Israel is the Whore of Babylon

U.S. Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta says Israel is ready to bomb Iran this spring!

2012-02-02T16:57:00.011-07:00

United States Secretary of Defence admits Israel ready to strike(BOMB) Iran this Spring!

Source- UK TELEGRAPH

Leon Panetta 'believes Israel could attack Iran in the spring'
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes there is a "strong possibility" that Israel will strike Iran's nuclear installations this spring, it was reported today.

11:38PM GMT 02 Feb 2012
A column in the Washington Post newspaper claimed the Pentagon chief believes that a Israeli strike could go ahead within months.

When asked about the opinion piece by reporters travelling with him to a Nato meeting in Brussels, Mr Panetta did not deny the claim.

"I'm not going to comment on that. David Ignatius can write what he will but with regards with what I think and what I view, I consider that to be an area that belongs to me and nobody else," he said.

"Israel indicated they're considering this (a strike), we've indicated our concerns," he added.

The Post columnist said Mr Panetta "believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June before Iran enters what

Israelis described as a 'zone of immunity' to commence building a nuclear bomb."

President Barack Obama and Panetta are "said to have cautioned the Israelis that the United States opposes an attack, believing that it would derail an increasingly successful international economic sanctions program and other non-military efforts to stop Iran from crossing the threshold," he said.

"But the White House hasn't yet decided precisely how the United States would respond if the Israelis do attack."

Mr Panetta said Sunday in an interview with CBS that Iran needed "about a year" to produce enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon, and one or two more years to "put it on a deliverable vehicle."

Iran insists its nuclear project is peaceful and has threatened retaliation over the fresh sanctions, including possibly disrupting shipping through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Israeli media reported in October last year that the option of pre-emptive air strikes on Iran was opposed by the country's intelligence services but favored by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak.

Israeli television said Mossad chief Tamir Pardo raised the possibility of a unilateral strike on Iran during a visit last week to Washington.

Tamir Pardo in SECRET TALKS YESTERDAY and TODAY-ONGOING???

Source-Haretz.com/Tamir Pardo in secret talks

Mossad chief holds secret U.S. meetings on Iran nuclear threat, Senate panel reveals
During a broadcasted meeting of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, CIA Director, panel Chairperson indicate they met Tamir Pardo in Washington this week; U.S. official: Iran willing to attack U.S. targets if threatened.
By Barak Ravid
Tags: Iran threat Iran nuclear Mossad

Mossad chief Tamir Pardo held secret talks with top U.S. officials in recent days, cursory comments made during a public Senate hearing indicated on Tuesday.

The clandestine Washington visit was exposed during a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which was participated by CIA Director David Petraeus, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate panel.

During the meeting, Feinstein asked Clapper whether or not Israel intended to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, with the top U.S. intelligence official answering that he would rather discuss the issue behind closed doors.

Feinstein then indicated that she had met Mossad chief Pardo earlier in the week in Washington, with Petraeus adding that he too met Pardo and cited what he called Israel's growing concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The CIA chief also said that it was important to note that Israel considered a nuclear Iran as an existential threat.

The entire exchange was broadcasted live on American television.

Referring to the Iran's nuclear progress, Clapper told the Senate panel that "Iran's technical advancement, particularly in uranium enrichment, strengthens our assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons, making the central issue its political will to do so."

"These advancements contribute to our judgment that Iran is technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon, if it so chooses," Clapper added, saying that the U.S. judged "Iran would likely choose missile delivery as its preferred method of delivering a nuclear weapon."

Clapper also indicated that the 2011 Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi envoy to the U.S. indicated that the Iranian leadership "changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime."

"We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against U.S. or allied interests overseas. Iran's willingness to sponsor future attacks in the United States or against our interests abroad probably will be shaped by Tehran's evaluation of the costs it bears for the plot against the ambassador as well as Iranian leaders' perceptions of U.S. threats against the regime," Clapper added.

News of the Mossad chief's reported Washington visit came as, also on Tuesday, President Shimon Peres said that Iran's "evil" leadership mustn't be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons capability.

Referring to Iran's contentious nuclear program, the president called the issue "ours and the world's central problem at this time, accusing Iran of attempting to achieve regional and "even global hegemony."

"Nuclear weapons mustn't be allowed to fall into the hands of Iran's Ayatollah regime," Peres said, calling Iran's religious leadership the "most morally corrupt regime in the world."

Hinting at the possibility of a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, the president reiterated the Israeli stance, according to which "no option should be ruled out in our dealing with the Iranian danger. This is an existential threat."

"It is the duty of the international community to prevent evil and nuclear [weapons] from coming together. That is the obligations of most of the leaders of the free world, one which they must meet," Peres said.

Read this article in Hebrew

Saudi Arabia, 911, And the coming war against Iran.

2012-02-01T20:00:00.085-07:00

Saudi Arabian History Past and Present

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Saudi Ambassador Adel A. Al-Jubeir

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You can find information about Saudi Arabia's international policies, domestic programs, government, economy, laws, history, culture, social services and infrastructure, as well our religion, Islam. Or, visit the site to catch up on recent news about the Kingdom.

You can also obtain practical information about traveling to Saudi Arabia, such as contact information and how to apply for visas. I encourage you to visit saudiembassy.net and learn more about our country, which has undergone tremendous development in the past decades.

If there is something you do not find, please let us know and we will try to help you.

Adel A. Al-Jubeir
Ambassador

Read here below before proceeding, this gives the reader the incredible EVIL, and DISGUSTING evil nature of the Zionist Master Plan to Enslave the world.

The US has resorted to “any possible means”, ranging from implicit to explicit acts of enmity, to undermine the Iranian nation and break its resistance to subjugation, a political analyst tells Press TV.

In consonance with its animus-charged measures against the Islamic Republic, “a US court in Manhattan made a mockery of justice, issued a default judgment against Iran, and accused Tehran of being involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” Ismail Salami, a Middle East expert, said, citing one such anti-Iran push in an article published on Press TV on Tuesday.

Such an allegation “stands in stark contrast to reason in view of the plethora of evidence pointing with force and logic to the joint role of the CIA and the Mossad in the tragic incident,” he added.

On December 22, a US federal judge in Manhattan alleged that Iran, together with Taliban and al-Qaeda, had been involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

The court, meanwhile, withdrew Saudi Arabia's name from the 10-year-old case, even though 15 of the 19 attackers were of Saudi nationality.

The Iranian author went on to say that the association of the Islamic Republic of Iran with Taliban and al-Qaeda was a move aimed to “further drag Iran into the margins of isolation.”

The US government's effort to incriminate Iran in the 9/11 case followed another attempt in early October, when the US Justice Department accused Tehran of involvement in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

Pointing to the full-throttle push by Zionist top officials in Washington and Tel Aviv to devise anti-Iran scenarios, Salami noted, “Any time there is a new allegation against Iran, one should not ignore the prominent role the Zionist lobby plays in the matter. In this case too, a Zionist-funded Birmingham law firm had an important part to play in contributing to the warps and wefts of the plot.”

He further explained that the findings of the US- and Israeli-funded “Wiggins Childs Quinn & Pantazis” firm were based on its interviews with “'defectors from Iran's intelligence agencies', namely the members of the anti-Iran MKO [Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization] which is widely branded as a terrorist group and one which is readily available to corroborate the allegations leveled against the Islamic Republic.”

However, it goes without saying that “their henna is void of any valid color,” the Iranian expert insisted, referring to the testimonies of the MKO terrorists.

The allegations of Iran's involvement in the 9/11 attacks also come as the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently removed the name of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar from the list of "most wanted terrorists."

Salami said the US efforts to bend Iran to its will “is gradually unfolding in every imaginable area ranging from sabotaging Iranian computer systems to hiring spies and assassins.”

In 2010, two Iranian nuclear scientists were killed in assassination attempts, which, upon comprehensive investigations, Iran's Intelligence Ministry traced back to Israel -- the United States main ally.

The ministry announced on December 13 that it had arrested a CIA agent of Iranian descent, named as Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, foiling an intricate American plot to carry out espionage activities in the Islamic Republic.

The Iranian author also cautioned that “Washington's literature of threat shuts the window to any meaningful dialogue with Iran.” The Islamic Republic has always expressed readiness to hold negotiations with the United States and European countries on the basis of mutual respect and without any precondition in order to reach an understanding on the issues of mutual concern.

IRAN HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 911! AND YET THE STUPID AMERICAN SHEEPLE ARE BEING FED THE LIE THAT THEY WERE! WAKE UP AMERICA BEFORE "THEY" DO IT AGAIN!

Map of Arabia at time of Muhammad

Saudi Arabia is a monarchy governed under strict Islamic laws of the Wahhabi sect, which regulate public behavior, especially for women and foreigners. Women cannot drive cars and have numerous other restrictions imposed on them, and the presence of on-Muslim foreigners is tolerated but often raises resentment.

The Arabian peninsula (Al-Jazira) is bounded by the Red Sea to the west, the Arabian Sea to the south and the Persian Gulf to the east. To the west, the Hijaz and Asir mountain ranges form a barrier from the sea. Further west, the Tihama is the coastal plain of the Red Sea. In the north, the An Nafud and 'Hamad deserts separate Saudi Arabia from Iraq and Jordan. The Rub' al Khali (empty quarter) in the southeast is a vast and generally impenetrable desert. An Nafud, a sea of enormous shifting sand dunes, was supposedly considered impenetrable until T.E. Lawrence crossed it in 1917 to attack Aqaba with his Arab allies.

The Arabs have been known in the Middle East at least since the time of Shalmanesser II in 853 BC. Arabia has been the home of several apparently distinct Semitic peoples in numerous tribes, all known as Arabs, for much of recorded history. The relatively high rainfall of Yemen and easy access to the sea made it the home of several prosperous kingdoms, including Saba (possibly the biblical Sheba), Himyar, Qataban, Minea (Ma'in) and Hadramaut. The Romans called Yemen Arabia Felix (Happy Arabia) The area was the source of frankincense and myrrh and also a relay point for spices coming from the East. An additional kingdom of Zufar was situated in the area of the modern Oman.

The north and center of the peninsula, corresponding to the Arabia Deserta of the Romans, have always been populated by nomadic tribes, in contrast to the sedentary south. For much of ancient history, Aramaic was apparently the dominant language in the northern regions, rather than Arabic. The desert is punctuated by oases where a sedentary way of life is possible, and which formed terminuses and way stations on caravan routes. Each town was located at an oasis, and was usually controlled and inhabited by several tribes who made a pact that allowed joint control of the oasis. In times of prosperity, differences between town and countryside were accentuated, and the caravans and the towns became targets of raids by relatively poorer Bedouin nomads.

The nomadic way of life and tribal organization of the interior of north and central Arabia made it difficult to form large stable political organizations. Two very well known but short-lived states were anchored outside the Arabian desert. About 100 AD, the Nabateans ruled a kingdom that stretched from Palestine to the Gulf at its greatest extent, with its capital in Petra, in what is now Jordan. The Nabateans declined and their kingdom in the West was taken over by the Romans. A second kingdom arose in the North with its capital in Palmyra, under Odenathus in 265, and flourished under his widow Zenobia. It flourished all too well however, and was extinguished by the Roman Emperor Aurelian in 273 after Zenobia proclaimed her son Athenodorus as Caesar Augustus. Two lesser known kingdoms in the interior were Li'hyan and Thamud. The Lakhmid, located in what is now Transjordan and Southern Arabia, was the first known kingdom to use Arabic as its official language. Its influence extended to the borders of South Arabia. The Kindah of western Central Arabia wrested control of much of Central Arabia from the Lakhmids in the 4th and 5th centuries AD but were forced back in 528. Two small protectorates of varying borders existed along the northern borders. Ghassan, along the border with Syria, was a Byzantine protectorate, and Hira, along the border with Persia (modern Iraq) was a Persian protectorate

The Hijaz formed part of an important trade route from the Mediterranean south to the Arabian sea, and Mecca was a key city on this route. Arabia profited from the animosity between the Roman and Persian empires, which closed more desirable east-west trade routes through Egypt. In 384 the Romans and Persians concluded a peace treaty. The trade route through the Hijaz was no longer needed and Arabia went into decline until 502, when the treaty was broken, and a new period of prosperity began for Arabia

Religion before Islam

Religion Before Islam - Before the advent of Islam, the different tribes of Arabia followed different varieties of paganism, and later many converted to Christianity and Judaism. Muhamed, who was to become the prophet of Islam, was born about 570 to the Banu Hashim family, reputable merchants in the tribe of Quraysh in Mecca. He began preaching a new monotheistic religion sometime before 622, and was forced to migrate from Mecca about 622 with his followers, in the Hegira. At Medina, Muhamed consolidated a power base and followers. By 630, the Muslims were strong enough to attack and capture Mecca. According to Muslim tradition, the attack took place only after the Quraysh had broken the treaty.

Muhamed

Muhamed - In 632, Muhamed died and was succeed by Abu Bakr, his father in law, followed by Umar, who was followed by Umar. Each ruler spread the rule of Islam, first consolidating its hold and Arabia, but rapidly expanding to Palestine (by 640), Syria, Persia and central Asia. Umar was succeeded by Uthman, who was succeeded by Muhamed's son-in-law Ali. Ali moved the capital outside Arabia to Kufa, in what is now Iraq. The further history of Islam is presented separately.

Mecca and Medina - Mecca remained the spiritual focus of Islam because it was the destination for the obligatory Haj pilgrimage. The city, however, lacked political or administrative importance even in the early Islamic period. Medina had been the main base of Muhamed's political and military administration and the capital of the early caliphs. Medina continued to be an administrative center and developed into something of an intellectual and literary one as well. In the seventh and eighth centuries, Medina became an important center for the codification of Islamic law.

Arabia in decline - As the center of Islamic and "Arab" civilization moved away from Arabia, order and culture receded, particular after the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century, and later, after the overland trade routes were transferred to ocean shipping. When the Caliphate was powerful, it controlled the Hijaz and ensured the safety of pilgrims to Mecca. However, by the ninth centrury the Caliphate had been greatly weakened. The Hijaz fell under the sway of different tribes and factions. From about 967, the Hijaz was controlled by the the Hashemites, who claim direct descent from Ali, son-in-law of Muhamed, through his son Hussayn. They were the Sharifs of Mecca since 1201, though they became nominal tributaries of the Ottoman empire in the fifteenth century. The importance of Arabia as a trade route declined in the sixteenth century, as Europeans found ocean routes to the indies, but the Red Sea and the Hijaz still remained relatively prosperous and cosmopolitan. In the South East however, the Najd area was ruled by no one. The Najd was isolated. arid and barren, and was surrounded on three sides by deserts and separated from the Hijaz by mountains. The Bedouin tribes lived there in more or less total independence, and with little contact with the outside world. The Najd became the home of the Wahhabi Islamic sect and of the house of Saud that was to create modern Saudi Arabia.

The Saud family and the rise of the Wahhabis - The Saud family was established in Ad Diriyah, in the center of Najd, near the modern capital of Riyadh, where they had settled around 1500. The tribes of the Najd, relatively isolated from Islamic life, had resumed various pagan practices. Some of the Arabian tribes attributed to trees and rocks the same sort of power that the Shia venerate in the tombs of Imams. Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (died 1792), initiated a comprehensive reform. He grew up in Uyaynah, an oasis in southern Najd, where he studied Hanbali Islamic law. He continued his studies in Medina and then went to Iraq and to Iran. In the late 1730s he returned to the Najd and began to write and preach against both Shia and local paganism. He focused on Muslim monotheism, and preached that there is only one God, who does not share power with anyone. His students called themselves muwahhidun (unitarians). Their detractors referred to them as "Wahhabis"--or "followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab."

Wahhab attached a militant political dimension to his preaching, attacking the Shia and attracting local sheikhs to his cause. He won over some local leaders in Uyaynah and destroying some shrines there with the assistance of the Saud family, but was obliged to leave that town because of Shi'a pressure, and headed for Ad Diriyah, where he was welcomed by the Saud family. In 1744 Muhammad ibn Saud, head of the family, and Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, swore a traditional Muslim oath promising to work together to establish a state based on Islamic principles.

By 1765, when he died, Muhammad ibn Saud's forces had established Wahhabism and the authority of the Saud family, over most of Najd. His son, Abd al Aziz, continued the Wahhabi advance. In 1801 the Al Saud-Wahhabi armies attacked and sacked the shrine of Husayn in Karbala, Iraq. In 1802 or 1803 they advanced on the Hijaz. In Mecca and Medina they destroyed monuments and grave markers used for prayer to Muslim saints and for votive rituals, which they consider acts of polytheism, just as Muhamed had supposedly destroyed pagan idols in Mecca. The Wahhabi advance to the Hijaz alarmed the ruler of Egypt, Muhamad Ali. In 1812 (some say 1816) he sent his son Tursun to the Hijaz, and later joined him. On the Saudi side, Abd Allah ibn Saud ibn Abd al Aziz who faced the invading Egyptian army, but was rapidly defeated, and then pursued to Al Diriyah and evicted from there in 1818.The Wahhabis and the Saud family retreated to Riyadh, which became their capital in 1824. Subsequently the Sauds ruled Riyadh and a variable territory around it. However, interfamily rivalry and frequent civil wars weakened them. In 1890 Muhammad ibn Rashid, put effective control of Riyadh, into the hands of his own garrison commander, Salim ibn Subhan ruling through a Saud family puppet. When the puppet ruler, Abd ar Rahman attempted to exert his authority, he was driven out of Riyadh. The Saud family fled to Kuwait.

Creation of Modern Saudi Arabia - In 1902, Abdul Aziz ibn Saud began battling his way back to power in the Najd and Riyadh, and by 1905 or 1906, the Ottomans had recognized him as their client in the Najd, and he was recognized as the Wahhabi imam. He continued his advances, aided by the Ikhwan brotherhood. The Ikhwan were Wahhabi Bedouin who had gathered into Hujjar - agricultural settlements geared for war. By 1913 Abd al Aziz's had thrown the Ottomans out of Al Hufuf in eastern Arabia. Abdul Aziz's advance was during WW I. He sat by while the Hashemite family, aided and encouraged by the British, revolted against the Turks. After the war, ibn Saud resumed his advance, capturing the Jebel Shammar in 1921, Mecca in 1924 and Medina in 1925. In 1932 he renamed renamed his Kingdom Saudi Arabia.

Suppresion of the Ikhwan - Ibn Saud had trouble controlling the Ikhwan, who were too eager to attack the Hashemites, clients of the British and enemies of the Wahhabi, and who had no tolerance for necessary twentieth century innovations, including all machines and telegraph as well as the presence of non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia, forbidden by tradition. The Ikhwan remained eager to force reform on others, which led them to attack non-Wahhabi Muslims, and even Wahhabis, both in Saudi and in Iraq. When the Wahhabi forces continued to ignore his authority, Ibn Saud defeated them in battle in 1929. However, the conflict between the most extreme forces in Wahhabism and the more pragmatic strain was never completely resolved. Saudi ulema remained suspicious of foreign inventions. For example, they first opposed radio as a suspect modern innovation for which there was no basis in the Qur'an and the Hadiths, but were reconciled when Abd al Aziz demonstrated that the radio could be used to broadcast the Qur'an. Wahhabi rule remains strict in Saudi Arabia. No foreigners can become citizens. Women cannot get drivers licenses and cannot perform legal and financial procedures on their own. Alcohol is forbidden in the kingdom.

Discovery of oil - Beginning in the 1930s, the ARAMCO consortium, including Standard Oil of California and other firms, that had gotten oil concessions in Saudi Arabia, discovered huge quantities of petroleum. Saudi oil is close to the surface and therefore it is very cheap to extract. The discovery of oil transformed the kingdom and gave it, and the entire Gulf Region extraordinary strategic importance in World War II and thereafter. However, in large part, oil revenues contributed to the fortunes of the Saud family, who rule as absolute monarchs, and did not produce a concomitant social revolution and modern development such as occurred in some of the Gulf countries.

King Saud - King Abdul Aziz died in 1953, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Saud. Saud was a spendthrift and political adventurer. His support for Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt alienated the US and British, his traditional allies. A 1957 visit by Saud to the United States raised eyebrows there due to his ostentatious lifestyle. His huge retinue, sumptuous feasts and conspicuous consumption by family members were widely reported. However, the visit served to cement a strategic friendship with the United States that has largely survived intact to present times.

In March 1958, economic problems forced Saud to transfer legislative and executive powers to the prime minister, his brother Crown Prince Faisal, but shortly thereafter, Saud reassumed control of the government from Faisal. The union of Syria and Egypt alarmed the Saud family, who feared that they would be swept away on a tide of Arab nationalism, and there were rumors that Saud had conspired to assassinate Nasser. The kingdom also had to deal with the effects of the civil war in Yemen that raged in the 1960s. Saud was forced to abdicate in 1964 owing to fiscal profligacy. On November 2, 1964 Prince Faisal became king, designating his half-brother, Prince Khalid ibn Abdul, as his successor. Saud tried unsuccessfully to subvert the Saudi government from his exile in Cairo.

King Faisal - Faisal was a spartan and observant monarch, raised in the Wahhabi tradition by his mother, a scion of the Wahhabi clan. However, in addition to improved fiscal responsibility and relative austerity, Faisal introduced innovations such as television, inciting the opposition of conservative elements in the kingdom. Faisal is credited with abolishing slavery in Saudi Arabia in 1962. He was also active in foreign affairs. Faisal helped bankroll the PLO and other anti-Israel ventures, and following the disastrous defeat of the Arabs in the 6-day war, he set up a special compensation fund for Arab countries that had suffered in the war. He initiated the oil embargo that followed the 1973 October war (Yom Kippur war). The boycott and the organization of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) as a coordinated monopoly tripled and quadrupled the price of oil. Saudi Arabia, as the world's largest exporter of oil, benefited from new found prosperity. However, Faisal was assassinated in 1975 by his nephew, and Khalid became king.

King Khalid - Khalid continued the process of modernization and under his rule Saudi Arabia initiated several foreign policy initiatives through Crown Prince Fahd. Fahd assumed a key role in the government because of Khalid's failing health. In 1979, Saudi Arabia was rocked by fundamentalist Sunni riots in the Grand Mosque in Mecca, initiated by those who felt the kingdom had become too liberal. Over 500 dissidents invaded and seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca on November 20. The leader of the dissidents, Juhaiman ibn Muhammad ibn Saif al Utaiba, belonged to an important Najd family. His ancestors had been soldiers and comrades of Abd al Aziz ibn Saud. Juhaiman charged that the Saud family had become steeped in corruption, ostentation, and imitation of the West, echoing the rhetoric of the Ayatollah Khomeini's diatribes against the shah in Iran. The rioters shot and killed a guard in the Mosque, a holy place, where bloodshed is punishable by crucifixion. It was not possible to dislodge them by force until the Ulema issued a special Fatwa (religious decree) permitting bloodshed in the holy precincts.

Riots and disturbances - Later in 1979 and in 1980 there were riots in the eastern Shi'a areas, due to economic discrimination and neglect, and possibly due to incitement from neighboring Iran, which had undergone a fundamentalist Shi'a revolution in 1979. The rioters carried picture of Khomeini. The area is sensitive because of oil production facilities that are easily sabotaged, run by Aramco, which employs many Shi'ites. The government responded with massive repression, but later provided a special economic development package for these areas.

Saudi Peace initiative - Saudi Arabia responded to the Egyptian peace negotiations with Israel by breaking diplomatic relations with Egypt in 1979. However in 1981, Crown Prince Fahd offered a peace plan of his own. The Fahd peace plan, envisioned a comprehensive settlement that included the creation of a Palestinian state and Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

King Fahd - King Khalid died in 1982 and was succeeded by Fahd, who designated Abdullah as crown prince. Saudi Arabia apparently cooperated with the United States in keeping oil prices low in the 80s in order to hurt Soviet energy trade and bring down the Soviet economy. Saudi Arabia was a in a unique position to do so because it has vast reserves and because extraction of Saudi oil costs about a dollar a barrel. Extraction of Russian oil costs about $18 a barrel; oil prices must be higher than that figure to make extraction possible. The Saudis are thought to have used their reserves and tremendous capacity to maintain an over-supply of oil on the world market and force the Soviets out. Falling oil prices allowed Saudi Arabia to dismiss some of the foreigners employed in the kingdom. However, the fall in oil prices ultimately hurt the Saudi economy.

In 1991, the kingdom accepted comparatively large numbers of US troops, and was a base for US operations against Iraq. who remained in the kingdom after the end of Desert Storm, angering traditionalists. At the same time, the Saudi government and members of the Saudi family have been bankrolling extremist groups such as the Palestinian Hamas as well as Central Asian groups such as Hizb ut Tahrir, and paying for Islamic schools that are often hot beds of fundamentalism.

Osama Bin Laden, a dissident member of a rich Saudi family, is credited with a key role in organizing the successful overthrow of the Soviet-backed Afghanistan government with the support of the US Central Intelligence Agency. Some say he was also aided by Saudi Prince Turki-El-Feisal, then head of the Saudi intelligence services. Bin Laden became an implacable fundamentalist foe of the United States, and his Al-Qaeda network planned and executed the terror attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. The major stated reason for Bin-Laden's hostility to the US is the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia. Many of the attackers were of Saudi origin, and subsequent revelations about Saudi support of Islamic and Islamist fundamentalist groups have strained relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States.

In 2002, against the background of the second Palestinian Intifada and the looming war in Iraq, Crown Prince Abdullah initiated an Arab peace plan quite similar to the one offered by Crown Prince Fahd in 1981. The former plan had foundered on the resistance of Syria and other hard-line states. This plan was accepted at an Arab summit conference in Beirut.

The Saudi regime was rocked in 2003 by Al-Qaeda engineered explosions that took place in Riyadh in May and November, as well as riots demanding reform by both traditionalists and democratic reformers. The unrest was met with arrests and force, but also with promises of reform. The regime sponsored a forum on reform. State-supported preachers issued Fatwas (religious edits) enjoining against violence between Muslims and suicide attacks.

Ami Isseroff

Source-Mideast web.org

Jewish Roots of Saudi Arabia

Source-The House of Saud

RESEARCH AND PRESENTATION OF: MOHAMMAD SAKHER , who was ordered killed by the Saudi Regime for the following findings:

1. Are the Saudi Family members belonging to the Tribe of ANZA BEN WA'EL as they allege to be?
2. Is Islam their actual religion?
3. Are they of an ARAB ORIGIN at all?

In the year 851 A.H. a group of men from AL MASALEEKH CLAN, which was a branch of ANZA Tribe, formed a caravan for buying cereals (wheat and corn) and other food stuff from IRAQ, and transporting it back to NAJD. The head of that group was a man called SAHMI BIN HATHLOOL. The caravan reached BASRA, where the members of the group went to a cereal merchant who was a Jew, Called MORDAKHAI BIN IBRAHIM BIN MOSHE'. During their bargaining with that merchant, the Jew asked them : "Where are you from?" They answered: "From ANZA TRIBE; a clan of AL MASALEEKH." Upon hearing that name, the Jew started to hug so affectionately each one of them saying that he, himself, was also from the clan of AL MASALEEKH, but he had come to reside in BASRA (IRAQ) in consequence to a family feud between his father and some members of ANZA Tribe.

After he recounted to them his fabricated narrative, he ordered his servants to load all the camels of the clan's members with wheat, dates and tamman; a remarkable deed so generous that astonished the MASALEEKH men and aroused their pride to find such an affectionate (cousin) in IRAQ- the source of their sustenance; they believed each word he said , and , because he was a rich merchant of the food commodities which they were badly in need, they liked him (even though he was a Jew concealed under the garb of an Arab from AL MASALEEKH clan).

When the caravan was ready to depart returning to NAJD, that Jewish Merchant asked them to accept his company, because he intended to go with them to his original homeland, NAJD. Upon hearing that from him, they wholeheartedly welcomed him with a very cheerful attitude.

So that (concealed) Jew reached NAJD with the caravan. In NAJD, he started to promulgate a lot of propaganda for himself through his companions (his alleged cousins), a fact, which gathered around him a considerable number of new supporters; but, unexpectedly, he confronted a campaign of opposition to his views led by SHEIKH SALEH SALMAN ABDULLA AL TAMIMI, who was a Muslem religious preacher in AL-QASEEM. The radius of his preaching area included Najd, Yemen, and Hijaz, a fact which compelled the Jew (the Ancestor of the present SAUDI FAMILY to depart from AL QASEEM to AL IHSA, where he changed his name (MORDAKHAI) To MARKHAN BIN IBRAHIM MUSA. Then he changed the location of his residence and settled at a place called DIR'IYA near AL-QATEEF, where he started to spread among the inhabitants a fabricated story about the shield of our Prophet MOHAMMAD (p.b.u.h), that it was taken as a booty by an Arab Pagan in consequence of OHOD Battle between the Arab pagans and the Muslems. "That shield, he said, was sold by the Arab Pagan to a Jewish Clan called BANU QUNAIQA' who preserved it as a treasure! He gradually enhanced his position among the Bedouins through such stories which indicated how the Jewish clans in Arabia were so influential and deserved high esteem. He gained some personal importance among the Bedouins, and decided to settle permanently there, at DIR'IYA town, near AL QATEEF, which he decided to be his (Capital) on the Persian Gulf. He aspired to make it his spring board for establishing a Jewish Kingdom in Arabia.

In order to fulfill his ambitious scheme, he started to approach the desert Arab Bedouins for support of his position, them gradually, he declared himself as their king!

At that juncture, AJAMAN Tribe together with BANU KHALED Tribe became fully aware of that Jewish cunning plan after they had verified his true identity, and decided to put an end to him. They attacked his town and conquered it, but before arresting him he had escaped by the skin of his teeth.

That Jewish Ancestor of the SAUDI FAMILY, (MORDAKHAI), sought shelter in a farm called at that time AL-MALIBEED-GHUSAIBA near AL-ARID, which is called at our present time : AL-RIYADH.

He requested the owner of that farm to grant him an asylum. The farmer was so hospitable that he immediately gave him sanctuary. But that Jew (MORDAKHAI), no longer than a month had he stayed there, when he assassinated the land lord and all members of his family, pretending that all were killed by an invading band of thieves. Then he pretended that he had bought that real estate from them before that catastrophe happened to them! Accordingly, he had the right to reside there as a land lord. He then gave a new name to that place: He named it AL-DIRIYA - the same name as that he had lost.

That Jewish Ancestor of the SAUDI FAMILY (MORDAKHAI), was quick to establish a "GUEST HOUSE" called "MADAFFA" on the land he usurped from his victims, and gathered around him a group of hypocrites who started to spread out false propaganda for him that he was a prominent Arab Sheikh. He plotted against Sheikh SALEH SALMAN ABDULLA AL TAMIMI, his original enemy, and caused his assassination in the mosque of the town called (AL-ZALAFI).

After that, he felt satisfied and safe to make (AL-DIRIYA) his permanent home. There he practiced polygamy at a wide scale, and indeed, he begot a lot of children whom he gave pure Arab names.

Eversince his descendants grew up in number and power under the name of SAUDI CLAN, they have followed his steps in practicing under ground activities and conspiracies against the Arab Nation. They illegally seized rural sectors and farm lands, and assassinated every person who tried to oppose their evil plans. They used all kinds of deceit for reaching their goals: they bought the conscience of their dissidents; they offered their women and money to influential people in that area, particularly to those who started to write the true biography of that Jewish Family; they bribed writers of history in order to purify their ignominious history, and make their lineage related to the most prominent Arab Tribes such as RABI'A, ANZA and ALMASALEEKH.

A conspicuous hypocrite in our era whose name is MOHAMMAD AMIN AL TAMIMI- Director/Manager of the contemporary Libraries of the SAUDI KINGDOM, made up a genealogical tree (FAMILY TREE) for this JEWISH FAMILY (THE SAUDIS), connecting them to our Great Prophet, MOHAMMAD (P.B.U.H) For his false work, he received a reward of 35 (THIRTY FIVE) THOUSAND EYPTIAN POUNDS from the then SAUDI AMBASSADOR TO CAIRO, EGYPT, in the year 1362 AH.- 1943 A.D. The name of that Ambassador is : IBRAHIM AL-FADEL.

As aforementioned, the Jewish Ancestor of the SAUDI FAMILY, (MORDAKHAI), practiced polygamy by marrying a lot of Arab women and begot many children; his polygamous practice is, at the present time, being carried out " to the letter" by his descendants; they cling to his marital heritage!

One of MORDAKHAI'S sons called AL-MAQARAN, arabized from the Jewish root (MACK-REN) begot a son called Mohammad, then another son called SAUD, which is the name of the present day SAUDI DYNASTY.

Descendants of SAUD (the present day SAUDI FAMILY )started a campaign of assassination of the prominent leaders of the Arab Tribes under the pretence that those leaders were apostates; renegading from the Islamic Religion, and deserting their Koranic doctrines; so they deserved the SAUDI condemnation and slaughter!

In the History Book of the SAUDI FAMILY pages (98-101), their private family historian declares that the SAUDI DYNASTY considers all the people of NAJD blasphemous; so their blood must be shed, their properties confiscated, and their females be taken as concubines; no muslem is authentic in his /her belief unless he/she belongs (affiliates) to the sect of MOHAMMAD BIN ABDUL WAHAB, (whose origins are also Jewish from TURKEY.) His doctrines give authority to the SAUDI FAMILY to destroy the villages with all their inhabitants-males including children, and to sexually assault their women; stab the bellies of the pregnant, and cut off the hands of their children, then burn them! They are further authorized by such a BRUTAL DOCTRINE to plunder all the properties of whom they call renegades (not following there Wahabi sect.)

Their hideous Jewish Family has, in fact, done all that kind of atrocities in the name of their false religious sect (the Wahabi), which has actually been invented by a Jew so as to sow the seeds of terror in the hearts of people in towns and villages. This Jewish Dynasty has been committing such brutal atrocities eversince 1163 A.H. They have named the whole Arabian Peninsula after their family name (SAUDI ARABIA) as if the whole region is their own personal real estate, and that all other inhabitants are their mere servants or slaves, toiling day and night for the pleasure of their masters (THE SAUDI FAMILY).

They are completely holding the natural wealth of the country as their own property. If any poor person from the common people raises his/her voice complaining against any of the despotic rules of this Jewish Dynasty, (the Dynasty) cuts off his/her head in the public square. A princess of theirs once visited FLORIDA, USA, with her retinue; she rented 90 (NINETY) Suite rooms in a Grand Hotel for about One Million Dollars a night! Can anyone of their subjects comment about that extravagant event If he/she does, his/her fate is quite known: DEATH WITH THE EDGE OF THE SAUDI SWORD IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE!!!!!!

Witnesses on the Jewish Ancestry of this Saudi Family:
In the 1960's the "SAWT AL ARAB" Broadcasting Station in Cairo, Egypt, and the YEMEN Broadcasting Station in SANA'A confirmed the Jewish Ancestry of the SAUDI Family.

King FAISAL AL-SAUD at that time could not deny his family's kindred with the JEWS when he declared to the WASHINGTON POST on Sept. 17, 1969 stating: "WE, THE SAUDI FAMILY, are cousins of the Jews: we entirely disagree with any Arab or Muslem Authority which shows any antagonism to the Jews; but we must live together with them in peace. Our country (ARABIA) is the Fountain head from where the first Jew sprang, and his descendants spread out all over the world." That was the declaration of KING FAISAL AL-SAUD BIN ABDUL AZIZ!!!!!

HAFEZ WAHBI, The SAUDI Legal Adviser, mentioned in his book entitled: "THE PENINSULA OF ARABIA" that KING ABDUL AZIZ AL-SAUD, who died in 1953, had said : "Our Message (SAUDI MESSAGE) encountered the opposition of all Arab Tribes; my grandfather, SAUD AWAL, once imprisoned a number of the Sheikhs of MATHEER Tribe; and when another group of the same tribe came to intercede for the release of the prisoners, SAUD AWAL gave orders to his men to cut off the heads of all the prisoners, then, he wanted to humiliate and derogate the interceders by inviting them to eat from a banquet he prepared from the cooked flesh of his victims whose cut off heads he placed on the top of the food platters!! The interceders became so alarmed and declined to eat the flesh of their relatives; and, because of their refusal to eat, he ordered his men to cut off their heads too. That hideous crime was committed by that self imposed king to innocent people whose guilt was their opposition to his most cruel and extremely despotic rules.

HAFEZ WAHBI, states further that King ABDUL AZIZ AL-SAUD related that bloody true story to the Sheikhs of the MATHEER Tribe, who visited him in order to intercede for their prominent leader at that time, FAISAL AL DARWEESH, who was the king's prisoner. He related that story to them in order to prevent them from interceding for the release of their Sheikh; otherwise, they would face the same fate; He killed the Sheikh and used his blood as an ablution liquid for him just before he stood up for his prayer (after the false sect doctrine of the Wahabi); The guilt of FAISAL DARWEESH at that time was that he had criticized King ABDUL AZIZ AL-SAUD when the king signed the document which the English Authorities prepared in 1922 as a declaration for giving PALESTINE to the Jews; his signature was obtained in the conference held at AL AQEER in 1922.

That was and still is the system of this Regime of the JEWISH FAMILY (SAUDI FAMILY): All its goals are : plundering the wealth of the country, robbing, falsifying, and committing all kinds of atrocity, iniquity, and blasphemy-all are executed in compliance with their self invented Wahabi Sect which legalizes the chopping of the heads of their opposing subjects.

Source-Anngirfan.blogspot.com/Jewish Saudi Arabia

Jewish Saudi Arabia-The Donmeh(Crypto Jews)

The Dönmeh: The Middle East’s Most Whispered Secret (Part I)
Wayne MADSEN | 25.10.2011 | 20:39

Part 1 Wayne Madsen Report

There is a historical “eight hundred pound gorilla” lurking in the background of almost every serious military and diplomatic incident involving Israel, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Greece, Armenia, the Kurds, the Assyrians, and some other players in the Middle East and southeastern Europe. It is a factor that is generally only whispered about at diplomatic receptions, news conferences, and think tank sessions due to the explosiveness and controversial nature of the subject. And it is the secretiveness attached to the subject that has been the reason for so much misunderstanding about the current breakdown in relations between Israel and Turkey, a growing warming of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and increasing enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran…

Although known to historians and religious experts, the centuries-old political and economic influence of a group known in Turkish as the “Dönmeh” is only beginning to cross the lips of Turks, Arabs, and Israelis who have been reluctant to discuss the presence in Turkey and elsewhere of a sect of Turks descended from a group of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th and 17th centuries. These Jewish refugees from Spain were welcomed to settle in the Ottoman Empire and over the years they converted to a mystical sect of Islam that eventually mixed Jewish Kabbala and Islamic Sufi semi-mystical beliefs into a sect that eventually championed secularism in post-Ottoman Turkey. It is interesting that “Dönmeh” not only refers to the Jewish “untrustworthy converts” to Islam in Turkey but it is also a derogatory Turkish word for a transvestite, or someone who is claiming to be someone they are not.

The Donmeh sect of Judaism was founded in the 17th century by Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi, a Kabbalist who believed he was the Messiah but was forced to convert to Islam by Sultan Mehmet IV, the Ottoman ruler. Many of the rabbi’s followers, known as Sabbateans, but also “crypto-Jews,” publicly proclaimed their Islamic faith but secretly practiced their hybrid form of Judaism, which was unrecognized by mainstream Jewish rabbinical authorities. Because it was against their beliefs to marry outside their sect, the Dönmeh created a rather secretive sub-societal clan.

Part 2 The Donmeh

Saudi Arabia Present Day

Riyadh Saudi Arabia

CIA World Factbook

Economy

Economy - overview:
Saudi Arabia has an oil-based economy with strong government controls over major economic activities. It possesses about one-fifth of the world's proven petroleum reserves, ranks as the largest exporter of petroleum, and plays a leading role in OPEC. The petroleum sector accounts for roughly 80% of budget revenues, 45% of GDP, and 90% of export earnings. Saudi Arabia is encouraging the growth of the private sector in order to diversify its economy and to employ more Saudi nationals. Diversification efforts are focusing on power generation, telecommunications, natural gas exploration, and petrochemical sectors. Almost 6 million foreign workers play an important role in the Saudi economy, particularly in the oil and service sectors, while Riyadh is struggling to reduce unemployment among its own nationals. Saudi officials are particularly focused on employing its large youth population, which generally lacks the education and technical skills the private sector needs. Riyadh has substantially boosted spending on job training and education, most recently with the opening of the King Abdallah University of Science and Technology - Saudi Arabia's first co-educational university. As part of its effort to attract foreign investment, Saudi Arabia acceded to the WTO in December 2005 after many years of negotiations. The government has begun establishing six "economic cities" in different regions of the country to promote foreign investment and plans to spend $373 billion between 2010 and 2014 on social development and infrastructure projects to advance Saudi Arabia's economic development.

GDP (purchasing power parity):
$676.7 billion (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 24
$635.6 billion (2010 est.)
$610.3 billion (2009 est.)
note: data are in 2011 US dollars

GDP (official exchange rate):
$560.3 billion (2011 est.)

GDP - real growth rate:
6.5% (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 33
4.1% (2010 est.)
0.1% (2009 est.)

GDP - per capita (PPP):
$24,000 (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 55
$23,100 (2010 est.)
$22,900 (2009 est.)
note: data are in 2011 US dollars

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 2.1%
industry: 67.6%
services: 30.4% (2011 est.)

Labor force:
7.63 million
country comparison to the world: 61
note: about 80% of the labor force is non-national (2011 est.)

Labor force - by occupation:
agriculture: 6.7%
industry: 21.4%
services: 71.9% (2005 est.)

Unemployment rate:
10.9% (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 117
10.8% (2010 est.)
note: data are for Saudi males only (local bank estimates; some estimates range as high as 25%)

Population below poverty line:
NA%

Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: NA%
highest 10%: NA%

Investment (gross fixed):
19.2% of GDP (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 130

Budget:
revenues: $293.1 billion
expenditures: $210.6 billion (2011 est.)

Taxes and other revenues:
52.3% of GDP (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 14

Budget surplus (+) or deficit (-):
14.7% of GDP (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 5

Public debt:
9.4% of GDP (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 122
16.6% of GDP (2010 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices):
5% (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 117
5.4% (2010 est.)

Central bank discount rate:
2.5% (31 December 2008)

Commercial bank prime lending rate:
7.2% (31 December 2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 139
7.2% (31 December 2010 est.)

Stock of narrow money:
$205.9 billion (31 December 2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 18
$166.8 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

Source-Saudi Interior Ministry

COAST TO COAST RADIO SHOW 9-21-11 part 1 Saudi Arabia Conspiracy against America

Part 2

Saudi Arabia and 911

911 Review

Alleged Hijackers
According to the official story, teams of four and five hijackers armed only with primitive weapons (boxcutters) overcame the flight crews of four out of four flights and then proceeded to fly three of the four planes into The World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.

The alleged hijackers supposedly belonged to semi-autonomous cells, having been in the United States for months and years. The cells were directed by the terrorist organization Al Qaeda headed by Osama bin Laden.

The hijacker story had a great deal of appeal to the American audience. The hijackers were all Muslim extremists, far removed from mainstream American culture. Their fanaticism made their success against overwhelming odds seem more plausible.

Despite its attractive features, the hijacker story is challenged by many facts, especially relating to the implausability that they could have performed all of the tasks attributed to them by the official story. However, a mantra of "no Muslum hijackers" has become a staple of some skeptics of the official story based primarily on the following arguments:

There is a lack of credible evidence that the alleged hijackers were on any of the four planes.
Passenger manifests for each of the four flights lacked any Arab names.
Several alleged hijackers reported themselves alive following the attack.
The behavior of several of the alleged hijackers prior to the attack was inconsistent with Muslum beliefs and practices. 1
Each of these four arguments has been challenged and discredited to some degree. Argument 1 requires dismissing the many reported phone calls from the planes as evidence of hijackers. Implausible theories of phone-call fakery have been advanced to discount the numerous reported calls from Flight 93 in particular. Argument 2 has been exposed as based on mischaracterizing victims lists, published in the media shortly after the attack, as passenger manifests. Around the time of the Moussaoui trial, a list of alleged passenger manifests was released to a reporter by the FBI, and those lists contain Arab names. Argument 3 has been eviscerated somewhat by the BBC essentially repudiating its original reports in 2006. Argument 4 has been challenged by questioning the credibility of news reports describing carousing behavior.

These arguments have tended to eclipse analysis of the official hijacking scenario that show it to be highly implausible operationally. The following arguments go to the implausibility of the official account without excluding the possibility that there were Arab-looking men on the planes, perhaps in the role of patsies.

None of the alleged hijackers were good pilots, and none had flown jet airplanes, let alone large jetliners. Yet they are supposed to have piloted jetliners into their targets with apparent "surgical strike" precision.
The staggered flight times and long flight paths of the targeted jetliners exposed the plan to certain defeat, had the air defense system been allowed to function normally.
According to the official account, four flight crews were defeated, and the pilots removed from their seats by bands of four or five hijackers using only "boxcutters", despite several of the airline pilots being Vietnam combat veterans.
Not one of the flight crews radioed distress or punched in the four-digit hijack code. 2
The silent takeovers of each of the jetliners proceeded despite alerts raised by the hijacking of Flight 11 being communicated to pilots of the remaining flights.
Not a "Single Piece of Paper" Links Alleged Hijackers to Plot
Most of the above facts are never acknowledged by government agencies or mainstream media. However, FBI director Robert Mueller did admit that his agency failed to find "a single piece of paper" linking the alleged hijackers to the 9/11/01 plot.

Sourc-physics911.net/no arabs flight 11

Amanda Keller Mohammed Attas Stripper Girlfriend

Source-gawker.com/Mysterious Saudi Family in U.S. disappears two weeks before 911

Did you know that a Saudi family living in Sarasota, Fla., that met with 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta disappeared without a trace—leaving behind their cars, food, and furniture—two weeks before the attacks? Neither did Congress, or the 9/11 Commission! The FBI didn't think to tell them.

It's amazing what stuff starts coming out ten years later. You'd think that 9/11 was one of the most picked-over events in history, with thousands of journalists, intelligence agents, and investigators poring over every aspect of the attacks. Not really! Some recorded radio communications from that day are just coming to light now. And today we learn that a Saudi family that actually met with Atta up and disappeared without a trace just days before the attacks, something that the FBI investigated but never bothered to tell Congress or the 9/11 Commission. Writing for the Miami Herald, Anthony Summers and Dan Christensen report:

Just two weeks before the 9/11 hijackers slammed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, members of a Saudi family abruptly vacated their luxury home near Sarasota, Fla., leaving a brand new car in the driveway, a refrigerator full of food, fruit on the counter - and an open safe in a master bedroom....

The couple, living with their small children at the three-bedroom house at 4224 Escondito Circle, had left in a hurry in a white van, probably on Aug. 30.

They abandoned three recently registered vehicles, including a brand-new Chrysler PT Cruiser, in the garage and driveway....

Berberich and a senior counterterrorism agent said they were able to get into the abandoned house, ultimately finding "there was mail on the table, dirty diapers in one of the bathrooms ... all the toiletries still in place ... all their clothes hanging in the closet ... TVs ... opulent furniture, equal or greater in value than the house ... the pool running, with toys in it."

"The beds were made ... fruit on the counter ... the refrigerator full of food. ... It was like they went grocery shopping. Like they went out to a movie. ... (But) the safe was open in the master bedroom, with nothing in it, not a paper clip. ... A computer was still there. A computer plug in another room, and the line still there. Looked like they'd taken (another) computer and left the cord."

Big deal, right? Who cares if some Saudi citizens happened to decide to go home, or move somewhere else, in late August 2001? Well, their neighbors found it suspicious, and one of them called the FBI on the day of the attacks to report the departure. And it turns out the couple, Anoud and Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii, had ties to the 9/11 hijackers.

[A] counterterrorism officer, who requested his name not be disclosed, said agents went on to make troubling discoveries: Phone records and the Prestancia gate records linked the house on Escondito Circle to the hijackers....

The counterterrorism agent said records of incoming and outgoing calls made at the Escondito house were obtained from the phone company under subpoena.

Agents were able to conduct a link analysis, a system of tracking calls based on dates, times and length of conversations—finding the Escondito calls dating back more than a year, "lined up with the known suspects."

The links were not just to Atta and his hijack pilots, the agent said, but to 11 other terrorist suspects, including Walid al-Shehhri, one of the men who flew with Atta on the first plane to strike the World Trade Center.

Another was Adnan Shukrijumah, a former Miramar, Fla., resident identified as having been with Atta in the spring of 2001. Shukrijumah is still at large and is on the FBI's Most Wanted list.

OK, you're saying, sure: A "link analysis" connects them to the hijackers. But the FBI can link Atta to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach if it wants to. So they called someone who called someone who called a hijacker. What does that prove?

But it was the gate records at the Prestancia development that produced the most telltale information. People who arrived by car had to give their names and the home's address they were visiting. Gate staff would sometimes ask to see a driver's license and note the name, Berberich said. More importantly, he added, the license plates of cars pulling through the gate were photographed.

Atta is known to have used variations of his name, but the license plate of the car he owned was on record.

The vehicle and name information on Atta and Jarrah fit that of drivers entering Prestancia on their way to visit the home at 4224 Escondito Circle, said Berberich and the counterterrorism officer.

So there you have it: The FBI had photos of Mohammed Atta's car driving to visit a Saudi family that suddenly disappeared mysteriously just days before Atta executed the most deadly terrorist attack in U.S. history and the bureau never told anyone about it. Totally unrelated: The only major redaction in the 9/11 Commission report was a 28-page section spelling out connections between the hijackers and Saudi elites. I can't wait until the 20th anniversary, when we'll get to find out more. Happy 9/11 Day!

SAUDI GIP(Intelligence Agency of Saudi Arabia)

Source-Foreign Policy

PRINCE MUQRIN BIN ABDUL-AZIZ-Current Saudi Chief of Intelligence

Position: Director general of Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency (GIP)

Career: The youngest son of the Saudi kingdom's founder, Prince Muqrin bin Abdul-Aziz lived in relative anonymity for the first 60 years of his life. Born in 1945 and educated in the West, Prince Muqrin served in the Royal Saudi Air Force and as governor of several Saudi provinces, including al-Madinah, whose capital is the holy city of Medina. In 2005, he was tapped by his half brother King Abdullah to head the GIP, a daunting task given his lack of intelligence experience and the long shadow of his predecessors, among them legendary chief Prince Turki bin Faisal.

Influence: Despite his inexperience, Muqrin's star has risen quickly in the past three years as he has become a versatile point man for King Abdullah. Muqrin's responsibilities include managing Riyadh's critical Pakistan and Afghanistan portfolio. He has been a regular visitor to Islamabad, maintaining the kingdom's relationships with a wide array of Pakistani political leaders. As for Afghanistan, Muqrin was dispatched to Kabul in January to meet leading officials, including President Hamid Karzai.

The prince might have had an ulterior motive: News reports suggest that the trip was part of Muqrin's overall campaign to bring Taliban leaders into talks with Kabul, suggesting that Muqrin is continuing his predecessor's policy of maintaining contact with Taliban leaders. A month later, Muqrin was sent to Damascus to personally deliver overtures to the Assad regime as part of the larger Arab campaign to reengage Syria. Involvement in critical Saudi foreign-policy efforts and his relative youth have positioned Muqrin well for greater responsibilities in the near future.

Saudi General Intelligence Presidency

The Ri'āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-'Āmah (Arabic: رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة‎), or the General Intelligence Presidency (Arabic: رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة‎) (GIP), is the primary intelligence agency of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The role of intelligence was recognized by King Abdulaziz Al-Saud who had used it in his unification of Saudi Arabia. His interest in modern communication increasingly grew when he set up the first radio communications system in Saudi Arabia.

The kingdom started the intelligence service in 1955 under the name of Al-Mabahith Al-Aammah.

Source-Wikipedia

History
During the reign of King Saud bin Abdulaziz, the General Intelligence was separated from the Mabahith (General Investigation Directorate). Intelligence was established as an independent security service with the issuing of the Royal Decree 11 in 1957 that ordered the setting up of a special department under the title of Maslahat Al-Istikhbarat Al-Aammah or (General Intelligence Department). During this period two branches of the Presidency were set up locally, the western branch in Jeddah, and eastern one in Dhahran.

The GIP expanded under King Faisal bin Abdulaziz, with the opening of offices abroad. The agency expanded its monitoring of internal threats after the 1979 capture of the Grand Mosque in Mecca.[1]

The GIP's charter was changed by King Khaled bin Abdulaziz in 1982, by Royal Decree M-5, dated 19 December 1982, which set out its responsibilities, duties, and the limits of its activities. This established the internal organization of the agency with a General Department for Operations, the General Department for Administration and Finance, the General Department for Training and Planning, and the General Department for Technical Affairs. Along with the National Research Center, and the Center for Media and International Communications (previously Center for Translation and Media).

In 1997, the Office for External Communications was transferred to the Presidency from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. Its name was also changed to the General Department for External Communications, and it was strengthened with the addition of high-tech equipment and specialists in radio surveillance. This period saw the expansion of the activities of the agency abroad with the establishment and development of more offices in other countries, and through more effort to organize its work.

During the reign of King Fahd bin Abdulaziz the Higher Committee for Development was set up and was chaired by the President of the General Intelligence Presidency; its membership consisted of the heads of the various departments of the GIP. Also during the tenure of King Fahd, the administrative structuring of the Information Center was approved.

Muqran bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud was appointed as president of the General Intelligence Presidency by King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz in October 2005[2].

The mission of the Presidency is “provide strategic intelligence, contribute to achieve national security, and provide timely information to the authorities, so that they can take rapid and appropriate actions.”

GIP MISSION

The GIP does this through:

1. Early collection of information about countries of interest.

2. Planning and executing intelligence operations in these countries.

3. Countering espionage, intellectual and material destruction and uncovering hostile individuals.

4. Coordinating specialized studies and strategic research by the intelligence staff and in cooperation with universities, research centers, security bodies and other intelligence services.

5. Monitoring the changing domestic and international situation.

Former Saudi Intelligence Chief worries about Iran

Source-France24.com

U.S. Military Build-Up on Islands of Socatra, Yemen and Masirah, Oman

While quietly casting lines to draw Tehran into talks on their nuclear dispute, PresidentBarack Obama is reported exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and Washington sources to have secretly ordered US air, naval and marine forces to build up heavy concentrations on two strategic islands – Socotra, which is part of a Yemeni archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and the Omani island of Masirah at the southern exit of the Strait of Hormuz.
Socotra is situated 80 kilometers east of the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometers southeast of the Yemeni coastline. It lies athwart the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. A military base there is in a position to oversee the shipping moving in and out of those strategic naval waterways.
Lushly verdant, Socotra is approximately 120 kilometers long by 40 kilometers wide. Its population of 55,000 has its own distinct language and culture. Since 2010, the US has been quietly building giant air force and naval bases on Socotra with facilities for submarines, intelligence command centers and take-off pads for flying stealth drones, as part of a linked chain of strategic US military facilities in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.
The Socotra facilities are so secret that they are never mentioned in any catalogue listing US military facilities in this part of the world, which include Jebel Ali and Al Dahfra in the United Arab Emirates; Arifjan in Kuwait; and Al Udeid in Qatar – all within short flying distances from Iran.
Additional US forces are also being poured into Camp Justice on the barren, 70-kilometer long Omani island of Masirah, just south of the Hormuz entry point to the Gulf of Oman from the Arabian Sea.
US military facilities were established there after the signing of an access agreement with Oman in 1980.

Up to 100,000 troops by March

Up to 100,000 US troops present by early March

For the new buildup on Socotra, Washington had to negotiate a new deal with Yemen's ousted ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Injured in an assassination attempt last year, Saleh demanded permission to travel to the United States for medical treatment. The Obama administration first refused, then relented when Saleh made it his condition for consenting to additional troops landing on the island.
Western military sources familiar with the American buildup on the two strategic islands tellDEBKA-Net-Weekly that, although they cannot cite precise figures, they are witnessing the heaviest American concentration of might in the region since the US invaded Iraq in 2003.
Then, 100,000 American troops were massed in Kuwait ahead of the invasion. Today, those sources estimate from the current pace of arrivals on the two island bases, that 50,000 US troops will have accumulated on Socotra and Masirah by mid-February. They will top up the 50,000 military already present in the Persian Gulf region, so that in less than a month, Washington will have some 100,000 military personnel on the spot and available for any contingency.
US air transports are described as making almost daily landings on Socotra and Masirah. They fly in from the US naval base of Diego Garcia, one of America's biggest military facilities, just over 3,000 kilometers away. The US military presence in the region will further expand in the first week of March when three US aircraft carriers and their strike groups plus a French carrier arrive in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea: They are theUSS Abraham Lincoln, USS Carl Vinson, USS Enterprise and the Charles de Gaulle nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
A fourth US carrier will be standing by in the Pacific Ocean, a few days' sailing time from the water off Iran's coast.

By early March, therefore, America will have piled up enough military strength within reach of Iran to exercise its consistently avowed military option.
Tuesday, Jan. 24, in his State of the Union address, the president said: “Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.”
Our military sources have also picked up reports of British and French air, naval and special forces landings this month in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
All these military concentrations and Obama's latest word on the Iranian nuclear issue tend to confirm that nothing has changed since DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources in Washington first reported in November 2011 on the US president's resolve to attack Iran's nuclear facilities in the course of 2012.
(See DEBKA-Net-Weekly 515 of Nov. 4: Targeting Tehran: Obama Set to Attack Iran’s Nuclear Sites by the fall of 2012),
The only difference may be the possibility of the date moving up from fall to spring, depending on three developments:
1. The outcome of the secret exchanges taking place between Washington and Tehran on which we have reported exclusively;
2. An Israeli decision to go ahead with a unilateral strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
President Obama has not been able to convince Israel to drop this option and leave military action entirely to the United States.
3. The US presidential election campaign: Obama may decide to go for an attack to cripple Iran's nuclear program and preempt its production of a bomb to gain a winning hand for trumping his Republican rivals' accusation that he is weak on Iran.

Saudi Arabia vs. Iran
Saudis deploying thousands of troops on eastern oil fields

Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal told Al-Arabiya television last week that the Saudi government takes Iran's threats seriously. He pointed in particular to the words of Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, who warned that Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi's promise to boost oil production by 2.7 million barrels a day (bpd) to make up for any shortfall caused by sanctions on Iran, would "create all possible problems later."
Prince Turki said he personally did not believe the oil kingdom would engage in military action but added:
"It's a direct threat to our national interests and a direct threat to our industrial installations on the coast."
Other Saudi officials in Riyadh were less diplomatic: "Iran's threats could be interpreted by Saudi Arabia as an act of war," said a senior Saudi defense official bluntly.
This week, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report, Saudi Arabia began deploying its military in the kingdom's oil regions in the east opposite the Persian Gulf.
Patriot PAC-2 and PAC-3 intercept missile batteries were installed around the oil fields and oil terminals; Saudi special forces stationed around the kingdom's main export terminal at Ras Tanura; and special marine and naval forces trained to defend the installations began conducting sea patrols off shore.
Saudi armored forces were furthermore stationed at the main junctions of the pipelines and pumping stations and its air force and navy put on a state of alert.
While the whole world talked about Iran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to an embargo on its oil exports, the Saudis were far more concerned with the reality of the second half of that threat: They are certain that the menace of an Iranian strike at Saudi oil targets will loom ever larger as US-European sanctions bite deeper into Iran's oil sales and Riyadh steps up its oil production to make up for the Iranian shortfall.

Tehran resorts to smuggling after its oil sales shrink

The Saudis envision a panoply of aggressive Iranian operations: Missiles striking their oil fields and export terminals - aimed from speedboats zooming up close to target and launched from small unpopulated Persian Gulf islands occupied for the purpose by especially trained Iranian units.
Iranian frogmen may come ashore to sabotage oil installations and pipelines; kamikaze pilots crash their planes into the oil tankers; and booby-trapped speedboats piloted by suicide attackers try to ram oil installations or tankers.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's Gulf sources report that Riyadh challenges assessments in the West and Israel that the oil embargo has not yet touched Iran. According to Saudi figures, Tehran is already losing buyers and its regular export volume of around 2.5 million barrels a day has dropped by 15-20 percent.
To make up the difference, says Riyadh, the Iranians have in recent weeks set in motion a major enterprise for smuggling their oil out to market through certain Persian Gulf countries.
They are using large and medium sized oil tankers without flags or identifying markings to drop anchor in Gulf ports, most frequently in Abu Dhabi and Oman. Shrewd traders specializing in the sale of smuggled oil then purchase quantities of crude with cash and transport it to various buyers who don't ask questions about its provenance.
This week, Saudi officials, accompanied by oil, security and intelligence experts, visited Abu Dhabi and Oman and asked the authorities there to put a stop to Iranian oil smuggling. But Riyadh understands that its effort to dry up the Iranian oil smuggling machine may bring Tehran still closer to a decision to go on the offensive against Saudi Arabia.

The Straight of Hormuz

The passage through the Strait of Hormuz by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three destroyers – one American, one British and one French, early Monday, Jan. 23 - surprised the world, but not apparently Tehran, which let the warships sail through without interference or incident.
Just two days earlier, Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) deputy commander Hossein Salamimade an uncharacteristically mild comment: “US warships and military forces have been in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East region for many years, and their decision in relation to the dispatch of a new warship is not a new issue, and it should be interpreted as part of their permanent presence,” he said.
These events were the first outward sign of back-channel talks afoot between the emissaries of US PresidentBarack Obama and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Earlier that day, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, posing in the uniform of an aircraft carrier officer, stood in the vast hangar of the giant Enterprise Carrier Strike Group and informed the 1,700 crewmen and women assembled there that their ship would be dispatched to the Strait of Hormuz in March.
Panetta said: “… We want them to know that we are fully prepared to deal with any contingency and it’s better for them to try to deal with us through diplomacy.”

The Abraham Lincoln carrier tested Hormuz waters

The White House, which had fully approved Panetta's gesture, decided not to wait until March but to put Salami's words to the test forthwith by sending the Abraham Lincolnthrough the Strait of Hormuz that very night.
But first, President Obama put in urgent calls to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and to British Prime Minister David Cameron, and obtained their approval for British and French warships to enter the strategic strait in convoy with the Lincoln. As an extra precaution against trouble, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources report that US Ambassador to Baghdad James Jeffrey contacted Hassan Danaifa, his Iranian opposite number in the Iraqi capital, and let him know that the US-led convoy would be crossing through the Strait of Hormuz shortly.
Ambassador Danaifar promised to pass the message to Tehran. When after a few hours, there was no answer from the Iranian government, Washington decided to take the silence as assent and ordered the Lincoln and escort to begin crossing through the Strait of Hormuz to the Persian Gulf.
The experiment paid off and Washington was encouraged to keep its secret exchanges with Tehran moving forward:
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources report that those exchanges are advancing on three tracks:

Channels through Baghdad, Ankara, Vienna

1. The Baghdad Track: Ambassadors Jeffrey and Danaifar have taken to meeting in the Green Zone of Baghdad every few days. Their conversations are exploratory, with each side demanding good faith gestures from the other to jump the dialogue forward.
Sources familiar with this track report that Ambassador Jeffrey holds up President Obama's message to Khamenei last month (through Turkish intermediaries, according to some sources; through Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, according to others, including Iranians), which the Iranian leader neglected to answer. The American diplomat insists on the Iranian leader replying to the US president's missive and relating to his proposals before confidence-building gestures are discussed.
Iranian lawmaker Hussein Naqavai claimed this week, “Obama proposed a red telephone between Tehran and Washington. This is an admission that Iran should be consulted on major international issues."
But this is precisely what Washington wishes to avoid: Reciprocal confidence-building gestures are not intended to convey United States recognition of Iran's pretensions as a regional superpower.
And, according to a Western source in the Persian Gulf, the Obama administration is also refusing to succumb to Iran's bagaining tactics for selling Persian carpets, i.e. the more a buyer simplifies the transaction to lower the price, the higher the Iranians climb.
2. The Turkish track: Tehran is not happy with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan and his Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu acting as brokers, in view of their animosity towards Syria's Bashar Assad. However, they are keeping the Turkish track open in consideration of Erdogan's close ties with Obama, while at the same time stirring up trouble between him and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Tehran hopes that the dispute over the latter's persecution of Iraq's Sunni community will raise tensions enough to eventually undermine the Turkish track.

Back channels are not yet generating results

In the latest round of acrimony, Al Maliki accused Ankara of meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs, to which Erdogan retorted Tuesday, Jan. 24: “The idea that Turkey is interfering in your domestic affairs is a very ugly and unfortunate one. Mr. Maliki must know very well that if you initiate a period of clashes in Iraq based on sectarian strife, it is impossible for us to remain silent.”
3. The Viennese track: The miles of corridors at International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters in the Austrian capital, are an ideal venue for backdoor, off-the-record encounters between American and Iranian diplomats. There, ideas can be freely proposed and unofficial papers traded concerning Iran's disputed nuclear program.
The three tracks have yet to produce results, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Washington and Iranian sources report.
Just as President Obama was pushing tough sanctions hard, managing this week to get the European Union to approve an oil embargo on Iran and a freeze on its central bank's assets, Washington and Tehran came to a quiet understanding: The new US and EU sanctions would only start taking effect on July 1, leaving six months for negotiations to get underway.
But there is still a way to go before this happens.
And both Washington and Tehran are already girding up for the dialogue to break down even after it starts, according to sources familiar with the calculations on both sides. At that point, the military option will resurface at full blast.
US preparations for a military flare-up are covered in the first article

Source-PacificRim International.com

Middle-East News round up

2012-01-30T05:34:00.069-07:00

10 plus years of senseless fighting, 1 Trillion dollars wasted, stolen, plundered, and lost. Thousands of soldiers dead, wounded, and maimed for life. And not one OBJECTIVE gained. The Taliban had absolutely NOTHING to do with 911! Iraq also, Nothing gained from MONUMENTAL Military Blunder and waste of time! TOTAL FAILURE! And yet the stupid morons who make up the voting electorate in America, both DEMOCRAP AND REPUBLICRAP want more war with Iran!

Source-UK DAILY MAIL TALIBAN VICTORY OVER AMERICA!

Source-BBC NEWS/NATO REPORT IMPLICATES PAKISTAN ISI....

The Taliban in Afghanistan are being directly assisted by Pakistani security services, according to a secret Nato report seen by the BBC.

The leaked report, derived from thousands of interrogations, claims the Taliban remain defiant and have wide support among the Afghan people.

It alleges that Pakistan knows the locations of senior Taliban leaders.

A BBC correspondent says the report is painful reading for international forces and the Afghan government.

Pakistan has strenuously denied any links with the Taliban on previous occasions.

"We have long been concerned about ties between elements of the ISI and some extremist networks," said US Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby, adding that the US Defence Department had not seen the report.

'Informational'
The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says the report - on the state of the Taliban - fully exposes for the first time the relationship between the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) and the Taliban.

The report is based on material from 27,000 interrogations with more than 4,000 captured Taliban, al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters and civilians.

It notes: "Pakistan's manipulation of the Taliban senior leadership continues unabatedly". It says that Pakistan is aware of the locations of senior Taliban leaders.

The report states: "As this document is derived directly from insurgents it should be considered informational and not necessarily analytical."

Despite Nato's strategy to secure the country with Afghan forces, the secret document details widespread collaboration between the insurgents and Afghan police and military.

Lt Col Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan, said the document was "a classified internal document that is not meant to be released to the public".

"It is a matter of policy that documents that are classified are not discussed under any circumstances," he said.

The report also depicts the depth of continuing support among the Afghan population for the Taliban, our correspondent says.

It paints a picture of al-Qaeda's influence diminishing but the Taliban's influence increasing, he adds.

Taliban influence

Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants peace talks with the Taliban
In a damning conclusion, the document says that in the last year there has been unprecedented interest, even from members of the Afghan government, in joining the Taliban cause.

It adds: "Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over the Afghan government, usually as a result of government corruption."

The report has evidence that the Taliban are purposely hastening Nato's withdrawal by deliberately reducing their attacks in some areas and then initiating a comprehensive hearts-and-minds campaign.

It says that in areas where Isaf has withdrawn, Taliban influence has increased, often with little or no resistance from government security forces. And in many cases, with the active help of the Afghan police and army.

When foreign soldiers leave, Afghan security forces are expected to take control.

However according to the report, rifles, pistols and heavy weapons have been sold by Afghan security forces in bazaars in Pakistan.

Follow BBC Kabul correspondent Quentin Sommerville on Twitter @mrsommerville

Source-Asia Times/The Crash and Burn of Drone Warfare.

The crash and burn of drone warfare
By Nick Turse

American fighter jets screamed over the Iraqi countryside heading for the MQ-1 Predator drone, while its crew in California stood by helplessly. What had begun as an ordinary reconnaissance mission was now taking a ruinous turn. In an instant, the jets attacked and then it was all over. The Predator, one of the US Air Force's workhorse hunter/killer robots, had been obliterated.

An account of the spectacular end of that nearly US$4 million drone in November 2007 is contained in a collection of air force accident investigation documents recently examined by TomDispatch. They catalog more than 70 catastrophic air force

drone mishaps since 2000, each resulting in the loss of an aircraft or property damage of $2 million or more.

These official reports, some obtained by TomDispatch through the Freedom of Information Act, offer new insights into a largely covert, yet highly touted war-fighting, assassination and spy program involving armed robots that are significantly less reliable than previously acknowledged.

These planes, the latest wonder weapons in the US military arsenal, are tested, launched and piloted from a shadowy network of more than 60 bases spread around the globe, often in support of elite teams of special operations forces. Collectively, the air force documents offer a remarkable portrait of modern drone warfare, one rarely found in a decade of generally triumphalist or awestruck press accounts that seldom mention the limitations of drones, much less their mission failures.

The aerial disasters described draw attention not only to the technical limitations of drone warfare, but to larger conceptual flaws inherent in such operations.

Launched and landed by aircrews close to battlefields in places like Afghanistan, the drones are controlled during missions by pilots and sensor operators - often multiple teams over many hours - from bases in places like Nevada and North Dakota. They are sometimes also monitored by "screeners" from private security contractors at stateside bases like Hurlburt Field in Florida. (A recent McClatchy report revealed that it takes nearly 170 people to keep a single Predator in the air for 24 hours.)

In other words, drone missions, like the robots themselves, have many moving parts and much, it turns out, can and does go wrong.

In that November 2007 Predator incident in Iraq, for instance, an electronic failure caused the robotic aircraft to engage its self-destruct mechanism and crash, after which US jets destroyed the wreckage to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.

In other cases, drones - officially known as remotely piloted aircraft, or RPAs - broke down, escaped human control and oversight, or self-destructed for reasons ranging from pilot error and bad weather to mechanical failure in Afghanistan, Djibouti, the Gulf of Aden, Iraq, Kuwait and various other unspecified or classified foreign locations, as well as in the United States.

In 2001, air force Predator drones flew 7,500 hours. By the close of last year, that number topped 70,000. As the tempo of robotic air operations has steadily increased, crashes have, not surprisingly, become more frequent. In 2001, just two drones were destroyed in accidents. In 2008, eight drones fell from the sky. Last year, the number reached 13. (Accident rates are, however, dropping according to an air force report relying on figures from 2009.)

Keep in mind that the 70-plus accidents recorded in those air force documents represent only drone crashes investigated by the air force under a rigid set of rules. Many other drone mishaps have not been included in the air force statistics.

Examples include a haywire MQ-9 Reaper drone that had to be shot out of the Afghan skies by a fighter jet in 2009, a remotely-operated navy helicopter that went down in Libya last June, an unmanned aerial vehicle whose camera was reportedly taken by Afghan insurgents after a crash in August 2011, an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel lost during a spy mission in Iran last December, and the recent crash of an MQ-9 Reaper in the Seychelles Islands.

You don't need a weatherman ... or do you?
How missions are carried out - and sometimes fail - is apparent from the declassified reports, including one provided to TomDispatch by the air force detailing a June 2011 crash. Late that month, a Predator drone took off from Jalalabad air base in Afghanistan to carry out a surveillance mission in support of ground forces.

Piloted by a member of the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the robotic craft ran into rough weather, causing the pilot to ask for permission to abandon the troops below.

His commander never had a chance to respond. Lacking weather avoidance equipment found on more sophisticated aircraft or on-board sensors to clue the pilot in to rapidly deteriorating weather conditions, and with a sandstorm interfering with ground radar, "severe weather effects" overtook the Predator.

In an instant, the satellite link between pilot and plane was severed. When it momentarily flickered back to life, the crew could see that the drone was in an extreme nosedive. They then lost the datalink for a second and final time. A few minutes later, troops on the ground radioed in to say that the $4 million drone had crashed near them.

A month earlier, a Predator drone took off from the tiny African nation of Djibouti in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, which includes operations in Afghanistan as well as Yemen, Djibouti and Somalia, among other nations.

According to documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, about eight hours into the flight, the mission crew noticed a slow oil leak. Ten hours later, they handed the drone off to a local aircrew whose assignment was to land it at Djibouti's Ambouli Airport, a joint civilian/military facility adjacent to Camp Lemonier, a US base in the country.

That mission crew - both the pilot and sensor operator - had been deployed from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada and had logged a combined 1,700 hours flying Predators. They were considered "experienced" by the air force. On this day, however, the electronic sensors that measure their drone's altitude were inaccurate, while low clouds and high humidity affected its infrared sensors and set the stage for disaster.

An investigation eventually found that, had the crew performed proper instrument cross-checks, they would have noticed a 300-400 foot (100-135 meters) discrepancy in their altitude. Instead, only when the RPA broke through the clouds did the sensor operator realize just how close to the ground it was. Six seconds later, the drone crashed to earth, destroying itself and one of its Hellfire missiles.

Storms, clouds, humidity and human error aren't the only natural dangers for drones. In a November 2008 incident, a mission crew at Kandahar Air Field launched a Predator on a windy day. Just five minutes into the flight, with the aircraft still above the sprawling American mega-base, the pilot realized that the plane had already deviated from its intended course.

To get it back on track, he initiated a turn that - due to the aggressive nature of the maneuver, wind conditions, drone design and the unbalanced weight of a missile on just one wing - sent the plane into a roll. Despite the pilot's best efforts, the craft entered a tailspin, crashed on the base, and burst into flames.

Going rogue
On occasion, RPAs have simply escaped from human control. Over the course of eight hours on a late February day in 2009, for example, five different crews passed off the controls of a Predator drone, one to the next, as it flew over Iraq.

Source-Asia Times/Drone Crashes Part 2

Source-Russia Today/Israeli Drone Crash

The Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle Heron TP, also known as the IAI Eitan, has crashed during a test flight near the Tel Nof airbase, south of Tel Aviv.
Israeli radio reported that the Heron TP exploded after the crash. Nobody on the ground has been injured.
The Israeli Air Force says technical failure or human factor could have caused the incident.
The IAI Eitan was passed into service in February 2010.
The all-weather fully-automatic UAV was designed for strategic reconnaissance and carries a whole payload of sensors, optical and infrared cameras and is equipped for fire-control, also reportedly having assault capabilities. Thought to be the biggest UAV in the world, it is capable of reaching Iran.
With a wingspan of 26 meters, the IAI Eitan resembles a small airliner, though it weights only four tons. With a cruise speed of 300 kilometers per hour, it can stay in the air for up to 36 hours, and is able to cover a distance of 10,000 kilometers. Its payload is up to 1.8 tons.
Tel Nof airbase, or Air Force Base 8, is one of Israel’s three principal airbases. It was opened by the British as the UK’s main airbase on Palestinian territory, and used to be known as Ekron Airbase.

Source-AlJazeera.com/Street fighting Damascus Syria

Fighting is continuing in the eastern suburbs of Damascus, according to activists, as Syrian security forces appeared to be re-asserting their control over the restive fringes of the country's capital.

Activists reported on Monday that the Free Syrian Army, armed defectors fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's rule, had launched scattered attacks on government troops in the district of Saqba, which was reported in recent days to have been under opposition control.

An activist named Kamal, speaking to the Reuters news agency by telephone from the Al-Ghouta area on the eastern edge of the capital, said that security forces had re-occupied the suburbs.

"The Free Syrian Army has made a tactical withdrawal. Regime forces have re-occupied the suburbs and started making house-to-house arrests," he said.

A spokesman for the Free Syrian Army appeared to confirm that account.

Meanwhile, state media said "terrorists" had blown up a gas pipeline in the central provoince of Homs, causing a leak of about 460,000 cubic metres of gas.

The escalation in violence comes days after the Arab League suspended its beleaguered observer mission in the country, where activists have been calling for Assad to step down since last March.

Tanks rolling in

Activists inside Damascus told Al Jazeera’s Anita McNaught that tanks had rolled into Al-Ghouta, within 10km of the city centre.

“Activists say it is the fiercest violence they have witnessed in months,” our correspondent reported. “There are fires burning all over Syria, some say almost too many for the army to deploy all over the place.”

Activists said there were 64 people killed in fighting across the country on Sunday, including three children and two defected recruits, according to the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), an activist network.

In the suburbs of Damascus, there were 16 deaths, in Kafar Batna, Saqba, Hamourya, Rankoos, Zabadany and Harasta.

At least 19 people were reported killed in Homs, 15 in Hama, five in Idlib, four in Deraa and three in Saraqeb, Deir Ezzor and Damascus, the LCC said.

At least 23 security forces were also killed, state TV reported.

The latest casualties add to the UN's toll of 5,400 people killed in the government's 10-month crackdown on protesters.

Amateur video appeared to show tanks rolling in to Al-Ghouta and Zamalka to the east amid unconfirmed reports that the shelling had destroyed homes with people inside.

In the southern province of Deraa, there were reports that security forces had killed two students when they broke into a school in the town of Jasim.

Arab League condemned

Russia on Sunday strongly criticised the Arab League decision to halt its observer mission in Syria, saying the situation demands additional deployment of monitors and not their suspension.

"We would like to know why they are treating such a useful instrument in this way," Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said during a visit to Brunei.

"I would support an increased number of observers," Lavrov said. "We are surprised that after a decision was taken on prolonging the observers' mission for another month, some countries, particularly Persian Gulf countries, recalled their observers from the mission."

Our correspondent said Russia's support for Asad's government remained crucial. “What we understand is until he feels Russia will stop backing him, Bashar al-Assad will tough it out,” she said.

The Arab League suspended its observer mission on Saturday as the bloodshed in a crackdown on anti-government protests gathered momentum. Several hundred people have died in the past four days alone.

Lavrov said that he did not back those Western countries that said the mission was pointless and that it was impossible to hold dialogue with Assad's government.

"I think these are very irresponsible statements because trying to sabotage a chance to calm the situation is absolutely unforgivable," he said.

Syria also voiced its dismay and surprise over the Arab League decision to halt its observer mission.

"This will have a negative impact and put pressure on [Security Council] deliberations with the aim of calling for foreign intervention and encouraging armed groups to increase violence," Syria Television reported on Saturday.

Nabil Elaraby, the Arab League chief, travelled to New York on Sunday seeking to win support from the UN Security Council for a plan to end violence in Syria by asking Assad to step aside.

"We will hold several meetings with representatives from members of the Security Council to obtain the council's support and agreement to the Arab initiative," Elaraby told reporters at Cairo airport shortly before leaving for New York.

The bloc said about 100 observers would remain in the country but would not undertake new missions.

The mission has been widely criticised by the Syrian opposition for failing to end the government's crackdown on protests.

Source-Asia Times

Growing elite opposition to strike on Iran
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - Like the imminent prospect of one's hanging, to paraphrase the 18th century British essayist Dr (Samuel) Johnson, the suddenly looming possibility of war can concentrate the mind wonderfully.

If that aphorism didn't apply in the run-up to the United States invasion of Iraq nearly 10 years ago, it appears to be the case now for key sectors of the US foreign-policy elite - notably, liberal hawks who supported the Iraq war - with regard to the sharp rise in tensions between Iran and both the US and Israel earlier this month.

Amid a crescendo of threats by senior Israeli officials to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, the murder, presumably by Mossad, of a fifth Iranian nuclear scientist in the past several years, and a sharp escalation of Western economic sanctions designed to "cripple" Iran's economy, Tehran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz brought the until-then hypothetical possibility of war - whether by design, provocation or accident - sharply into view.

The hawkish declarations by Republican presidential candidates eager to prove their love for Israel to Christian fundamentalists and Jewish voters and donors didn't help, nor did a renewed and intensified drumbeat for "regime change" by some of the same neo-conservatives from institutions like the American Enterprise Institute and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies that led the drive to war in Iraq.

Adding to the sense that war was suddenly a very real possibility, these events more or less coincided with the publication by the influential Foreign Affairs journal of an article entitled "Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike is the Least Bad Option''. It advocated a limited and carefully calibrated US aerial attack on Iran's air defenses and nuclear sites, and was authored by an academic, Matthew Kroenig, who had just completed a one-year stint as a strategic analyst in the office of the secretary of defense.

The confluence of all these developments provoked a number of influential members of the foreign policy establishment - including several prominent liberal interventionists who had supported the Iraq war - to warn against any further escalation either by the US or Israel.

"We're doing this terrible thing all over again," wrote Leslie Gelb, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, the think-tank that publishes Foreign Affairs, in the Daily Beast, in an appeal for senate hearings on the implications of war with Iran.

"As before, we're letting a bunch of ignorant, sloppy-thinking politicians and politicized foreign-policy experts draw 'red line' ultimatums. As before, we're letting them quick-march us off to war," warned Gelb, a repentant Iraq-war hawk, about the chorus of neo-conservatives and other hawks with whom he had previously been aligned.

On the pages of The New Republic, Kenneth Pollack, a former top Central Intelligence Agency analyst at the Brookings Institution whose 2002 book, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, was cited frequently by liberal hawks before the war, argued not only against any further escalation, but also suggested that the sanctions track on which the Barack Obama administration and the European Union have increasingly relied was proving counter-productive.

"The problem is that these sanctions [against the central bank of Iran] are potentially so damaging that they could backfire," he wrote, citing their possible negative impact on the West's own struggling economies and the difficulty of sustaining them diplomatically over time if they resulted in the kind of "humanitarian catastrophe" inflicted by the sanctions regime against Iraq from 1992 until the invasion in 2003.

Moreover, he went on, "The more we turn up the heat on Iran, the more Iran will fight back, and the way they like to fight back could easily lead to unintended escalation. Doubtless such a war would leave Iran far, far worse off than it would leave us. But it would be painful for us too, and it might last far longer than anyone wants."

Meanwhile, another influential liberal hawk, Princeton Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, argued in project-syndicate.org that the West and Iran were playing a "dangerous game" of "chicken" and that the West's current course "leaves Iran's government no alternative between publicly backing down, which it will not do, and escalating its provocations."

"The more publicly the West threatens Iran, the more easily Iranian leaders can portray America as the Great Satan to parts of the Iranian population that have recently been inclined to see the US as their friend," wrote Slaughter, who stepped down as director of the policy planning office under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"It is time for cooler heads to prevail with a strategy that helps Iran step back," she added, suggesting that the aborted Turkish- Brazilian 2010 effort at mediation between the "Iran Six" - the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany - and Iran be revived.

Yet another Iraq hawk, New York Times columnist Bill Keller, attacked the Foreign Affairs article, assuring his readers that Kroenig's former colleagues at the Pentagon "were pretty appalled by his article, which combines the alarmist worst case of the Iranian nuclear threat with the rosiest best case of America's ability to make things better."

Contrary to Kroenig's predictions, Keller wrote, "An attack on Iran is almost certain to unify the Iranian people around the mullahs and provoke the supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] to redouble Iran's nuclear pursuits, only deeper underground, and without international inspectors around. Over at the Pentagon, you sometimes hear it put this way: Bombing Iran is the best way to guarantee exactly what we are trying to prevent."

Indeed, in a reply to Kroenig entitled "Not Time to Attack Iran", Colin Kahl, who had also just left the Pentagon at the end of December after two years as the head of Middle East policy, argued that Kroenig's "picture of a clean, calibrated conflict is a mirage. Any war with Iran would be a messy and extraordinarily violent affair, with significant casualties and consequences."

Among other objections, Kahl, a senior fellow at the hawkish Center for a New American Security, predicted that a pre-emptive strike of the kind promoted by Kroenig could well spark a regional war, solidify popular support for the regime in Tehran, and transform "the Arab Spring's populist anti-regime narrative into a decidedly anti-American one".

Indeed, much of Kahl's analysis was subsequently backed up by General Michael Hayden (retired), who, as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency during George W Bush's second term, could hardly be called a liberal.

According to the "Cable" blog on foreign policy.com, Hayden, who served as the head of the Pentagon's National Security Agency from 1999 to 2005, told a small group convened at the Center for National Interest last week that top Bush national security officials had concluded that a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities - whether by Israel or the US - would be counter-productive.

The Israelis, he reportedly said, "aren't going to [attack Iran]. They can't do it, it's beyond their capacity. They only have the ability to make this [problem of Iran's nuclear program] worse."

And while the US has the ability to mount a campaign, it could only serve as a short-term fix. "What's move two, three, four or five down the board? I don't think anyone is talking about occupying anything."

Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.

European Union Economic Collapse

Source-Asia Times/Iranian Oil Embargo blowback on Europe!

The Iranian oil embargo blowback
By Pepe Escobar

If the sorry parade of European poodles - or what analyst Chris Floyd delightfully dubbed Europuppies - had any understanding of Persian culture, they would have known that blowback for their declaration of economic war in the form of an Iranian oil embargo would be nothing short of heavy metal.

Better yet; death metal. The Majlis (Iranian parliament) will discuss this Sunday, in an open section, whether to cancel right away all oil exports to any European country that approved the embargo - according to Emad Hosseini, the rapporteur of the Majlis Energy Committee. And that comes with the requisite apocalyptic warning, relayed via the Fars news agency, courtesy of member of Parliament Nasser Soudani: "Europe will burn in the fire of Iran's oil wells."

Soudani expresses the views of the whole Tehran establishment

when he says that "the structure of their [Europe's] refineries is compatible with Iran's oil", and so Europeans have no alternative as replacement; the embargo "will cause an increase in oil prices, and the Europeans will be compelled to buy oil at higher prices"; that is, Europe "will be compelled to buy Iran's oil indirectly and through intermediaries".

According to the EU sanctions package, all existing contracts will be respected only until July 1 - and no new contracts are allowed. Now imagine if this pre-emptive Iranian legislation is voted within the next few days. Crisis-hit Club Med countries such as Spain and especially Italy and Greece will be dealt a deathblow, having no time to find a possible alternative to Iran's light, high-quality crude.

Saudi Arabia - whatever the oily spin in Western corporate media - does not have the spare capacity; and on top of it, the absolute priority for the House of Saud is high oil prices, so it can bribe - apart from repressing - its own population into forgetting about noxious Arab Spring ideas.

So yes, already broken European economies would be forced to keep buying Iranian oil, but now from the winners of choice - middlemen vultures.

Not surprisingly, the losers lost in these Cold War tactics anachronistically applied to a global open market are the Europeans themselves. Greece - already facing the abyss - has been buying heavily discounted oil from Iran. The strong possibility remains of the oil embargo precipitating a Greek government bond default - and even a catastrophic cascade effect in the eurozone (Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Spain - and beyond).

The world needs a digital Herodotus to decode how these European poodles who claim to represent "civilization" were able, in a single stroke, to inflict simultaneous pain on Greece - the cradle of Western civilization itself - and Persia - one of the most sophisticated civilizations in history. In an astonishing historical replay of tragedy as farce, it's as if Greeks and Persians were bonded together at the Thermopylae facing the onslaught of North Atlantic Treaty Organization armies.

Hit the Eurasian groove
Now compare it with the action all across Eurasia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, "Unilateral sanctions don't help matters". The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, exercising immense tact, nevertheless was unmistakable; "To blindly pressure and impose sanctions on Iran are not constructive approaches."

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, "We have very good relations with Iran, and we are putting much effort into renewing Iran's talks with the 5+1 [Iran Six - the United Nations Security Council permanent members plus Germany] mediators' group. Turkey will continue looking for a peaceful solution to the issue.”

BRICS member India - alongside Russia and China - also dismissed sanctions. India will keep buying Iranian oil and paying in rupees or gold. South Korea and Japan will inevitably extract exemptions from the Barack Obama administration.

All across Eurasia trade is fast moving away from the US dollar. The Asian Dollar Exclusion Zone, crucially, also means that Asia is slowly disengaging itself from Western banks.

The movement may be led by China - but it's irreversibly transnational. Once again, follow the money. BRICS members China and Brazil started bypassing the US dollar on trade in 2007. BRICS members Russia and China did the same in 2010. Japan and China - the top two Asian giants - did the same only last month.

Only last week, Saudi Arabia and China rolled out a project for a giant oil refinery in the Red Sea. And India more or less secretly is deciding to pay for Iranian oil in gold - even bypassing the current middleman, a Turkish bank.

Asia wants a new international system - and it's working for it. Inevitable long-term consequences; the US dollar - and, crucially, the petrodollar - slowly drifting into irrelevance. "Too Big to Fail" may turn out to be not a categorical imperative, but an epitaph.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

Source-Debka.com

Jerusalem concerned: Saudi Air Force to outnumber Israel's advanced US jet fleet
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 25, 2012, 10:27 PM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Saudi Arabia Advanced fighter-bombers US Middle East Israeli Air Force

Saudi Air Force F-15SA fighter-bomber
With its latest acquisitions from Washington and Europe, the Saudi Air Force will have more fighter-bombers of more advanced models that the Israeli Air Force. Deep concern over this was recently relayed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
DEBKAfile's Washington and military sources that Israel made its concern known with the utmost discretion so as not to be seen as hampering the expansion of the Saudi Royal Air Force as Riyadh gets set to tackle Tehran should Saudi oil exports be sabotaged by Iranian attacks on its oil production or the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, its primary export outlet.
Last month, the US agreed to sell Saudi Arabia 84 advanced F-15SA fighter-bombers worth $29.4 billion. First deliveries are due in 2015. The package included the upgrading of 70 F-15 planes of the Saudi air fleet. Riyadhis also buying 72 advanced Eurofighter Typhoon fighter bombers. All in all, the oil kingdom will have the largest and most sophisticated fighter-bomber fleet in the Middle East.
Israel leaders reminded the Obama administration of its standing pledge to maintain Israel's qualitative military edge in the region. The aircraft supplied to the Saudis will place that edge in doubt.
They voiced two additional causes for concern:
1. One fine day, Saudi Arabia, which has never agreed to peace relations with Israel, may be moved to attack the Jewish state from an air base very close to Israel's shores. That proximity and the size and quality of its air force will allow dozens of warplanes to penetrate Israel's air defenses and drop bombs on southern and central Israel.
2. Israel also fears that four or five Saudi pilots or hired Islamist fliers may one day form an al Qaeda cell inside the Saudi Air Force and conspire to carry out a suicide attack on Israeli cities on the model of al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, most of whose participants were Saudis.
Israeli intelligence officials in close touch with American counterparts asked them if Washington had asked for Saudi assurances about the reliability of the air crews who will man the new F-15SA planes. They were told that no such guarantees had been requested.
For now, Israel has brought its concerns to the notice of the Obama administration without making specific requests to hold up delivery. Israel is conscious that the Gulf region is on tenterhooks over its security and the Saudis are deep in military preparations to beat back potentially aggressive Iranian moves in the wake of the oil embargo approved by the US and the European Union against Tehran's nuclear program.
Jerusalem also takes into consideration the importance to the flagging American economy of the huge warplane transaction with the Saudis which will support 50,000 jobs in the US air industry and 600 American contractors of aircraft parts.
Obama will certainly not be approachable on this issue while running for re-election.
But none of these considerations allays the deep anxiety prevailing in the top echelons of Israel's high military and air command over the radical upgrade awarded Saudi air power providing it with the capacity to outclass and outgun Israel.

Food Warrior Part 4-Paula Deen is no Warrior!

2012-01-29T18:38:00.098-07:00

High Fructose Corn Syrup Conspiracy

Source-Diet blog

Fructose: Evil or Misunderstood?
By Mike Howard
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Fructose, particularly in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), has been labelled the devil of all food creations. A video surfaced on youtube this past year by a well-spoken and clearly educated doctor by the name of Robert Lustig.

The video's length would make James Cameron cringe, but it is a very detailed look into the science, politics and health effects of fructose.

The video received some very positive accolades in the on-line and print community, with both lay people and industry professionals lauding Dr. Lustig, and his clear message: Fructose is Toxic.

A recent rebuttal to this video on a straight-shooting fitness and nutrition blog, has caused quite a heated discussion.

Let's review the video and the rebuttal, and try and make some sense out of it all.

The Real Truth About High Fructose Corn Syrup

The amount of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has gone up 1000+% from 1970 to present day.
Too much fructose in the form of HFCS can in fact have some negative impacts on health.
Americans consume over 60lbs of HFCS annually, accounting for over 400 calories per day.
Fructose bi-passes the breakdown process that glucose undergoes and heads straight for the liver - theoretically making the liver work overtime to process it.
Dr. Lustig does a very good job of breaking down the politics on how we came to be eating so much HFCS (in short, it's cheap).
He gives what looks to be a sound biochemical breakdown of how fructose acts on the liver, and the potential consequences of the body.
Lustig also acknowledges correctly that fructose is not an "acute toxin", implying that there is a dose-response to fructose's dangers.
Fructose: The Bitter (stretching of the) Truth

The alleged toxicity of fructose is context-dependant. Lustig does not mention any dose ranges, and claims that fructose is fattening irrespective of caloric intake.
Human studies to date have not found higher fructose intakes to be any more fattening than other sugars when calories are controlled.
The studies which do demonstrate adverse effects of fructose consumption are in unreasonably high doses.
Dr. Lustig points to fructose's negative effects on hormones, particularly leptin. However, leptin impairment was found in rats consuming a diet of 60% fructose.
While it is convenient to point the finger at HFCS for the obesity epidemic, total calories went up markedly in that same time period.
In addition to fear-mongering, Dr. Lustig makes some statements in his video that range from curious to outrageous. For example, in his opening monologue, he states that "Japanese populations don't eat fructose". This is flat-out wrong, as it is estimated that the Japanese's sugar consumption is about ¼ HFCS.
Another flaw in the HFCS-is-causing-obesity argument is that countries in Europe, Australia and Mexico have raising obesity rates, but do not have correspondingly high HFCS intake.
What To Do?

Referring to anything as a "toxin" warrants contextualization. Consuming HFCS in smaller amounts, within a calorically-reasonable diet, won't do anything bad to you.
Eating a lot of something that has empty calories will pack on the pounds, and have health consequences. HFCS is no exception, but it certainly isn't special.
There is no argument that too much of our food consumption is in the form of sugared foods and drinks. Cutting back on these will help reduce your waistline, and promote better health.
I can't think of a single good reason to cut fruit out of your diet.
References:

Source-American Diabetes Association/America's rancid diet #1killer

Data from the 2011 National Diabetes Fact Sheet (released Jan. 26, 2011)
Total prevalence of diabetes
Total: 25.8 million children and adults in the United States—8.3% of the population—have diabetes.

Diagnosed: 18.8 million people

Undiagnosed: 7.0 million people

Prediabetes: 79 million people*

New Cases: 1.9 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in people aged 20 years and older in 2010.

* In contrast to the 2007 National Diabetes Fact Sheet, which used fasting glucose data to estimate undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes, the 2011 National Diabetes Fact Sheet uses both fasting glucose and A1C levels to derive estimates for undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes. These tests were chosen because they are most frequently used in clinical practice.

Under 20 years of age

215,000, or 0.26% of all people in this age group have diabetes
About 1 in every 400 children and adolescents has diabetes
Age 20 years or older

25.6 million, or 11.3% of all people in this age group have diabetes
Age 65 years or older

10.9 million, or 26.9% of all people in this age group have diabetes
Men

13.0 million, or 11.8% of all men aged 20 years or older have diabetes
Women

12.6 million, or 10.8% of all women aged 20 years or older have diabetes
Race and ethnic differences in prevalence of diagnosed diabetes
After adjusting for population age differences, 2007-2009 national survey data for people diagnosed with diabetes, aged 20 years or older include the following prevalence by race/ethnicity:

7.1% of non-Hispanic whites
8.4% of Asian Americans
12.6% of non-Hispanic blacks
11.8% of Hispanics
Among Hispanics rates were:

7.6% for Cubans
13.3% for Mexican Americans
13.8% for Puerto Ricans.
Morbidity and Mortality
In 2007, diabetes was listed as the underlying cause on 71,382 death certificates and was listed as a contributing factor on an additional 160,022 death certificates. This means that diabetes contributed to a total of 231,404 deaths.
Complications
Heart disease and stroke

In 2004, heart disease was noted on 68% of diabetes-related death certificates among people aged 65 years or older.
In 2004, stroke was noted on 16% of diabetes-related death certificates among people aged 65 years or older.
Adults with diabetes have heart disease death rates about 2 to 4 times higher than adults without diabetes.
The risk for stroke is 2 to 4 times higher among people with diabetes.
High blood pressure

In 2005-2008, of adults aged 20 years or older with self-reported diabetes, 67% had blood pressure greater than or equal to 140/90 mmHg or used prescription medications for hypertension.
Blindness

Diabetes is the leading cause of new cases of blindness among adults aged 20–74 years.
In 2005-2008, 4.2 million (28.5%) people with diabetes aged 40 years or older had diabetic retinopathy, and of these, almost 0.7 million (4.4% of those with diabetes) had advanced diabetic retinopathy that could lead to severe vision loss.
Kidney disease

Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, accounting for 44% of new cases in 2008.
In 2008, 48,374 people with diabetes began treatment for end-stage kidney disease in the United States.
In 2008, a total of 202,290 people with end-stage kidney disease due to diabetes were living on chronic dialysis or with a kidney transplant in the United States.
Nervous system disease (Neuropathy)

About 60% to 70% of people with diabetes have mild to severe forms of nervous system damage.
Amputation

More than 60% of nontraumatic lower-limb amputations occur in people with diabetes.
In 2006, about 65,700 nontraumatic lower-limb amputations were performed in people with diabetes.
Cost of Diabetes
$174 billion: Total costs of diagnosed diabetes in the United States in 2007
$116 billion for direct medical costs
$58 billion for indirect costs (disability, work loss, premature mortality)
After adjusting for population age and sex differences, average medical expenditures among people with diagnosed diabetes were 2.3 times higher than what expenditures would be in the absence of diabetes.

The American Diabetes Association has created a Diabetes Cost Calculator that takes the national cost of diabetes data and provides estimates at the state and congressional district level.

Factoring in the additional costs of undiagnosed diabetes, prediabetes, and gestational diabetes brings the total cost of diabetes in the United States in 2007 to $218 billion.

$18 billion for people with undiagnosed diabetes
$25 billion for American adults with prediabetes
$623 million for gestational diabetes

Tons of butter and cheese

Source-Yahoo news

Paula Deen Has Type 2 Diabetes, Still Eats Fried Foods "in Moderation"

Us Weekly – Tue, Jan 17, 2012 5:38 AM PST

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Paula Deen built her empire on a love of fried food, but the 64-year-old Food Network star made a shocking announcement Tuesday: she's suffering from Type 2 Diabetes.
"I was diagnosed three years ago during a regular physical exam with my doctor," Deen revealed on The Today Show. "I'm here today to let the world know that it is not a death sentence."

Deen chose to keep her condition private because she "had to figure things out in my own head...I had nothing to give with my fellow friends out there."
Now a paid spokesperson for Novo Nordisk, Deen is gearing up for the launch of Diabetes in a New Light, which offers "simple ways" to manage the disease.

"People are not going to quit eating. We quit eating, we're all out of here. I wanted to bring something to the table when I came forward, and I've always been one to think that I bring hope, because I've had lots of obstacles in my life, y'all."
When Al Roker repeatedly asked Deen if her diagnosis was a direct result of her butter-rich diet, she admitted that it's "part of the puzzle" but not the only factor.
Citing genetics, lifestyle, diet, stress and age, Deen said that like many baby boomers, "there's a good chance that [Type 2 Diabetes] will be one of the issues you have to face."

"Here's the thing: I have always encouraged moderation. On my show I share with you all these yummy fattening recipes, but I tell people, 'In moderation. In moderation,'" Deen explained. "I've always eaten in moderation," she said, adding that the recipes seen on her show account for only 30 meals a year.
"It's like I told Oprah [Winfrey] a few years ago: 'Honey, I'm your cook, not your doctor,'" Deen said. "You are going to have to be responsible for yourself."

golden*nugget advice

Eliminate Cakes, Chips, High fructose corn syrup(processed sugar) most fast foods, but not all.Smart choices and portions are the key, along with exercise,you strengthen your immune system, and decrease your chance of getting diabetes, and dying at a early age.

That is Insane!

What happens to human body after drinking Soda pop.

Eliminate Soda Completly from Diet!

Natures goodness

Apples,bananas, raisins make a powerful trio of nutrition!

The thing about fish tacos-you can eat them anytime, morning, noon, night.If you add avocado, you make them more nutritous than they already are.(Adding grilled shrimp is a plus.)

Fish Tacos with Beer.

Fish Tacos Grilled,no Beer.

Zionist Billionaire Sheldon Adelson owns Newt Gingrich

2012-01-27T09:05:00.034-07:00

Source-Wall Street Journal/Gingrich stance on Israel ties him to Adelson

A shared interest in supporting Israel, fostered over 15 years, is at the heart of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson's support for Newt Gingrich's presidential bid.

It has been decades since America saw a wealthy patron become so identified with a presidential candidate. But Mr. Adelson and his wife, Miriam, account for a large share of the funding for an independent group supporting Mr. Gingrich's presidential bid, giving $5 million this week and $5 million earlier in January.

On Tuesday, the pro-Gingrich political-action committee bought $6 million of airtime in Florida for television ads, according to Rick Tyler, a strategist for the so-called super PAC, Winning Our Future. The Adelsons' money has helped to keep Mr. Gingrich's candidacy aloft after a faltering start in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

Mr. Tyler said Winning Our Future spent about $1 million in Iowa and $3.5 million in South Carolina on TV ads, many of them attacking Mr. Gingrich's top rival, Mitt Romney. Winning Our Future's spending is second only to that of a super PAC supporting Mr. Romney's candidacy, according to the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation.

Messrs. Adelson and Gingrich met in 1995, when Mr. Gingrich was Speaker of the House and Mr. Adelson was making the rounds on Capitol Hill to promote legislation backed by pro-Israel activists. Mr. Gingrich wound up supporting the bill Mr. Sheldon favored, and the two men became friends.

Before the Watergate scandal spurred broad changes to campaign-finance rules, contributors such as W. Clement Stone became widely known for making large political contributions.

Mr. Stone, an insurance-company founder, gave more than $8 million to former President Richard Nixon's 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns, according to press accounts at the time of Mr. Stone's death in 2002. Mr. Stone's money in 1968 helped Mr. Nixon top rival GOP candidate George Romney, whose son is currently in a duel with Mr. Gingrich for the party's nomination.

The return of major individual donors such as Mr. Adelson is changing the presidential election process, said Anthony Corrado, a professor of government at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. As recently as 2008, he said, a struggling candidate such as Mr. Gingrich would have been forced to drop out as funds dried up, but Mr. Adelson has allowed Mr. Gingrich to hang on.

Mr. Adelson's ability to play such a large role in helping Mr. Gingrich results from a string of recent court decisions regarding independent groups seeking to influence elections. Among other things, courts eliminated restrictions that barred independent groups from advocating that people vote for or against individual candidates within a month of a primary election.

Mr. Adelson, 78 years old, parlayed a convention business into the Las Vegas Sands Corp. casino empire that includes the Venetian and Palazzo casinos in Las Vegas and casinos in Macau and Singapore. Forbes magazine ranks him the eighth-wealthiest person in the U.S. at $21 billion.

Friends and associates say Mr. Adelson's backing is motivated by an interest in promoting pro-Israel causes. The bill that took him to Washington in 1995 would have moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

"I thought Sheldon's priorities are his family, gaming and Israel," said a longtime friend, Texas businessman and veteran GOP fund-raiser Fred Zeidman. "Sheldon told me, 'You're wrong. Israel comes second.' "

The money to Mr. Gingrich is just the start, as Mr. Adelson intends to give tens of millions of dollars to other Republican candidates and conservative causes, he has told friends and associates.

A spokesman for Mr. Adelson said he declined to comment for this article.

After Mr. Gingrich left Congress, Mr. Adelson became his key financial supporter. His company spent more than $7 million between 2006 and 2010 in donations to Mr. Gingrich's nonprofit group American Solutions.

Now, said Andy Abboud, vice president of government relations for Las Vegas Sands, Mr. Adelson "wants to make sure we elect people who stand strong behind Israel."

Mr. Adelson has told several friends and associates that he sees President Barack Obama as unfriendly to Israel, and has made it a personal mission to defeat him. In December, Mr. Adelson was quoted in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz saying he agreed with Mr. Gingrich's comment that the Palestinians are an "invented" people.

"He says very clearly this is one of the most important election cycles ever" and plans to be involved in a variety of races he sees as "critical across the country."

—Danny Yadron contributed to this article.
Write to Alicia Mundy at alicia.mundy@wsj.com and Alexandra Berzon at alexandra.berzon@wsj.com

Source-The Atlantic/Sheldon and Miriam Adelson

The shadowy billionaire bankrolling Newt Gingrich's super PAC is a Las Vegas casino magnate who's given tens of millions to Republican and pro-Israel causes over the years -- and now, to boosting Gingrich. Sands Corp. CEO Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have each given the Winning Our Future super PAC $5 million to date, and the PAC has committed to spend $6 million on television advertising in Florida. He's also a pugnacious pioneer in the world of gaming and tourism who's changed the face of Las Vegas and Macau alike, a aggressive operator who once lost more than $20 billion in a single year and boasted of getting former Republican House leader Tom DeLay to do his bidding.

Adelson, 78, is a man of many facets, with a long and colorful history in business and right-wing politics. Here are 10 things you might not know about the man whose money has helped change the course of the GOP presidential race.

1. He's a self-made man. The son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Adelson, by his own account, grew up in a one-room tenement in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston and never graduated college. He showed his entrepreneurial streak early on, selling newspapers starting at 12 and running an operation that stocked candy-vending machines when he was 16. After serving in the Army, he and a brother went into business together, selling toiletries to hotels and vending a car de-icing spray. Adelson (pronounced "add-ul-son") cycled through various ventures before starting, with partners, the COMDEX electronics trade show -- the enterprise that would be the seed of his now-vast fortune. At its height, the show drew 200,000 attendees, but after Adelson's group sold it in 1995, the exposition declined and eventually closed in 2003.

2. He made Las Vegas a convention destination. When Adelson brought COMDEX to Vegas, the gambling mecca was generally hostile to the convention business, but Adelson had a vision of conventioneers filling hotel rooms and spending disposable income on the casino floor. To house COMDEX, he purchased the Sands Hotel -- the decrepit former home of the Rat Pack -- and built a massive convention center next to it, then aggressively marketed it as a destination for other conventions. Today, the convention business is a cornerstone of the Las Vegas economy. Adelson expanded his empire with two high-end hotel-casino-resorts, the Venetian (1999) -- complete with gondoliers ferrying tourists down fake canals -- and the Palazzo, which opened in 2007.

3. He's a union-buster. Some of Adelson's bitterest political battles have been fought in his adopted home state against the forces of organized labor, which has a strong foothold in the casino industry. The Venetian opened in 1999 as the only non-union casino on the Strip and has been the target of protest from the hotel workers union, Culinary 226, ever since. Many Democratic politicians in the state continue to observe the union's boycott of Adelson's properties. Rep. Shelley Berkley, a Nevada Democrat now running for Senate in what's likely to be one of 2012's highest-profile races, was once Adelson's top political lieutenant, but the two parted ways over labor issues. Adelson and Berkley have regarded each other as mortal enemies ever since -- even though Berkley, like Adelson, is a hawkish, socially liberal Jew.

4. He spent $30 million on the 2008 election. It didn't work out so well. Adelson poured the money into Freedom's Watch, a "527" independent-expenditure group that was active in congressional races, airing ads across the country that emphasized national security. (It also ran ads targeting Berkley, though her safe Democratic seat was not remotely competitive.) The group's help failed to avert the Republican landslide that November, and it was further hampered by staff infighting; insiders accused Adelson, its nearly sole donor, of micromanaging the organization's activities. It closed shortly after the 2008 general election. Notably, a top official at Freedom's Watch, Carl Forti, is now a chief strategist for Restore Our Future, Mitt Romney's super PAC -- putting him in direct opposition to Adelson's pro-Gingrich super-PAC.

5. He's a Zionist/neocon/right-wing Israel hawk. Much of Adelson's political activity is devoted to boosting the right-wing Israeli line, both in Israel and the U.S. He donated a posh new headquarters to AIPAC, the Israel lobby in Washington, though he reportedly feuded with the organization over activities he saw as unduly pro-Palestinian. He has given $25 million to Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial organization, and $100 million to Birthright, the organization that takes young American Jews on free trips to Israel to bolster their loyalty to the Jewish state. Adelson opposes a two-state solution or any accommodation of Palestinians. When Gingrich recently stirred controversy by referring to the Palestinians as "an invented people," Adelson praised the remark to a Birthright group, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. In Israel, Adelson started a free daily newspaper known for its relentless drumbeat of support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other right-wing politicians. The paper, Israel Hayom, has been called "the Fox News of Israel." Adelson's millions of dollars in contributions have purchased access to the highest reaches of the GOP -- during the Bush administration, for example, he hosted both President Bush and Vice President Cheney in his home -- and he has used it principally to push for a hard line on Israel.

6. He's a social liberal. In 2008, Adelson told the Las Vegas Weekly, "I'm socially very liberal. Too liberal." His political activities have never targeted cultural issues, and his hotels market to gay customers. Adelson supported Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 GOP presidential primaries, and his political philosophy is perhaps best understood as Giuliani-style conservatism -- liberal on social issues and preoccupied almost exclusively with a hawkish, pro-Israel, anti-radical-Islam national-security stance, plus opposition to unions.

7. He's big in China. Adelson is credited with revolutionizing the American gaming industry by opening the Chinese port of Macau to the business. In 2002, he secured a gaming license in the seedy former Portuguese colony, and in 2004 he opened the opulent Sands Macau -- the first non-Chinese concession in the territory. The investment would power Sands Corp.'s public offering and turn Adelson from a multimillionaire into a billionaire practically overnight. He now operates three casinos there (one is on the so-called Cotai Strip, a former bay Adelson had filled to turn it into land) and has another in the works. But not everyone has been pleased with Adelson's Chinese success. A former Chinese business partner has successfully sued in Nevada court, claiming Adelson failed to pay him as promised, and the FBI and SEC continue to investigate charges he attempted to bribe Chinese officials, which the company denies. Adelson also once bragged to Chinese officials of using his clout to help the country secure the 2008 Olympics by getting his friend Tom DeLay to kill a human-rights bill in the House. DeLay denied it, saying the bill was withdrawn for reasons that had nothing to do with Adelson.

8. He's made -- and lost -- a massive fortune. By 2008, Adelson's Macau windfall had pushed his net worth to $27 billion -- making him the third richest man in America, according to Forbes. But the financial crisis that year devastated the gaming industry. The stock lost 95 percent of its value, and Adelson lost $24 billion in the space of a few months, dropping to #178 on the Forbes list. Sands teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. To save it, Adelson pumped a billion dollars into the company. Today, the company hasn't made a full recovery, but it's come back substantially. Adelson's wealth was last clocked at $22 billion -- eighth on the Forbes roster.

9. He really, really likes Newt. How the Adelson-Gingrich relationship came about is murky. Adelson recalls meeting Gingrich on Capitol Hill while lobbying on Israel issues in 1995, though a Gingrich operative in Nevada told The New York Times recently that he'd introduced the two to talk about union issues in the late 1990s. However the men met, it's not clear why Gingrich has such a singular hold on the political imagination of Adelson, who has met plenty of politicians. What is clear is that Adelson's support has been generous. Before Gingrich embarked on his current presidential run, Adelson had given $7.7 million to Gingrich's various enterprises. A source close to Adelson said it's a well Gingrich's boosters can keep going back to: "He's willing to do more, depending on how Florida goes." The super PAC is not particularly diversified, the source noted: "There's really no one else bankrolling Winning Our Future." (Rick Tyler, the super PAC's senior adviser, declined to comment on Adelson's involvement.)

10. His wife is a doctor. Adelson married Miriam Ochshorn, his second wife, in 1991. They have two school-age sons together. An Israeli-born physician some years Adelson's junior with signature platinum-blond hair, she specializes in addiction treatment. Her influence has led the couple to start drug-treatment centers in Las Vegas and Tel Aviv. It's an issue that has affected the family directly: a son from Sheldon Adelson's first marriage died of a drug overdose. And in court testimony in 2008, Adelson testified that he was hobbled by painkillers, including methadone, that he took for a neurological condition for much of 2001, a state he characterized as "a little cuckoo."

Source-Forbes.com

At a Glance

Age: 78
Source: casinos, self-made
Residence: Las Vegas, NV
Country of Citizenship: United States
Education: Drop Out, City College of New York
Marital Status: Married
Children: 5

Casino king Sheldon Adelson continues to enjoy a hot hand. His fortune is up $7 billion since last year, as his strong position in the casino-crazy Asian markets has pushed stock of Las Vegas Sands up roughly 50% to a recent $48. (Shares once traded as low as $1.50 in 2009.) Nearly 90% of its operating profit comes from Asia; the thriving Marina Bay Sands casino opened in Singapore last year. Through his majority-owned subsidiary Sands China, Adelson has 3 resorts in Macau. His goal is to push company shares back over $100, near their 2007 peak. Not that he'll spend the money on himself: "The richer I get, the more money goes to cancer research." The cabdriver's son created the computer industry's marquee event, Comdex, in the mid-1980s. He sold it to Japan's Softbank for $862 million 1995 and later built the $1.5 billion Venetian Resort Hotel Casino and the 1.2-million-square-foot Sands Convention Center in 1997 in Las Vegas. He opened the $1.9 billion Palazzo resort in 2008.

Marina Bay Sands Hotel- Singapore

Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul behind Las Vegas Sands Corp., has gotten all kinds of press since he and his wife each cut $5 million checks to the pro-Newt Gingrich superPAC Winning Our Future. The first donation brought Newt back from the dead to win the South Carolina primary via a carpet bombing of TV attack ads against Mitt Romney. The latest $5 million, officially from his wife Dr. Miriam Adelson, will help Newt try to take Florida and put the GOP race into even more of a dead heat.

The $10 million donation to the Gingrich superPAC is nothing to Adelson. That’s what the Marina Bay Sands, his biggest hotel/casino, can make in profit in one day. He could give $1 billion away, 5% of his net worth, and not even notice. (Well, maybe he would notice.) But the only thing stopping him from giving $20 million, $100 million or $500 million to the superPAC (there are no limits to what individuals can give) is Gingrich himself, who may balk at the optics of being so far in the pocket of one man.

But who is Sheldon Adelson? He doesn’t talk to the press much. Our last major profile on him was in 2005, just before the global economic collapse that pounded his net worth. Adelson told us then that he’s always seen himself as misunderstood, an outsider, under-reckoned with. “I’ve been met with ridicule in every industry I’ve entered,” he told us. “It’s been that way all my life.” Adelson never went to college. He grew up poor in Dorchester, Mass., the son of Jewish Ukrainian immigrants. His dad drove a taxi. “All the Irish boys from South Boston used to beat up all of the Jewish kids,” he said. As a result, Adelson developed into a tough, ruthless character to his enemies but highly loyal and generous to his friends. From our story:

He sold newspapers at the age of 12, borrowing $200 from his uncle to lease two city corners. In his 30s he moved to New York, where he sold ads for financial trade publications and consulted for companies looking to go public, then returned to Boston to run his own tour business. By the mid-1980s he had built the computer industry’s premiere trade show, Comdex, and had mastered the gift of gouge. He rented floor space at 15 cents a square foot, then leased it to exhibitors for up to $40 a square foot. He charged extra for on-site ads, additional electrical outlets, flowers, phones and loading. Half the fees were paid almost a year in advance, and profit margins hit 70%. “I’m not in business to make money for the other guy. I’m in business to make money for myself.”

The Comdex show turned into the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas, which in turn funded the Venetian and Palazzo. Then came Macao and the real money. Connie Bruck wrote a long profile of Adelson in The New Yorker in June 2008, which went into great depth about his politics and interest in conservative Israeli causes and a pro-China agenda. If you want to hear the latest, I did a radio spot yesterday on The Brian Lehrer show on WNYC with Jane Eisner, editor of The Jewish Daily Forward, about Adelson’s business growth and his support for Newt, Israel and other conservative causes.

Adelson’s story is a wild ride. Las Vegas Sands has gone from an IPO in 2004 to becoming arguably the world’s biggest real estate developer today. The monstrous hotels it has built and is building in Singapore and Macao dwarf anything in Las Vegas. The Marina Bay Sands will generate $3 billion in cash flow a year once it’s firing on all cylinders (it opened in mid-2010). As shares of Las Vegas Sands rose and fell hard with the economic bubble and collapse, Adelson’s wealth has moved in unison, going from being undetected before his IPO in 2004 to a peak of $28 billion in October 2007 to $3.4 billion in March 2009 to now back up to $22 billion or so. I would bet that shares of Las Vegas Sands will, as Adelson has predicted, once again reach $100, approximately double where they are today. That’s probably more likely than Gingrich making it into the Oval Office but, then again, you don’t often win betting against Shelly.

Source-Forbes.com/Sheldon could give one billion dollars to Newt

The Real Big Government Record Of Newt Gingrich

Source-The Humble Libertarian.com

Make NO MISTAKE about Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich is NO conservative. He is NO Tea Party candidate. He is an establishment Republican In Name Only. His record and positions on past issues are all we need to know that a Newt Gingrich presidency would not shrink the size of government, increase your liberties, or return America to its Constitution.

The Truth about Newt Gingrich.
DID YOU KNOW?

1. Newt Gingrich supported the TARP bailouts:

At the height of the national debate over the TARP bailout in 2008, Newt Gingrich even told George Stephanopoulos in an interview that he would have voted for TARP if he were still in Congress (video proof). Is that the position of a true conservative? Is that the position of the free market? Is that the position of the Tea Party? No, no, and no!

2. Newt Gingrich supports the individual health care mandate, a key part of ObamaCare:

Newt Gingrich has supported a key provision of ObamaCare for years, and continues to support it to this day: the (unconstitutional) individual mandate. Just this May on Meet the Press, Newt Gingrich said: "I am for people, individuals–exactly like automobile insurance–individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance."

This was the same interview in which he called Paul Ryan's modest budget cuts "radical," "too big a jump," and "right-wing social engineering." And the individual mandate isn't the only aspect of socialized medicine that Newt Gingrich supports. Newt Gingrich also supported Medicare Part D, the greatest expansion to the federal welfare state since LBJ.

3. Newt Gingrich is a Washington insider who made over a million in consulting fees for Freddie Mac:

Newt Gingrich collected at least $1.5 million in consulting fees for Freddie Mac, the big government bully that helped cause the housing crisis. Newt Gingrich claims he warned Freddie Mac officials that the housing market was a "bubble" and "insane," but then why did he defend Freddie Mac to Iowa voters, saying: "every American should be interested in expanding housing opportunities." Isn't that the exact attitude Newt Gingrich claims he warned against at Freddie Mac?

But what about Newt Gingrich's Contract with America?

The Federal government and the National Debt actually grew while Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House. As Ed Crane, president of the Cato Institute lamented in 2000: “the combined budgets of the 95 major programs that the Contract with America promised to eliminate have increased by 13%.” Newt Gingrich has only one record: and that is a record of growing government. He has only one consistent platform, and that is a platform of defending big government "solutions" and a more active role for Washington D.C. in every aspect of your life from cradle to grave. These are the facts and they are a matter of record.

You have a responsibility to your country not to let your fellow Americans be fooled by the false impression Newt Gingrich is working hard to cultivate about himself.

Please share this article with everyone you know-- especially people who have been fooled by Newt Gingrich's excellent speaking skills and carefully calculated lip service to the Tea Party's values. Newt Gingrich's record clearly shows that he supports bank bailouts, more socialized medicine on a federal level, and a more active role for the federal government in every aspect of American life. Newt Gingrich is NO CONSERVATIVE.

At this time of crisis, America CANNOT afford to elect someone with such a spotty record of positions and actions. We absolutely must elect someone with a die-hard record of unyielding commitment to liberty, someone who we absolutely KNOW will shrink the size, role, and influence of the government in Washington. There are only two such candidates on the Republican field today: Rep. Ron Paul and Gov. Gary Johnson.

Thank you for reading.

1.
Supported Bankster Bail Outs

2.
Supported Mandated Health Care

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

3.
Made Millions of Dollars Lobbying for Corrupt Freddy Mac

Tehran, Iran(Possible U.S. Military exercise toward Tehran)

2012-01-26T16:29:00.080-07:00

Israeli Government Admits Iran has NO Nuclear Weapons Program!

Source-Haaretz.com

In case you don't believe what I wrote below, then click this link to see how "they" operate.

Source-Henry Makow.com/Here's what the" Jews" did to Ancient Mongolia

7 Thousand Year History of Iran!

The 7 Thousand year history of Persians(Not Arabs or Jews) When you see what the Powers that be did to Iraq,Afghanistan, Egypt,Russia, China,etc, you begin to realize how "they" hate Ancient Civilizations and History.It's like Jews hate Civilizations that "Interrupted" their timeline for humanity.They want all past great civilizations, and there history erased from your memory, similar to the Christian History of America, and it's founders. FACT! New World Order....

Source-Iran Chamber Society/Great Persian City of Persopilis

Source-BBC News.com

7 Thousand year history

A chronology of key events:

550-330 BC - Achaemenid dynasty rules the first Persian Empire. At its greatest extent under Darius I stretches from the Aegean Sea and Libya to the Indus Valley.

492-479 - Persian attempts to conquer Greece fail.

330 - Alexander the Great of Macedon conquers the Persian Empire, founding a short-lived empire before dying in Babylon in 323.

312-140 - Most of Persia is part of the Greek-dominated (Hellenistic) Seleucid Empire, founded by a general of Alexander the Great.

140 BC - 224 AD - Persia become part of the Parthian Empire, ruled by the Arsacid dynasty.

224-651 AD - Sassanid dynasty rules Persian Empire; Zoroastrianism is the dominant religion.

Advent of Islam

636 - Arab invasion brings end of Sassanid dynasty and start of Islamic rule.

9th century - Emergence of modern Persian language (or Farsi), written using a form of Arabic script.

9th-13th century - Decline of Islamic Caliphate; rise of Seljuk Turk dynasties.

1220 - Invasion by Mongol forces of Genghis Khan.

1501 - Shah Ismail I becomes first ruler of Islamic Safavid dynasty; Shi'i Islam declared state religion.

1639 - Treaty of Qasr-e Shirin (or Treaty of Zuhab) ends about 150 years of war against Ottoman Empire.

1828 - Iran cedes control of Caucasus to Russia after second Russo-Persian war.

Shah Mohammad Reza, a close ally of the US, pursued a policy of modernisation and secularisation
1736 - Nadir Shah becomes monarch; end of Safavid dynasty.

1890 - "Tobacco Riots": ruler Naser al-Din Shah forced to withdraw trade concessions granted to Britain after mass protests.

1907 - Introduction of constitution which limits the absolutist powers of rulers.

1914-1918 - Iran declares neutrality but is scene of heavy fighting during World War I.

1925 December - Parliament votes to make Reza Khan ruler.

1921 February - Military commander Reza Khan seizes power.

1923 - Reza Khan becomes prime minister.

1926 April - Reza Khan crowned Reza Shah Pahlavi. Mohammad Reza, the Shah's eldest son, is proclaimed Crown Prince.

Shah installed
1935 - Formerly known as Persia, Iran is adopted as the country's official name.

1941 - The Shah's pro-Axis allegiance in World War II leads to the Anglo-Russian occupation of Iran and the deposition of the Shah in favour of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

1950 - Ali Razmara becomes prime minister and is assassinated less than nine months later. He is succeeded by the nationalist, Mohammad Mossadeq.

1951 April - Parliament votes to nationalise the oil industry, which is dominated by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Britain imposes an embargo and a blockade, halting oil exports and hitting the economy. A power struggle between the Shah and Mossadeq ensues and the Shah flees the country in August 1953.

1953 August - Mossadeq is overthrown in a coup engineered by the British and American intelligence services. General Fazlollah Zahedi is proclaimed as prime minister and the Shah returns.

Campaign to modernise
1963 January - The Shah embarks on a campaign to modernise and westernise the country. He launches the 'White Revolution', a programme of land reform and social and economic modernisation. During the late 1960's the Shah became increasingly dependent on the secret police (SAVAK) in controlling those opposition movements critical of his reforms.

1978 September - The Shah's policies alienate the clergy and his authoritarian rule leads to riots, strikes and mass demonstrations. Martial law is imposed.

Shah exiled, Khomeini returns
1979 January - As the political situation deteriorates, the Shah and his family are forced into exile.

1979 November - Islamic militants take 52 Americans hostage inside the US embassy in Tehran. They demand the extradition of the Shah, in the US at the time for medical treatment, to face trial in Iran.

1979 1 February - The Islamic fundamentalist, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returns to Iran following 14 years of exile in Iraq and France for opposing the regime.

1979 1 April - The Islamic Republic of Iran is proclaimed following a referendum.

1980 January - Abolhasan Bani-Sadr is elected the first President of the Islamic Republic. His government begins work on a major nationalization programme.

1980 July - The exiled Shah dies of cancer in Egypt.

Iran-Iraq war
1980 22 September - Start of Iran-Iraq war which lasts for eight years.

1981 January - The American hostages are released ending 444 days in captivity.

1981 June - Bani-Sadr is dismissed, he later flees to France.

1985 - After the US and Soviet Union halted arms supplies, the US attempted to win the release of hostages in Lebanon by offering secret arms deals, this would later become known as the Iran-Contra affair.

1988 July - 290 passengers and the crew of an Iran Air Airbus are mistakenly shot down by the USS Vincennes.

Ceasefire

1988 July - Iran accepts a ceasefire agreement with Iraq following negotiations in Geneva under the aegis of the UN.

1989 February - Ayatollah Khomeini issues a religious edict (fatwa) ordering Muslims to kill British author, Salman Rushdie, for his novel, 'The Satanic Verses', considered blasphemous to Islam.

1989 3 June - Ayatollah Khomeini dies. On 4 June, President Khamene'i is appointed as new supreme leader.

1989 August - Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani is sworn in as the new president.

1989 November - The US releases 567 million dollars of frozen Iranian assets.

Major earthquake kills thousands

1990 June - A major earthquake strikes Iran, killing approximately 40,000 people.

1990 - Iran remains neutral following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

1990 September - Iran and Iraq resume diplomatic ties.

US imposes sanctions
1995 - US imposes oil and trade sanctions over Iran's alleged sponsorship of "terrorism", seeking to acquire nuclear arms and hostility to the Middle East process. Iran denies the charges.

1997 May - Mohammad Khatami wins the presidential election with 70% of the vote, beating the conservative ruling elite.

1998 September - Iran deploys thousands of troops on its border with Afghanistan after the Taleban admits killing eight Iranian diplomats and a journalist in Mazar-e Sharif.

Student protests
1999 July - Pro-democracy students at Tehran University demonstrate following the closure of the reformist newspaper 'Salam'. Clashes with security forces lead to six days of rioting and the arrest of more than 1,000 students.

2000 February - Majlis elections. Liberals and supporters of Khatami wrest control of parliament from conservatives for the first time.

2000 April - The judiciary, following the adoption of a new press law, bans the publication of 16 reformist newspapers.

2000 May - Inauguration of the Sixth parliament.

Khatami's second term
2001 June - President Khatami re-elected.

2002 January - US President George Bush describes Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil", warning of the proliferation of long-range missiles being developed in these countries. The speech causes outrage in Iran and is condemned by reformists and conservatives alike.

2002 September - Russian technicians begin construction of Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr despite strong objections from US.

2003 June - Thousands attend student-led protests in Tehran against clerical establishment.

2003 September - UN nuclear watchdog, IAEA, gives Tehran weeks to prove it is not pursuing an atomic weapons programme.

2003 October - Shirin Ebadi becomes Iran's first Nobel Peace Prize winner; lawyer and human rights campaigner became Iran's first female judge in 1975 but was forced to resign after 1979 revolution.

2003 November - Iran says it is suspending its uranium enrichment programme and will allow tougher UN inspections of its nuclear facilities. IAEA concludes there is no evidence of a weapons programme.

2003 December - 40,000 people are killed in an earthquake in south-east Iran; the city of Bam is devastated.

Conservative resurgence
2004 February - Conservatives regain control of parliament in elections. Thousands of reformist candidates were disqualified by the hardline Council of Guardians before the polls.

Nuclear crisis
2005 August-September - Tehran says it has resumed uranium conversion at its Isfahan plant and insists the programme is for peaceful purposes. IAEA finds Iran in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

2004 June - Iran is rebuked by the IAEA for failing to fully cooperate with an inquiry into its nuclear activities.

2004 November - Iran agrees to suspend most of its uranium enrichment under a deal with the EU.

2005 June - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tehran's ultra-conservative mayor, wins a run-off vote in presidential elections, defeating cleric and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

2006 January - Iran breaks IAEA seals at its Natanz nuclear research facility.

Bomb attacks in the southern city of Ahvaz - the scene of sporadic unrest in recent months - kill eight people and injure more than 40.

2006 February - IAEA votes to report Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear activities. Iran resumes uranium enrichment at Natanz.

2006 April - Iran says it has succeeded in enriching uranium at its Natanz facility.

2006 31 August - UN Security Council deadline for Iran to halt its work on nuclear fuel passes. IAEA says Tehran has failed to suspend the programme.

Holocaust denial
2006 December - Iran hosts a controversial conference on the Holocaust; delegates include Holocaust deniers.

UN Security Council votes to impose sanctions on Iran's trade in sensitive nuclear materials and technology. Iran condemns the resolution and vows to speed up uranium enrichment work.

2007 February - IAEA says Iran failed to meet a deadline to suspend uranium enrichment, exposing Tehran to possible new sanctions.

2007 March - Diplomatic stand-off with Britain after Iran detains 15 British sailors and marines patrolling the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway separating Iran and Iraq.

2007 April - President Ahmadinejad says Iran can produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale.

IAEA says Iran has begun making nuclear fuel in its underground uranium enrichment plant. It also says that Iran has started up more than 1,300 centrifuge machines.

2007 May - IAEA says Iran could develop a nuclear weapon in three to eight years if it so chooses.

2007 June - Protests erupt after government imposes petrol rationing amid fears of possible UN sanctions.

2007 July - Iran announces plans to stop making cars that only run on petrol and switch to dual-fuel vehicles, which also run on gas.

2007 July - Iran announces plans to stop making cars that only run on petrol and switch to dual-fuel vehicles, which also run on gas.

Iran agrees to allow inspectors to visit the Arak nuclear plant following talks with the IAEA.

New sanctions
2007 October - US announces sweeping new sanctions against Iran, the toughest since it first imposed sanctions almost 30 years ago.

2007 December - A new US intelligence report plays down the perceived nuclear threat posed by Iran.

2008 February - Iran launches a research rocket to inaugurate a newly built space centre. Washington describes the launch as "unfortunate".

2008 March - President Ahmadinejad makes unprecedented official visit to Iraq, where he calls on foreign troops to leave. He also stresses his government's desire to help rebuild Iraq and signs a number of cooperation agreements.

Conservatives win over two-thirds of seats in parliamentary elections in which many pro-reform candidates were disbarred from standing. The conservatives include supporters of President Ahmadinejad as well as more pragmatic conservatives who oppose his confrontational foreign policy.

UN Security Council tightens economic and trade sanctions on Tehran.

2008 May - IAEA says Iran is still withholding information on its nuclear programme.

Iran's new parliament elects former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani as its speaker.

Incentives offered
2008 June - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana presents an offer of trade benefits, which Tehran says it will look at, but will reject if it demands suspension of uranium enrichment.

2008 July - Iran test-fires a new version of the Shahab-3, a long-range missile it says is capable of hitting targets in Israel.

2008 August - Informal deadline set by Western officials for Iran to respond to package of incentives in return for halt in nuclear activities passes without reply.

Iran says it has successfully launched a test rocket capable of carrying a satellite into space.

2008 September - UN Security Council passes unanimously a new resolution reaffirming demands that Iran stop enriching uranium, but imposes no new sanctions. The text was agreed after Russia said it would not support further sanctions.

Relations with US
2008 November - Parliament votes to dismiss the interior minister, Ali Kordan, who admitted that a degree he said he held from Oxford University was fake. The move is a blow to President Ahmadinejad ahead of next year's presidential election.

In an unprecedented move, President Ahmadinejad congratulates US president-elect Barack Obama on his election win. Mr Obama has offered to open unconditional dialogue with Iran about its nuclear programme.

2008 December - Police raid and close the office of a human rights group led by the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi. Officials say the centre is acting as an illegal political organization.

2009 February - Speaking on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he would welcome talks with the US as long as they are based on "mutual respect".

2009 March - Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei tells anti-Israel rally that US President Obama is following the "same misguided track" in Middle East as President Bush.

2009 April - An Iranian court finds Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi guilty of spying for the US. She is sentenced to eight years in prison.

2009 May - Iran rejects a US state department report saying it remains the "most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world.

Jailed Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi is freed and returns to US.

Election protests
2009 June - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is declared to have won a resounding victory in the 12 June presidential election. The rival candidates challenge the result, alleging vote-rigging. Their supporters take to the streets, and at least 30 people are killed and more than 1,000 arrested in the wave of protests that follow.

The Iranian authorities claim foreign interference is stoking the unrest, and single out Britain for criticism.

2009 July - President Ahmadinejad dismisses his most senior vice-president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, under pressure to do so by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

2009 August - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sworn in for second term as president, presents cabinet - the first since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979 to include women.

A number of senior opposition figures are accused of conspiring with foreign powers to organise unrest and are put on trial.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says there is no proof that opposition leaders blamed for the post-election unrest were agents of foreign powers.

Missile tests
2009 September - Iran admits that it is building a uranium enrichment plant near Qom, but insists it is for peaceful purposes.

The country test-fires a series of medium- and longer-range missiles that put Israel and US bases in the Gulf within potential striking range.

2009 October - Five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany offer Iran proposal to enrich its uranium abroad.

2009 November - Iran refuses to accept the international proposal to end the dispute over its nuclear programme. UN nuclear watchdog IAEA passes a resolution condemning Iran for developing a second uranium enrichment site in secret.

Iran denounces the move as "political" and announces plans to create 10 more uranium enrichment facilities.

2009 December - Death of influential dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri triggers further clashes between opposition supporters and security forces. At least 8 people die in what is the worst violence since the contested presidential election.

2010 January - Iran executes two men arrested during the period of unrest that followed the disputed presidential election of June 2009. It also puts 16 people on trial over the Ashura Day opposition protests in December, when eight people were killed.

Iranian physics professor Masoud Ali-Mohammadi is killed in a bomb attack in Tehran. No group claims responsibility. The government accuses the US and Israel of his death, while Iranian opposition groups say Mr Mohammadi supported one of their candidates in last year's presidential election.

2010 February - Iran says it is ready to send enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment under a deal agreed with the West. The US calls on Tehran to match its words with actions.

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi says the opposition will continue its peaceful struggle against the government.

2010 May - Iran reaches a deal to send uranium abroad for enrichment after mediation talks with Turkey and Brazil; Western states respond with scepticism, saying the agreement will not stop Iran from continuing to enrich uranium.

More sanctions
2010 June - UN Security Council imposes fourth round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, including tighter financial curbs and an expanded arms embargo.

2010 July - International outcry as a woman is sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.

27 killed as suicide bombers attack a Shia mosque in Zahedan near the Pakistan border.

2010 August - In what Tehran describes as a milestone in its drive to produce nuclear energy, engineers begin loading fuel into the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

2010 September - Stuxnet - a computer worm which affects industrial systems and which may have been created by a nation-state - is reportedly detected in staff computers at the Bushehr nuclear plant.

Sarah Shourd, a US citizen caught hiking with two friends near the Iran-Iraq border, is freed after a year in prison. The three deny they were spying.

2010 October - A former British embassy employee jailed in 2009 for espionage has his sentence commuted.

2010 December - Main achievement of talks in Geneva between Iran and key world powers on Iran's nuclear programme is to agree to hold another round of talks in Istanbul in January.

President Ahmadinejad sacks Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, thought to be his main opponent within Iranian leadership.

2011 January - Nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi says Iran now possesses technology needed to make fuel plates and rods for nuclear reactors.

2011 February - First mass opposition demonstrations in a year amid a wave of unrest rippling across the Middle East and North Africa.

Iran sends two warships through Suez Canal for first time since the Islamic Revolution, in what Israel describes as an act of provocation.

Leadership rift
2011 April - Rare public row between Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad over the resignation of Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi.

2011 May - Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation says the generating unit at the Bushehr nuclear power plant has begun operating at a low level.

2011 August - Two US citizens arrested on the Iran-Iraq border in 2009 are found guilty of spying and sentenced to eight years in prison.

2011 September - Iran announces that the Bushehr nuclear power station has been connected to the national grid.

2011 October - The US accuses Iran of being behind an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Tehran rejects the charges as part of an American propaganda campaign.

2011 November - A report by the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA says Iran is carrying out research that can only be used to develop a nuclear bomb trigger. Iran rejects the findings as politically motivated.

2011 November/December - The British embassy in Tehran comes under attack from protesters after London imposes tighter economic sanctions. Britain evacuates its diplomatic staff from Iran and expels all Iranian diplomats, but the two countries do not sever all ties.

Oil sanctions and Straits stand-off

2011 December - Faced with the prospect of fresh sanctions over its nuclear programme, Iran threatens to block the transport of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

2012 January - US administration says that Iran's enrichment of uranium to levels close to weapons-grade at its Fordo underground plant constitutes "further escalation" of its violation of UN resolutions.The European Union adopts an oil embargo against Iran over its nuclear programme. The EU accounts for about 20% of Iran's oil exports.

The same day the US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, a British frigate and a French warship, pass through the Straits of Hormuz without incident in the wake of Iranian threats to block the trade route.

U.S. wants Pakistan ties to Iran to end, so they [Entice] them with cheaper gas than Iran sells them, The U.S. is doing everything to Isolate Iran.

Sourec-The Express Tribune
ISLAMABAD:
They may loathe you for being ‘duplicitous’ in the war on terror, but they will gladly sell gas to you – especially if it means you will give up gas from Iran.

The United States has stepped up efforts to lobby Pakistan to abandon the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline, and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) imports from Iran. What’s on offer? Cheaper gas from US.

US embassy officials held a meeting with stakeholders from the power and energy sector last Tuesday to seek input on Pakistan’s current LNG import and IP gas pipeline projects.

Expensive from Iran

Iranian gas will not be affordable for Pakistan, a participant from the meeting quoted US embassy officials as saying.

Iranian gas will cost $12 per million British thermal units (mmbtu) while LNG would cost $18 per mmbtu, the officials said, adding that the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline was the most viable option for Pakistan financially.

Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr Asim Hussain is presently in India to negotiate the transit fee for TAPI.

US officials expressed concern regarding the current gas crisis in Pakistan, and even asked the stakeholders for suggestion on how the US could help, but made no direct offers to bring LNG to Pakistan, sources said.

The main focus of the discussion was the TAPI gas pipeline and cheaper LNG imports, they added.

Cheaper from US

Sources said that officials from United States Agency for International Development (USAID), at a meeting at the petroleum ministry, had indicated that LNG could be made available at$4.5 per mmbtu.

When contacted, Secretary Petroleum Ijaz Chaudhry said that US has made no offer to provide LNG, but added that USAID gave a briefing two months ago on the historical trend of LNG prices in the world market. The price of LNG was $4.5 per mmbtu four to five years ago but shot up due to rising LNG demand in Japan following the earthquake, he said, quoting US officials.

According to Wall Street Journal, American energy companies have increased gas supply to the point that prices have started to plummet. Natural-gas prices fell 5.7% on January 12, 2012 to their lowest level in over two years. Despite a 32% drop in prices, on-shore production rose 10% last year and is expected to rise another 4% this year, according to Barclays Capital.

Excess reserves

The US has six billion cubic feet of surplus gas per day that could be exported, an energy expert said, adding that further reserves of shale gas have also been discovered.

The US has potential to export LNG and is setting up two to three LNG terminals to start exporting possibly in 2015, the expert said.

He added that price of gas in US is around $4 per mmbtu and its transportation from US to Pakistan would add between $3 and $4 per mmbtu, the expert added.

The expert did caution though that in all likelihood, Pakistan would have to pay prevailing market rates in the region.

The US may move to export cheaper LNG, however, in order for Pakistan to abandon the IP gas pipeline project, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2012.

Security Experts getting close to revealing the "Creators" of the Stuxnet worm malware.

Source-MSNBC

Security experts have dug deeper into the Duqu Trojan and discovered a scary shared characteristic between the newly discovered piece of malware and last year's infamous Stuxnet worm, supporting the theory that the same authors are behind both.

The Hungarian security firm CrySyS, which discovered Duqu in October, found that it hides in a Microsoft Word document and contains something astonishing: a zero-day exploit of a vulnerability in the Windows kernel, the very heart of the operating system.

Zero-day exploits are the Holy Grail for hackers. Unknown flaws in software are few and far between, and when one is found, cybercriminals exploit it as much as possible during the brief precious window before the software maker patches it. The fact that Duqu contains one zero-day, and Stuxnet four, yet both programs steal nothing, indicates that their makers are both highly skilled, motivated by something other than money and willing to squander knowledge that could be worth millions to secure their objectives.

Chester Wisniewski, senior security adviser for the security firm Sophos, wrote that Windows zero-day flaws are uncommon in traditional malware. He noted that a recent Microsoft report found no zero-day exploits in any of the malware infections cleaned by the Malicious Software Removal Tool.

Stuxnet was designed to sabotage nuclear facilities in Iran, but also infected systems in India and Indonesia. Duqu infections have been confirmed in Iran as well as in Sudan, India, Vietnam, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Ukraine, the security firm Symantec reported.

Duqu shares much of its code with Stuxnet. Two major digital security firms are divided about Duqu's intentions; Symantec says it is designed to steal data from industrial control systems, such as those running power plants and oil refineries, while McAfee argues it's meant to steal authentication certificates that websites use to verify their identities.

Regarding the zero-day exploit that Duqu uses, Alex Gostev, chief malware analyst for the security firm Kaspersky Lab, wrote that his team "discovered a similar vulnerability a year ago when analyzing the Stuxnet worm."

Source-LA PD Online.org/Military Urban Assault training

Military Exercises to be Conducted in the Downtown Area NR12040kr

Los Angeles: Multi-agency tactical exercises are to be conducted during evening hours around the downtown area January 22-26, 2012.

The Los Angeles Police Department will be providing support for a joint military training exercise in and around the great Los Angeles area. This will be routine training conducted by military personnel, designed to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments, prepare forces for upcoming overseas deployments, and meet mandatory training certification requirements.

This training has been coordinated with local authorities and owners of the training sites. The training sites have been carefully selected to ensure the event does not negatively impact the citizens of Los Angeles and their daily routines.

Lastly, safety precautions have been taken to prevent risk to the general public and the military personnel involved.

As such, this training is not open to the public.

Americas Corrupt, Private Military Contractors(link below Article)

“Of all the enemies to public 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… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”—James Madison

America’s troops may be returning home from Iraq, but contrary to President Obama’s assertion that “the tide of war is receding,” we’re far from done paying the costs of war. In fact, at the same time that Obama is reducing the number of troops in Iraq, he’s replacing them with military contractors at far greater expense to the taxpayer and redeploying American troops to other parts of the globe, including Africa, Australia and Israel. In this way, the war on terror is privatized, the American economy is bled dry, and the military-security industrial complex makes a killing—literally and figuratively speaking.

The war effort in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan has already cost taxpayers more than $2 trillion and could go as high as $4.4 trillion before it’s all over. At least $31 billion (and as much as $60 billion or more) of that $2 trillion was lost to waste and fraud by military contractors, who do everything from janitorial and food service work to construction, security and intelligence—jobs that used to be handled by the military. That translates to a loss of $12 million a day since the U.S. first invaded Afghanistan. To put it another way, the government is spending more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.

Over the past two decades, America has become increasingly dependent on military contractors in order to carry out military operations abroad (in fact, the government’s extensive use of private security contractors has surged under Obama). According to the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States can no longer conduct large or sustained military operations or respond to major disasters without heavy support from contractors. As a result, the U.S. employs at a minimum one contractor to support every soldier deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq (that number increases dramatically when U.S. troop numbers decrease). For those signing on for contractor work, many of whom are hired by private contracting firms after serving stints in the military, it is a lucrative, albeit dangerous, career path (private contractors are 2.75 times more likely to die than troops). Incredibly, while base pay for an American soldier hovers somewhere around $19,000 per year, contractors are reportedly pulling in between $150,000 – $250,000 per year.

The exact number of military contractors on the U.S. payroll is hard to pin down, thanks to sleight-of-hand accounting by the Department of Defense and its contractors. However, according to a Wartime Contracting Commission report released in August 2011, there are more than 260,000 private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than the number of ground troops in both countries. As noted, that number increases dramatically when troops are withdrawn from an area, as we currently see happening in Iraq. Pratap Chatterjee of the Center for American Progress estimates that “if the Obama administration draws down to 68,000 troops in Afghanistan by September 2012, they will need 88,400 contractors at the very least, but potentially as many as 95,880.”

With paid contractors often outnumbering enlisted combat troops, the American war effort dubbed by George W. Bush as the “coalition of the willing” has since evolved into the “coalition of the billing.” The Pentagon’s Central Command counts 225,000 contractors working in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Between December 2008 and December 2010, the total number of private security contractors in Afghanistan increased by 413% while troop levels increased 200%. Private contractors provide a number of services, including transport, construction, drone operation, and security. One military contractor, Blackbird, is composed of former CIA operatives who go on secret missions to recover missing and captured US soldiers. Then there is the Lincoln Group which became famous for engaging in covert psychological operations by planting stories in the Iraqi press that glorified the U.S. mission. Global Strategies Group guards the consulate in Basra for $401 million. SOC Inc. protects the US embassy for $974 million.

Unfortunately, fraud, mismanagement and corruption have become synonymous with the U.S. government’s use of military contractors. McClatchy News “found that U.S. government funding for at least 15 large-scale programs and projects [in Afghanistan] grew from just over $1 billion to nearly $3 billion despite the government’s questions about their effectiveness or cost.” One program started off as a modest wheat program and “ballooned into one of America’s biggest counterinsurgency projects in southern Afghanistan despite misgivings about its impact.” Another multi-billion-dollar program resulted in the construction of schools, clinics and other public buildings that were so poorly built that they might not withstand a serious earthquake and will have to be rebuilt. Then there was the $300 million diesel power plant that was built despite the fact that it wouldn’t be used regularly “because its fuel cost more than the Afghan government could afford to run it regularly.” RWA, a group of three Afghan contractors, was selected to build a 17.5 mile paved road in Ghazni province. They were paid $4 million between 2008 and 2010 before the contract was terminated with only 2/3 of a mile of road paved.

Mind you, with the U.S. spending more than $2 billion a week in Afghanistan, these examples of ineptitude and waste represent only a fraction of what is being funded by American taxpayer dollars. (Investigative reports reveal that large amounts of cash derived from U.S. aid and logistics spending are being flown out of the country on a regular basis by Afghan officials, including $52 million by the Afghan vice president, who was allowed to keep the money.) Yet what most Americans fail to realize is that we’re funding the very individuals we claim to be fighting. The war effort has become so corrupt that U.S. taxpayers are not only being bilked by military contractors but are also being forced to indirectly fund insurgents and warlords in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the Taliban, which receives money from military contractors in exchange for protection. This is rationalized away as a “cost of doing business” in those countries. As the Financial Times reports, the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan “found that extortion of funds from US construction and transportation projects was the second-biggest funding source for insurgent groups.”

Despite what one might think, the boom in contracting work in the war zones isn’t necessarily aiding U.S. employment, given that large numbers of contractors are actually foreign nationals. For example, over 90% of the private security contractors in Afghanistan are Afghans. One contractor, Triple Canopy, most of whose guards are from Uganda and Peru, has a $1.53 billion contract with the State Department to protect its employees. ArmorGroup North America (AGNA), which is contracted to secure the US embassy in Kabul, hires many Nepalese (known as Gurkhas) whose English is not proficient. “One guard described the situation as so dire that if he were to say to many of the Gurkhas, ‘There is a terrorist standing behind you,’ those Gurkhas would answer ‘Thank you sir, and good morning.’”

The practices employed by the military contractors also reflect poorly on America’s commitment to human rights—both in the way that they treat their employees and in their employees’ behavior. For example, Triple Canopy houses its employees in overcrowded shipping containers. In addition to soliciting underage Chinese prostitutes, AGNA contractors have also been described as “peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks (there is video of that one), broken doors after drnken [sic] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity…” This behavior is not reserved to lower level employees, and has been observed and even encouraged by upper level management. Blackwater employees have also been accused of weapons smuggling as well as cocaine and steroid use. Despite all this, Blackwater—which, as the New York Times has reported, “created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq”—still won a cut of a $10 billion contract given out by the State Department in 2010.

Despite the high levels of corruption, waste, mismanagement and fraud by military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. government continues to shield them, resisting any attempts at greater oversight or accountability. War, after all, has become a huge money-making venture, and America, with its vast military empire, is one of its best customers. Indeed, the American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope and dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.

What most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense. It’s the military industrial complex (the illicit merger of the armaments industry and the government) that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us against more than 50 years ago and which has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation’s fragile infrastructure today.

Unfortunately, Americans have been inculcated with a false, misplaced sense of patriotism about the military that equates devotion to one’s country with supporting the war machine so that any mention of cutting back on the massive defense budget is immediately met with outrage. Yet the military-industrial complex is engaged in a deadly game, one that all presidents, including Obama, foster. And the consequences, as Eisenhower recognized, are grave:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children…This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute and editor of GadflyOnline.com. His new book The Freedom Wars (TRI Press) is available online at www.amazon.com. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org

Source-NewJerseytoday.net/Corrupt Private Military Contractor

Australia 2012

2012-01-26T09:59:00.040-07:00

In a WW3 Scenario, Australia to be Invaded by China!(Natural resource Rich Australia)

Source-Washington Post/U.S. Australia Phillippines Alliance against China

Two decades after evicting U.S. forces from their biggest base in the Pacific, the Philippines is in talks with the Obama administration about expanding the American military presence in the island nation, the latest in a series of strategic moves aimed at China.

Although negotiations are in the early stages, officials from both governments said they are favorably inclined toward a deal. They are scheduled to intensify the discussions Thursday and Friday in Washington before higher-level meetings in March. If an arrangement is reached, it would follow other recent agreements to base thousands of U.S. Marines in northern Australia and to station Navy warships in Singapore.

Among the options under consideration are operating Navy ships from the Philippines, deploying troops on a rotational basis and staging more frequent joint exercises. Under each scenario, U.S. forces would effectively be guests at existing foreign bases.

The sudden rush by many in the Asia-Pacific region to embrace Washington is a direct reaction to China’s rise as a military power and its assertiveness in staking claims to disputed territories, such as the energy-rich South China Sea.

“We can point to other countries: Australia, Japan, Singapore,” said a senior Philippine official involved in the talks, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the confidentiality of the deliberations. “We’re not the only one doing this, and for good reason. We all want to see a peaceful and stable region. Nobody wants to have to face China or confront China.”

The strategic talks with the Philippines are in addition to feelers that the Obama administration has put out to other Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam and Thailand, about possibly bolstering military partnerships.

The United States already has about 600 Special Operations troops in the Philippines, where they advise local forces in their fight with rebels sympathetic to al-Qaeda. But the talks underway between Manila and Washington potentially involve a much more extensive partnership.

Officials in the Philippines — which has 7,107 islands — said their priority is to strengthen maritime defenses, especially near the South China Sea. They indicated a willingness to host American ships and surveillance aircraft.

Although the U.S. military has tens of thousands of troops stationed at long-standing bases in Japan, South Korea and Guam, as well as the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, it is seeking to solidify its presence in Southeast Asia. Some of the world’s busiest trade routes pass through the South China Sea and the nearby Strait of Malacca.

Instead of trying to establish giant bases reminiscent of the Cold War, however, Pentagon officials said they want to maintain a light footprint.

“We have no desire nor any interest in creating a U.S.-only base in Southeast Asia,” said Robert Scher, a deputy assistant secretary of defense who oversees security policy in the region. “In each one of these cases, the core decision and discussion is about how we work better with our friends and allies. And the key piece of that is working from their locations.”

Beautiful Australian Women Break Records

Source-Australian Herald Sun/Gold Coast Bikini record

THE Gold Coast is officially the bikini capital of the world after 357 women donned the two-piece to set a new world record.

Bikini-clad women strutting through Surfers Paradise have bolstered the Gold Coast's reputation for producing world-beating women.

Just days after the city welcomed athletes Sally Pearson and Sam Stosur home after incredible sporting feats, hundreds of women joined this morning's Gold Coast Bikini Parade, smashing the standing world record.

Sponsored by the Surfers Paradise Alliance and the Gold Coast Bulletin, the parade needed to attract 332 bodies to beat the record set in the Cayman Islands last year.

Australian Guinness World Record adjudicator Chris Sheedy was on hand to officially declare the record attempt a success.

''Today 361 girls walked through the counter but there had to be a few disqualifications because they were not wearing bikinis,'' he said.

''Unfortunately for the Cayman Islands they have had their record smashed because 357 walked through the count today.''

Stilletto Race

Australian Women

Source-CIA World Factbook/Australia

Background

Aboriginal settlers arrived on the continent from Southeast Asia about 40,000 years before the first Europeans began exploration in the 17th century. No formal territorial claims were made until 1770, when Capt. James COOK took possession of the east coast in the name of Great Britain (all of Australia was claimed as British territory in 1829 with the creation of the colony of Western Australia). Six colonies were created in the late 18th and 19th centuries; they federated and became the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. The new country took advantage of its natural resources to rapidly develop agricultural and manufacturing industries and to make a major contribution to the British effort in World Wars I and II. In recent decades, Australia has transformed itself into an internationally competitive, advanced market economy. It boasted one of the OECD's fastest growing economies during the 1990s, a performance due in large part to economic reforms adopted in the 1980s. Long-term concerns include ageing of the population, pressure on infrastructure, and environmental issues such as frequent droughts.

Economy

Australia's abundant and diverse natural resources attract high levels of foreign investment and include extensive reserves of coal, iron ore, copper, gold, natural gas, uranium, and renewable energy sources. A series of major investments, such as the US$40 billion Gorgon Liquid Natural Gas project, will significantly expand the resources sector. Australia also has a large services sector and is a significant exporter of natural resources, energy, and food. Key tenets of Australia's trade policy include support for open trade and the successful culmination of the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, particularly for agriculture and services. The Australian economy grew for 17 consecutive years before the global financial crisis. Subsequently, the Rudd government introduced a fiscal stimulus package worth over US$50 billion to offset the effect of the slowing world economy, while the Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates to historic lows. These policies - and continued demand for commodities, especially from China - helped the Australian economy rebound after just one quarter of negative growth. The economy grew by 1.2% during 2009 - the best performance in the OECD - and by 3.3% in 2010. Unemployment, originally expected to reach 8-10%, peaked at 5.7% in late 2009 and fell to 5.1% in 2010. As a result of an improved economy, the budget deficit is expected to peak below 4.2% of GDP and the government could return to budget surpluses as early as 2015. Australia was one of the first advanced economies to raise interest rates, with seven rate hikes between October 2009 and November 2010. The GILLARD government is focused on raising Australia's economic productivity to ensure the sustainability of growth, and continues to manage the symbiotic, but sometimes tense, economic relationship with China. Australia is engaged in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks and ongoing free trade agreement negotiations with China, Japan, and Korea.

Military

Military ::Australia

Military branches:
Australian Defense Force (ADF): Australian Army, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Australian Air Force, Special Operations Command (2006)

Military service age and obligation:
17 years of age for voluntary military service (with parental consent); no conscription; women allowed to serve in Army combat units in non-combat support roles (2010)

Manpower available for military service:
males age 16-49: 5,316,464
females age 16-49: 5,116,722 (2010 est.)

Manpower fit for military service:
males age 16-49: 4,411,958
females age 16-49: 4,239,985 (2010 est.)

Manpower reaching militarily significant age annually:
male: 143,565
female: 135,800 (2010 est.)

Military expenditures:
3% of GDP (2009)
country comparison to the world: 43

Julia Gillard Prime Minister of Australia

Source-OZunited.info/Julia Gillard bio

Source-Henry Makow.com/Julia Gillard lesbian Communist

Australian Candidates Pander to Money, Jews

August 14, 2010

Julia, which way will you go
Julia, I wanna know
Julia, only the moon and stars
Julia, know just where you are
Julia

Chris Rea's "Southern Blues Guitar" Julia

by John Vermeulen
(FOR HENRYMAKOW.COM)

This is how one pundit characterized the run-up to the Australian election Aug. 21 :

"Here's the plot: an unmarried, foreign-born, atheist woman whose partner is a male hairdresser wants to lead a nation famous for manly men. Her opponent [Tony Abbott] is the Mad Monk - a Speedo-loving amateur boxer who once studied to be a priest." (William Pesek in "An election about nothing that's made for TV")

Australia's current prime minister Julia Gillard is the first woman and first unmarried (cohabiting) childless Prime Minister of Australia.

Australian journalist Andrew Bolt noted that Julia Gillard began as a Communist and was a member of the Socialist Forum from 1998-2002 which later merged with the Fabian Society.

Australian conservatives should be aware that their darling faux-conservative John Howard was also a Fabian. To give credit, at least Julia is open about her left leanings. She is not as open about her lesbian sexual preferences. Many Australians think that Tim Mathieson, Julia's so called partner is a "beard."

One of Julia's first moves as prime minister was to pretend to lift (her predecessor) Kevin Rudd's tax on miners. We have now learned that Gillard did a back room deal favoring the big miners over the smaller ones.

The Rudd tax was paraded as the reason for his failure. It is clear now that corporate media spin began against Rudd in early 2010.

There was a soft droning of "Rudd is a weak leader" and "the party is unhappy" at the same time as a Julia Gillard push. Ms Gillard is not Elle McPherson or Megan Fox. Until late 2009 she was plain Jane in the background. In early February we noticed that she was looking more feminine and somewhat softer. Machinists were, how shall we say ... less inclined to borrow her face to sharpen their drill bits.

GILLARD SIDES WITH ZIONISTS

John Howard announced his commitment to the Iraq war in 2003 in front of a Jewish group in the US. The television news showed him walking out of a meeting surrounded by traditionally dressed Orthodox men, probably Rabbis. The "John Howard Negev Forest" was established in Israel in 2007 in his honour.

Kevin Rudd crossed the line. He dared to stand up to Israel for forging Australian passports and the flotilla raid. Well, he did not really stand up, but at least he commented. Rudd expelled an Israeli diplomat in a hollow gesture. (He was due to return to Israel shortly anyways.) Rudd, unlike Howard was more inclined to resist involvement in Israel's imminent war on Iran. Rudd had also angered the miners and faltered on climate change.

On the passports and the flotilla, Julia kept silent. She towed the party line behind Rudd on carbon trading and the miners tax. Perhaps Julia was encouraged by her live-in partner/handler (a hairdresser who works for an Israeli lobbyist) that she can sit on the throne if a.) she is prepared to sacrifice other people's children in Iran and Palestine b.) she assists the big miners over the small ones - treachery in the workers paradise c.) she pushes ahead with carbon trading known here as the Environmental Trading Scheme or ETS.

Julia now does the bidding of the Israeli lobby, big business and the banks. As a Communist, Julia may not outwardly support the big miners or the Israeli agenda, but as a Fabian the connection is natural. Gradualism is not the gradual distribution of wealth to all parties, it is the gradual draining of wealth to the elite.

Julia's allegiances are complex. She has just signed a preference deal with the Australian Greens in the senate. The Green leader, Bob Brown, is a self admitted homosexual who is green on the outside red on the inside. If Julia is elected and the Greens help her over the line Australia will be in for an emissions trading scheme (ETS) death duties and open boarders. What affect the Green influence will have on the Israeli connection is anyone's guess.

ABBOTT SIDES WITH ZIONISTS

Recently there is a cooling towards Australian Labour in the media. The campaign has become a freak show and every hack journalist seems to be gunning for Labour.

The media swing toward Abbott may have been influenced by his recent genuflection to Israel. At the Australian Israel Chamber of Commerce in Melbourne, Abbott said his government would "never support a one-sided UN resolution against Israel to curry favour with an anti-Israel authority". Rather than remain silent on the flotilla affair as did Gillard, Abbott actually criticized Rudd for overreacting.

So Ms Gillard (of ambiguous sexual orientation) is a Fabian socialist, atheist, foreign born, unmarried woman living with a hairdresser (also of ambiguous sexual orientation) who works for an Israeli lobbyist. She is beholden to the Jewish Lobby, the enviro lobby, the miners, the Greens and its homosexual leader. Her office is built like a masonic temple in the masonic city of Canberra.

Source-UK DAILY MAIL/ Julia Gillard Australian Prime Minister escapes Wrath

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard clung to her bodyguard as she was dragged to safety through a crowd of angry protesters in Canberra today.

Riot police formed a shield around the prime minister as they helped her force a path through the protesters who surrounded a restaurant where she was attending an awards ceremony to mark Australia Day.

Miss Gillard stumbled after losing a shoe in the scuffle, but was caught by her personal security guard and managed to get into a waiting car.

Scroll down for video

New World Order Politicians getting what they deserve.

Little Creek Naval Amphibous Base-Virginia Beach, Virginia

2012-01-25T10:50:00.084-07:00

Source-CitizensAmericaParty.org/ Enterprise False Flag Persian Gulf

USS ENTERPRISE SCHEDULED FOR DE-COMMISSIONING IN 2013(PERFECT FALSE FLAG BAIT)

Name: USS Enterprise
Ordered: 15 November 1957
Builder: Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company
Cost: $451.3 million[1]
Laid down: 4 February 1958
Launched: 24 September 1960
Christened: 24 September 1960
Acquired: 29 October 1961
Commissioned: 25 November 1961
Decommissioned: Scheduled for 2013
In service: 12 January 1962 (maiden voyage)
Reclassified: CVN-65
Homeport: NAVSTA Norfolk
Status: in active service, as of 2012

Source-Haaretz.com/Israeli Government admits Iran has no Nuclear Weapons Program

Source-Wikipedia/Little Creek Naval Base

The Naval Amphibious Base, Little Creek is the major operating base for the Amphibious Forces in the United States Navy's Atlantic Fleet. The base comprises four locations in three states, including almost 12,000 acres (49 km²) of real estate. Its Little Creek location in Virginia Beach, Virginia totals 2,120 acres (9 km²) of land, though its post office address is in Norfolk. Outlying facilities include 350 acres (1.4 km²) located just north of Fleet Training Center Dam Neck in Virginia Beach, and 21 acres (85,000 m²) known as Radio Island at Morehead City, N.C., used as an amphibious embarkation/debarkation area for U.S. Marine Corps units at MCB Camp Lejeune, N.C.
The mission of the Naval Amphibious Base is to provide required support services to over 15,000 personnel of the 27 homeported ships and 78 resident and/or supported activities. The base's combination of operational, support, and training facilities are geared predominantly to amphibious operations, making the base unique among bases of the United States and Allied Navies.
The Naval Amphibious Base, Little Creek is the largest base of its kind in the world.
On October 1, 2009, Little Creek and the Army's Fort Story finished a 2 year merge into one joint base officially named Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story.

History

On July 16, 1942, a U.S. Navy truck drove off Shore Drive, the scenic highway along the south shore of the Chesapeake Bay between the resort areas of Ocean View in the City of Norfolk and the small town of Virginia Beach in Princess Anne County. The resort town was located on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean several miles south of Cape Henry, at the entrance to the bay.
Near an inlet called "Little Creek" the truck stopped in a waterlogged bean field of the Whitehurst family's farm. For days thereafter, trucks loaded with lumber and equipment rolled into the area in almost continuous succession. The reason for this mass assault in a bean field 12 miles (19 km) northeast of Norfolk was that, early in World War II, Navy planners saw a necessity for landing large numbers of American troops on foreign shores in the face of enemy gunfire. That such operations would be difficult was also evident. New methods and techniques in landing troops would have to be developed. Training would be needed before sufficient men were proficient in the complicated art of the amphibious assault, which would enable U.S. troops to drive to the heart of the enemy.
The base was initially established in the farmland of Princess Anne County. During the early phases of World War II the base was literally a combination of farmland and swamps. Four bases were constructed on this area: Camp Bradford, Camp Shelton, U.S. Naval Frontier Base, and Amphibious Training Base. Camps Bradford and Shelton were named for the former owners of the land.
At first Camp Bradford was a training base for Navy Seabees, but in 1943 it was changed into a training center for the crews of LSTs (Landing Ship Tank).
Camp Shelton was an armed guard training center for bluejackets serving on board merchant ships as gun crews. At the end of World War II it served as a separation center.
The Frontier Base was the forwarding center for Amphibious Force personnel and equipment destined for the European Theater.
The Amphibious Training Base (also known as "Little Creek") was the center for all types of amphibious training and the training of ship's crews for LSM (landing ship medium), LCI (landing craft infantry), and LCU (landing craft utility); LCM (landing craft mechanized), and LCVP (landing craft vehicle, personnel) boat crews were also trained at Little Creek.
At the new bases, the techniques of training had to be developed from scratch. Facilities for the upkeep of equipment as well as living facilities for personnel were primitive. The newcomers found few buildings and practically no roads or utilities. Just bean vines. After various improvisations along came temporary buildings that were later to give the site some resemblance to a naval base.
In a few months the trained men who were to land fighting forces from Africa to Normandy were ready for sea. During World War II over 200,000 Naval personnel and 160,000 Army and Marine Corps personnel trained at Little Creek.

Tenants

[edit]Afloat commands
(As of December 2009)
USS Whidbey Island (LSD-41)
USS Fort McHenry (LSD-43)
USS Gunston Hall (LSD-44)
USS Ashland (LSD-48)
USS Carter Hall (LSD-50)
USS Oak Hill (LSD-51)
USS Tempest (PC-2)
USS Hurricane (PC-3)
USS Monsoon (PC-4)
USS Squall (PC-7)
USS Thunderbolt (PC-12)
[edit]Major shore commands
Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group Two
Explosive Ordnance Disposal Expeditionary Support Unit Two
Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Two
Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Six
Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Twelve
Naval Beach Group Two
Assault Craft Unit Two
Assault Craft Unit Four
Beachmaster Unit Two
Naval Construction Force
See also: Amphibious Construction Battalion One (ACB-1)
1st Naval Construction Division
Amphibious Construction Battalion Two
Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit 202
Naval Special Warfare Group Two
SEAL Team Two
SEAL Team Four
SEAL Team Eight
SEAL Team Ten
Naval Special Warfare Group Four
Special Boat Team 20
Tactical Air Control Group Two
Tactical Air Control Squadron Twenty One
Tactical Air Control Squadron Twenty Two
Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit Two
Underwater Construction Team One

Source-Cryptome.org/Norfolk Naval Base

Source-Wikipedia/Virginia Beach, Virginia

Source-Business Insider

When 32-year-old Jessica Buchanan was kidnapped by her Somalian guides in October of 2011, not many believed she or her partner Hagen Thisted, 60, would ever be seen alive again.
Working for the Danish Deming Group assisting refugees along Somalia's war-torn border, Buchanan and Thisted were seized on their way to the Galkayo airport by pirates outraged at the West.
Jim Miklaszewski at NBC reports the pirates demanded ransom for

Danish Refugee Council
Jessica Buchanan
the pair, but negotiations had stalled as the kidnappers were a heavily armed medley of locals rather than any organized group.
Haunted by the 1993 debacle in Somalia from which the movie Black Hawk Down is based, the U.S. was reluctant to intervene, knowing that any mistakes would cause outrage in the States and more embarrassment abroad.
Putting aside its concern, and prompted by reports that Buchanan's health was declining, the Pentagon ordered a rescue mission and sent two helicopters into the Somalian village last night where the pair were being held, and rescued them both.
The SEALs had parachuted in about 60-minutes prior, securing the area and locating the hostages, before the choppers were sent to pick everyone up — including up to nine pirates and as many as five additional hostages.
Debbie Wilgoren at The Washington Post reports the pirates guarding the pair had been chewing the narcotic leaf khat and were passed out when the SEALs swept in.
No U.S. troops were injured and the pair were apparently in good health, before being taken to a "safe location" to reunite with their families.
It's thought they are currently in Djibouti, where the U.S. has a small base on the coast of the Red Sea and that they will remain there for medical checks before being sent home.
The American people were given their first hint of the rescue during the President's State of the Union Speech when he pointed to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in the crowd and said, "Leon. Good job tonight. Good job tonight." Check out 11 incredible weapons that only the U.S. has >
Check out the ABC video below:

Jewish/Arab Controlled Nations of Saudi Arabia, Quatar, United Arab Emirates are getting "Special Training" from U.S. Navy combat specialist, in preparation for Iran Invasion!

Source-Wired.com/U.S. Navy Training Arabs to fight Iran

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran are at a high point, as the Islamic Republic threatens to close off a vital waterway and two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups sit in the seas off the Iranian coast. But across the Persian Gulf, the U.S. has a previously unacknowledged weapon in reserve: a new special operations team.

Danger Room has confirmed with the U.S. Special Operations Command that a new elite commando team is operating in the region. The primary, day-to-day mission of the team, known as Joint Special Operations Task Force-Gulf Cooperation Council, is to mentor military units belonging to the U.S.’ oil-rich Arab allies, who collectively are known as the Gulf Cooperation Council. Those Arab states consider Iran to be their primary foreign threat.

The task force provides “highly trained personnel that excel in uncertain environments,” Maj. Rob Bockholt, a spokesman for special-operations forces in the Mideast, tells Danger Room, and “seeks to confront irregular threats.” The U.S. military has not previously acknowledged the existence of the team, known as JSOTF-GCC for short.

The unit began its existence in mid-2009 — around the time that the Iranian leadership rejected President Obama’s offer of a new diplomatic dialogue and underwent a serious internal challenge to its legitimacy from Green Movement protesters. But whatever the task force does about Iran — or might do in the future — is a sensitive subject with the military.

“It would be inappropriate to discuss operational plans regarding any particular nation,” Bockholt says about Iran.

There is no direct evidence that JSOTF-GCC has been involved in offensive action against Iran. It is unlikely, for instance, that JSOTF-GCC killed Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan last week, an assassination the U.S. has firmly denied any role in and for which the Israelis, reports Eli Lake of Newsweek, are all but openly taking credit.

Some special-operations veterans — who did not wish to be identified or quoted — downplayed the significance of the new task force, expecting it to primarily advise Gulf nations on how to train their own forces, and speculated that its actual role against Iran was indirect at most. Col. Tim Nye, the chief spokesman for the U.S. Special Operations Command, says the task force is responsible “for coordinating all SOF [Special Operations Forces] engagements and training with Gulf Cooperation Council nations.”

The special operations forces of those nations have shown a notable improvement over the past year. Qatari commandos quietly traveled to Libya ahead of Moammar Gadhafi’s downfall to prepare Libyan rebels for the successful capture of Tripoli. The United Arab Emirates, another close U.S. ally, has also made its elite forces a priority, even hiring Blackwater’s founder to bolster their training.

Not many details are available about the task force. It’s built around Naval Special Warfare Unit Three, one of the elite Navy SEAL teams. But the “Joint” in the task force’s name signals that it draws from the special-operations forces in the Army, Air Force and Marines as well. Its commander is a Navy captain or equivalent in a different service.

Officials would not identify missions of the task force, its leadership or its headquarters, citing the safety of the personnel involved and the success of those missions.

Even if JSOTF-GCC is primarily a training team, it represents another military option for the U.S. in the region during at a time of escalating rhetoric with Iran. The Iranians are threatening to close off the Strait of Hormuz, the sea lane through which a fifth of the world’s oil travels, as two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups float nearby. And when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says the U.S. could reopen the waterway by force, there might be an elite commando team nearby to help do it.

Source-Stars and Stripes-"Secretive Seal Team rescues Hostages"...

U.S. special ops team rescues workers from pirates in Somalia
By JOHN VANDIVER
Stars and Stripes
Published: January 25, 2012

Undated images provided by the Danish Refugee Council show Dane Poul Hagen Thisted, left, and American Jessica Buchanan, who were rescued from Somali pirates by U.S. forces.
DANISH REFUGEE COUNCIL
STUTTGART, Germany — U.S. special operations forces conducted a nighttime raid into Somalia early Wednesday, rescuing two kidnapped humanitarian workers and killing all nine of their captors, according to U.S. military officials.

“Last night’s mission, boldly conducted by some of our nation’s most courageous, competent and committed special operations forces, exemplifies United States Africa Command’s mission to protect Americans and American interests in Africa,” Gen. Carter F. Ham, commander of AFRICOM, said in a statement.

Jessica Buchanan, an American citizen and Poul Thisted, a Danish citizen, both working for a demining unit of the Danish Refugee Council, were transported to a safe location while plans were made to return them home, U.S. officials said. The pair had been held for ransom since October.

While Ham did not specify which service branch carried out the mission, such operations in the past have been carried out by SEALs. The Associated Press, citing unnamed U.S. officials, said the rescue was carried out by the same SEAL unit that conducted the Pakistan raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The rescue mission was ordered by President Barack Obama, who, before Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, gave a thumbs up to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in an apparent reference to the mission.

The operation, conducted under the direction of AFRICOM, isn’t the first time special operations troops have ventured into Somalia. In 2009, they boarded helicopters and swept into southern Somalia to take out a wanted al-Qaida operative. The military also is believed to carry out occasional drone strikes in the country against high-value terrorist suspects. Even FBI agents entered the country last April to take custody of a pirate suspected of negotiating a ransom for American hostages.

“I think this is another indicator that we are taking that area, the instability around the Horn of Africa, continually more seriously,” said Jim Gavrilis, a former Green Beret and security consultant.

Such operations could become more commonplace, particularly with the successful track record of such missions in recent years, he said. But while policymakers might feel more and more comfortable deploying these forces, there are still risks.

“Any one of these operations has the potential to go bad,” Gavrilis said.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Obama voiced pride in the troops and said the mission should send a message about the willingness of the U.S. to go after groups that target civilians.

“Thanks to the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our Special Operations Forces, yesterday Jessica Buchanan was rescued and she is on her way home. As Commander-in-Chief, I could not be prouder of the troops who carried out this mission, and the dedicated professionals who supported their efforts.

“The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice,” Obama said. “This is yet another message to the world that the United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people.”

U.S. special operations forces received intelligence that placed the humanitarian workers in the vicinity of Adado, Somalia, according to AFRICOM.

“During the course of the operation, the rescue force patrolled to the location and confirmed the presence of Mrs. Buchanan and Mr. Thisted guarded by nine captors,” an AFRICOM news release stated. “All nine captors were killed during the assault.”

After securing the location, the U.S. forces found Buchanan and Thisted unharmed in an outdoor encampment, AFRICOM said.

“This successful hostage rescue, undertaken in a hostile environment, is a testament to the superb skills of courageous service members who risked their lives to save others,” Panetta said in a statement. “This mission demonstrates our military’s commitment to the safety of our fellow citizens wherever they may be around the world. I am grateful to report that there was no loss of life or injuries to our personnel.”

Buchanan and Thisted, who were in Somalia to conduct a demining training course for local Somali citizens, also did not suffer injuries during the operation, Panetta said.

The Danish Refugee Council reported on its website that the two aid workers were on their way to being reunited with their families.

The Associated Press, which made contact with two pirates it said were familiar with details of the operation, reported that the kidnappers holding the aid workers were caught sleeping, having become drowsy while chewing the narcotic leaf qat for much of the night.

“I am extraordinarily proud of the joint-service team that planned, rehearsed and successfully concluded this operation,” Ham said. “Thanks to them, a fellow American and her Danish co-worker are safe and will soon be home with their families.”

vandiverj@estripes.osd.mil

Lies, Lies, and More Lies from the President!

2012-01-25T00:28:00.011-07:00

NOT A DIME'S WORTH A DIFFERENCE FROM BOTH POLITICAL PARTIES, MASS CORRUPTION, MASS MURDER(Wars,Government Terrorism), AND MASS SOUL ROT, AMERICA 2012!

Source-The End of the American Dream.com/Moral Rot of America 2012

Is Christianity in decline in America? When you examine the cold, hard numbers it is simply not possible to come to any other conclusion. Over the past few decades, the percentage of Christians in America has been steadily declining. This has especially been true among young people. As you will see later in this article, there has been a mass exodus of teens and young adults out of U.S. churches. In addition, what "Christianity" means to American Christians today is often far different from what "Christianity" meant to their parents and their grandparents. Millions upon millions of Christians in the United States simply do not believe many of the fundamental principles of the Christian faith any longer. Without a doubt, America is becoming a less "Christian" nation. This has staggering implications for the future of this country. The United States was founded primarily by Christians that were seeking to escape religious persecution. For those early settlers, the Christian faith was the very center of their lives, and it deeply affected the laws that they made and the governmental structures that they established. So what is the future of America going to look like if we totally reject the principles that this nation was founded on?

Overall, Christianity is still the largest religion in the world by far. According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, there are currently 2.2 billion Christians in the world. So Christianity is not in danger of disappearing any time soon. In fact, in some areas of the globe it is experiencing absolutely explosive growth.

But in the United States, things are different. Churches are shrinking, skepticism is growing and apathy about spiritual matters seems to be at an all-time high.

Before we examine the data, let me disclose that I am a Christian. I am not bashing Christians or the Christian faith at all in this article. In fact, I consider the decline of Christianity in America to be a very bad thing. Not everyone is going to agree with me on that, but hopefully this article will help spark a debate on the role of religion in America that everyone can learn something from.

Unfortunately, the reality is that most Americans spend very little time thinking about religion or spiritual matters these days.

Just consider the following quote from a recent USA Today article....

"The real dirty little secret of religiosity in America is that there are so many people for whom spiritual interest, thinking about ultimate questions, is minimal," says Mark Silk, professor of religion and public life at Trinity College"

This is backed up by the numbers. For example, a survey taken last year by LifeWay Research found that 46 percent of all Americans never think about whether they will go to heaven or not.

To most Americans, faith is simply not a big deal. This is particularly true of our young people. Those under the age of 30 are leaving U.S. churches in droves. The following comes from a recent CNN article....

David Kinnaman, the 38-year-old president of the Barna Group, an evangelical research firm, is the latest to sound the alarm. In his new book, "You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church and Rethinking Faith," he says that 18- to 29-year-olds have fallen down a "black hole" of church attendance. There is a 43% drop in Christian church attendance between the teen and early adult years, he says.

But it isn't just young people that are leaving American churches. The proportion of Americans that consider themselves to be Christians has been steadily declining for many years. Back in 1990, 86 percent of all Americans considered themselves to be Christian. By 2008, that number had dropped to 76 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of Americans that reject religion entirely has absolutely soared. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Americans with "no religion" more than doubled between 1990 and 2008.

So what is going to happen if these trends continue?

Dave Olson, the director of church planting for the Evangelical Covenant Church, has made some really interesting projections regarding what is going to happen to church attendance in America if current trends continue.

According to Olson, only 18.7 percent of all Americans regularly attend church right now. If this number continues to decline at the current pace, Olson says that the percentage of Americans attending church in 2050 will be about half of what it is today.

Other research has produced similar results.

According to a study done by LifeWay Research, membership in Southern Baptist churches will fall nearly 50 percent by the year 2050 if current trends persist.

If you are a Christian, you should be quite alarmed by these numbers.

But what is happening to the faith of our young people should be even more alarming for Christians.

The American Religious Identification Survey by the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society & Culture at Trinity College is one of the most comprehensive studies on religion in America that has ever been done.

According to that study, 15 percent of all Americans say that they have "no religion".

That is up from 8 percent in 1990.

That is quite a change.

But the move away from religion is particularly pronounced among our young people.

One recent survey found that 25 percent of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 say that they have no religion.

Obviously the Christian faith is not winning the battle for the hearts and the minds of our young people. The cold, hard truth is that in America today, the younger you are, the less likely you are to consider yourself to be a Christian.

Large numbers of young Americans that went to church while they were growing up are now leaving U.S. churches entirely. A recent study by the Barna Group discovered that nearly 60 percent of all Christians between the ages of 15 and 29 are no long actively involved in any church.

But not only have they left the church, our young people have also abandoned just about all forms of Christian spirituality.

Just check out the results of one survey of young adults that was conducted by LifeWay Christian Resources....

•65% rarely or never pray with others, and 38% almost never pray by themselves either.

•65% rarely or never attend worship services of any kind.

•67% don't read the Bible or any other religious texts on a regular basis.

If this does not get turned around, churches all over America will be closing their doors. When the survey above first came out, the president of LifeWay Christian Resources stated that "the Millennial generation will see churches closing as quickly as GM dealerships."

But it is not just church that our young people are rejecting.

The reality is that they are also rejecting the fundamental principles of the Christian faith.

One survey conducted by the Barna Group found that less than 1 percent of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 23 hold a Biblical worldview.

The Barna Group asked participants in the survey if they agreed with the following six statements....

1) Believing that absolute moral truth exists.
2) Believing that the Bible is completely accurate in all of the principles it teaches.
3) Believing that Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic.
4) Believing that a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or by doing good works.
5) Believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth.
6) Believing that God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today.

Less than 1 percent of the participants agreed with all of those statements.

That is staggering.

But it is not just young adults that are rejecting the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

Even large numbers of "evangelical Christians" are rejecting the fundamental principles of the Christian faith.

For example, one survey found that 52 percent of all Americans Christians believe that "at least some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life".

Another survey found that 29 percent of all American Christians claim to have been in contact with the dead, 23 percent believe in astrology and 22 percent believe in reincarnation.

Without a doubt, the religious landscape of America is changing.

Over the past several decades, church attendance has been steadily declining, the percentage of Americans that consider themselves to be Christians has been going down, and the number of people that hold traditional Christian beliefs has been dropping like a rock.

So what does all of this mean for the future of America?

Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below....

Poisonous Snakes and Insects infest the U.S. Government!

Source-Mybudget360.com Young Americans face grim future

NSA And the Police State Part 2

2012-01-23T22:01:00.066-07:00

Watch The Spy Factory on PBS. See more from NOVA.

Source-Wayne Madsen Report

By Wayne Madsen
WMR's sources at the National Security Agency (NSA) have reported more high-level fraud at the agency that now combines signals intelligence and cyber-warfare functions under one officer, Army General Keith Alexander, the NSA director and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command.

When Alexander's predecessor at NSA, Air Force General Michael Hayden, was shopping for his own replacement, Alexander was the Deputy Chief of Staff for G-2 for the U.S. Army. Alexander would only take the job, according to our sources who were embedded in the Director of NSA's office, if Dr. James Heath became the senior science adviser to Alexander at NSA.
There was only one problem. Heath had his own company, Object Sciences Corporation, a firm which was intimately involved with tracking "Al Qaeda" operatives prior to the 9/11 attacks. Object Sciences provided deep data mining services to the Army's Land Information Warfare Agency's and Defense Intelligence Agency's ABLE DANGER and its affiliated DORHAWK GALLEY data mining programs.
At the same time, Hayden had shown favoritism to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in awarding the firm, as prime contractor, the over one billion dollar signals intelligence overhaul program known as TRAILBLAZER. Hayden hired William Black, a former NSA official who had retired and went to work for SAIC, as his Deputy Director at NSA. The issue with Heath was solved when SAIC purchased Object Sciences, providing a handsome profit to Heath prior to his taking the science adviser position under his friend Alexander. Black eventually returned to SAIC from his stint as NSA deputy director.
The following press release was issued on May 12, 2005:
"Science Applications International Corp. has completed its acquisition of Object Sciences Corp., the company announced today. Terms of the deal were not disclosed . . .
OSC's involvement in reshaping how intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance information is processed and analyzed has provided critical assistance to combat forces in specific theaters, such as Iraq and Korea, as well as the war on global terrorism in general, SAIC said."
Alexander took over as NSA director on August 1, 2005, a few months after the SAIC-OSC deal. Heath then became Alexander's chief science adviser.
Another former SAIC principal who, like Black, transitioned from SAIC to NSA and back again to SAIC was Sam Visner. After joining NSA from SAIC, Visner was the senior acquisition manager for NSA and was key to the award of the TRAILBLAZER contract to SAIC. A less expensive signals intelligence re-engineering solution code-named THIN THREAD, was rejected by NSA in favor of the TRAILBLAZER, which was later canceled after SAIC pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars.
Hayden went on to become the first deputy Director of National Intelligence and, ultimately, the CIA director. He now works with former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at Chertoff Group. His pet project, TRAILBLAZER, was canceled due to cost overruns and failed deliveries and was replaced by another reported contractor boondoggle called TURBULENCE. A number of senior NSA, Justice Department, and congressional officials were harassed and one, Thomas Drake, prosecuted for revealing the corruption. Those coming under NSA and FBI scrutiny, all subjected to harassment and threat of prosecution, included, in addition to Drake, Justice Department prosecutor Thomas Tamm, House Intelligence Committee budget specialist Diane Roark, NSA officials William Binney, Kirk Wiebe, and Ed Loomis, and others, never mentioned in press accounts, who were interviewed by WMR.
One former NSA official who was terminated and then placed under NSA Security and FBI surveillance after reporting through proper channels fraud, waste, and abuse with TRAILBLAZER and associated contracts, told WMR, "we are not whistleblowers but witnesses to major crimes committed by NSA and contractors."
Among the spin-offs of TRAILBLAZER was the unconstitutional STELLAR WIND program that permitted NSA to engage in wholesale warrantless wiretapping of phone calls, emails, and faxes, particularly journalists and elected political leaders.
Hayden, who has become a national security adviser to Mitt Romney and would be assured a top-level job in a Romney administration, perhaps National Security Adviser, is also involved with a subscription web service called LIGNet, or "Langley Intelligence Group Network" as a "LIGNet adviser." WMR has been told by intelligence community insiders that LIGNet is an operational security (OPSEC) problem because a wealth of borderline classified information appears on the web site.

Source-Public Intelligence.net Anonymous Hacks website

Public Intelligence

On January 16, 2012 an unauthorized party associated with the hacktivist collective Anonymous gained access to this site’s web server. The attacker gained root access and posted a number of versions of a photo of a naked man. These images were used to deface the front of the site in multiple locations and contained the message “WAS HERE WITH 0DAY, ONLY SHIT I FOUND BAD WAS U LOGGING IN FROM A DSL CONNECTION… THEN AGAIN U BOUGHT THIS SERVER WITH UR PERSONAL CARD SO U CAN BE DOX’D… LEFT U THESE COX AS A FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT YOUR BOX CAN BE PWNED AT ALL TIMES…” The attackers then manipulated configuration files for the server which caused an error message to appear to visitors of the site. This state persisted for approximately eight hours blocking access to the site before it was later fixed by the attacker, who left a longer explanation for the hack in the server’s root directory.

Though the hackers were fairly polite and we do not believe that there is any current threat to our users, we have disabled our submissions form and will not be accepting new information at the moment. We have also disabled some of the user features on the site, which were more a remnant of a previous phase of this site’s operation and served little practical value. If you, at any point, have had an account on this site with a password that is also used elsewhere, you should change it. The hackers claim that they did not look into our database to retrieve this information. However, you would be wise to protect against that possibility.

We feel that this action by Anonymous was misguided. While we understand their desire to demonstrate their ability to “penetrate” anything, their defacement of this platform was unnecessary. This site has functioned for several years now as a vital source of information that is concealed and restricted from the general public. Large amounts of people in all walks of life utilize its resources. At the time of the defacement, this site was serving several files as source material for articles in publications around the world, including information on the automated scanning of license plates and other forms of public surveillance in Germany, the Department of Defense’s Non-Lethal Weapons Reference Book which received a large amount of coverage in Russia and Eastern Europe after it was reported on by the BBC, and a particularly frank Marine Corps handbook that describes the CIA’s history of funding the Mujahideen via the Pakistani ISI. Because of the defacement, many people visiting the site were then confronted with pictures of naked men which may have dissuaded them from accessing the extremely important information contained in these documents.

We’ve never professed to be extremely adept technologically, nor have we ever claimed to be creating a massively secure system for the submission of high-profile leaks. In fact, we hate “leaks” in general and we try to avoid using the word as much as possible. Leaking implies an accident, like something that escaped through a crack or water passing through a sieve. How can you leak something that should never have been secret in the first place? We are simply average, humble people who are trying to inform ourselves and others about the world in which we live. Nearly every piece of information on this site is something that was obtained from a publicly-accessible source using means available to any member of the public. We have published this material using open-source software in an attempt to inform others and demonstrate the potential for public action in the sphere of intelligence and media.

And so, if we are to create anything lasting, we must work together towards a society where everyone can express themselves freely and share information openly. We must not attack one another, for this only undermines the legitimacy of our cause. If we are to live in a world where knowledge truly is free, we must act with the gravity that this freedom demands. Anarchy is not chaos, it is self-governance.

A message left by the hacker:

sorry for this but we consider u friendly so i just left a message and
wiped /var/log

there was nothing u could do against this breach, this was just to
remind you that we can breach anything and so can the enemy :)

be careful what u do, improve ur OPSEC

maybe buy the server/hosting with a temp card and access is via Tor

try and remove links from ur personal life from this service :)

keep up the good work and hope u enjoy the cox :D

cheers

#antisec

PS: i didnt steal any of ur credentials neither i even look into the mysql
db, i dont know any of ur passwords though u should change them of course.
this was a direct root via a 0day we have :) it was not ur fault... i just
thought that i should leave u this message apart from the cox so u get a feel
what penetration looks like... our enemies dont leave messages ;)

Source-Kick them all out Project

(WMR) -- National Security Agency (NSA) sources have reported to WMR that the signals intelligence agency's warrantless wiretapping program was more widespread than originally reported and that it began shortly after the 2001 inauguration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, some six months prior to the 9/11 attacks.

Former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio reported that NSA requested that his firm take part in the warrantless wiretapping program in a February 27, 2001, meeting but that he told NSA that Qwest would refuse to participate. AT&T, BellSouth, SBC, Sprint, and Verizon all agreed to participate in the wiretapping program, which resulted in such a large database of intercepted calls, faxes, and e-mails, that NSA recently announced it was building a huge 1 million square feet data warehouse at a cost of $1.5 billion at Camp Williams in Utah, as well as another massive data warehouse in San Antonio. The cover story is that the warehouses are part of NSA's new Cyber Command responsibilities. NSA sources have told WMR that the warehouses are to store the massive amount of intercepts collected by the ongoing Terrorist Surveillance Program, an above top secret program once code named STELLAR WIND by the NSA.

Nacchio was later convicted on 19 counts of insider trading of Qwest stock and sentenced to six years in federal prison. Nacchio maintained that his prosecution and conviction was in retaliation for his refusal to participate in the illegal NSA surveillance program. NSA also canceled a major contract with Qwest over its refusal to wiretap calls without warrants.

President Obama ordered his Justice Department's attorneys to press U.S. Judge Vaughn Walker to toss out a lawsuit brought against the Bush administration's warrantless wiretap program, details of which were revealed by AT&T engineer Mark Klein. Our NSA sources revealed that Obama has asked the lawsuit to be dismissed because the warrantless wiretapping program is as robust in collecting massive amounts of intercepted communications without a warrant under Obama as it did during the Bush-Cheney administration. Obama also backs immunity from lawsuits for telecommunications companies participating in the illegal surveillance operations. The Justice Department is using the draconian State Secrets Privilege to battle against lawsuits against the telecommunication carriers.

NSA collects domestic communications by installing specialized eavesdropping equipment, including traffic analyzers, at over 25 telecommunications facilities around the United States, including where Klein worked at AT&T's central office in the SBC Building at 611 Folsom Street in San Francisco and at major switching facilities in Bridgeton, Missouri; San Jose; San Diego; Seattle; Los Angeles (1150 South Olive Street, as well as the Beverly Hills central office that targets the area's rich and famous celebrities); Chicago (227 West Monroe Street); New York (Lower Manhattan at 33 Thomas Street, 375 Pearl Street, and 811 10th Avenue); Northern Virginia/Washington, DC; Miami; Atlanta (Midtown Center); Houston; Minneapolis; Detroit (1365 Cass Avenue); Jacksonville, Florida; Philadelphia; Kansas City; Dallas (One AT&T Plaza); Memphis; Pittsburgh; Bedminster, New Jersey; Boston; Nashville (333 Commerce Street); Baltimore; Cleveland (Huron Road Building); and Denver.

One of the first targets of the NSA warrantless wiretapping program in February 2001, a few weeks after Bush's inauguration, was Iraqi-Americans and other Arab-Americans, as well as resident aliens from Arab countries in the United States. The warrantless wiretapping of the Arab-American community coincided with "surge operations" directed by NSA against the communications of Saddam Hussein and his top government officials in Iraq and other countries.

The NSA warrantless wiretapping program soon grew to include millions of Americans, including elected and appointed government officials, federal judges, anti-Bush celebrities and clergy, and even intelligence and law enforcement officials. WMR previously reported that a joint NSA-CIA database code-named FIRST FRUITS maintained a database on the intercepted phone calls of U.S. journalists.

WMR previously reported that NSA "fishnet" surveillance was used in the take down of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, as well as political dirt gathering directed against New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and then-Senator Joe Biden. There is also every indication that NSA intercepted the phone calls and emails of the junior senator from Illinois -- one Barack Obama.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).

The Salt Lake Tribune

First published Jan 04 2011 12:09PM
Updated Mar 22, 2011 11:04PM
A groundbreaking ceremony Thursday will formally kick off work on the Utah Data Center, a $1.2 billion project viewed as the salvation for the state’s beleaguered construction industry.

Nearly 10,000 people are expected to be employed over the next three years building the 1-million-square-foot facility at Camp Williams on the Salt Lake/Utah county line.

The National Security Agency will use the climate-controlled environment of its computerized core as a repository for information gathered by different branches of the country’s intelligence apparatus, hence the facility’s nickname, “The Spy Center.”

The 2 p.m. event may be one of the public’s last chances to take an open look at the project, technically known as the nation’s first Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative (CNCI) Data Center.

“We’ve been asked not to talk about the project,” said Rob Moore, president and chief operating officer of Big-D Construction. His company is part of a consortium of contractors that won the coveted construction contract from the National Security Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the building.

While he could not speak about the facility as a Big-D representative, Moore was able to comment briefly as president of the Utah Association of General Contractors.

“We’ve lost over 40,000 jobs in the construction market since 2008,” he said. “This will have a significant impact replacing some of those jobs and providing work for many, many small businesses.”

Since the project first was announced late in the fall of 2009, small businesses have been jockeying to be included as subcontractors for the big construction companies that won the bid, in this case Big-D and its national partners, Balfour Beatty and DPR.

Work will get under way at an ideal time for Utah trades people, ramping up just as construction of the City Creek Center in downtown Salt Lake City is winding down.

“We’ve been fortunate here in the state,” said Jim Judd of the Utah AFL-CIO labor unions. “The NSA project will pick up the commercial construction business. It will provide long-term employment help for the state until, hopefully, the economy recovers .”

An Army Corps of Engineers news release about the ground breaking said construction now is scheduled to be completed by October 2013. The initial timetable envisioned the facility being operational by June 2012.

mikeg@sltrib.com

NSA Corruption

World Update January 21st, 2012 20:34 Hours

2012-01-21T20:34:00.072-07:00

U.S. Newspaper Owner writes Op-ED proposing Israel assassinate President Obama!

Source-International Middle East Media Center.org
US newspaper owner writes op-ed proposing Israel assassinate Obama
Sunday January 22, 2012 00:05 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

The editor and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, Andrew Adler, has come under fire, and on Friday issued an apology, for an op-ed in which he surmised that the Israeli Prime Minister should “order a hit” on US President Barack Obama in order to preserve the Jewish state.

Image of article from Atlanta Jewish Times

In the article, published over a week ago, Adler laid out three possible scenarios for the Israeli Prime Minister to follow, the third being the assassination of Obama by Israeli Mossad agents based in the US. The other two options, according to Adler, would be for Israel to launch an all-out assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza or to attack Iran. He argues that these are the only ways for Israel to preserve its existence in the face of the threat he claims is posed by the Iranian state.

The online news and opinion site Gawker.com scanned the print article and posted it on their website, along with a conversation their reporter had with Adler regarding his article, in which Adler ‘nervously’ stated that he did not mean to imply that Israel should assassinate the US President.

Contrary to his conversation with Gawker.com, Adler’s article states clearly that Netanyahu’s ‘third option’ is to “give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States' policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.”

He continues, “Yes, you read ‘three’ correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel's existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don't you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel's most inner circles?”

On Friday, after dozens of commentators criticized the article, Adler told reporters with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) that he plans to publish an apology in the next issue of his newspaper, after his article received negative responses from readers.

In response to claims that the US Secret Service was investigating the call for Obama’s assassination, Adler told the JTA that he had not been contacted by the Secret Service, and was not aware of any investigation.

Massive 'Last Days' Methane/Natural Gas Explosion underneath Oklahoma/Ohio??? to cause New Madrid fault to Split Open!

Source-Encyclopedia Brittanica-Fracturing causes earthquakes video

U.S. Government report ties Drilling/Fracturing for Oil to Earthquakes

Source-OilPrice.com

On 5 November an earthquake measuring 5.6 rattled Oklahoma and was felt as far away as Illinois.

Until two years ago Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year, but in 2010, 1,047 quakes shook the state.

Why?

In Lincoln County, where most of this past weekend's seismic incidents were centered, there are 181 injection wells, according to Matt Skinner, an official from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the agency which oversees oil and gas production in the state.

Cause and effect?

The practice of injecting water into deep rock formations causes earthquakes, both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Geological Survey have concluded.

The U.S. natural gas industry pumps a mixture of water and assorted chemicals deep underground to shatter sediment layers containing natural gas, a process called hydraulic fracturing, known more informally as “fracking.” While environmental groups have primarily focused on fracking’s capacity to pollute underground water, a more ominous byproduct emerges from U.S. government studies – that forcing fluids under high pressure deep underground produces increased regional seismic activity.

As the U.S. natural gas industry mounts an unprecedented and expensive advertising campaign to convince the public that such practices are environmentally benign, U.S. government agencies have determined otherwise.

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According to the U.S. Army’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal website, the RMA drilled a deep well for disposing of the site’s liquid waste after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “concluded that this procedure is effective and protective of the environment.” According to the RMA, “The Rocky Mountain Arsenal deep injection well was constructed in 1961, and was drilled to a depth of 12,045 feet” and 165 million gallons of Basin F liquid waste, consisting of “very salty water that includes some metals, chlorides, wastewater and toxic organics” was injected into the well during 1962-1966.

Why was the process halted? “The Army discontinued use of the well in February 1966 because of the possibility that the fluid injection was “triggering earthquakes in the area,” according to the RMA. In 1990, the “Earthquake Hazard Associated with Deep Well Injection--A Report to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency” study of RMA events by Craig Nicholson, and R.I. Wesson stated simply, “Injection had been discontinued at the site in the previous year once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.”

Twenty-five years later, “possibility” and ‘established” changed in the Environmental Protection Agency’s July 2001 87 page study, “Technical Program Overview: Underground Injection Control Regulations EPA 816-r-02-025,” which reported, “In 1967, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) determined that a deep, hazardous waste disposal well at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal was causing significant seismic events in the vicinity of Denver, Colorado.”

There is a significant divergence between “possibility,” “established” and “was causing,” and the most recent report was a decade ago. Much hydraulic fracturing to liberate shale oil gas in the Marcellus shale has occurred since.

According to the USGS website, under the undated heading, “Can we cause earthquakes? Is there any way to prevent earthquakes?” the agency notes, “Earthquakes induced by human activity have been documented in a few locations in the United States, Japan, and Canada.

The cause was injection of fluids into deep wells for waste disposal and secondary recovery of oil, and the use of reservoirs for water supplies. Most of these earthquakes were minor. The largest and most widely known resulted from fluid injection at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado. In 1967, an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 followed a series of smaller earthquakes. Injection had been discontinued at the site in the previous year once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.”

Note the phrase, “Once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.”

So both the U.S Army and the U.S. Geological Survey over fifty years of research confirm on a federal level that that “fluid injection” introduces subterranean instability and is a contributory factor in inducing increased seismic activity.” How about “causing significant seismic events?”

Fast forward to the present.

Overseas, last month Britain’s Cuadrilla Resources announced that it has discovered huge underground deposits of natural gas in Lancashire, up to 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in all.

On 2 November a report commissioned by Cuadrilla Resources acknowledged that hydraulic fracturing was responsible for two tremors which hit Lancashire and possibly as many as fifty separate earth tremors overall. The British Geological Survey also linked smaller quakes in the Blackpool area to fracking. BGS Dr. Brian Baptie said, “It seems quite likely that they are related,” noting, “We had a couple of instruments close to the site and they show that both events occurred near the site and at a shallow depth.”

But, back to Oklahoma. Austin Holland’s August 2011 report, “Examination of Possibly Induced Seismicity from Hydraulic Fracturing in the Eola Field, Garvin County, Oklahoma” Oklahoma Geological Survey OF1-2011, studied 43 earthquakes that occurred on 18 January, ranging in intensity from 1.0 to 2.8 Md (milliDarcies.) While the report’s conclusions are understandably cautious, it does state, “Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located.”

Sensitized to the issue, the oil and natural gas industry has been quick to dismiss the charges and deluge the public with a plethora of televisions advertisements about how natural gas from shale deposits is not only America’s future, but provides jobs and energy companies are responsible custodians of the environment.

It seems likely that Washington will eventually be forced to address the issue, as the U.S. Army and the USGS have noted a causal link between the forced injection of liquids underground and increased seismic activity. While the Oklahoma quake caused a deal of property damage, had lives been lost, the policy would most certainly have come under increased scrutiny from the legal community.

While polluting a local community’s water supply is a local tragedy barely heard inside the Beltway, an earthquake ranging from Oklahoma to Illinois, Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas is an issue that might yet shake voters out of their torpor, and national elections are slightly less than a year away.

By. John C.K. Daly of Oilprice.com

U.S./Pakistan friendship???

Pakistan/U.S. Ties on hold for now....

Source-Reuters

By Michael Georgy and Chris Allbritton

ISLAMABAD | Thu Jan 19, 2012 6:02pm EST

(Reuters) - Pakistan's ties with the United States remain on hold following a NATO cross-border air attack, its foreign minister said on Thursday, and Washington should not push Islamabad to go after militant groups or bring them to the Afghan peace process.

"Now that the re-evaluation process is under way as we speak, so till the time that that re-evaluation process is not complete, we cannot start the re-engagement," Hina Rabbani Khar said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday.

The November 26 NATO attack on the border with Afghanistan, which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, plunged relations between Washington and Islamabad to their chilliest levels in years.

Yet Khar struck a positive note, stressing the long alliance was vital for the two countries.

"I think this will also give us the ability, if we play it right, to strengthen the partnership and to make it much, much more effective," she said.

"Let me categorically say that we consider our relations and our relationship with the U.S. to be an extremely important one."

Khar said proposals for the tenor and rules for relations with the United States could be out within days.

"We are trying to push for it as we speak," Khar said. "I know that they have completed their recommendations and we will look for an appropriate day to hold the joint session of parliament. The recommendations could come out in days."

The United States sees Pakistan as critical to its efforts to wind down the war in neighboring Afghanistan, where U.S.-led NATO forces are battling a stubborn Taliban insurgency.

But the NATO border incident exacerbated a crisis in relations which erupted after U.S. special forces killed Osama bin Laden in a unilateral raid on Pakistani soil in May last year. It embarrassed Pakistan's powerful military.

Ties between Washington and Islamabad were also severely hurt a year ago by the killing of two Pakistanis by a CIA contractor: "I would say they are conveniently on hold until we start re-engaging," said Khar.

FOCUS ON HAQQANI NETWORK

The foreign minister rejected some media reports that Islamabad had snubbed a request by U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman to visit, saying it was a matter of choosing a more beneficial time.

The United States has long sought Pakistani cooperation in tackling the Haqqani network, the Afghan insurgent group now seen as the gravest threat to NATO and Afghan troops.

In October, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Islamabad with top U.S. military and intelligence officials and urged the Pakistanis to persuade militant groups to pursue peace in Afghanistan, and to tackle them if they don't cooperate.

Earlier, the then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, blamed a deadly bombing at the U.S. embassy in Kabul on the Haqqani network, which has long ties to al Qaeda. He said it acted as a "veritable arm" of Pakistani intelligence.

Pakistan argues that the United States needs to be patient and gain a greater understanding of the region's complexities before acting, and that pressure would only hurt efforts to pacify Afghanistan.

"'Push' is never wise. I think that every country must be allowed to develop their own strategy and their own timing," said a confident-sounding Khar, stressing that another incursion by NATO or the United States would be harmful.

"What is unacceptable to Pakistan is to have any troops on the ground. What is unacceptable to Pakistan is not to respect the inviolability of our borders," she said. "All of these things make it more difficult for us to be an effective partner."

While the United States is expected to keep a modest military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014, all of President Barack Obama's 'surge' troops will be home by fall and the administration - looking to refocus on domestic priorities in a presidential election year - is exploring further reductions.

Khar said the United States should take a closer look at realities on the ground in Afghanistan, where the Kabul government is hoping to make security forces more effective before Western combat troops are due home by the end of 2014.

She said: "They need to ensure that they are bound by ground realities and not artificial lines of any type, timelines or anything else."

(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Ed Lane and Alastair Macdonald)

Source-The Nation-U.S. to now "invest money" into Pakistan

KARACHI – The American government is willing to promote the US investment in Pakistan, particularly in the energy sector. This was stated by US Consul General William Martin during his visit to Karachi Stock Exchange where he also rang the bell for commencement of the day’s trading.

He assured the audience of the United States ’commitment to a strong bilateral relationship and to continuing strengthening of economic opportunities between the two countries. William expressed his delight on his visit to the Karachi Stock Exchange.

US Consul General applauded the initiative by the KSE’s Board to promote dialogue with regional exchanges. He stated that US will provide the investments and ideas to help Pakistan realize its unlimited potential.

Muneer Kamal, member of the Governing Board of Directors of KSE, thanked the US Consul General for gracing the occasion. He highlighted the resilience of the members of the KSE in navigating through tough economic and market environment. He expressed his strong faith and hope in the future of the country and the capital market, saying that the stock market will show increasingly better performance going forward.

This news was published in print paper.To access the complete paper of this day.

New Afghanistan Supply routes costing U.S. Taxpayers " A arm and a leg"...

Source-Washington Post

APNewsBreak: Pakistan’s closure of supply routes costs US 6 times more for new route
Text Size Print E-mail Reprints
By Associated Press, Published: January 19

WASHINGTON — The U.S. is paying six times as much to send war supplies to troops in Afghanistan through alternate routes after Pakistan’s punitive decision in November to close border crossings to NATO convoys, the Associated Press has learned.

Islamabad shut down two key Pakistan border crossings after a U.S. airstrike killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers in late November, and it is unclear when the crossings might reopen.

Pentagon figures provided to the AP show it is now costing about $104 million per month to send the supplies through a longer northern route. That is $87 million more per month than when the cargo moved through Pakistan.

While U.S. officials have acknowledged that using alternate transportation routes for Afghan war supplies is more expensive and takes longer, the total costs had not been revealed until now. The Pentagon provided the cost figures to the AP on Thursday.

U.S. officials said Thursday the elevated costs are likely to continue for some time, as U.S.-Pakistan tensions remain high and Pakistan has not yet offered to restore the transport arrangement or to begin negotiations on the matter. Until the closure, the U.S. had relied on Pakistani routes to move about one-third of all war supplies for Afghanistan.

The U.S. has given Pakistan more than $20 billion in aid since 9/11, including civilian and military assistance. But over the past year, relations with Islamabad have been strained by a series of incidents, including the U.S. assault in Pakistan last May that killed Osama bin Laden.

Pakistani leaders have also complained about repeated U.S. drone strikes into their country. The strikes, largely by the CIA, target militants hiding along Pakistan’s border who launch attacks against NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The final straw, however, was the Nov. 26 cross-border attack, which hit two Pakistani border posts, enraging the Pakistani government and further eroding already shaky relations.

The U.S. blamed the errant airstrikes on a series of communications and coordination errors on both sides. American officials expressed regret but have not apologized for the incident, insisting that Pakistan fired first. Pakistan denies that and has called it an unprovoked attack.

In addition to closing the border crossings, Pakistan ordered the U.S. to vacate Shamsi air base, which the U.S. was using to launch drone strikes at al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

Over the past year or so, the U.S. military has been shrinking its reliance on the Pakistani routes, which are used to transport fuel and other non-lethal supplies. U.S. officials say they could manage indefinitely without that access if Pakistan either makes the closure permanent or offers to reopen it under unacceptable conditions.

Officials said that moves by Pakistan to briefly close the supply routes on two previous occasions after disputes with the U.S. prompted the Pentagon to begin shifting more to the northern crossings. Officials also believe that even if Pakistan eventually opens the supply routes, that there will be additional fees charged, so the alternate routes would help avoid those extra costs.

On the other hand, sending NATO convoys through Pakistan is seen by Washington as a significant piece of the overall U.S.-Pakistani partnership. Failure to reinstate those routes would signal a more severe diplomatic breach between the two countries at a critical time in the Afghan war and the ongoing battle against insurgents who seek sanctuary on the Pakistan side of the border.

According to U.S. officials, 85 percent of fuel supplies for the war effort in Afghanistan are now going through the northern supply routes, along with 30 percent of the supplies that had routinely come through Pakistan.

The northern routes connect Baltic and Caspian Sea ports with Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia and the Caucasus. And they combine sea, rail and truck transport.

There may be, however, some movement by Pakistan to allow certain civilian Afghan supplies through the closed routes.

Dependent on Pakistan for its imports, landlocked Afghanistan has asked authorities in Pakistan to release hundreds of vehicles stacked with goods and fuel that are being held up along with NATO supplies.

Pakistani officials say they are sorting through the thousands of stranded vehicles to push through supplies for Afghans. So far, the Pakistanis have given no indication of when they will open the border for NATO supplies to Afghanistan.

There has been limited contact between top U.S. and Pakistani officials.

Last week, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talked by phone with his Pakistani counterpart, Army Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, their first contact since Dec. 21. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has not spoken to Pakistani leaders since the incident.

Associated Press Writers Bradley Klapper in Washington and Kathy Gannon in Islamabad contributed to this report.

___

Pakistan to Re-Open Supply Route??? A little "Hush Money"???

Source-Reuters

By Michael Georgy

ISLAMABAD | Thu Jan 19, 2012 6:22am EST

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan expects to re-open supply routes to NATO forces in Afghanistan, halted after a NATO cross-border air attack killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November, but will impose tariffs, a senior security official told Reuters Thursday.

The move suggests tensions with the United States and NATO have eased, but more progress is needed for the kind of cooperation necessary to fight militancy in the border region which U.S. President Barack Obama has called the world's most dangerous place.

The official said the fees were designed to both express continued anger over the November 26 attack and raise funds for the state to fight homegrown Taliban militants blamed for many of the suicide bombings across the country.

"The tariffs will cover everything from the port to security to roads, which after all belong to Pakistan," the security official, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters.

No date was given for reopening the supply routes. Pakistan's trade ministry was working out details of the tariffs, said the official.

The NATO attack plunged relations between troubled allies Pakistan and the United States to their lowest point in years.

Ties had already been severely strained by a secret raid by U.S. special forces that killed Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil in May last year, embarrassing the military, which has ruled the country for over half of its 64-year history and sets security and foreign policy.

Asked if the re-opening was a sign that the crisis in relations could be tackled, the official said there was some way to go before normalcy was possible.

The two land routes to Afghanistan through Pakistan account for just under a third of all cargo that the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) ships into Afghanistan.

MYRIAD CHALLENGES

Aside from friction with the United States, Pakistan faces a slowing economy heavily dependent on foreign aid and is struggling with militant violence.

Exploratory peace talks between the homegrown Taliban, which is close to al Qaeda, and Islamabad, raised hopes that Pakistan's leaders could eventually have one less major problem to deal with.

But the talks have made little headway, a senior security official told Reuters Thursday, after the Taliban flatly rejected a demand that it work through tribal elders to reach a deal whereby fighters approach authorities and lay down their arms.

"They felt it would be humiliating. The talks are not making progress," the official said. "If they want to be included in the political system, that is what they will have to do."

The Pakistani Taliban, allied with the Afghan Taliban movement fighting U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan, are entrenched in Pakistan's unruly northwestern tribal areas, along the porous frontier with Afghanistan.

GOVERNMENT STABILITY

Past peace talks have merely given the group time and space to consolidate and launch fresh suicide attacks on army installations, police stations and crowded street markets.

Such a new wave of violence could further undermine a government under pressure from the Supreme Court and the military.

Pakistan's Supreme Court Thursday adjourned a contempt hearing for Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in a case that could push him from office and imperil hopes that the longest-running civilian administration in the country's coup-marred history can complete a five-year term.

Gilani was in court to explain why he should not be charged with contempt for failing to re-open old corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.

The government maintains Zardari has presidential immunity.

"It is my conviction that he (Zardari) has complete immunity inside and outside the country," Gilani told the court.

The prime minister, however, appeared not to have convinced some judges.

"On the next date, let's hear you convince us the issue is of the president's immunity," said Justice Sarmad Osmani, a member of the seven-panel bench. "Let's grab the bull by its horns."

While the immediate battle is about Gilani, the larger political crisis is about Zardari -- who has had his own run-ins with the chief justice -- and the fate of his government which is also increasingly at loggerheads with the military.

Tensions between the civilian leadership and the army, at their worst since a 1999 coup, were sparked by a mysterious memo last year that sought U.S. help in reining in the generals.

(Additional reporting by Qasim Nauman, Serena Chaudhry and Rebecca Conway in ISLAMABAD, and Faisal Aziz and Sahar Ahmed in KARACHI; Editing by Ed Lane)

Source-Russia Today: Deadly Bird Flu research stopped due to possible world wide possible pandemic

Under pressure to put their research on hold due to fear of a biological disaster, an international team of scientists have voluntarily suspended their study on an advanced, incredibly deadly mutation of the H5N1 bird flu.
In an effort to better understand the deadly bird flu virus, Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical College in the Netherlands, Adolfo Garcia-Sastre of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, Madison have been slaving over their study of the avian influenza. In conducting their own research, the team of scientists was able to mutate the original H5N1 virus into a much more lethal form to see how the outbreak could increase in intensity if not controlled outside of the lab. As word came around late last year that their research had returned a variation able to induce an international outbreak, however, the scientific community urged them to abandon their study in fear that the mutated strain would escape the lab and cause a deadly, worldwide outbreak.
With the fear failing to subside weeks later, the team of scientists has temporarily halted their research.
In its natural form, the bird flu virus has led to nearly 600 known cases and 340 deaths since it was discovered in 2003. That year there were only four outbreaks, all in East Asia, although in the years since an outbreak has claimed lives as far west as Egypt. The scientists were studying what damage a mutated strain of the virus could bring, but the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity cautioned them to refrain from publishing the results of their finding, fearful that it would influence budding bioterrorists to use the study to create their own strain and launch an epidemic.
Despite the Board’s urging, others in the science community were skeptical. "In the end, is the likelihood of misuse outweighed by the danger of beginning a Big Brother society?" Professor Wendy Barclay of Imperial College London asked the Daily Mail last month.
The researchers say in a letter published in the journals Nature and Science on Friday that they will take a two-month break from their efforts. Since news of their study caught wind, the US government, the World Health Organization and other international bodies have been evaluating a way to go about publishing the findings in periodicals eventually, taking into account their research but avoiding the publishing of a how-go guide for biological warfare.
“We realize that organizations and governments around the world need time to find the best solutions for opportunities and challenges that stem from the work,” the scientists write.
“We hope that by having a calm and reasoned discussion of the facts, scientists and biosecurity experts can reach a better understanding and find ways to enable the research to go forward while minimizing risks,” adds Kawaoka.

Source-Got Questions.org The Seven Seals, The Seven Trumpets, The Seven Bowls....

Revelation Chapter 16 Verses 1-21

1 And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.

2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and [upon] them which worshipped his image.

3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead [man]: and every living soul died in the sea.

4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.

5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.

6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous [are] thy judgments.

8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.

9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.

10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,

11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.

12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs [come] out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, [which] go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed [is] he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.

16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.

18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, [and] so great.

19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.

21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, [every stone] about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.

Source-King james Bible and the END TIMES

Massive Solar Flare January 19th reaches Earth today!

Source-FoxNews

A powerful flare erupted from the sun Thursday, Jan. 19, unleashing a plasma wave that may supercharge the northern lights for skywatchers in high latitudes this weekend.

The solar flare occurred at about 11:30 am EST (1600 GMT) and touched off a massive solar explosion — known as a coronal mass ejection — aimed at Earth, space weather experts and officials said. The charged particles from the sun explosion should reach Earth by Saturday night (Jan. 21), and could amp up northern lights displays when they hit the upper atmosphere.

"Forecasters say strong geomagnetic storms are possible when the cloud arrives during the late hours of Jan. 21st. High-latitude (and possibly middle-latitude) sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend," the skywatching website Spaceweather.com announced in an alert.

Several space telescopes recorded photos and video of the solar flare, including NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). [Photo and video of the solar flare]

According to the Space Weather Prediction Center maintained by NOAA, Thursday's solar flare erupted from an active sunspot group called Region 1401. Another solar hotspot, called Region 1402, is also fired off a flare, the center reported.

Auroras occur when charged particles from the sun interact with Earth's upper atmosphere, releasing visible light in the process. The particles are funneled toward Earth's polar regions by the planet's magnetic field, with the northern auroral displays known as the aurora borealis, or northern lights. The southern counterpart is called the aurora australis, or southern lights.

Thursday's solar flare rated as a powerful M2-class sun storm on the scale used by astronomers to measure flare strength. M-class storms are powerful, but mid-range, types of solar flares. They fall between the weaker C-class flares and the most powerful X-class solar storms, which can pose a threat to satellites and astronauts in orbit, cause widespread communications interference and damage infrastructure on Earth when aimed directly at the planet.

SDO mission scientists have said that sunspot group 1401 has been unleashing solar flares almost daily as the sun's rotation slowly turned the solar hotspot toward Earth in recent days. On Wednesday (Jan. 18), the region unleashed an M1.7-class solar flare, they said in a Twitter post.

The sun is currently in the middle of an active phase of its 11-year solar weather cycle. The current sun storm cycle, called Solar Cycle 24, is expected to peak in 2013, NASA scientists have said.

Gigantic SONIC BOOM and NO-PLANE!
RAF: Big bang in Grimsby wasn't us

THE Royal Air Force has said none of its planes were responsible for what many have called a "sonic boom" over Grimsby.

As reported, the Grimsby Telegraph received many calls from residents who had heard what sounded like a large explosion at about 7pm on Wednesday.

Initial fears that there had been an explosion were quickly allayed and theories turned to the possibility of a sonic boom from a plane.

Initially, these suggestions appeared to be legitimate when it was revealed that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) is currently carrying out a low-flying operation named "Exercise Lightning Force" in the area.

However, when contacted by the Grimsby Telegraph, Squadron Leader Nikki Stacey, based at Headquarters Air Command, said the noise had not been caused by an RAF aircraft, adding there was "nothing reported" from any of the forces' "fast jet units". Gareth Stringer, deputy editor of Global Aviation Resource magazine, said: "A sonic boom occurs when an aeroplane breaks the sound barrier and the noise that you hear is the shockwave of area around the aircraft.

"As far as I am aware, no aircraft should break the sound barrier within ten miles of the coast, but certain atmospheric and weather conditions can mean the sound of the boom can travel further.

"That could explain why something may have been heard inland.

"Being someone who's fascinated with aviation, hearing a sonic boom is something that I would find quite cool, but I can understand why people who didn't know what the noise was would be shocked.

"These things do happen and it is certainly not something that people should be scared about."

Although not confirmed, it appears that some kind of sonic boom is the most popular explanation held by residents who were startled by the noise.

Julie Glover, who lives in Laceby, said: "I heard a big bang and the whole house shook.

"I looked out of the window but all I saw was a plane flying over."

Emma Lingard, of Healing, was tending to her horse in Immingham when the bang occurred.

"I heard a loud clatter on the roof and some pheasants flew off, so I thought it was an animal," she said.

"I jumped and the horse jumped. I walked out of the stable and couldn't see anything.

"When I returned to the car, where my son, Tom, was, he said the car had shook.

"Whatever it was, it was strong enough to shake a parked car."

Read the original story and comments from visitors to This is Grimsby

Source-Grimsby Telegraph Sonic Boom heard in Town-NO AIRPLANES

South Pole(Antarctica) Shaking Like Never Before

Source-The Extinction Protocol

January 15, 2012 – ANTARTICA - A strong and shallow series of earthquakes have erupted near the remote South Shetland Islands region of Antarctica on Sunday, experts from the U.S. Geological Survey said. The earthquakes in the intense tectonically-activated series measured a 6.6 magnitude, followed by a 6.2 magnitude earthquake and 5.1 and 5.6 aftershocks. The epicenter of the earthquakes was at various depths of from one kilometer (0.62 miles) to 14 km (9.2 miles) below the earth’s surface and some 464 kilometers west of Coronation Island in distance. No destructive tsunami was created, according to the U.S. NOAA warning center. The earthquake series is worrisome because it’s further evidence of what I have been warning about for over the past 6 months, that the Southern hemisphere, particularly around the periphery of Antarctic, is shows increasing signs of seismic destabilization. On January 12, there was a swarm of five moderate earthquakes which erupted south of Africa- the strongest of which was a 5.3 and a 5.5. On January 13, the South Sandwich Islands, north of Antarctica, was hit with a 5.1, and 5.2. On January 14 the region was struck again with a 5.0 earthquake and another 4.9 on January 15th. Not only are earthquakes increasing along the southern polar region but in November of 2011, the Tasmania’s Antarctic Climate and Ecosystem centre found that the South Ocean was storing more heat than any other ocean on the planet. The shape of the earth, a mal-formed spheroid, whose center of gravity is becoming increasing displaced by the turbulent shifting of the planet’s mass due to a wave of strong earthquakes that have rattled the planet over the last 7 years. These large mega-thrust earthquakes are exacting a terrible toll of stress on the planet’s angular momentum. In 2004, the planet suffered a devastating 9.1 mega-thrust earthquake in the Indian Ocean near the Sunda Strait. In February of 2010, Chile was rocked by a 8.8 magnitude earthquake and in March of 2011, Japan was similarly hit with a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami. In April of 2011, the European satellite Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, or GOCE released a detailed map of Earth’s gravity field. (See quakes and mounting stress increasing around South Pole)

The digital 3-dimensional model shows planet Earth’s dimensional gravity signature is now severely deformed and this is increasing mechanical stresses within the planet’s interior- which will further aggravate thermal gradient. As the planet is generating more energy in rotation to do the same work under greater resistant pressure- it is adding an additional burden to a stressed system that is already in dire need of a catastrophic correction. The fact that Earth has oceans to create tidal budge on its sides and absorb massive earthquake seismic shocks may be the only thing that has saved the planet thus far from shifting over. Earth’s unbalanced model is further compounded by two additional factors. The planet’s magnetic field is degrading from a magnetic polar migration and subsequent reversal and the disproportionate weight of the Antarctica ice-cap has created a wobble or precession in the planet’s spin, which has recently fluctuated according to some scientists. Throw in the planet’s angle of inclination of 23° degrees and you have an unstable system that is bobbling along in space as it spins in tilted and trembling fashion. If any more large earthquakes strike the planet in the near future, her stability will erode further and the dangers of a catastrophic crustal correction becomes more likely, similar to what has already happened on Uranus, which is sitting on its side, and Mercury (with a magnetic field that is already 150 times weaker than Earth’s) whose magnetic field has also slipped and is experiencing an unexplained thermal anomaly at the southern pole. All of these factors are increasing tectonic-plate stresses and earthquake activity on a very dangerous region of the planet that is already tinged by deep submarine volcanism. –The Extinction Protocol

White House Insider-Obama a Godless Communist!

2012-01-20T09:43:00.025-07:00

White House Insider Part 1

Source-Ulsterman Report.com: White House Insider part 1

White House Insider Part 2
WHITE HOUSE INSIDER: You Don’t Ever Wanna Do The Things I’ve Done…
by Ulsterman on January 18, 2012 with 95 Comments in News

The second installment of our latest interview with a longtime D.C. political operative reveals a story once kept silent – but now finally finding its voice. ( Part one HERE )

UM: …Just start as you did before – before you decided to not include it in that previous interview.

Insider: I had a good reason for that…still not sure we want to go there. What’s done is done and all I got are thoughts. Suggestions. Bad feelings.

UM: That’s fine – the story has worth.

Insider: Another drink then…and another story for your…for whatever you think it might…

UM: Go ahead. The convention. Denver. 2008.

Insider: Yeah…yes-yes-yes. Yes we fu–ing can. Hope. Change. All bullsh-t…

So let me…let me put it – I’ll start if off like this…

There’s a fella…he’s West Coast…I’m East Coast. Great guy. Hell of a nice guy. Smart. Real sharp.

UM: You’re both – you both do the same thing? Within the Democratic Party?

Insider: Yeah – that’s right. I’ve been at it longer. I’m older…but he’s good. Connected. Well regarded. Funny son-of-a-bitch. Well liked…that’s not easy to do…with what we do…being well liked. I got…plenty…plenty of people don’t care much for me. Comes with the-the job. What it…sometimes what we are required to do.

You know…you know I destroyed a man’s career for the good of the party? That’s what they told me. For the good…they wouldn’t listen to reason. So drop the goods. Get it to that faggot at the Times. Wife. Kids. Shit…that’s all…that’s—

UM: (interrupts) I need you to focus on Denver…the convention…your friend. Focus…

(Pause)

Insider: (smiles) Yeah…my friend. Maybe a friendly acquaintance…he was everybody’s friend though. Even our Republican counterparts liked the guy. Respected him. We didn’t see each other all that much…but there were emails. A phone call here and there. He was a primary contact for the campaign out there…California, had some good people working with us in Nevada. Dealing with the union f-cks out there. J-sus did they screw Hillary on that. I’ve seen some dirty sh-t go down…but that was…they stole it. Bribed it. And she has to know. Has to know…

UM: The convention. Go back to that.

Insider: Ok – yeah…the fu–ing convention…

I’m gonna go there and then jump back…then bring it back…that’s how it went for me. That’s how I started to put it together…what…what left me – what got me worried. Thinkin’ they might of…that something very-very bad went down.

The Denver convention. Big success, right? Barack Obama…the media…just another easy campaign success for us. Everyone falling over themselves to say how brilliant…how fu–ing brilliant Obama was.

UM: You weren’t there.

Insider: No…they had me…I was back east. I watched it on the television like everyone else.

UM: But your friend was there. From the West Coast…the other operative.

Insider: Oh yeah…he was there. He was helping organize it all. That’s how he got so close…closer than I had ever been to Obama up to then.

UM: And he didn’t think of the convention as a success? Is that right?

Insider: No, that’s not right. Everyone knew the convention was a success. Can’t deny that…what a show, right?

…it’s what he saw behind the…behind the scenes.

UM: From the president?

Insider: He wasn’t the f–cking president yet. He was still just a do-nothin’ Senator bought and paid for by those Chicago boys.

UM: Explain what your friend saw – “behind the scenes” as you put it.

Insider: Oh…what he saw – what he saw…yes indeed. What he saw was sh-t that didn’t feel right. What he saw was…was a guy who came in draggin’ and a guy who left bouncin’ off the f-cking walls. What he saw…what he heard was a godd-mn…dammit…I’m forgettin’ how he told it. The term he used…

UM: The chant?

Insider: Yeah – the chant…but he used a term for it and I can’t…it was a word…ah, dammit to hell…

UM: How about you go back to the coming in dragging part…explain that a bit more.

Insider: Not much to explain…Obama comes in…he’s been there already right. Several practice runs…fired up the teleprompter, going over the stage marks…all the typical sh-t. When he’s out practicing…the family is all there, right? But when he’s in the back area…no family. They are…they are in different areas. My friend – he thought that was a bit odd.

UM: The president – Barack Obama…he appeared fine during the rehearsals?

Insider: Sure-sure…he wasn’t close to Obama at that point – but he could see him from a distance…could hear him. He sounded…looked like the candidate on television. The interviews. Smooth. Confident. Charismatic.

UM: But then?

Insider: But…then…later in the back area. Like a meet n greet area…and an adjoining room. Private. Closed off. So my friend is back there…some others too – they are hoping to catch the candidate coming in. You know…everybody wants to shake his hand. All that sh-t.

UM: And Obama comes in.

Insider: Yeah – like I said…draggin’. He’s…he looks wiped. Wiped out. His color is all off. His eyes…he barely…my friend says…my friend SAID…he looked right through them. Like his eyes couldn’t focus enough to see them…and a big fella…Black guy…he was…it looked like he was holding Obama up. Making their way to the-the room…the private area.

UM: Did everyone notice Obama’s condition?

Insider: I don’t know – my friend didn’t say anything about that…but he sure as hell noticed. He thought maybe Obama had gotten sick…it’s not uncommon on the campaign trail. You eat some sh-t food sometimes.

…so Obama is holed up in this room. People are kinda mingling about I guess…maybe ten, fifteen minutes go by. Then a couple folks march on in – that’s how he put it to me…they marched on in…very purposeful. One looked like Secret Service…the other was a woman. Didn’t get too specific. Wish he would have but he didn’t. The woman goes in – the other fella…he stays outside the door. She’s in there for maybe another five minutes…she comes back out and tells ‘em to clear the hall. Clear out. Says they need about ten minutes to prepare.

UM: Prepare?

Insider: That’s what he told me – she said they needed a little time to prepare.

UM: For what?

Insider: Hell if I know.

UM: So did he clear out with the others? Your friend?

Insider: No…he goes up to the guy outside the door…outside the room Obama, the big fella, and the woman are in. He’s just concerned…wants to know if he can help in any way. You know, maybe go get something for a bad stomach?

…But the guy outside the door – he ain’t messin’. It’s all business. Serious. He pushes my friend right on the chest – hard…tells him to step away and to clear the hall. And that’s where…that’s when he hears the chanting. The…he said it sounded like…like a…Gregory chant. That’s the term he used. A Gregory chant.

UM: Gregorian?

Insider: Eh? Greg…yeah…Gregorian.

UM: Was your friend Catholic?

Insider: Catholic…I…I don’t know. But that was the term there…Gregorian. It sounded like a Gregorian chant coming from the room…the room Obama was holed up inside.

UM: Could they have been praying? Singing?

Insider: Maybe..but…this group…the Obamas…prayin’ has never seemed like their thing. The team…they had a bunch of religion jokes you know. Even by then it seemed clear to most of us…like I just told you – Obama is an atheist. Now I’ve developed that little line of reason…0f reasoning later – down the road…but we all figured it then too.

UM: And his wife – Michelle…no sign of her?

Insider: I don’t think so…like he told me…they were never together except on that stage. No wife. No kids. Not until it was showtime apparently.

UM: So what then? Your friend is stopped outside the door and he hears…he hears what is described as chanting…is he the only one around at this point?

Insider: Don’t know that – he didn’t say.

He cleared out – like they told him.

UM: Does he mention this to anyone else there?

Insider: Then? I don’t know…he would mention it later though. I do know that. He told it to some others…that’s a big part of this…where this story…where this is headed. It’s where he f-cked up. It’s where…it’s…(trails off)

UM: That’s not it…tell about when he sees Obama come out of the room again.

Insider: Yeah…it’s maybe 20 or 30 minutes later…he makes his way back into the hall…there’s already a bunch of people there. Somehow the message went out to come back in…I don’t know. So they’re all mingling…the mood is great. Nothing being said about Obama being sick, or acting strange…nothing.

UM: But your friend is still wondering…concerned?

Insider: Oh yeah…that seems natural, right? The guy who is gonna accept the nomination on national television…the guy who is probably gonna be the next President of the United States…he is carried into a room not more than an hour ago? Hell yes you would think he would be wondering what the f-ck is up with that.

UM: But nobody else was concerned?

Insider: I told you – I DON”T KNOW THAT.

UM: Right then…go ahead. Keep going…

Insider: So…you got about…there’s a ton a people now waiting to see the…to see Obama make his way out into the hall. The ceremony is firing up…you can hear the enormous crowd in the stadium…whatever worries there might have been…people mighta just forgot them. Easy to do in that kind of environment. It’s a f-cking rock concert you know. A convention…that last night…the build up…an amazing thing. Like a drug those moments. You get a taste of it…you want more.

UM: So Obama comes back out – he leaves that room.

Insider: Michelle Obama comes out first.

UM: She does? But she never went in…

Insider: Obviously she went in at some point…just…my friend didn’t see that. He wasn’t around. Just…just shut up and let me do this…get through this. Keep your mouth shut for a bit…

…Obama’s wife comes out, there’s another woman carrying a bag thing. That would be makeup. Pretty sure of that. She was always…the amount of cover that Obama wears…I told you about that before right? Cakes that sh-t on. 24/7. It’s why his color seems to change so much…different brand, or product…something like that.

So they come out…the First Lady – soon to be…Michelle…she just walks on by. Not a word to anyone. She’s got a secret service guy who is alongside her. Out she goes and not a word. My friend notices somebody puts their hand on her – trying to say high or something…it’s harmless…but the Secret Service fella, he is right there to intervene. Pushes this other woman…she gets pushed back and the…Obama’s wife…she just keeps on walking. No smile – nothin’.

Another five minutes or so and out comes Obama and a few others – the big fella from earlier, the woman who went in after them, and now there appears to be a couple of Secret Service alongside them.

UM: Was that woman Jarrett?

Insider: Told you – don’t know. He…my friend – he didn’t say…

…so out of that room they come. Everybody is excited…including Barack Obama. It’s like…it’s like one man went into that room and another one came out. An entirely different man walked out of that room than went in. That is how…that’s how he told it to me. A different man walked out. The change…that…the transformation was stunning. He seemed taller. His eyes were…there was an energy to him. Powerful. He was smiling and joking, shaking hands, talking real fast…the suit – the one you see on television…every detail was perfect. Everybody was rushing to shake his hand, tell them they loved him…but my friend…he was shaken up. It was too damn weird, right? What the hell happened in that room? How could one man walk in and another man walk out? We’re talking two extremes here…Obama was just about carried into that room…and he comes out…he’s bouncing off the f-cking walls.

UM: Did your friend get close…up close to Obama at that time?

Insider: Oh yeah…got the handshake. Looked right up at him. And Obama…he looked right down…looked right down and through him.

UM: Through him?

Insider: Yeah boy…right the f-ck through him. He didn’t recognize…my friend…he had been introduced to Obama not more than a day before. He was helping organize the whole fu–ing event there in Denver. He spoke to the president…to the nominee…probably for about ten minutes. And there was nothing odd at that time…Obama seemed like what everybody saw in public. Not what my friend saw go into that room…or what he saw come out of that room. And Barack Obama – my friend was very…he made a point of emphasis there – Barack Obama did not recognize him in the hall. Not a clue. He smiled down at him, shook his hand…kept repeating thank you over and over again…and his eyes were always blinking. Fast.

UM: Blinking…his eyes were…blinking?

Insider: Yeah…like f-cking shutters. Blinking. Over and over again. My friend watched him as we he made his way to the side stage…his eyes were blinking over and over again.

UM: Drugs? Amphetamines?

Insider: I told you before what I know on that…the…his depression…or something along those lines…that was leaking out from the White House after he got in there…so maybe. Maybe somethin’ like that.

But that ain’t the meat of this thing…the…that’s not…I don’t give a f-ck if there were drugs or what involved before he gave that speech in Denver. What I care about…what-what…where this gets…where this leads us here is how people start gettin’ messed up who mighta seen whatever happened in that room before that speech…

…My friend…I heard later he had shared what he saw here and there. I’m guessing that sharing…my gut tells me somebody wanted him to shut the f-ck up about it.

UM: Explain why you have that feeling. Just…put it out there. You’ve gone too far not to finish it.

Insider: I don’t…you don’t…you still don’t have…you’re too bold sometimes and that scares the hell outta me.

UM: This friend you’re talking about – you said they are…they were – younger than you? Quite a bit younger?

Insider: Yeah…younger…young enough anyway.

UM: Enough?

(Long pause)

Insider: Young enough that when they are found dead at home with no sign of…of…of foul play…when the cause is put down as “natural causes”…

…when – I mean natural causes? Really? Just like that? Natural f-cking causes? A guy…he’s in relatively good health…not so bad anyways…he is found dead alone at home…been dead for weeks…natural causes? All neat and tidy like that huh?

Guy in his 50′s…natural causes. Just drifts off of natural causes? Well f-ck you no. Now that just don’t sit right with this here boy.

UM: And no investigation, right? Nothing.

Insider: That’s right – nothing. I get the news…stunned. Pissed. Suspicious. Worried. Sh-t, I had everything running through my mind the moment I got word. The timing…everything pointed to something not being right? Something serious was…it was all…things were not right.

UM: So no specific cause of death?

Insider: No investigation…coroner…the only word on that I heard back was no investigation. Nothing. Was it a heart attack? Some said it appeared that way…but nothing official on that. NOTHING. It just…they found him dead, he was gone…that was it. DONE. A guy in his 50s just up and dies and that’s it? No way.

UM: And then the other stuff you tied together…I haven’t heard that from you yet. Go ahead…tell that now. It should be a part of this.

Insider: You really think so? You really…none of this sh-t scares you?

UM: Yeah…it scares me. If your instinct on this is right…yeah, very much so.

Insider: You doubt what…what I’m sayin’ here? You don’t believe it?

UM: Not at all but you said yourself…this is…this is a feeling you have. Nothing specific. At least nothing you’ve told me yet.

Insider: Oh…oh…the kid wants specifics…that it? So easy to ask for…but then…but then what then?

UM: What?

Insider: You heard me – what then? What’s knowing gonna change in any of this?

UM: Maybe nothing…but keep telling what you know.

Insider: Don’t know it…feel it.

UM: Fine then…what you feel it to be. You said there was – that you put it together. The other pieces.

Insider: Yeah…I did. You want to know all that? How…how if you say too much in this…what I do…step too far out of line and that’s it. Ruin your marriage? How about some jail time? Maybe more? Maybe less? That’s how it is for us…we all…you don’t ever wanna do the things I’ve done.

UM: You’re drunk.

Insider: Yes I am. You’re not?

UM: No.

Insider: You drinkin? Bushmills? I brought it – I asked…you said…that was right?

UM: And then some – and thank you.

Insider: Not drunk?

UM: No.

Insider: Bullsh-t.

UM: Finish the story. Share the pieces.

Your friend dies. No investigation into cause. Then what? Who else? What other – who else is involved?

Insider: The other pieces?

UM: That’s right…the other pieces.

Insider: I won’t name names…not gonna put that on you..not gonna…I don’t want that responsibility.

UM: Fine…but you can still share the details. Don’t need to be specific – just specific enough.

Insider: How about the involvement of one of the most powerful members of the United States Senate? That enough to perk you up? That enough…f-cking specifics for you?

We got the death of a longtimer…an operative. Good solid party guy. Fifty somethin’ years old. Natural causes. No investigation. He sees something about the current United States president…says it…shares it with some others, including this Senator. They are tight. Go way back a ways. She’s got power. If she has…if she gets some kind of information… that makes her a threat. It makes him a threat. There’s a business partner…he…well wouldn’t you know it…he has a serious legal threat brought down on him around the same time! Imagine that? Bet he was told something too, right? No accident there. Warnings is what was going on there. Back the f-ck off – and it was comin’ right from the White House boys. Or worse yet…back to f-cking Chicago. The unions. That vote that pissed ‘em off so much. And then they killed him. And now they are taking on the Senator herself. Right on it. Theft? And the fu–ing thief is…I sh-t you not…she headed up an Obama group. That’s either ballsy or stupid…or both…or just fu–ing insane. The Senator…she knew something. That vote…how she bypassed Obama on the Bin Laden announcement. That wasn’t his call and she knew it. She knew it. Her words that night. “No one knows when. No one knows how. No one knows why.” She was warning them to back off…the White House. Back the f-ck off. The public face…all smiles and nods. That’s how it’s always done…but there’s what’s said off to the side, if you know what to hear…you catch it. It’s there. You just gotta wait for it. You just—

UM: Apologies, but you…can you slow down. You’re throwing out too much too fast here. Slow it down. Please. I apologize but this is…it will be way too difficult to follow.

Insider: For who?

UM: For me…for anyone who reads this.

Insider: I don’t give a f-ck about them…this ain’t…I am…this ain’t for them. You asked me to tell you this…you…this is for you. I…if they can’t follow it…let the dumb bastards try. Piss on ‘em.

UM: Fine – but I can’t follow it…so…start again. The Senator – start with her. Take a bit of time to explain that…

…and then go from there.

White House Insider Part 2

White House Insider part 3

WHITE HOUSE INSIDER: I Hung My Head…
by Ulsterman on January 20, 2012 with 56 Comments in News

Following their witnessing of odd and troubling behavior from Barack Obama just prior to him taking the stage at the 2008 Democratic Convention, a longtime political operative is found dead, and those closely associated with him are facing a myriad of legal and financial challenges. Coincidence – or something far more sinister?

Insider: How about the involvement of one of the most powerful members of the United States Senate? That enough to perk you up? That enough…f-cking specifics for you?

We got the death of a longtimer…an operative. Good solid party guy. Fifty somethin’ years old. Natural causes. No investigation. He sees something about the current United States president…says it…shares it with some others, including this Senator. They are tight. Go way back a ways. She’s got power. If she has…if she gets some kind of information… that makes her a threat. It makes him a threat. There’s a business partner…he…well wouldn’t you know it…he has a serious legal threat brought down on him around the same time! Imagine that? Bet he was told something too, right? No accident there. Warnings is what was going on there. Back the f-ck off – and it was comin’ right from the White House boys. Or worse yet…back to f-cking Chicago. The unions. That vote that pissed ‘em off so much. And then they killed him. And now they are taking on the Senator herself. Right on it. Theft? And the fu–ing thief is…I sh-t you not…she headed up an Obama group. That’s either ballsy or stupid…or both…or just fu–ing insane. The Senator…she knew something. That vote…how she bypassed Obama on the Bin Laden announcement. That wasn’t his call and she knew it. She knew it. Her words that night. “No one knows when. No one knows how. No one knows why.” She was warning them to back off…the White House. Back the f-ck off. The public face…all smiles and nods. That’s how it’s always done…but there’s what’s said off to the side, if you know what to hear…you catch it. It’s there. You just gotta wait for it. You just—

UM: Apologies, but you…can you slow down. You’re throwing out too much too fast here. Slow it down. Please. I apologize but this is…it will be way too difficult to follow.

Insider: For who?

UM: For me…for anyone who reads this.

Insider: I don’t give a f-ck about them…this ain’t…I am…this ain’t for them. You asked me to tell you this…you…this is for you. I…if they can’t follow it…let the dumb bastards try. Piss on ‘em.

UM: Fine – but I can’t follow it…so…start again. The Senator – start with her. Take a bit of time to explain that…

…and then go from there.

Insider: From where to there and back again…this…I just don’t see this being part of what we’re doing. What’s done is done. We need to focus on the election, Fast and Furious…getting Holder gone. That’s…I can see that in front of me. -Name deleted – dying…his death…it’s just my speculation…my wondering about…about things.

UM: The story – your story…it has value. Tell the tale. Put it together – how it all fits.

Insider: I ain’t put nothin’ together son…got more questions than answers just like you. Don’t patronize me…don’t EVER patronize ME.

UM: You know that’s not what I’m doing – just get to the story. Start with the Senator and go from there…

Insider: (Long sigh) …Yes…the Senator…the others…you add it up…I may not have the answer but I got the problem…it don’t add up right now does it?

…The Senator…she and -name deleted- go way back. Long time. So if he saw somethin’ in Denver…he woulda told her. I have no doubt about that. He woulda told her, and he woulda told some others. A few folks. He was sharp enough…he was sharp period…he wouldn’t have gone off blabbin’ what he saw…not something like that…that woulda been dangerous to do. But he would…he woulda talked to a few folks about it initially. Carefully.

And he’s connected with Clinton people too…I didn’t tell you that before. A few of them…he mighta told them too as a means to…to protect himself.

UM: He was West Coast – he had ties to the Clintons?

Insider: Oh yeah…close friend of -Name Deleted – Tight. They did some work together back in…way back in ’94 – no….’92. Friends in high places and all that. They were…he mighta told him about it. Very possible.

UM: Back to the Senator…

Insider: The Senator…and another operative. I’ll start with him…he’s connected to the Senator…the story popped up in 2009. Shortly after Obama takes office. I hadn’t heard the story from -Name Deleted- about the convention yet. That would come later…like I said…we go there and back and there again on all this sh-t.

…so this other operative – he’s a big player in the party too. Connected. Gets himself into all kinds of trouble…heading to prison by the way.

UM: Who?

Insider: No names – no fu–ing names. Told you that…not gonna have the responsibility…you keep your mouth shut now and let me…you let me talk…this is coming out now so fine…let me be done with it…let it be done…

…This fella, he’s off to jail, but the sentence…he’ll be out soon enough. But somebody slapped him up hard on this thing…he pissed somebody off bad. The union boys…somebody is jerking his ass back in line…hard. That’s how I thought of back in ’09 when I first heard. Now…now you remember…he’s connected to the Senator…he’s connected to…he’s worked with -Name Deleted- …he mighta been told…I’m certain he was told about what happened in Denver. That’s why he got in trouble…he knew about it…maybe more…so he get’s stepped on. That’s how it’s done. They may not take your life…they’ll just mess you up good.

UM: Can you at least say what they are going to prison for?

Insider: For doing what so many of them are doing…for doing what has and will always be done…it’s just like Blago – EXACTLY like it. That boy knows things…he knows it. So…don’t kill the poor bastard outright…just give him a seriously tough warnin’. Same thing with this other fella – got no doubt about that. I was just trying to figure out the motivation…why they was gettin’ busted up. When I heard the Denver story…then him dyin’ like that…then it came together. Then I got that sick feelin’…way down in your stomach when you just know…you just know somethin’ ain’t right here.

…So this guy…his world starts to come crashing down in 2009…that’s the first big clue to the Denver situation. He’s being told to shut the f-ck up.

…Now we move into 2010…let’s say -Name Deleted-, he’s been tellin’ a few folks about what he saw in Denver…back in ’08. Maybe by now…maybe that got him to looking into some other things…maybe he’s gettin’ a bit…gettin’ scared. Now this is my speculation here…I got nothin’ to point at to confirm none of this…

UM: Understood – but given your track record of success…I’m fine hearing your thoughts. If you have a suspicion – I want to hear it.

Insider: Ok then…so let’s say my friend…he’s looking around a bit. He saw that sh-t go down in Denver…he’s wondering what the hell is up with that. He’s looking in some other places. There’s a campaign in 2010…and a candidate who is very much an Obama approved candidate. Does my friend work her campaign? Logic says hell yes he would, right? He worked to get Obama in during 2008. He helped organize the guy’s convention in Denver, right? So why wouldn’t he help to elect the person the Obama people want in that position?

…Except he doesn’t. He works against her. He works hard against her. And that campaign…that position…if he has concerns about a President of the United States…that position would be a very powerful weapon. Very powerful. So by working that campaign…my friend is working against the Obama people. He’s taking them on. And the position being fought over…it ties into Obamacare, immigration, the union deal…it’s big. Important. And a guy who helped usher…to bring Obama on as president…he’s now working hard against the administration. Somethin’ goin’ on there.

And that union deal…the card check legislation…the same Senator we been talking about…they come out against it. You know how that shook up the Obama White House? How pissed they were over that? Those union fellas…Gerard…the one you wrote so much about…he was all over that convention. Him and the Soros people…they were crawling all over that place. That’s another story there…some of the Hillary people…they were…right up to the day that convention got started…they were talking of staging a walk out…and the union fellas…word is they put the fear of God into them…literally threatened them, their families…they were told to sit the f-ck down. And that might be playing a part in all this too…probably is…the unions…this administration…

UM: Focus on the Senator…your friend…that campaign…

Insider: Right-right…the Senator…they are smacking up…right up against the union vote. Killing it. Kinda outta the blue on that…an odd thing. So you have them doing that…you got that other operative…he’s facing jail time…all this happens at about the same time. All of this…they are closely linked to my friend.

UM: The one who later died?

Insider: Yes…that’s…that’s right.

…and then in 2010 you got my friend going directly against the Obama administration – working against their candidate of choice. And you need to remember…California…Obama lost the primary out there. That plays a part in this…the president needed to lock up this position. That 2010 election was much more important to him than folks realize…and my friend…I’ll repeat it again…he was working against the Obama White House in 2010.

UM: Did your friend’s candidate win? The campaign they were working on?

Insider: Noooo…the Obama candidate won…and my gut says that left my friend…it left them exposed. Losing that election…if he had won it…like I said…he would have had a very powerful weapon against Barack Obama. But he lost…and that loss…that’s when he really started talking about what happened in Denver in 2008 – at the convention…that’s when I heard about it, not just from him, but a few others. So that means he was talking more…I think he was worried…and then it certainly came to the attention of…others.

(Long Pause) …he would be dead within months of losing that election. Timing…timing is everything huh? Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not…

…and the Senator…they don’t get out of this unscathed either…their entire…my understanding is their entire campaign fund…gone. Taken. And THAT is going down around the same time my friend dies. Again…you wanna call that coincidence? How much coincidence can a fella take before they start to question what the f-ck is going on? That’s where I was at at that point…what the f-ck is going on?

UM: Explain your thoughts on the theft – how that ties in to all of this.

Insider: I’ll do more than that – I’m gonna take it farther than what I told you before…this thing…what my friend mighta uncovered…it goes beyond Denver. I think they may have warned him after Denver…but he came across more than that…that’s my gut talkin’ again. My instinct – and I’ve been at this a loooong time. I know this playbook…some might say I helped write it. I certainly have come up with some of the rules over the years…

…that theft…the individual involved…no way they should have been in that position. Who authorized that? They already had baggage, a poor reputation…and she’s the one in charge of the millions of dollars sitting in a United States Senator’s campaign fund? Bullsh-t! NO way. NO fu–ing way. She was placed there by somebody with the authority…with the muscle to make that happen. Not in a state this important. Not with…like I said…all the things on the line…the union legislation…the challenges coming against Obamacare…no way a woman like that is allowed in that position unless she was there to do something very specific.

UM: The theft?

Insider: That is part of it…but I think it goes deeper. You come across those donation allegations that sorta swirled around the Obama campaign back in ’08? All the fake names…how difficult it was to trace the source?

UM: Vaguely.

Insider: What if you had certain groups…unions, foreign donations…whatever…they needed to get money – talking a sh-tload of money to Obama back when he was runnin’. I say this as somebody who experienced how much cash was floating around that campaign – it was unbelievable. Money was never an issue. NEVER. It was everywhere…and how…no way they raised all that money on the up and up. You just knew people were getting around the donation limits – had to be. There was…there was so much damn money in that campaign. Staggering.

UM: How does that relate to…to the theft from the Senator’s campaign?

Insider: What if the individual responsible for that theft…what if they were acting as some kind of laundering organization? And what if she represents a small fraction of the entire fu–ing operation that all ties back to the administration? Tens…hundreds of millions? Billions? Who the f-ck knows? The entire election system…the funding…what if it’s all corrupted? All of it?

This is out there stuff…I know. Sh-t yeah…I know…but what if my friend…he figured it out? Maybe it was that…maybe I’m way the f-ck off the mark here. But…you know the Obama campaign…somethin’ like $300 million…maybe more…probably more…it’s not disclosing those donors? It hasn’t yet? They never will. A ton of donors…laundered in…hidden from view…and that kind of money…you can buy a senator…you can buy a judge…you can buy…

…You’re willing to kill for it.

UM: How’s that possible? $300 million? Undisclosed?

Insider: Yes it’s possible – it was DONE. This president – Obama…he did it. Is doing it…and he’ll do it again…his people…they will do it again. And maybe this time…maybe they’re up to a billion dollars…more? Nobody knows. Money from China? Pakistan? Iran? Libya? Nobody fu–ing knows. That’s what I’m trying to lay out here…and I know it’s a convoluted mish…mish-mashing mess…that’s how they get away with it all. Make it all so damn…messy. You can’t follow it all…it’s impossible.

UM: But you think your friend might have been…looking into this stuff?

Insider: I do. Or something related to it…they were onto something. Let me try and summary – summarize it all up here.

You got a guy who is found dead. Alone. 50-odd years old. Been missing for a coupla weeks before they are discovered. No signs of foul play. The coroner comes out and says natural causes – no investigation. None. Now this person…they are kinda high profile…they got links to presidents for f-cks sake…and NO INVESTIGATION into cause of death? That’s a huge alarm right there. HUGE.

So this person now dead…you look back the past few years. They got a story…an awful strange story about the President of the United States. Soon after that story happened, they have a business associate getting charged – now going to jail. Good chance this individual was told about that story…and maybe more. Or maybe…coincidence?

You got a U.S. Senator…powerful Senator…they come out against the administration shortly after the events in Denver. Not long after. Why? Just politics? Or something else? Then again…maybe just coincidence.

You have my friend in 2010 battling against the Obama approved candidate for a position that could provide the means to take on the administration – full on. Now this campaign is going down less than a year before my friend is to be found dead. Coincidence?

Follow that up with the Senator who then has their campaign fund robbed by a person who once headed up a group called Californians for Obama. Coincidence?

And let’s talk about that time when my friend died. How the Senator…the words they used to describe that death. “No one knows HOW. No one knows WHEN. No one knows WHY.” My gut tells me that Senator may not know the answer to the first two…but they know…yes they know the answer to the third. And that statement…those words were chosen very carefully. And then they follow it up with speaking out BEFORE the president on the only real achievement the administration can try and claim as a victory – the Bin Laden killing? This senator is the one to make the first public announcement – not the president? And they chose to do so at the memorial for my friend? Coincidence?

No…this senator was sending a message. They knew the real deal about Bin Laden…or some of it. They knew enough to challenge…if backed into a corner they would…they would challenge the story the White House was gonna come out with – the story that painted Barack Obama as a hero. The senator was telling the White House to back off…

…you can snuff us out…people like me. But to take on a sitting Senator…even a president has to proceed with caution on that…especially if that senator has the goods, and I am pretty certain this one does.

So there’s that story. You think it’s got some value? Fine…publish it. Whatever. I’m gonna go back to work on Holder…get him out. He knows all of this sh-t. All of it. Get him gone…and it’s gonna be a campaign issue now. They delayed it…the administration…Issa played along…now it’s a campaign issue. Murderers. All of them. Fu–ing murderers…

(Silence)

…God I’m tired.

…You like Cash?

UM: Cash?

Insider: Yeah…Johnny Cash.

UM: Sure.

Insider: There’s a song of his…it was given to me a couple months back…I keep playing it over and over again. The more tired I get…the more I hear that song…

…I’m going to hell you know…done terrible things in this life. Hurt a lot of people. Ignored things I shouldn’t have…

(long pause)

…done…done terrible things…heaven ain’t an option for the likes a me…

UM: So long as you breath…there’s always options. Redemption…God forgives…God forgives even the worst of sin…

Insider: (Laughs) …Oh man…I wish I could see the world through your eyes for just a day…idealistic son-of-a-b-tch…

…No disrespect son…but…you don’t know ME. You really don’t…you don’t know the things…you don’t know what I’m capable of…what…Jesus Lord…the things I’ve done…

UM: You’re not all bad – I’ve seen that.

Insider: I’m a long-long way off from good…

UM: What’s the song?

Insider: What?

UM: The song – the Cash song?

Insider: Ah…the song. I hear it playin’ in my head now…all the time. Been hearing it when I’m talking to you…it just plays over and over…

…Damn tired son. This thing…all of it…I hope that good you say I got…I hope that’s enough…but I don’t think so. Not for me. Heaven ain’t for this old boy…

…That song…Hung My Head. That’s the name of it.

(Long drawn out sigh)

I Hung My Head…

White House Insider part 3

2012-the Year The U.S. falls into Tyranny!

The past year has been a bad one for democracy, and the Republic that once was the United States seems to live in name only. Because of the extreme abuses of power the Federal government has exercised just in the past year, the people of the Nation have been broken, discouraged and must now only be controlled.
A recent report in the state-run Russia Today cites an instructional military book, Non-Lethal Weapons Reference Book (leaked by PublicIntelligence.net) to outline the coming “high-tech crackdown” that may soon befall citizens of the United States deemed unruly.
If you have ever seen a farmer persuade his livestock to bend to his will with less-than-lethal methods such as cattle prods, whips and electric fences, you know how incredibly persuasive they can be to the animals. The U.S. government also knows a thing or two about controlling groups; unfortunately, the target isn’t unruly livestock, but U.S. citizens.

The report references one device that has already made a military debut in Afghanistan and that will likely become commonplace for domestic crowd control as law enforcement agencies throughout the country become increasingly militarized. The Active Denial System, which is described as a “long range, directed energy, vehicle mounted system that projects an invisible electromagnetic millimeter-wave energy beam beyond small arms range,” can be used as a non-lethal way to create extreme discomfort and quell group dissent.
Other military implements that may soon see use within U.S. borders include Acoustic Hailing Devices that provide “scalable, directional warning tones” causing “auditory damage” and the Distributed Sound and Light Array which “uses a combined laser, non-coherent light, and acoustics to produce a synergistic engagement system.” Other systems can completely disable motor vehicles and emit acoustic waves that make it impossible for crowds to shout without discomfort and nausea.
While many Americans deny that the U.S. government will ever use such weapons on a widespread basis against dissenters, recent developments in the country appear to indicate otherwise. The crackdowns on OWS camps carried out by police in riot/military gear, armed with tear gas canisters and rubber bullets, indicate that when large masses of people cry out, no matter what the political agenda, they will be quieted by local, State and/or Federal officials.
Before the crackdowns on the OWS camps, the Federal government demonstrated its willingness to bypass the judiciary system anytime an individual poses a threat to its agenda. In September, the Administration of Barack Obama executed U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in the mountains of Yemen with a drone strike. Though he often spoke on behalf of al-Qaida, it could be reasonably assumed that al-Awlaki’s citizenship status gave him the right to trial before execution. The Administration disagrees: Pentagon lawyer Jeh Johnson said of the execution that only the executive branch, not the courts, is equipped to make military battlefield targeting decisions about who qualifies as an enemy.
Johnson’s statement would be less alarming if the Administration — with the help of hawkish neoconservatives like Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) — had not recently passed a military spending bill with provisions that effectively designate American soil a battlefield and every American a possible enemy. The bill gives the President the ability to indefinitely detain terror suspects, but this comes at a time when the lines of what constitutes “terror” are becoming increasingly blurry. The Federal government is currently in active negotiations with members of the Taliban, and Obama has made it clear that anyone who rejects his agenda is considered a “right-wing domestic terrorist.”
How long will it take for Federal government to decide it necessary to carry out al-Awlaki style executions on those deemed “domestic terrorists” as they sit in their homes in the United States? With the increasing use of military drones in U.S. airspace, the idea is not so far-fetched. The same Federal agencies that carried out fatally-flawed operations like those in Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in the 1990s now have aerial drones and a license to kill in the name of Homeland Security. Some people may think that the agencies have refined their methods since those days; others have been following news about Operation Fast and Furious, the most recent endeavor by the Department of Justice, and know better.
Those people who do not believe the Federal government is out to harm them by breaking their will, dehumanizing them and bending them to be the subservient masses that will keep it afloat should simply take a flight. If being prodded, poked and virtually stripped naked by poorly trained agents of the Transportation Security Administration is not bad enough, how about having very personal belongings fondled, food stolen and grandmothers groped by the TSA? All are tactics of dehumanization to create subservient masses, and all are things that happened to American travelers last year.
Aside from quashing unruly masses and making problems disappear, the Federal government wants to keep tabs on the information being put out by journalists and bloggers throughout the Nation with a new Homeland Security initiative. According to Russia Today, in a new report, the Department reserves the right to collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”
And while Homeland Security is busy putting together a plan to rid the country of any bad press, Congress has been working to sanitize the Internet. Pending legislation like SOPA and the Protect IP Act will effectively give American citizens about as much online freedom as citizens of China.

Some Americans may think that if they are not in the public eye, don’t regularly protest and are not members of al-Qaida, they are not subject to government intrusion. But a recent decision by Magistrate Judge David Noce in United States v. Robinson says that as long as you park your vehicle in public parking lots or use public roadways, law enforcement has the ability to install a GPS tracking device with no warrant to log where you travel if they believe you “may be involved in criminal activities.”
When the First Congress enacted the original Crimes Act in 1790, with only 17 recognized Federal crimes, it may have been reasonable to assume that as long as a person was a law-abiding citizen, he was not at risk of intrusion. Today, though, there are more than 4,500 Federal crimes — and many are so obscure that they are nearly indecipherable. In addition to the 4,500 Federal crimes, there are tens of thousands of Federal regulations. Many people commit criminal acts daily without even knowing they are doing so.
Last year was a very busy one for all of those interested in ending American life as it is and has been known. The United States that was a Republic has already collapsed and has very quietly become a totalitarian regime, complete with a dictator named Obama and a Congress that bends to his will and continually legislates in such a way that would make any totalitarian regime proud. Together they have done everything in their power to undermine the Constitution and name themselves as the all-powerful ruling class. And with the undoing of the ideas of the Founders and the ruination of but a few more checks and balances, they will effectively claim their supremacy.
So what have Americans lost and why does the ruling class have to do away with the Constitution and the rights it gives to every American citizen? It is explained by James Madison, who contended that there was no way American lawmakers could declare themselves a ruling class under the provisions of the Constitution, in the 57th volume of the Federalist Papers:
If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America — a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.
Those who are working so hard to claim themselves a ruling class know that their goal cannot be achieved if there is such a thing as a population that holds dear its “vigilant and manly spirit.” And they know how to slowly break that spirit without alarm by dehumanizing populations — luring people into accepting tyrannical rule in the guise of laws claimed to exist for public safety, homeland security or the better good of humanity. Unlike Madison, they always leave out words like freedom and never discuss the great threats government poses to the people, but contrarily advise vigilance to combat the people’s threat to the government.
Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul has been warning the public of many of these frightening developments for more than 35 years. Now, as he vies for the Nation’s highest office, many of his predictions have come true. Maybe it is time Americans listened to the “kook,” because those things he said would happen — predictions Americans once considered to be crazy and far-fetched — are now reality. He may be the Nation’s last hope to a path back to some semblance of the Constitutional Republic created by the Founders.
Editor’s note: It’s time to make your submissions for this month’s You Sound Off! feature, which will run Jan. 25. Get your submission in by Jan. 23. It should be no more than 750 words (if they are longer, we probably won’t read them). We will select the one or two we think are the best of the week to publish. We reserve the right to edit for grammar and style but will try not to alter the meaning.
Send your submissions to yousoundoff@personalliberty.com. Please include your name, address and telephone number (only your name will be published) so we can contact you if we need to clarify something. Anonymous submissions will not be considered.–BL

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