Mufti Usmani Holds Blackwater Responsible for Ashura Bomb Blast

Also see: "American Sponsorship of Global Terrorism," and "USAID Officer Arrested with Terrorists in Islamabad," also "DynCorp Sub-Contractor Inter-Risk was Behind the Oct. 10th Suicide Bombing of Pakistan's Army HQ," and "Extraditing Headley will Expose CIA," among many others I've posted on American engagement in terrorism. Also related: "UST’s (United States of Terror) Sinister Motives Against Pakistan" - AC

By Shamim Bano
The International News | December 31, 2009

"Karachi - Contrary to the claim and media reports about Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan taking responsibility [for] the Ashura bomb blast, Mufti Mohammed Rafi Usmani held US agency Blackwater responsible for the gory incident that claimed more than 40 lives."

The Mufti's observation about the source of the blast is borne out by other stories in the world press. Compare the "Taliban claim of responsibility," as reported worldwide, with this from today's Islami Davet: "Hakimullah Mehsud, head of the Tehrik-e-Taliban, said Blackwater and some Pakistani agencies were involved in the bomb explosion at a crowded market in Peshawar." The International News story continues:

Addressing a news conference along with Muhammed Taqi, Mufti Muhammed Naeem, Maulana Tanver-ul-Haq and others on Wednesday, Mufti Usmani said that Blackwater was involved in the killing of innocent people in the Muharram procession.

He said that soon after the blast, shops in the city’s economic hub were set ablaze which proved that the attack was “pre-planned and organized”.

Mufti Usmani said that the incident was a conspiracy against Islam and the government totally failed to control the situation, as it was the responsibility of the government to provide security to the citizens and to protect the property. He said that the terrorism act was not committed by any Muslim and instead it was the act of Blackwater that had hired locals to unleash terror in the city.

He alleged that Blackwater was hiring youths in Peshawar to carry out attacks and suicide bombings.

Mufti Usmai said that no person could carry weapons or other destructive items with him on occasions of religious processions and the incident was an attack on the country’s sovereignty.

“By the grace of God we achieved the country, but we do not take care of it. It is not only weaknesses of successive governments but also of the people who are the least bothered about taking care of their country,” he said.

The government, he said, must stop taking dictation from the US and form its own policies. Mufti Usmani demanded that immediate measures should be taken to compensate the affected traders of Boulton Market, Light House and other affected areas.

He also demanded conducting an independent inquiry into the incident and exposing those involved in the heinous crime.

Meanwhile, the Sunni Ittehad Council condemned the attack on the Ashura procession.

Addressing a press conference, Sahibzada Fazal Karim said that the attack on the procession was a conspiracy to destabilise the country.

He demanded of the government to constitute a commission headed by the Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court to probe the matter and to ascertain the losses incurred by the traders within 15 days. He also demanded of the government to announce compensation for the affected traders so that they could restart their businesses again.

He also supported the strike call given by the Sunni Rahber Council for Friday.

Meanwhile, the Sunni Tehreek (ST) in a separate press conference also endorsed the Friday strike call and announced to hold a protest rally in the city on Saturday. ST leader Shakil Qadri said that protest rallies would also be held in other parts of the country.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=216088

- Alex Constantine

-------------UPDATE-------------
Mystery Surrounds Contractors' Role at CIA Base
Paresi and Wise, Killed by CIA Suicide Bomber, Worked For Company Once Known as Blackwater
By MATTHEW COLE, NICK SCHIFRIN and RHONDA SCHWARTZ
ABC News | Jan. 6, 2010

Two of the seven CIA personnel killed in last week's suicide bombing in Afghanistan worked as contractors for the company formerly known as Blackwater, but what role Dane Paresi and Jeremy Wise played at the CIA's forward base in Khost remains unknown. The base collected intelligence used in the CIA's drone attacks across the border in Pakistan, but CIA director Leon Panetta has said that the former Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, is no longer involved in the drone program.

Spokesman for both the CIA and Xe/Blackwater declined to comment whether Paresi and Wise were employed through Xe, but two private intelligence sources and one current government official familiar with CIA operations at the Afghanistan base confirmed to ABCNEws.com that the two were there as Xe employees. A source familiar with Xe's contracts said that their role was not to provide security for the base, but provided no further details.

Paresi and Wise were both former elite military commandos, and were killed when a Jordanian double agent detonated a suicide bomb at a meeting inside the CIA base near the Pakistan border. Wise was a 35-year-old former Navy SEAL from Virginia Beach, Va. A statement from the family of the 46-year-old Dane Paresi described him as having recently retired from 27 years in the Army, many in Special Operations. He was from Portland, Ore.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mystery-surrounds-contractors-role-cia-base/story?id=9486136

ADL: Pius XII did not Save Jews in WWII

" ... the ADL concluded that the claim amounted to an 'apparent campaign of misinformation' and urged Pope Benedict XVI to reject its conclusions. ... "

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF | Dec 31, 2009

The Anti-Defamation League took the Catholic Church to task this week, disputing "historical evidence" cited by Church officials as proof that WWII-era Pope Pius XII had worked to save Jews from the Holocaust.

Pope Pius XII, wearing the ring of St. Peter, raises his right hand in a papal blessing at the Vatican, 1945.

The evidence in question was presented at a conference in Rome in September 2009 and apparently cleared Pius XII of accusations that he was silent in the face of the atrocities taking place in wartime Europe. The conference was held by the Pave the Way Foundation, a group that works to bridge religious divisions.

On December 19, Pope Benedict declared Pius "Venerable," a stage on the road to full canonization and sainthood. The move was met with criticism from Jewish groups that believe Pius deserves censure for his "neutrality policy" and acquiescence during the war, even while European states passed anti-Jewish laws and began mass deportations of Jews to concentration camps in the east.

The Vatican has claimed that Pius worked to save Jews throughout the war but was forced to do so behind the scenes because he was surrounded by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

According to the ADL, the evidence, which included wartime documents from an Italian internment camp for Jews in Campagna, did not demonstrate "Pope Pius XII's efforts to help Jews in the face of Nazism," as claimed by Pave the Way founder Gary Krupp.

After examining the evidence with a handful of expert historians, the ADL concluded that the claim amounted to an "apparent campaign of misinformation" and urged Pope Benedict XVI to reject its conclusions.

"To use the Campagna files to suggest that Pope Pius XII was active in attempting to rescue Jews is to demand something that [the] historical record cannot sustain," according to historian Paul O'Shea, author of A Cross Too Heavy: Eugenio Pacelli, Politics and the Jews of Europe 1917-1943, who participated in the study.

"Our examination serves as a salutary reminder of the distinction between alleged claim and verifiable fact," said Debórah Dwork, a Holocaust scholar at Clark University in Massachusetts.

ADL national director Abraham Foxman said the "historical evidence" presented to Pope Benedict [by the Pave the Way conference] makes it all the more crucial for the Vatican to open its Holocaust-era archives to independent scholars and historians now.

"We reject the claim that the world and aging Holocaust survivors must wait another six years until all 16 million documents from Pope Pius' papacy are catalogued by the Vatican.

"We note that Pope John Paul II opened a cache of Holocaust records from Pope Pius XI before the records of his entire papacy were catalogued. We request that Pope Benedict take the same courageous decision and order the relevant Holocaust-era materials be opened now."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1261364552728&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Adnan Khashoggi Linked to 911 Terrorists PART 6: INTERLUDE - LEGAL PLUNDERERS & PARIAHS

By Alex Constantine

"The first prisoner [at Guantinimo] formally charged with committing war
crimes was 34 year-old Yemeni Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's
driver.... His military-appointed attorney Navy Lieutenant Commander Charlie
Swift questioned the suitability of four members of the panel judging him,
contending they had PERSONAL CONNECTIONS WITH THE 9/11 ATTACKS and the
subsequent war on terror' and as such, would be prone to partiality...."
- News wires, August 29, 2004

"Any terrorist offence is the result of an intelligence failure..."
- Indian Intelligence Official

Two months after the horror show in Manhattan, a federal grand jury issued subpoenas for the records of the Holy Land Foundation. The same day, federal agents froze the assets of InfoCom Corp., an Internet provider in Richardson, Texas. Both companies relocated to Richardson and opened on opposite sides of the street at the same time. InfoCom had been raided five days before the WTC meltdown.

When a platoon of 80 federal officers pulled the plug, 500 websites crashed.1

Agents of the FBI, Secret Service, INS, IRS and multiple branches of law enforcement pored over the company's files and copied every hard disk on the premises for four days.

The charity and the Net provider were symbiotic. Ghassan Elashi, marketing vice president of InfoCom, was chairman of the Holy Land Foundation, a faith-based terrorist front, the government charged, represented by the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. After the raid on the foundation, the Boston Herald hit on the fact that the charity was represented by "a powerful Washington, D.C. law firm" appended to the Bush White House, one that had "earned hefty fees representing controversial Saudi billionaires as well as a Texas-based Islamic charity fingered last week as a terrorist front." Akin, Gump has handled the knotty legal affairs of three wealthy Saudi businessmen (Khalid bin Mahfouz, Salah Idris and Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi) who are key suspects in the financing of Al Qaeda's war.

Partners at Akin, Gump include James C. Langdon, a close friend of G.W. Bush, and George R. Salem, chairman of the Republican party's Arab outreach program in the 2000 campaign; also Barnett A. "Sandy" Kress, a former Dallas School Board president, appointed by Bush to a post as an unpaid consultant on education policy to the White House.

This firm, the Herald reported, keeps "an office in Riyadh and is a registered foreign agent of the Saudis. It was paid $77,328 in lobbying fees by the Saudis during the first six months of 2000, public records show."1

In 1999, Saudi authorites placed bin Mahfouz under house arrest after the discovery that his bank, National Commercial, "funneled millions to charities believed to be serving as bin Laden fronts. One of his business partners, Al-Amoudi, was represented by Akin Gump." After the press reported in 1999 that the Feds were also investigating Al-Amoudi's Capitol Trust Bank, Akin Gump quickly issued a press release on behalf of their client denying any connections to terrorism. The denial crumbled, though, when it was reported that a year before, Akin Gump had co-sponsored "an investment conference in Ethiopia with Al-Amoudi."2

Attorneys are paper mercenaries in the ditches in a strategy-of-tensions war engineered for profit and the advancement of "conservative" geopolitical aims.

When the victims and survivors of 911 filed a trillion-dollar lawsuit against the Saudi ruling family, the kingdom assembled an immense legal team to deflect the accusations.

Newsweek's web site reports: "Their opening defense salvo in what promises to be a bruising legal battle was fired last week when a trio of lawyers from Baker Botts, a pricey and prestigious Houston-based legal firm, filed a motion on behalf of Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi defense minister."

The defense fell back on a claim of diplomatic immunity and motioned to dismiss. But in documenting their motion, the Baker-Botts team "presented highly detailed new evidence of the Saudi government's role in funneling millions of dollars to a web of Islamic charities that are widely suspected by U.S. officials of covertly financing the operations of Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups."

The Sultan's right honorable and learned legal defense attorneys were paid millions of dollars in retainers. They brought along piles of affidavits and cancelled checks, admitting in a brief that His Highness had contributed over $2 million to the International Islamic Relief Organization, a Saudi charity raided by federal agents, and disbursed a total of $52,000 in grants to the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, yet another organization on the FBI's charitable-front blacklist.3

Former Secretary of State James Baker is a senior partner at the Sultan's legal firm. Robert Jordan, one of President Bush's personal attorneys, is U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Some legal firms retained by the Saudis in the 911 families' suit:

• Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering/Prince Mohammed al Faisal
• Kellog, Huber, Hansen, Todd & Evans/Prince Turki al Faisal
• Jones, Day/the Binladin Group
• Ropes & Grey/Khaled bin Mahfouz
• White & Case/the Al-Rajhi Banking Group
• King & Spalding/the Arab Bank and Youssef Nada
• Fulbright & Jaworski/Nimir Petroleum.4

Meanwhile, in Guantanamo, the Defense Department's prosecutorial kangaroos oversaw a tribunal that has drawn fire from human rights activists since the word "detainee" was first breathed by Donald Rumsfeld. On June 12, 2004, New York Times Magazine ran a feature on Naval Lt. Commander Charles Swift, a defense attorney appointed by the Defense Department to represent the accused at the Cuban tribunal.

Swift and his legal team submitted a provocative friend-of-the-court brief to the Supreme Court, the Times' Jonathan Mahler reported, "in which, among other things, they compared their commander in chief, President Bush, to the villain of the American Revolution, King George III."

In April, Swift took it the next step - he filed a suit against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush in a Seattle federal courtroom, arguing that the tribunal for his client - still not charged or given a trial date - violates the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, federal law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.4

"An optimist by nature," Mahler noted, "Swift was inclined to believe that the post-9/11 military-tribunal process would be fair. But over the course of the spring last year, as the Defense Department continued to define the workings of the military tribunals, his hopefulness began to fade." Swift was told that hearsay was permissable in court. He could only file appeals to the four-member review panel selected by Rumsfeld.

"What is more, the Defense Department (in effect, the prosecution) was not only defining the crimes worthy of trial by military tribunal but also doing so only after hundreds of suspects were already in custody and had been repeatedly interrogated.

"It was like a Monty Python movie," Swift said. "The government had this wonderful suit of armor, a lance and a sword. And I had been given a sharp stick..."5
-----------------
NOTES

1) Maggie Mulvihill, "White House Connection - "Saudi Agents Close to Bush," Boston Herald, December 12, 2001. On September 7, 2004, UK's Register reported that the FBI "suspected that the Holy Land Foundation was being used to filter money through to Middle East terrorists and so shut it down." The proprietors were arrested "on 18 December 2002 on charges of dealing illegally with Mousa abu Marzook and illegally exporting computer equipment and technology to Libya and Syria."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/09/iraq_domain_owner_convicted/

2) See, The Guardian, Sept. 10, 2001.

3) Anon., "A Legal Counterattack," http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3067906/

4) Ibid.

5) The Guantanimobile Project, Newswatch web page, "Military Lawyer Files Suit Against Tribunal System," August 29, 2004
http://guantanamobile.org/blog/archives/cat_guantanamo_in_the_courts.html

CBS News: Was the Afghan Bomb Attack on the CIA an Inside Job?

Possibility Arises that Someone Working with U.S. Forces was on the Side of the Terrorists

By David Martin
CBS News | Dec. 30, 2009

Eight [Seven CIA] U.S. Civilians Killed in Afghan Bombing

(CBS) It all happened at a well-fortified combat outpost in Eastern Afghanistan. Somehow a suicide bomber was able to bring his explosives on the base, walk up to a group of American civilians and blow himself up. It will take an investigation to determine how he did it.

But the outpost is located in the middle of a notorious stronghold for Afghan insurgents near the border with Pakistan, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin.

Afghan soldiers and civilians are present at almost every American outpost since one of the chief principals of the U.S. strategy is to partner with the Afghans. According to Christine Fair of Georgetown University, some of them may actually be working for the Taliban.

"They have really become a vehicle of infiltration for the Taliban," Fair said. "This is most certainly a vulnerability in our strategy going forward in trying to hand over security to the Afghans if we don't really have a way of figuring out who we can trust."

Combat outposts located deep in enemy controlled territory come under frequent attack - although usually from the outside, not the inside.

Last October , eight U.S. soldiers were killed when insurgents very nearly overran an outpost, and CBS News has been told four officers received warning letters for not having done a better job preparing their defenses.

A year ago last July, nine soldiers were killed when their outpost was almost overrun. That battle is still under investigation. In both cases, the bases were saved by the arrival of the Apache helicopters with drove the attackers back.

Eight American dead makes for a very grim end to what has been the worst year ever for the United States in Afghanistan.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/30/eveningnews/main6039349.shtml

---------EXPLANATION----------

CIA bomber was a 'Jordanian informant', US media say
BBC | Jan. 4, 2001

The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan was a Jordanian informant, US media reports say.

He is said to have been a doctor recruited by Jordan's intelligence service to infiltrate al-Qaeda. He is believed to have been working undercover in eastern Afghanistan for weeks before detonating a bomb at Forward Operating Base Chapman.

The attack was the worst against US intelligence officials since the US embassy in Beirut was bombed in 1983.

Changing sides

The Washington Post quotes two former US government officials as saying that the alleged bomber lured the CIA officers into a meeting with a promise of new information on al-Qaeda's top leadership.

The reports have named him as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year-old al-Qaeda sympathiser from Zarqa, Jordan, arrested by Jordanian intelligence over a year ago. Jordanian intelligence believed they had brought him over to their side and sent him to Afghanistan to infiltrate al-Qaeda, US network NBC says. His specific mission was thought to be tracking down al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

According to Western intelligence officials quoted in the reports, Humam al-Balawi called his handlers last week to arrange a meeting at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, where he said he would relay urgent information about Zawahiri. Once inside the base, the reports say, he blew himself up killing seven CIA employees and his handler, whom Jordanian media have named as Ali bin Zeid.

Questions were raised after the bomb was detonated in the base's gym last week about how the attacker could have managed to pass through security. The Washington Post says he was picked up in a car outside the base and driven in without being thoroughly searched.

'Double agent'

A US official, who is a former CIA employee, said such people were often not required to go through full security checks, in order to help gain their trust.

"When you're trying to build a rapport and literally ask them to risk [their lives] for you, you've got a lot to do to build their trust," he told the Associated Press news agency.

A Taliban spokesman quoted on al-Jazeera's website said Humam al-Balawi was a double agent who had misled Jordanian and US intelligence services for a year.
Forward Operating Base Chapman, a former Soviet military base, is used not only by the CIA but also by provincial reconstruction teams, which include both soldiers and civilians.

The airfield is reportedly used for US drone attacks on suspected militants in neighbouring Pakistan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8440535.stm

Good German Tea-Party Turns Sour

Rupert Murdoch's progammed "patriots" live in a world that doesn't exist. No wonder they're so thin-skinned - liberals keep burning down their most precious fascistic programmed delusions ...

UnderpantsGate: Big Oil, the CIA and the Attempted Bombing of Flight 253 as Justification for Military Operations in Yemen & Nigeria (w/Updates)

Also see: "American Sponsorship of Global Terrorism," and "USAID Officer Arrested with Terrorists in Islamabad," also "DynCorp Sub-Contractor Inter-Risk was Behind the Oct. 10th Suicide Bombing of Pakistan's Army HQ," and "Extraditing Headley will Expose CIA"

By Alex Constantine

It's All, Once Again, About Big Oil ...

Mutallab's exploding unmentionables

"Why Was Umar AbdulMutallab in Houston in August 2008? Whom Did He Visit There? What Did He Plan?"

The press reports that he was attending a seminar, but it has also been established that he and his family were in contact with a Houston publisher (of a newspaper that gave us a curiously "Kenyan-Born" Barack Obama, an error in reporting that did wonders for the Birther movement):

Flight 253 Terrorist Suspect on Magazine's Radar

HOUSTON - A Houston-area magazine publisher has met and been following members of a suspected terrorist's family for years.

Chido Nwangwu publishes USAfricaOnline.com, one of the most widely-visited internet publications devoted to Nigerian-American relations.

Nwangwu has been following Forouk Abdul Mutalab's family for years before the 23-year-old man left Nigeria for college in the United Kingdom. The suspected terrorist's father, Alhaji Umuru Mutallab, is considered one of the most powerful men in Nigeria ...

http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/news/international/091228-umar-farouk-abdulmutallab-houston

Dr. Gary Maxey

Publisher Chido Nwangwu hails from the West Africa Theological Seminary, founded and chiefly directed by Dr. Gary Maxey, an American evangelical missionary who has dual homes in Atlanta, GA and Lagos, Nigeria.

BIG OIL AND FRIENDS OF THE WEST AFRICA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: Robert Dyer, ExxonMobil; James Bates, Vice President, ChevronTexaco Canada; Dr. Edward Beaver, Preacher, Realtor, Businessman; Dr. Bill Brown, Businessman, WATS Adjunct Faculty, Salisbury, North Carolina ...
http://www.watsonline.org/friend.html

Recall that Dutchman Jasper Schuringa, who apprehended the bomber, the star of the Flight 253 "action movie" - all of it reportedly on tape - is the son of a Shell Oil executive. Shell, Chevron and Nigerian terrorists are warring: "Nigeria, whose population of about 140 million people makes it Africa’s most populous country, is almost evenly split between the mainly Muslim north and a largely Christian south. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, said Dec. 19 it attacked a pipeline in the southern oil region used by Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp." - Bloomberg, Dec. 26, 2009

ABOUT THAT VIDEO TAPE

Passenger films Northwest Flight 253 bomb attempt
January 5, 2010, Las Vegas Democrat Examiner, David Phillips

Patricia "Scotty" Keepman tells 620WTMJ's "Wisconsin's Morning News." that she and her family were seated about 20 rows behind Abdulmutallab in a center aisle, and that she saw a man who videotaped the entire flight. Patricia Keepman went on to say "He sat up and videotaped the entire thing, very calmly. We do know that the FBI is looking for him intensely. Since then, we've heard nothing about it."

There has only been one picture released to the media taken on flight 253 - it’s an exclusive on CNN showing uniformed officers removing the Christmas Day bomber from the plane. ...

[T]he American public won’t be seeing that video anytime soon, if at all, and it seems that the Federal government doesn‘t want to mention it. But what is also even more interesting, is that CNN and other main stream media outlets have yet to follow up with any questions about the man standing with a camcorder filming the bomber on flight 253. ...
http://www.examiner.com/x-21777-Las-Vegas-Democrat-Examiner~y2010m1d5-Passenger-films-Northwest-Flight-253-bomb-attempt

"'The War of Terror' is about Protecting the Free Flow of Oil"

"Some, like author and researcher F. William Engdahl, insist that the ‘war on terror' is, and always has been, more about protecting the free flow of oil than stemming the tide of terrorism. "The evidence suggests that the Pentagon and US intelligence are moving to militarize a strategic chokepoint for the world's oil flows ... [using] claims of a new Al Qaeda threat arising from Yemen," writes Engdahl. "In addition, undeveloped petroleum reserves in the territory between Yemen and Saudi Arabia are reportedly among the world's largest."

"Impending US military actions in Yemen - strategically located on an important trading route linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea - are directly linked to US oil interests in Nigeria," wrote Ken Boyte in January at AllVoices.com. He goes on to cite a feasibility study produced by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1975 that identified Yemen as "a target for invasion."

http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1829/1/

Africom's Priorities & a Nigerian War Game to "Secure the Oil"

In addition to U.S. military officers and intelligence officers,
"Unified Quest 2008" brought together participants from the State Department and other U.S. government agencies, academics, journalists, and foreign military officers (including military representatives from several NATO countries, Australia, and Israel), along with the private military contractors who helped run the war games: the Rand Corporation and Booz-Allen. ...

One participant, U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Mark Stanovich, drew up a plan that called for the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops within 60 days....

Among scenarios examined during the game were the possibility of direct American military intervention involving some 20,000 U.S. troops in order to "secure the oil," ...

[W]hen General Ward appeared before the House Armed Services Committee on March 13, 2008, he cited America's growing dependence on African oil as a priority issue for Africom and went on to proclaim that combating terrorism would be "Africom's number one theater-wide goal." He barely mentioned development, humanitarian aid, peacekeeping or conflict resolution. ...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14783

The Nigerian Bomber & AFRICOM

" ... the serious furore created by Abdulmulltallab’s action will further justify the Obama administration’s commitment to AFRICOM’s escalation of the military role of the command in fighting the alleged global war on terrorism (GWOT). ... "

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/15430

---
PROVOCATIONS

DECEMBER 19, 2009 BBC REPORT: "Nigeria rebels attack oil pipeline"

And that wasn't the end of it: "Nigeria rebels vow more attacks after 'warning strike' on oil pipeline"

We've all been hit by shock waves from the attacks, but Big Oil most of all:

Nigerian Rebels Drive Up Oil Prices
Shell Facility Hit, Crimping Output
Washington Post | June 30, 2009

WHAT DO WE KNOW OF THESE REBELS? - BBC: "Little is known about the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta but it has shown that it is capable of destablising Nigeria's oil industry."

On Big Oil in Yemen, see: "The Yemen Hidden Agenda: Behind the Al-Qaeda Scenarios, A Strategic Oil Transit Chokepoint"


" ... In addition to its geopolitical position as a major global oil transit chokepoint, Yemen is reported to hold some of the world’s greatest untapped oil reserves. ... "

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16786


BRUTAL "PARTNERS" IN YEMEN

from: Scapegoats and scaremongers
Alan Maass unravels the deceptions and hidden motives in the government and media response to the plot to set off a bomb on a plane bound for Detroit.

... The government of Yemen is notoriously corrupt and brutal. It is one of the few countries in the world with a record of executions to rival the U.S., and one where the CIA rendition program sent detainees to be tortured by an allied regime. Yemeni military forces have been happy to collaborate with U.S. "war on terror" operations, especially when this furthers the government's ongoing campaigns against opposition groups in the north and secessionists in the south.

But Obama says he's "made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government, training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them." ...
http://socialistworker.org/2010/01/05/scapegoats-and-scaremongers

THE PATH TO DETROIT

But how on earth were Big Oil and its Saudi partners going to convince the war-weary American public to finance yet another foreign invasion? Pipeline security doesn't wring a driblet of sympathy from the recessionary taxpayer. The answer was too obvious - a covert operation ...

CIA/Saudi Foreshadowings

George W. Bush Let Terrorists Behind Christmas Bombing Out Of Gitmo

Air America: "Brian Ross of ABC News reports that two of the four men behind the plot to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day were actually prisoners of the United States and that, under the leadership of President George W. Bush, were released into a Saudi art rehabilitation program. ..."
http://airamerica.com/politics/12-28-2009/bush-let-christmas-bombing-planners-out-gitmo/

Saudi King, CIA chief meet amid Yemen fighting
www.presstv | 16 Nov 2009

Saudi Arabia's King Abdallah receives the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as both countries become more involved in the deadly war in Yemen.

The meeting between King Abdallah Bin Abd Al-Aziz Al Saud and CIA Director Leon E. Panetta took place in Riyadh on Sunday, the Saudi Press Agency reported. Apparently, King Abdallah also held another meeting on the same day with the Head of Russian Federal Commission of Military and Technical Cooperation Michael Dimitriv.

The report, however, did not include any specific details about the topics that were discussed during the two meetings, simply announcing that there was an exchange of greetings between the king and US President Barack Obama through the CIA director.

The meeting between the Saudi leader and the CIA chief came just days after both the US and Saudi Arabia decided to get more involved in the bloody conflict in northern Yemen ...

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=111411§ionid=351020205

So Panetta travelled all the way to Riyadh for "an exchange of greetings between the king and US President Barack Obama?" King Abdallah couldn't dial a telephone? Perhaps, for the sake of argument, they talked about something else, something very sensitive ... like how to persuade the American people to support further covert and overt military adventures in Yemen. We had already established a CIA presence there ...

CIA present in Yemen since 2008: Report

INTELLIGENCE "FAILURES"

The CIA Deliberately Misspells Terrorists' Names and Bypasses TSA to Let Terrorists Fly

" ... Veteran investigative reporters Susan and Joseph Trento, who first obtained and exposed the flaws in the no-fly list in 2006, have completed a new investigation of the CIA’s role in airline security. It reveals that the CIA is bypassing other government agencies and following terrorists on airplanes without telling TSA or the airlines involved. It shows how terrorists and nuclear proliferators have been allowed to fly because the CIA has refused to add their correct names or aliases to the no-fly list. ... "
http://alexconstantine.blogspot.com/2010/01/cia-deliberately-terrorists-names-and.html

" ... the CIA failed to circulate a report it had about bombing suspect ... "
http://www.examiner.com/x-22397-Providence-Business-News-Examiner~y2009m12d29-Breaking-Flight-253-Terror-Plot-CIA-failed-to-circulate-report-about-bombing-suspect

" ... Yesterday it was claimed MI5 knew three years ago of his "multiple communications" with extremists in Britain while at University College London. ...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/01/04/jet-bomber-s-visa-con-115875-21940595/

" ... Abdulmutallib was also on a terror watch list, although that fact, and the fact that he had been known to anti-terror officials for several years, did not prevent him from boarding Flight 253 ... "
http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/28/flight-253-and-counterterror%E2%80%99s-epic-fail-by-robert-spencer/

" ... The CIA said it worked with embassy officials to make sure that Abdulmutallab's name made it into the government's database of suspected terrorists and noted his potential extremist connections in Yemen. The CIA also said it forwarded that information to the National Counterterrorism Center. ... it is unlikely Abdulmutallab would have been flagged because the Customs and Border Patrol officers do not routinely screen all passengers against the names of individuals on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database, known as TIDE, which was the only place that Abdulmutallab was listed. ... "
http://www.sphere.com/nation

"Israeli Intelligence" Ties to AQ Extremists in Yemen?

The BBC reports that Al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen -led by the commandos released by Bush - are really Israeli agents though they have organized attacks against US targets:

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence. Mr Saleh did not say what evidence had been found to show the group's links with Israel, a regional enemy of Yemen. The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying.

"A terrorist cell was arrested and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services," Mr Saleh told a gathering at al-Mukalla University in Hadramawt province. "Details of the trial will be announced later. You will hear about what goes on in the proceedings," he added.

The 17 September attack was the second to target the US embassy since April. Militants detonated car bombs before firing rockets at the heavily fortified building.

Mr Saleh did not identify the suspects, but official sources were quoted saying it was same cell - led by a militant called Abu al-Ghaith al-Yamani - whose arrest was announced a week after the attack.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9951



VIDEO UPDATE, 1-5-10: OFFICIAL STATEMENTS REVERSED:

The Political Rebirth of Attorney Kurt Haskell: "Today is the second worst day of my life after 12-25-09. Today is the day that I realized that my own country is lying to me and all of my fellow Americans."
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2009/12/flight_253_passenger_kurt_hask.html

Passenger's account of Flight 253 suspect disputed
Flier says man who tried to get on flight may be from Sudan
Paul Egan | The Detroit News
January 05. 2010

" .... A passenger on the Christmas Day flight that was targeted in a terrorist attack says the man a fellow passenger saw attempting to board the flight without a passport may have been a Sudanese refugee, not the accused bomber. BEAU TAYLOR of Jackson, an international development consultant who was aboard the flight from Amsterdam, said he saw a young man being accompanied on the airplane by a flight attendant. ... "

Beau Taylor & USAID, an agency on intimate terms with the CIA ... and, some say, Hizb-ut-Tahrir terrorists: "International Development, USAID contracting, Managerial and Strategy Consulting, Negotiations, Hiring, Recruiting, Management, Russian Language, International Relationship Development, Cross-Cultural Management, Marketing, Finance, USAID." Mr. Taylor is "currently charged with operational oversight of a $20,000,000 project to stabilize communities in Baquba, Iraq. This is part of the larger CSP project, a $300,000,000 development project to support USAID efforts in Iraq."
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/beau-taylor/1/3b4/799\

REWARDING IRAQI INSURGENTS - ACCORDING TO A USAID STATEMENT, RE CSP (Community Stabilization Program), the program that employed Beau Taylor, has in fact been discontinued: "... a 2008 audit [found] evidence of fraud, phantom workers, and money being diverted to insurgents through trash collection contracts. ... " - USAID funding Iraqi insurgents?

THE SECOND MAN - AN OFFICIAL RETRACTION

"Federal officials for several days denied accounts by Haskell and his wife, Lori, also an attorney, that they had seen a second man from their flight led away in handcuffs at Detroit Metro after a dog reacted to something inside the man's bag.

"But late Friday, Ron Smith, the chief U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer for Detroit, confirmed that the incident did happen and apologized for not correcting the information earlier. He said the man from Flight 253, who was handcuffed, later was released without charges. ... "
http://www.detnews.com/article/20100105/METRO/1050370/1409/METRO/Passenger-s-account-of-Flight-253-suspect-disputed

CAUGHT IN THE ACT: WHY THE OFFICIAL DENIAL WAS RETRACTED

" ... Government officials initially denied that anyone other than Mutallab was detained; but, after other witnesses came forward to corroborate the Haskells, they had to admit that someone else was detained. ... "
http://www.theendrun.com/2010/another-buried-christmas-day-arrest-uncovered/

JOE LIEBERMAN'S SOLUTION
TO THE EXPLOSIVE UNDERPANTS PROBLEM

"On Sunday, the neocon Joe Lieberman said the U.S. needs to bomb Yemen and pronto. A script on Yemen and al-Qaeda is now being uniformly followed by the corporate media ... "
http://www.infowars.com/man-videotaped-underwear-bomber-on-flight-253/

The Flaming Diarhhea Psyop

Abdulmutallab had been given erroneous directions for detonating the bomb, and it's fairly certain that the intention was to scare, not kill - after all, there were "actors" planted on the plane. AP reports: " ... The Dutch government said the plan to blow up the Detroit-bound aircraft was professional but called its execution 'amateurish.' ... [Interior Minister Guusje] Ter Horst said Abdulmutallab apparently assembled the explosive device, including 80 grams of PETN, in the aircraft toilet, then planned to detonate it with a syringe of chemicals. She said the explosives appeared to have been professionally prepared and had been given to Abdulmutallab, but did not elaborate.

"If you want to detonate it, you have to do that another way than he did. That is why we talk about amateurism," she said."

Everything was "professional" about the PETN bomb ... but the bomber had no idea how to ignite it. This only adds up if he was a psyop patsy.

THE THIRD TERRORIST SUSPECT ARREST WAS A NIGERIAN PETROLEUM ENGINEER:


"Authorities said the passenger was a 36-year old Nigerian petroleum engineer who became unhappy when he was ordered to his seat one hour before landing, as required under new in-flight rules following the attempted Christmas day bombing of the same flight by another Nigerian citizen. The passenger supervises 90 employees at the multinational petroleum company he works for in Yemen. ... "

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/food-poisoning-blamed-northwest-flight-253-bomb-scare/story?id=9430057


The Hero & Shell Oil Co.

" ... Jasper was born in Curacao, a former Dutch colony in the Caribbean though his family often moved, globetrotting for his father’s job with the Shell Oil firm. ... "

Dutch Hero Becomes National Pride
By Peter Valk and Jasper Fakkert
Epoch Times Staff | Dec 27, 2009

Netherlands—Dutchman Jasper Schuringa who reportedly prevented the terror suspect from blowing up the Northwest Airline jet with 289 passengers on board, is being cheered in the Netherlands as a new national hero. The 32-year-old film director’s act of bravery has made the down-to-earth Dutch proud as peacocks.

“We are extremely proud of him but also really shocked because in one second it could have ended up very differently,” Jasper’s parents were reported as saying by Dutch media.

Headlines in the Netherlands largest newspaper 'De Telegraaf', read "Dutch Jasper Overmasters Terrorist” and “Decoration for Hero Jasper Schuringa.” Other news articles in the Netherlands also focus on how “Dutch Jasper” is praised in American media.

Dutch Minister Wouter Bos spoke with Jasper over the phone and expressed his appreciation on behalf of the Dutch government.

Jasper himself seems rather sober about his part: “I just jumped. I didn’t think. I went over there and tried to save the plane,” he said in an interview with CNN.

Jasper was born in Curacao, a former Dutch colony in the Caribbean though his family often moved, globetrotting for his father’s job with the Shell Oil firm. ...

Besides Curacao, Jasper and his family lived in Oman, the Netherlands and Gabon, where they had to flee with help of the French foreign legion when the civil war broke out there. After secondary school he graduated from a film academy in Miami. Currently, he runs a video company called “Go With The Flow Productions." ...

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/27065/

Abdulmutallab SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED his Seat

" ... Jasper, a video director and producer was sitting across the aisle from the bomber and when he heard a pop as did all the other passengers; he went into action seeing the smoke and fire. ... [R]eports are now suggesting that Abdulmutallab had requested his particular seat, there needs to be an evaluation of such request. ... "

http://www.examiner.com/x-7462-Atlanta-Faith--Family-Examiner~y2009m12d28-Hero-of-Flight-253-to-Detroit-Flying-Dutchman-Jasper-Schuringa-subdues-terrorist

Jasper Schuringa & the National Counter-Terrorism Center

" ... The Curacao-born Jasper Schuringa attended film school in Miami and he also lived in Oman. After accusations in the media that he was publicizing himself over the Muttalab incident, Schuringa largely receded from public view. Schuringa was en route to Costa Rica via Detroit to visit his sister. The National Counter-terrorism office in The Hague is being mum about any connections it had with Schuringa, according to the Dutch paper Parool.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5424.shtml

Payday

The Shady Mainstream Media Payday of Flight 253 Hero Jasper Schuringa
Gawker.com

Jasper Schuringa probably didn't think twice before dismantling Northwest Airlines Flight 253's would-be bomber. But before telling his story, he wanted money, and he got it. ... Yesterday Mediaite and TV Newser reported on Schurnga's two wares he's got for sale: the first, a blurry picture of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The second is himself, for interviews. CNN got to him first. They also got an interview. ...

All the media organizations found Schuringa's company website, which had his cell phone number on it. By the time he finally got to Miami, his final destination, CNN and The New York Post had gotten to him.

Once the Post and CNN got through to Jasper, he handed over all negotiations to his friend who lives in Miami who he came to the U.S. to visit. His name is Shai Ben-Ami. He's an Israeli guy who's in the restaurant business, as a Google search would turn up. ...

Schurnga sold the "TV Rights" of the first of his two photos to CNN for $10K.

The "print rights" went to the Post for $5K.

Later, Schuringa was paid upwards of $3K by ABC News for a second photo, which Schuringa tried to sell to other local news outlets for $5K, unsuccessfully. ...

"He was quite upfront about it," we're told. "He made it clear that Jasper was only talking to news organizations that paid."

http://gawker.com/5434950/the-shady-mainstream-media-payday-of-flight-253-hero-jasper-schuringa'

Abdulmutallab’s Lawyer is Public Defender Who Forged Documents in Detroit Terror Cell Trial - December 28, 2009 - Re Umar Abdulmutallab’s lawyer, Miriam Siefer, by conservative reporter Debbie Schlussel, the source of these allegations:

During the Detroit terror cell case, she represented Karim Koubriti, an Islamic terrorist in a cell, which plotted to blow up the U.S. Air Force Base in Turkey, where U.S. AWACS and Israeli F-16s are based and from where they took off. They also plotted to blow up hotels and casinos in Las Vegas and planned to detonate in Disneyland.

During the course of her “representation” of terrorist Koubriti, Siefer and her fellow public defender, Richard Helfrick a/k/a Rick Helfrick (who will probably also assist her in representing Abdulmutallab), stole the stationery of the then-Chief Judge of the Federal Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Lawrence Zatkoff, forged Zatkoff’s name, and sent it to another attorney in the case, accusing him of faking invoices (which wasn’t true). That makes at least several federal crimes that I can think of–theft, forgery, impersonating a federal official, mail fraud, etc. but they got away with it. ...
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/14360/abdulmutallabs-public-defender-is-dirty-trickster-who-forged-documents/

Mutallab's Blue-Chip Father

The Nigerian Bomber's Father & Big Oil: SaharaReporters - " ... Dr. Muttallab, who is currently the chairman of First Islamic bank, JBI, in Nigeria, sits on the board of that bank with Dr. Rilwan Lukman, the Minister of Petroleum resources. ... "

----------
The terror suspect who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane is the son of a Nigerian banker who alerted U.S. authorities to his "extreme religious views" months ago, it was reported Saturday.

The father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a former minister and chairman of First Bank in Nigeria, is shocked that his son was even was allowed to fly to the U.S., family members told the Nigerian newspaper This Day.

The dad was meeting with security officials to discuss his son, identified as Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, 23. The younger Mutallab was not on any no-fly list when he flew from Nigeria to Detroit through Amsterdam, Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.) told the Daily News. ...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/12/26/2009-12-26_father_of_umar_farouk_abdul_mutallab_nigerian_terror_suspect_in_flight_253_attac.html#ixzz0b8LDuSQV

Nigerian Terror Suspect: This Apple Fell Too Far From the Tree
USAfricaonline, Commentary, Chido Nwangwu, Posted: Dec 28, 2009

... The older Mutallab, a conservative Muslim, was born in 1939 in the north central state of Katsina (home of the current, ailing President Umaru Ya'Adua). A USAfricaonline.com count found that Umaru Mutallab was chairman of more than 36 blue chip companies inside Nigeria and overseas. ...

A highly respected conservative man whose friends cut across states, religion and gender, Mutallab is soft spoken and very intelligent and industrious.

Having reported and followed key aspects of Umaru Mutallab and Nigeria's military and civilian elite, I know that the older Mutallab benefited from his deft positioning across an immense network of family, geo-ethnic and professional layers of interests.

Consequently, the man has had a near permanent presence on Nigeria's economic landscape as a government official, banking investor, facilitator or shareholder - working the levers of power- all through civilian and military governments in Nigeria for more than 35 years.

Alhaji Mutallab is one of Nigeria's most respected technocrats and administrators, having also served as a Federal Minister of Economic Development & Reconstruction. He is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered and Certified Accountants (FCCA), Institute of the International Bankers Association (FIBA, USA), the Institute of Bankers and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (FCA).

Mutallab was appointed director of First Bank on March 8, 1996 and became chairman of the Board on March 18, 1999. In mid December, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab - after his massively rewarding decade at the helm of the First Bank Plc - fully retired as Chairman. He was succeeded by Oba Otudeko, a billionaire chairman of the Honeywell Group of Companies and immediate past President of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

Mutallab has been in strategic board positions of the banking sector for decades as CEO and/or Chairman of various financial institutions including United Bank for Africa (UBA).

“The man is amiable and always at the forefront of any economic revival committees and boards of government, the alleged link of his son to the alleged terrorism plot left many of his friends and associates devastated,” notes Obinwa Nnaji, USAfricaonline.com bureau chief in Lagos. “Other Nigerians still argue at their homes, various places and across USAfrica multimedia blogs that they still do not believe it to be a stock in trade of Nigerians to be found planting bombs in aircraft.” ...

[O]ne of the areas where the older Mutallab's skills and services did not yield much if any significant value for Nigerians was his tenure as chairman of the troubled and woeful former National Electric Power Authority (NEPA).

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=eb6dc82396fc6c958fae289fe7cbc3d3

Goldman Sachs, the Bomber's Father and VISION 2O20

‘Aggressive implementation of Vision 2020 commences January 2010’
Daily Trust | 29 November 2009

By January 2010, about four weeks from now, Nigerians will start feeling the impacts of the Vision 20:2020, the Chairman of the Business Support Group of the Vision, Alhaji Umuru Mutallab, CON, said in this interview.

Vision 20:2020 sought to accelerate the pace of the country’s growth & development and make it among the world’s twentieth economies by the year 2020. Mutallab said for the Vision to succeed, the civil service must be carried along. He spoke on many other issues.

It started during the tenure of former President Olusegun Obasanjo following the projections of Goldman Sachs which realises that countries like Brazil, Rusia, India and China have achieved phenomenal growth and said further that there are other sets of countries which if they put their acts together by the year 2025 would be among the top 20 economy of the world. Nigeria was among these countries ...

http://www.news.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10311:aggressive-implementation-of-vision-202020-commences-january-2010&catid=26:business&Itemid=153
---
Mind Control?

Underwear Bomber Dazed, Stared "Into Nothing"
Tom Leonard
The Daily Telegraph | December 28, 2009

Mr Schuringa said he said he frisked the suspect and discovered his trousers were open and that he had a flaming object resembling a small, white shampoo bottle strapped to his left leg near his crotch.

"I pulled the object from him and tried to extinguish the fire with my hands and threw it away," he told CNN. ...

All the while, Mr Abdulmatallab seemed dazed, he said. "He was staring into nothing." When he got him into first class, Mr Schuringa pulled off his remaining clothes to check for further explosives and helped a crew member to handcuff him.

http://au.messages.yahoo.com/news/conspiracy_theory/11121/
--------UPDATES-------

Britain sends counter-terrorist forces to Yemen
Telegraph.co.uk - ‎Jan 2, 2010‎
Britain has dispatched a special counter-terrorist unit to Yemen as the mountainous Arab state emerges as the new frontline in the war against al-Qaeda, ...

Crack SAS team to hunt the terrorists
Mirror.co.uk - Rupert Hamer - ‎Jan 2, 2010‎
A crack squad of SAS troopers has been flown to the Yemen to wipe out new al-Qaeda terror camps. The move follows revelations that ...
---
Operation Underpants: A "Planned Event"

" ... The story seemed almost plausible, but the sequence of US government responses and controlled news releases about the alleged bomber over the 24-48 hours that followed proved otherwise. Just like in the cases of 9/11 and 2005 London bombings, the campaign of disinformation shows that ‘Terror in Detroit’ is another ‘planned event.’ ... " - From: "Christmas Terror in Detroit! Deception continues," by Ajit Randeniya

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2009/12/30/christmas-terror-in-detroit-deception-continues/

"Covert Sponsorship of Al-Qaeda Networks Continues"

>" ... As we have seen with Mohamed Atta, Richard Reid and Mohammad Sidique Khan, Abdulmutallab's "journey" was one undertaken by many before, often with a wink-and-a-nod by British and American security officials when it served the geostrategic ambitions of their political masters. As security researcher and analyst Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed wrote in New Internationalist in October: 'Islamist terrorism cannot be understood without acknowledging the extent to which its networks are being used by Western military intelligence services, both to control strategic energy resources and to counter their geopolitical rivals. Even now, nearly a decade after 9/11, covert sponsorship of al-Qaeda networks continues.' ... " - From: "Weird Underpants, Strange Backstory: The Untold Tale of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's Christmas Flight," by Tom Burghardt

http://pacificfreepress.com/news/1/5313-weird-underpants-strange-backstory-the-untold-tale-of-umar-farouk-abdulmutallabs-christmas-flight.html

The Northwest Flight 253 intelligence failure: Negligence or conspiracy?
World Socialist Web Site | 31 December 2009

... Both then and now, the government and the media expect the public to accept that all that was involved was mistakes. But why should anyone assume that the failure to act on the extensive intelligence leading to Abdulmutallab involved merely “innocent” mistakes—and not something far more sinister?


If this episode is to be examined seriously, the question must be asked: What would have happened had Northwest Flight 253 been destroyed?

There is no question but that such a catastrophe would have had immense repercussions both internationally and within the United States. It would have seriously destabilized the Obama administration, politically strengthened the most extreme right-wing sections of the ruling class, and cleared the way for an even more massive expansion of military-intelligence operations overseas and a drastic curtailing of democratic rights at home. ...
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/pers-d31.shtml



Northwest Flight 253: Mounting Evidence of U.S. Complicity in Terrorism
by Gordon Duff

When nothing adds up, its time we start looking at what we kow. Our recent terrorist, now dubbed "the crotch bomber" is another dupe. He could have been working for anyone, drugged, brainwashed or simply influenced, maybe by crazy Arabs, maybe by the Mossad, maybe by the CIA. We only know the game is falling apart.

We do know a couple of things. Dad, back in Nigeria, ran the national arms industry (DICON) in partnership with Israel, in particular, the Mossad. He was in daily contact with them. They run everything in Nigeria, from arms production to counter-terrorism. Though Islamic, Muttalab was a close associate of Israel. He has been misrepresented. His "banking" is a cover. Next, what do we know about the two alleged Al Qaeda leaders Bush had released, the ones who allegedly planned this?

According to ABC news, the Al Qaeda leaders running the insurgency in Yemen were released from Guantanamo, although two of the alleged highest ranking known terrorist there, without trial.

Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody.
Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders and appear on a January, 2009 video along with the man described as the top leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin Laden's personal secretary.

Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders and appear on a January, 2009 video along with the man described as the top leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin Laden's personal secretary.


New MSNBC theory: Maybe U.S. intel deliberately withheld info on Flight 253 from each other
posted at 9:10 pm on January 5, 2010 by Allahpundit

"John Gibson and Ace read this as Olby’s way of hinting that dark elements within U.S. intelligence tried to hurt Obama politically by intentionally letting an attack happen. ... Either way, do note that the strong-form conspiracy theory about shadowy forces using Flight 253 to ruin Obama is indeed being circulated ... "

http://www.glocktalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1166984

Searching fot the "Hidden Agenda"

" ' ... It seems that the president is leaning very much towards thinking this was a systemic failure by individuals who maybe had an alternative agenda.' (emphasis added)

'I will accept that intelligence by its nature is imperfect" the President said, "but it is increasingly clear that intelligence was not fully analyzed or fully leveraged.'

The question is why? And more pertinently from a parapolitical perspective, what 'alternative agenda' is playing out here that would put the lives of nearly 300 air passengers at risk? ... "

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/burghardt3.1.1.html

Detroit attack: US border guards knew alleged terrorist was on flight
Telegraph | 07 Jan 2010

" ... 'The people in Detroit were prepared to look at him in secondary inspection,' said a an official quoted by the Times.' ... [The]database had picked up the State Department concern about this guy, that this guy may have been involved with extremist elements in Yemen ... They could have made a decision on whether to stop him from getting on the plane,' he said. ... "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6944598/Detroit-attack-US-border-guards-knew-alleged-terrorist-was-on-flight.html

CBS NEWS LEARNS CIA HAD ADVANCE INFORMATION ON DETROIT TERRORIST

CBS News has learned that as early as August of 2009 the Central Intelligence Agency was picking up information on a person of interest dubbed "The Nigerian," suspected of meeting with "terrorist elements" in Yemen.
Sources tell CBS News "The Nigerian" has now turned out to be Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. But that connection was not made when Abudulmutallab's father went to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria three months later, on November 19, 2009. It was then he expressed deep concerns to a CIA officer about his son's ties to extremists in Yemen, a hotbed of al Qaeda activity. ...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16769


Delta black op bomb gave neocon Christmas gifts of nudity and fear
www.examiner.com | January 4

" ... Delta 253 passenger Jasper Schuringa, the young filmmaker that wrestled Mutallab to the ground and prevented his terrorist mission, "was driven to Schiphol on Christmas morning by his friend Chris Van Amersfoort. whose Facebook page lists him as a 'fan of' Dubai World’s owner 'His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum,' the Emir of Dubai. ... "
http://www.examiner.com/x-10438-Human-Rights-Examiner~y2010m1d4-Obamas-orders-for-security-ignored-FOX-refuses-to-release-segment-copy


---
Wayne Madsen Reports that Mutallab's Passport was Italian?

Intelligence sources: Plane incident a false flag involving trinity of CIA, Mossad, and RAW
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer | Jan 4, 2010

" ... The facts emerging are that Mutallab was not traveling on a Nigerian passport but on an Italian passport. Mutallab’s father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, happens to hold the Italian Order of Merit. In addition, Mutallab’s ticket was purchased in Accra, Ghana, with $2,831 in cash and was later re-issued, on December 16, with a different itinerary at the KLM office in Lagos. ... Previously, WMR reported that the security company that cleared Mutallab in Schiphol is ICTS, a firm that is headquartered in Israel and Amstelveen, Netherlands. The firm also cleared attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid for a Miami-bound American Airlines flight from Paris in December 2001. ... "

---
ORWELL FLEW IN ON FLIGHT 253

OMNESCIENCE NOW!

... In 2002, retired Adm. John Poindexter, an expert on information technology, devised a plan for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency called the Total Information Awareness program.


PART OF THAT program was designed to foil "asymmetrical warfare" — airline suicide bombers, for example — with vast data-mining computers that could link widely disparate pieces of information in scattered databases. Unfortunately, Poindexter was probably not the best salesman for the program with congressional Democrats.
From: "Join dots and stop the terror" | Scripps Howard News Service, 1-5-10
http://www.thereporteronline.com/articles/2010/01/05/opinion/srv0000007247531.txt

TORTURE AS A "MORAL OBLIGATION"

Time For Enhanced Interrogation
Investors.Com | 12/30/2009

War On Terror: The U.S. now holds a prisoner of war who has knowledge that could foil future terrorist operations. The Obama administration has a moral obligation to extract it from Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. ...

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=516683

THE LYING LIARS OF THE GOP

Obama's Use Of 'Terror': Reporters Still Struggling To Use Internet To Verify Claims
By Jason Linkins
Huffpost | 01-4-10

One of the last things I did in 2009 was to lament the awesome stupidity of a press corps that seemed unable to do even basic fact-checking, such as using available resources to test contentions like: "Did President Barack Obama stop using the word 'terror' or 'terrorism'?" Peter King told this lie, successfully, to CNN because apparently no one at CNN has access to a computer or a television or even has a teensy bit of electrical current running through the wet membranes found in their cranial cavity.

I was able to use this thing called Google to demonstrate that King was not telling the truth when he said, "Even when the president gave his speech at West Point about the troops going to Afghanistan, he didn't use the word 'terrorism'." It's no big deal. I didn't think I deserved a medal for journalistic excellence, at the time. But I'm starting to revise that belief now that it's 2010 and Greg Sargent has a piece up at the Plum Line documenting how Jim DeMint played all sorts of journalists for fools in a similar fashion over the weekend:

CNN let Senator Jim DeMint come on the network yesterday and claim, without any fact-checking, that Obama doesn't use the word "terror," which DeMint cited as proof of the President's lackluster approach to keeping us safe:

DEMINT: There's no question that the president has down-played the risk of terror since he took office. He is investigating the CIA, rather than build them up.

GLORIA BORGER: How has he -- Senator DeMint, how -- how has he down-played the risk of terror?

DEMINT: Well, it begins with not even being willing to use the word.

BORGER: Well, aside from the semantics, aside from that.

Again, in about15 seconds, you can go to the White House's website, click "Briefing Room", click "Speeches and Remarks", select the first entry, which is titled, "Statement by the President on Preliminary Information from his Ongoing Consultation about the Detroit Incident" and then see the very first paragraph, which reads:

Good morning. Yesterday I updated the American people on the immediate steps we took -- the increased screening and security of air travel -- to keep our country safe in the wake of the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day. And I announced two reviews -- a review of our terrorist watch list system and a review of our air travel screening, so we can find out what went wrong, fix it and prevent future attacks. ...

You can also see that Obama used some form of the word "terrorism" three additional times.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/04/obamas-use-of-terror-repo_n_410653.html
---
THE COVER-UP

NOW we'll get to the bottom of this ...

Ex-CIA official to lead inquiry into plane incident
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post | January 9, 2010

The Obama administration's top intelligence official has appointed a retired CIA analyst to head an internal investigation of the failures that led to the Dec. 25 attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner.

John E. McLaughlin, a former deputy CIA director, will lead a review of missteps by U.S. intelligence agencies and assess proposals for correcting weaknesses in a system that did not respond to warnings about terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, said Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair.

Blair said the review will also examine the events leading to the Nov. 5 shootings at Fort Hood, Tex. The assessments will produce "candid, constructive guidance to improve our future performance," he said.

McLaughlin, 67, was named deputy CIA director under George J. Tenet in 2000. McLaughlin briefly served as acting director of the spy agency after Tenet stepped down in 2004. McLaughlin retired later that year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/08/AR2010010803754.html

And WHO is John McLaughlin?

" ... With this appointment, President Barack Obama has assured that the culture of intelligence cover-up will continue. ... "

President Obama, the CIA and the Master of the Cover-Up
11 December 2010

by: Melvin A. Goodman

The Obama administration quietly announced Friday the appointment of John McLaughlin, former deputy CIA director, to head the internal investigation of the intelligence failures that led to the Christmas Day attempted bombing of a Delta airliner headed for Detroit as well as the events leading to the shootings at Fort Hood in November.

With this appointment, President Barack Obama has assured that the culture of intelligence cover-up will continue. McLaughlin has participated in and sought to cover-up many of the CIA's most egregious failures and misdeeds of the past decade. When he left the CIA, he then served as the agency's chief apologist.

So, who is John McLaughlin? Most of official Washington and the mainstream media view McLaughlin as the mild-mannered, professorial CIA bureaucrat, who former CIA director George Tenet called the "smartest man he had ever met."

Few people understand, however, that McLaughlin played the most important role in making sure that the Bush administration received the intelligence that would be used and misused to justify the use of force against Iraq in 2003.

Washington insiders remember that it was CIA director Tenet who told President George W. Bush, "Don't worry, it's a slam dunk," in response to the president's demand for stronger intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to provide to the American people. Few people remember that it was McLaughlin who actually delivered the "slam-dunk" briefing to the president in January 2003.

McLaughlin was the "villain" behind the politicized intelligence on Iraq in the run-up to the war. He perverted the intelligence process, ignored high-level briefings on the weakness of the intelligence on WMD and tried to silence David Kay, the chief of the Iraq Survey Group, when the weapons inspectors found no evidence of strategic weapons in Iraq.

When Kay returned to CIA headquarters from Baghdad, Tenet and McLaughlin made sure that Kay was given a tiny, windowless office at the end of a distant, deserted corridor undergoing construction. It had no secure phone or classified computer. Kay called it Siberia.

McLaughlin was also the villain behind the CIA's preparation of Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations in February 2003 that used phony intelligence to convince an international audience of the need for war. According to Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Powell's chief of staff, Tenet and McLaughlin lied to the secretary of state about the sourcing of serious allegations dealing with Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain strategic weapons.

The most serious allegation came from an Iraqi con man known as "Curveball," who maintained that Iraq had mobile biological laboratories, a key charge in the phony intelligence to justify the Iraq war. German intelligence debriefed Curveball, and German intelligence officials warned the CIA that Curveball was unstable and that there was no validation for his claims. Tyler Drumheller, the chief of CIA's European Division, knew that Curveball was mentally unstable and a liar, and he urged McLaughlin to drop all references to the mobile biological labs from Powell's speech. McLaughlin ignored him, too.

Five weeks after the invasion of Iraq, Powell and McLaughlin shared a table at the White House correspondents' dinner, where McLaughlin, an amateur magician, agreed to perform a few magic tricks during a break in the action. The CIA deputy director conjured coins out of thin air and transformed a single dollar into a $100 bill; everyone at the table laughed except for Powell, who seemed tense and out of sorts.

According to Bob Drogin, who wrote an authoritative book on Curveball, Powell stared at McLaughlin and requested another trick. "Let's see you find the WMD in Iraq," an unsmiling Powell demanded. McLaughlin looked surprised and his broad grin faded. "We will," he replied, "they're there and we'll find them."

In addition to being one of the ideological drivers for the CIA's policies of torture and abuse, secret prisons and extraordinary renditions, McLaughlin demonstrated early in his career that he was a company man willing to do what was necessary to advance his career. In the 1980s, when CIA Director William Casey and his Deputy Robert Gates were "cooking the books" on intelligence dealing with the Soviet Union, Central America and Southwest Asia, McLaughlin offered no dissent.

When the CIA did an internal investigation of one of the worst examples of politicization of intelligence, the case for Soviet complicity in the attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II in 1981, McLaughlin made sure there were no references to politicization in the final report and made every effort to hide Gates' role in preparing the Papal plot intelligence assessment. When Gates' nomination as CIA director was in trouble during the confirmation process in 1991, it was McLaughlin who stepped forward to defend his former boss from charges of politicization. ...

http://www.truthout.org/article/president-obama-cia-and-master-cover-up

Lee Hamilton is a leading light of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee "investigation" of Flight 253.

Hamilton is another veteran cover-up operative, who honed his skills in the Iran contra investigation, as I reported in 2004:

Full exposure of Iran-contra was hindered by a cover-up culture in Congress. George H.W. Bush was snared in the investigative net, so he enlisted the aid of a trusted ally in the House, Rep. Dick Cheney of Wyoming. Cheney was the ranking Republican in the Iran-contra probe. Robert Parry reports that Cheney "smartly exploited his relationship with Rep. Lee Hamilton," who "gave Bush a pass." The narrow, penlight focus of the investigation was the work of Cheney and Hamilton, who steered it away from "sensitive areas, such as contra-drug trafficking and the public diplomacy operation." (Iran-contra's Otto Reich was tarred by the Orwellian "public diplomacy" scandal under Reagan. A Cuban exile with a sordid history of romancing repressive Latin American regimes, he followed Armitage to the State Department, was appointed to the office of Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs in January 2002, under Powell.)

"Despite surrendering to Cheney's demands time and again, Hamilton failed, in the end, to get a single House Republican to sign the final report. Only three moderate Republicans on the Senate side - Warren Rudman, William Cohen and Paul Trible - agreed to sign the report, after extracting more concessions." Cheney and a few fellow Republicans filed "a minority report with the Committee that denied any significant wrongdoing had occurred."

http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2008/05/path-to-911-parts-1-7.html

Witness Tom Kean is well-known for his mishandling of the 9/11 investigation, among other cover-ups: " ... Hamilton and Thomas H. Kean, the former chairman of the commission, were witnesses before the committee during its second hearing in a week on the events of Flight 253. ... " (Detroit News)

Re Thomas Kean, 911 Commission Chairman, and Terrorism, Big Oil:

In 1994, I posted an article on Iran contra connections to 9/11 that detailed some little-known facts about Kean:

Not mentioned on Kean's official Commission biography was his role as director of Amerada Hess Corporation, which in 1998 formed joint venture Delta-Hess, with Delta Oil, in part owned by accused terrorist financier Khalid bin Mahfouz. Mahfouz inherited a controlling interest in the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, the country's largest bank, and was a director with 20% interest in BCCI, the now defunct financial conglomerate involved in money laundering, bribery, support of terrorism, arms trafficking and other crimes. Mahfouz paid $225 million to escape prosecution for his role in the BCCI scandal. Mahfouz also inherited the assets of the Saudi bin Laden group when Salem bin Laden died in a 1988 plane crash. These included an interest in Arbusto Energy, a Houston, Texas oil company founded by George W. Bush. Bin Mahfouz's interests were managed in part by James R. Bath, a close friend of Bush, who served in the Texas ANG with him. Bath's name was inexplicably redacted in Bush's Air National Guard military medical reports.
http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/K/Khalid-bin-Mahfuz.htm

A previously unreported intelligence "lapse" surfaced in a hearing conducted by the US Senate Homeland Security Committee on January 20:

US Senate begins whitewash hearings on Northwest Flight 253 bomb plot
By Tom Eley } 21 January 2010

... In another bizarre lapse, the US State Department only declared Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the organization that allegedly sent Abdulmutallab onto Flight 253, to be a terrorist group on Tuesday. This is despite the fact that AQAP has operated for over a year, and was held responsible for terrorist attacks on South Korean tourists in Yemen in March 2009, high-ranking Saudi Prince Muhammad bin Nayif in August, and Flight 253 last month. One might also expect that the name of the organization itself would raise suspicions among anti-terrorism officials.

The implication of this announcement, however, was that until January 19, 2010, US officials were not legally required to “implement an asset freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo” against AQAP. This only raises more questions as to what connections US agencies might have had with the attackers.

The senators avoided dealing with these issues in Wednesday’s hearings, devoting much of their time instead to demanding further restrictions on democratic rights. ...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/bomb-j21.shtml

A Question Everybody Forgot to Ask

Experts: Why was plane parked at Detroit terminal?
AP via Chicago Tribune | January 29, 2010

ROMULUS, Mich. - The pilots of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 took the aircraft to a gate at Detroit Metropolitan Airport without knowing about possible risks after an explosive was extinguished inside the cabin on Christmas, a newspaper reported Friday.

Passengers were allowed to get off the plane and luggage was unloaded before the aircraft was moved to an isolated spot and searched, the Detroit Free Press said, citing records from airport police and fire agencies. ... The plane remained at a terminal gate for about two hours before it was moved to search for a bag that belonged to Abdulmutallab, the Free Press reported.

Taking the plane to the terminal was a "violation of common sense," said Richard Bloom, director of terrorism, intelligence and security at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz. "It's a violation of common standard operating procedure. It's a violation of common security rules, regulations and directives," Bloom told the newspaper.

Asked about the decision to park at the terminal, Delta spokeswoman Susan Elliott said the airline, which acquired Northwest, relies on the "professional assessment" of law enforcers to "determine the appropriate course of action." ...

Glen Winn, former head of security at United Airlines, said there is no national standard for handling a suspected bomb on a plane.

"The normal procedure historically is you just don't take it to a terminal," he said.

FULL STORY

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-airlineattack,0,317514.story

Rupert Murdoch's Times Published Forged Iran Nuke Document

Two words, "Michael Ledeen" - an Italian fascist mole in the American intelligence bund who pretends to be Jewish - probably explain it ... - AC

U.S. Intelligence found Iran nuke document was forged

By Gareth Porter
IPS | December 30, 2009

WASHINGTON (IPS) - U.S. intelligence has concluded that the document published recently by the Times of London, which purportedly describes an Iranian plan to do experiments on what the newspaper described as a “neutron initiator” for an atomic weapon, is a fabrication, according to a former Central Intelligence Agency official. ... The story of the purported Iranian document prompted a new round of expressions of U.S. and European support for tougher sanctions against Iran. U.S. news media reporting has left the impression that U.S. intelligence analysts have not made up their mind about the document’s authenticity, although it has been widely reported that they have now had a full year to assess the issue. ...

CONTINUED

Ex Gitmo Inmates Linked to Bomb

(Newser) – Two former Guantanamo Bay inmates are believed to be behind the plot to blow up the Northwest flight to Detroit, according to officials and Defense Department documents. ...

Story

Anti-Semitic, Homophobic, Nazi Sympathizing GOP Candidate has History of Defamatory Attack Ads

" ... [Andy] Martin called one federal judge a "crooked, slimy Jew, who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race." He also expressed sympathy to the perpetrators of the Holocaust. ... Martin was featured on a Fox News broadcast about Obama in which Martin said Obama's work as a community organizer was 'training for a radical overthrow of the government.' ... "

Rep. Mark Kirk's sexual orientation questioned in GOP opponent's ad
By Rick Pearson
Chicago Tribune | December 29, 2009

A perennial candidate with a history of anti-Semitic rhetoric and legal disputes in federal court launched a radio ad for his Republican U.S. Senate campaign Monday that questioned the sexual orientation of the front-runner in the race.

Andy Martin, who has been sanctioned in federal court for filing hundreds of lawsuits and was found unfit to practice law by the Illinois Supreme Court, has previously used the airwaves to attack political opponents including presidential candidates George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

This time, Martin is going after North Shore U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, a much better-known candidate seeking the Feb. 2 Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat once held by Obama.

U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk meets with the Tribune editorial board to discuss his political positions. Kirk is seeking the Feb. 2 Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat once held by Barack Obama. (Tribune photo by Nancy Stone/December 14, 2009)

A Tribune poll in early December showed Kirk far ahead of the rest of his five rivals for the Feb. 2 Senate nomination, with 41 percent support. Martin had 2 percent backing while the combined support for Kirk's opponents was 13 percent. A total of 46 percent of GOP primary voters were undecided.

In the radio ad, which aired Monday on WGN-AM and WBBM-AM, Martin attributes a "solid rumor that Kirk is a homosexual" to conservative Republican businessman Jack Roeser. Martin's ad also claims that Raymond True, the chairman of the conservative Republican Assembly of Lake County organization, says Kirk has surrounded himself with homosexuals. The ad says Kirk should address the rumors.

Eric Elk, the campaign manager for Kirk, said in a statement that "the ad is not true and is degrading to the political process. The people of Illinois deserve better."

Pat Brady, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, issued a statement disavowing Martin's ad.

"His statements today are consistent with his history of bizarre behavior and often times hate-filled speech which has no place in the Illinois Republican Party," Brady said. "Mr. Martin will no longer be recognized as a legitimate Republican candidate by the Illinois Republican Party."

True said Monday that he "never made that statement" attributed to him by Martin. True said he appeared recently on a show hosted by Roeser on WIND-AM and "I made a comment not about him (Kirk) at all, but that there were some people on his (Kirk's) staff that had a special orientation."

"I never said Mark was a homosexual and there's no evidence to that fact," True said in a telephone interview.

On the WIND broadcast, Roeser criticized several Republicans for their support of gay rights and said of Kirk "a solid rumor is that he himself is homosexual," according to a podcast on Roeser's Web site.

Roeser was not available for comment. The longtime conservative activist, who has chafed at the leadership of the state Republican Party, has backed several failed GOP candidates in bids for statewide office.

Neither Roeser nor True has backed Martin in the GOP Senate primary.

For decades, Martin, previously known as Anthony R. Martin-Trigona, has sought a variety of public offices as a Democrat and as a Republican.

In Illinois, he received 34 percent of the vote in 2008 in losing a two-man race for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination to the little-known Steve Sauerberg. In 2006, he got less than 1 percent of the vote in a multi-candidate race for the Republican nomination for governor.

In federal court filings from the 1980s related to bankruptcy proceedings against him, Martin called one federal judge a "crooked, slimy Jew, who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race." He also expressed sympathy to the perpetrators of the Holocaust.

In 1999 when Martin ran for president, he aired a TV ad in New Hampshire that said GOP contender George W. Bush "had a cocaine problem" and suffered from "alcohol abuse."

Martin gained some attention during last year's presidential contest by contending President Barack Obama was a Muslim and contesting whether Obama was born in Hawaii. Martin was featured on a Fox News broadcast about Obama in which Martin said Obama's work as a community organizer was "training for a radical overthrow of the government." The Washington Post reported that a Fox News official later called Martin's appearance a "mistake" and said the guest had not been vetted properly.

Martin graduated from the University of Illinois law school, but the state Supreme Court in 1973 denied him admission to the bar and noted that his Selective Service record showed he had a "moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character."

The federal courts have repeatedly sanctioned him for what a U.S. district judge termed Martin's filing of "a substantial number of lawsuits of a vexatious, frivolous and scandalous nature."

In e-mail commentaries, Martin refers to himself as an "insurgent Internet powerhouse" and a "legendary Chicago muckraker, author, Internet columnist, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic." He has filed unsuccessful lawsuits against the Tribune, questioned the integrity of its reporters and said he would not cooperate with the newspaper regarding his Senate candidacy.

Martin indicated he would go after rumors about Kirk in e-mails he disseminated during the summer. Those e-mails corresponded with the announcement that Kirk and his wife of eight years, Kimberly Ann Vertolli, had agreed to a divorce. Kirk's former wife attended and endorsed Kirk at his Senate candidacy announcement in July.

Kevin Metheny, program director at WGN-AM, said the station had no choice but to air the commercial under federal communications law and Federal Communications Commission rules for political advertising.

Metheny said the station "is not allowed to edit or censor a candidate's political advertising, to limit it to a particular time of day, or to reject it as inappropriate." WGN-AM and the Tribune are both owned by Tribune Co.

WBBM-AM said on its Web site that the station is required by the FCC to provide all legally qualified federal candidates with "reasonable access" and to "air political advertisements without censoring them."

David Oxenford, an attorney specializing in broadcast law with the Washington-based firm of Davis Wright Tremaine, said stations are very limited in their ability to refuse political advertising based on content from a legally qualified federal candidate.

"Unless an ad is legally obscene or violates a felony (statute), a station can't censor it," said Oxenford, who has represented broadcasters for more than 25 years. Oxenford said the federal requirement makes stations immune from civil lawsuits, though candidates have faced lawsuits over making allegations that are false and known to be false in their advertising.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-kirk-martin-29-dec29,0,440249.story

John Birch Society, a Fascist Front, Back in GOP Fold

by psburton
Blogger News Network | December 24th, 2009

In a display of political rehabilitation surpassing even Richard Nixon’s return to power, the John Birch society has been invited back into the big tent of the Grand old party. For those unfamiliar with the John Birch society, it was a post war conservative tea party movement on steroids.

Birchers were so rabidly conservative, even republican President Dwight David Eisenhower was considered a willing pawn of the vast communist conspiracy, the league of women voters were commie inspired shrews and fluoridation of water, a secret plot by the Stalinist’s to bring about socialized medicine and render American men impotent.

Civil rights according to Brother John was no less than a dastardly plan to establish a Negro soviet state in the good old US of A, which tied in logically with the fluoridation of water. The Birch society could demonstrate with pie charts and graphs way back when, that poisoning of water with fluoridation would first occur in white dominated urban areas, resulting in sex starved white women seeking comfort in the arms of colored men, who as any wise Caucasian of the age knew, were naturally over endowed, leaving white men who hadn’t been rendered limp by fluoridation feeling physically inferior.

Brother John warned that if the Negro obtained civil rights, vast swaths of the American heartland would within a couple generations, become havens of miscegenation and Negro domination. Most historians credit the late William F. Buckley with exposing the Birch society for what they were and putting an end to their political aspirations and influence, they never went away of course, but like the K.K.K the leaders of the movement suffered a complete collapse of credibility, political fortune and intellectual influence. Because the Birchers went out of fashion prior to the advent of modern video and sound bite technology, I speculate the current Grand Poobah assumed he could simply claim the liberal media was engaged in a slander and smear campaign when the facts were reported.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported some of the facts I have passed along in this post, the society quickly threatened action, demanded a formal retraction from the network and denied it had ever been a collection of loons who were convinced Fluoridation of drinking water was a commie plot or that civil rights was a secret plan to establish a negro soviet state. Rachel happily allowed them a couple days of the news cycle to posture before she cited sources and documentation which I speculate she already had on tap when she first called them out hoping they would take the bait.

The Birchers of this generation may have erased or shredded any damming historical files and pamphlets the society posses, but it seems some folks kept boxes of old John Birch memorabilia. The current leaders of the GOP and conservative movement could care less the society is collection of rabid racists and intellectual half wits. Republicans smell blood in the water and they need warm bodies and cold cash as polls proclaim the President and his Party seem to quickly be losing favor with a majority of the electorate that will actually take time to vote in the midterms.

I would like to say it is not so, but the disconcerting augury remains, if we held the election tomorrow, the democrats would lose between fifteen and twenty seats and should the trend continue into the spring, summer and fall, cultivating enough seats to win back control of both the house and Senate is not an unrealistic goal to pursue. Well that’s my view yours may be different.

http://www.bloggernews.net/123347