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Calum Douglas On TalkSport Radio - Sunday
Friday, June 1st, 2007
Calum Douglas will be interviewed on the James Whale Show on TalkSport Radio at 10:20pm pm on Sunday 3rd June.
Calum Douglas is an Engineering undergraduate from Oxford Brookes University and senior researcher at Pilots for 911 Truth.
In a recent breakthrough using the ‘Freedom of Information’ act he has gained access to raw Black Box data from the flight recorder of Flight 77, that allegedly struck the Pentagon. It has subsequently been decoded and analysed.
Be sure to tune in.
Have Your Say: Calum Douglas On TalkSport Radio - Sunday
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What search engines know about us
Friday, June 1st, 2007
Darren Waters
The search engines that power our journey through the internet know a lot about us - from the operating system and browser we use, to the kinds of websites we typically visit.
As Google comes under scrutiny over its privacy policies in Europe, our technology editor looks at the information that search engines and web services firms record about us.
The websites I visit most frequently include the BBC News website, Wikipedia, Microsoft, Apple and Cnet, while Pirate Bay, the World Time Clock and RFID and wi-fi are among my most searched for terms in the last 30 days.
I know this because Google tells me so. As a Google account holder, and because I asked it to, the computer giant records how I use the internet whenever I am logged into its service.
The data is quite detailed: it shows that I do most of my search engine queries between 11am and noon, but also that I am still busy online through most evenings.
It tells me the products I have searched for, the news items, the video clips, the images and even the maps I have looked at.
If anyone were to look at this information, they would have a comprehensive idea of my lifestyle, my interests and potentially even my movements - Google records that I searched for the location of a hairdressers in Richmond last week.
Yahoo and Microsoft’s MSN probably know a lot about me too. I am frequently logged into their services, and while I don’t use their search engines, both firms know some personal details because I had to provide them when I registered.
And this is what worries some privacy experts. They want to ensure that this information remains private and is not abused in any way.
The simplest method used by websites to track behaviour is a cookie. These small files are stored on your computer each time you use the net and note the details of the computer that accesses a web page.
Each cookie contain an anonymous unique identifier related to the computer you are using.
Why do firms like Yahoo and Google collect this information?
At the simplest level, the firms track our web usage so they can optimise our experience in the future.
Cookies store preferences, such as language settings, and can also tell websites the preceding website we were looking at and site we go to next.
These files can be switched off in a browser but that does mean that many web services will fail to work properly or will not work at all.
Yahoo, Google and Microsoft also use web beacons, a tiny electronic image on a web page, which helps them analyse a user’s behaviour online.
These firms make money online by targeting advertising to users when a search is performed or alongside their web products.
For advertisers, the attraction of the online space is being able to talk directly to customers whom they know are interested in their products or product area.
But who else gets to see or use this personal information? Is my web history, or information about which adverts I look at, being handed over to third parties?
‘Never transfer’
Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel, says: “No third parties are given access to a Google’s user’s web history.
According to Google, May is a very popular month for my searches |
“We will never transfer to third parties, including advertisers, any personally identifiable information about our users - that includes IP addresses and account details.”
Yahoo and MSN’s privacy policies also say they do not disclose personal information to third parties without user consent.
Search engines are able to serve up targeted adverts to users not because they know who each user is by name, but because search engines and web services are engineered to interpret what information we are seeking online.
Personal information
Yahoo combines non-identifiable personal data from account holders, with the web history from using Yahoo websites and services to create a detailed, yet anonymous, profile of a user. That data is then used to serve targeted adverts.
Google does not utilise a user’s web surface history to target adverts unless the user has signed up to its personalised web search system.
And it only stores personal information when it has asked a user’s opinion.
Mr Fleischer says: “It should always be an opt in if the service proposes to collect sensitive personal information, such as health information.
“If it is doing something routine, then an opt out is fine, such as downloading cookies to a machine.”
Mr Fleischer explains: “If you are a user of personalised search - which is an opt-in service - we could take into account your web browsing history from the past to provide more relevant search results.
“The advertisers would be bidding against those more relevant search results.”
So does it matter if that information about us is anonymised?
Mr Fleischer believes that it is inevitable that more and more data will exist about us in cyberspace but does not think that will mean our right to privacy is compromised.
“More and more of these services will offer choice about how to use them.
“I am speculating here, but I would expect that people will be able to say how they want to use services, whether in an identifiable capacity or under a pseudonym.
“There are all kinds of different levels of transparency you can choose to represent different parts of your lives. Over time people will become much more sophisticated about how they use all this online data about themselves.”
He adds: “We are in a transition generation right now. As individuals and society we need to learn new ways to deal with wanting to be identifiable, wanting to be anonymous and if we want to be pseudonymous.
“Technology companies will build tools for people to do this. It will become a very natural part of our lives within five years.”
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President Bush’s new world order legacy
Friday, June 1st, 2007
With his record of defending American borders and national sovereignty in ruins, President Bush has decided to conclude his second term in office by making common cause with those who think America’s future lies in appeasing the “international community.” He apparently wants his “legacy” to be that he cared for the rest of the world. Watch your wallets―and your freedom.
The latest phase of this “legacy building” campaign began with a plea on Wednesday for more money to fight AIDS. This provided a photo opportunity for the President to pose with a black child. So far, about $200 billion has been spent by the federal government on AIDS, without any cure or vaccine being developed. But it looks “compassionate” to throw money at the problem. Tens of billions are now being spent, some of it provided by agreements brokered through Bill Clinton’s foundation, to fight AIDS with potentially toxic and lethal drugs.
On the eve of the G-8 meeting of major industrialized nations in Germany, Bush gave a global warming speech on Thursday at an event hosted by the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign. This is a coalition of business and non-government organizations that includes the pro-world government Citizens for Global Solutions, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Ted Turner’s U.N. Foundation, Planned Parenthood, the American Friends Service Committee, the Alliance for a Global Community, and the United Nations Association.
It looks like Bush is abandoning what’s left of his conservative base before they abandon him.
Bush told the group, “This is a fine organization and it’s an important organization. It’s rallying businesses and non-governmental organizations and faith-based and community and civic organizations across our country to advance a noble cause, ensuring that the United States leads the world in spreading hope and opportunity.”
Another part of this “legacy building” is his decision to seek ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a dangerous document that transfers control of the oceans and much of the land area of the world as well to a U.N. bureaucracy. It finances its activities with a global tax. The pact is endorsed by some of the same groups and individuals involved in the Global Leadership Campaign.
UNCLOS charges American corporations a “fee” for exploiting ocean resources for the benefit of America and threatens these same corporations with global climate change litigation before an international court if they “pollute” the oceans from anywhere on the face of the earth.
U.S. Navy support for UNCLOS masks the sharp decline in U.S. Naval forces. The number of U.S. ships has declined under Bush to 276, from a high of 594 under President Reagan, who rejected UNCLOS. The Bush budget projects their further decline to 210. The American Shipbuilding Association says that, if present trends continue, the U.S. Naval Fleet will decline to 180 ships by 2024.
Those who haven’t been paying attention think that Bush’s policy for the last six years has been “unilateralist” and anti-U.N. He did keep us out of the global warming and International Criminal Court treaties. He also withdrew the U.S. from the ABM treaty so the nation could pursue national missile defense. But generally speaking, he has been pouring huge amounts of money into the U.N. and associated institutions. Office of Management and Budget figures show that U.S. financial contributions to the U.N. System under Bush have gone from $3.1 billion in fiscal year 2001 to $5.3 billion in fiscal year 2005.
The office of Senator Tom Coburn, who requested and released the information, commented in a press release that “According to the report, in 2005, the United States gave $5.3 billion to the U.N—a 30% increase from 2004 funding level of $4.1 billion. Almost every Department of the U.S. government plus several independent agencies fund the U.N. Although the U.N. does not track this information or at least does not make such information public, most experts say the total U.N. budget is between $15-20 billion. The U.S. funded portion is between 25% and 30%.”
But that’s not good enough for the Global Leadership Campaign. It thinks too little has been spent on international affairs.
In his speech to the group, Bush seemed to be proposing another and much-tougher global warming treaty. “By the end of next year, America and other nations will set a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases,” he said. “To help develop this goal, the United States will convene a series of meetings of nations that produce most greenhouse gas emissions, including nations with rapidly growing economies like India and China.” He said each nation would develop a “national target” of reducing greenhouse gases.
With this speech, Bush has capitulated to the alarmists who blame man-made greenhouse gases for perceived changes in climate.
In the past, at the G-8 meetings, the Bush Administration has been opposed to measures by France and Britain to endorse global taxation schemes. One of them, an international tax on airline travel, was sold as a “solidarity contribution” to fight AIDS. A new bureaucracy, UNITAID, has been created to receive and spend the global tax revenue.
The U.N. has been pushing a global tax to fight global warming that amounts to a 35-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax hike.
This time, it can be anticipated that Bush Administration opposition to global taxes will completely collapse. After all, the White House has already endorsed a global tax scheme through the Law of the Sea Treaty.
All of this opens the door for Congress to promote and pass a carbon tax of some kind, perhaps as part of the new global warming treaty that Bush apparently envisions. It will be difficult for Bush to resist such a tax, in light of his recent rhetoric on the subject.
Bush is putting in place the New World Order his father talked about.
Cliff Kincaid, a veteran journalist and media critic, Cliff concentrated in journalism and communications at the University of Toledo, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Have Your Say: President Bush’s new world order legacy
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The secret CCTV bunker that monitors our every move
Friday, June 1st, 2007
In a bunker beneath the bustling streets of central London, guards monitor a grid of closed-circuit television.
The centre, at a secret location, is run by a private company in association with the police and local council.
Polls show broad public acceptance, even if the cameras more often capture a couple in loving embrace than a terrorist about to wreak havoc.
Britain has more than 4 million closed-circuit security cameras, more than any other Western democracy.
Police say the average Briton is on as many as 300 cameras every day, usually unaware.
The density of surveillance is significantly higher than in any other Western democracy, says Jen Corlew, spokeswoman for Liberty, a London-based human rights group.
“We are sleepwalking towards a Big Brother society, not in one fell swoop but by stages,” warns The Spectator, a conservative magazine.
“There is no boot stamping on a face: just an ever more insistent foot in the door.”
But the vast majority of 4,000 people surveyed in 2005 said they believed that tapping phones, opening mail and following terror suspects were a price worth paying to stay safe, according to British Social Attitudes Report - an annual survey released in January.
Some 81 percent thought tapping telephones and opening mail were prices worth paying. For terrorism suspects, 80 percent supported electronic tagging.
The British seem to have rallied around the idea that some long-accepted freedoms may have to be curbed in the face of a common enemy - in much the way an earlier generation made sacrifices during World War II.
“When it comes to people’s safety, I don’t think they can go too far,” said Jonathon Walkes, 29, a London lawyer.
“For the most part, we just go about our lives knowing that people are watching. I’m still rowdy after a night at the pub.”
British authorities say people shouldn’t worry about the close surveillance - unless they’re doing something wrong.
“We appreciate that the cameras and some of the other measures are seen as invasive, but only people who really have something to worry about should be concerned,” David Morgan, a Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent, said on a tour of the bunker.
As he spoke, a series of seemingly private moments unfolded - ranging from a young couple stepping into the shadows for a kiss to a driver sneaking into a restricted bus lane.
©2007 Associated Newspapers Ltd
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NWO Deception: Faked Rapture and Project Blue Beam
Friday, June 1st, 2007
Victoria Hardy
I feel compelled to write this article, not because I know the subject matter to be absolute truth, I don’t, but even if only bits of it are, we should all be alert. Faith is a big issue in this country and others, a dividing line of sorts. I am not a religious person myself, although I am a person of faith, I have deep beliefs that cannot be contained in books or maintained through the groupthink of the church. I know evil exists, I recognize that there is a darkness in the world in which we reside and it is not as simple to differentiate the two factions as many might assume. I am more suspicious of those with great wealth and great power, than the stranger walking down my street.
On my blog I have mentioned that I have felt that there is going to be a great deception among the faithful, I couldn’t really identify how I have grown to understand that, but the strands of research kept leading me to that conclusion. Somehow in this country we have learned that the Christian ideal is to support our president and support his war, which always seemed strange to me, since we are not supposed to kill. Our president claims to be “born-again” and to prove that point he began the Faith-Based Initiatives where he has funneled millions, if not billions, of dollars into American churches. Congress did not approve such measures, because they clearly cross the line of separation of Church and State, but President Bush ignored this, declaring one of many executive orders and it was done. Executive Orders But for me, it strikes a little close to home concerning Jesus’ warnings about money changing in the house of the Father.
On the one hand we could view this as our President buying the Christian vote, but I feel the deception is a little darker and deeper than that. We must ask ourselves why our president wants our religious leaders and ministers in his pocket, what does he want from them and their congregations? We must remember our president was a member of Skull and Bones, otherwise known as the Brotherhood of Death, at Yale University, as was his father and many other of our “leaders” in this country. And we must remember that our president and many, many powerful men throughout the world are members of the Bohemian Club, an exclusive men’s club in Monte Rio, California. Now I cannot say I know for sure what happens at the two-week yearly encampment at Bohemian Grove, because I have never been there, but if even one of the rumors about our leader’s endeavors are truth, then folks, we have been terribly misled. Decide for yourself ABC News 1981 or You Tube Photos of Bohemian Grove I know some may say, “Boys will be boys”, but a boy who gathers with friends in a tomb to eat off Hitler’s dishes (Skull and Bones) or who performs pretend human sacrifices (Bohemian Grove) is a boy I don’t want to meet, I wouldn’t trust with my children and one I wouldn’t give power over my faith.
Now, I explore many ideas circulating the Web because I am drawn to make sense of the world, why people think what they do, what led them to that conclusion versus the other, what is factual (or as close as we can get these days) and what is speculation. The threads are sometimes difficult to follow, sometimes nearly impossible to find, but still I persist. And I recently ran across an item that made me stop in my tracks, I was stunned.
Serge Monast, a Canadian journalist, stepped forward in 1994 to speak of research he and another investigator had gathered on NASA’s Project Blue Beam. Project Blue Beam and Transcript of Presentation Rumor has it that they both died of heart attacks within weeks of each other although neither had had any heart problems in the past and both were said to be young, healthy men. It seems Project Blue Beam is a four step program to implement the New World Order’s new age, one world religion. It begins with engineered earthquakes and hoaxed discoveries to facilitate the reevaluation of all archeological knowledge, designed to call all belief systems into question. Before we dismiss the idea that earthquakes can be engineered, we should look into the capabilities of the HAARP antenna in Alaska.
Next we have a huge sky show, I’ve read some refer to as the “Night of a Thousand Stars” where the old prophesies of the end times will happen over our heads with the use of holograms and sound effects seeming to originate from the earth and space, convincing us that the Messiah is stepping out of the clouds. This staged event will introduce us to a new Messiah to reign over the world and it is said, even the most learned will be deceived. To understand that our leaders are capable of this type of event look into the Air Force Research Lab where Chief Scientist, Dr. William L. Baker, stated in a paper from 2004, “By studying and modeling the human brain and nervous system, the ability to mentally influence or confuse personnel is also possible. Through sensory deception, it may be possible to create synthetic images, or holograms, to confuse an individual’ s visual sense or, in a similar manner, confuse his senses of sound, taste, touch, or smell.” Controlled Effects And in an article from Stars and Stripes from 2001, the author states, “Taliban soldiers who hear voices from the skies over Afghanistan may think it’s divine intervention. The Department of Defense would like them to see it that way.” Stars and Stripes
The third step is artificial thought and communication whereupon telepathic and electronically induced thoughts appear in our heads through use of low frequency technology, the ultimate PSYOPs, convincing us that our personal God is speaking directly to us. This one is a little more difficult to prove because I am not a scientist, but it seems that through the use of low frequency radio waves our being is affected, to what degree, I cannot verify at this time. But it is interesting that in the Space Preservation Act of 2001, a bill to define what we should not do in space, mentions the following terms, “electronic, psychotronic, or information weapons” “high altitude ultra low frequency weapons systems” “strategic, theater, tactical, or extraterrestrial weapons” “laser weapon systems” and of course, “chemtrails”. These terms were left out when the bill was later rewritten, which implies to me that the powers-that-be decided these were just okey-dokey to do in the space above our heads. HR 2977
Then it gets a little more complicated, with the threat of extraterrestrial invasions, a faked rapture and supernatural manifestations across the globe, enough to push all peoples onto the edge of hysteria, madness and doubt. Now whether or not the leaders have the ability to lift thousands of beings off the planet, I have not ascertained and the difficulty is knowing where to look, but I didn’t expect to find the ability to interject thoughts into people’s minds either. Dr. Baker stated, “Controlled Personnel Effects investigates technologies to make selected adversaries think and act according to our needs.”
Now whether or not these types of deception will be used on the American people I cannot say, but do we really approve of them being used on other nations? Do we believe that toying with people’s perceptions, values and belief systems is a fair and just way to wage war? I know it is said that “all is fair in love and war”, but is this just? Is this what America stands for? And what is the ultimate goal, safety for Americans or global domination?
As I was reading over the various technologies that were hatched in the dark minds by men who wish to rule the world, I kept thinking, men should not be able to deceive us on this level, this goes beyond a fair fight or a war and enters into something most of us do not want to consider. And that is exactly what we are talking about, deceptions on a level that are beyond the average citizen’s imagination, certainly beyond what the faithful should support.
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Bush Administration “Black Ops” directed against Iran, Lebanon and Syria
Friday, June 1st, 2007
“Islamic Terrorists” supported by Uncle Sam: Bush Administration “Black Ops” directed against Iran, Lebanon and Syria
Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, May 31, 2007
The Bush administration has admitted that covert actions of an aggressive nature were applied against Iran and Syria. The stated objective was to wreck the countries’ economies and currency systems. The infamous Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG) created in early 2006, integrated by officials from the White House, the State Department, the CIA and the Treasury Department, had a mandate to destabilize Syria and Iran, and bring about “Regime Change” :
“The committee, the Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group [ISOG], met weekly throughout much of 2006 to coordinate actions such as curtailing Iran’s access to credit and banking institutions, organizing the sale of military equipment to Iran’s neighbors and supporting forces that oppose the two regimes.” (Boston Globe, 25 May 2007)
ISOG had also been providing undercover assistance to Iranian opposition groups and dissidents. The group’s propaganda ploy consisted in feeding disinformation into the news chain and “building international outrage toward Iran”. (Boston Globe 2, January 2007)
About-Turn in Iran-Syria Policy?
Washington has recently announced an apparent about-turn: no more treacherous covert ops directed against “rogue enemies” in the Middle East. The Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG) has been disbanded on the orders of President Bush. The US will no longer be involved in “[covert] aggressive actions against Iran and Syria”, according to State Department officials.
“The group had become the focus for administration critics who feared that it was plotting covert actions that could escalate into a military conflict with Iran or Syria. The air of secrecy surrounding the group when it was established in March 2006, coupled with the fact that it was modeled after a similar special committee on Iraq, contributed to those suspicions.
A senior State Department official,… said the group [ISOG] was shut down because of a widespread public perception that it was designed to enact regime change. State Department officials have said the focus of the Iran-Syria group was persuading the two regimes to change their behavior, not toppling them.” (Ibid)
Believe it or not?
Foreign policy analysts have described Washington’s decision as proof of a welcome “softening” of US strategy in the Middle East. The Bush administration is said to have discarded ” regime change” in favor of a more flexible approach, consisting of constructive dialogue with Tehran and Damascus. Aggressive covert actions, we are told, have been swapped for bona fide international diplomacy:
The [dissolution of ISOG] comes as the Bush administration has embarked on a significant new effort to hold high-level meetings with Iran and Syria.
…
Shortly before the Iran-Syria group was shut down, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice launched a major initiative to engage Iran and Syria in a regional effort to stabilize Iraq, reversing longstanding U.S. policy against high-level contact with the countries.
For years, the Bush administration has shunned meetings with Syria. …But Rice met this month with Syria’s foreign minister in Egypt, the first such high-level meeting between the two countries since 2004, and on Monday, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, is scheduled to meet his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad.
Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of the U.S. Congress, said he did not think it was a coincidence that the Iran-Syria group was disbanded at the same time the State Department began its diplomatic outreach.
“I think the rationale for that group was promoting regime change, and Rice is going in a much different direction from that,” Katzman said. “The regime-change school within the administration has really gotten quite a bit weaker.” (Ibid)
The decision to dismantle ISOG is largely cosmetic. Most of these intelligence operations remain intact. ISOG was one among several covert initiatives to destabilize Iran and Syria. Regime change and outright war are still part of the Administration’s agenda. In fact, destabilizing covert intelligence operations directed against Iran and Syria have been stepped up in the course of the last four years. Moreover, these operations are closely coordinated with Israeli and NATO war plans, which constitute an integral part of the US sponsored military operation directed against Iran, Syria and Lebanon.
The covert ops have been synchronized with the military road map, including the various US war scenarios envisaged since the launching of ” Theater Iran Near Term” (TIRANNT) in May 2003, barely a month after the invasion of Iraq. These war-like scenarios explicitly envisage regime change:
… Under TIRANNT, Army and U.S. Central Command planners have been examining both near-term and out-year scenarios for war with Iran, including all aspects of a major combat operation, from mobilization and deployment of forces through postwar stability operations after regime change.” (William Arkin, Washington Post, 16 April 2006)
The US is on a war footing and the various covert operations and Psy-Ops –which routinely feed despicable images of the Iranian head of State into the news chain–, are an integral part of the military-intelligence and propaganda arsenal.
In turn, the covert ops are coordinated with US, Israeli and NATO military deployments in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf including the conduct of major war games, which have been carried out almost continuously since Summer 2006.
CIA ” Black Ops” directed against Iran
Coinciding with the announcement on the closing down of ISOG, “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, according to current and former officials in the intelligence community… ” (ABC News Report 22 May 2007). This parallel CIA sponsored initiative, which “received approval by White House officials and other officials in the intelligence community”, has broadly the same mandate as that of the defunct ISOG:
“The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a “nonlethal presidential finding” that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions.
“I can’t confirm or deny whether such a program exists or whether the president signed it, but it would be consistent with an overall American approach trying to find ways to put pressure on the regime,” said Bruce Riedel, a recently retired CIA senior official who dealt with Iran and other countries in the region.
A National Security Council spokesperson, Gordon Johndroe, said, “The White House does not comment on intelligence matters.” A CIA spokesperson said, “As a matter of course, we do not comment on allegations of covert activity.” (ABC News Report 22 May 2007)
The CIA plan was apparently “designed to pressure Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment program and end aid to insurgents in Iraq.” The covert operation, according to US officials, was a softer alternative to that of a military strike on Iran, an option which was favored by Vice President Dick Cheney and other hawks within the administration:
“Current and former intelligence officials say the approval of the covert action means the Bush administration, for the time being, has decided not to pursue a military option against Iran.
“Vice President Cheney helped to lead the side favoring a military strike,” said former CIA official Riedel, “but I think they have come to the conclusion that a military strike has more downsides than upsides.” (Ibid)
The covert intelligence operations directed against Iran and Syria is not an alternative to military action. Quite the opposite. The CIA plan was designed to support Washington’s strategy to destabilize Iran and Syria, through both military action and non-military means including covert intelligence operations.
Unleashing The Islamic Brigades Inside Iran
In relation to Iran, US intelligence has been supporting a Pakistani based terrorist group, Jundullah (Soldiers of God), that has conducted terrorist raids inside Iran. The group operates “from bases on the rugged Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan ‘tri-border region’.” According to a report by ABC News:
“A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.
The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.
It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials.” (ABC News, 2 April 2007)
Abd el Malik Regi, the leader of Jundullah, commands a force of several hundred guerrilla fighters “that stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera, … Most recently, Jundullah took credit for an attack in February that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard riding on a bus in the Iranian city of Zahedan.” (Ibid)
US government sources have acknowledged that Jundullah’s leader “had regular contact with US officials” but denies any “direct funding” of Jundullah by US intelligence.
Inherent in CIA covert operations, the Agency never grants funding “directly”. It invariably proceeds through one of its proxy organizations including Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which historically, since the Soviet-Afghan war, has provided support to Islamic terror groups, including the funding of the training camps and the madrassahs, always acting on behalf of the CIA. In fact this insidious role of Pakistan’s ISI (on behalf of the the CIA) is candidly acknowledged by US intelligence:
“American intelligence sources say Jundullah has received money and weapons through the Afghanistan and Pakistan military and Pakistan’s intelligence service. Pakistan has officially denied any connection.” ( Brian Ross and Christopher Isham, The Secret War Against Iran, April 03, 2007
Other channels used by US intelligence in funding terrorism is through Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, where foundation money is funneled to various militant Islamic groups on behalf of Uncle Sam. “Some former CIA officers say the arrangement [with regard to Jundullah] is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies, funded by other countries including Saudi Arabia, to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s [reminiscent of the Iran-Contra affair].” (Ibid)
Consistent Pattern: Historical Origins of “Islamic Terrorism”
Ironically, the Islamic groups are portrayed as working hand in glove with Tehran. Iran, a predominantly Shia country, is accused of harboring Sunni Islamic terrorists, when in fact these Islamic terrorists are ” intelligence assets” of the United States, supported indirectly by Washington.
This role of US intelligence in support of “Islamic terrorists” is well established. The covert op applied in Iran are part of a consistent pattern
The not so hidden agenda of US intelligence, applied throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, is to trigger political instability and foment ethnic strife by supporting “Islamic terrorist organizations”, ultimately with a view to weakening the Nation State and destabilizing sovereign countries.
From the onslaught of the Soviet-Afghan war and throughout the 1990s, a central feature of CIA activities has consisted in providing covert support to ” Islamic terrorist organizations”:
In 1979 “the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA” was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.(See Fred Halliday, “The Un-great game: the Country that lost the Cold War, Afghanistan, New Republic, 25 March 1996): Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999. See also Michel Chossudovsky, America’s “War on Terrorism”, Global Research, 2005, Ch. 2.)
With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence, “some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan’s fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.” (See Chossudovsky, op cit)
These covert operations in support of the “Islamic Brigades” continued in the post-Cold war period. The ISI’s extensive intelligence military-network was not dismantled in the wake of the Soviet-Afghan war. The CIA continued to support the Islamic “jihad” out of Pakistan. New undercover initiatives were set in motion in Central Asia, the Middle East and the Balkans. Pakistan’s military and intelligence apparatus essentially “served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia.” (Ibid). “Meanwhile, Islamic missionaries of the Wahhabi sect from Saudi Arabia established themselves in the Muslim republics of the Former Soviet Union as well as within the Russian federation encroaching upon the institutions of the secular State.” (Ibid)
A similar pattern emerged in the Balkans. Starting in the early 1990s, the Clinton Administration supported the recruitment of Al Qaeda Mujahideen to fight in Bosnia alongside the Bosnian Muslim Army. Ironically, it was the Republican Party in a document published by the Republican Party Committee of the US Senate which accused Clinton not only of a “”hands-on’ involvement with the Islamic network’s arms pipeline” but also of collaborating with the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), “a Sudan-based, phony humanitarian organization believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Bin Laden,… ” (The original document can be consulted on the website of the US Senate Republican Party Committee (Senator Larry Craig), at http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/iran.htm )
Since the launching of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) in the wake of September 11, 2001, many of the official documents, which single out the insidious relationship of US intelligence to the “Islamic terror network”, have been carefully removed from the public eye.
US Sponsored “Islamic Terrorists” inside Lebanon
The recent killings of civilians in Palestinian refugee camps in northern Lebanon, resulted from the confrontation between Fatah Al Islam and the Lebanese armed forces. Fatah al-Islam is a predominantly non-Palestinian Sunni fundamentalist group, operating inside the refugee camps. Fatah Al Islam is also inspired by the Wahabi sects of Saudi Arabia, which were part of the CIA’s covert operations since the onslaught of the Soviet-Afghan war.
The Lebanese armed forces have been involved in raids on the camps, leading to the uprooting of the Palestinians refugees. The number of Fatah al Islam militants (made up of Saudi, Syrian, Yemeni and Moroccan fighters), inside the camp was of the order of 150-200 according to press reports. The Lebanese military offensive has been disproportionate, resulting in countless civilian casualties.
“Yet, the massively disproportionate assault on the camp has been unconditionally endorsed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “The Siniora government is fighting against a very tough extremist foe,” Rice said. “But Lebanon is doing the right thing to try to protect its population, to assert its sovereignty and so we are very supportive of the Siniora government and what it is trying to do.”
Lebanon has used the police action against this tiny group to ask the US for $280 million in military assistance to help put down what it grandiosely calls an “uprising.” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the request for funds, $220 million of which would go to the Lebanese Armed Forces and another $60 million to security forces, was being considered by Washington. The US gave $40 million in military aid to Lebanon last year and an additional $5 million so far this year. (Chris Marsden, 27 May 2007)
Fatah Al Islam has been presented in media reports, in an utterly twisted logic, as an organization linked to the Fatah movement in Palestine, a secular organization, founded by Yaser Arafat. From an ideological standpoint, Fatah al Islam, is similar to Al Qaeda, which is known to financed out of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States and supported by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) in liaison with its US counterpart.
According to Seymour Hersh, Saudi Arabia is providing funding as well as covert support to Fatah Al Islam, in close consultation with the Bush administration
Hersh points to a “private agreement” between top NeoCon officials and Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, who worked closely with CIA Director George Tenet, when he was Saudi Ambassador in Washington. The Lebanese government is also involved in this intelligence operation:
“The key player is the Saudis. What I [Hersh] was writing about was sort of a private agreement that was made between the White House, we’re talking about Richard—Dick—Cheney and Elliott Abrams, one of the key aides in the White House, with Bandar [Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser]. And the idea was to get support, covert support from the Saudis, to support various hard-line jihadists, Sunni groups, particularly in Lebanon, who would be seen in case of an actual confrontation with Hezbollah—the Shia group in the southern Lebanon—would be seen as an asset, .as simple as that.. We’re in the business now of supporting the Sunnis anywhere we can against the Shia, against the Shia in Iran, against the Shia in Lebanon, that is Nasrullah. Civil war. We’re in a business of creating in some places, Lebanon in particular, a sectarian violence..”(CNN Interview with Seymour Hersh, CNN International’s Your World Today, 21 May 2007)
The pattern of Saudi support to Fatah Al Islam is part of a US sponsored covert operation similar to those conducted by the CIA in the 1980s in support of Al Qaeda.
Well, the United States was deeply involved. This was a covert operation that Bandar ran with us. Don’t forget, if you remember, you know, we got into the war in Afghanistan with supporting Osama bin Laden, the Mujahideen back in the late 1980s with Bandar and with people like Elliott Abrams around, the idea being that the Saudis promised us they could control — they could control the jihadists so we spent a lot of money and time, … in the late 1980s using and supporting the jihadists… And we have the same pattern, … using the Saudis again to support jihadists [Fatah Al Islam], Saudis assuring us they can control these various group, the groups like the one that is in contact right now in Tripoli with the government. (CNN Interview with Seymour Hersh, CNN International’s Your World Today, 21 May 2007)
Staged Event in Lebanon? Building a Humanitarian Justification for Military Intervention
Fatah Al Islam is an “intelligence asset” financed by Saudi Arabia. While the Bush administration accuses Damascus of supporting Fatah Al Islam, there are indications that the killings in the Palestinian refugee camps were the result of a carefully staged military intelligence operation..
Since the Summer 2006 following the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, NATO forces are present inside Lebanon as well as off Syrian-Lebanese coastline. The UN Security Council Resolution allowing for the deployment of NATO peace-keeping forces was the first step in this process, which followed the 2005 withdrawal and Syrian forces from Lebanon.
The objective of the military roadmap, is to create sectarian violence inside Lebanon which will provide a pretext “on humanitarian grounds” for a stepped up military intervention by NATO forces under a formal UN mandate. This humanitarian military NATO intervention in liaison with Israel, is envisaged as a sequel to the withdrawal of Syrian troops in 2005 and the Israeli bombings of 2006. If it were to be launched it could lead to a situation of de facto foreign occupation of Lebanon as well as the enforcement of a economic blockade directed against Syria.
The pretext for these stepped up military actions are Syria’s alleged support of Fatah Al Islam and Damascus’ supposed involvement in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri. The timely “investigation” into Hariri’s assassination and the setting up of a kangaroo court are being used by the coalition to foment anti-Syrian sentiment in Lebanon. From a military and strategic standpoint, Lebanon is the gateway into Syria. The destabilization of Lebanon supports the US-NATO-Israeli military agenda directed against Syria and Iran. US intelligence sets loose its Islamic brigades, while also accusing the enemy of sponsoring terrorist groups, which are in fact covertly supported and financed by Uncle Sam.
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War Is a Government Program
Friday, June 1st, 2007
Sheldon Richman
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June 1 is the 227th anniversary of the birth of Carl von Clausewitz, the influential Prussian military theorist and historian. Clausewitz is best known for writing in his book, On War, “War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means.”
These words come to mind whenever I hear conservative enthusiasts for the Iraq occupation complain about political interference with military operations. They don’t understand the most basic fact of war: it is a government program. So why aren’t people who claim to be suspicious of other government programs suspicious of war? I can see only two reasons, neither of them flattering: power lust or nationalistic zeal.
Many of us grow up believing that government reflects the will of the people. But skeptics know better. Government has assumed more and more control over private life not because the people demanded it, but because power-seekers and privilege-seekers sought outlets for their ambitions. They then propagandized the public until a sufficient number of people came to believe government control was good for them. (“Public” education has been remarkably effective in this regard.)
The story is similar with war. Politicians start wars for political reasons. They may seek to control resources or a foreign population. Or they may want to secure existing interests that could be at risk without war. The military is a means to political ends.
War always has a domestic side. Ruling classes hold power so that they may live off the toil of the domestic population. And because the ruled far outnumber the rulers, ideology and propaganda are necessary to maintain the allegiance of the subject population. War is useful in keeping the population in a state of fear and therefore trustful of their rulers. H.L. Mencken said it well: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
War is more dangerous than other government programs and not just for of the obvious reason — mass murder. Foreign affairs and war planning seem to justify secrecy, shutting the supposedly sovereign people out of the government’s scheming. Politicians would have a hard time justifying secrecy in domestic affairs. But it is routine in war-related matters. So much for government’s adventures mirroring the people’s wishes.
Most unappreciated of all is that war is the midwife of intrusive bureaucracy. James Madison understood this. “Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few…. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
On their own, people do not go to war, and without compulsion they would never pay for it — they have better things to do with their money. Herman Goering, Hitler’s second in command, understood this: “Of course the people don’t want war…. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it’s a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”
Mencken knew this too: “Wars are seldom caused by spontaneous hatreds between people, for peoples in general are too ignorant of one another to have grievances and too indifferent to what goes on beyond their borders to plan conquests. They must be urged to the slaughter by politicians who know how to alarm them.”
War is politics. And that’s no compliment.
Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The Freeman magazine. Visit his blog “Free Association” at www.sheldonrichman.com. Send him email.
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Location Of Bilderberg Group Meeting Unveiled
Friday, June 1st, 2007
Elitists attempted to throw media off scent by lying about location
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Bilderberg sleuth Jim Tucker is 99% certain that the Bilderberg Group meeting, which officially starts tomorrow, is to be held at the Ritz Carlton in Istanbul after the group tried to throw the local media off the scent and lie in claiming the elite confab was to take place 40 miles away in the city of Silivri.
“The elite group will be meeting today at the Klassis Hotel in the town of Silivri, 40 miles from Istanbul,” wrote the Turkish Zaman daily today, but not according to veteran journalist Jim Ticker, who has spent decades following the activities of the shadowy organization.
Appearing today on the Alex Jones Show, Tucker was all but certain that the meeting is taking place at the Ritz Carlton in Istanbul, judging from the phalanx of armed police and military personnel that have surrounded the hotel.
Bilderberg apparently told the local media that they were meeting at the Klassis Hotel as a decoy to throw them off the scent, particularly after last year’s confab in Canada which was blown wide open by Alex Jones and his crew.
Ritz Carlton being the venue is also seemingly confirmed by the fact that the hotel’s official website lists “no rooms available for requested dates” when one attempts to book between the 1st and 3rd of June.
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Boeing offshoot helped CIA Tortue Flights
Friday, June 1st, 2007
PAT MILTON
Boeing Co. subsidiary accused by the American Civil Liberties Union of facilitating torture by providing services to the CIA for secret overseas flights said it does not, as a rule, inquire about its customers’ business.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit Wednesday claiming Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., enabled the clandestine transportation of three terrorism suspects to secret overseas locations where they were tortured and subjected to other “forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”
“We don’t know the purpose of the trip for which we do a flight plan,” said Mike Pound, a spokesman for Englewood, Colo.-based Jeppesen.
“We don’t need to know specific details. It’s the customer’s business, and we do the business that we are contracted for,” he said. “It’s not our practice to ever inquire about the purpose of a trip.” The company had no immediate comment on specifics of the lawsuit.
Jeppesen Dataplan provides flight plans, fuel, airport data and other services to its clients.
The ACLU said Jeppesen Dataplan “either knew or reasonably should have known” that it was facilitating the torture of terrorism suspects by providing flight services to the CIA.
Companies “are not allowed to have their heads in the sand and take money from the CIA to fly people, hooded and shackled, to foreign countries to be tortured,” ACLU attorney Ben Wizner said.
Boeing itself is not named in the lawsuit and would not confirm a Jeppesen-CIA link, spokesman Tim Neale said. He said customers have a confidentiality clause.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Northern California but announced in New York City.
The three detainees have claimed through their family and lawyers that they have been tortured and abused against universally accepted legal standards. One claimed to have been routinely tortured under interrogation about al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. The detainees’ attorneys appealed to the ACLU for assistance.
The cases involve the treatment of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian citizen, in July 2002 and January 2004; Elkassim Britel, an Italian citizen, in May 2002; and Ahmed Agiza, an Egyptian citizen, in December 2001, ACLU officials said at a Manhattan news conference.
Mohamed is currently being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Britel in Morocco and Agiza in Egypt, the ACLU said.
The ACLU said the suspects were apprehended under the U.S. government’s “extraordinary rendition program.”
Extraordinary rendition is the clandestine capture and transfer of suspects to be detained and interrogated in countries where the protections of U.S. laws do not apply, according to Wizner.
“American corporations should not be profiting from a CIA rendition program that is unlawful and contrary to core American values,” said Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU’s executive director. “Corporations that choose to participate in such activity can and should be held legally accountable.”
Neither the CIA nor the U.S. government is named in the lawsuit. Wizner said the executive branch has invoked a state secrets defense in similar lawsuits.
The Bush administration has insisted it receives guarantees from countries receiving terror suspects that prisoners will not be tortured.
___
Associated Press writer Paul Elias in San Francisco contributed to this report.
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New EU chemical law takes effect - Over 11 Years
Friday, June 1st, 2007
Alix Kroeger
BBC News, Brussels
Legislation requiring the safety testing of tens of thousands of chemicals - many in everyday use - has come into effect across the EU.
For the first time, it will be up to industry, rather than the regulatory authorities, to prove that chemicals are safe.
But environmental and consumer groups say the new rules do not go far enough. Around 30,000 chemicals are covered by the new rules - from paints to flame retardants to fragrances in shampoos.
Safety data will be required for all of them.
The most hazardous - chemicals which can cause cancer or changes in genetic material - will have to undergo further testing.
If there is a safer alternative, producers will have to substitute it, unless there is a strong case for continuing to use the existing chemical.
But environmental campaigners say the new rules, known as REACH, leave too many loopholes.
Shared cost
The new requirements will be phased in between now and 2018.
The most hazardous chemicals will have to be registered first, along with those used in the largest quantities.
Producers are already working together to share the cost of testing, which the European Commission reckons at up to 10bn euros (£7bn) spread over 11 years.
But it says that is offset by the benefits to health and the environment: 97bn euros (£66bn) saved in health costs over the next three decades.
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50 More Years In Iraq
Friday, June 1st, 2007
The US Defence Secretary suggested for the first time last night that American forces could be in Iraq for at least another half century, under an arrangement similar to the effectively permanent US troop deployment in South Korea.
In comments that will dismay war opponents at home and alarm Muslim allies in the Middle East, Robert Gates said that “some force of Americans” will be in Iraq for a “protracted period of time”, and pointed to South Korea as the model.
US troops have been in South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, in the heavily armed demilitarised zone that separates the country from North Korea. US generals are in charge of the combined US-South Korean forces.
Mr Gates, speaking to reporters in Hawaii during a visit to US Pacific Command, said that current war plans still called for an assessment of the US “surge” strategy in September but he was looking beyond that to the type of military presence the US will have in Iraq over the long term.
He contrasted the situation in South Korea to Vietnam, where, he said, “we just left, lock, stock and barrel”, a reference to the US withdrawal after the fall of Saigon in 1975.
“What I’m thinking in terms of is a mutual agreement where some force of Americans – mutually agreed with mutually agreed missions – is present for a protracted period of time,” he said. “The idea is more a model of a mutually agreed arrangement whereby we have a long and enduring presence but under the consent of both parties and under certain conditions. The Korea model is one, the security relationship we have with Japan is another.”
All eyes in Washington are on the progress report to Congress in September by General David Petraeus, the US ground commander, with moderate Republicans saying that anything less than significant optimism will end their support for President Bush.
Yesterday General Raymond Odierno, the No 2 commander in Iraq, told reporters in Washington via video link from Baghdad that he may not be able to make a full assessment by September of whether the build-up is succeeding in stabilising Iraq.
The Bush Administration said yesterday that it was at last ready to admit up to 7,000 Iraqi refugees into the US, after months of delays and growing criticism of its refusal to grant asylum to some of the 2.2 million Iraqis who have fled the war. Refugee groups welcomed the move but condemned it as too little, too late. The US has admitted fewer than 800 Iraqi refugees.
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Real ID Act Coming to Your Town - Maybe
Friday, June 1st, 2007
Dave Eberhart
A new federal regulation calls for upgraded drivers licenses to serve as a new universal ID, but some states are refusing to comply – and the loser in the confrontation may be you.
Starting as early as May 2008, if you live or work in the U.S. you’ll need a federally-approved ID card to travel by air, open a bank account, apply for your Social Security benefits, or use many government services.
The Real ID Act, signed by President Bush in 2005, requires every state to recertify drivers license and identification card holders, with a May 11, 2008, compliance date. It’s part of the war on terrorism – some of the 9/11 attackers had managed to apply for and get state IDs.
Sounds reasonable enough on its face, but it has some states in open defiance and others poised to join the fray.
Five states – Idaho, Washington, Montana, Arkansas and Maine – have enacted legislation informing the federal government that they will not comply with the Real ID Act.
In addition, 13 more states have passed legislation in one chamber of their legislatures to refuse compliance: Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Missouri, Minnesota, Georgia, South Carolina, West Virginia, Vermont, and New Hampshire.
And Massachusetts State Sen. Richard T. Moore has filed a bill seeking to stop implementation of the Real ID Act in that state – with Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley firmly in his corner. Their argument: The measure would create a false sense of security, lead to a lucrative black market for fake “Real IDs,” and increase the risk of identity theft.
Such arguments aside, it’s really all about the cost.
Cranking up Real ID may cost as much as $14.6 billion nationwide. Furthermore, individuals will get tagged with an additional $7.8 billion in fees, upping the bill to more than $22 billion.
Why so pricey?
The recertification process under Real ID calls for an in-person visit to state offices, such as the local department of motor vehicles — with a certified birth certificate, current U.S. Passport, Social Security card and proof of address in hand.
State DMVs will have to verify that these identity documents are legitimate, digitize them and store them permanently. In addition, Social Security numbers will have to be verified with the Social Security Administration.
Then information must be digitally stored on the drivers license card — at a minimum: name, birth date, sex, ID number, a digital photograph, and address, all wrapped up with a “common machine-readable technology.” The card must also feature “physical security features designed to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or duplication of the document for fraudulent purposes.”
Some of the technology necessary for even this basic security compliance does not yet exist.
Everything from the color of the card backgrounds to the fonts used must conform to federal standards. States will have to completely overhaul their systems to comply.
Then there’s the data-sharing requirement.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requires states to set up information databases that are shared by all states, to allow information verification for drivers licenses, passports, and foreign documents.
But there isn’t even a national database system in place to verify basic birth certificates.
So what happens if deadlines come and go and your state has not complied?
Curiously, the program is voluntary. There are no built-in sanctions for non-compliance, such as withholding federal highway funds from the offending states. The real sanction of the Real ID will fall on the heads of the citizens of the non-complying states who run into formidable roadblocks at airports and federal buildings and at the Social Security Administration field offices. For when the grace period passes, only ID cards approved by Homeland Security can be accepted “for any official purpose” by the feds.
Some help in averting the looming train wreck appears to be coming from an unexpected quarter. A privacy committee of the DHS recently submitted to the agency comments about the Real ID Act that included its concerns about “the implementation costs, the privacy consequences, and the security of stored identity documents and personal information.”
Calling the Act “one of the largest identity management undertakings in history,” the Data Privacy & Integrity Advisory Committee noted that the DHS draft regulations did not address a comprehensive plan for securing the stored identity data that states around the country could use. Furthermore, the committee concluded, there were no outlined steps to foil the unauthorized access of information from the machine-readable strips on the back of the proposed cards.
Nothing is in place to answer complaints about the misuse of personal information, nor are the various state agencies required to inform consumers about the data collection, the purposes for which it will be used or how it will be stored.
“Failure to provide openness and transparency undermines accountability and trust,” the DHS committee wrote.
Meanwhile, Capitol Hill is not wholly in love with the plan. Early this year, Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and John Sununu, R-N.H., brought forward a measure called the Identification Security Enhancement Act of 2007 that would fix some of the perceived shortcomings in the Real ID Act.
Among other things, the Enhancement Act requires that the feds and Real ID:
Currently, state drivers licenses aren’t easy for bars, banks, airlines and so on to swipe through card readers because they’re not uniform. Some may have barcodes but no magnetic stripes, and some may lack both. Steinhardt predicts the standardized federalized IDs will be a boon for nosey government agencies and aggressive marketers.
But critics are most upset about what they perceive as the potential creation of an instant set of second-class citizens – those without the magic card.
As presently configured, any state that issues a driver’s license or state ID card not passing muster must make that failing clear on the face of the card via “bold lettering” or a “unique design.” Holders of those cards would become stigmatized, say critics.
A broad coalition of more than 40 organizations has launched a national campaign urging the public to submit comments to the DHS expressing opposition to Real ID, according to a report in PC World.
“Basically this large coalition is trying to solicit public comment to stop the national ID system created by the Real ID Act,” says Melissa Ngo, senior counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based privacy group.
“There already is a large groundswell of public support against this national ID program. What we are trying to do is rally the public. They didn’t get a chance to speak out when Real ID was pushed through Congress attached to a military funding bill.
“Make no mistake, this is a national identification system that will affect your everyday life” and could eventually be used for a wider range of purposes than the DHS has stated, Ngo warns.
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
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WeAreChange Confronts Rockefeller on New World Order Crimes
Friday, June 1st, 2007
Luke Rudkowski, Tom Foti and other members of WeAreChange.org confront David Rockefeller, kingpin spokesperson for the New World Order– who has stated in his autobiography that he is an ‘internationalist and proud’ and not only intends to destroy the sovereignty of the United States in favor of world government, but claims to have set in motion ‘irreversible’ actions to that end.
Rockefeller has used literally hundreds of intitutions and foundations– many of which he or his family’s dynasty have founded– to pursue world government, including the most notorious organizations, all of which he covers in the ‘Proud Internationalist’chapter of “Memoirs”– the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg group, the Council on Foreign Relations, amongst many, many others.
WeAreChange founder Luke Rudkowski– a freelance reporter for INFOWARS.com– used the book Memoirs to seek an autograph in excuse to approach and confront the aging traitor outside of his New York home.
www.wearechange.org
www.INFOWARS.com
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Drugs giant faces criminal charges over clinical trial
Friday, June 1st, 2007
Andrew Gumbel
The US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has been slapped with criminal charges in Nigeria over a notorious clinical trial it conducted on children during a meningitis epidemic a decade ago. Patients became unwitting guinea pigs for a new, untested antibiotic and many of them either died or were left with permanent disabilities.
Pfizer and its representatives will be called to account at hearings due to begin next month in the Nigerian state of Kano, where public anger over the clinical trial - and the assurances of any pharmaceutical company - remains so high that the local population won’t even trust the Nigerian government to immunise their children against polio.
The episode, which has already led to one unsuccessful suit in the US courts, was the inspiration for John Le Carre’s novel The Constant Gardener and is frequently held up as an instance of scientific inquiry gone shockingly awry.
The Nigerian authorities say Pfizer researchers selected 200 children and infants from a crowded epidemic camp in Kano in 1996 and gave about half of them an untested antibiotic called Trovan. The lawsuit alleges that the researchers did not obtain consent from the children’s families even though they knew from their own research that Trovan might have life-threatening side effects and was “unfit for human use”.
The suit further contends that the researchers gave the other half a comparison drug made by Pfizer’s competitor Hoffman-La Roche, but deliberately underdosed them to make their own product look better. Pfizer and its doctors “agreed to do an illegal act,” the suit says, “in a manner so rash and negligent as to endanger human life”.
Once the trial was over, the suit continues, Pfizer left the area, removed all medical records and “obliterated any evidence” of the trial. A Nigerian government report, which appears to have spurred the criminal charges, previously found that Pfizer never told the children or their parents they were participating in a trial and did not inform them that alternative treatments were available - most obviously chloramphenicol, a relatively cheap antibiotic usually recommended for bacterial meningitis.
The government report found that of the 11 children who died, five were taking Trovan and six were taking low doses of the comparison drug, ceftriaxone. An unknown number suffered deafness, blindness, paralysis and other disabilities.
The Kano authorities have charged Pfizer on eight counts of criminal conspiracy and voluntarily causing grievous harm. They have also filed a civil suit seeking more than $2.7bn (£1.3bn) in damages. Pfizer has responded to the lawsuit by insisting it did nothing wrong. “Pfizer continues to emphasize - in the strongest terms - that the 1996 Trovan clinical study was conducted with the full knowledge of the Nigerian government and in a responsible and ethical way consistent with the company’s abiding commitment to patient safety,” a company statement said. “Any allegations in these lawsuits to the contrary are simply untrue - they weren’t valid when they were first raised years ago and they’re not valid today.”
Back in 1997, when Pfizer faced a US government audit of its records on Trovan, the company produced a letter from a hospital in Kano saying its study had been approved by the hospital’s ethics committee. The company’s accusers contend that the letter was fabricated after the fact, using a forged letterhead. The hospital, according to the suit, has no ethics committee.
Nigeria’s decision to prosecute Pfizer marks the first known instance of a Third World country going after a pharmaceutical multinational. Until now, the Nigerians have trod very carefully around the issue - commissioning an investigation but then suppressing the results until they were leaked to The Washington Post a few years ago.
But the episode has got in the way of successive public initiatives, including a polio vaccination drive that prompted an 11-month boycott in Kano.
Trovan has never been approved for use on US children. It was cleared for adults in 1997, but its use was restricted two years later following reports of liver damage and death. It is banned throughout Europe.
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‘High priests of globalization’ in Istanbul
Friday, June 1st, 2007
TAYLAN BİLGİÇ
Some call it “the multinational government”, some call it the “elite club which shapes world policies” while others say it essentially “fixes” the world’s fate. It literally breeds conspiracy theories all around the world with its secrecy, while participants say it is only a private gathering that should be respected.
Whatever it is, the mighty Bilderberg is at our door: The “high priests of globalization,” as Will Hutton from The Observer once famously put it, begin their ultra-secretive annual meeting today in Istanbul. While the international media’s silence gives rise to yet more conspiracy theories, the Turkish media is going nuts about it: from mass-circulation dailies to well-known weeklies, the media is Bilderberg-busy nowadays. Daily Vatan calls it “the most secretive meeting in the world,” announcing: “Bilderberg in Istanbul.” Weekly Aktüel says the “multinational government” is here to determine the fate of the world. It seems the hype will continue until the “high priests” end their Istanbul meeting on Sunday.
For those who have not heard about it yet, the Bilderberg Group is an “unofficial annual invitation-only conference of around 130 guests” (Wikipedia), influential, powerful figures from the realms of economy, media and politics. The name comes from their first meeting in 1954, which was held in the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, Netherlands. As the date signals, Bilderberg is a creation of the Cold War. The idea came from Joseph Retinger, who was concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe at the time. So, Bilderberg, just like other organizations like NATO, aimed at strengthening the “unity of the West” against the “communist threat.”
With the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the group focused on enhancing the American-led globalization. But then, the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington practically resulted in another focus, which one might call the relation between “civilizations.”
Thus, after the first gathering in Istanbul (1959) and the second one in İzmir (1975), a third gathering in Turkey, widely regarded as a “bridge” between the East and the West, seems appropriate.
People that run the world:
If one aspect of Bilderberg that irks many is its secrecy, another one is the identity of its participants. Looking at the list of regular “Bilderbergers,” one cannot but think that these are really “the people that run the world”. Veterans like Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski are joined every year by newcomers such as former U.S. President Bill Clinton, soon-to-be-former-PM Tony Blair, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle and countless others. Every year, the list also includes important “media people” from influential outlets such as The Financial Times, Washington Post, The Economist, The Times, Le Figaro and Die Zeit. The picture becomes complete with CEOs from the world’s biggest companies such as Coca-Cola, Fiat, Suez-Tractebel, Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum.
With such a mixture, conspiracy theories abound; the most famous one being the “invisible hand” theory. According to some, those who are lucky enough to attend the meetings and get a blessing from the “inner circle” witness breath-taking career leaps. An “obscure governor” from Arkansas, one year after attending the Bilderberg meeting in 1991, became the President of the United States, while Tony Blair of Britain was elected prime minister three years after his attendance in 1993. But why did Margaret Thatcher, a regular Bilderberger, lose her job as Prime Minister in 1990? The theory says that she lost the support of Bilderberg because she did not accept the transfer of British sovereignty to a “European Super State.” Of course, John Major, who took the job as Prime Minister after Thatcher, was also a Bilderberger.
One may choose to believe or not, but the secrecy of the meetings – no cell phones, no getting out of the hotel during three days, no notes, no interviews – creates fertile ground for conspiracy theories. When senior representatives of media giants such as the FT, the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post attend the meetings every year and next to nothing is printed in the same papers about Bilderberg, one starts to wonder.
Dedicated journalists:
There are a few journalists who are dedicated to unveil the secret of the Bilderberg, though. People such as James P. Tucker, Daniel Estulin and Tony Gosling. The first two are in Istanbul, tracking down the participants, while Gosling, a Briton who runs the Web site www.bilderberg.org, could not come to the show. His Web site gets about three million hits a month, Gosling says, and attributes this great interest to the fact that “investigative journalism is pretty much dead” elsewhere. The Bilderberg is very powerful, especially financially, he told the Turkish Daily News over the phone: “So, if they come to a decision, it is effective.”
Gosling has covered the last 10 meetings, and he thinks the gathering in Istanbul is of high importance. “There is a lot of tension on the Iran-Turkey border at the moment. Iraq is also right next door. This is an area of interest for Bilderberg,” he said. “[The Bilderbergers] are worried that Islamic sentiment in Turkey is not in favor of an invasion of Iran. They are here to attempt to persuade the Turkish elite and bring them on board with the neocon plan for the Middle East.”
But why the secrecy? Gosling posed the same question to David Rockefeller back in 2003. “He shrugged and said it was just a private meeting,” he continues. “But the world does not buy this argument. There are politicians there and they are not private people. They are people who should be held accountable.”
Gosling’s claim, that the main topic of Bilderberg 2007 is Iran, is a widely held opinion. Other topics are energy policies and Turkey’s bid for European Union membership, according to the daily Vatan. The paper is optimistic about the last item; it says the Istanbul meeting is a signal that the EU has “inched open the door” to Turkey, basing this claim on unnamed “Bilderberg sources.”
A veteran of Bilderberg:
With four separate attendances in Atlanta, Ottawa, Stockholm and Lisbon, Turkey’s former Central Bank governor, Gazi Erçel, is the most informed source one can find. “There are many international meetings such as Bilderberg, which have strict rules,” he said to the TDN. As to the reason of the secrecy, he says it is a precaution to ensure that everyone talks sincerely on the topics, without the concern of being quoted.
The conspiracy theories stem from ignorance about the meetings, Erçel said, quoting Confucius: “Those who produce ideas without the knowledge are harmful. As they do not know what Bilderberg is, they believe in superstitions.”
Erçel also got his share of mention in the conspiracy theories, as some accused him of “planning the 2001 financial crisis” at one of the meetings. “These are defective claims,” he said. “Bilderberg is a high-level meeting. Everyone talks freely and very striking debates take place.”
Over the years Bilderberg meetings had important Turkish participants. Among them are Süleyman Demirel, the former president; Gazi Erçel, former Central Bank chief; Mesut Yılmaz, former Prime Minister; Selahattin Beyazıt, a businessman and a “constant participant”; Mustafa Koç, the CEO of Koç Holding; former ministers İsmail Cem, Hikmet Çetin and Kemal Derviş and also some well-known journalists. Among them, Fehmi Koru from the conservative daily Yeni Şafak stands out, because until last year, he had written numerous critical columns on Bilderberg. Last year, things changed and he was also invited to the meetings. Afterwards, he wrote a six-day series on Bilderberg, telling much about the environment and the participants, but certainly not much on what was discussed. Koru is invited for a second time this year, but the “jump” in his career is yet to be seen!
As the Bilderbergers gather, probably giggling among themselves about the conspiracy theories abounding, it would be appropriate to quote Alasdair Spark, an expert in conspiracy theories, who had spoken to the BBC back in June 2004: “Should not we expect that the rich and the powerful organize things in their own interests? It is called capitalism!”
BILDERBERG 2007 INVITED GUESTS
(According to www.bilderberg.org)
Ali Babacan, Minister of Economic Affairs (Turkey)
Kemal Derviş, Administrator, UNDP (Turkey)
Mustafa V. Koç, Chairman, Koç Holding A.Ş. (Turkey)
Fehmi Koru, Senior Writer, Yeni Şafak (Turkey)
George Alogoskoufis, Minister of Economy and Finance (Greece)
Edward Balls, Economic Secretary to the Treasury (UK)
Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; Former Prime Minister (Portugal)
José M. Durão Barroso, President, European Commission (Portugal/International)
Franco Bernabé, Vice Chairman, Rothschild Europe (Italy)
Nicolas Beytout, Editor-in-Chief, Le Figaro (France)
Carl Bildt, Former Prime Minister (Sweden)
Hubert Burda, Publisher and CEO, Hubert Burda Media Holding (Belgium)
Philippe Camus, CEO, EADS (France)
Henri de Castries, Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, AXA (France)
Juan Luis Cebrian, Grupo PRISA media group (Spain)
Kenneth Clark, Member of Parliament (UK)
Timothy C. Collins, Senior Managing Director and CEO, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC (USA)
Bertrand Collomb, Chairman, Lafarge (France)
George A. David, Chairman, Coca-Cola H.B.C. S.A. (USA)
Anders Eldrup, President, DONG A/S (Denmark)
John Elkann, Vice Chairman, Fiat S.p.A (Italy)
Martin S. Feldstein, President and CEO, National Bureau of Economic Research (USA)
Timothy F. Geithner, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of New York (USA)
Paul A. Gigot, Editor of the Editorial Page, The Wall Street Journal (USA)
Dermot Gleeson, Chairman, AIB Group (Ireland)
Donald E. Graham, Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company (USA)
Victor Halberstadt, Professor of Economics, Leiden University, (the Netherlands)
Jean-Pierre Hansen, CEO, Suez-Tractebel S.A. (Belgium)
Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations (USA)
Richard C. Holbrooke, Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC (USA)
Jaap G. Hoop de Scheffer, Secretary General, NATO (the Netherlands/International)
Allan B. Hubbard, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, Director National Economic Council (USA)
Josef Joffe, Publisher-Editor, Die Zeit (Germany)
James A. Johnson, Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC (USA)
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC (USA)
Anatole Kaletsky, Editor at Large, The Times (UK)
John Kerr of Kinlochard, Deputy Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc (the Netherlands)
Henry A. Kissinger, Chairman, Kissinger Associates (USA)
Bernard Kouchner, Minister of Foreign Affairs (France)
Henry R. Kravis, Founding Partner, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (USA)
Marie-Josée Kravis, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Inc. (USA)
Neelie Kroes, Commissioner, European Commission (the Netherlands/International)
Ed Kronenburg, Director of the Private Office, NATO Headquarters (International)
William J. Luti, Special Assistant to the President for Defense Policy and Strategy, National Security Council (USA)
Jessica T. Mathews, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (USA)
Frank McKenna, Ambassador to the US, member Carlyle Group (Canada)
Thierry de Montbrial, President, French Institute for International Relations (France)
Mario Monti, President, Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (Italy)
Craig J. Mundie, Chief Technical Officer Advanced Strategies and Policy, Microsoft Corporation (USA)
Egil Myklebust, Chairman of the Board of Directors SAS, Norsk Hydro ASA (Norway)
Matthias Nass, Deputy Editor, Die Zeit (Germany)
Adnrzej Olechowski, Leader Civic Platform (Poland)
Jorma Ollila, Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc/Nokia (Finland)
George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (UK)
Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Minister of Finance (Italy)
Richard N. Perle, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (USA)
Heather Reisman, Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc. (Canada)
David Rockefeller (USA)
Matías Rodriguez Inciarte, Executive Vice Chairman, Grupo Santander Bank, (Spain)
Dennis B. Ross, Director, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (USA)
Otto Schily, Former Minister of Interior Affairs (Germany)
Jürgen E. Schrempp, Former Chairman of the Board of management, DaimlerChrysler AG (Germany)
Tøger Seidenfaden, Executive Editor-in-Chief, Politiken (Denmark)
Peter D. Sutherland, Chairman, BP plc and Chairman, Goldman Sachs International (Ireland)
Giulio Tremonti, Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies (Italy)
Jean-Claude Trichet, Governor, European Central Bank (France/International)
John Vinocur, Senior Correspondent, International Herald Tribune (USA)
Jacob Wallenberg, Chairman, Investor AB (Sweden)
Martin H. Wolf, Associate Editor, The Financial Times (UK)
James D. Wolfensohn, Special Envoy for the Gaza Disengagement (USA)
Robert B. Zoellick, Deputy Secretary of State (USA)
Klaus Zumwinkel, Chairman of the Board of management, Deutsche Post AG (USA)
Adrian D. Wooldridge, Foreign Correspondent, The Economist
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