A Day in the Life: 8/2/10

[Prez]

Government of the USA in Exile Free Americans Reaching Out to
Amerika's Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free Via
<pr...@usa-exile.org<mailto:pr...@usa-exile.org>> August 2, 2010

HAARP: Secret Weapon Used For Weather Modification, Electromagnetic
Warfare

by Fred Burks

Global Research<http://www.globalresearch.ca/>, August 2, 2010
WantToKnow.info<http://WantToKnow.info/> - 2010-08-01

"It isn't just conspiracy theorists who are concerned about HAARP.
The European Union called the project a global concern and passed
a resolution calling for more information on its health and
environmental risks. Despite those concerns, officials at HAARP
insist the project is nothing more sinister than a radio science
research facility."

-- Quote from a TV
documentary<http://www.personalgrowthcourses.net/video/haarp_video_documentary>
on HAARP by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) is a
little-known, yet critically important U.S. military defense program
which has generated quite a bit of controversy over the years in
certain circles. Though denied by HAARP officials, some respected
researchers allege that secret electromagnetic warfare capabilities
of HAARP are designed to forward the US military's stated
goal<http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45289> of
achieving full-spectrum dominance by the year 2020. Others go so
far as to claim that HAARP can and has been used for weather
modification, to cause earthquakes and tsunamis, to disrupt global
communications systems, and more.

Major aspects of the program are kept secret for alleged reasons
of "national security." Yet there is no doubt that HAARP and
electromagnetic weapons capable of being used in warfare do exist.
According to the official HAARP
website<http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/gen.html>, "HAARP is a
scientific endeavor aimed at studying the properties and behavior
of the ionosphere, with particular emphasis on being able to
understand and use it to enhance communications and surveillance
systems for both civilian and defense purposes." The
ionosphere<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionosphere> is the delicate
upper layer of our atmosphere which ranges from about 30 miles (50
km) to 600 miles (1,000 km) above the surface of the Earth.

The HAARP website acknowledges<http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/gen.html>
that experiments are conducted which use electromagnetic frequencies
to fire pulsed, directed energy beams in order to "temporarily
excite a limited area of the
ionosphere<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionosphere>." Some scientists
state that purposefully disturbing this sensitive layer could have
major and even disastrous consequences. Concerned HAARP researchers
like Dr. Michel
Chossudovsky<http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO201A.html>
of the University of Ottawa and Alaska's Dr. Nick
Begich<http://www.earthpulse.com/src/category.asp?catid=13> (son
of a US Congressman) present evidence suggesting that these
disturbances can even cause tsunamis and earthquakes.

Two key major media documentaries, one by Canada's public broadcasting
network CBC<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBC> and the other by the
History Channel, reveal the inner workings of HAARP in a most
powerful way. The very well researched CBC documentary includes
this key quote:

"It isn't just conspiracy theorists who are concerned about HAARP.
In January of 1999, the European Union called the project a global
concern and passed a resolution calling for more information on its
health and environmental risks. Despite those concerns, officials
at HAARP insist the project is nothing more sinister than a radio
science research facility."

To view the European Union (EU) document which brings HAARP and
similar electromagnetic
weapons<http://www.wanttoknow.info/050812electromagneticbeamweapons> into
question, click
here<http://www.europarl.europa.eu/pv2/pv2?PRG=DOCPV&APP=PV2&DATE=280199&DATEF=990128&TPV=DEF&TYPEF=A4&POS=1&SDOCTA=8&TXTLST=1&Type_Doc=RESOL&PrgPrev=TYPEF@A4%7CPRG@QUERY%7CAPP@PV2%7CFILE@BIBLIO99%7CNUMERO@5%7CYEAR@99%7CPLAGE@1&LANGUE=EN>.
The actual wording at bullet point 24 in this telling document
states that the EU "considers HAARP by virtue of its far-reaching
impact on the environment to be a global concern and calls for its
legal, ecological and ethical implications to be examined by an
international independent body before any further research and
testing." This reveling document further states that the EU regrets
the repeated refusal of the U.S. government to send anyone to give
evidence on HAARP.

To watch this engaging 15-minute CBC documentary online, click
here<http://www.personalgrowthcourses.net/video/haarp_video_documentary>.
For an even more detailed and revealing 45-minute History Channel
documentary on HAARP and other secret weapons used for electromagnetic
warfare, click
here<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4515534125267138757>. Below
are two quotes from the History Channel documentary:

"Electromagnetic weapons ... pack an invisible wallop hundreds of
times more powerful than the electrical current in a lightning bolt.
One can blast enemy missiles out of the sky, another could be used
to blind soldiers on the battlefield, still another to control an
unruly crowd by burning the surface of their skin. If detonated
over a large city, an electromagnetic weapon could destroy all
electronics in seconds. They all use directed energy to create a
powerful electromagnetic pulse."

"Directed energy is such a powerful technology it could be used to
heat the ionosphere to turn weather into a weapon of war. Imagine
using a flood to destroy a city or tornadoes to decimate an approaching
army in the desert. The military has spent a huge amount of time
on weather modification as a concept for battle environments. If
an electromagnetic pulse went off over a city, basically all the
electronic things in your home would wink and go out, and they would
be permanently destroyed."

For those who still doubt that such devastating secret weapons have
been developed, here is an intriguing quote from an
article<http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?ObjectID=14727> in New
Zealand's leading newspaper, the New Zealand Herald:

"Top-secret wartime experiments were conducted off the coast of
Auckland to perfect a tidal wave bomb, declassified files reveal.
United States defence chiefs said that if the project had been
completed before the end of the war, it could have played a role
as effective as that of the atom bomb. Details of the tsunami bomb,
known as Project Seal<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Seal>,
are contained in 53-year-old documents released by the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Trade."

If the military secretly developed a weapon which could cause a
tsunami over half a century ago, what kind of advanced deadly weapons
might be available now? And why is it that the general public still
doesn't know about secret weapons developed over 50 years ago? To
understand why the media isn't covering these highly critical issues,
click here<http://www.wanttoknow.info/mediacover-up>. Clearly the
military has the capability to cause a tsunami and likely to cause
earthquakes and hurricanes, as well. It's time for us to take action
to spread the word on this vital topic.

Having interpreted to for top generals in my work as a language
interpreter<http://www.wanttoknow.info/050418fredburksinterpretingstories>
with the US Department of State, I learned that military planners
are always interested in developing the most devastating weapons
possible. Yet these weapons are kept secret as long as possible,
allegedly for reasons of national security. The many layers of
intense secrecy both in the military and government result in very
few people being aware of the gruesome capabilities for death and
destruction that have been developed over the years. There are many
examples of major defense projects kept successfully out of the
public's eyes for years and even decades.

The massive Manhattan
Project<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_project> (development
of the first atomic bomb) is one such example. The building of an
entire city to support the project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee was
successfully kept
secret<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_project#Project_sites> even
from the state's governor. The stealth bomber was kept top secret
for many years, and the public still has no way of knowing it's
full capabilities. It is through the use of the highly organized
military and intelligence services that the power
elite<http://www.wanttoknow.info/secretsocietiesnewsarticles> of
our world, working in cooperation with key allies in government and
corporate ownership of the media, are able to carry out major
cover-ups and secret operations like those involved with HAARP.

Some researchers have raised questions about the possible
involvement<http://montalk.net/conspiracy/142/haarp-earthquakes-and-hurricanes>
of HAARP in major disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, Indonesian
tsunami, and hurricane Katrina. Could these have been HAARP experiments
gone awry? Might they even have been caused by rogue elements which
gained control of this devastating technology. Of course disasters
like this happen regularly on a natural basis, yet if you begin to
research, there is some high strangeness around some of these
disasters. The evidence is inconclusive, yet with the known and
unknown major destructive capabilities of this weapon, serious
questions remain.

Jesse Ventura, the former Navy Seal who turned pro wrestler only
to then become governor of Minnesota, has also done a special on
HAARP that is a bit sensationalized, yet contains useful information.
You can watch this special on YouTube at this
link<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh2gbJA898s>.

================================================================================================

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/02-1 Published on
Monday, August 2, 2010 by the Battlecreek Enquirer
(Michigan)<http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20100802/OILSPILL/8020324/Canadians+protest+Enbridge+expansion+plans>

Canadians Not Surprised at Enbridge Oil Spill in Michigan

by Elizabeth Willis

Canadians familiar with North America's largest oil pipeline
operation, Enbridge Inc., say they are not surprised that the company
has spilled oil again.

[cid:A5F1A6DC-2B0D-4C67-828E-06B9666F2A06@local]

Greenpeace protesters dressed as oil workers walks past the flow
of molasses and water meant to represent an oil spill outside the
offices of pipeline and energy company Enbridge in Vancouver, British
Columbia July 28, 2010. The Greenpeace group were protesting the
pipeline burst on the Kalamazoo River in the United States and the
future plans to build a new pipeline in British Columbia. REUTERS/Andy
Clark

Enbridge, based in Calgary, last week reported that an estimated
819,000 gallons of crude oil had leaked from its 41-year-old pipeline
into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. The Line 6B pipe carries
crude from Indiana to Ontario.

As lawsuits begin to emerge, so has information about the company's
history of failed pipelines.

Patrick Daniel, Enbridge president and chief executive officer,
said Saturday there has "never" been a leak of this "consequence"
in the company's history.

The spill is the largest for Enbridge in the United States by volume
and the company has a history of spills throughout Canada and the
U.S., according to the Polaris Institute, an Ottawa-based advocacy
group for democratic social change.

The institute reports that Enbridge was responsible for 610 spills
that released more than 5.5 million gallons of oil between 1999 and
2008. The total is about half of what spilled from the Exxon Valdez
after it ran aground in the Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989.

"The Michigan spill should be wake-up call for those who would allow
Enbridge to build two 1,170 kilometer pipelines from the Alberta
tar sands to the (British Columbia) coast," the institute said on
its website Wednesday. "The question is not 'if' a catastrophic
spill will occur on this route, but 'when'."

The institute is referring to plans Enbridge has to ship super
tankers carrying bitumen, an asphalt-like substance, from the Alberta
tar sands through the coast of British Columbia, including the
fragile Great Bear Rainforest. The Canadian federal government also
is reviewing company plans to build twin 715-mile underground pipes
capable of transporting 525,000 barrels daily across Alberta and
British Columbia.

Canadian Union of Public Employees on Thursday issued a statement
of opposition to the plan spurred by the Kalamazoo River and Gulf
of Mexico disasters. It joined First Nations, representing ethnic
Canadian Aboriginal groups, and environmental organizations in
opposing the Enbridge Northern Gateway plan."As we've seen in
Michigan and the Gulf coast, any kind of oil spill on our coast
would have a tremendous impact on the natural environment and would
impact wildlife, including salmon and the Kermode bear which is
unique to the Great Bear Rainforest," said Leanne Louie, CUPE British
Columbia diversity vice-president for aboriginal workers, in a
statement. "With the BP oil spill, the damage is irreversible. We
can't let that happen here."

Greenpeace Canada on Wednesday occupied an Enbridge office in
Vancouver demanding that Enbridge withdraw its Northern Gateway
application.

With oil collected from the Gulf oil spill, activists wrote "B C
Next?" on its glass office doors, according to its website. They
set up a mock pipeline outside the office to simulate an oil spill
in British Columbia's natural habitats.

Enbridge stock prices have fallen $1.92 between opening on July 26
at $50.56 per share -- before the leak was announced -- and closing
Friday at $48.64 per share on the New York Stock Exchange, despite
a positive second quarter report Wednesday.

"While we're very proud of our second quarter financial performance,
unfortunately, we are reporting those results at the same time as
members of our team are in Michigan doing their utmost to respond
to the leak," Daniel said in a statement, noting the leak has been
stopped and clean-up operations are in full swing.

Despite the Kalamazoo spill being one of Enbridge's largest, financial
analysts have said it appears the oil spill will not have a significant
effect on the company's bottom line. They are encouraged by the
fact that the company is insured against these types of disasters
and that it has plans to expand.

The company reported Wednesday its U.S. affiliate, Houston-based
Enbridge Energy Partners, plans to buy the natural gas pipeline and
processing company Elk City Gathering and Processing System for
$682 million. Its 800 miles of pipe extend from Oklahoma to Texas.

Analysts say, however, that because of the protests and recent oil
spill, the company will have a harder time selling its Enbrige
Northern Gateway expansion plan in British Columbia.

================================================================================================

Scientists Deeply Concerned About BP Disaster's Long-Term Impact

by Dahr Jamail

Global Research<http://www.globalresearch.ca/>, August 2, 2010 Inter
Press Service<http://ipsnews.net/>

GULFPORT, Louisiana, - Contrary to recent media reports of a quick
recovery in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists and biologists are "deeply
concerned" about impacts that will likely span "several decades".

"My prediction is that we will be dealing with the impacts of this
spill for several decades to come and it will outlive me," Dr. Ed
Cake, a biological oceanographer, as well as a marine and oyster
biologist, told IPS, "I won't be here to see the recovery."

Cake's grim assessment stems partially from a comparison he made
to the Exxon Valdez oil disaster and the second largest oil disaster
in the Gulf of Mexico (BP's being the largest), that of the Ixtoc-1
blowout well in the Bay of Campeche in 1979.

"The impacts of the Exxon Valdez are still being felt 21 years
later," Cake said, "The impacts of the Ixtoc-1 are still being felt
and known, 31 years later. I know folks who study oysters in bays
in the Yucatan Peninsula, and oysters there have still not returned,
31 years later. So as an oyster biologist I'm concerned about that.
Those things are still affected 31 years later, and that was a
smaller spill by comparison."

He is also concerned about deepwater habitats. Given that BP has
used at least 1.9 million gallons of chemically toxic dispersants,
the vast majority of the oil has remained beneath the surface, and
much of that has sunk to the sea floor.

As an example, he cited "a new coral colony ecosystem" within 10
miles of BP's blowout Macondo Well, which was found by a pipeline
company whilst it was producing an environmental impact assessment
statement of the route of the pipeline.

"They found some amazing coral communities that no one knew about,
and now they will be covered in oil," Cake said, "Those will not
recover."

Dr. Stephen Cofer-Shabica, an oceanographer in South Carolina,
focuses on the biology of barrier islands. He monitored the affects
of the Ixtoc-1 oil disaster on Padre Island National Seashore in
south Texas.

"You can go back now, 31 years later, and there's still oil in the
sand there [Padre Island]," he told IPS. But his main concern is
now about what the state of Louisiana is doing in response to BP's
oil disaster.

Louisiana's Governor Bobby Jindal has authorised the dredging and
building of sand berms near Louisiana's barrier islands in an effort
to keep oil away from the shore. One area where the dredging project
is still underway is the Chandeleur Islands.

"The Chandeleur project is totally futile and a waste of resources,
and I can't believe they are still doing it," Dr. Cofer-Shabica
said, "That's what I find totally unfathomable. There's oil floating
around underwater, that has been dispersed and these barrier islands,
as constructs, will not have any effect on that oil at all."

According to Dr. Cofer-Shabica, the so-called fix is actually a
hugely destructive problem. "From an oceanographic perspective,
this was biologically destructive, especially when you start digging
up the bottom in shallow water, and building these barrier islands."

He added, "Louisiana is in a precarious position anyway because of
the subsiding that is happening in the delta, and on top of that
you have worldwide sea-level rise, so it has two physical factors
that are working against its marshes. So building barrier islands
to presumably keep oil out, amidst rising sea levels, makes no
sense."

In addition to this, he said that the biological impacts of building
islands "are larger than the physical impacts," and said this of
dredging sediment from those areas: "You're in shallow water that
is biologically rich with clams, worms, and bacteria, that will all
be dug up and destroyed."

Dr. Cake is also worried about oil contaminating the oysters. He
has seen much oil in Louisiana's marshes. "One of the experts with
us worked for NOAA on the Exxon Valdez spill, and he told me if the
oil is on the marsh grass, it's in the oysters."

BP and the Coast Guard are currently under scrutiny for having used
so much oil dispersant, an industrial solvent that breaks up the
oil so that it will sink below the surface.

For example, a 1979 report, "Effects of Corexit 9527 on the
Hatchability of Mallard Eggs" in the Bulletin of Environmental
Contamination and Toxicology, showed that even though dispersants
are applied to minimise oil impacts to visible and charismatic
species, Corexit actually enhances the lethal effects of crude oil
on birds that are exposed.

Corexit 9527 penetrates eggshells and shell membranes as readily
as crude oil. When applied to an eggshell near the embryo, the
embryo would fuse to the shell membrane and die within 24 hours.

"Corexit breaks the oil up into micro-globules," Dr. Cake said,
"That's the harmful part for oysters. Oysters are filter feeders,
and they feed on a range of three to 12 millionths of a meter as
particles. You can grind up graphite from a pencil in fine enough
particles and they'll run it through their system. It's the same
with the micro- globules of oil. They'll be taken in, but in going
through the system, and in absorbing some of that oil, it'll cause
lesions. So it's actually what the Corexit does to the oil that'll
affect the oysters in the end."

According to Dr. Cake, his study teams have people watching and
monitoring affected areas.

"In the past month, in Bretton and Chandeleur Sounds, oil was there
during the day, it was sprayed with Corexit at night, and the next
day it was gone. Where did it go? It went to the bottom, and that's
adjacent to where these oyster farms are. So at that point, there's
a lot less water for that Corexit to disperse into, and there may
be an impact from that on the oysters."

Cake said that while scientists have found very large plumes of
dispersed oil at depth, "I'm not sure that oil will ever get here
as dispersed clouds. It's getting here as sunken clouds, because
that's what they [BP] wanted it to do. Sink it, get it out of sight
out of mind."

Chasidy Hobbs with Emerald Coastkeeper in Pensacola, Florida, is
on the City of Pensacola Environmental Advisory Board and Escambia
County Citizens Environmental Committee. Hobbs also directs the
environmental litigation research firm, Geography and Environment.

"We're poisoning the entire Gulf of Mexico food web," Hobbs, who
is also an instructor and advisor in the Environmental Studies
Department at University of West Florida, told IPS. "It's crazy,
and it's criminal. I'm deeply concerned with the long-term ecological
and human impact."

Dr. Cake is among a large and growing group of scientists who are
discussing a grim future for much of the Gulf of Mexico as a result
of BP's disaster.

"The oil itself on the bottom is being eaten by bacteria. This has
always been the case in naturally occurring seeps across the Gulf.
But now we've introduced much more oil, and as the bacteria grow
they are consuming the oxygen that is in that area. And that oxygen
loss will result in dead/hypoxic zones, like the one off the West
side of the Mississippi over towards Galveston where there's one
that is 3,000 square mile area of dead bottom. Now we're looking
at that along the eastern part because of the presence of so much
more bacteria."

================================================================================================

Shock Wave and Bubble: the Untruth about the Cheonan 'Proof' that
the Cheonan was sunk by North Korea has been thoroughly discredited

by Hilary Keenan

Global Research<http://www.globalresearch.ca/>, August 1, 2010
21stcenturysocialism.com<http://21stcenturysocialism.com/article/shock_wave_and_bubble_the_untruth_about_the_cheonan_02006.html>
- 2010-07-18

Only a small coterie in the USA and South Korea know for sure what
really happened to the South Korean warship. But, unreported in the
Western media, the 'proof' that the Cheonan was sunk by North Korea
has been thoroughly discredited.

As is often the case following a negotiated outcome, both sides
claimed victory. After the final text on the sinking of the South
Korean corvette was agreed by the five permanent members of the
United Nations Security Council on 9th July, the Whitehouse issued
a statement which asserted:

* Todaybs UN Security Council Presidential statement condemns the
attack by North Korea on the Cheonan and warns North Korea that the
international community will not tolerate such aggressive behavior
against the Republic of Korea. The unanimous statement, reflecting
the shared view of the 5 members of the Six-Party Talks, constitutes
an endorsement of the findings of the Joint Investigative Group
that established North Koreabs responsibility for the attack.

But the UNSC Presidential
statement<http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-50016020100709>
did no such thing. It did not condemn 'the attack by North Korea'
or 'warn North Korea', because it did not name the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as the culprit. And it did
not endorse the findings of the Joint Investigative Group which was
appointed by the government of the Republic of Korea (South Korea).
The wording of the statement on this matter was much more cautious:

* In view of the findings of the Joint Civilian-Military Investigation
Group led by the ROK with the participation of five nations, which
concluded that the DPRK was responsible for sinking the Cheonan,
the Security Council expresses its deep concern.

Following which, the UNSC statement added:

* The Security Council takes note of the responses from other
relevant parties, including from the DPRK, which has stated that
it had nothing to do with the incident...

The Security Council welcomes the restraint shown by the ROK and
stresses the importance of maintaining peace and stability on the
Korean Peninsula and in northeast Asia as a whole.

In contrast to the US government's claims, the editors of the New
York Times made no attempt to portray the position reached at the
UNSC as any kind of success for United States diplomacy. Rather,
the NYT's editorial on 9th July, entitled 'Security Council Blinks',
ranted with frustration:

* 'Lowest common denominator' is too often the standard at the
United Nations. Even then, the Security Councilbs new statement on
the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan is absurdly,
dangerously lame...

Forty-six South Korean sailors died last March when the warship
sank in disputed waters. Seoul quickly accused North Korea of
torpedoing the ship but showed admirable restraint, inviting in an
international team to investigate. The team did its work and agreed
that a North Korean ship was responsible. South Korea produced a
torpedo propeller with North Korean markings.

Contrary to the assertion by the New York Times editorial writers,
it is not the case that, following the sinking, the ROK 'quickly
accused North Korea of torpedoing the ship'. Although South Korea's
current right wing government is pro-US and very hostile to the
DPRK, the initial ROK official position was that it was unlikely
that North Korea was involved- the reason being that no evidence
could be obtained to implicate the DPRK, and the information that
was available was in contradiction to the theory that North Korean
forces had sunk the warship. As the South Korean newspaper The
Hankyoreh
reported<http://%20http//english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/413713.html>
on 1st April:

* In the immediate wake of the incident, the Cheong Wa Dae (the
presidential office in South Korea or Blue House) and the military
detailed the chance of North Korean involvement as slight. Following
a security-related ministerial meeting presided over by President
Lee Myung-bak just after the accident took place on Friday night,
Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Eun-hye was circumspect, saying, bAt
present, we are not clear about the question of a North Korean
connection.b In a National Assembly briefing Saturday, Lee Ki-sik,
head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff intelligence operations office,
said, bNo North Korean warships have been detected, and there is
no possibility of their approaching the waters where the accident
took place.b Additionally, the military has stressed on multiple
occasions that it has picked up no bunusual trendsb in North Korean
military movements while monitoring...

As recently as Tuesday, Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Park Sun-kyu said,
bAs of now, nothing has emerged indicating that North Korea was
involved.b

Even by April 20th, as the British Daily Mail newspaper
acknowleged<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1267439/North-Korean-mini-sub-torpedoed-Souths-navy-vessel-revenge-attack-spy-claims.html>:

* Seoul has not openly blamed Pyongyang for the sinking of the
Cheonan, one of South Korea's worst naval disasters.

Investigation or cover up?

As for the action of the ROK authorities in, as claimed by the New
York Times and other Western media outlets, "inviting in an
international team to investigate", this assertion is highly
misleading. In fact the Joint Civilian-Military Investigation Group
(JIG) was appointed by the South Korean government, and apart from
a very small number of foreign participants was drawn overwhelmingly
from the South Korean military and defence establishment. As a
footnote to an article<http://www.japanfocus.org/-JJ-Suh/3382> in
the Asia-Pacific Journal records:

* Despite its name b the Joint Civilian-Military Investigation
Group b the absolute majority of its members, 65 out of 74, work
for the [South Korean] Ministry of National Defense or MND-related
think tanks and institutes. One of its two heads, Pak ChGng-I, was
a three star general at the time of the investigation, and was
subsequently promoted to a four star status after the release of
the report.

The foreign participants in the JIG were selected from Western
countries- the USA, Britain, Canada, and Australia, with the partial
inclusion of Sweden. Although its description as an 'international
team' conveys the implication of objectivity and impartiality, it
included no Russians or Chinese, nor even any French or Germans.

On May 6th, Reuters reported the
claim<http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6460FC20100507> of a
senior South Korean government official that the investigators had
decided that the Cheonan had been sunk by a torpedo- the evidence
for this was the discovery of traces of materials consistent with
a German-made torpedo in the wreckage of the ship:

* Investigators probing the deadly sinking of a South Korean navy
ship in March near the North have concluded that a torpedo was the
source of an explosion that destroyed the vessel, a news report
said on Friday.

The team of South Korean and foreign investigators found traces of
explosives used in torpedoes on several parts of the sunken ship
as well as pieces of composite metal used in such weapons, South
Korea's Yonhap news agency said quoting a senior government official...

The metallic debris and chemical residue appear to be consistent
with a type of torpedo made in Germany, indicating the North may
have been trying to disguise its involvement by avoiding arms made
by allies China and Russia, Yonhap quoted the official as saying.

North Korea has denied involvement and accused South Korean President
Lee Myung-bak's government of trying to use the incident for political
gains ahead of local elections in June.

How the North Koreans could have obtained a German torpedo, or
manufactured one which would leave traces consistent with those of
a German torpedo, was apparently not remarked on by the ROK official.

At a press conference on May 20th, it was announced that the Joint
Civilian-Military Investigation Group had completed its interim
investigation. The group's report, which has been variously described
as being 250 or 400 pages long, was not made available to the public-
for security reasons, of course- and only a five page
summary<http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/20_05_10jigreport.pdf>
was presented.

Smoking gun, rusting torpedo

The JIG report's conclusion was that the Cheonan was sunk by "a
shock wave and bubble effect generated by an underwater explosion...
caused by a torpedo made in North Korea", and parts of the rear
section of a torpedo which had supposedly been dredged up from the
sea bed on May 15th, in the vicinity of the disaster, were exhibited
at a press confererence as the definitive 'smoking gun'.

For proof that it was of DPRK origin, the South Korean officials
pointed firstly to the symbol 'number 1' in Korean, written clearly
in marker pen on one of the components, in ink which had survived
both the huge explosion which had blown the warship in half and the
heavy corrosion which had degraded the remains of the torpedo; and
secondly to a diagram of a torpedo which they claimed was from a
North Korean weapons catalogue that had come into their possession.
The dredged up torpedo parts, according to the JIG report summary,
bperfectly match the schematics of the CHT-02D torpedo included in
introductory brochures provided to foreign countries by North Korea
for export purposes.b

There was no mention at the press conference or in the JIG report
summary of any Germanic characteristics, either in the samples taken
from the wreck of the Cheonan, or in the rusting torpedo components
which were put on display.

In an article in a local Canadian newspaper, the Vancouver Sun on
June 18th, Jonathan Manthorpe
remarked<http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Explanation+questionable+sinking+South+Korean+corvette/3169713/story.html>
on the JIG summary:

* The problems with this summary fall into two main categories.
One is the process by which the investigation was undertaken and
the roles of the people involved. Some statements suggest the
international experts played little or no assertive role in the
inquiry and simply reviewed what the South Korean team members put
before them.

The second is the feeble nature of the evidence that has been made
public.

The summary statement actually refers to two reports. The first
four pages assess physical evidence from the retrieved sections of
the Cheonan, which broke in two as it sank.

This assessment included experts from South Korea, the U.S., the
United Kingdom, Australia and Sweden.

It is this section that concludes that the Cheonan was broken in
half and sunk as the result of a torpedo exploding under its hull.
Analysis of some fragments found on the seabed a few days before
publication of the report indicates, says the report, that it was
a North Korean-manufactured torpedo.

For some reason which is not explained, the Swedish representative
on this team refused to sign the statement. Indeed, it has been
hard to follow up on the report because most of the international
experts involved remain anonymous.

So what role the Swedish action played in the forming, late in the
day, of another international team on May 4 is hard to judge. This
team is called the Multinational Combined Intelligence Task Force
and includes most of the countries fighting under the United Nations
flag against North Korea in the 1950-53 war on the peninsula. That
is: the U.S., Australia, Canada and Britain.

It is the one-page summary of this team's assessment that concludes
there is no other credible explanation for the sinking than a torpedo
fired by a North Korean submarine.

Following the publication of the JIG report's summary and the press
conference at which the remains of the torpedo with ''North Korean
markings" were exhibited alongside a life-size reproduction, several
metres long, of the torpedo diagram from the North Korean export
brochure, the US and the South Korean authorities felt that they
were now in a position to achieve a significant advance in their
objective of increasingly isolating the DPRK. For the USA, there
was also another problem which the 'proven' allegation against North
Korea would help to resolve- the threat by the Japanese government
to remove the US base on the island of Okinawa, the biggest United
States military emplacement in the Eastern hemisphere.

Intransigence

The New York Times editorial of July 9th continued:

* Afterward [ie, after the JIG's summary was issued], Seoul and
Washington both condemned Pyongyangbs actions and vowed to obtain
a similarly tough Security Council statement. But all in all, South
Korea continues to exercise restraint.

China, which has veto power on the Council, insisted on watering
down the statement. The Obama administration could not change its
mind...

The statement bunderscored the importance of preventing further
such attacks or hostilities againstb South Korea or in the region.
But given the weasel wording about blame, it is hard to imagine
that Pyongyang will listen.

The reaction of DPRK officials to the Security Council Presidential
Statement was jubilant. According to RFE/RL, which headlined its
report<http://www.rferl.org/content/article/2095977.html> 'UN
Condemns South Korea Ship Sinking, Avoids Blaming North Korea':

* Sin Son-ho, North Korea's permanent representative to the UN,
called the council's action a success for his country.

"It is our great diplomatic victory,b he said. bFrom the beginning
of the incident we have made our position very clear that this
incident has nothing to do with us."

The major victor in this diplomatic battle, however, was the People's
Republic of China; which has succeeded- despite repeated predictions
that it would succumb to US pressure and concede that North Korea
was responsible for the explosion which sunk the Cheonan- not only
in maintaining the independence of its own foreign policy from that
of the USA, but in ensuring that the text which was eventually
adopted by the Security Council on this issue was closer to the
Chinese position than that of the US. Furthermore, as the RFE/RL
article noted:

* In a bow to North Koreabs ally China, which is a permanent
member of the [Security] council and thus has a veto power, the
group adopted a presidential statement instead of the resolution
that was requested by South Korea and Japan.

The presidential statement is a weaker form of censure than a
resolution.

The second key victor at the UNSC was Russia. In tune with their
country's current effort to achieve a rapprochement with the Russian
authorities, the New York Times and RFE/RL (which is a US
government-owned international broadcasting service) named only
China, not Russia, as the impediment to the USA's attempt to get
the Security Council to find North Korea 'guilty' of sinking the
Cheonan. But the Russians, while taking a low profile on the issue-
most likely order to avoid embarassment to the Obama administration-
have been quietly
insistent<http://www.rttnews.com/Content/GeneralNews.aspx?Node=B1&Id=1340163&pageNum=1>
that they would not sign up to a resolution which blamed the DPRK
for the incident.

Why have China and Russia been so intransigent in refusing to blame
North Korea for the sinking of the South Korean warship? The Russians
have no particular pro-North Korean agenda, and the Chinese, though
frequently described as the DPRK's ally, do not always give diplomatic
support to the actions of the North Korean leadership. In May 2009
after the DPRK exploded a nuclear device, China immediately issued
a strong
statement<http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/05/2009525154122473916.html>
of opposition to the North Korean nuclear test; both China and
Russia subsequently voted for a UNSC
resolution<http://%20%20http//daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N09/368/49/PDF/N0936849.pdf?OpenElement>
which unequivocally condemned the DPRK action and agreed limited
sanctions against North Korea.

This is in marked contrast to the role of China and Russia in the
wake of the Cheonan disaster.

Related to this, why, despite all its public statements and those
of other Western and pro-Western governments, did the USA eventually
'bow to China' at the UN Security Council; and why, despite the
sinking of one of its military vessels and the killing of 46 of its
sailors, supposedly in a deliberate act by an unfriendly neighbour,
has South Korea behaved with such 'restraint' over the matter, as
acknowleged by almost all and sundry?

The most straightforward explanation is that the Chinese and Russian
leaderships genuinely and very strongly suspect that North Korea
did not sink the Cheonan, and that those 'in the know' within the
US and South Korean administrations know for a fact that North Korea
did not sink the Cheonan.

The Russian conclusion

After May 20th, the North Korean government demanded to have access
to the full JIG report and to send a team of investigators to the
Republic of Korea to examine the physical evidence, and of course
the ROK authorities refused to allow this. However, when the Russians
made a similar request, the South Koreans felt they had no alternative
but to agree. While the conclusion of the Russian team, which was
comprised of submarine and torpedo experts, has not been reported
by the Western media, it did surface in the South Korean press. The
Hankyoreh
reported<http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/429769.html>
on 10th July under the headline 'Government protests Russiabs
Conflicting Cheonan findings':

* It came to light Friday that the South Korean government summoned
the Russian Ambassador to South Korea and expressed strenuous
objections over the Russian governmentbs failure to provide
notification of the findings of its independent team that investigated
the Cheonan sinking. The team was dispatched to South Korea around
one month ago and concluded that it was unable to view the bNo. 1
torpedob as being the cause of the sinking.

According to military and foreign affairs supports connected to
Russia, the Russian government provided notification of its independent
investigation results only to the Chinese and U.S. governments last
week, and South Korea only found out about the content indirectly
through those two countries.

Following this, 1st Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Shin
Kak-soo summoned Russian Ambassador to South Korea Konstantin Vnukov
to the Foreign Ministry on July 4 to express bastonishmentb at
Russiabs investigation findings because the findings were a complete
contradiction to the South Korean governmentbs announcement. They
also expressed severe dismay about the fact that Russian notified
only the U.S. and China about the findings, while leaving South
Korea out of the communication loop.

Foreign affairs sources reported that Shin used forceful and
diplomatically irregular language to denounce Russiabs behavior,
calling it bunfriendly conduct that violates trust,b bbewildering,b
and bdisappointing.b It was also reported to Shin proposed additional
discussions with Russia during the meeting, and that the South
Korean government subsequently provided additional information to
the Russian government.

bWas it not the South Korean government that provided assistance
to the Russian investigation, saying that they would be objective?b
asked a former senior official in foreign affairs and national
security, adding that the Russian investigation results braise
fundamental doubts about the [South Korean] governmentbs announcement
of its Cheonan investigation findings.b

It was reported that while the Russian investigation team did
conclude that the Cheonan was not sunk by a North Korean bubble jet
torpedo, it did not present any definitive conclusions about the
direct cause, suggesting several possible scenarios such as a
secondary mine explosion following a problem with the Cheonan during
its maneuvers. Analysts are interpreting this as being due to the
fact that the Russian team, made up of submersible and torpedo
experts, focused its examination on the question of whether the
sinking resulted from a strike by the bNo. 1 torpedo.b

For the Cheonan to have been broken in two by a torpedo in the way
described by the South Korean JIG group, by "a shock wave and bubble
effect", only a bubble jet torpedo could have been used in the
'attack'. The Hankyoreh article continued:

* bThe Russian investigation teambs primary interest was in whether
North Korea, which had been unable to produce its own torpedoes
until 1995, suddenly was able to attack the Cheonan with a
state-of-the-art bubble jet torpedo,b said a South Korean diplomatic
source.

Indeed, the technology for bubble jet torpedoes, which are capable
of splitting a vessel in two through the expansion and contraction
of a bubble resulting from a powerful explosion, is possessed only
by the U.S. and a small number of other countries, and has only
been successful to date in experiments on stationary ships rather
than actual fighting. The joint civilian-military investigation
team also acknowledged in its June 29 briefing to media groups that
North Korea was the first to have succeeded in using a bubble jet
torpedo in the field.

So, the Russian investigators determined that the Cheonan was not
sunk by a North Korean bubble jet torpedo; and instead of making a
public show of this conclusion, Putin and Medvedev had decided that
they would quietly release the findings to the US and Chinese
authorities- a decision taken in all probability because Russia is
trying to avoid taking actions which would embarrass the present
US administration and endanger the chances of improved diplomatic
relations with the United States. Despite its angry bluster, the
South Korean government got off very lightly as a result of this
decision by the Russian leadership.

Catalogue of deceit

But what about the diagram from the North Korean weapons catalogue,
the 'perfect match' which was produced at the press conference?
This piece of 'evidence' fell apart in two stages. Firstly, several
journalists, bloggers and other observers who compared the diagram
to the remains of the 'number 1 torpedo' pointed out that the size,
shape and position of the components in the diagram did not correspond
to the corroded pieces which had been dredged up from the ocean
floor.

/files/htm_2010052102360120002010002.JPG
/files/htm_2010052102360120002010002.JPG The dodgy diagram and the
'No. 1 torpedo': photo from the May 20th press conference. Click
on picture for larger image.

When the ROK authorities eventually admitted this, they made the
excuse that they had, by mistake, brought along the wrong diagram
to the press conference. It also transpired that the catalogue
itself had no physical existence- what the South Korean officials
later claimed to possess was information recorded on a CD. The
Chosun Ibo
reported<http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/06/30/2010063000944.html>
on June 30th:

* In a blow to conclusions that are already under attack from
leftwing politicians and activists, a team of experts that investigated
the sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan have admitted showing a
diagram of the wrong North Korean torpedo when they presented their
findings at a press conference on May 20.

When queried by journalists about discrepancies between the CHT-02D
torpedo that attacked the Cheonan and the one depicted in the
diagram, investigators said Tuesday that the pictured torpedo was
of the model PT-97W and that the error was due to "a mix-up by a
staff member while preparing for the presentation."

A South Korean military spokesman said the error was discovered
after the press conference and a presentation of the evidence in
front of the UN Security Council featured the correct diagram.

Investigators said they obtained information on the torpedo "from
North Korean publications and CDs," adding they secured the materials
through "separate routes." The diagram was on a CD.

In South Korea, people who disagree with the official account of
the Cheonan disaster are being prosecuted by the ROK government and
armed forces for expressing their dissident views, and the USA,
although it is usually keen to be seen as an exponent of human
rights, has made no protests or expressions of concern at this
infringement of freedom of expression. Nevertheless, a large section
of opinion in South Korea remains unconvinced; the skeptics include
representatives of the Democratic Party (the main opposition party
in South Korea), NGOs, bloggers, journalists and a considerable
number of the general public.

Thus, unlike in the Western countries where the impression has been
successfully created that the case against North Korea has been
proven beyond doubt, the question of what happened to the Cheonan
is a matter of great controversy; and the daily paper The Hankyoreh
(the fourth largest newspaper in the ROK) has published a series
of articles which expose many serious flaws and contradictions in
the official version of events. Of these, several have been published
on the English section of The Hankyoreh's website, including
'Questions linger 100 days after the Cheonan
sinking<http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/ISSUE/75/428715.html>', 'Marines
testified Cheonan water column was
lightning<http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/ISSUE/75/427056.html>' and
'Scientific debate around Cheonan findings heats
up<http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/ISSUE/75/428560.html>'.

Scientific destruction

As remarked in the latter report, scientists have attacked the JIG
team's conclusions as incompatible with the physical evidence; two
North American-based academics, Seunghun Lee (Department of Physics,
University of Virginia) and J.J. Suh (SAIS, Johns Hopkins University)
wrote an article<http://www.japanfocus.org/-JJ-Suh/3382> for the
Asia-Pacific Journal summarising some of the inconsistencies. The
authors accused the JIG of fabricating data and lying about the
conduct of the investigation. Some excerpts from the article:

* Our results show that the bcritical evidenceb presented by the
JIG does not support its conclusion that the Cheonanbs sinking was
caused by the alleged DPRKbs torpedo. On the contrary, its contradictory
data raises the suspicion that it fabricated the data.

First, the JIG failed to produce conclusive, or at least convincing
beyond reasonable doubt, evidence of an outside explosion. While
the JIG argues in its report that the pattern of the shipbs deformation
and severance is consistent with the damage caused by a bubble
effect from an outside explosion, its claim is not supported by the
evidence. A JIG simulation showing how a bubble might be formed by
an underwater explosion, and how it might sever the Cheonan, was
not completed by the time the JIG released its report, as it
acknowledged at the [South Korean] Parliamentbs Special Committee
on the Cheonan on May 24. The simulation that was shown at the
conference only shows a bubble being formed and hitting the bottom
of the ship, deforming the ship and making a small rupture in the
hull. Nowhere does this simulation show the Choenan being completely
severed in the middle by the bubble, as stated in the JIG report.

Not only did the JIG's press conference simulation fail to show
that the bubble effect could have cut the Cheonan, that simulation
is not consistent with the pattern of the shipbs damage. If the
bottom of the ship was hit by a bubble, it should show a spherical
concave deformation resembling the shape of a bubble, as the JIGbs
own simulation suggests... but it does not. The bottom of the front
part of the ship is pushed up in an angular shape... more consistent
with a collision with a hard object.

Equally important, if a bubble jet effect was produced by an outside
explosion of 250kg of explosives, as the JIG argues, that explosion
should have produced an immediate pre-bubble shock wave whose
strength would have been at least 5000 psi (pounds per square inch)
when it hit the bottom of the Cheonan. The bottom and ruptured
surface of the ship betray no sign of such a large shock... the
internal instruments and parts remain intact in their original
place; and none of the crew members suffered the kind of injuries
expected of such a shock. Given that an underwater explosion produces
both a bubble effect and a shock wave and the latter is usually
about 6 to 10 times as destructive as the former, the shipbs and
the crewbs condition is not consistent with the damage expected of
an outside explosion.

The JIGbs so-called first finding, therefore, is a mere allegation
that is groundless and contradicted by the JIG's own evidence and
at least one analysis of underwater explosions in the military
literature.

[The JIGbs] claim that the brecoveredb torpedo exploded outside the
Cheonan has no scientific basis. It has presented two pieces of
evidence to support its claim: that white compounds b badsorbed
materialsb in the JIGbs report (we analyzed the Korean-language JIG
report) b found on the torpedo match those found on the surfaces
of the Cheonan ship; and that the compounds resulted from an
explosion. We concur with the JIG on the first, but believe that
the second has no basis.

Following a rather complex technical explanation, the academics
continued:

* ...when the media reported our experimental results and the
inconsistencies between the AM-3 and the other two samples, the ROK
ministry of defense responded that the crystalline Al signal found
in the AM-3 sample was due to an experimental mistake, which we
believe is a plain lie.

In respect of the Korean inscription 'number 1' in marker pen ink
on a component of the dredged-up torpedo, Seunghun Lee and J.J. Suh
observed:

* Third, although the JIG presented the torpedo parts recovered
from the area of presumed explosion as bcritical evidenceb that
tied the explosion to North Korea, the bcritical evidenceb has a
serious inconsistency that casts doubt on the integrity of the
evidence. The outer surface of the torpedo propulsion unit that was
found was greatly corroded, presumably because the coat of paint
that would have protected the metal had been burnt off during the
explosion. The paint burn-off and resulting metal corrosion are
consistent with a high heat explosion commonly found in bombs and
torpedoes. And yet the blue ink marking of Hangul b b1bGnb in Korean
b remains intact despite the fact that ink has a lower boiling
point, typically around 150 degrees in Celsius, than paint does b
typically 350 degrees Celsius b and thus the ink marking should
have burnt away just like the outer paint. Our simple estimates
suggest that the torpedo would have been subjected to heat of at
least 350 degrees Celsius and quite likely over 1000 degrees, high
enough to burn the paint and thus the ink as well. This inconsistency
b the high heat tolerant paint was burnt but the low heat tolerant
ink was not b cannot be explained and casts serious doubt on the
integrity of the torpedo as bcritical evidence.b

These findings were picked up by the international science journal
Nature, which
covered<http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100708/full/news.2010.343.html>
them on 8th July (the article was updated on 14th July). Although
the scientific case against the JIG's conclusion was damning, the
writer of the Nature article strove to achieve some balance, by
quoting another US expert:

* James Schoff, an expert in Asian regional security mechanisms
who heads Asia-Pacific studies at the Institute for Foreign Policy
Analysis in Washington DC, says, "Aside from the science, it is
consistent with North Korea's behaviour in the past. It fits the
goal of the conservatives [within the (North Korean) government],
which is to try to raise awareness of a security threat."

This doesn't, however, rule out the possibility that North Korea
did sink the ship but that South Korea nonetheless fabricated data
to make a stronger case to the United Nations, admits Schoff. It's
possible, for example, that they added the ink, he says. "It wouldn't
surprise me if they added it to make it more convincing. But I have
no doubts personally that the conclusion [of the JIG report] is
correct."

So, the science should be disregarded because sinking a South Korean
ship is the kind of thing that it is assumed the DPRK would get up
to; and even if the South Korean authorities fabricated the evidence,
one should have no doubts that the North Koreans are guilty.

Regime change in Japan

But at least Nature covered the story. Despite the famed 'freedom
of the press' of the Western world, the scientific refutation of
the JIG conclusion has not, so far, been reported in any major
English language news publication- and neither have the rest of the
facts which de-bunk the case against North Korea.

It is for this reason that, despite its failure at the UN Security
Council, the United States has achieved something of a success in
terms of public opinion- reinforcing the view of the DPRK as a
country with an irrational, dangerous leadership- hence bolstering
support for the USA's military presence in the region. In Japan
particularly, the the untruth about the Cheonan has had a very
useful result in terms of US power and influence. Not only has the
United States been enabled to keep its huge military base on the
island of Okinawa, it has also got rid of the Japanese leader who
dared to defy the USA on this key strategic issue. As ABC news
reported<http://abcnews.go.com/International/japan-prime-minister-yukio-hatoyama-resigns-us-okinawa/story?id=10805461>
on 2nd June:

* Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Yatoyama resigned today following
a bitter battle over the relocation of a U.S. air base on Okinawa
that has dominated domestic headlines for months.

The ruling Democratic Party of Japan scrambled to find a new leader
after Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama resigned Wednesday, apologizing
for failing to keep a campaign promise to move a contentious U.S.
military base, as his party desperately tried to boost its chances
in elections next month. Kan, who has a clean and defiant image,
emerged a likely successor.

Hatoyama sided with residents who have long protested the noise and
pollution of the Futenma air base, occupied since the end of World
War II...

Last week, shortly following South Korea's claim that North Korea
torpedoed one of their ships in neighboring water, Tokyo agreed to
allow the base to remain on Okinawa.

The about face by the prime minister sent his approval ratings
plummeting in Japan...

The last few months of the prime minister's term have been mired
in controversy as he fought for Futenma to be moved off the island
of Okinawa.

But what did happen to the South Korean warship? Only a small coterie
in South Korea and the US know with any certainty. After the Cold
War ended, some hitherto secret information was released by US
officials, allowing those who were interested among the public to
realise that they had been lied to by the US authorities on certain
key strategic matters. The justification for the previous deceit
was that fooling the public was necessary in order to win the Cold
War.

One day, maybe far in the future when the present strategic rivalry
in the Eastern Hemisphere is a matter of merely historical interest,
some key documents will possibly be de-classified, and a future
generation will discover the truth about the Cheonan.

================================================================================================

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

U.S. Has Plan in Case Attack On Iran Needed, Says Army
Chief<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26055.htm>

By The Associated Press

Both Israel and U.S. keeping military option on table; Iran envoy
to UN: We'll set Tel Aviv ablaze if Israel strikes us.
Continue<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26055.htm>

Two Resolutions, One World
War<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26057.htm>

By Ruqayyah Shamseddine

We are now witnessing the legalization and industrialization of
another war, one which will set the entire region ablaze.
Continue<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26057.htm>

Israel Has Crept Into the EU Without Anyone Noticing
<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26058.htm> By
Robert Fisk

I'm not comparing Israel and Hamas. Israel is the country that
justifiably slaughtered more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza 19
months ago b more than 300 of them children b while the vicious,
blood-sucking and terrorist Hamas killed 13 Israelis (three of them
soldiers who actually shot each other by mistake).
Continue<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26058.htm>

Fury As Israel President Claims English Are
'Anti-semitic'<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26054.htm>

By David Harrison and Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem

Israel's president has accused the English of being anti-semitic
and claimed that MPs pander to Muslim voters.
Continue<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26060.htm>

Afghanistan: Itbs Even Worse Than You
Thought<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26061.htm>

By Haroon Siddiqui

The buckets-full of leaked documents on the war in Afghanistan have
elicited three responses, all misguided.
Continue<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26061.htm>

From Freedom Fighter to
Terrorist<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26056.htm>

By Jacob G. Hornberger

The same Gul who was viewed by U.S. officials as a bpro-Western and
moderateb freedom fighter is now viewed by the U.S. government as
a bmurderous terrorist agent.b
Continue<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26056.htm>

Hans Blixbs Stalinist Rewriting of
History<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26060.htm>

By Brendan ObNeill

Far from being anti-war heroes, UN weapons inspectors paved the way
for the bombing of the bbastardsb and bmoral lepersb of Iraq.
Continue<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26060.htm>

A Police State You'd Better Believe
In<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26059.htm>

By Jack Kenny

When our nation is waging "war on" so many things (drugs, crime,
poverty, terrorism), it's hard to know where to enlist and when to
defect. Or put another way, when should a patriot oppose his
government?
Continue<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26059.htm>

----------------------------------

From: "TvNewsLIES.org" <li...@tvnewslies.org<mailto:li...@tvnewslies.org>>
Date: August 2, 2010 8:09:00 AM GMT-05:00 Subject: TvNewsLIES.org
Daily Newsletter

As casualties in Afghanistan rise, Army suicides, drug use set new
records

But even as the casualties in Afghanistan soar, the number of
suicides and other violent non-combat deaths among US Army soldiers
is rising even more steeply.

The Armybs 350-page report issued Thursday, titled bHealth Promotion,
Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention,b placed the suicides in a
broader context of dangerous behavior among soldiers, including
rampant drug use, drunk driving and violent crime.

Read
more...<http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15372&Itemid=22>

-----------------------

Israel Cannot Handle Its Past

Israel cannot handle its past. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu decided
this week to extend from 50 to 70 years the time state archives
remain classified. Israel realizes that it has too much to hide.

Haaretz reported this week (in its Hebrew edition only), that the
first documents will be released to the public only in 2018 (1948+70).
Many of the documents that are stored in the archive are relevant
to the history of the first 20 years of the Jewish state: the mass
expulsion of the Palestinian people, the massacres in Deir Yassin,
Tantura and many others, the 1956 Suez conflict, the Israeli nuclear
project and so on. Disclosing such documents may bring to light
some facts that could bshatter myths and cause embarrassment to
many entities and individualsb said the Israeli paper. I guess that
president Shimon Peres is one of those bmany individualsb.

Read
more...<http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15371&Itemid=21>

================================================================================================

From:
owner-th...@treet.ctinetworks.com<mailto:owner-th...@treet.ctinetworks.com>
Date: August 1, 2010 3:45:15 PM GMT-05:00 Subject: The DISH Vol.
13 No 31

Dot's Information Service Hotline "Unbossed and unbought news and
information you can use"

Visit The DISH online at www.thedish.org<http://www.thedish.org>
Vol. 13 No. 31...Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race... 08-01-10
********************************************************

Table of Contents

1. Bit of History...The MOVE Massacre 2. The Aftermath...By John
Burl Smith 3. Venue for an Artist...Have I No Glory?...By Kosi Dedey
4. Intuit's Vibe...Where Race Isn't Off-Limits...By Jamelle Bouie
5. Hood Notes...Black Farmers: Victims of USDA Discrimination ...By
Earl Ofari Hutchinson 6. Disgruntled 7. Mailbox
************************************************************

Bit of History The MOVE Massacre

MOVE was founded in 1972 as the Christian Movement for Life by
charismatic leader John Africa. Little is known about him and his
family, except economic hardship and other survival issues during
childhood caused him to leave school early. Facing the harsher
side of life, he developed the survivalist philosophy around which
he organized the MOVE family-hood. Composed mostly of African-Americans
who wore dreadlocks, MOVE advocated a green hunter-gatherer lifestyle
that opposed science, medicine and technology. Like John Africa,
most family members changed their last name to identify with and
show reverence for mother Africa.

Although the name is not an acronym, MOVE members spelled the word
with capital letters. MOVE is described variously as a loose-knit
radical black liberation group. The family lived in a communal
house owned by Donald Glassey located in the Powelton Village section
of West Philadelphia. MOVE's alternative lifestyle would not have
been a problem had the family been white. However, for blacks to
assert such independence, organizing themselves into a society that
did not recognize white authority, lent itself to confrontation.

Police took a very aggressive stance against MOVE and used every
encounter as an incident to provoke confrontation. Understanding
the social dynamics at work in Philadelphia that created such
opposition for MOVE, one must grasp the larger forces at work in
the United States during the 1970s. Richard Nixon had been elected
president on a law and order platform in 1968 and won an overwhelming
re-election victory in 1972. Vietnam War protest still left a bad
taste in the mouth of authority oriented so-called true Americans.
Frank Rizzo, a former Police Commissioner, "a true American," had
just been elected Mayor of Philadelphia on a law and order platform.
MOVE became the quintessential affront to law and order in Philadelphia
in Mayor Rizzo's view, and he was determined to stamp them out.

Rizzo demonized MOVE to consolidate his political base in Philadelphia
by making this small group of young blacks public enemy number one.

He presented MOVE as a major threat to law and order by using the
media to sensationalize incidents the police instigated to arrest
MOVE members. They made MOVE the aggressor as police claimed MOVE
attacked them.

Next, MOVE was portrayed as a health hazard to the community.

Although rodent infestations were common throughout the black
community in Philadelphia, Health officials accused MOVE of being
the source of rat infestations because of a compost pit. The number
of people living in their compound and the animal shelter they
maintained were also cited as health hazards. These points of
contentions were a part of MOVE's "back to nature" lifestyle.

MOVE brought in experts to investigate their living conditions and
their reports refuted the claims of the City, but the news media
never presented this information to the public. After several years
of bad publicity, Mayor Rizzo and the City sought to evict MOVE
from their compound. This set up the confrontation Rizzo had sought.

Frustrated with the resiliency of MOVE, Mayor Rizzo ordered a
blockade of the MOVE compound in 1977. The Philadelphia Police
Department erected barricades around MOVE's village but was unable
to substantiate any of the charges made through the news media.

Determined to crush MOVE, Mayor Rizzo sent agents into the community
to generated unrest among residents. MOVE erected speakers around
their compound and broadcasted directly to the community to counter
the media blitz and misinformation campaign from City Hall. Baffled
by MOVE's ability to circumvent the City's eviction efforts after
almost a year of negotiation, Mayor Rizzo ordered police to enter
the MOVE compound and "drag them out by the scruff of their necks
and demolish the structure" in August 1978.

The police attempted to enter the MOVE compound and during the
ensuing firefight, Officer James J. Ramp was killed. Seven other
police officers, five firefighters, three MOVE members, and three
bystanders were injured. Nine MOVE members were found guilty of
third-degree murder in the shooting death of a police officer.

MOVE relocated to the Cobbs Creek area of West Philadelphia in a
neighborhood of row houses at 6221 Osage Avenue in 1981. Pursued
by police, MOVE fortified their new location with a barricade,
wooden shutters and a giant wooden bunker on the roof. Again MOVE
members began broadcasting messages to the community in an effort
to disseminate information about what the city was doing and that
they should expect an attack on their neighborhood.

On May 13, 1985, supposedly in response to months of complaints by
neighbors regarding the health hazards MOVE's compost pile posed,
the police claimed that they were attempting to clear the MOVE
building when they were fired upon. A confrontation ensued as
police lobbed tear gas canisters at the building and the fire
department battered the roof of the house with two water cannons.
The police fired 10,000 rounds at the house in two hours. A police
helicopter flew over and dropped a four-pound bomb made of C-4
plastic explosive and Tovex, a dynamite substitute, onto the roof
of the house without any prior warning.

The resulting explosion caused the house to catch fire, igniting a
massive blaze which eventually destroyed 65 houses. Eleven people,
including John Africa, five other adults and five children, died
in the fire. The firefighters were stopped from putting out the
fire based on allegations that firefighters were being shot at, a
claim that was contested by the lone adult survivor Ramona Africa,
who says that the firefighters had earlier battered the house with
two deluge pumps when there was no fire. Ramona Africa and one
child, Birdie Africa, were the sole survivors.

Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode, who ordered the bombing, set
up an investigative commission that issued its report on March 6,
1986. It denounced the actions of city government, stating that
"Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable." No
one from city government was charged criminally. A jury in the
civil suit in US federal court (1996) ordered the City of Philadelphia
to pay $1.5 million to a survivor and relatives of two people killed
in the incident. The jury found that the city used excessive force
and violated the members' constitutional protection against
unreasonable search and seizure.

On the 25th anniversary of the 1985 police bombing, the Philadelphia
Inquirer created a multimedia site containing retrospective articles,
archived articles, videos, interviews, photos, and a timeline of
the events. Seven of the nine members convicted in the 1978 shootout
became eligible for parole in the spring of 2008; all seven were
denied parole.

-------------------------------

The Aftermath By John Burl Smith

The bomb dropped on the MOVE Compound was the first time it was
acknowledged that a governmental body committed such an atrocious
act.

It has been rumored that during white mob violence in Greenwood
-Black Wall Street (1921) - the US Army Air Corps dropped bombs on
black neighborhoods, but the MOVE bombing was captured on videotape.

There is no doubt both occasions were motivated by racism, because,
if these had been white people in a white community, dropping a
bomb would not have been considered, not just because of the loss
of life but possible property damage.

Black residents, who complied with police orders to evacuate and
carry only a change of clothing, did not think that what was going
to happen to MOVE had anything to do with them. The next day, as
they returned to see their homes in rubble and all their possessions
destroyed, they could only ask, how could such a thing happen?

Gerri Bostic lost all her material possessions 25 years ago, perhaps
her biggest losses were her peace of mind and sense of community.
Her West Philadelphia neighborhood - now nearly vacant and eerily
quiet - never recovered from the city's horrific botched attempt
to arrest MOVE members on May 13, 1985. The violent confrontation
marked the first time authorities in the United States had dropped
a bomb on American citizens. Mrs. Bostic, 89 says, "There's nothing
nice about this block anymore; all the people are gone."

Then Mayor W. Wilson Goode said, "As Mayor of this city I accept
full and total responsibility. There was no way to avoid it. I
would approve such a bombing again in a similar situation." Claiming
to be "devastated" by the destruction, Goode promised the city would
rebuild the houses gutted by the blaze, which left 200 people
homeless. Mayor Goode vowed to a group of burned-out residents to
"make you whole again. Your ruined homes will be rebuilt, free,
within a year."

Theodore Price, 50, a retired military man who lives on Pine Street,
said the police asked that he, his wife and three children vacate
on Sunday. He said they went to the Green Valley Inn to spend the
night.

Upon returning to see the destruction he said, "The hardest part
was losing the personal items, including things I brought back from
years overseas." Until the fire he said he thought the city was
handling the situation properly.

After more than a year living in temporary housing, residents
returned to their rebuilt homes in the fall of 1986. That winter,
the roofs started leaking. Next, they discovered defective plumbing
and wiring, bad flooring, nails popping out of walls, burst pipes,
broken appliances, basements and backyards that flooded. Replacement
trees have since uprooted parts of sidewalks and are strangling
pipes.

"We've been victimized twice," says resident Milton Williams, 61.

"I've had five stoves, four roofs and two living room ceilings."

Today, his front and back windows look out on boarded-up homes.

Today, after spending more than $43 million on redevelopment, the
city has two blocks of boarded-up eyesores to show for its efforts.
The homes built to replace those lost in the bomb-ignited inferno
were so shoddy that officials stopped making repairs and offered
buyouts.

After 14 years of unending repairs in 2000, then-Mayor John Street
decided that the houses were beyond salvage. He offered owners
$125,000 each plus $25,000 in moving expenses; 37 people took him
up on it. The homes were then worth about $75,000 each.

However, 24 residents sued for breach of contract for stopping the
repairs, which had been promised by Street's predecessor (Mayor W.

Wilson Goode). A federal jury awarded each homeowner $534,000, but
a judge slashed it to $250,000. An appeal brought the settlement
to $190,000 per house in 2008.

Sixteen homeowners, including Williams and Bostic, accepted the
deal.

Bostic, though, said it was not enough money to move off Osage and,
in any case, she is too old to start over. She turns 90 in September.
"I think if I have to move it will kill me," Bostic said. "Why
couldn't they fix the houses like they should have?" Milton Williams
said, "I'm not going to invest any more in this place not knowing
what they're going to do with these homes,"

Eight homeowners - including Gerald and Connie Renfrow - have refused
to accept the settlement, saying to do so would wrongly imply the
city had made things right. The Renfrows say the money would not
allow them to buy an equivalent house in an area with the amenities
they have now - a park, public transportation and proximity to
downtown, shopping and entertainment. Even though they have paid
off their mortgage, they cannot tap the home's equity. The house
needs repairs, sitting amid blight, it is valueless and unsellable.
Connie, 63, says, "They promised to make us whole. They haven't
even made us halfway whole."

Mayor Michael Nutter, the fourth city leader to deal with fallout
from the bombing, has done little to address the bombed out residents'
plight. A spokesman for Mayor Nutter said, "Unfortunately, the
city has many blighted areas demanding attention" But, there is
only one blighted area that resulted from the City of Philadelphia's
stupid actions of dropping a bomb on some harmless people who were
at best a nuisance or an annoyance to the sensibilities of some
city leaders and community residents.

Most people ask why did it happen or what did MOVE do to cause the
city to retaliate with such force, since they were not murderers,
robbers or a threat to national security. What one must understand
is that John Africa broke the unwritten law of white society. He
was a black man, who dared to try and exist independently of white
society.

He developed a philosophy that attracted young black men and women
that society had rejected and written off--drug addicts, prostitutes,
homeless, social predators and other derelicts. John Africa was
turning such individuals into productive family members. For a
black man to do that in America is a crime punishable by death.

===============================================================================================

Letter to the Editor

On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 5:53 AM, David West
<dgw...@gmail.com<mailto:dgw...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Subject: Re: URGENT: Gulf Loop Current Stalls!

Hi Pondo, So we must get out of Europe, and from around the Gulf -
anybody want to buy some bamboo in Asia?

David

===============================================================================================

From: Rick Davis <rda...@yin.or.jp<mailto:rda...@yin.or.jp>> Date:
August 1, 2010 7:53:10 PM GMT-05:00 Subject: News Links, August 2,
2010

-- Global economic meltdown -- For central banks, crime can
pay<http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/The-Adam-Smith-Institute-Blog/2010/0731/For-central-banks-crime-can-pay?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+feeds/csm+(Christian+Science+Monitor+%7C+All+Stories)>
"Central banks make outsize profits when they print high-denomination
notes, like b,500 bills, which criminals prefer."

Some Russian Assets May Be Sold to Chinese State Funds, Sunday Times
Says<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-01/some-russian-assets-may-be-sold-to-chinese-state-funds-sunday-times-says.html>
Greek tourism reels from fuel shortage,
strikes<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hxgjzau1WD8o0txPSTDUaEQQ5LEQ>
The Unemployment Nightmare in
Greece<http://dailyreckoning.com/the-unemployment-nightmare-in-greece/>
China rapidly boosts investments in
JGBs<http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100801a1.html>
"Officials express concern over motive for expansion."

Big-name investors brace for
deflation<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703787904575403204077239996.html>
Israel Prosperity Seen Unsustainable as Haredim Refusal to Work
Takes
Toll<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-01/israel-prosperity-seen-unsustainable-as-haredim-refusal-to-work-takes-toll.html>
Iceland Rebels Against Bank Aid as Insolvencies Loom After Court
Ruling<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-02/iceland-rebels-against-bank-aid-as-insolvencies-loom-after-court-ruling.html>

-- Fault lines/flashpoints -- US has plan to attack Iran if needed,
military chief
admits<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/01/us-iran-attack-plan-mullen>
Abbas: Recent Arab summit discussed war against
Israel<http://www1.albawaba.com/en/main-headlines/abbas-recent-arab-summit-discussed-war-against-israel>
Israel modifies plans to deport migrant worker
families<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10832722> Dutch
become 1st NATO member to quit
Afghanistan<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38510568/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/>
US to activate S Europe missile
system<http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=136995&sectionid=3510203>
Turkish soil mulled as option in US anti-Iran missile
defense<http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=turkish-soil-an-option-in-anti-iran-missile-defense-2010-08-01>
Czech Republic Ready to Host U.S. Missile Warning
Center<http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4730253&c=EUR&s=TOP>

-- Energy/resources -- Israel faces danger of blackouts; public
asked to conserve<http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=183235>
Wind farms could face new restrictions as Government launches
investigation<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/7920376/Wind-farms-could-face-new-restrictions-as-Government-launches-investigation.html>
(UK) Minister says private sector will build nuclear plants, rules
out government subsidies<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8874933.stm>
(UK) The Future Looks Great for the Ethanol
Boondoggle<http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Biofuels/The-Future-Looks-Great-for-the-Ethanol-Boondoggle.html>
(US) "If you include all the upstream and downstream inputs, the
process consumes far more energy than it produces."

-- Intelligence/security -- WikiLeaks Takes Aim At
BP<http://blogs.forbes.com/bizblog/2010/07/27/wikileaks-takes-aim-at-bp/>
Liz Cheney calls on Obama to shut down
WikiLeaks<http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0801/liz-cheney-shut-wikileaks/>
Google, US Govbt Back Same Data Mining
Startup<http://searchengineland.com/google-us-govt-back-same-data-mining-startup-47611>
BlackBerry Expansion at Risk as Governments Tighten Curbs on Mobile
E-Mail<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-01/blackberry-expansion-at-risk-as-governments-tighten-curbs-on-mobile-e-mail.html>
Stealthy Government Contractor Monitors U.S. Internet Providers,
Says It Employed Wikileaks
Informant<http://blogs.forbes.com/firewall/2010/08/01/stealthy-government-contractor-monitors-u-s-internet-providers-says-it-employed-wikileaks-informant/>

-- Environment/health -- Hundreds of new fires in Russian forests
and fields thanks to drought and record
heat<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7921486/Hundreds-of-new-fires-break-out-in-Russia.html>

-- Got food? -- Experts Project Food Inflation To Surge Up To
10%<http://topnews.us/content/224213-experts-project-food-inflation-surge-10>
Egypt seeks wheat as drought slashes Russian
crop<http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFJOE66U03X20100731>

-- Oil disaster -- Congressman: too much dispersant used in oil
spill<http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100801/D9HAJUG01.html> New
Gulf oil spill mystery: How much dispersant did BP
use?<http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2010/0801/New-Gulf-oil-spill-mystery-How-much-dispersant-did-BP-use?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+feeds/csm+(Christian+Science+Monitor+%7C+All+Stories)>
BP eyes sale of German retail unit:
report<http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bp-eyes-sale-of-german-retail-unit-report-2010-08-01>
U.S. May Widen Range in BP Oil-Spill Estimate, Scientist
Says<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-30/bp-spill-flow-estimate-may-be-widened-by-u-s-government-scientist-says.html>

-- UK -- Police forces 'accept cuts will mean losing
officers'<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-forces-accept-cuts-will-mean-losing-officers-2041027.html>
Britain's military braced for sharp spending
cuts<http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100801/D9HAJNB00.html>

-- US -- Tight Times Force Small Towns To Cut Police
Services<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128879343&ft=1&f=1001>
Outsourcing the Fire
Service<http://www.fireengineering.com/index/articles/display/8679725240/articles/fire-engineering/leadership/commentary/2010/07/murphy-outsourcing-service.html>
Paterson Warns of Massive Layoffs to Balance NY State
Budget<http://www.wkbw.com/news/local/Paterson-Warns-of-Massive-Layoffs-to-Balance-Budget-99627354.html>
Regional Airlines May Face Pilot Shortage as U.S. Tightens Training
Rules<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-30/pilot-shortage-may-hit-regional-airlines-as-u-s-tightens-training-rules-p.html>
Alan Greenspan: "The Financial System Is
Broke"<http://www.zerohedge.com/article/alan-greenspan-financial-system-broke>
After 378 years, NH family farm goes up for
sale<http://finance.yahoo.com/news/After-378-years-NH-family-apf-1829922275.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=3&asset=&ccode=>
Greenspan Says Decline in U.S. Home Prices Might Bring Return of
Recession<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-01/greenspan-says-decline-in-u-s-home-prices-might-bring-back-the-recession.html>
Unemployment Rate in U.S. Probably Rose, Raising Risk of Slower
Spending<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-01/unemployment-rate-in-u-s-probably-rose-raising-risk-of-slower-spending.html>
Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo
Deal<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html>
Democrat-backed terror bill would bgut Miranda
rightsb<http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0801/terror-bill-gut-miranda-rights/>

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