explain that he shipped store-bought equipment to a Pakistani firm, Microelectronics, which held contracts with that country's military.
Pither's book describes in graphic detail the 22 months he subsequently spent in Syrian custody and the torture sessions Almalki endured in Far' Falastin prison. He was beaten with fists, cables and belts. More often than not, the questions he faced related to events and people in Canada. The Arar Commission has established that the RCMP sent questions for Almalki to the Syrians through Canadian diplomats.
What happened to Almalki, El-Maati and Nureddin, says Pither, amounts to a kind of "opportunistic rendition," in which Canadian officials took advantage of suspects traveling abroad in a country known for its human rights abuses. "I think Canadians pride themselves on being better than the U.S. on human rights issues," she says. "I think these cases show we weren't."
The security services are not the only ones whose image suffers in Dark Days: the media's role in serving the interests of power also comes under critical scrutiny. Pither analyses the unfolding media coverage from the first damaging story leaked about Arar in November, 2002 through to those that cast doubts on Almalki and El-Maati.
Those leaks, Pither says, appear to have been been part of an orchestrated media strategy on the part of government officials. "Do I believe they attempted to detract from their own shortcomings by smearing the men? Yes. Is that a coverup? Yes, I think so," Pither charges.
Journalists are routinely asked to discover the basis on which government officials cast decisions. National security reporting poses a particular challenge since it is an offence for government officials to reveal classified information, which means journalists must afford anonymity to sources who do so.
But what if those sources have a self-interested, dishonest agenda?
Carleton University journalism professor Jeff Sallot, a former Globe and Mail reporter who distinguished himself in his coverage of the four cases, says the media have yet to come to terms with their role in them.
"There's a real soul searching that still need to go on about how we (the media) were badly abused in the Arar case, and I think in the Almalki case and in the El Maati cases as well," he tells Pither. "The big lesson is to always question your sources -- not just because they may have an agenda but because they may have imperfect knowledge."
Pither's narrative stretches to 403 pages; it is followed by 34 pages of footnotes and a seven-page cast of characters.
In places, the detail is excessive ("The guards led him along the wider hallway past the common cells and then turned right down the narrow hallway, stopping at the second tiny door on the right: cell number two.") More often, though, Dark Days is a gripping exposé in the finest journalistic tradition: it is a crisp and disturbing book.
Pither's depiction of the government's side of the story relies, almost entirely, upon the three-volume report of the Arar Commission, which she has mined for telling facts.
A longtime human rights advocate, Pither is careful in her book to separate fact from conjecture. She relies on others to make arguments, almost to a fault. "I don't consider myself an advocate for the men," she says. "I consider myself an advocate for the issues: their right to ask questions; our right to gain answers."
Dark Days poses many such questions: What role did CSIS and the RCMP play in the detention and torture of the men? What did Canadian agencies do with the fruit of that torture? And in what way did Canada's political leadership, including Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and cabinet ministers John Manley and Anne McLellan, set the tone for the agencies' actions?
Ultimately, Pither hopes the book will help lift the lid on the secrecy that still surrounds the cases. A second federal commission, the Iacobucci Inquiry, will report later this year on the government's involvement in the cases of Almalki, El-Maati and Nureddin. All of the evidence in that inquiry has been heard behind closed doors.
Says Pither: "I believe that the secrecy is not about national security; I believe that the government secrecy is more about shielding itself from accountability and embarrassment."
Citizen senior writer Andrew Duffy has covered the Almalki case since first interviewing him in October, 2005.
After the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Almalki came under renewed scrutiny. He was the central focus of an RCMP joint forces team, Project A-O Canada, that investigated a number of terror suspects supplied by CSIS.
His background raised legitimate questions. In the early 1990s, Almalki had worked in Pakistan and Afghanistan for Human Concern International, an Ottawa-based charity that performed development work in the Muslim world. The man who would ultimately be identified as the highest-ranking Canadian member of al-Qaeda, Ahmed Said Khadr, was his boss at H.C.I.
Almalki also had a business relationship with Mohamed Elzahabi, a U.S.-based Lebanese national who once trained sharpshooters at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.
Almalki has always insisted there was nothing more to the relationships than that: they were not part of a terrorist conspiracy.
But in the supercharged atmosphere that followed Sept. 11, security agencies often read sinister meaning into simple circumstance.
Pither's contention is that the RCMP, unable to gather evidence to prosecute Almalki as a terrorist, then engaged in a "disruption" strategy. He was followed constantly and in plain sight. A camera was mounted across the street from his Ottawa house.
Almalki left the country on Nov. 27, 2001 with his family to escape what he considered harassment. They travelled to Malaysia to stay with his wife's relatives.
On May 3, 2002, Almalki flew to Syria to visit relatives but was detained before he could leave the airport. It's an open question as to why he was he detained: whether at the request of Canadian officials or because of faulty intelligence provided by this country.
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=1a430a7d-b2de-49f2-a2ab-cfb10255c897
Canada: Dr. Joe Schwarcz, McGill University's Renowned "Popularizer of Science," Shills for Monsanto
By Alex Constantine (Public service repost)
Dr. Joe Schwarcz of Montreal's McGill University is a well-known media "popularizer of science," and clearly on someone's payroll.
Whose: A consortium of biotechnology companies, including Monsanto (see funding data below).
In That’s The Way The Cookie Crumbles, Dr. Schwarcz writes that aspartame is perfectly safe to consume - a verdict contradicted by scores of independent studies, one that only the pathological could endorse.
Frightening to consider that Dr. Schwarcz - a paid public diplomat for Monsanto - "interprets science" for the public.
Dr. Schwarzc has stalked and libelled anti-aspartame activists, smeared GM opponent/canola farmer Percy Schmeiser (see below). He has even harassed me, on occasion, with misplaced, adolescent ridicule.
Once, when the name Alex Constantine was mentioned on his radio show, he screamed. Perhaps he fell off the Prozac ...
Dr. Joe Schwarcz - A 21st century Mr. Wizard - is making his fans sick.
Joe Schwarcz Profile
http://oss.mcgill.ca/schwarcz.php
Joe Schwarcz (PhD McGill 1973) is Director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society which is dedicated to demystifying science for the public, the media and students. Dr. Schwarcz also teaches a variety of courses with emphasis on health issues and on the application of chemistry to everyday life. He is well known for his informative and entertaining public lectures on topics ranging from the chemistry of love to the science of aging. Professor Schwarcz has received numerous awards for teaching chemistry and for interpreting science for the public. Among these are the Royal Society of Canada’s McNeil Award and the American Chemical Society’s prestigious Grady-Stack Award. Previous winners of the Grady-Stack have included famed science writer Isaac Asimov, New York Times columnist Walter Sullivan and Don Herbert of TV’s “Mr. Wizard” fame. Dr. Schwarcz is the only non-American ever to be honored with this prize. His latest award is the Royal Canadian Institute’s Sandford Fleming Medal. Dr. Schwarcz was also awarded an honorary Doctorate degree by Athabasca University in the spring of 2002.
“Dr. Joe” appears on the Canadian Discovery Channel, TV Ontario, Global Television, CBC-TV, CTV-TV and various radio stations. He hosts the "Dr. Joe Show" on Montreal's CJAD and Toronto’s CFRB every Sunday from 3-4 PM. He was also the host of “Science To Go,” a 13 episode show on the Discovery Channel that focused on common foods. Dr. Schwarcz writes a weekly newspaper column in the Montreal Gazette entitled “The Right Chemistry” as well as a monthly column in Canadian Chemical News. He was the chief consultant on the Reader’s Digest best sellers “Foods That Harm, Foods That Heal” and “The Healing Power of Vitamins, Minerals and Herbs” and contributed the chemistry chapter to the best-selling “Mental Floss.” His books “Radar, Hula Hoops and Playful Pigs,” “The Genie in the Bottle,” “That’s The Way The Cookie Crumbles,” “Dr. Joe and What You Didn’t Know,” “The Fly in the Ointment” and “Let Them Eat Flax” have been best sellers. The books have been translated into five languages and are sold around the world.
•••••••
WHO FUNDS DR. SCHWARCZ?
A CONSORIUM OF BIOTECHNOLOGY COMPANIES ... INCLUDING MONSANTO
The Council for Biotechnology Information (BCI) has Funded McGill University's Office for Chemistry and Society
http://www.germination.ca/pdfs/germination_january_2002.pdf
"The ability to deliver new seed technologies and enhanced varieties to our farm customers is directly affected by consumer confi dence in these products. Recognizing that this has become an essential element for the successful commercialization of these products, including ensuring access to international markets, the Council for Biotechnology Information (Canada) is working to improve understanding of and attitudes toward agricultural biotechnology.
"That is precisely why the Council was formed almost two years ago. Now operating in several countries around the world, the Council believes that fostering acceptance begins and ends with sharing balanced and science-based information, delivered by credible spokespeople and organizations, with the consuming public. To this end, the Council’s integrated and comprehensive communications program is geared at increasing the number of informed consumers and spurring acceptance of biotechnology in food production.
"Among the Council for Biotechnology Information’s efforts in Canada, we have ...
"* Provided arm’s length support to diverse organizations such as McGill University’s Offi ce for Chemistry and Society ... "
•••••••
What is the Council for Biotechnology Information?
From the CBI website:
http://www.whybiotech.com/index.asp?id=about
Welcome to whybiotech.com®.
The Council for Biotechnology Information communicates science-based information about the benefits and safety of agricultural and food biotechnology. Its members are the leading biotechnology companies and trade associations.
Member Companies and Associations
http://www.whybiotech.com/index.asp?id=982
MONSANTO
BASF
Bayer
Biotechnology Industry Organization
CropLife America
Dow
DuPont
Syngenta
••••••8
THE JOE SCHWARZ PRO-MONSANTO SMEAR JOB OF PERCY SCHMEISER:
When Excuses Won't Fly: No Seed Of Doubt in Canola Trial
http://whybiotech.ca/html/Canada3-12-6-02.HTM
The Gazette (Montreal) November 9, 2002
Joe Schwarcz, director of McGill University's Office for Chemistry and Society, writes about the fascinating legal case of Monsanto, the giant agrochemical company, vs. Percy Schmeiser, an unknown Saskatchewan canola farmer. Today, says Schwarcz, Schmeiser is no longer unknown; he travels around the world lecturing to anyone who cares to listen (and pay) about the evils of genetic modification and the corporate brutality to which he has been subjected. But there's more to the story.
After many years of research, Monsanto developed a variety of canola that was resistant to the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup). This plant produces the seeds from which canola oil is pressed and is an important crop in Canada. Indeed, the name derives from "Canadian oil." Roundup Ready canola offers several advantages to the farmer. Fields can be sprayed with glyphosate to kill weeds without harming the crop. This reduces the number of herbicide applications needed and reduces the need for tilling. There is therefore less soil erosion, a significant saving in herbicide costs as well as in diesel fuel. Canadian farmers obviously think there is a benefit since acreage devoted to genetically modified canola has been increasing every year.
The introduction of Roundup Ready canola presented Monsanto with a problem: How do you make a profit from the invention? This is not a simple question to answer. Traditionally, farmers grow crops and keep the seeds from the best plants for use during the next growing season. According to this practice, a farmer would only have to buy the modified seeds once.
But if this were the case, Monsanto could not recoup its investment, let alone make a profit. And profit, of course, is what the game is about. So Monsanto came up with a plan. Any farmer wishing to plant Roundup Ready canola had to sign an agreement to buy fresh seed every year. If you want to use the technology, Monsanto said, you have to pay for it. Not at all an unreasonable business move. And more than 30,000 Canadian farmers agree. Schwarcz says that in1998, Monsanto had reason to suspect that Schmeiser's field harboured Monsanto canola. When the farmer refused to pay for the technology, Monsanto sued.
At trial, Schmeiser admitted the presence of the plants, but said they were unwanted and must have grown from seeds that had blown off passing trucks.
But curiously, he never contacted the company to complain. Later, he would explain that he didn't even know about the existence of such seeds. Another curiosity, since the company had advertised widely and held information sessions in his area. When Monsanto introduced its shipping records, it became clear that no truck had passed in the vicinity.
Schmeiser now suggested that the plants resulted from cross-pollination from neighbouring farms. Not likely, either, since the nearest farm was 8 kilometres away. Also, the pollen (or the seed from the trucks) would have had to have an amazing property, unknown even to Monsanto: the ability to organize the canola plants produced into neat rows!
Admittedly, cross-pollination is a legitimate concern for farmers who do not want modified canola in their fields. But Monsanto has a clear policy: it has no intention of taking action against growers affected by such accidental pollen drift and is willing to work with farmers to address the problem.
Based on the evidence, the judge ruled Schmeiser "knew or ought to have known" that he had violated Monsanto's patented technology. There simply was no reasonable explanation for how his fields became "contaminated" with 95-98 per cent Roundup Ready canola, planted in regular rows yet!
The farmer appealed the judgment and introduced a novel nuance. Yes, he explained, he knowingly grew Monsanto's canola but it was his right to acquire seeds in any way he chose and what he planted was his business. The Federal Court of Appeal wasn't biting and dismissed all Schmeiser's appeals. He would now like to take the matter to the Supreme Court of Canada.
••••••••
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE SCHMEISER CASE
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/conflict.htm
Monsanto vs Schmeiser
The Classic David vs Goliath Struggle.....
The Conflict
Setting The Stage
Percy Schmeiser
A long time farmer and farm equipment dealer from the small rural community of Bruno Sask. He served as Mayor of the Town of Bruno from 1966-1983 and as a MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) for the Watrous constituency in the Provincial Legislature from 1967-71.
Excerpt from Aug 14, 1999 Vancouver Sun article by Dave Margoshes
"Percy Schmeiser was mad as hell, and decided he wasn't going to take it.
Schmeiser has been growing canola -- the yellow-blossomed oilseed that used to be known as rapeseed -- for 40 years, and he knows his stuff. He's been experimenting, developing his own varieties, using his own seed and generally prospering with canola. reaping the benefits derived from growing an increasingly popular crop.
So when Monsanto, the giant multinational agro-chemical company that is at the forefront of developing genetically modified foods, accused him of patent infringement and demanded restitution for its seeds, his pride was hurt. He chose to fight rather than roll over and take it."
Monsanto
Excerpt from Aug 14, 1999 Vancouver Sun article by Dave Margoshes.
"Monsanto, headquartered in St.Louis, makes the popular herbicide Roundup. Farmers all over the Prairies ---Schmeiser among them --- spray it on their fields, whereupon it kills every-thing growing there. Then they plant.
Using the controversial alchemy of genetic engineering, which has alarmed environmentalists and consumers, Monsanto has developed a canola seed completely immune to Roundup. That means a farmer can spray the herbicide over a planted field, kill all the weeds growing there, but not hurt the crop -- as long as it comes from Monsanto's seed.
The company sells the seed -- about half the canola planted in Saskatchewan this year comes from it -- but keeps the rights to the DNA itself.
It means that, rather than save seeds from last year's crop to use this year, as many do -- and as Schmeiser traditionally does -- farmers have to buy new seed from Monsanto each year.
In order to protect its investment, Monsanto has been vigilant in rooting out frugal farmers who might be cheating and saving seed, or borrowing a bit of seed from neighbours.
Farmers buying Monsanto's seed must sign a contract promising to buy fresh seed every year. And they must let Monsanto inspect their fields."
The Battle
Excerpt from Macleans Magazine May 17, 1999. Article by Mark Nichols
"For 40 years, Percy Schmeiser has grown canola on his farm near Bruno, Sask., about 80 km east of Saskatoon, usually sowing each crop of the oil-rich plants with seeds saved from the previous harvest. And he has never, says Schmeiser, purchased seed from the St. Louis, Mo.-based agricultural and biotechnology giant Monsanto Co. Even so, he says that more than 320 hectares of his land is now "contaminated" by Monsanto's herbicide-resistant Roundup Ready canola, a man made variety produced by a controversial process known as genetic engineering. And, like hundreds of other North American farmer, Schmeiser has felt the sting of Monsanto's long legal arm: last August the company took the 68-year-old farmer to court, claiming he illegally planted the firm's canola without paying a $37-per-hectare fee for the privilege. Unlike scores of similarly accused North American farmers who have reached out-of-court settlements with Monsanto, Schmeiser fought back. He claims Monsanto investigators trespassed on his land -- and that company seed could easily have blown on to his soil from passing canola-laden trucks. "I never put those plants on my land," says Schmeiser. "The question is, where do Monsanto's rights end and mine begin?"
The landmark case, that went before the Federal Court of Canada, has attracted international attention because it could help determine how much control a handful of powerful biotech companies can exert over farmers.
Excerpt from August 19, 1999 Western Producer article, by Adrian Ewins:
"The high profile legal battle between Monsanto and a Saskatchewan farmer will go to trial in Saskatoon next year.
The two sides will square off in federal court on June 5, 2000 to argue the company's lawsuit alleging that Percy Schmeiser grew Roundup Ready canola without a license.
The trial date was set at the end of an eventful week that has brought the issue of seed patenting to national attention by pitting a United States-based multinational corporation against a lone farmer from Bruno, Sask.
"The case found its way into the courts in August 1998, when Monsanto filed a statement of claim alleging Schmeiser illegally bought Roundup Ready seed from local growers in order to plant his 1997 crop, then retained some of that year's seed to plant in 1998.
Volunteer Canola growing adjacent to roadway after land had been sprayed with Roundup. Each canola plant can produce from 4000 to 10,000 plants.
Schmeiser said he planted his 1997 crop with seed saved from 1996, and insists that any Roundup Ready growing on his land was spread by wind or by grain trucks travelling on roads adjacent to his fields.
In the statement of claim, Schmeiser says Monsanto has libeled him by publicly accusing him of committing illegal acts, trespassing on his land in order to obtain seed samples and improperly obtaining samples of his seed from a local seed plant.
The statement also accuses Monsanto of "callous disregard" for the environment by introducing Roundup Ready into the area without proper controls, and of contaminating crops grown by Schmeiser."
On Aug. 10, 1999 mediation talks to settle the dispute without going to trial ended in failure.
The next day, Schmeiser launched a $10 million lawsuit against Monsanto, accusing the company of a variety of wrongs, including libel, trespass and contamination of his fields with Roundup Ready."
"Schmeiser's lawsuit against Monsanto won't be dealt with until the original lawsuit has been resolved. "We want to have the patent infringement hearings run their course, then we'll pursue this," said Schmeiser's lawyer Terry Zakreski."
The Trial was heard June 5-20, 2000 in Federal Court in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
The Canadian federal court hearing lasted three weeks before a judge in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. At trial, Monsanto presented evidence from two dozen witnesses and samplers that Schmeiser's eight fields all were more than 90% Roundup Ready, indicating it was a commercial-grade crop. Monsanto performed no independent tests as their tests were all performed in house or by experts hired by the company.
In his defense, Schmeiser showed his own farm-based evidence that the fields ranged from nearly zero to 68% Roundup Ready. These tests were confirmed by independent tests performed by research scientists at the University of Manitoba, in Winnipeg, MB. Schmeiser's defense also contained evidence that he didn't knowingly acquire Monsanto's product, segregate the contaminated seeds for future use or spray his canola with Roundup
Monsanto did not directly try to explain how the Roundup Ready seed got there. "Whether Mr. Schmeiser knew of the matter or not matters not at all," said Roger Hughes, a Monsanto attorney quoted by The Western Producer, a Canadian agriculture magazine. A canola scientist, in an affidavit for Monsanto in the trial, said Schmeiser's theories of cross-pollination by wind and bees did not make sense to him, given the purity of plants grown based on Monsanto's tests. "It was a very frightening thing, because they said it does not matter how it gets into a farmer's field; it's their property," Schmeiser said, in an interview with Agweek. "If it gets in by wind or cross-pollination, that doesn't matter."
Monsanto outlined their request for patent infringement seeking damages totaling $400,000. This included a list of civil damages, including about $250,000 in legal fees, $105,000 in profits they feel Schmeiser made on the 1998 crop, $13,500 ($15 an acre) for technology fees and $25,000 in punitive damages. Schmeiser feels that Monsanto has asked for exorbitant amounts to serve as a warning to other producers. At that time Schmeiser said he has already spent $160,000 of his own savings for legal fees and another $40,000 of his own time, travel and compensation for labor he had to hire when he was away from the farm.
He says that if he would have "bowed on my hands and knees" in the beginning, Monsanto might have settled for what it calculated were unpaid technical fees of about $15,000. Schmeiser says he has received donations to help his legal bills--mostly in $50 and $100 cheques from other farmers.
Schmeiser has been asked to speak all over the world on the dangers of GMO crops. Schmeiser believes the case revolved around a conflict of two set of rights. One set of basic "plant breeders' rights" allows Canadian farmers to buy seed and then plant offspring for one more year. On the other side, Canadian patent law allows companies to patent genes and then insert them into plant varieties and enter into contracts with farmers not to replant them.
"In my case, I never had anything to do with Monsanto, outside of buying chemicals. I never signed a contract," Schmeiser says. At the end of the first suit, Schmeiser says he will pursue a second lawsuit he filed last fall against Monsanto for contaminating his seed.
"If I would go to St. Louis and contaminate their plots--destroy what they have worked on for 40 years--I think I would be put in jail and the key thrown away," Schmeiser says.
The Federal Court of Canada issued their judgment in the case of Monsanto vs Schmeiser Enterprises over the technology use fee for Round Up Ready canola on March 29, 2001. Justice Andrew McKay upheld the validity of Monsanto's patented gene which it inserts into canola varieties to make them resistant to their herbicide Round Up.
McKay dismissed Schmeiser's challenge to the patent based on the claim Monsanto could not control how the gene was dispersed through the countryside.
In a key part of the ruling, the judge agreed a farmer can generally own the seeds or plants grown on his land if they blow in or are carried there by pollen - but the judge says this is not true in the case of genetically modified seed.
It was that part of the ruling that most upsets Percy Schmeiser. The implications are wide ranging and Schmeiser has launched an appeal that was heard on May 15 & 16, 2002 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The Federal Court of Appeal subsequently rejected Schmeiser's appeal. Schmeiser then asked for leave from Canada's Supreme Court to hear the case. Leave was granted in May 2003 and the case was heard on January 20, 2004.
The Supreme Court issued their decision in May 2004 and one can view the decision as a draw. The Court determined that Monsanto's patent is valid, but Schmeiser is not forced to pay Monsanto anything as he did not profit from the presence of Roundup Ready canola in his fields. This issue started with Monsanto demanding Schmeiser pay the $15/acre technology fee and in the end, Schmeiser did not have to pay. The Schmeiser family and supporters are pleased with this decision, however disappointed that the other areas of appeal were not overturned.
If you believe in this important cause, your assistance in funding the appeal would be greatly appreciated.
Italy: Post-Communism, Post Wars - Life Worsens for Gypsies
A threat to democracyBy Géraldina Colotti
mondediplo.com
In Rome, police in battle dress have evacuated Gypsy settlements and prevented children from going to school, and the city’s rightwing mayor, Gianni Alemanno, is having fingerprints taken of those who remain. In Milan, Silvio Berlusconi’s government has appointed a “commissioner extraordinary for the Roma emergency” and enforced ID checks for people entering their camps. In Naples, the police charged a settlement with Molotov cocktails, forcing families to flee; the faces of the terrified children were seen on television screens around the country that evening. “I see institutionalised racism here,” said Luciano Muhlbauer, the Milan regional councillor for the Communist Refoundation Party. The mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, went further: “If they continue like that, they’ll be a threat to democracy.” Cacciari, a leftwing mayor, asked for social housing for the Roma but district committees, controlled by the right, turned him down. He is an exception among leftwing mayors who like to outdo the Northern League and the National Alliance when security is an issue, and deport the Romanian Roma, fine beggars and patrol the neighbourhoods.
The government seems to use the same racist language used in bars. According to sociologist Alessandro Dal Lago: “Economic and existential uncertainties, fear of the future, and the end of European illusions, are all channelled against foreigners and Gypsies. Cynical politicians everywhere exploit discontent to win favour. It costs them nothing. Add to that the short-sightedness of the ‘moderate left’, who have made things worse by undermining the antifascist foundations of the First Republic. They cried over the fascists who died in Salo (1) as though those fascists hadn’t died fighting partisans and collaborating with the Nazis, making it easier to exterminate Jews, antifascists, homosexuals and Gypsies.”
The Prodi government was the first to deport Balkan Roma, despite their European citizenship, when it enacted an ad-hoc decree requested by the former mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, after a Roma had murdered an Italian woman. The security package approved by the Berlusconi government on 21 May merely used and reinforced that decree, adopted by the centre-left government shortly before it lost the elections. “All the Slav Roma who found refuge in Italy during the wars in Yugoslavia have lived in limbo up to now,” explained Santino Spinelli, university professor and world-famous Roma musician. “But if the law makes illegal immigration a crime, then instead of obtaining refugee status, they’ll go to prison.”
Some 150,000 Gypsies live in Italy, 70% Roma and Sinti with Italian nationality. The others are Slav Roma from the Balkans, or Romanians who arrived after the fall of Ceausescu. “Under the Ceausescu regime,” explained Spinelli, “the Roma had houses and equal rights. But the change of system revoked the privileges of the working classes, and the Roma were in the front line. They were the first to lose their work and their homes and were forced to migrate. That’s how they ended up in camps in Italy, victims of a new form of apartheid.”
Giovanna Boursier, historian and journalist, is a specialist in the Balkan Roma camps. “As far as the Roma are concerned, we have used the wrong words to justify the wrong solutions, dictated by stupidity or private interest. By investing money to prop up the dilapidated shantytowns, without looking at the issue from a global point of view, we ended up institutionalising a ghetto and perpetuating cultural stereotypes that are easy to demonise. Hence the Roma’s scapegoat status. But we are ignoring the long history between Italy and a large section of the Roma and Sinti population, as well as the massive cultural exchanges.”
In an effort to reverse the xenophobia and bleak stereotypes, Spinelli has become a party leader. He headed the first Roma and Sinti demonstration in Rome on 8 June, with nearly 10,000 participants, mostly Roma, but with many supporters from the left (which recently lost the elections) as well as Catholic grassroots organisations and social centres. “I hope 8 June will remain a day of Roma pride,” said Spinelli. “Now, together with the Sintis and all the other groups that make up our people, who are in harmony with all religions, and have never declared war, we will set up a national coordination against all racism. We want to take in hand our relations with institutions and associations, without any false friends. But we are badly in need of real ones.”
http://mondediplo.com/2008/09/12roms
UK: Police to Control Anti-Fascist Demonstration at BNP Festival
by Jon Land
13th August 2008
Special police powers will be used to control an anti-fascist demonstration at a British National Party festival, a police force said today.
The BNP is holding its annual Red, White and Blue festival in Denby, Derbyshire, this weekend and about 500 demonstrators are expected to attend. Derbyshire Constabulary said today that it will use special powers under the Public Order Act 1986 to control the protest which is expected to last most of Saturday.
Only 30 protesters will be allowed to demonstrate next to the event, whilst the number of people gathering before and after a planned rally has been limited to 700. The rally, which involves members of the group Unite Against Fascism, the TUC and Unison, will receive a police escort.
Peter Goodman, assistant chief constable of Derbyshire Constabulary, said: "We are trying to find a balance between allowing legitimate protest and maintaining public safety and minimising inconvenience to people who live or work in the affected area.
"We hope that people will abide by the law and enjoy the opportunity of voicing their opinions in safety."
The BNP has had two requests for a licence to serve alcohol at the event, which will include a speech by the party's leader Nick Griffin, turned down by Amber Valley Borough Council after police raised objections. Police have also banned protesters from straying from the agreed route of the march. If they do so they face possible arrest, police said.
Weyman Bennett, spokesman for Unite Against Fascism, described the BNP event as a "hate fest".
He said: "People who make a stand against fascism should be congratulated, not restrained. They (the police) should allow as many people as possible to demonstrate."
Josie Nicholls, branch secretary of Unison in Leicestershire, said: "We want to make sure it's a safe and peaceful protest but to make it clear that the BNP aren't welcome wherever they turn up."
Simon Darby, deputy leader of the BNP, said that up to 4,000 of his party's members would attend the festival.
He said: "It has always been a completely peaceful festival. It's a family festival, we don't want anything else. We have our kids, our wives and our girlfriends coming. Can you imagine the fuss if we brought 700 people to demonstrate against the Labour Party at their conference? It would be outrageous."
http://www.24dash.com/news/Communities/2008-08-13-Police-to-control-anti-fascist-demonstration-at-BNP-festival
13th August 2008
Special police powers will be used to control an anti-fascist demonstration at a British National Party festival, a police force said today.
The BNP is holding its annual Red, White and Blue festival in Denby, Derbyshire, this weekend and about 500 demonstrators are expected to attend. Derbyshire Constabulary said today that it will use special powers under the Public Order Act 1986 to control the protest which is expected to last most of Saturday.
Only 30 protesters will be allowed to demonstrate next to the event, whilst the number of people gathering before and after a planned rally has been limited to 700. The rally, which involves members of the group Unite Against Fascism, the TUC and Unison, will receive a police escort.
Peter Goodman, assistant chief constable of Derbyshire Constabulary, said: "We are trying to find a balance between allowing legitimate protest and maintaining public safety and minimising inconvenience to people who live or work in the affected area.
"We hope that people will abide by the law and enjoy the opportunity of voicing their opinions in safety."
The BNP has had two requests for a licence to serve alcohol at the event, which will include a speech by the party's leader Nick Griffin, turned down by Amber Valley Borough Council after police raised objections. Police have also banned protesters from straying from the agreed route of the march. If they do so they face possible arrest, police said.
Weyman Bennett, spokesman for Unite Against Fascism, described the BNP event as a "hate fest".
He said: "People who make a stand against fascism should be congratulated, not restrained. They (the police) should allow as many people as possible to demonstrate."
Josie Nicholls, branch secretary of Unison in Leicestershire, said: "We want to make sure it's a safe and peaceful protest but to make it clear that the BNP aren't welcome wherever they turn up."
Simon Darby, deputy leader of the BNP, said that up to 4,000 of his party's members would attend the festival.
He said: "It has always been a completely peaceful festival. It's a family festival, we don't want anything else. We have our kids, our wives and our girlfriends coming. Can you imagine the fuss if we brought 700 people to demonstrate against the Labour Party at their conference? It would be outrageous."
http://www.24dash.com/news/Communities/2008-08-13-Police-to-control-anti-fascist-demonstration-at-BNP-festival
Thursday, September 04, 2008
'Country First?' Why not 'America First?'
The America First Committee was founded by Nazi collaborator John Foster Dulles with the intent of keeping the U.S. out of WW II, and allowing Hitler to overrun Europe and the Soviet empire. "Country First" is a fascist inside joke, code words that would infuriate anyone with patriotic feelings - if the population weren't kept ignorant of actual American history by the military-media complex. - ACPosted by Paul Mulshine
blog.nj.com
September 03, 2008
Have you noticed all of those "Country First" signs and banners at the Republican National Convention? I found myself wondering: Why the generic "Country First" instead of the more specific "America First?"
I soon realized why. That term's already taken ...
The America First Committee was founded in 1940 with the goal of keeping the United States out of World War II. Its membership was generally right-wing and Republican. Members included Gerald Ford as well as a number of prominent businessmen.
The group also had some left-wingers as well and even some true wing nuts on both sides of the spectrum, as nicely summarized in this Wikipedia article. There were Marxists on the left and anti-Semites on the right. But the great mass of the members were simply Americans who saw the mess that the Europeans made in World War I and wanted to stay out of the next one.
To that end its goals were the following:
• The United States must build an impregnable defense for America.
• No foreign power, nor group of powers, can successfully attack a prepared America.
• American democracy can be preserved only by keeping out of the European war.
• "Aid short of war" weakens national defense at home and threatens to involve America in war abroad.
The group disbanded as soon as Pearl Harbor was attacked, at which point the U.S. had no choice but to enter the war. But till that attack occurred, the prevailing sentiment on the right wing of American politics was against the Wilsonian views of the Democrats. Contrary to the distorted views of history being put forth by the Bush administration, it was the liberal Democrats, not the conservative Republicans, who were eager for the United States to become the world's policeman.
That sentiment, which is termed "non-interventionist" by those who endorse it and "isolationist" by those who don't, remains the core view of right-wingers in America. That's the reason that Bush had to leave out a key bit of information about Sen. William Borah in a speech a few months ago in which Bush tarred the former Idaho senator's memory by attacking him as an appeaser. And that key bit of information is that Borah was a Republican. So was the other leading opponent of U.S. entry into World War II, Robert A. Taft.
The true conservative position against internationalist nation-building exercises has been scrubbed from history by the so-called "neo" conservatives. And they sure don't want people thinking about it.
So that's why those signs say "Country First" instead of "America First."
http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2008/09/country_first_why_not_america.html
The "Manchurian" Candidate Cover Story for American Mind Control Experimentation: U.S. POWs During the Korean War
" ... the real truth of how the Chinese communists treated American POWs during the Korean War is completely different than the standard U.S. government and mainstream media stories of 'mind control' and 'brainwashing.' ... ”Historically, the United States has been NUMBER ONE when it comes to developing, refining, and exporting torture techniques—like electroshock and waterboarding that U.S. interrogators have used against suspected “terrorists.” Part 1 of this series (Mad Scientists and Criminal Laboratories) exposed how the CIA and the U.S. military conceived of, funded, and utilized inhumane experiments, using human guinea pigs, to develop torture techniques—such as shock treatment, sensory deprivation, and the use of hallucinogenic drugs. Part 2 (The U.S. Roots of Waterboarding) discussed how, at the turn of the 20th century—before the existence of any communist government—the U.S. routinely carried out what is now called waterboarding, in the Philippines.
This article is Part III of a three part series entitled: Torture Techniques at Guantánamo: “Communist Inspired” ...or Developed, Refined, and Exported by the USA? Part III looks at the actual policies and conduct of Maoist China towards U.S. POWs during the Korean War.
•••
U.S. POWs during the Korean War
by Li Onesto
Global Research
September 3, 2008
A July 2, 2008 New York Times article, “China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo,” reported that in 2002 military trainers at Guantánamo Bay based an interrogation class on a chart about torture techniques including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.” The article says this chart was copied from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions from American prisoners and is “the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.”
At the end of WW2, the Korean peninsula was divided into north and south by the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The U.S. imperialists saw the southern half of Korea and the puppet regime they installed there as a major element in their plans to contain and perhaps wage war against the Soviet Union. And then after the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, the U.S. saw the pro-U.S. government in South Korea as crucial to surrounding, containing, and threatening the spread of communism in Asia. The People’s Republic of China was only a year old when it was directly threatened by the United States with the outbreak of the Korean War.
For over 50 years, the U.S. has repeated the story that during the Korean War, American POWs were tortured by Chinese communists and forced to make “false confessions” about the U.S. using biological warfare. Two basic things need to be said about this:
First, there is a lot of credible evidence that the U.S. did in fact use biological warfare during the Korean War.
And second, the truth about the actual policies and conduct of Maoist China towards U.S. POWs during the Korean War is utterly different than what has been propagated by the U.S. government, the mainstream media and standard histories: the approach of the Chinese communists towards POWs, far from being one of torture, so-called “brainwashing,” and inhumane treatment, was lenient and centered on political education.
U.S. Biological Warfare
During World War 2, after Japan invaded and occupied China, a covert branch of the Japanese Army called “Unit 731,” did experiments on POWs in China to study the potential for large-scale bacteriological warfare. As many as 270,000 civilians may have died due to these experiments.1 So what was the U.S. response to this horrible crime against humanity?
The U.S. granted immunity to members of Unit 731 in exchange for their research data.
Canada had also been developing biological weapons, including anthrax, and the U.S. took over these experiments.2 By the time the Korean War started in 1950, the U.S. had five anti-personnel agents and two anti-crop agents, tested in cluster-bombs. In 1952, the U.S. Air Force requisitioned 23,900 of these cluster-bombs. U.S. scientists were also experimenting with the use of flies, fleas, lice, mosquitoes and ticks, to spread germs. Between 1951 and 1953, during the Korean War, the U.S. spent $345 million on research into biological warfare (about $2.2 billion in current dollars).
Thirty-six American pilots captured in Korea and interrogated by the Chinese army confessed to being involved in U.S. operations using biological weapons. They said they dropped fleas infected with plague and turkey feathers coated with toxins. When these pilots came home after the war they were threatened with court-martial and recanted their confessions.
Many official documents about U.S. biological warfare during the Korean War have been destroyed and others are still classified. But after extensive research, two Canadian historians, Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman, concluded that while the U.S. did not wage prolonged biological attacks on North Korea, it carried out limited covert, more experimental attacks using biological warfare.3 In addition, the U.S. dropped phosphorus bombs and, in 1951, used a daily average of 70,000 gallons of napalm.
Chinese investigators issued 600 pages of documentary evidence about U.S. biological warfare in Korea. This included reports of sudden deaths from plague, anthrax and encephalitis (brain inflammation resulting from a viral infection), and eyewitness accounts of US aircraft dropping strange objects, including soybean stalks, feathers and cardboard packages containing live insects, rotten fish, decaying pork, frogs and rodents. Fleas from these airdrops tested positive for plague, which had not been reported in Korea since 1912. And insects, spiders and feathers were found to be carrying anthrax.
The U.S. vigorously denied all this and launched a propaganda campaign that included stories of POWs subjected to mind control drugs and secret interrogation techniques.4
The fact that American POWs had gone on camera and confessed to carrying out biological warfare, and that some had even denounced the United States, was of great concern to the U.S. government. The official explanation for public consumption was that the U.S. was not carrying out biological warfare and so if U.S. soldiers were saying this, they must have been “brainwashed.”
This lie was not only used to cover up and dismiss confessions by captured U.S. military personnel that they were involved in germ warfare, it was also used to justify research into “mind control” by the CIA. In the immediate wake of World War 2, it would have been unacceptable and very Nazi-like for the United States to openly talk about wanting to use torture and interrogation techniques. So the stated goal of this research was to prepare U.S. soldiers for what they might encounter if they were captured.5 But the real practice of this, which has been widely documented, was to refine and further develop interrogation techniques and methods of torture to be used by the United States (see parts 1 and 2 of this series).
Treatment of American POWs
But the question remains: Even if the U.S. carried out biological warfare during the Korean War, this still would not justify inhumane treatment of POWs. So what about reports that the Chinese communists tortured American POWs?
According to U.S. officials, 7,245 Americans were captured or interned during the Korean War. Of these, 2,806 died in captivity, 4,418 were released to the U.S., and 21 refused repatriation and chose voluntarily to go live in the People’s Republic of China (more on this later).
After the Korean War extensive hearings were held before the U.S. Congress, headed by the infamous anti-communist liar, Joseph McCarthy. Dozens of American former POWs testified that they had been forced to march long distances, that guards spit in their faces, that they were sometimes beaten and suffered from lack of food and medical care. There were accounts of U.S. soldiers being captured and shot by Korean soldiers.6 Such treatment would constitute a violation of the Geneva Conventions (treaties formulated in Geneva, Switzerland that set the standards for international law for humanitarian concerns). With regard to the specific charge of torture during interrogation, no evidence was offered in these hearings to back the claim that Chinese communists used techniques like electroshock, water torture, or sensory deprivation.
The policies towards American POWs during the Korean War can be divided into three different phases: 1) July 1950 until November 1950, before Chinese Communist forces entered the war; 2) the winter of 1950-1951 when several temporary camps were created; and 3) the end of 1951 to the end of the war in June 1953, when there were eight permanent camps set up by the Chinese in North Korea.
At the start of the war, the North Korean army had no system for dealing with POWs and just had collection points. Then during the summer and fall of 1950, they moved the POWs on foot to temporary camps in the North and much of the testimony at the 1953 U.S. Senate Hearings were about these so-called “death marches.” When the Chinese communist forces entered the war after this, at the end of 1950, several thousand American soldiers and Marines were captured. Initially, the Chinese communists also did not have any system set up to deal with such large numbers of POWs and temporary POW camps were set up in the North. According to a fact sheet put out by the U.S. Department of Defense:
“POWs died in large numbers during the first year of the war. Lack of food, shelter and medicine took its toll. During the first winter, some American POWs reported marching for days, sometimes in circles it seemed. Prisoners, weakened from battle, the cold and lack of food, who could not keep pace with their fellow prisoners were often left to die or executed by their captors. Prisoners carried and dragged one another through these marches. Some American POWs were young teenagers. One soldier captured during the Chosin Reservoir Campaign was 16 years old.
“Through most of 1951, despite established camps, casualties continued to mount. Prisoners were fed what North Korean peasants lived on and medical supplies were unavailable to the doctors.”
The death rate, which approached 40 percent, was a great concern to the Chinese and they quickly moved to change the situation. The U.S. fact sheet says, “Soon food and medical supplies were provided and conditions improved for the rest of the war.”
So even according to official accounts by the U.S. Department of Defense, it appears that most American POW casualties occurred during the relocation marches and in the temporary camps run by the North Korean army and that some of this can be attributed to lack of food and medical care which reflected the overall primitive and poor conditions of a country with little resources. The North Korean army and the Chinese communist forces were initially unprepared for the task of dealing with thousands of POWs. As in any war there were mistakes that were not good and should not have happened. This went against the Chinese army’s official policy with regard to POWs and they moved to correct them.
Re-education of POWs
Many books and articles have been written by and about Korean War American POWs, which attempt to make the case that the POW policy of the Chinese communists was one of brutality and inhumanity. The official policy of the North Korean army towards POWs isn’t clear. But what comes through in even many of these accounts is that the overall approach of the Chinese communists was one of leniency and political education.
For example, in the book In Mortal Combat: Korea 1950-1953, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Toland says:
“At the first mass meeting, a Chinese indoctrinator assured the prisoners that he was not angry at them for being in Korea. He realized the Americans and others had been duped by warmongers and Wall Street imperialists. He assured the men that Chairman Mao had given orders they should be treated with fairness. However, he warned, wrongdoers would be publicly criticized and forced to stand at attention for long periods. The barn in which they were indoctrinated was decorated with two Christmas trees, wreaths, candles, red paper bells and a sign: ‘Merry Christmas.’ There was also a large placard: ‘If it were not for the Wall Street Imperialists you would be home with your wives and families on this Christmas night’... The food would be a healthy combination of sorghum seed, bean curd, soya-bean flour, and cracked corn. For a Christmas treat, they were to receive rice, boiled fatty pork, candy and peanuts. Each day, said the indoctrinator, the prisoners would be marched to the barn for a communal lecture or informal political discussions. Squad leaders would be responsible for assigned topics on Marxist dialectical materialism.”7
Later, Toland discusses how the POWs went through the “Chinese indoctrination course, with lectures day after day.” He says: “The virtues of communism were expounded, even in informal conversations. Religion was denounced as a capitalist device for controlling people’s minds, yet prisoners were allowed to keep Bible and religious articles, and were even permitted to hold religious discussions and readings.”
Bourgeois historians like Toland use the terms “Chinese indoctrinator” and “indoctrination” to describe what happened to the American POWs. These types of buzz words go along with all the anti-communist claims that this was “brainwashing” and “mind control.” But in fact, what becomes clear in reading these accounts is that the Chinese communists were giving these POWs a political education that revealed the lies they had been told and brought them the TRUTH of things—that told them what U.S. imperialism was really about and how this war was not in their interests.
In another book, Korea: The War Before Vietnam, Callum A. MacDonald says that the Chinese policy toward POWs, which had been established during the Chinese revolution and the struggle against Japan, quickly and consistently replaced the “brutal and non-political measures” of the North Koreans. MacDonald goes on to say:
“The so-called ‘lenient policy’ treated POWs as victims of the ruling classes, students who were to be given food and medical treatment. They were to be neither robbed nor abused. Instead they were to be led towards an understanding of the true nature of the war and of their own societies. After such re-education, prisoners could either be released at the front to rejoin and demoralize their old units, or held for longer-term indoctrination.”8
This evaluation of the Chinese policy toward POWs corroborates stories told by Chinese military generals who were in charge of Korean War POWs. In the book Mao’s Generals Remember Korea9 , Lieutenant General (Ret.) Du Ping says:
“As early as the Jinggangshan period [the early years of the Chinese revolution], Chairman Mao Zedong had made our army’s policy toward prisoners of war one of lenient treatment. For many years, this policy had always been one of the most important elements in our army’s political work. During the prolonged civil wars and the Anti-Japanese War, our POW policy was well known and appreciated by enemy forces. During our First Campaign in the Korean War, it was said that enemy troops were easily beaten but rarely captured. That meant the American and puppet soldiers apparently did not yet know our policy.
“The new office also dealt with those Volunteers [Chinese who worked in the POW camps] who violated our policy, patiently educating them and persuading them to improve. Some of the violators, especially the severe cases, were punished according to the seriousness of their offenses. Through our propaganda and education, which sought to distinguish right from wrong, advantage and disadvantage, and reward and punishment, the CPVF [Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces] rank and file saw to it that there were no beatings, insults, murders, abuses, or unlawful searches. Our troops abided by their promises in their own words: ‘No envious eyes, nor itching hands, respect the rights of prisoners.”
Who “Chose China”
According to MacDonald, “The object of the whole education programme was to transform the prisoners into a force which would ‘fight for peace’ within their own societies upon release.” And some American POWs were dramatically affected by the political education they got in the camps.
After the war ended in July of 1953, a group of 21 American POWS refused to be repatriated and chose to live in communist China. The story of these men is the subject of an award-winning documentary, They Chose China (recently shown on HBO on demand).10
The film includes footage of a 1957 Mike Wallace interview with one of the 21, David Hawkins, who was a POW for three years and was only 17 years old when he was captured. He tells Wallace, “I underwent the mass indoctrination program that the Chinese instigated in the camp and there was a lot of things that they told me that sounded to me like common sense.” Then given the choice, Hawkins says he went to China “to compare what I had heard with what they actually practiced in China.” When Wallace asks him what he had heard, he says: “How great they were working toward socialism, the great stride that they were taking in bettering the life of the Chinese people who for so many thousands of years had lived a life of oppression under various governments and was backward.”
The Chinese government mobilized hundreds of young volunteers to work in the POW camps in North Korea. One volunteer interviewed in They Chose China said: “During the first few months, two or three POWs died in each unit every day, that’s about a dozen per day in every camp, mortality was very high. Doctors and nurses on the medical team worked very hard to save lives and lower the mortality rate. They didn’t know our policy, didn’t know what we were going to do with them, if we were going to kill them or force them to do hard labor or keep them in China forever and not allow them to return home. So they worried a lot. My supervisor asked me to read the regulations to the POWs. It began with, ‘Dear students.’ I was very surprised and asked why, because to me they were prisoners and we were their captors. My supervisor said, yes, they are students and you are instructors.”
Clarence C. Adams, another POW who chose to live in China, said: “My family and millions of other Negroes plus myself have suffered under the brutal attacks of white supremacy and the cruel slave laws of the southern states... I was born in Memphis, Tennessee. I come from a working class family, my mother worked in laundry, father in furniture factory.... I went in the army in 1947. Captured, Nov 30, 1950.”
Recalling life in a POW camp, Adams says: “There wasn’t too much friction between prisoners and captors who were the Chinese. We understand the American life, what we wanted. I said, well look, I volunteered, I asked for recreation equipment, I asked if we could set up a recreation hall, I asked if some of the guys are religious, if we could let our cooks cook the way we like, so they agreed with everything we said and in about two and a half to three months, they brought in baseballs, we exercised every day and we began to get strong... I remained in camp until the end of war and the Chinese sent me away to study. Then they sent me back to camp to give lectures and I gave lectures on capitalism, imperialism, history of social development. I learned the difference between all of those, right there in a prisoner of war camp, and I told it to the other prisoners.”
Adams also talks about why he became one of the 21: “I chose China for many reasons, with that close contact that we had, I began to wonder about communism, what it was like and the lone fact that every man wants to better his life, he wants to do more in life. I was assured by the camp authorities that well, we don’t discriminate, it’s not the principle, it’s not our principle to discriminate, we believe that all people are equal so that was a great encouragement for me, to help me make my decision. And of course I did ask a question of marriage and could I marry. And they said, we got plenty of women, it depends on whether they like you or not... My first schooling was at the People’s University of China, it’s where we took a two-year preparatory course. First of all we couldn’t speak the language so we basically dealt in the language and the history of Chinese communist party and the history of the Soviet communist party.”
James Veneris, another former POW, lived out the rest of his life in China. He said he was treated well in the Chinese POW camp and spent hours talking to his captors. Over time he came to see the U.S. war in Korea as “barbaric and warmed to his Communist guards' egalitarian philosophy.” He recalled thinking, “There is something terrific going on in China. They were building a new world.” Veneris went to live in the city of Jinan, got married, had children and worked in a paper mill. In 1963, he began attending People's University in Beijing, where he studied Chinese literature, philosophy and the history of the international Communist movement. In 1964, he gave an anti-Vietnam War speech to some 10,000 students. And when the Cultural Revolution started soon after this, he joined in. Veneris recalled distributing thousands of Mao pins on the streets and writing “Big Character Posters” calling for international unity that were hung along a main shopping avenue.11
By 1966, all of the 21, except James Veneris, had left China—most went back to the United States. The U.S. government considered them traitors, they were unwelcome, and found it hard to find work. Two were committed to mental hospitals. When Clarence Adams came back to Memphis with his Chinese wife and daughter he was hounded by government agents. His daughter Della recalled: “Everyday some men came and took my dad... later I found out it was the CIA, or maybe the FBI or something like that.” Adams was subpoenaed, tried for treason, and finally acquitted after testifying before a Senate committee.
The Real “Brainwash”
So the real truth of how the Chinese communists treated American POWs during the Korean War is completely different than the standard U.S. government and mainstream media stories of “mind control” and “brainwashing.” And it is completely outrageous that this false “history” is now being dredged up as part of the U.S. “war on terror.” A 50-year-old big LIE has been revived to justify U.S. torture with the argument: “we’re only doing what we learned from the communists.”
The whole idea of “brainwashing” is a standard part of U.S. anti-communist propaganda. It serves to demonize communism and scare people, and at the same time justify going to war and using any and all methods of warfare. In other words, if your “enemy” can be portrayed as sub-human, this gives you license to do inhumane things to them.
But there is also another level to this whole brainwashing claim that has to do with the very nature of an imperialist army. To mobilize soldiers to fight horrible, unjust wars the U.S. must promote an unquestioning mindset of, “yours is not to reason why, yours is but to do or die.” Just look at the current U.S. occupation of Iraq where soldiers are indoctrinated with know-nothingism, racism, lies about and demonization of the enemy, etc. And together with this, there is the idea that you’re fighting “for the American way of life,” or even just “to defend your buddy,” or “just trying to do ‘your job’ so you can go home.” This is the kind of mindset U.S. soldiers are trained in and the absurd justifications offered for the war crimes they carry out.
In this context, the very idea that a U.S. soldier captured by the other side would “take up the ideas of the enemy” simply does not compute—such a soldier must be a turncoat who has been “brainwashed.” U.S. POWs who admitted to carrying out biological warfare during the Korean War were known among other POWs as “traitors row.”
U.S. soldiers are not supposed to be thinking human beings—they are fighting machines, driven by irrational patriotism. So there can be no explanation other than “brainwashing” for a U.S. soldier exercising any kind of political consciousness—and even turning against how the U.S. military is raining horror on people.
Notes:
1. Undue Risk: Secret State Experiments on Humans, by University of Pennsylvania professor Jonathan Moreno, Routledge, 2001.
2. “Did the U.S. start germ warfare?” by Peter Pringle, New Statesman, October 25, 1999.
3. The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets From the Early Cold War (Indiana University Press, 1998) by Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman at York University, Toronto.
4. NYT Limited Hangout on SERE Torture & U.S. Biological Warfare, July 7, 2008, by Michael Otterman, author of the book American Torture.
5. Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, Metropolitan Books, 2007.
6. Korean War Atrocities—Report of the Committee on Government Operations Made Through its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations by its Subcommittee on Korean War Atrocities, Pursuant to S. Res. 40, January 11 (legislative day, January 7), 1954
7. In Mortal Combat: Korea 1950-1953 by John Toland, William Morrow and Company, 1991. Toland was the first Westerner to gain access to Chinese records and combatants and interviewed North and South Korean veterans and over 200 members of the American military.
8. Korea: The War Before Vietnam, by Callum A. MacDonald, London, McMillan and New York Free Press, 1987.
9. Mao’s Generals Remember Korea, Translated and edited by Xiaobing Li, Allan R. Millet and Bin Yu, University Press of Kansas, 2001.
10. They Chose China, documentary film directed by Shuibo Wang, A National Film Board of Canada Production 2006.
11. “Where are they now? New lives, old secrets” by The Associated Press, November 17, 2004.
Li Onesto is a writer for Revolution and author of the book, Dispatches from the People's War in Nepal, (Pluto Press and Insight Press, 2004). This article is available at revcom.us
Rise of Nazism Theme of New Akron Art Museum Exhibit
"War and Corpses: The Last Hope of the Rich." 1932By Roger Durbin
9/4/2008 - West Side Leader
DOWNTOWN AKRON — Put on your reading glasses if you go to see John Heartfield vs. Nazi Germany, the newest exhibit at the Akron Art Museum (AAM), on display through Nov. 30.
The showing gathers together 40 Heartfield photomontages. Berlin native Heartfield, born Helmut Herzfeld, chose to change his name to an anglicized version, Heartfield, in protest of the 1916 German government and its over-the-top nationalist spirit, which was mingled with a decidedly anti-British bias. In keeping with his rebellious spirit, Herzfeld, now Heartfield, later took on more directly and through his art the rise of fascism and the Nazi regime.
The images presented in the exhibit span the period 1932-36, and thereby chronicle the right-leaning government that both took its wrath out on any group it considered politically or economically subversive (mostly communists and socialists of the day) and that prepared an easy path for the dictator and persecutor Adolph Hitler, who widened the net to include whole hosts of people he thought ruined the purity of Germans and German life — Jews, gays, gypsies, intellectuals, thinkers, Jehovah’s Witnesses and pacifists, among others.
Heartfield’s photomontages are artistic, to be sure, but they were messages, too, that were brought to the public as warnings of the “storm” (that is, World War II and other untold loss of life) that he could foresee coming. To achieve his purpose, Heartfield wanted to get his works to a wide audience, and the illustrated news magazine AIZ (Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung, or Workers’ Illustrated Newspaper) was a perfect choice.The didactics on the walls of AAM’s Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell Gallery pile on information to bring meaning and context to Heartfield’s work. There are ready translations of the German text that appear on the montages, plus some historical context to explain events that were current when Heartfield created the pieces, along with interpretive information about the political subject being studied and additional images that reveal where and from whom Heartfield got the images he put together in his satirical presentations.
“Mit seinen Phrasen will er die Welt vergasen” (With his empty phrases he wants to gas the world) is on view in the Akron Art Museum’s John Heartfield vs. Nazi Germany exhibit. Photo courtesy of Akron Art MuseumAll that can be a lot to take in. The text isn’t very large for reading, and there’s a good amount of it. It’s positioned beside a work or often a group of works (which can make it sometimes difficult to figure out how to match image and text, since one has to stand so close to the works). After reading, one can finally back away and take a look at the piece as the original audience might have seen it when scanning through the news magazine. Often, one needs to go back to the text to put it all together again. With only 40 works displayed, one needs to prepare to give some time to following through each of the works.
The effort can be worth it. Heartfield was indeed clever and certainly knew how to throw punches at authority, so much so that he constantly had to flee from city to city and eventually country to country. His skill at the art of photomontage is remarkable. Today, with the possibilities of computer programs like Photoshop, through which photomontages are somewhat faster to make happen, Heartfield had a much longer and involved process to complete. There are explanations of the art process in several places throughout the exhibit.
"Whoever Reads Bourgeois Newspapers Becomes Blind and Deaf: Away with These Stultifying Bandages!" Photomontage by John Heartfield, 1932.Curators and exhibition designers Christopher Hoot, Barbara Tannenbaum (who is chief curator for AAM) and Joseph Walton advise that one go through the exhibit chronologically for it to have its greatest impact. That’s no doubt true, and markers for years (1932, 1933 and the like) are printed large enough on the walls to help visitors get their bearings.
Adult general admission to the museum (which includes entry to the current exhibit) is $7, with discounts for seniors and students at $5. Gallery hours are Tuesdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours on Thursdays until 9 p.m. AAM is closed on Mondays.
•••
Roger Durbin is professor emeritus of bibliography at The University of Akron and an avid art enthusiast. To contact him, email r.durbin@sbcglobal.net.
http://www.akron.com/akron-ohio-entertainment-news.asp?aID=3334
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Mother's Little Helpers
Sound Off! (Sept. 3)Las Cruces Sun-News
" ... These pharmaceuticals which make the pills your doctor gives to you are companies from the German Nazi era. The generation that defeated the Nazis is themselves defeated by the Mengeles of the health care system in the U.S. Even today's Germans don't trust these pills. They are 40-60 years ahead of us using herbs and great treatments. This country is stupid. ... "
http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_10366700?source=most_viewed
Orthodox Church Spreads Antisemitic Propaganda in Kamenets-Podolsky, Ukraine
www.fsumonitor.com
September 2, 2008
A Ukrainian reporter spotted antisemitic leaflets inside a Russian Orthodox cathedral affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate in Kamenets-Podolsky, Ukraine, according to an August 27, 2008 report by the Kiev-based newspaper "Gazeta 24." According to the article, posters calling for a boycott of kosher products hang outside the city's Aleksandr Nevsky Cathedral. Inside the cathedral, a newspaper article is posted claiming that "kikes" were behind the creation of "Ukraine" (referred to with pejorative quotation marks, along with the term "Ukrainian language"). Supposedly, "kikes don't like the words Russia and Russians" so they created an artificial state called Ukraine to divide and weaken the Ru
September 2, 2008
A Ukrainian reporter spotted antisemitic leaflets inside a Russian Orthodox cathedral affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate in Kamenets-Podolsky, Ukraine, according to an August 27, 2008 report by the Kiev-based newspaper "Gazeta 24." According to the article, posters calling for a boycott of kosher products hang outside the city's Aleksandr Nevsky Cathedral. Inside the cathedral, a newspaper article is posted claiming that "kikes" were behind the creation of "Ukraine" (referred to with pejorative quotation marks, along with the term "Ukrainian language"). Supposedly, "kikes don't like the words Russia and Russians" so they created an artificial state called Ukraine to divide and weaken the Ru