There is an old Jewish joke that tells the story of a dying Jewish merchant who calls his son to his sickbed just before he perishes. He tells him, “Listen to me Moisha’le, life is not just about money… you can also do gold and diamonds.”

Monitoring Israeli and Jewish news reveals a devastating fact, it is not ‘just’ about money. It may also be about human organs. A few weeks ago we learned about a ring of American Rabbis who had been arrested in New Jersey upon suspicion of human organs trafficking (amongst many other crimes).  Rabbi Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, we read, enticed “vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 which he would turn around and sell for $160,000.” Not too bad, I thought to myself then. We are living in hard times, financial melt down, credit crunch, Wall Street is licking its wounds, the car industry is evaporating.  Seemingly, kidney trafficking is still booming.

In fact, the ring of the Rabbi in New Jersey didn’t take me by complete surprise. For years we have been hearing about Palestinians claiming that Israel is “deep into organ trafficking.” We also learned that the family of Alastair Sinclair, a Scottish tourist who hanged himself in an Israeli jail, “was forced to bring suit for his return with missing body parts.”

In 2002 the Tehran Times reported: “The Zionist state has tacitly admitted that doctors at the Israeli forensic institute at Abu Kabir had extracted the vital organs of three Palestinian teenage children killed by the Israeli Army nearly ten days ago. Zionist Minister of Health Nessim Dahhan said in response to a question by Arab member of the Zionist Parliament ‘Knesset’, Ahmed Teibi, on Tuesday that he couldn’t deny that organs of Palestinian youths and children killed by the Israeli forces were taken out for transplants or scientific research.”

But now the news about Israeli trafficking of human organ is spreading to Western mainstream media. Ynet, the biggest Israeli online newspaper, reported today that  “Leading Swedish daily Aftonbladet claimed in one of its articles that IDF soldiers killed Palestinians in order to trade in their organs.”

A few weeks ago we had a debate here on PTT whether Zionism is a colonial apparatus or not. One of the Materialist arguments against the perception of Zionism as a colonial practice was that Palestine has never been too attractive economically; it lacks oil, gold or minerals. However, this may change now. People who specialise in organ theft may find Palestine to be heaven on earth. In the light of the latest vastly spreading accusations, the Jewish national project maybe is colonial after all.

Though the Israeli government denies the accusation, and I myself far from being qualified to know what the truth of the matter is, one cannot deny that we are facing here a shift of consciousness within the Western discourse. At the end of the day, after watching the Israeli army dumping great quantities of white phosphorous on a civilian population in broad daylight, after seeing Israelis gathering gleefully en masse on the hills around Gaza just to watch their military spreading death and physical suffering in a genocidal manner, after reading that 94% of the Israelis supported the IDF military campaign against the elderly, women and children, most of whom were refugees with nowhere to escape and seek further refuge, organ theft seems to be a ‘light crime’.

Whether or not the Swedish paper’s accusations are genuine is yet to be revealed. However, one fact has already been established: after so many years of Western inclination to dance to the relentless crying violin of the Jewish melancholic victim serenade, the Western media is now changing its appetite, it is willing to confront Jewish institutional crime.

Rather than talking about the rise of anti-Semitism, we better discuss the growth of Jewish institutional crime.

NOTE: WE WILL HAVE THE TRANSLATION FROM SWEDISH INTO ENGLISH AVAILABLE LATER IN THE DAY

THIS IS THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE: http://www.aftonbladet.se/kultur/article5652583.ab

Related Posts:

• Where did Bernie Maddoff hide the $65 billion
• Fractures in the Truth Movement, Part II
• A Video Which Israel Does Not Want You See
• We Have The Moral High Ground
• To President Obama & All Our Government Leaders

Brandon Dean
WizardofOswald.com
August 3rd, 2009

“It’s not too cool to be ridiculed
But you brought this upon yourself
The world is tired of pacifiers
We want the truth and nothing else“

—Stevie Wonder

What is the “Truth Movement?”

What some contemporary writers and activists term the “Truth Movement” (loosely defined as those who search for truth behind government corruption) is actually an age-old phenomenon, which I refer to as the Generational Freedom Movement. I’ve written two parts of an ongoing series entitled “Heroes of the Generational Freedom Movement.” This series details, so far, two individuals I name heroes for their efforts to expose corruption. Namely: General George S Patton, and General Smedley Butler. They are both military men, but there is a reason I chose both. To read Part 1 click here. To read Part 2 click here.

Throughout the generations, from Spartacus to the traditional Irish Republican resistance to the British Crown, there has been a spirit of rebellion against oppression inherent in the human race. Throughout these same generations, the elite of the human race have been honing their skills of oppression. For in the modern “first” world we have a mental slavery to counter the direct, violent oppression of the third world. It would seem as though those with the illusion of freedom have the stronger chains. Rebellions and armed resistance are frequent where oppression is outright, and non-existent where “freedom reigns.”

Here in the first world, where communication is key–where propaganda is almost all-encompassing–we fight an information war. We demand and use our freedom of speech like third world farmers use their AK-47’s. We change policy with our speech.

There is a genuine opposition to the power elite in these united States. I’ve been a part of it for almost twenty years, in one form or another. When the BATF fire-bombed a church in Waco, Texas, it straightened my spine like an electroshock. The public anger was palpable. Those I found who sympathized with me referred to the burgeoning numbers of truth-seekers as the “Patriot Movement.” Militias sprang up all over the country–some of us were fed up to the point of preparing for the worst, should the BATF choose to treat us the same as they did those in Waco.

After 9/11/01, the patriot movement morphed from “kooky militiamen” to a more mainstream phenomenon, simply by attrition–9/11 was so huge it was bound to cause people to open their eyes and pay attention, and those who caused 9/11 knew this would happen…

Alex Jones

During the heady, grungy days of the mid-90’s (1996 to be exact)–Alex Jones sprang up out of the woodwork in Austin, Texas, a middle class, conservative-leaning loud mouth. For a few years he plugged away at his public access TV show, and garnered a modest audience interested in his “paleo-conservative” tirades. Jones has always heavily relied on theatrics, a style which has attracted quite an audience in the post-911 era. His emotional discourse draws out similar emotions in those who listen to him.

Jones helped rebuild the burned down Waco Branch Davidian church, but there is more than enough controversy surrounding his involvement in the project. Controversy seems to follow Alex Jones wherever he goes, and after years of the same shtick, one must wonder: “why the shtick?”

I can remember listening to Alex Jones’ radio show in 2001-2002, and there were many times when Jones’ would beg for people to call in, because the lines were empty. In other words, there were long years before Jones dared claim he was the “father” of the truth movement.

Alex Jones shot to prominence by appearing to sneak into the Bohemian Grove, an occult summer camp for the global elite. But it is painfully obvious he was allowed in to consolidate his place in the emerging truth movement.

He has always used to his radio and TV shows as platforms to vilify his critics. He regularly hangs up on anyone who disagrees with him, unless of course it’s the guest on the show. He will spinelessly suck up to his guest whether they agree with him or not.

Jones’ popularity has exploded in the last three to four years. He’s always somehow managed to sneak past the “cointelpro” censors at mainstream news networks, at least enough to get an interview with someone like Geraldo Rivera on FOX, as a representative of this “truth movement.” How convenient for Alex Jones that he gets to represent the truth movement on mainstream TV news! In my experience, only controlled opposition gets a coveted interview on CONTROLLED mainstream TV news. But hey, that’s just 19-years-of-me-paying-attention speaking–no need to heed my words or anything…

Unmoderated PrisonPlanet.tv Forums: The First Movement-wide Exposure of Alex Jones’ True Colors.

In May of 2007, the un-moderated PrisonPlanet.tv forums opened to paying members of PrisonPlanet.tv. I happened to be one of the original posters in these forums. There I came in contact with a few people whom I still talk to today. One of them is a WizardofOswald.com member; one “Francis Dade.” Now Francis Dade is a southern gentleman, and he was chastised by Alex Jones live on the air, for daring to defend the anonymity of pp.tv members.

In defense of this anonymity, demanded by most pp.tv members–which was null and void if your membership ran out (in other words, your real name would appear on your posts if your account was ended)–Francis Dade called into the Alex Jones show. The forums were un-moderated, which meant we couldn’t ask a moderator to help us fix any problems we had. we tried many avenues to get Jones’ attention without success, and calling in the show seemed the only possible avenue left.

“soupy dead children!”

A few of the members got through to the show, only to get berated and hung up on by Jones on air. But Jones was slightly thrown off by Francis Dade’s gentlemanly manner, and decided to let him speak. Francis Dade explained the situation, and Jones’ reaction was to scream at him that this was a non-issue, and there was nothing he could do about it. Francis Dade persisted, and Jones responded by calling his internet tech live on air to tell him condescendingly to “pull” the pp.tv forums and delete everything. Needless to say, many subscriptions were canceled directly after this incident, and some have even made it their mission in life to expose Alex Jones as a money-grubbing opportunist and scam artist.

Jeff Rense

Jeff Rense of Rense.com, in stark contrast to Alex Jones, maintains a very low profile (the above photo is the only one available of him on the internet), and encourages open debate. He encourages open debate by posting links to topics other “respectable” truth sites won’t touch. The only issue Rense.com seems to hammer home is the one subject Alex Jones (and many other “leaders” of the truth movement) won’t touch: Zionism and the supposed Jewish Holocaust of World War II. Where other major sites marginalize the Revisionist Movement (which has been around for sixty years longer than the current manifestation of the truth movement), Rense.com promotes investigation of Zionists and their fairy tales.

Mike Rivero

Mike Rivero of WhatReallyHappened.com has been in the truth movement since he discovered that the Clinton Administration was responsible for the death of then-president Bill Clinton’s chief of staff Vincent Foster. Rivero worked in the special effects side of the movie industry before there were computer effects, and he has worked on many many projects which required knowledge of graphically violent situations, scenery, and forensic accuracy. Seeing the broadcasted photo of the faked suicide of Foster, and knowing it for what it was, instantly turned Rivero into an activist for the truth. He has been hard at work exposing criminals ever since.

Rivero, like Rense, is unafraid to discuss the Zionist issue. And Rivero, like Rense, has for years been accused of “anti-semitism,” which is the pet-term of the Zionists for those who oppose them.

Other Names Emerge in the Truth Movement

Eric Hufschmid, who claims basically everyone works for the “Jews”–including Jeff Rense and Mike Rivero

Mike Ruppert, the disgraced “patriot” and ex-LAPD officer who attempted to rob his own offices in a lame attempt to garner more attention and support from “truthers,” and who subsequently fled the country, under the auspices that the “government” had chased him out under threat of bodily harm…

the “Loose Change” crew. In the center is Jason Bermas, a rabid “anti-racist” who screams at, vilifies, or otherwise shuts down any critical mention of Jews when possible, even though Jews are just people, and not above criticism, just like any other group of people.

In the ensuing years since 9/11/01, other “leaders” have emerged in different sectors of the truth movement, from the extreme right to the extreme left, and to what I would term the “extreme center.”

Two of the most prominent of these emerging leaders are Jeff Rense and Mike Rivero. These two have not only consistently shown themselves to be more concerned for the truth than their popularity, but they have also shown themselves to be the bigger men in a battle which is basically screaming for accusations and name-calling. More on that in a minute…

Most of these so-called leaders, however, have not shown themselves to be as open and reliable as Jeff Rense and Mike Rivero. I may not believe half the topics discussed on Rense.com, but I am open-minded and realistic enough to not deny something I myself have not researched, and to welcome opposing opinions to mine.

The Split Appears

In mid-April of this year, a caller to the Alex Jones Show asked Jones’ stand-in–Jason Bermas of Loose Change fame–about the fact that most of the television media is owned by Jews. Bermas exploded on the caller, and claimed that all those who believe that mostly Jews “own Hollywood” should electrocute themselves by getting in a bathtub and dropping in a toaster oven, because apparently we’re all Jew-haters. Which is funny, because I would have to hate part of myself to hate Jews, and I hate none of myself…

Texe Marrs, who has been a guest on the Alex Jones show for years, wrote an article about the incident, in which he stated about Bermas: “Quite a rampage by the supposedly “patriot” talk show host. And all because the poor caller had dared to propose undue Jewish influence over the media.”

Jeff Rense linked to Marrs’ article on Rense.com. Being that the article was obviously critical of Alex Jones, Jones flipped out and threatened to sue Jeff Rense and everyone else who criticizes him. Watch the following video clip:

Rense was fired from (or left) the Genesis Communications Network, which broadcasts many “patriot” radio shows, including the Alex Jones Show and the Jack Blood Show, some time in late March/early April.  Rense and Jones had an as yet unspecified fallout, and Jones’ pull is obviously what got Rense fired.

Brother Nathaniel Kapner of RealZionistNews.com

At the end of March, Brother Nathaniel Kapner of RealZionistNews.com wrote an article entitled “Is Alex Jones a Zionist Shill? Controversy Swirls” which was obviously critical of Jones. Kapner has emerged as a force in his own right within the truth movement since being linked to by Rense.com.

These two incidents have caused a fracture in the truth movement which is irreparable. Among those who have been involved in this movement for a long time (especially those who remember William Cooper), Jeff Rense is far more respected than Alex Jones. Alex Jones remains the best at drawing in audiences within the truth movement, however, with constant promotion of all sorts, including free promotion from rabid fans who pass out his DVDs, bumper stickers, and message on street corners and malls around the country.

The Death of Bill Cooper

William Cooper was a hero of the patriot movement of the 1980’s and 1990’s. In 1991, Cooper wrote what I still consider to be the definitive book relating to the current truth movement, entitled Behold a Pale Horse. His short wave radio show “Hour of the Time” aired for years, and encouraged thousands of others like myself to become more active in the future of these united States.

In June of 2001, Bill Cooper predicted the terrorist events of September 11th, 2001. In July of 2001, Alex Jones, who obviously listened to Bill Cooper’s show, but denies it to this day, also claimed he had “intel” that within a couple months of July terrorists would strike New York City. Bill Cooper watched the news and put two and two together, coming up with 4. Alex Jones, by contrast, had “intel” that bin Laden would strike. Coincidence?

Watch this video:

Bill Cooper Exposes Alex Jones as a Shill, and Dies 7 Weeks Later

On November 5th, 2001, Cooper was killed by undercover sheriff’s deputies in Arizona about 7 weeks after EXPOSING ALEX JONES AS A FRAUD, and almost two months after the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01,

Cooper had listened to Alex Jones’ broadcast on December 31st, 1999, and decided Alex Jones was controlled opposition. He spent months putting the audio clips of the Jones show together for his expose. Between Jones’ “Y2K show” and the subsequent interviews he gave that night and the next day, it became painfully obvious to Cooper that Jones was a scaremonger and opportunist, not to mention an outright liar.

The following clip is part 1 of Bill Cooper’s show exposing Alex Jones:

To hear parts 2 through 6, go here.

Bill Cooper’s death coincidentally paved the way for Alex Jones’ ensuing career success. Am I saying Alex Jones was involved in Cooper’s death? No, but I’m also not saying he wasn’t. I don’t know one way or the other–I just know it was extremely convenient for Jones’ career that Cooper died…

Zionism Versus the German Death Cult

So who has more influence in this country? An elusive Germanic Death Cult, with whom the only possible people to blame are the “front men” in government and corporations, or a zionist elite which pervades every aspect of the supposed Germanic death cult and more?

According to Jones, the world is controlled by a loose series of occult secret societies, which at some miraculous point in the future will all agree on one world government. But the problem is, if there’s no real cohesion between the New World Order affiliates, then to whom, and how and when are they going to decide to all of a sudden relinquish their hard-earned power? If there is no one to point to at the very top, then there is no one to point to at all. Those government and corporate “front men” Jones refers to could never be held truly responsible for their crimes if there is always an elusive superior who gave the order.

A serious look at US history will show even the dilettante a pattern of Zionists who pretend to be Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Republican, Democrat, American–anything but the creatures they are: godless zionist thugs. The fact that most of the banks, media, food manufacturing companies and social services in this country are owned and controlled by Zionists masquerading as upstanding Jews and Christians seems to have no effect upon the opinion of Alex Jones or Jason Bermas. They still claim the country is controlled by “death cults,” and Alex Jones has even claimed that “Hollywood is owned by the Arabs,” the notion of which Jew Ben Stein (and many others) laugh at.

Listen to Alex Jones claim that Hollywood is owned by the Arabs:

“Do Jews run Hollywood? You bet they do-and what of it?“

—Ben Stein

One of the hallmarks of oppression is controlled opposition. This entails injecting your man into your opposition, to be able to control that opposition. If you pay someone to spread false information, the chances of cohesive action against your plan disintegrates. Zionists are masters of playing both sides, as evinced through the Israelis’ mostly phony war with Hamas, which they played a major part in creating.

Zionism Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry

This fracture in the truth movement between the anti-zionists and the Alex Jones automatons was building gradually for a few years until Bermas blew the issue wide open on Alex Jones’ show in April. Since then the fracture has become a fissure, and the fissure will soon become a gulf.

Jones wishes to recruit every new possible “truther” into his “cointelpro” “zionism equals anti-semitism” world before they can search a little deeper into the non-moneyed world to discover the zionist beast. But with his money, duped from starry-eyed patriots who foolishly trust him to spend it on the “cause,” Jones has promoted himself and his scare-mongering, not the truth. He has proven himself the most skittish of mice, and has separated himself from the men with his ultimate treachery: the sacrilege of twisting the truth into a profit.

And while Alex Jones cries and moans and attempts to sue everyone on the planet who criticizes him, the two other major players in the truth movement–Jeff Rense and Mike Rivero–remain reticent in the face of conflict. Jeff Rense simply issued a humble statement regarding the issue, and Rivero looked the other way, wisely seeing it as a worthless distraction. Rivero still links to Jones’ material and appears as a guest on the Alex Jones Show, and has not made public (to my knowledge) his opinion on the matter..

But to those of us who don’t have the big names, and who live in the trenches of the battle for truth every day, the split widens, and the balance is coming over to our side. Alex Jones is now seeing his control slide away, and good riddance.

Zionism, with all of its different manifestations and evil, has lost its impervious way. The internet has shown its tactics the door, and now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag, the zionists are all a-fluster. Their time-honored tactics no longer avail them; in fact, their tactics now expose their true methods rather than covering them up.

Zionism’s controlled opposition to the truth movement has failed. They are desperate to regain the field, and I’m afraid they’ll do anything they believe will regain it. This is a dangerous time to be for the truth, but I will leave you with one final thought:

“I keep on fighting for the things I want
though I know that when you’re dead you can’t
but I’d rather be a free man in my grave
than living as a puppet or a slave”

—Jimmy Cliff

© Brandon Dean, 2009

(a special thanks to Raven for correcting me on a couple dates… Brandon)

Related Posts:

• Fractures in the Truth Movement, Part II
• Near-Perfect Jewish controlled “false opposition”
• Former Forum Moderator of PrisonPlanetTV.com The forum of Alex Jones Breaks His silence and Speaks Out!
• Travelling to Europe? Think Twice if you Question the Hollowcost…
• The State of Israel: Providence, Miracle, or What Really Happened, Part 1

34 Americans MURDERED, over 170 wounded. Survivors who tried to escape the bullets, shells, rockets, torpedoes and even NAPALM were machined gunned while trying to escape in life rafts.

Who did this foul deed? IRAN? NO……….. Syria? NO………

It was our good “friend” and only “ally” in the ME, ISRAEL.

Watch it now before it gets censored AGAIN, from Youtube or Google….. someone’s awful nervous about this truth getting out. Maybe they need to keep the American public in the dark and ignorant about that day which lives in infamy, June 8, 1967.

There’s a straight line from JFK’s murder on November 22, 1963 to the brutal and savage Israeli attack on the USS Liberty to the 1983 attack on that marine compound in Lebanon, to the USS Cole bombing to 9/11. And no amount of Zionist Holocaust™ fairy tales or forced worship at the altar of Israel is going to erase that line.

During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel attacked and tried to sink the USS Liberty belonging to its closest ally, the USA. In the two-hour assault by Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats, 34 American servicemen were killed and 171 wounded.

The Israeli story has always been that they mistook a modern US surveillance ship (flying the US flag) for an Egyptian boat. This excuse is not credible as this BBC documentary shows. A radio intercept officer recounts on camera that he heard the Israeli pilots twice warn their base that the ship was American. Fifteen years after the attack one of the pilots admitted this to the Washington Post and was arrested by Israel.

In 1997, retired Adm. Thomas Moorer accused the U.S. and Israeli governments of covering up evidence surrounding the 1967 Israeli attack on the American intelligence ship. Just before his death he asked president Clinton to pressure Israel admitting their deliberate attack.

Dead in the Water combines a dramatic reconstruction of the events with new access to former officers in the US and Israeli armed forces and intelligence services, who have decided to give their own version of events.

Interviews include President Lyndon Johnson’s Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, former head of the Israeli navy Admiral Shlomo Errell and members of the USS Liberty crew.

Dead in the water The Sinking of the USS Liberty is produced by the BBC, 2003.

Related Posts:

• The Kingdom of Lies
• Israel holds drill simulating all-out war
• MSM: Revealed – The secret report that shows how the Nazis planned a Fourth Reich …in the EU
• America’s “Money Machine”
• Who Murdered our beloved president, JFK?

Click for full size image

Click for full size image

Click for full size image

The wounded BATF man has been tentatively identified as BATF gent who shot himself in the leg while climbing a ladder. Note that he is being assisted from the area in full view of the upper floor windows of the church, apparently unconcerned with the possibility of gunfire from the occupants of the church.

The vehicle at the right is the horse trailer in which the BATF agents arrived for the raid. The top of it is canvas. It also shows no signs of any bullet holes, even though the Branch Davidians, had the been so inclined, would have been well advised to shoot through it to the BATF agents inside, and later, hiding behind.

The public has been told that the members of the church had .50 caliber rifles. Had they used them, the cars and trucks would have not stopped the bullets and there would be bullet holes on the sides of the vehicles facing the cameras where the rounds exited.

In short, there is nothing in these photos to support the suggestion that the members of the church were actually firing on the BATF at this point in the raid, let alone that the members of the church fired first. NEW! The following two photos are closeups of the bullet holes in the front door of the church. Note the snoothness of the edges, indicating that the bullets that made all these holes were traveling from the outside in, i.e. the BATF was shooting into the church but nobody was shooting out.

Click for full size image

Click for full size image One more photo.

Click for full size image

This is the remains of the inventory of guns kept at the church after the fatal fire. Note that the guns are stacked neatly against the wall, which means they were not being used to shoot at the FBI and BATF. Contrary to the image of a dangerous gun nut put out in the media in an effort to justify the burning of the church, official BATF records prove that David Koresch was rather harmless, so much so that the BATF agents invited him to go shooting with them just 9 days before they raided the church. Koresch supplied the ammunition. The BATF agents allowed Koresch to try out their weapons.

Here is the official BATF report.

Click for full size image

It turns out that Koresch was not fooled by the undercover BATF. During his 911 phone call as the BATF pumped lead into the church, Koresch referred to one of the men as an agent.

Click for wave file of the 911 call Click for full size image

One of those “dangerous crazed gun weilding Christians” who so abused the BATF. TWO OF THE CHILDREN JANET RENO “SAVED”.

> Kathrine Andrade before the government’s Mt. Carmel Raid

> Kathrine Andrade after the government’s Mt. Carmel Raid

> Shari Doyle before the goverment’s Mt. Carmel Raid

> Shari Doyle after the goverment’s Mt. Carmel Raid

Related Posts:

• A Nation Transformed by Fear!
• Incriminating Evidence Of Israeli War Crimes
• Heroes of the Generational Freedom Movement Part 2: General Smedley D. Butler By Brandon Dean
• Take Your Guns to Church — Jesus Commanded Bearing Personal Arms
• FDR’S New Deal v. Obamanomics in Their First 100 Days

ASMARA, Eritrea — One of the best kept secrets in the international media these days is the link between the USA, Ethiopia and the Somali pirates. First, a little reliable background from someone on the ground in the Horn of Africa.

The Somali pirates operate out of the Ethiopian and USA created enclaves in Somalia calling themselves Somaliland and Puntland. These Ethiopian and USA backed warlord controlled territories have for many years hosted Ethiopian military bases, which have been greatly expanded recently by the addition of thousands of Ethiopian troops who were driven out of southern and central Somali by the Somali resistance to the Ethiopian invasion.

After securing their ransom for the hijacked ships the Somali pirates head directly to their local safe havens, in this case, the Ethiopian military bases, where they make a sizeable contribution to the retirement accounts of the Ethiopian regime headed by Meles Zenawi.

Of course, the international naval forces who are patrolling the Horn of Africa know all too well what is going on for they have at their disposal all sorts of high tech observation platforms, ranging from satellites to unmanned drones with high resolution video cameras that report back in real time.

The French commandos started to pursue the Somali pirates into their lairs last year until the pirates got the word that for the right amount of cash they were more than welcome in the Ethiopian military bases in their local neighborhoods. Ethiopia being the western, mainly USA, Cop on the Beat in East Africa put these bases off limits to the frustrated navies of the world, who are no doubt growling in anger to their USA counterparts about why this is all going on.

Now that the pirates have started attacking USA flagged shipping, something that was until now off limits, it remains to be seen what the Obama administration will do. One thing we in the Horn of Africa have learned all too well, when it comes to Ethiopia, don’t expect anything resembling accurate coverage by the media, especially those who operate under the cloak of “freedom of the press.”

Stay tuned for more on this from the www.Onlinejournal.com, the only site willing to expose the truth on matters no one else will touch.

Thomas C. Mountain, the last white man living in Eritrea, was in a former life an educator, activist and alternative medicine practitioner in the USA. Email thomascmountain at yahoo.com.

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

This tiny fraction of the nation’s wealthiest people has owned government, pretty much continually, since the time of the first President Johnson. For those interested in learning more about the subject:

The Secret (Insurance) Agent Men

Bush Senior Early CIA Ties Revealed

Bush-Led ‘Disaster Capitalism’ Exploits Worldwide Misery to Make a Buck

The CIA and Riggs Bank

CIA Started by NAZI Sympathizers and Staffed by NAZIs…

I don’t have anything personal against the CIA, per se, just its bosses who’ve looted my grandkids’ future.

– Your Friendly Enemy of Fascism,

Octafish

Idit: I took the “ass” out of fascism.

Related Posts:

• MSM: Revealed – The secret report that shows how the Nazis planned a Fourth Reich …in the EU
• FDR’S New Deal v. Obamanomics in Their First 100 Days
• A Nation Transformed by Fear!
• America’s “Money Machine”
• Heroes of the Generational Freedom Movement Part 2: General Smedley D. Butler By Brandon Dean

Condolences to Mr. Connell’s family on this holiday season.

In many other countries this is kind of coincidence would have people spilling into the streets. The hotly disputed Ohio 2004 election count is what swung the election toward Bush, thus sealing our image in the world as fearful, hate-filled warmongers. 2000 came under the category “stuff happens.” In 2004 the world saw us actually re-elect this monster.

There is really no question that Mike Connell’s death has a smell of foul play that is apparent to anyone but the most Panglossian airhead. The fact alone that an experienced pilot’s death came just before he was to explain, under oath, what appears to have been the rigging of the 2004 Ohio vote. But when you figure in that the plaintiffs’ lead attorney in King Lincoln vs. Blackwell, Cliff Arnebeck, wrote a letter to Attorney General Mike Mukasey “seeking protection for Mr. Connell and his family from this reported attempt to intimidate a witness,” well the smell gets worse than a week-old mackerel in the bedroom closet in the summertime. The letter said Rove warned Connell to “take the fall.” And it doesn’t stop there.

Ohio’s CBS affiliate Action News 19 reported that Connell had been warned a couple of times not to fly. He had cancelled flight plans twice before. They have backed off from the report – gee, what Brown Shirt could have promised a nice weenie roast at the station, over a big bonfire?

Then you have motive. As Harvey Wasserman, the “conspiracy nut” who appears on Today, Nightline, National Public Radio, CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight wrote:

At 12:20 am on the night of the 2004 election exit polls and initial vote counts showed John Kerry the clear winner of Ohio’s presidential campaign. The Buckeye State’s 20 electoral votes would have given Kerry the presidency.

But from then until around 2am, the flow of information mysteriously ceased. After that, the vote count shifted dramatically to George W. Bush, ultimately giving him a second term. In the end there was a 6.7 percent diversion—in Bush’s favor—between highly professional, nationally funded exit polls and the final official vote count as tabulated by Blackwell and Connell.

Mark Crispin Miller was saying a full two months ago, on Democracy Now, just after the judge ordered Connell to testify:

Yeah, this event in a courtroom in Columbus may be one of the most important things to happen in this whole election and may be one of the most important things to happen in American history. I mean, this sounds hyperbolic, I know, but it is true.

Mike Connell is-has been named as Karl Rove’s computer guru since 2000. The lawyers in the case refer to Connell as a high-IQ Forrest Gump, because he’s been on the scene of every dubious election we’ve had over the last eight years, starting with Florida 2000.

As a result of Ohio’s 20 electoral votes going to Bush in 2004, the administration was able to complete its destruction of the Constitution, break the law countless more times, and keep spending the kind of money in Iraq which would pay for a couple of $700 billion bailouts at no further cost to us.

Hey, this is what happens when you have a congress that starts out its term by putting “impeachment off the table.” By never, ever, ever holding these people accountable, they start to think they can get away with anything. I venture that Connell might still be alive had a good, let’s-just-set-a-couple-of-things-straight impeachment hearing been held at some point, win or lose, over vote-rigging, an open admission of having authorized torture, the kidnap and torture of an American citizen, Jose Padilla, under a laughable theory of wartime powers that last forever, illegal NSA spying, betrayal of a covert American agent…can we blame them for thinking they can get away with anything? And this too.

The Republic disintegrates before our eyes. But it’s ok, Obama is elected, and this will be all forgotten in a few weeks, when, despite toothless talk about prosecution, all these people will skeedaddle into parts unknown with pardons in their pockets. They are only within reach right now.

Don’t worry, be happy.

There have always been mysterious deaths in politics, but usually it’s before the dots get too easy to connect. This is different. This was in broad daylight, with everyone watching, and the killers not caring one little bit. Wow. I mean really, wow.

Why aren’t Conyers, Kucinich, and Obama calling for congressional investigation? This was no ordinary court case, and a mighty convenient time to have a Wellstone. Conyers and Kucinich were named as recipients of the plea for some kind of protection. They were informed of the threats because the first thing you do if you are afraid something like this might happen to you is tell people who are high-profile, because you feel it might protect you. You’d feel that now they can’t touch you, or there would be a measure of justice if they do.

AUDIO OF AIR AMERICA’S THOM HARTMAN ON CONNELL

Conyers: 202-225-5126 Kucinich: (202) 225-5871 Obama: (202) 224-2854 ”Evil thrives when good men do nothing” Edmund Burke

Authors Website: http://ralphlopezworld.com

Authors Bio: Ralph is the author of a new book “Truth in the Age of Bushism.”

Related Posts:

• ORWELL’S 2009 – BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
• Bailout for the People
• FDR’S New Deal v. Obamanomics in Their First 100 Days
• 10 false flags operations that shaped our world
• An Open Letter to President Obama; Why Is Corporate America Destroying Our Economy?

By JUDY GUMBO ALBERT

We are forces of chaos and anarchy
Everything they say we are, we are
And we are very
Proud of ourselves.

–Jefferson Airplane, We Can Be Together

This is the inside story of how my late husband Stew Albert and I became prime suspects in CAPBOM, which is the FBI codename for the 1971 Weather Underground bombing of the United States Capitol Building in Washington D.C. Sarah Palin and her cohort of extreme right-wing really, really scary people used the Capitol bombing to link President-elect Obama with the not nearly as scary 1960s Weatherman and 1997 Chicago Citizen of the Year Bill Ayres.   At the time, my widely quoted take on the Capitol bombing was: “We didn’t do it, but we dug it.”

As a former 60’s protestor, celebrating with everyone else the results of this historic election, I’d like to give my personal point of view about the attacks on the 1960s that were made during the campaign – specifically “guilt by association” and “domestic terrorism.” And also to reflect a bit on how I feel about those issues today.

Wrong Place, Right Time

In the spring of 1971, on the day the Capitol bombing takes place, I’m living in our nation’s capital organizing an anti-war demonstration. Along with Stew, Abbie and Anita Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, his girlfriend Nancy Kurshan and satiric journalist Paul Krassner, I’m an original Yippie. Yippies believe in the politics of theatre. We call ourselves Groucho Marxists and use comedy to turn serious issues on their head.  We’re cultural revolutionaries who raise political awareness by having as much fun and getting as much media attention as we can. We’re a youth movement who doesn’t believe in hierarchy: every Yippie is her or his own leader. Our favorite Bob Dylan mantra is: Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and FederalReserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are not the first to throw money at Wall Street.  In the spring of 1968, Abbie, Jerry and the rest of us stopped trading on the New York Stock exchange when we threw $1 and $5 bills at greedy stockbrokers who grabbed at the money floating down from a balcony.  Yippies brought the New York Stock Exchange to a halt for a mere $250.

By the summer of 1968, at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, we’re running a pig named Pigasus for president as a send-up to protest the election and an unjust and illegal Vietnam War. In what is to become an iconic American moment, 15,000 of us — Yippies, mainstream anti-war demonstrators, the media and even a member of the British Parliament — are severely gassed and beaten by the Chicago police.

But three years later, by the time of the Capitol bombing, it’s becoming more and more difficult to find the fun in protest.  All of us in the anti-war movement are frustrated by the seemingly endless parade of atrocities being committed in Vietnam, which we see in living color at home on TV every night, and a recent campaign of deadly, intense carpet-bombing in Laos.

The Mayday Tribe

I’m staying temporarily in Washington DC, in a collective house at 2226 M Street.

Chicago Conspiracy 8 defendant and anti-war activist Rennie Davis, and at least 30 others live in the surrounding neighborhood. The M Street house is situated directly across the street from a red-brick fire station that, in addition to fire-trucks, is outfitted with surveillance cameras  so overtly visible in the front window that I occasionally lead a group of us out front just to dance and wave at the cameras.

We call ourselves the Mayday Tribe. Our name – Mayday — is intended to convey an urgent distress call about the war to the American people and motivate protestors to come to a demonstration scheduled for three months later.  We’re putting together a People’s Peace Treaty on behalf of the American public to draw attention to the Nixon administration’s obdurate refusal to make peace.  Our admittedly utopian demonstration slogan states: “If the government won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government.”

We predict thousands of people will take to the streets and block traffic to protest the war and this recent escalation in bombing.

At my initiation, Stew and I have officially broken off our two-year-old romance.  As I recall, I feel fine. Liberated in fact. I have no qualms about publicly labeling Stew an arrogant, patronizing, sexist, male chauvinist pig, which, looking back on it, was about 35% true, and 65% women’s movement PC rhetoric. Besides, we’re still on speaking terms. I realize he’s lonely without me and know I can still get him to do almost anything I want, so I ask him to come and visit from New York and bring with him, on the plane, a large satchel of high quality marijuana donated to the cause by a sympathetic New York City lawyer.  I’m trying to lighten things up by introducing some traditional Yippie medicinals into our ultra-serious organizing effort.

The Day of the Bombing

Early in the morning of Monday March 1, the M Street phone rings. We’re told that members of the Weather Underground, originally known as Weatherman, (from Bob Dylan’s prophetic mantra “You don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows”) are taking credit for placing a bomb in an out-of-the-way men’s bathroom. The Weathermen say:

We have attacked the Capitol because it is, along with the White House and the Pentagon, the worldwide symbol of the government which is now attacking Indochina.

When I first hear this news, I feel exhilarated. Irrationally exuberant in fact. My reaction is documented by an unknown person, possibly an informant who, in a later legal affidavit, describes me and the others in M Street as “exultant” – which is not so far removed from my own recollection. But why, you quite rightly ask — and I ask myself the same question — did I feel so positive about this act — especially when placing a bomb is something I could never do – or did – myself?

As an anti-war activist, I considered dissent to be patriotic. Still do. At the time of the bombing, I felt like I was rooting for David in the face of Goliath. I saw the Weathermen as courageous enough to take the lead in our very own, 60’s style Boston Tea Party.  In my view, they blew up a U.S. Capitol bathroom on my behalf and on behalf of the entire anti-war movement. And I appreciated that they did so for the most compelling of reasons — to stop the endless, brutal killing war in Vietnam and Laos.  Which is why I could, in good conscience, make the statement: “We didn’t do it, but we dug it.”

Hands Up!

Immediately after the bombing, M-street house surveillance intensifies. Firemen swarm.  Burly new guys start hanging around outside the firehouse. They don’t look and weren’t even dressed like firemen. Stew and Leslie Bacon, a young, anti-war activist friend, decide to take a walk to Lafayette Park, directly in front of the White House. Beyond the macho of it, I can’t speculate about Stew’s motives. Most likely I disapproved because, at that particular moment in our on-again, off-again relationship, almost anything he said or did was enough to provoke my disapproval.

As the tension-filled, day-after-bombing dragged on, it became increasingly clear to me that there was no time like the present to get the hell out of Dodge.

Leslie chooses to remain in DC.  I grab Stew, Colin and Michael, two other M Street residents, plus a couple of bags of clothing and we hop into my 1969 dark blue VW Beetle named “Lindequist.” (When I bought the car I found the previous owner’s name “Lindequist”, inscribed on the dashboard; I currently drive Lindequist 3.) A few blocks into our getaway I realize I’ve forgotten my all-time favorite hat – a fisherman’s cap made out of fluffy brown Canadian beaver pelts with a brown leather front brim.   Stew and I immediately get into a huge fight. Stew, the pragmatist, now recognizes the wisdom of leaving town as quickly as possible. I, the Yippie fashionista, will not leave my favorite hat to the mercy of the pigs. It’s my car, I’m the driver: we circle back. I run in, save my hat and, Keystone Cops like, we once again beat a retreat. There’s no PETA yet to make my hat a political issue.

But in the early evening, just we’ve reached the outskirts of Baltimore, I suddenly notice flashing lights behind me. I pull Lindequist over and hear a loud, gruff male voice coming over a loudspeaker “get out of the car with your hands up.” Shotguns at our heads, the four of us are quickly spread eagled against the VW.  Colin is shaking so hard I think he might pee himself – but he doesn’t.  The boys are put in one police car; I’m alone in another for what feels like hours. I’m buzzy with adrenaline and really bored sitting alone in my personal Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome cage. I can’t see much except cops and the boys’ heads in front of me in the other car, so all I can do is bite my nails and obsess. Lindequist and the satchels are thoroughly searched. Eventually we are released and, in true Yippie absurdist fashion, are given a ticket for a bald tire by a local highway patrolman who signs his name James Bond

We’re not Weathermen. It literally didn’t occur to me we were being stopped because of the Capitol Bombing.   I am really grateful we left the marijuana back in DC.

What Happens to Leslie

Five days before Mayday, on April 28, Leslie, who at the time is 19 years old, is arrested in Washington D.C. by the FBI and appears a few days later before Judge John Sirica, later of Watergate fame. Leslie is taken to a Seattle hotel where she is held captive in a room for weeks, with no access to family or friends, only to lawyers.  She is questioned harshly about the Capitol bombing but there’s nothing she can tell them because there’s nothing she knows.  On May 1, the Weathermen make public a communiqué addressed to Leslie’s mother:

Your confidence in Leslie is justified because she is completely innocent of any involvement in the bombing of the US Capitol. We know this for a fact because, as the FBI and Justice Department well know, our organization did the bombing.

Leslie said to me recently that her mother, an upscale, conservative, California homemaker, told the national and international press staking out their Atherton home:

I don’t see why everyone is so upset about someone blowing up a building when the government is blowing up people.

Standard operating procedure for FBI agents and prosecutors, then and now, is to target young women who they consider potential “weak links” in an evidentiary chain and most likely to give up information. These young women become their special victims. I’ve come to believe that Leslie’s kidnapping, imprisonment and resulting unwanted national media attention, was the moral equivalent of a rape.  The federal prosecutor and the FBI violated a 19 year old woman’s trust and privacy, and, even though today Leslie is teacher and grandmother, this incident still poisons her sense of security and well- being.

Facing My Fear

I learned at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968 that, when you’re in a true “face your fear” moment, you need to take action. Don’t delay. Don’t procrastinate. Don’t over think the consequences. By facing your fear, you can discover inside yourself the courage to take your life – and your freedom — into your own hands.

This is one such moment. My mantra serves me well.   By the time I drop Stew off in New York City, check in with the marijuana-donating lawyer for free legal advice, and drive back home to Boston, I’ve talked myself into believing I’ve emerged from this incident shaken but unbowed.

In Boston, as my FBI files later reveal, agents have evicted my next door neighbor and ensconced themselves in an adjoining apartment. A group of Boston women, me included, take over a building at 888 Mass. Ave and turn it into a women’s center. The takeover becomes a springboard for the women’s demonstration that preceded Mayday — the April 10 Women’s March on the Pentagon.

The march attracts no more than 500 women — but the contingent I lead marches under a beautiful purple Janis Joplin banner.

Monday May 3, 1971 — Mayday

Our Mayday demonstration doesn’t stop the war – or the government.

The day before the demonstration, rock concert permits are cancelled. Police, reprising Chicago 1968, and presaging the 2008 Republican Convention, teargas as many demonstrators as they can; they destroy tents and use other coercive tactics to force protestors to leave a day early. Many do.

The remaining demonstrators begin assembling at 6 a.m.  When it’s time to get up, I make a strategic decision, based purely on personal sloth, to let myself and my Boston affinity group sleep in — we’d been smoking too much of that dope and partying the night before. By the time we arrive downtown, streets are empty.  Traffic is flowing smoothly. Stew and Abbie are among 7,000 demonstrators already arrested and locked up in an emergency detention center next to RFK stadium.  Some claim Mayday is the largest mass arrest in U.S. history.

For me, Mayday is a bust. No pun intended. And it’s my own fault.

My failure of leadership is what my new fiancé David calls an AFOG – another f—-g opportunity for growth.  It’s a harsh lesson that stays with me:  don’t wimp out just before the end is in sight.  Follow through on your commitment. No excuses. And never, ever smoke really strong dope the night before a big demo. Duh.

Guilt By Association

Three weeks after Mayday, Stew receives his subpoena to a Grand Jury investigating the Capitol bombing. He burns it publicly in New Haven to support Black Panther Party Chairman Bobby Seale, who is on trial there at the time.

I receive my Grand Jury subpoena in Boston a few days after Stew. Why me?  Perhaps no-one got the memo that Stew and I had broken up. Or perhaps the FBI was pissed about my arrogant, fuck you dance in front of the cameras on M-Street’s front porch. Or maybe the Feds just wanted to “round up the usual suspects.”

The eminence gris federal prosecutor responsible for all grand juries investigating Weather Underground bombings is a smartly dressed, slick-haired man named Guy Goodwin. Goodwin also convened a grand jury to investigate another equally false allegation — that Rev. Phil Berrigan and Elizabeth McAllister, a nun, are plotting to kidnap President Nixon’s evil national security advisor Henry Kissinger. He harassed Vietnam Veterans Against the War so much that, in 1972, they filed a $1.8 million civil suit against him.

My first response to my Grand Jury subpoena is to go numb.  I’m facing a possible 20 year sentence.  My “face your fear” mantra just doesn’t cut it. Denial works a whole lot better.  Stew writes that I:
buried the great fear deep in her soul and beamed smiles that would bounce off the moon…but underneath the smiles, Judy was truly terrified. Even though we had officially parted, I knew that I still loved her, which meant that I had to look out for her so that, as a strange Canadian in a stranger America she would not come to harm.

On a PBS interview all I can say about being subpoenaed is: “It’s annoying. Uncool. But our lawyers will take care of it. Nothing to worry about.”  Perhaps it’s a positive thing I grew up in a dysfunctional, alcoholic family – repression and denial are terrific short-term survival techniques for really tough times.

We Didn’t Do It But….

Pretty soon my inner Yippie re-emerges and my “face your fear” mantra kicks in.  Stew and I decide the appropriate Yippie response is to hold a press conference in front of the Capitol Building.

Stew invites Jerry Rubin along for both his expertise and moral support.  Abbie and Jerry believed passionately in the 1960s communications guru Marshall McLuhan’s dictum that the medium is the message — which led them to measure their success by how much media coverage they got and how frequently they got it. For all the time I knew them, and up until their deaths, a defining aspect of the Abbie/Jerry relationship was their constant competition with each other for the media spotlight. Manipulating the media to expose establishment hypocrisy was a primary Yippie value.

I paint my forehead with a Weather Underground Rainbow, cover one cheek with a woman’s symbol, the other with an NLF (otherwise known as Viet Cong) flag and I put a green marijuana leaf on my chin. And yes, that is a cigarette I’m smoking in the photo – I quit for good a few years later. In my press statement I quote a Weatherman communiqué that says:

The Weather Underground bombed the Capitol to bring a smile and a wink to all the kids in America who hate their government.

Then I pull off my 15 minutes of fame by adding: We didn’t do it but we dug it.

It’s obvious to me, almost 40 years later,  that Sarah Palin did a remarkable job getting global media attention for Bill Ayres and his associational link to the Capitol bombing – way better than Billy, the Weather Underground, Stew, Jerry or I ever accomplished at the time.  If Palin wasn’t a neo-fascist, I might consider giving her a Yippie Excellence in Media Manipulation award.

In the time immediately preceding our Grand Jury appearances, Stew and I are so overtly hostile to each other that we become famously difficult to be around.  Observers who witnessed what Stew and I came to call our “pussycat fights” – meow, hissssss, scratch,  pose – are horrified. In the photograph with Colin, I can’t tell if I’m gazing at Stew adoringly, or whether I’m just about to yell at him for some real or imagined sexist act. It’s clear to me now that Stew and I needed to break up, intensely and publicly, to allow us to get back together with each other as full and equal partners.  Which we did two years later — and remained together until Stew’s death on January 30, 2006.

In the summer of 1971, I arrive to make my one time appearance before the Grand Jury dressed like a witch and surrounded by a contingent of women. In fact I am a member of W.I.T.C.H. — an early New York City based women’s liberation group appropriately named the Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell. Back then, you could use the word terrorist in a joke and not be labeled unpatriotic.

I walk into an old, dimly lit New York City in my long witchy dress, alone but unintimidated.  Two rows of older men and women, black and white, arms crossed, stare stonily at me. On our lawyers’ advice I refuse to testify. Instead I cite Constitutional Amendments 1, 4, 5, 6 and 9. These numbers are indelibly imprinted in my memory – although, as a Canadian, I was at the time a little fuzzy about what each Amendment actually stood for. But now I get it why America’s founders gave us freedom of speech and due process. It’s another reason I consider myself a patriot – just like Abbie and Anita who named their son America.

A few months after my Grand Jury appearance, our subpoenas are quashed — I assume because they can find no evidence of wrongdoing.  That guard who claimed to Guy Goodwin he saw Stew at the Capitol building was either set-up, a liar or befuddled – or perhaps he conflated the historic Capitol building with Lafayette Park. It’s a huge relief. Guilt by association loses out to the real world. In the 1980s, in an act of true Yippie bravado, I buy a car with the proceeds of our successful lawsuit against the FBI and get for it a “CAPBOM’ license plate.

Reframing “Domestic Terrorism”

The recent media hysteria about the Capitol bombing has prompted me to revisit, if not re-consider, how I feel today about my long ago “didn’t do it, but dug it” statement. It’s one of those situations where I really miss Stew’s advice and counsel. What would Stewie say?

In the 1980s, shortly after Stew and I moved to Portland, Oregon, I was driving down a street and saw some picketers. My initial gut response is to identify with the protestors, to honk my horn in support, but as I get closer I realize they are anti-choice fanatics picketing what turns out to be the Planned Parenthood affiliate where I will later be employed. The anti-abortion fundamentalists and right-wing extremists – that same breed of bottom feeder who sent hundreds of e-mail death threats to Bill Ayres — have it all over the Weather Underground when it comes to domestic terrorism.

Lest we forget, just over a decade ago this country witnessed a horrific killing spree carried out by our very own, home grown American terrorists: in 1993, abortion provider Dr. David Gunn was assassinated; Dr. John Britton, another abortion provider, was shot in 1994; in that same year 25 year old Planned Parenthood receptionist Shannon Lowney and women’s clinic worker Leanne Nichols were murdered within hours of each other.  In 1995, in the worst case of domestic terrorism this country has ever seen, right wing racist gun nut Timothy McVeigh and two of his “pals” killed 168 people including 19 children by setting a bomb in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.  In 1998, an anti-choice fanatic killed abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian.

The Weathermen bombed bathrooms. They destroyed property.  Which is why calling them “domestic terrorists” doesn’t resonate with me. In every case of a Weather Underground bombing there was an advance call warning people to get out of the building.  The Weathermen who died were three of their own.  Conflating Bill Ayres and the Capitol bombing with Osama Bin Laden’s terroristic destruction of the Twin Towers feels like an enormous truth stretch.  It disrespects those who died.

I’m a widow. I’ve experienced the excruciating pain brought on by death of your loved one. I can’t condone action that results in the death of human beings.

In my humble opinion, members of the Weather Underground turned into purists who came to so completely idealize and romanticize the liberation struggles of anyone who was African-American, Vietnamese, or what we used to call “third world” that they fell into an uncritical objectification of violence for its own sake.  Their stated doctrine of “lead by example,” resulted in groups attempting to imitate Weather tactics with devastating results. In 1970, an unaffiliated collective bombed the University of Wisconsin’s Army Math building, tragically killing a researcher.  In the 1980s, a rogue splinter group that included former Weathermen killed a guard and two policemen in a disastrous, bungled robbery of a Brinks truck. Most of them are still in jail.

Personally, I feel this may be an appropriate moment for truth and reconciliation. Even if Henry Kissinger and surviving members of the Nixon war machine aren’t going to repent and atone for the enormous death and destruction they wreaked on Southeast Asia, I believe it’s time for former Weather Underground leaders to publicly acknowledge the collateral deaths, in addition to the deaths of their own comrades.  And then they should be forgiven – and forgive themselves.

Judy Gumbo Albert is an original member of the 1960s countercultural anti-war group known as the Yippies.  Judy is co- author of The Sixties Papers: Documents of a Rebellious Decade (Greenwood Press, 1984) and The Conspiracy Trial (Bobbs Merrill, 1970). For many years Judy was an award winning fundraiser for Planned Parenthood. She is currently living in Berkeley, California writing a memoir titled “Yippie Girl”. Her chapter about the Battle of Chicago, 1968 can be found at http://www.counterpunch.org/albert08282008.html.
Judy can be reached at yippiegirl@gmail.com.

Related Posts:

• ORWELL’S 2009 – BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
• Bailout for the People
• The Shadow Money Lenders: The Real Significance of The Fed’s Zero-Interest-Rate Policy
• 10 false flags operations that shaped our world
• America’s “Money Machine”

By BRADLEY SIMPSON

The presumptive appointment by President-elect Barack Obama of retired Admiral Dennis C. Blair as his new Director of National Intelligence is being greeted with cheers by the national media, which hail his experience, bureaucratic infighting skills and comparatively moderate views on national security issues. The New York Times, in a recent profile, seemed much impressed by the fact that the 34-year Navy veteran once water skied behind an aircraft carrier, in addition to his stints with the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Institute for Defense Analysis (from which he resigned in 2006 over conflict of interest charges involving the F-22 raptor).

But human rights supporters are right to be worried that Dennis Blair will hardly lead the charge for reform in the nation’s intelligence community after the Bush Administration’s embrace of torture, rendition and other crimes. For in the period leading up to and following East Timor’s August 1999 referendum on independence from Indonesia Blair, from his perch as US Commander in Chief of the Pacific (CINCPAC) from February 1999 to May 2000, ran interference for the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) as they and their militia proxies committed crimes against humanity on an awesome scale.

Following the ouster of long-time dictator Suharto in 1998, Indonesian president B.J. Habibie signaled that Indonesia would be willing to allow East Timor an up or down referendum on independence following 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation. The Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI), hoping to sway the vote in Jakarta’s favor, launched a campaign of terror and intimidation led by the Army, Police and local militia proxies in which they killed hundreds of people displaced tens of thousands, most infamously on April 6, 1999, when militia forces massacred 57 Timorese in a church at Liquica on the outskirts of the capitol Dili.

Two days after the massacre, the Pentagon dispatched Blair two days later to meet with Wironto and demand that he disband the militias and allow a fair vote in East Timor. Instead, Blair offered assurances of continued US support for the TNI and invited Wironto to Pacific Command Headquarters in Hawaii as his personal guest. According to top secret CIA intelligence summary issued after the massacre, however (and recently declassified by the author through a Freedom of Information Act request), “Indonesian military had colluded with pro-Jakarta militia forces in events preceding the attack and were present in some numbers at the time of the killings.” A Top Secret Senior Executive Intelligence Brief from April 20, 1999 stated plainly that “to restore stability, the Indonesian security forces must stop supporting the militias and adopt a neutral posture.” A Top Secret CIA Intelligence Report dated May 10, 1999 reported that “local commanders would have required at least tacit approval from headquarters in Jakarta to allow the militias the blatant free hand they have enjoyed.” Blair’s performance, which prompted a rebuke by the State Department, was part of a fierce bureaucratic struggle between the Pentagon and State Department and Embassy officers seeking to reign in the TNI’s terror.

Immediately after the August 30, 1999 referendum, in which nearly 80 per cent of Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia, TNI forces and their militia proxies launched a murderous scorched earth campaign, killing nearly 1,500 Timorese, forcing a third of the population from their homes and destroying most of the territory’s infrastructure. Following a global outcry and enormous pressure from Congress and grassroots activists, President Clinton finally severed military ties on September 8, with Dennis Blair personally conveying news of the cutoff to General Wironto.

By this point the TNI’s – and by extension Wironto’s – control of the terror operations in East Timor was being widely acknowledged internally by both State Department and CIA sources. On September 10 the US Embassy in Canberra, Australia dispatched a secret telegram to Washington reporting in the subject line that that the TNI was “controlling and assisting militia” in East Timor. Yet in Pentagon news briefing two weeks later Blair continued publicly to push the ‘bad apple’ line – characterizing the TNI’s deliberate destruction of East Timor and murder of hundreds of people as “a bad breakdown of order with some elements of TNI contributing to it and not helping it.” He went on to insist that US training of the Indonesian Armed Forces had paid dividends, with “many of those officers who did have training and education in the United States … are leading a very strong reform movement within TNI.” As Dana Priest of the /Washington Post/ later reported, however, fully one third of the Indonesian officers indicted by Indonesia’s national human rights commission for “crimes against humanity” committed in East Timor in 1999 were US trained. Wironto, also indicted, is now considering a run at the Indonesian presidency in 2009. The clear links between US training and TNI terror clearly did not trouble Blair, who spent much of his remaining time as CINCPAC fighting to restore the military ties to his allies in Jakarta that grassroots activists and their Congressional allies had worked since 1992 to sever, finally winning their resumption in 2002.

Blair’s apologetics for murder and torture by the Indonesian armed forces in East Timor, and his opposition to trials, international or otherwise, for the high level perpetrators of mass violence, offers a sobering indication of the positions he is likely to take as Director of National Intelligence. President-elect Obama’s choice suggests that he will resist – as Blair almost certainly will – demands for the prosecution of high-ranking Bush Administration officials, much less lower level employees in the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency, for torture, rendition and other crimes carried out in the name of the so-called War on Terror.

Bradley Simpson is an assistant professor of history and international affairs at Princeton and Director of the  Indonesia and East Timor Documentation Project. He has just published Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968. He can be reached at  bsimpson@princeton.edu

Related Posts:

• 10 false flags operations that shaped our world
• ORWELL’S 2009 – BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
• Career Army officer sues Rumsfeld, Cheney, saying no evacuation order given on 9/11
• Bailout for the People
• The Posse Comitatus Act and Homeland Security

The death last week of W. Mark Felt — Bob Woodward’s secret source, indelibly dubbed “Deep Throat,” who played such a crucial role in this newspaper’s Watergate reporting — coincided with the appearance of Richard M. Nixon, as played by Frank Langella, on local movie screens. As I watched Langella’s Nixon being interrogated about the conspiracy and coverup by Michael Sheen’s David Frost in “Frost/Nixon,” I relived strong memories. And Felt’s death raised the inevitable question: Could the kind of reporting that Woodward and Carl Bernstein pulled off be done today, more than three decades later, in the age of the Internet?

For many reasons, I believe it could. But it would probably play out quite differently.

There are still whistle-blowers like Felt in government today — probably many more than there were back then. They are encouraged by various public employees’ organizations and protected by whistle-blowers’ legislation enacted after Watergate. And they have many more investigative reporters to talk to — not only at newspapers, despite deep and worrying cuts in newsroom staffs, but also many other media outlets, including investigative Web sites and blogs.

Numerous confidential government and other insider sources have helped Washington Post reporters with investigative stories in recent years, about everything from the CIA’s secret interrogation sites for terrorist suspects to mismanagement at the Smithsonian Institution. Unnamed whistle-blowers assisted many news organizations, led by Joshua Micah Marshall’s investigative blog, Talking Points Memo, in uncovering a pattern of Justice Department firings of U.S. attorneys across the country for apparently political reasons.

Just as it was with Mark Felt and other confidential sources used by Woodward and Bernstein in their Watergate reporting, few of these officials simply seek out journalists and spill all the beans. They usually have to be painstakingly pursued and wooed, and they often are wary of providing more than snippets of information that must be pieced together over time from numerous sources for the most explosive stories. Still, it happens every day in Washington, during every administration.

But two young local reporters chasing hunches and scraps of information about a criminal conspiracy involving the highest officials in government, including the president? Could that really happen again?

There’s no reason why not, even though so much has changed since 1972. New technology actually makes investigative reporting somewhat easier. We can now use computers and the Internet to search records and other information, and we can use pre-paid cell phones for conversations with confidential sources. Of course, an administration under siege would also have more sophisticated resources for investigating leaks and marshaling counter-attacks in the news media and the blogosphere.

Reporters working today on a story such as Watergate would be unlikely to be left relatively alone, along with their sources, for as long as Bob and Carl were. Now, from day one, the story would be all over the Internet, and hordes of reporters and bloggers would immediately join the chase. The story would become fodder for around-the-clock argument among the blowhards on cable television and the Internet. Opinion polls would be constantly stirring up and measuring the public’s reaction.

So the conspiracy and the cover-up would unravel much more quickly — and their political impact would probably be felt much sooner. Nixon was re-elected five months after the burglary in 1972, and Watergate was not much of an issue during the campaign. That would not happen today.

In an age when the media have been turned upside-down by the biggest shifts in audiences and economic models since the advent of television, my two biggest questions about whether we could still pursue a story like Watergate center on resources and verification. Many Americans, including opinion leaders in Washington and elsewhere, simply didn’t or wouldn’t believe The Washington Post’s reporting about Watergate during its early months — not until we were joined by the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS News, Judge John J. Sirica, the Senate Watergate committee and the special Watergate prosecutor.

In today’s cacophonous media world, in which news, rumor, opinion and infotainment from every kind of source are jumbled together and often presented indiscriminately, how would such an improbable-sounding story ever get verified?

As newsrooms rapidly shrink, will they still have the resources, steadily amassed by newspapers since Watergate, for investigative reporting that takes months and even years of sustained work.

These questions are not just about holding presidents accountable to the American people, as vital as that is. The answers could affect anyone whose conditions could be helped by great journalism, such as the wounded Iraq veterans whose care at Walter Reed Hospital has been greatly improved because of investigative reporting by Dana Priest and Anne Hull in this newspaper.

Despite the fame that came to Woodward and Bernstein after the book and movie “All the President’s Men,” these questions aren’t about the greater glory of journalists either. In fact, Woodward, Bernstein and The Post were under almost constant attack during the early days of Watergate. Near the end of “Frost/Nixon,” when Langella’s Nixon refers to those “sons of whores” in the news media, a friend turned to me and whispered, “He’s talking about you.” I played only a supporting role in editing some of our Watergate coverage, but even after all these years, that still felt good.

Leonard Downie Jr. was executive editor of The Washington Post for 17 years. His novel, “The Rules of the Game,” will be published next month.

Related Posts:

• 10 false flags operations that shaped our world
• Bailout for the People
• America’s “Money Machine”
• The Zionist Nexus Linking 9-11 and the Financial Crisis
• FEMA Concentration Camps: Locations and Executive Orders

A new congressional report is belatedly confirming what many have long known: that the White House and in particular then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, lied to Congress in 2004 when he told them the Bush administration was not repeatedly warned by the CIA not to make the claim that Saddam had tried to buy uranium ore from Niger.

What is astonishing about this report, which documents that the CIA at least four times tried to prevent Bush and other top officials from presenting that lie to Congress and the American public in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, is not that it documents what has long been known, but that Congress and the corporate media are still pretending that the claim itself was an acceptable justification for launching a war.

Set aside for the moment the fact that the claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium ore (so-called yellowcake) from the desert nation of Niger was based upon forged documents which were almost certainly the work of Defense Department hacks in the Rumsfeld/Cheney-created Office of Special Plans (see my book The Case for Impeachment). Even if this fraudulent deal had been real, how on earth could it have been used as it was by President Bush and Vice President Cheney to justify an invasion of Iraq?

Consider that what was being asserted was that Iraq had attempted (not even succeeded!) to buy 400 tons of uranium ore. This claim was used by President Bush, in his Jan. 20, 2003 State of the Union address, to argue that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. But in the case of a country that does not have a nuclear weapon, a program is years away, perhaps a decade or more away, from the reality of having a usable weapon.

As we have seen in the case of Iran, which has been refining uranium ore now for at least five years, the mere fact of possessing uranium ore, and even of having a quantity of gas centrifuges to refine out the minute quantities of the fissionable isotope U-235 are only the first and, technologically speaking, the easiest, steps towards actually constructing a bomb. (Experts say that after all this time, even if it is actually trying to build a nuclear bomb, which the Iranian government denies, the country remains years from that alleged goal.)

If Bush and Cheney had not been lying through their teeth, and Saddam had actually been buying yellowcake for the purpose of making a nuke weapon, he would still have had to obtain large numbers of centrifuges, would have had to power them up and run them for years, and would have then had to obtain the technology to build and test a bomb, none of which steps he was even alleged to have taken.

Yet Bush was claiming that there was an imminent threat to America posed by Saddam Hussein’s yellowcake purchase effort, and that an invasion had to be launched almost immediately. He used the term imminent because that is the legal requirement in the UN Charter, to which the US is a signatory and which is based upon the Nuremberg Charter established at the end of the Second World War. It states that no nation may invade another nation unless that nation poses an imminent threat to the would-be invader.

The yellowcake story, now definitively shown to have been a deliberate lie, even if true, could not have constituted such an imminent threat.

Yet not once has this key point been addressed by any member of Congress who voted to authorize an invasion. Nor does the point get mentioned in mainstream journalistic reports on the matter.

Average Americans, nearly half of whom reportedly believe that the earth was formed just 6000 years ago and a fair proportion of whom believe that the sun revolves around the earth, might be excused for not understanding this point, but clearly intelligent members of Congress like former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry and future secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who both claim they might not have voted for war “had they had known then what they know now,” are themselves caught in a lie.

They and other war backers clearly knew in 2002 and 2003 that the yellowcake story, even if true, was no justification for war. So did editors and reporters (like Judith Miller and Michael Gordon of the New York Times, for example).

I have yet to see a single US corporate media outlet explain that the yellowcake story was simply never a justification for war. It will probably never happen, and yet many analysts have said it was that claim by Bush, Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others (remember her dark warnings about not wanting a “smoking gun” to be a “mushroom cloud”?), more than any other that stampeded the nation into a war that has cost over $1 trillion over five years, and over 4000 US lives and one million innocent Iraqi lives.

Bush, Cheney, Rice, Gonzalez, Rumsfeld and others in the outgoing administration should all be impeached, tried and jailed for their lying and treason in embroiling the US in the pointless and criminal Iraq War, with the yellowcake story a key element in any indictments. But there needs to be some kind of reckoning too, for the willful ignorance and deceit on the part of the majority of Congress and of the press in pretending that an alleged scheme to buy uranium ore was a justification for launching a war of aggression, which five years on, is still continuing.

The American people themselves also need to reflect deeply, not just on how ill served we are by our elected officials and by our media, but on how gullible we have become, and how ignorant.
__________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2008 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

http://www.opednews.com/articles/White-House-Lied-About-Ira-by-Dave-Lindorff-081219-484.html

Related Posts:

• ORWELL’S 2009 – BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
• The Shadow Money Lenders: The Real Significance of The Fed’s Zero-Interest-Rate Policy
• FDR’S New Deal v. Obamanomics in Their First 100 Days
• The Target is Iran: Israel’s Latest Gamble May Backfire
• 10 false flags operations that shaped our world

There’s a telling email exchange quoted in the Defense Department Inspector General’s report on America Supports You (ASY), a Pentagon program launched in 2004, ostensibly to boost troop morale.

Allison Barber, who founded and led ASY until her recent resignation as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Internal Communications and Public Liaison (and who infamously helped President Bush stage a teleconference with troops in Iraq), asked in a June 2004 email: “Overseas, we make troops [not living on military bases] buy a digital receiver for their televisions so they can see AFRTS,” the American Forces Radio and Television Service. “Is there a way for me to make this situation know [sic] to corporate America and offer them the option of ’sponsoring’ a receiver? So the receiver might have a sticker on it that says ‘brought to you by Sears’.”

An attorney with the Defense Department’s Standards of Conduct Office responded sharply: “Of course, you may not solicit anyone, especially corporate America, to sponsor the receivers. That’s a no-no.”

Judging by the Inspector General’s report — which was 18 months in the making — Allison Barber was responsible for quite a lot of “no-no’s.” Among the report’s major findings are that ASY was run in a “questionable and unregulated manner … not consistent with the program’s primary objective”; that Susan Davis International, the PR firm that was paid $8.8 million “to promote or ‘brand’ the ASY program,” used taxpayer money inappropriately; that $9.2 million in ASY funding was funneled through the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, against Pentagon rules and with such inadequate oversight that officials “lost visibility of about $4.1 million”; and that a private non-profit established under the ASY name “creat[es] confusion” between it and the Defense Department program, implying government endorsement and “presenting additional liability for any misuse of donations” by the private group.

It’s a surprisingly strong report. Maybe that’s why the Inspector General’s office released it late on December 12, a Friday — a notoriously difficult time of the week to attract media attention.

Too cozy with corporations

Defense Department policies clearly forbid asking for donations, as well as implicitly or explicitly endorsing non-government entities. To avoid potential conflicts of interest and undue outside influence on the nation’s military, U.S. law specifically directs how gift funds may be used to benefit service members. Pentagon lawyers periodically reminded Allison Barber of these restrictions, but she seemed not to understand or care that she was breaking the rules.

In a September 2005 email quoted in the Inspector General’s report, Barber asked if she could accept a “token check” from the PGA Tour at one of their events. The Tour “had raised over [$]300,000 for the military charities,” Barber wrote. “[I]sn’t that great?”

The response she received was less than enthusiastic. Department of Defense (DoD) officials “could not endorse the PGA or solicit funds,” cautioned the Standards of Conduct Office attorney. Instead of accepting the check, the lawyer suggested that Barber “thank the PGA and stand on the perimeter of the presentation of the bogus check to a representative of the military relief societies.” Then the lawyer asked, “Is this event appropriate for DoD to participate in? Is it a fundraiser?”

It’s clear from the Inspector General’s report that ASY poured significant time and resources into seeking corporate support. Several examples of Barber eagerly courting companies can also be found in the Pentagon pundit documents, as I reported previously:

In an April 2006 email referring to an upcoming event with some 50 members of the Business Council, Barber excitedly wrote to fellow Pentagon public affairs staffer Dallas Lawrence that “we could have our entire corporate outreach for asy [sic] done in one meeting!” … The agenda for a June 2006 Pentagon meeting with the National Association of Manufacturers lists Barber as giving the “welcome and America Supports You update.” ASY is the only program mentioned by name. Other documents name NASCAR, Ringling Brothers and Babies “R” Us as ASY corporate contacts.

ASY’s emphasis on corporate outreach happened by design. Susan Davis International (SDI), the private firm that did public relations work for ASY, developed a “corporate toolkit” to recruit companies. “The toolkit makes many promises of publicity for corporations in return for their support of the ASY program,” notes the Inspector General’s report. As described in ASY’s “corporate toolkit,” these quid pro quo offers included features on the American Forces Radio and Television Service and the Pentagon Channel, ads in the Stars and Stripes newspaper, and mentions in ASY’s “weekly e-newsletter … delivered to thousands of key supporters nationwide, to Congress, and to the news media.”

In addition, the America Supports You website featured the logos of its corporate supporters, in violation of Defense Department policies. (That page has since been removed from the ASY site, but an archived version can be seen here.)

Lastly, ASY gave “Office of the Secretary of Defense Exceptional Public Service Awards” to individual and corporate ASY supporters. SDI suggested giving the awards, to create hooks for “op-eds, regional media, newsletters, member radio / TV shows.” The Inspector General’s report questions this “recognition program,” noting that “there are no written criteria for selecting the recipients of this award.” In other words, public honors could be given out to the highest bidders.

Public relations problems

One public relations firm, Susan Davis International, received a whopping $8.8 million of the $9.2 million in ASY funding through fiscal year 2007, or more than 95 percent of the program’s total expenses. As the Inspector General’s report states repeatedly, ASY was established “to communicate public support to the troops,” not to “brand” ASY, get media coverage, or solicit corporate or celebrity support. Yet, SDI used taxpayer funds to pitch Allison Barber to “Fox and Friends,” sponsor a “Weekly Reader” supplement that urged schoolchildren to hold “Freedom Walks” on September 11, purchase and decorate an ASY float for a Memorial Day parade, and design, produce and promote dog tags with the ASY logo.

Further complicating the SDI / ASY picture is the personal friendship between Allison Barber and Susan Ann Davis, who heads the PR firm. Their friendship is hinted at in the Inspector General’s report, which mentions in passing that “SDI frequently traveled with the Deputy Assistant Secretary [Barber] on the same flights and used the same lodging locations.” SDI also billed ASY for staff hours spent drafting a letter nominating Barber for a “Communicator of the Year” award, “a service unrelated to the ASY contract,” as the report notes.

Add to this murky situation an almost-complete lack of specific goals for or oversight of SDI’s work. Given such wide latitude, SDI staff charged “annual rates” for their ASY work of up to $662,945, which the Inspector General’s report admits “appear excessive for public relations support.” The firm also sought and received payment for “specifically unallowable” expenses, such as alcohol, first-class airfare and expensive hotel rooms, in addition to duplicate expenses. Other “questionable” payments to SDI include “entertainment expenses” for performers at ASY events, such as actor Gary Sinise’s Lt. Dan Band and country star Clint Black, and labor charges for “well-known Republican political strategist” Ed Rollins.

Yet, SDI retained the lucrative contract for America Supports You. In early 2008, when ASY’s PR contract was up for renewal, the Pentagon supposedly opened it up to bids by outside firms. However, the process limited who could bid, gave outside firms less than three weeks’ notice and evaluated bids on terms that clearly benefited SDI. The head of one firm complained, “The process … leads me to believe that it has been designed to retain the incumbent agency.” The Inspector General’s report agrees that no firm other “than the incumbent had a fair opportunity.”

Susan Davis has called the findings of the Inspector General’s report “outrageous,” adding: “We are extraordinarily proud of our work.” Presumably, Davis would say that SDI helped draw public attention and support to the more than 300 military charity groups associated with ASY. Yet, SDI and ASY angered many of those groups by playing favorites. One group, Operation Homefront, was frequently featured in SDI’s media pitches and chosen as a beneficiary of corporate ASY fundraisers. Another group, ThanksUSA, was given $50,000 worth of SDI’s PR services. In January 2006, SDI was authorized to spend another $600,000 on “assistance with [the] launch of the ThanksUSA nationwide treasure hunt.”

Barber’s “involvement in the entire procurement process” — from obtaining funds for ASY to awarding contracts to her friends at SDI and then overseeing those contracts — was the major cause of the program’s problems. Simply put, Barber had “too much power and influence,” the Inspector General’s report concludes. ASY was supposed to have a steering committee, to oversee and direct the program. But instead of establishing the committee, Barber stalled and then insisted on appointing herself as its head. Rather than fight Barber, the Pentagon’s public affairs office gave up on the steering committee idea.

Since Barber’s resignation, ASY has stopped using the SDI firm. The ASY program has also been refocused on its “original mission” of “communicating support for U.S. troops and their families,” promised Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Robert Hastings. “You won’t find any of us out there building or driving that activity,” Hastings told Stars and Stripes. “We’re simply communicating.”

The ASY Fund

One legacy of Allison Barber’s (and hence ASY’s) lack of boundaries is the ASY Fund. The ASY Fund is a private group that obtained nonprofit status in mid-2007. The group’s placeholder website uses the Defense Department’s ASY logo, and variously gives its full name as the “America Supports You Fund” and the “America Salutes You Fund.”

The ASY Fund’s apparent affiliation with the Defense Department program “causes confusion for the public and constitutes implied endorsement by DoD,” concludes the Inspector General’s report. It also allows the private group to “unfairly” benefit “from DoD branding the ASY program name.”

Barber initially wanted the ASY Fund to be a Pentagon program. It was only established as a separate entity after Congress rebuffed her repeated attempts to obtain permission for the Defense Department “to solicit and accept monetary donations from citizens,” according to the report.

Yet the ASY Fund has, at times, functioned like a Pentagon program. Susan Davis International billed ASY for public relations work done on behalf of the ASY Fund. Barber helped obtain the ASY Fund’s largest donation to date, $50,000 from Bank of America. The confusion between the Defense Department’s ASY program and the private ASY Fund is further illustrated by the fact that Bank of America sent its ASY Fund donation to SDI.

The ASY Fund’s board “consists of former senior Federal employees,” notes the report. According to the group’s 2007 financial report, these include president Grant S. Green Jr., a marketing executive and former Undersecretary of State who Barber asked to establish the ASY Fund. The board’s chair is Lawrence Di Rita, a former Defense Department public affairs official who was involved in the Pentagon’s covert pundit program and who now serves as a spokesperson for Bank of America. Also on ASY Fund board is Celia Hoke, Barber’s former assistant at the Pentagon, and Patricia Meadows, who works at Green’s marketing firm for military contractors.

The Inspector General’s report states that the ASY Fund’s board “will be reconstituted in the near future,” but questions the private group’s use of the Defense Department program’s name and logo. Pentagon lawyers are studying the matter, the report notes, and will provide a “more detailed response … within 30 days.”

Where is Allison Barber?

In an interview with the Navy Times, Assistant Secretary of Defense Hastings stressed that the Inspector General’s report on America Supports You was “an audit of management practices” and “declined to speculate on any future actions to audit report’s conclusions could spark.” It’s also unclear what Allison Barber has been doing, since her October 2008 resignation.

Will Allison Barber be held accountable for the nepotism, misuse of public funds and multiple breaches of Pentagon policy — not to mention the misdirection of resources intended to benefit U.S. service members — that have been documented at ASY? Or will she quietly return to the private sector, perhaps providing PR advice to the same companies to which she once gave Defense Department awards?

It’s easy to be cynical, but a cynic wouldn’t have dreamt that the Inspector General’s office would author such a damning report on ASY. The various Defense Department offices involved are supposed to respond in full to the report by January 12. Stay tuned.

Diane Farsetta is the Center for Media and Democracy’s senior researcher. She can be reached at: diane@prwatch.org

Related Posts:

• Bailout for the People
• ORWELL’S 2009 – BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
• FDR’S New Deal v. Obamanomics in Their First 100 Days
• Career Army officer sues Rumsfeld, Cheney, saying no evacuation order given on 9/11
• 10 false flags operations that shaped our world

A graveyard of former Nazis bent on creating a ‘foreign Fatherland’ in the Amazonian rainforests from which to spread Hitler’s maniacal beliefs has been discovered in Brazil.

The relics betray a madcap plan back in the 1930s to create a master race thousands of miles from Germany.

The graveyard and other ruins that fanatical Nazis left behind are chronicled in a new book.

Entitled ’The Guayana-Projekt. A German Adventure on the Amazon’ it says die-hard Nazis believed they were destined to settle the world like pioneers of the wild west in America.

Final resting place: Brazilian natives at a Nazi grave in the Amazon. The wooden cross decorated with swastikas carries the inscription: ‘Joseph Greiner died here on 2.1.1936′

Discovered: Crosses mark the graves deep in the jungle

It has long been known that Nazis wandered post-war into the remote regions of South America, befriended by fascist governments and military dictatorships.

The 1978 film Boys From Brazil told a of a bizarre plot to clone Hitler that was hatched by Joseph Mengele in his jungle hideout.

But the harshness of the Amazonian jungle was a strange choice of destination.

Historical Nazi ‘footprints’ are found in grave markers with swastikas, photos found in archives back home and the remains of dwellings.

On an island on a tributary of the River Jary in Brazil author Jens Gluessing found a nine-foot high wooden cross decorated with swastikas that testified to one of the explorers who never made it back to Berlin.

It carries the inscription: ‘Joseph Greiner died here on 2.1.1936, a death from fever in the service of German Research Work.’

Chilling: Gregory Peck as Nazi fiend Dr Joseph Mengele in the 1978 film Boys From Brazil

Locals call the site ‘The Nazi graveyard’ but it was originally destined to be part of a string of Nazi settlements across the Amazon

which Hitler missionaries would use as jumping-off points to spread the gospel of totalitarianism.

In archives of the Brazilian State Department and the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, Gluessing found details of Greiner’s jungle mission.

Greiner arrived in 1935, bankrolled by the Nazi government and died of yellow fever or Malaria.  He was one of three sent out by S.S race specialists as the vanguard of what they perceived would be a wave of settlers.

Greiner and his compatriots had dozens of helpers with them exploring the region bordering French Guyana with a view to populating it for the Reich.  They also had their sights on the neighbouring British and Dutch colonies.

The Guayana project: Nazi’s in the jungle Camp. In 1935 German researchers went on an expedition of the Brazilian jungles

With the natives: In 1935 German researchers went on an expedition of the Brazilian jungles

They sent back to Berlin details of how a German soldiers should live in Brazil, even though their cover story was that they were collecting specimens of fauna and wildlife.

Schulz Kampfhenkel, an officer in the S.S. and leader of the expedition which claimed Greiner’s life, returned from the jungles and submitted to his boss Heinrich Himmler details of the ’Guayana Project.’

‘The two largest  scantly populated, but rich in resources, areas on earth are in Siberia and South America,’ he wrote to Himmler.  ‘They alone offer spacious immigration and settlement possibilities for the Nordic peoples.’

As Siberia semed likely to fall at that time to China, he recommended colonising Amazonia for ‘people without living space.’

He added in typically Nazi fashion: ‘For the more advanced white race it offers outstanding possibilities for exploitation.’

They applied to conquer the Amazon jungle

A film was produced showing Greiner’s work in the jungle in the 1930s. He believed the Nazis could colonise ‘Amazonia’

As befitting an S.S. man who bought wholly into concepts of Nazi race purity he said the people who lived there ‘cannot be measured in civilised terms as we known them in Germany.’

With one million German settlers in Brazil already, he argued the seedcorn was already there for the expansion of the Third Reich and that they could secure a ‘bridgehead’ against American influence in the region.

The author found evidence, however, that Himmler had ’scant interest’ in his grandiose settlement plans.  A Nazi film was made of his travels – but no mention made of the Guayana Project: it remained classified by S.S. intelligence.

‘Given time, the plan may be submitted again,’ Himmler wrote to his jungle emissary.

But his experiences were put to use by the Nazi war machine: he became Nazi Germany’s leading expert in aerial photo-reconnaissance interpretation.

After the war the Americans arrested him and he was placed in a POW camp in Salzburg, Austria.  Released, he died in 1989, still dreaming of a German colony amid the rain forests.

Lost world: The relics were discovered on an island on a tributary of the River Jary in Brazil

Related Posts:

• 10 false flags operations that shaped our world
• World War I, II: Providence, Miracle, or What Really Happened
• Monsanto and Its Philanthropy
• Adolf Hitler: Providence, Miracle, or What Really Happened, Part 3
• The Zionist Nexus Linking 9-11 and the Financial Crisis

USA Today has now reported Ventura’s denial, a story which includes ABC News’ original headline, which has now been amended with a question mark, as has the text of the story with no notification of the change.

Why ABC News reported that Ventura was running is a mystery, as nowhere in the NPR interview (screenshot below) does Ventura state that he has decided to run.

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has exclusively told Prison Planet that an ABC News report which claims that Ventura will launch a run for the Senate is a “total lie” and a “flat out misrepresentation.”

ABC News’ Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper claims in a story today, “In an interview with NPR’s David Welna that ran today former Gov. Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Ind-Minn., says he will run for Senate, challenging incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., whom Ventura defeated for governor in 1998, as well as Democratic nominee and former Saturday Night Live humorist Al Franken.”

Syndicated radio show host Alex Jones called Ventura this morning and confirmed that the report was completely inaccurate.

Ventura told Jones the report was a “total lie” and a “flat out misrepresentation,” adding that he would announce his decision before the July 15th filing deadline.

Ventura explained that NPR’s Welna asked why he would run for Senate if he ultimately came to that decision. Ventura did not state that he would run for Senate in the interview.

Tapper’s report appeared on the Drudge Report this morning and has not been amended at time of press. Could the fraudulent pre-empting of Ventura’s announcement be a political ploy to deflate his eventual entrance into the race or is it merely a case of shoddy journalism on behalf of the corporate media?

Former Governor Ventura made headlines earlier this year when he appeared on The Alex Jones Show to share his concerns about the official 9/11 story and his contention that WTC 7, the building that was not hit by a plane but collapsed in its own footprint within 7 seconds on 9/11, was intentionally demolished.

Ventura appears in Alex Jones’ new film The 9/11 Chronicles Part One: Truth Rising. His latest book Don’t Start The Revolution Without Me has been a bestseller on the New York Times list.

Related Posts:

• The Zionist Nexus Linking 9-11 and the Financial Crisis
• The EU Communitarian Agenda And The New Feudalists
• Obama and the Resurrection of the UNFPA
• Bailout for the People
• Introduction to Devaluation and Demonetization

Boxun News, a Chinese-language Web site based outside China, reported that an unnamed expert has claimed that there was a nuclear explosion near the epicenter of the Sichuan earthquake, based on witness reports and the discovery of concrete rubble believed to have come from an underground military installation. The news of this nuclear explosion has raised questions about the cause of the earthquake.

Mr. He, a local resident, stated that when the earthquake occurred on May 12, people saw something erupt from the top of a mountain next to the valley, “It looked like toothpaste being squeezed out,” said He. “No, it wasn’t [magma]. It was these concrete pieces. The eruption lasted about three minutes.”

According to a China News Services (CNS) report on May 31, 2008, paramedics from People’s Liberation Army (PLA) hospitals and psychologists from Beijing onsite May 23 found concrete debris at the bottom of a valley near the epicenter. The half-mile-wide valley was covered with debris 10 – 20 inches thick, covering the valley floor for almost 1.5 miles.

No major construction was occurring in the area at the time of the earthquake.

The thickness of the concrete pieces seemed to match that used in China’s underground military bases, according to Boxun’s expert. He explained that while there are documented cases that earthquakes cause volcanic eruptions, there are no accounts of eruptions ejecting concrete.

Based on the CNS report and timing of the eruption at the scene, there seemed to be no evidence of natural volcanic activity. The expert stated he was certain a nuclear explosion shattered the underground concrete structures, hurling debris into the air.

At least one of China’s nuclear military bases is located in Mianyang City, Sichuan, near the epicenter.

Chinese Internet surfers commented that right after the quake military Special Forces blocked traffic heading toward the epicenter on the mountain, and men in white chemical protective clothing in military vehicles were also spotted driving toward the mountain. Rescue personnel near the epicenter were all military, according to witnesses.

The expert believes the nuclear explosion was not confined to the underground test area and has caused radiation contamination, stating that in a call to Beijing he recommended authorities accept help from other countries, seal the area, find and provide help to those who had been exposed to contamination during the rescue work, and take emergency measures to prevent water contamination.

The expert believes that the nuclear explosion caused the recent 8.0 magnitude Sichuan earthquake in China. However, other experts referenced by Boxun withheld judgment as to whether the explosion caused the earthquake or the earthquake the explosion.

epochtimes.com

Related Posts:

• Propaganda is making the Truth Movement Totally Irrelevant
• China Blocks Blogs, Search Results on Tainted Milk Scandal
• The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.
• 10 false flags operations that shaped our world
• Spain’s Judges Prosecuting American’s Who Tortured Gitmo Detainees