For readers of anti-capitalism and anti-globalization newsgroups
senhor san
themselves: "How would I feel if some Nazi came onto my land and forcibly
evicted me, destroyed my house and my means of making a livelihood, killed
the people in my village, and refused to pay even one mark in
compensation?"
Theodor Herzl wrote in his diaries about how to bring about the exodus of
the native Palestinians, which would enable the Zionists to create a purely
Jewish state. In his June 12, 1985 entry, Herzl wrote: "We must expropriate
gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We should try to
spirit the penniless Arab population across the borders by procuring
employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment
in our country." Herzl's statement seems to be mild, but the principle of
evicting the Palestinian population in the future Jewish state was already
stated.
The process of expropriating the property of the Palestinians, however, was
carried out during and in the aftermath of the war of 1948, which was
accompanied by a large number of massacres. These massacres were the main
instrument for forcing the Palestinians to leave and then expropriating
their properties under the 1950 Absentee Property Law.
The Israeli newspaper Ha'ir had an article titled "Massacres of
Palestinians in 1947-49: During the War, Many Arabs Were Massacred by Jews
Not Only in Deir Yassin," published May 6, 1992, on the eve of Israel
Independence Day and included details of previously unreported massacres. In
the article, the Israeli history researcher Ariyeh Yitzhaki concludes that
"at least 20 large massacres of Arabs took place during the War of
Independence (defined as over 50 murdered in each massacre) and about 100
small massacres (defined as of individuals of small groups). These massacres
had a profound effect on the fleeing of Arabs from the country."
Yitzhaki points out that "for many Israelis it was easy to cling to the
safe claim that the Arabs left the country because that was what their
leaders ordered. That is a total lie. The fundamental cause for the flight
of the Arabs was their fear of Israeli violence and that fear had a basis in
reality. From almost every report which appears in the [Israeli] army's
archives about the occupation of Arab villages from May to July in 1948, the
height of confrontations with the Arab villagers, there comes the smell of a
massacre." People may wonder: Why massacre the Arabs?
In 1947, when the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into two
states: one Arab state and one Jewish state, and it was clear to the Zionist
Jews that the Jewish state would have an equal number of Arabs and Jews. The
Zionist Jews wanted a purely Jewish state with a decisive Jewish majority.
This could have been accomplished through a massive and forceful expulsion
of Palestinians from the Jewish state. In fact, this expulsion was planned
before the war started. This plan was brought out by Sir John Bagot Glubb of
England who relates in his book "A Soldier With the Arabs," an encounter
between a British officer and a Zionist officer before the war in December
1947. When asked about the United Nations' partition plan and the fact that
the Jewish state would have internal problems from a large Arabpopulation,
the Zionist officer responded: "That will be fixed. A few calculated
massacres will get rid of them!"
The massacre of Deir Yassin was the darkest stain on the Jewish record
throughout all the fighting. It is historically important because it was to
become the beginning of a second legend with which the Israeli terrorists
sought to serve their cause and justify their deeds. Just as they claimed
credit for the British decision to leave Palestine as the result of the
terrorists attacks on British troops, they later justified the massacre of
Deir Yassin because it led to the panic flight of the remaining Arabs in the
Jewish state and lessened the Jewish casualties.
The intent and systematic and deliberate nature of this massacre in this
case is very important and relevant to the main study of this topic. Crimes
against humanity are those acts that are committed by anyone or any group
against a civilian population who act intentionally, deliberately and
systematically. The intent was to inflict upon the Palestinian civilian
population a major blow that would result in a psychological edge gained by
the Israeli forces. This psychological weapon, coupled with a massive media
campaign, focused on the civilian population and made fleeing the only
logical option.
The use of terror on the civilian population was neither an isolated
incident nor some soldiers acting illegally. On the contrary, it was the
norm and the understood mode of operation. The strategic goal of a majority
Jewish state was to be accomplished - even to the point of committing acts
of genocide against a defenseless civilian population. What is far more
remarkable is the ability of the Israeli society to collectively participate
in a successful worldwide campaign of disinformation and obfuscation of the
facts of the 1948 record of genocide.
What makes 800,000 civilians flee their country in a short period of time
without carrying any belongings? The late William Zukerman, editor of the
Jewish Newsletter, concluded that "the flight of the Palestine Arabs, which
created the Arab refugee problem, was not a spontaneous act, nor due
entirely to the propaganda call of the Arab leaders as the Zionists have
claimed all along. It was a coldly calculated plan executed by the Irgun,
but with the knowledge of the Hagana and the Jewish Agency of the time."
In the aftermath of the 1948 war, the newly formed Israeli government
embarked on a massive program of confiscation of Palestinian properties and
lands. Fully furnished Palestinian houses, large farms and lands were given
to Zionist Jews to live in and own. The Israeli government then issued the
1950 Absentee Property Law which labeled the property of the Palestinians
expelled by force as absentee property. Moreover, the Israeli government
issued the Land Acquisition Law of 1953, which transferred the absentees'
properties into the hands of the Jewish National Fund. These laws completed
the process of the dispossession of the Palestinians. It started with their
forced expulsion, considered them absent from their property and finally
took all their properties.
To compare these events to a more recent occurrence, one can recall Bosnia
and the massive campaign of ethnic cleansing directed at the Bosnian
civilian population to comprehend what took place in 1948 in Palestine.
Certainly, the Bosnian civilians did not leave their homes in the thousands
on their own, rather they were forced out by the Serbs. Our perceptions of
what took place in 1948, are constructed to fit the accepted world view that
considers the establishment of the State of Israel as a positive
development.
If one admits that the state was founded on the principle of genocide and
ethnic cleansing, then the need to remedy the injustices becomes more
compelling.
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Intelligence report discloses the precise details, known to the American
intelligence agencies in Baghdad, of a meeting ostensibly held by Saddam
Hussein with his aides on 7 April, the day that American forces entered the
environs of Baghdad. The details of the meeting include the fact that Saddam
Hussein confirmed at the opening of the meeting, which was held in a secret
and protected location, that a great betrayal had taken place in the
Republican Guard and Special Forces. He spoke of a high-ranking military
personality with deep hatred, and said that this person had known all the
secrets, the methods of issuing orders, and their secret codes. This person
was the one who led the act of treachery and issued the orders for the
forces to withdraw, as if they had come from Saddam Hussein personally. It
was in this way that immediate and sudden withdrawals took place from all
positions at one stroke, their weapons being taken away. The withdrawal
covered the Republican Guard, the Special Forces, and all the regular and
semi-regular forces, leaving no one to defend Baghdad except a few hundred
Arab volunteers who were not included in those orders and who were not
integrated into the leadership's chain of command.
The intelligence report indicated that Saddam said that those persons think
that they will occupy important positions under the American administration
of Iraq. The message that they used said that Saddam Hussein had been killed
with his commanders and that there was no longer any hope of resistance. The
person who stands at the head of the betrayal knew the secret password and
was thus able to issue the orders to retire from the battle.
The sources reported Saddam as saying during the meeting that the date 9
April is the day of treachery and treason in Baghdad, (which confirms that
the meeting took place after that date), the date of shame and humiliation
for those traitors who sold out Arabism, and sold out Baghdad for some
derisory sum. It was a great betrayal in which high-ranking officers of an
Arab army were involved, an army that we had thought had regained its senses
and returned to its Arab Nationalist position, that we had considered a
loyal friend that had opened the door to jihad together with us. But it
stabbed us in the back. Saddam added: "we have done our sums, and we still
have great potential. We are accustomed to the most difficult conditions. We
have experience in secret resistance from before the revolutions of 1963 and
1968, and we have the ability to wage battle and we are prepared for the
confrontation and have the wherewithal to carry on for years."
After that, according to the intelligence information, Saddam Hussein
returned to the topic of the betrayal and treachery and spoke with
bitterness of the husband of his youngest daughter Halla, Jamal Mustafa
al-'Umar, who surrendered to American forces, a fact indicating his
involvement in the treason.
Saddam added, "We had prepared for a great battle against the Americans in
Baghdad. Our planning was excellent. We had prepared a pincer attack. What
sadness I have for those youth. What sadness I have for those traitorous
scoundrels who forsook Iraq, and Arabism, and Islam. They did not forsake
Saddam Hussein. And now we have become the survivors. We are the elite of
the Iraqi people, and the historical responsibility for liberating our
people has fallen on us. You will discover that the way is open before us,
We will make America pay the price, God willing, albeit belatedly. We have
grown used to struggle. We have lived it, and will continue to do so. The
reports you have heard about chaos in the streets of Iraq today will mark
the important beginning of the revolution." He continued saying: "Our date
is in July. That is a historic date that has its own aims, significance, and
associations that we will use in the fight. You need to be aware that the
members of the Bedouin tribes and federations have not been treacherous.
They have not turned traitor. When I determined what those contemptible
officers had done, I wrote to the tribes to tell them to be calm and await
the appointed day. And I asked some of them to go along with the American
invader for the sake of our noble goal."
The magazine al-Watan al-'Arabi in its issue coming out tomorrow said that
the date for the beginning of the guerrilla war coincides with the
anniversary of the Baathist revolution and seizure of power, and the
anniversary of Saddam Hussein's ascension to the Iraqi presidency in 1979 as
the successor of Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr. Until now, no one has conclusive proof
as to the fate of Saddam Hussein and his two sons. It is said that he was
killed during an air raid on a place where he was meeting with his
commanders in the Baghdad district of al-Mansour. But there were sightings
of him after that, in the A'zamiyyah district of the Iraqi capital on the
same day that American forces entered Baghdad airport. Rumors have
circulated that he attended Friday congregational prayer in the Mosque of
Abu Hanifa an-Nu'man, and that he promised the worshippers there a surprise.
There are also rumors that he had appeared elsewhere too, but there is no
proof of the truth of any of these rumors.
Intelligence sources confirm information that Saddam Hussein and his two
sons are still alive, still in Iraq, and that the forces that are still
loyal to Saddam Hussein number 40,000 fighters. They are deployed throughout
various regions of the country. The President, who is still in hiding, still
has power and specific means at his command, and he has kept secret hiding
places where he can disappear in a number of provinces. In addition he
controls secret hiding places that contain weapons and ammunition, military
supplies, foodstuffs, and other necessities. The contents of these secret
storehouses is sufficient for waging a long and bitter war.
The great surprise that the message disclosed is that Saddam Hussein and his
group of supporters who represent a secret leadership not composed of the
familiar military and Baath Party personalities, are busily engaged in
putting the finishing touches on a plan for a great confrontation with the
Anglo-American forces deployed on Iraqi territory. The UAE newspaper
"al-Bayan" reported on the authority of information that has reached
"al-Watan al-'Arabi" that Saddam Hussein has designated 17 July of this year
as the date on which the great jihad will begin. In addition to the symbolic
significance of this date, preparations should be completed by that time. In
addition, Iraqi citizens will have come to understand the what the presence
of foreign forces on their soil means. They will have come to understand the
extent of changes that will take place in their way of life, contrary to
their social, cultural, and religious heritage. Some of the considerations
that justify putting off the date by about three months until July are
likelihood that ethnic and sectarian fighting might erupt in the country by
then, and the struggles of the different aspirants for power should have
risen to the surface. This is likely to create an unbalanced situation in
Iraq, keeping the occupation forces busy, and giving the forces loyal to
Saddam Hussein an opportunity to score major breakthroughs in enemy security
by waging Vietnam-style guerrilla warfare with "hit-and-run" tactics.
The leaked information also discloses the make-up of the group that has
gathered around Saddam Hussein and his two sons. It is composed of 'Abd
Hammoud and 'Ali Hasan al-Majid who succeeded in escaping from Basra and
disappearing, of Taha Yasin Ramadan, of the Defence Minister Sultan Hashim
Ahmad, and Latif Nasif Jasem. Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri, who headed the
northern sector, has disappeared, as has the commander of the Middle
Euphrates sector Mazban Khidr Hadi. The group surrounding Saddam now
comprises elements from Tikrit, Samarra, and Mosul.
Saddam Hussein, had called on the Iraqi people to rise up in intifada
against the American occupation forces, saying that it is the foreign
occupation and not Sunni or Shi'i that is the "only issue that your great
Iraq is living through," as he put it. This call came in a hand-written
letter from Saddam to the Iraqi people and the sons and daughters of the
Arab Nation and the Islamic world community, and to honorable people
everywhere. Dated 28 April, his birthday, the message was obtained by the
London-based al-Quds al-'Arabi newspaper. Sources close to Saddam confirmed
the authenticity of the handwriting and the signature, pointing out that the
conditions of his underground existence do not currently permit anything
more than sending hand-written letters, due to security considerations.
The Leadership of the Resistance and Liberation of Iraq had stressed the day
before yesterday in an exclusive letter sent to al-Quds al-'Arabi that
Saddam Hussein had survived the bombing and that he would deliver an address
to Iraqis and the Arab Nation within 72 hours. In the letter, Saddam accused
the countries surrounding Iraq of working against the resistance and said
that the traitors had allowed themselves to speak out loud about their
treachery, despite its being a disgrace, in a reference taken to refer to
Kuwait. Saddam said that treason lay behind the fall of Baghdad, saying "the
enemy was not victorious over you, you who reject occupation and
humiliation, you who have Arabism and Islam in your hearts and minds, it was
not victorious over you except by means of treason."
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Why would hijackers intending to crash a plane into the Pentagon hijack a
jet from Dulles Airport near Washington DC (and thus close to the Pentagon)
and allow it to fly for 40 minutes away from its target before turning
around and flying another 40 minutes back to it (knowing that interception
by military jets during this time would in normal circumstances have been
very likely)? AA Flight 77 (the jet which allegedly crashed into the
Pentagon) was allegedly hijacked at about 9 a.m., at about the same time as
the Twin Tower impacts, and its change of course back toward Washington, or
its transponder having been turned off, would have been known to flight
controllers, who were aware of the impacts; why, then, were U.S. Air Force
jets not scrambled to intercept AA Flight 77 forty minutes before it
(allegedly) hit the Pentagon, when there were U.S. Air Force jets at seven
locations normally ready to take off at ten minutes' notice?
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senhor san
representative government, freedom, peace, equality, human brotherhood,
quality of life, culture and happiness -- it puts Nazism, Communism,
Fascism in the shade, while, in fact, nourishing all three.
Proof? Just look at the news:
Canadian House of Commons Bill C-2 will treat as serious criminals those who
watch Arabic language channels to be outlawed.
The Canadian government is reviewing a new bill in the House of Commons
called Bill C-2, An act to ammend the Radiocommunications Act. Bill C-2
will make it illegal for anyone to watch Al Jazeera, ART Global, ART
movies, Dubai Satellite Channel, ESC-1, Future TV, LBC, MBC, Nile Dram even
if you pay for a subscription by a non- Canadian provider. Anyone caught
watching these channels will be liable to a $25, 000 fine or a year in jail
under the new proposed law. Bill C-2 will treat as criminals those who
watch Arabic language channels.
MPs Carolyn Parrish and Alexa McDonough have been active and vocal about
this problematic bill. Make your opposition heard by writing to the chair
and vice-chair of the Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, MP
Brent St. Denis at St.De...@parl.gc.ca. Marlene Jennings is the
Vice-Chair and she can be reached at Jenni...@parl.gc.ca.
Please be sure to cc. your own Member of Parliament and the Canadian
Arab Federation at communi...@caf.ca.
Points to be raised:
* This bill criminalizes those who enjoy cultural programming that is not
made available by Canadian providers
* The bill fails to distinguish between those who steal satellite signals
and those who pay for it legitimately
* There are over 500, 000 Arabs in Canada who are being deprived of their
right to programming that maintains their links to language, culture and
religion
* This is a violation of freedom of expression and the targetting of
specific communities and their civil liberties
* Clause 5 of the bill is very problematic in that it allows extraordinary
powers to inspectors who can enter any place where these channels are being
recieved and to remove or copy any item or document.
--
Former Mossad Chief: Yassin Offered Israel 30-Year Truce
JERUSALEM - Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, assassinated in an Israeli air
strike, offered Israel a 30-year truce in 1997, the mediator who arranged
Yassin's release from prison said Tuesday.
Efraim Halevy, a former Mossad operative who was called in to resolve an
Israel-Jordan crisis after a botched assassination attempt against a Hamas
leader in Jordan in 1997, made the disclosure in an interview on Israel TV.
Halevy was a confidant of Jordan's King Hussein, and he suggested releasing
Yassin from Israeli prison as the price for freedom for six Mossad agents
captured in the abortive attempt to kill Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. Yassin
was imprisoned in 1989.
http://tinyurl.com/2442z
======
Israeli security sources say that defence chiefs have decided to kill all
Hamas leaders without waiting for the organisation to carry out its threats
of bloody retaliation for Sheikh Yassin's death. (Wasn't that the whole idea
of killing Yassin in such an rage-inflaming way the first place???)
We'll wipe out entire Hamas leadership, says Israel
-Chris McGreal in Gaza City and Ewen MacAskill in Jerusalem
The Israeli government has approved the elimination of the entire leadership
of Hamas and other militant groups following the assassination of the
Islamic resistance movement's founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed
Yassin.
Among the targets is the uncompromising new Hamas leader named by the
organisation yesterday, Abdel Aziz al Rantissi, who has opposed tentative
political concessions and a ceasefire by the group.
Israel's internal security minister, Tsahi Hanegbi, said the government had
given a green light to the army to kill "the worst terrorists".
"Anyone who is involved in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank or anywhere else
in leading a terror group knows from yesterday there is no immunity.
Everyone is in our sights," he said.
Israeli security sources say that defence chiefs have decided to kill all
Hamas leaders without waiting for the organisation to carry out its threats
of bloody retaliation for Sheikh Yassin's death.
The defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, said the strategy would ultimately curb
suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis.
"If we will continue, in a determined way, with our strikes against Hamas
and other terror groups ... including action against those leaders, we will
bring more security to Israeli citizens," he said.
The Israeli army chief of staff, Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, hinted
that the targets could now include Yasser Arafat, even though Ariel Sharon
has given a personal assurance to President George Bush that the Palestinian
leader will not be harmed. He also suggested Israel could attack the leader
of the Lebanese-based group Hizbullah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.
"I think that judging by their [Arafat's and Nasrallah's] hysterical
responses yesterday they understand that it is nearing them. In the long
term, I hope that this will be a sign to all those who choose to hurt us
that this will be their end," said Gen Yaalon.
A government spokesman later sought to clarify this, saying that while
Sheikh Nasrallah was a target because he was committed to the destruction of
Israel, this did not apply to Mr Arafat.
But another government source said the promise given by Mr Sharon not to
harm Mr Arafat applied only to the run-up to the war in Iraq last year. The
government has so far considered exiling, but not killing, the Palestinian
leader.
Israeli firepower was resounding at both ends of the country last night.
Tanks rolled into a Gaza refugee camp under covering gunfire to clear an
area that Israel suspects militants use to fire on Israeli settlements. In
the north, meanwhile, helicopters attacked and killed two Palestinian
militants in south Lebanon who Israel said were preparing to fire rockets
over the border.
Tensions were heightened earlier in Gaza after Palestinians fired an
anti-tank rocket at an Israeli army position near a Jewish settlement,
prompting a gun battle.
Also in Gaza, Hamas named Dr Rantissi as its temporary leader after a ballot
among senior figures in the organisation. The announcement, at a memorial
rally for Sheikh Yassin in a Gaza City stadium, was greeted enthusiastically
by the crowd.
At the stadium, Dr Rantissi pledged to escalate attacks on Israel. "We will
be unified in the trenches of resistance. We will not surrender, we will
never surrender to Israeli terror," he said.
Among those attending the ceremony was the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed
Qureia, who called the assassination of Sheikh Yassin an "ugly crime
committed by the government of murderers".
Many businesses were shut in Gaza and the West Bank as a mark of respect for
the quadriplegic Hamas founder, who was killed by a helicopter missile
strike as his bodyguards pushed him in a wheelchair after prayers at a
mosque.
Mr Hanegbi made it clear that Dr Rantissi was an early focus for the Israeli
military after saying the men targeted for death include "those who appear
on television", a veiled reference to the new Hamas leader and his deputy,
Mahmoud Zahar.
Gen Yaalon said that part of the motive for targeting Dr Rantissi and his
associates is to prevent Hamas seizing political control in Gaza.
"Even if in the short term the assassination increases the motivation to
carry out terror attacks, in the long run, the assassination is likely to
calm the situation in the Gaza Strip and encourage moderate forces to
prevent the founding of 'Hamas-land' in the [Gaza] strip," he said.
Israel remained on high alert yesterday. Its parliament announced that
personal security for its members is to be beefed up, and its foreign
ministry ordered diplomats abroad to increase security.
Crowds in central Jerusalem were thinner than usual, and there were fewer
people travelling by bus.
The US has warned its citizens in the Middle East that they could become
targets after Dr Rantissi called on Muslims worldwide to "shake the ground
of these Zionists and Americans who stand behind them".
Last night, in his first response to the assassination, President Bush said
that Israel had the right to defend itself against Hamas but urged the
Israeli government to keep "the consequences in mind". He said that he hoped
to send a delegation to Israel next week to try to revive a stalled
US-backed peace plan.
Meanwhile, the US blocked a draft security council condemnation of the
killing of Sheikh Yassin because it made no mention of Hamas terrorism.
--
Croatia Backs Off Iraq Troops, International Court
ZAGREB, Croatia (Reuters) - Croatia drew back Tuesday from previous
indications it would send troops to Iraq and sign a deal with Washington
exempting U.S. troops from prosecution by the International Criminal Court.
http://tinyurl.com/2blaz
--
Families of Sept. 11, 2001, victims were furious yesterday as they watched
aides to Presidents Bush and Bill Clinton say they couldn't go after Osama
Bin Laden until after the attacks that killed almost
3,000.
Top officials from the two administrations told the federal 9/11 commission
they were ready and willing to kill Bin Laden, but faulty intelligence,
inadequate attack plans, fears of collateral damage and political fallout if
the attack failed kept them from pulling the trigger.
Instead, they spent years in diplomatic offensives that failed to smoke Bin
Laden out and into the hands of the U.S.
And Clinton and Bush officials said an invasion of Afghanistan to get Bin
Laden was not an option before the shock of the Sept. 11 attack mobilized
the world into a coalition.
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/8259959.htm
====
U.S. Criminal Oligarchs and Fake Patriot Toady Polticians Guilty of 9-11
Inside-Job Mass-Murder Frame-up -- Cautious Public Not Yet Ready to
Outwardly Display their Outrage and Determination for Remedy
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TRUTHBAZOOKA/message/5
=======
According to Dan Rather, CBS, Bin Laden was in a Pakistani military Hospital
at Pak Army's Headquarters in Rawalpindi, one day before the 9/11 attacks,
on September 10.
Needless to say, the CBS report is a crucial piece of information in the
9/11 jigsaw. It refutes the administration's claim that the whereabouts of
bin Laden are unknown. It points to a Pakistan connection, it suggests a
cover-up at the highest levels of the Bush administration.
details: http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/truth911.html
===========
The September 11 commission insisted that Condoleezza Rice appear at today's
session, even though the Bush administration has warned that a public
grilling of a member of presidential staff would breach constitutional
protocol.
The White House was facing a crisis in confidence yesterday over its
handling of the al-Qaida threat prior to September 11, as a public inquiry
into the attacks demanded to question George Bush's national security
adviser.
The September 11 commission insisted that Condoleezza Rice appear at today's
session, even though the Bush administration has warned that a public
grilling of a member of presidential staff would breach constitutional
protocol.
The standoff with the inquiry could damage the White House's popularity in a
tightly contested presidential campaign, in which President Bush is
concentrating on his reputation as a decisive wartime leader.
The commission is due to submit its final report on July 26, just before the
Democratic party's convention.
Ms Rice has become a lightning rod for criticism of the administration after
the publication of a White House memoir by the president's former top
counter-terrorism adviser, Richard Clarke.
Mr Clarke portrayed Ms Rice as ill-informed about the seriousness of the
threat posed by al-Qaida. He said she "gave me the impression she had never
heard the term before".
He said that in an early meeting in January 2001, in which he tried to make
her realise the extent of the danger, she changed the subject and later
decided to exclude Mr Clarke from top level meetings and downgrade his
counter-terrorism security group.
The White House has launched a media counter- offensive to rebut Mr Clarke's
claims, with Ms Rice appearing on five talkshows. In one interview, Ms Rice
said: "Dick Clarke was counter-terrorism tsar for a long time with a lot of
attacks on the United States.
"What he was doing was - what they were doing apparently was not working. We
wanted to do something different."
Speaking during a cabinet meeting, President Bush denied that he ignored the
threat from al-Qaida.
"The facts are these: [CIA director] George Tenet briefed me on a regular
basis about the terrorist threats to the United States of America and had my
administration had any information that terrorists were going to attack New
York City on September 11, we would have acted," he said.
However, members of the September 11 commission, formally known as the
national commission on terrorist attacks upon the United States, were
furious that Ms Rice had taken such a high public profile after refusing to
appear before a public session of the inquiry. Timothy Roemer, a Democratic
commissioner, held up a copy of Mr Clarke's book at one point, saying: "I
would hope that this discussion would not be for the airwaves ... but
belongs in this hearing room tomorrow."
Such demands were greeted by applause from relatives of victims of September
11. The White House is already under fire from relatives for using scenes
from Ground Zero in its political campaign advertising.
It has also had a run-in with the commission before over sharing
information.
The disputes have led to the commission issuing two subpoenas and
threatening several more.
An initial offer by the president to spend an hour with senior members of
the commission behind closed doors also provoked outrage and the White House
has since signalled it might be flexible over the duration of the interview.
The commission yesterday closely questioned officials from the Clinton and
Bush administrations over their failure to take decisive measures against
al-Qaida after the 1998 bombing of US embassies in east Africa and the 2000
attack on the USS Cole.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,1176591,00.html
==========
Widow of Soldier in Jessica Lynch Unit Blasts Bush
Tue Mar 23, 2004
By Jim Forsyth
CENTER POINT, Texas (Reuters) - At a ceremony on Tuesday marking the
one-year anniversary of the Iraqi attack on Pvt. Jessica Lynch's Army unit,
the widow of a soldier who died in the fight blasted President Bush for
"lying to America" to justify the Iraq war.
In bitter comments beside the grave of Army Specialist James Kiehl, widow
Jill Kiehl accused Bush of fabricating reasons to launch the invasion that
toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
"The evidence that's starting to come out now feels like he (Bush) was
misleading us," Kiehl said, holding the couple's 10-month-old son Nathaniel,
born seven weeks after his father died.
"It's almost as though he had things fixed so it would look like he needed
to go to war," she said.
James Kiehl, a 22-year-old computer engineer, was one of 11 members of the
507th Maintenance Company killed when their convoy took a wrong turn at
Nassiriya in southern Iraq on March 23, 2003 and were attacked by Iraqi
fighters.
Seven others were captured, including Lynch, who was held for nine days
before U.S. troops rescued her from a hospital.
Several members of the unit, not including Lynch, attended the ceremony in
Center Point, 35 miles northwest of San Antonio.
Jill Kiehl described herself as "bitter" about Bush's decision to declare
war on Iraq.
"It's upsetting that he (Bush) would have lied to America to get what he
wanted," Kiehl said.
http://tinyurl.com/2eya3
------------
Groups call for the resignation of Sept. 11 commission director
Public interest groups are demanding the immediate resignation of the
director of the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks, just as the commission prepares to hold high-profile hearings this
week with senior officials from the Bush and Clinton administrations.
The 9-11 Family Steering Committee and 9-11 Citizens Watch, two separate
groups, are demanding the resignation of Philip Zelikow, executive director
of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States,
after information surfaced over the weekend that he participated in Bush
administration briefings prior to Sept. 11 on the threat al Qaeda posed to
the country.
"We believe that the very integrity of the commission is at stake here, and
that he should resign immediately," Kyle Hence, co-founder of Citizens
Watch, said Monday.
On Saturday, the Family Steering Committee wrote a letter to the commission
arguing that Zelikow has a conflict of interest because he could potentially
be held culpable for failing to heed warnings about al Qaeda prior to Sept.
11.
"It is clear that [Zelikow] should never have been permitted to be a member
of the commission, since it is the mandate of the commission to identify the
source of failures," the committee wrote. "It is now apparent why there has
been so little effort to assign individual culpability. We now can see that
trail would lead directly to the staff director himself."
Zelikow was a member of the team that helped with the Bush administration
transition to office. When he became executive director of the commission,
he recused himself from participating in any part of the investigation that
dealt with the time he served on the Bush transition team.
Critics have previously called for Zelikow to resign because they believed
he had at least an appearance of a conflict of interest. He co-wrote a book
in 1995 with Condoleezza Rice, who is now Bush's national security adviser.
Additionally, only Zelikow and commission member Jamie Gorelick are
permitted to read classified intelligence reports known as the presidential
daily briefs in their entirety.
Information that Zelikow participated in intelligence briefings on al Qaeda
before Sept. 11 surfaced over the weekend in interviews with the
government's former counterterrorism czar, Richard Clarke, who resigned last
summer after 30 years of public service. Clarke served in four
administrations as part of the National Security Council. He was the
counterterrorism czar for former President Clinton, served on the transition
team when Bush came into office and remained as a senior counterterrorism
official under the Bush administration.
On Saturday, Clarke told the New York Times that he gave briefings on the
threat posed by al Qaeda to Rice; Stephen Hadley, now Rice's deputy; and
Zelikow when he was part of the transition team from December 2000 to
January 2001.
Clarke told CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday that the Bush administration failed
to heed his warnings in the months leading up to Sept. 11, and then eagerly
tried to blame Iraq for the attacks in the aftermath when no connection
existed.
On Monday, Clarke's new book, Against All Enemies: Inside the White House's
War on Terror--What Really Happened, was released. In it he forcefully
criticizes the Bush administration's efforts to defend the country from
terrorist attacks.
Al Felzenberg, spokesman for the 9-11 commission, said Monday that no new
charges have been leveled that would cause the commission to ask Zelikow to
resign. Felzenberg reiterated that Zelikow recused himself from parts of the
investigation that deal with the time he served on the transition team.
"The commission finds the director's recusal sufficient," Felzenberg said.
"I don't see a single charge that has been made that would cause the
commission to change its view."
Felzenberg said Zelikow was not responsible for making policy decisions or
implementing recommendations during his time on the transition team. He
added that the commission has a policy regarding conflicts of interest and a
process in which complaints should be vetted.
The commission is planning two days of public hearings starting Tuesday. The
hearings will consist of testimony from high-level officials from the Bush
and Clinton administrations, with a focus on counterterrorism.
Scheduled to testify on Tuesday are Secretary of State Colin Powell and
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, as well as their counterparts in the
Clinton administration, Madeleine Albright and William Cohen. Scheduled to
testify on Wednesday are CIA Director George Tenet; Samuel Berger, former
assistant to Clinton for national security affairs; and Clarke. The
commission announced Monday that Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
also will testify Wednesday to beef up the administration's position on
counterterrorism.
The Family Steering Committee and Citizens Watch want Bush and Clinton, Vice
President Dick Cheney and former Vice President Al Gore, and Rice to testify
publicly under oath. Rice testified in February before a closed session of
the commission.
Citizens Watch and family members of Sept. 11 victims held a press
conference Monday to demand the commission provide transparency,
accountability and sworn public testimony from the highest government
officials.
Hence said the commission has so far experienced "a pattern of stonewalling
and slow walking" by the White House and federal agencies, such as the
Federal Aviation Administration and North American Aerospace Defense
Command.
"To date, no one in government--not a single government official--has been
held directly accountable for the apparent and as yet unexplained
simultaneous, massive, across-the-board failure of every single defensive
and intelligence measure this country had established," Hence said.
Citizens Watch also launched an advertising campaign Monday demanding that
Bush, Cheney, Clinton, Gore and Rice testify publicly under oath before the
commission. The group is running billboard advertisements in the Washington
metro rail system for four weeks, as well as quarter-page ads in The
Washington Post.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0304/032204c1.htm
Assassinations - or what the Western media due to Zionist pressure now
ridiculously refer to as "targeted killings" - are nothing new for the
Israelis. They have been going on for years.
The assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was everywhere in the Arab media
yesterday. Arabs from all over the world are mourning his death and Saudis
are no different from their brethren. The murder has become the main topic
of conversation. Moreover, the photographs of the Sheikh with his head split
in half and parts of his brain spilling out were forwarded to hundreds of
thousands of people on the Internet.
Assassinations - or what the Western media due to Zionist pressure now
ridiculously refer to as "targeted killings" - are nothing new for the
Israelis. They have been going on for years. What is new is that this time
the assassinated person was an elderly wheel-chair-bound individual whom the
US alleged is a terrorist and "a person who has been personally involved in
terrorist attacks."
What is just as sad is that people in the US will look at the assassination
as something that was necessary for Israel's security. American networks
will start producing reports about how the late Sheikh inspired people to
commit suicide attacks in Israel under the banner of Hamas. They will
portray him as an evil person, personally responsible for the deaths of
Israeli men, women and children in suicide attacks, some of which have taken
place in Jewish settlements. What Americans will not see on their networks
or read in their newspapers is that the Sheikh was a spiritual leader. A
person who inspired thousands of Palestinians to continue their resistance
to the ongoing occupation of their lands; someone who constantly reminded
them to fight to the death and not to surrender their usurped rights. For
the state of Israel, his inspiration had to be eliminated. Like other
spiritual leaders, such as Marwan Barghouti, he was too much trouble for the
state of Israel and had to be removed.
For a person who reads American newspapers and watches American news
networks on a daily basis, I often find it shocking how news reports from
the Middle East are reported. In most cases, the reports are biased and have
only one perspective. In other cases, the reports are truthful but fail to
get the attention they deserve - simply because the killings happened on the
Palestinian side. An example of that is when a Palestinian suicide bomber
blows himself up and kills scores of people in a bus or local area. The
report is blown up. In addition, the most heart-rending photographs are
used: a weeping mother mourning the death of her loved one, beside the
coffin at the funeral. The report itself is surely biased since all the
interviews and comments come from Israeli police sources or Israeli
officials. Terrorism is the word used. However, when Israeli bulldozers
destroy Palestinian homes, pictures of weeping Palestinian mothers at the
remains of what used to be home are not printed. And the story of course is
not blown up. Not only that but in most cases, the story itself does not get
more than a news brief somewhere in the inside pages.
One day I made a comparison of how American media outlets were biased. A
report carried on CNN about a suicide bombing lasted a good 10 minutes and
included interviews with several people talking about the incident and the
terrorist act. Sometime later, when an Israeli bulldozer knocked down
several Palestinian houses, CNN gave it no more than 30 seconds, And of
course no interviews were done in which people denounced the demolishing and
described it as a terrorist act.
So according to American standards, terrorism is only described when
something happens to Israelis and not to Palestinian. When a suicide bomber
kills several Israelis, it is a cowardly, heinous, terrorist act that is
denounced by the Bush himself. However, when Palestinian homes are
demolished by Israeli bulldozers, silence prevails. When an Israeli toddler
is killed by a Palestinian sniper, it is a terrorist act and the story
appears in The New York Times and other newspapers. However, when Iman
Hejou, a Palestinian baby dies from a bullet in her chest from an Israeli
gun, she is nowhere to be found in the American media. Even the word
"occupation" is no longer to be found in the American media reports of
incursions of Israeli tanks into Palestinian areas.
One thing is for sure. Yesterday's comment from the White House only reminds
the Arab world that Israel will always be America's best friend and will go
unpunished and even rewarded with comforting words - such as "has the right
to defend itself." And once again, the truth will prevail that America and
Israel are two sides of the same coin.
http://tinyurl.com/24mt5
Hollywood Jews have one hell of a nerve -- News article from 1998
[Have you heard about the effort by Jews in Hollywood to have Mel Gibson
indicted for hate crimes -- because his motion picture about the last days
of Jesus of Nazareth, a literal verson of the Christian scriptures which are
still widely read in portions of the American mid-west I understand,
although Gibson did remove the part when the Jews call out to Pilate
"Crucify Him!" and "Let his blood be upon our heads!" and so forth. Yes,
the monopolists of movie making -- (of course, no one else is interested in
making movies or being in them anywhere else in the country, right?) -- are
moving heaven and earth to shut up this harmless actor with typical
middle-class Roman Catholic outlook - because he is promoting hatred of
Jews -- BUT WAIT! -- look at this old newspaper article from my the
garage:
Yakima Herald-Republic Friday, August 28, 1998 p. 2E
Under siege
Arab, Muslim groups protest depiction of terrorists in new film
By Ron Givens (New York Daily News)
New York -- Arab and Muslim anti-defamation goups are going public about
their unhappiness with a new Denzel Washington/Bruce Willis movei, "The
Seige," in which terrorists set off bombs in Brooklyn.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations and the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee, both based in Washington, are among several
groups that held a news conference Wednesday in Los Angeles to air their
concerns about depictions of Arab Muslims in the movie directed by Edward
Zwick ("Courage Under Fire," "Glory").
"The Siege" is scheduled to be released by 20th Century-Fox on Nov. 6.
"Nerves are raw from the recent terrorist bombings," says Ibrahim Hooper,
national communications director for the American-Islamic council. "It's
another reason to be deliberate and careful on these issues, not just feed
into them to increase the box office.."
Hooper says his organization would prefer the movie be redone so that the
bombers are neither Muslim nor Arab. That is unlikely, since the filming of
the movie has been completed for months and editing is under way.
WHile deleting references in the movie to the faith of Islam or adding a
disclaimer might be alternatives, Hooper says his group was not happy with a
statement attached to the 1994 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie "True Lies,"
which also involved Arab-Muslim terrorists.
The disclaimer came afer the disclaimer about how no animals were harmed
during the taking of the movie," says Hooper. "I had a hard time seeing it,
and I wrote it."
Ironically, Zwick and the film's producer, Lynda Obst, want "The Seige" to
change sterotypical attitudes about Arabs and Muslims. One of the good
guys, an FBI agent portrayed by Lebanese-American actor Tony Shalhoub, is a
Muslim Arab-American. And in a pointed comparison to the internment of
Asian-Americans during World War II, the polot also involves the rounding up
of Muslims and Arabs for detention.
Until now, the American-Islamic council and the anti-discrimination
committee have been working behind the scenes to express their objections to
Zwick, Obst and Fox. In an April meeting, the counmcil gave Zwick and Obst
a six-page memo detailing 60 specific objections.
The two filmmakers responded April 30 with their own six-page letter,
making it clear that some changes would be made, but the basic plot --
bombing by Muslim terrorists would stay.
Fox seems to have become involved after a letter was sent in mid-August
to Mill Mechanic, chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment.
In a written statement released Monday, the studio said that "Within the
framework of an action-adventure, the film deals seriously with and
sensitively with timely and important themes, such as prejudice and
persecution, the price of our personal freedoms, and the protection of those
freedoms -- for all Americans."
Hooper says his organization became aware of "The Seige" when members saw
Arabi graffiti early this year on the movie's Brooklyn set. Recently,
members have objected to the movies coming-attractions trailer, which
juxtaposes scenes of Muslims praying with shots of bombing.
--
The gloves are off in terror war, and everyone is at risk
INDEPENDENT (London) March 23, 2004
By Robert Fisk
It doesn't take an awful lot of courage to murder a paraplegic in a
wheelchair. But it takes only a few moments to absorb the implications of
the assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin yesterday.
Yes, he enthusiastically endorsed suicide bombings - including the murder of
Israeli children. Yes, if you live by the sword, you die by the sword, in a
wheelchair or not. But something went wrong with the narrative of the news
story yesterday, and something infinitely more dangerous - another sinister
precedent - was set for our brave new world.
Take the old man himself. From the start, the Israeli line was simple.
Yassin was the "head of the snake" - to use the words of the Israeli
ambassador to London - the head of Hamas, "one of the world's most dangerous
terrorist organisations".
But then came obfuscation from the world's media. Yassin, BBC World Service
Television told us at lunchtime, was originally freed by the Israelis in a
"prisoner exchange". Then, later in the day, the BBC told us that he had
been freed "following a deal brokered by King Hussein".
Which was all very strange. He was a prisoner of the Israelis. This "head of
the snake" was in an Israeli prison. And then - bingo - this supposed
monster was let go because of a "deal". So let's remember what the "deal"
was.
Yassin was set free by no less than Benjamin Netanyahu when he was prime
minister of Israel. King Hussein wasn't a "broker" between two sides.
Two Israeli Mossad agents had tried to murder a Hamas official in Amman, the
capital of an Arab nation which had a peace agreement with Israel.
They had injected the Hamas man with poison, and the late King Hussein
called the US president in fury and threatened to put the captured Mossad
men on trial if he wasn't given the antidote to the poison and if Yassin
wasn't released.
Netanyahu immediately gave in. Yassin was freed and the Mossad lads went
safely home to Israel.
So the "head of the snake" was let loose by Israel itself, courtesy of the
then Israeli prime minister - a chapter in the narrative of history which
was conveniently forgotten yesterday. Which is all very odd.
If the elderly cleric really was worthy of state murder, why did Netanyahu
let him go in the first place? It was not a question that anyone wanted to
ask yesterday.
But there was something infinitely more dangerous in all this. Yet another
Arab had been assassinated. The Americans want to kill Bin Laden. They want
to kill Mullah Omar. They killed Saddam's sons. Just as they killed three
al-Qaeda men in Yemen.
The Israelis repeatedly threaten to murder Yasser Arafat. It's getting to be
a habit.
No one has begun to work out the implications of all this. For years, there
has been an unwritten rule in the cruel war of government-versus-guerrilla.
You can kill the men on the street, the bomb-makers and gunmen, but the
leadership was allowed to survive.
Now all has changed utterly. Anyone who advocates violence - even if they
are palpably incapable of committing it - are now on a death list. So who
can be surprised if the rules are broken by the other side?
The top guys are now in the firing line. Let us not say we didn't know.
http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=132&fArticleId=381027
--
Hyenas in Washington
by Karen Kwiatkowski
On 9/11, CIA Was Running Simulation of a Plane Crashing into a Building
http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/cia-simulation.htm
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=51531;title=APFN
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then
you win."~ Mahatma Gandhi
Conservatives and liberals alike are critical of neoconservative foreign
policy, a creature crowned with empire envy and war-lust yet starkly naked
of caution, conservatism or respect for sovereignty or human rights. We
stand together in awe at the "creative destruction" invoked by the American
Enterprise Institute's Michael Ledeen when no other rationale for the
occupation of Iraq survives.
With black humor, we call them neo-conmen, neandra-cons, neo-Jacobins or
neo-fascists, searching for a title that matches the philosophy. We agree
that new conservatives they've never been. Liberals won't claim them either.
It can be amusing and educational to analyze and criticize the neo-conmen -
on their good days. They have names like Max Boot - crisp with his highbrow
contempt for American traditionalism and entertaining with his Orwellian
name. Or Joel Mowbray, David Frum or Jonah Goldberg whose collective prose
once waded through reveals naďve youngsters trying on maturity like long
pants for the first time, and giggling about it. Not yet at home in the
world of adults, but no doubt earnest hopefuls.
The older crowd of neoconservatives can be almost as much fun. Or at least
they used to be before they got worried about the upcoming U.S. election,
invasions of Syria and Iran slipping like sand between manicured fingers and
the outrageous treachery of Spaniards. These days, the experience of
watching Charles Krauthammer grouse on Sunday morning that "the next big war
is Iran" - while even FOX's Brit Hume looks on in amazement - is surpassed
only by observing the ignominious Defense Policy Board departure of the
grubby Richard Perle in a last ditch attempt to maximize consulting profits
before it's too late. George Will, whose recent column attacked even little
old me, has gone so far downhill as an essayist that one thinks perhaps he
should retire and make way for new blood. Bill Safire seems grumpier than
ever, and even the charm of Grandpa Don Rumsfeld is getting strained and
tense.
Teasing these advocates of silly yet deadly foreign policies is all in good
fun. We should do so mercilessly, Bush-free-speech-zones notwithstanding.
With all due respect, we might even explain that imperial mass
democracy/geo-strategic global militarism is incompatible with a
constitutionally constrained Republic or traditions of sovereignty and
international law.
But the fun is evaporating. It's becoming downright painful to watch the
political organs of neo-conservatism in America metastasize. Seven months
from the election, we observe this Frankensteinian political phenomenon -
abstract idealism implemented through stamping boots, forever - morph into
something that is even more outwardly ugly, transparently self-consuming,
and doomed.
What proof can I offer that a withering away of the neoconservative grip on
policy is coming? Certainly our next President, John F. Kerry, is already
familiar with the neoconservative domestic and foreign policy playbook, and
does not reject it. But there are some promising signs.
Their reaction to criticism is broadening in scope and hideousness. Last
summer, neocon contempt for me after my first mainstream commentary was
limited to a mild attack by bench-warmer and Center for Security Policy head
Frank Gaffney, calling me simply an antiwar activist, likely to be a closet
Democrat and uninformed. Later, after the American Conservative series,
Richard Perle and others took to telling reporters privately that I was a
follower of Lyndon LaRouche. Again, a mild attack, as unfounded as the
charges of uninformed Democratic peace-activist. More recently, however,
following the Salon.com publicity, I have been named anarchist and dangerous
person, according to the nationally televised discussion on March 10th
between Foundation for the Defense of Democracies President Clifford May and
FOX's John Gibson. This was followed by a Max Boot declaration of my
flakiness and the recent George Will intimation that I am anti-Semitic. Will
deserved a response of course, and he got one.
The good news is that neoconservative attacks on truth tellers are becoming
so shrill that soon only our dogs will be able to hear them.
Until that happens, one gains understanding of strange noises by looking for
trends or patterns. Neoconservatives are nothing if not predictable, and
their pattern is to discount, then disparage, and then vilify. I suspect we
are nearing Ghandi's early winning stages, at least in the game for 2004.
My own neoconservative critics have increased in rank, their critiques in
stridency. These two measures of neoconservative hysteria comprise a
working-man's truth-meter, and it is starting to peg.
Like bats and mushrooms, neoconservative reaction to light is inverted. This
inversion goes beyond the rejection of common sense with their advocacy of a
U.S. empire of ideas, or the chronic misreading of the nature of both war
and terrorism. Neoconservatives also despise truth when embodied by their
own. It is not clear whether the unpleasant Mr. Perle left the Defense
Policy Board in order to make more money, or rather was asked to leave due
to his inability to sit through a media interview without losing his cool.
However, it is clear that some of the more moral and well-liked defense
staffers are looking for, or being pushed towards, the nearest exit.
As in Plato's cave, once this country turns away from the shadow and into
the light, there will be no going back. Senior and long-time public servants
in the Bush administration involved in diplomacy, state finance,
intelligence and counter-terrorism - people like Ambassador Joe Wilson, Paul
O'Neill, Greg Thielmann, and Richard Clarke - have turned away from the
shadow and are reporting what they saw.
At times like these, nervous neoconservatives, like hungry hyenas, become
irritable, aggressive and cannibalistic. My Mom always said you should say
something nice, and it is true. I bet they were cute when they were puppies!
March 24, 2004
Karen Kwiatkowski [send her mail] is a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, who
spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon.
She now lives with her freedom-loving family in the Shenandoah Valley, and
writes a bi-weekly column on defense issues with a libertarian perspective
for militaryweek.com.
Copyright Š 2004 LewRockwell.com
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski68.html
===========
For Wednesday, March 23, 2004
My Palestinian Wife
by Charley Reese
http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20040324/index.php
Every now and then, the rumor arises that I have a Palestinian wife. Some of
my kin were highly amused by a debate on that subject that was being
conducted by letters to the editor in their local paper recently.
Apparently, it does not occur to anyone simply to ask me. As a matter of
fact, I don't have a wife. I'm a widower, and the one wife I had was a sweet
Midwestern girl of Methodist, German and Swedish extraction. I don't have a
Palestinian mistress or girlfriend. I don't even have a Palestinian bowling
pal.
The recurring Palestinian wife rumor, I believe, is a result of some people
finding it impossible to believe that an American would have any sympathy
for the Palestinian people without an ulterior motive. That is a credit to
the effectiveness of the Israeli propaganda machine, which has, for more
than 50 years, stereotyped Palestinians as a wild, violent people. It is a
stereotype helped greatly by the news media, which rarely reports in depth
on anything foreign, and by Hollywood, where lately the venerable Nazi has
been replaced as the chief villain by the Arab terrorist.
Actually, Palestinians are a gentle people. If you get to know some and hear
their side of the story, you will feel sympathy for them, too, unless you
have a flint heart. The Palestinians were run over by history. I know that
various ethnic groups in the United States fiercely contend for the title of
victim, but the Palestinians had it imposed on them.
There was nothing they could do when the Ottoman Empire absorbed their land.
There was nothing they could do when the British Empire took their land away
from the Ottoman Turks at the end of World War I. There was nothing they
could do when the British Empire created the Palestine Mandate. There was
nothing they could do when the British Cabinet, for reasons historians still
argue about, decided Palestine would make a nice national home for European
Jews when and if the British Empire ever decided to give up its occupation
of Palestine.
That it did in 1947, after considerable encouragement by Jewish terrorist
organizations - the Irgun, led by Menachem Begin, and the Stern Gang, led by
Yitzhak Shamir. Yes, Jews used terrorist tactics against the British
occupation, and now Palestinians are using terrorist tactics against the
Israeli occupation.
In 1948, about 700,000 Palestinians were made refugees and then told they
could not return to their homes. Their homes, land and businesses were
eventually confiscated. In 1967, Israel seized the West Bank and East
Jerusalem from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria and the Gaza Strip from
Egypt. These are now the "occupied territories." The state of Israel has no
legal claim to even 1 square inch of any of this territory, but with the
backing of the United States it has been able to tell the rest of the world
to go stuff it.
Palestinians appreciate the irony of the fact that the United States went to
war allegedly to get Albanian refugees back into Kosovo and went to war
twice against Iraq allegedly to enforce United Nations resolutions. Of
course, we've done nothing for the return of the Palestinian refugees, and
we've ignored the fact that Israel is in open defiance of more than 60
United Nations resolutions. We've also ignored the fact that Israel is the
only country in the Middle East that really does have weapons of mass
destruction, including nuclear bombs.
For us, it's all about domestic politics. I've never heard of a Palestinian
donor invited to spend the night in the Lincoln Bedroom.
All Americans should feel a great deal of sympathy for the younger
generations of both Palestinians and Israeli Jews. These young people were
born into a conflict started by people long dead or now in their dotage. The
issue is simple: It's land. Both sides are dying over land.
You don't need a Palestinian wife to feel sympathy for these people. All you
need is to know the facts. Learn the truth, and you will feel sympathy for
Palestinians - but not very proud of American Middle East policy, which is a
continuing failure driven by greed and cowardice on the part of American
politicians. The hypocrisy of it has poisoned our image around the world.
Š 2004 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
===========
senhor san
knew hunting bin Laden would not prevent "9-11s"
======
We went to war to "get bin Laden" to "end Terrorism," remember? Even
though Afganistan's head of state, Mohammed Omar offered to turn bin Laden
over if Bush would show some proof of his guilt, remember? We had to get
bin Laden -- it was the "War on Terror, right?
Now, Rumsfeld has told the 9-11 commission:
"Even if bin Laden had been captured or killed ... no one I know believes it
would have prevented 9-11?"
Of course the weasling neo-con Zionist mass-American-murdering
Moslem-genociding Oligarchy toady, said this to avoid blame for
not-preventing 9-11 by not getting bin Laden when they really could have
easily -- but in saying so, he is clearly admitting that no one he knows
believes that 9-11s (i.e., big terror) can be prevented by going on killing
expeditions for terrorist leaders? He is saying that the war on terror is
not something anyone he knows really believes in?
And notice how the weasle cannot take blame, cannot take responsibility for
an idea, cannot explain a rational for a policy other than to say "no one I
know believes.."
Dick Eastman
=========
Sharon is going to go after the leaders of Hamas with missiles and whatever
else it takes to kill them all right away because they have sworn to cut his
head after he used air-to-ground missiles to take out revered leader who was
a paraplegic octagenarian in a wheelchair -- in other words for a "Kill
all the Moslem Leaders Free Card" Sharon knew all he had to do was commit
one simple atrocity that would stir up enough rage so he could portray it as
irrational insane terror-mindedness and "hate" and use that as an excuse to
kill everyone he wanted killed (all Hamas.)
Sharon was a terrorist all his life -- carrying a rifle from age 14 --
and as a fighter he know that fighters get more money, appreciation and
honor and respect when "the enemy" is looking fierce and threatening -- an
d so his art has been to induce the threat threats through his own overt and
underhanded atrocities -- so the Arabs will look angry and Sharon can point
to the anger as foaming-at-the-mouth congenital hatred of Jews and the
irrational compulsion to tie bombs to themselves just to exercise their
ate -- and the bankers and publishers and Hollywood producers open their
check-books -- and what works for Sharon and "induced terrorism" is also
the principle actualting the ADL -- they to provoke anger and expasteration
intentionally with horrible injustice and in-your-face rottenness, in order
to elicit the anger that they can photograph and record in order to justify
their big check "to protect Jews" for the same very stupid bankers,
publishers, Hollywood producers etc. That is Zionism in practice.
It has to be stopped -- the madmen locked up -- the true-believers
undeceived -- the stupid and evil bankrolling stopped.
Now in this light, what was 9-11?
Here is the evidence proving that 9-11 was itself one of these "get rich on
frame-up" operations -- this time done by ZIonists in the White House and
Pentagon.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TRUTHBAZOOKA/message/5
==========
Washington, DC -- March 24, 2004 --12:15 EST --
FBI translator, Sibel Edmonds, was offered a substantial raise and a full
time job in order to not go public.
In a 50 reporter scrum in front of some 12 news cameras, Edmonds said
"Attorney General John Ashcroft told me 'he was invoking State Secret
Privilage and National Security' when I told the FBI I wanted to go public
with what I had translated from the pre 9-11 intercepts".
Edmonds had been asked by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to retranslate and
adjust the translations of subject intercepts that had been received before
September 11, 2001 by the FBI and CIA. Edmonds, a ten year U.S. citizen who
has passed a polygraph examination, speaks fluent Farsi and Turkish and had
been working part time with the FBI for six months-- commencing in December,
2001.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0304/032404c1.htm
http://tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=50
===================
"When I saw with my own eyes what war can do to people, a real change began
to take place within me," he said in the statement to Citizen Soldier. "I
have witnessed the suffering of a people whose country is in ruins and who
are further humiliated by the raids, patrols, curfews of an occupying army.
My experience of this war has changed me forever."
He continued: "I also learned that the fear of dying has the power to turn
soldiers into real killing machines. In a combat environment it becomes
almost impossible for us to consider things like acting strictly in self
defense or using just enough force to stop an attack.... People would ask me
about my war experiences, and answering them took me back to all the
horrors-the firefights, the ambushes, the time I saw a young Iraqi dragged
by his shoulders through a pool of his own blood, the time a man was
decapitated by our machine gun fire and the time my friend shot a child
through the chest."
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/meji-m24_prn.shtml
US soldier refuses to return to Iraq
By Jeff Riley
24 March 2004
A Florida National Guard soldier returned to his base of deployment at Fort
Stewart, Georgia, to face charges for desertion after refusing to return to
duty in Iraq to serve as, in his words, "an instrument of violence" in an
"oil-driven war." The incident has provoked disquiet within the military
establishment, feeding concern over the morale of US occupation troops.
Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, a 28-year-old native of Nicaragua, turned himself
in to military authorities at Hanscom Air Force Base, outside of Boston, on
March 15, seeking conscientious objector status. He spent five months on the
run after serving in Iraq from April 2003 until last October, when he came
home on two-week's leave and refused to return for redeployment October 16.
Among his reasons for going AWOL, he said, were his witnessing of incidents
in which Iraqi civilians were killed by US troops.
Mejia is one of about 7,500 troops who fail to return to their units each
year from a force of about 1.4 million. There have been about 600 soldiers
who have gone AWOL from obligations in Iraq in particular, but he is
believed to be the first to give himself up. Hours before handing himself
over, Mejia gave a press conference at the Peace Abbey in Sherborn,
Massachusetts.
He issued a statement to the press, in which he declared:
"I'm saying no to war. I went to Iraq-I was an instrument of violence- and
now I've decided to be an instrument for peace. My conscience-I could not
continue to do the things that I was doing in Iraq. This war, I'm completely
against it because it's an oil-motivated war. I don't think that any soldier
who ever signed to be in the military, signed to go halfway across the world
to invade and occupy a nation to take their oil or any other natural
resource.... We were all lied to when we were told that we were looking for
weapons of mass destruction or we were going to fight terrorism."
Mejia is now awaiting a decision from commanding officers on the charges
that he will face. If his application for CO status is denied, he faces a
court-martial that could carry a sentence of five years imprisonment for
desertion and an additional five years for "missing a movement to avoid
hazardous duty." This would be followed by a dishonorable discharge that
would end all benefits for the eight-year veteran and possible deportation.
Referring to the potential penalties for his action, Mejia stated, "I'm
prepared to go to prison because I'll have a clear conscience.... Whatever
sacrifice I have to make, I have to go there."
Camilo Mejia moved from Nicaragua to the US when he was 18 to live with his
mother, Maria Castillo. He is the son of Carlos Mejia Godoy, the renowned
singer from Managua and former cultural minister for the Sandinista
government, whose music and poetry symbolized the struggle of the Nicaraguan
people against US military intervention in that country.
Mejia joined the military one year after arriving in the US. He later
explained that he did so because "I wanted to be part of this nation, and
the military was at the very heart of the United States. I was very young
and was just starting to form my identity, values and principles."
He served three years of active Army duty and was a National Guard
infantryman for five years, which helped to pay his college tuition. He was
entering his final semester as a psychology student at the University of
Miami when his unit, C Company, 1-124 INF of the 53rd Infantry Brigade, was
called up for pre-mobilization combat training in Fort Stewart.
Mejia described training at Fort Stewart, where he served as a squad leader,
in terms of a sped-up assembly line "merely intended to make our unit
deployable." He explained: "A soldier is not supposed to deploy if he or she
doesn't pass a physical exam. I knew a soldier whose hearing had been
impaired after many years' service in the artillery. But this didn't matter;
they checked the `pass' box for hearing on his medical form. Another
requirement was that we qualify with our rifles. After several attempts at
the firing range, many soldiers still couldn't qualify but they were all
judged to be qualified."
In describing the war in Iraq, Mejia drew attention to what he said was the
callousness of the commanding officers and their disregard for the lives of
both US troops and Iraqi civilians. In a statement to the Associated Press,
he described an ambush on his squad in the central Iraqi town of Ar Ramadi
last May that began with a bomb exploding in front of their lead Humvee.
"Prior to this attack I had briefed my squad on what I understood to be
Standard Operating Procedure, which was that if we were ambushed we should
haul ass while returning fire with our weapons," he said. "Following the
blast, bullets rained down on us from both sides of the road as we drove out
of the area. Back at the base, we were euphoric that no one had been hurt in
the ambush.
"My commander, XO [executive officer], and First Sergeant immediately asked
to be briefed. When I told them what happened they asked me why we had fled
rather than staying and fighting. The commanding officers then stated that
the squad's actions had sent the wrong message to the enemy. It dawned on me
that protecting our troops didn't rank very high on our leader's agenda....
[M]edals, glory and `sending the right message' were all worth the lives of
a few soldiers."
He added: "They were trying to draw the enemy onto us for medals and Purple
Hearts."
Mejia became particularly disturbed by an incident in which a child was shot
and later died. He described the shooting in a statement to Citizen Soldier,
a soldiers' rights advocacy group that is assisting in his defense: "One of
our sergeants shot a small boy who was carrying a rifle. The other two
children who were walking with him ran away as the wounded child began
crawling for his life. A second shot stopped him, but he was still alive.
When an Iraqi tried to take him to a civilian hospital, Army medics from our
unit intercepted himand insisted on taking the injured boy to a military
facility. There, he was denied medical care because a different unit was
supposed to treat our unit's wounded. After another medical unit refused to
treat the child, he died,"
The violence and repression unleashed against the Iraqi population rapidly
led to Mejia's disillusionment with the war and caused him to change his
view of the US occupation. "When I saw with my own eyes what war can do to
people, a real change began to take place within me," he said in the
statement to Citizen Soldier. "I have witnessed the suffering of a people
whose country is in ruins and who are further humiliated by the raids,
patrols, curfews of an occupying army. My experience of this war has changed
me forever."
He continued: "I also learned that the fear of dying has the power to turn
soldiers into real killing machines. In a combat environment it becomes
almost impossible for us to consider things like acting strictly in self
defense or using just enough force to stop an attack.... People would ask me
about my war experiences, and answering them took me back to all the
horrors-the firefights, the ambushes, the time I saw a young Iraqi dragged
by his shoulders through a pool of his own blood, the time a man was
decapitated by our machine gun fire and the time my friend shot a child
through the chest."
As the justifications for the war in Iraq have been exposed before the world
as a pack of lies, American troops continue to die on a daily basis, and it
is becoming evident that the outrage expressed by Camilo Mejia is growing
more widespread among the military rank-and- file. As Mejia powerfully
summed up in the statement obtained by the AP, "When you try to find
justification and you think about weapons of mass destruction and you think
about terrorism and things like that, all you find is lies and you have no
justification.... [Y]ou need that justification to live with yourself."
In turning himself in, Mejia was accompanied by both his mother and Private
Oliver Perez, who served in the military with him in Iraq. Perez described
Mejia as "a brave leader" and insisted that he should not be prosecuted. "I
fought next to him in many battles," he said. "He is not a coward."
Concern that Mejia's action may strike a chord with a wider layer of troops
presently in Iraq presents the Pentagon with a quandary. As Tod Ensign of
Citizen Soldier pointed out, Mejia's actions represent a "test case that
will have broad impact on other objectors or potential objectors.... [T]hey
risk him becoming some sort of martyr to the antiwar movement." On the other
hand, if Mejia is treated with leniency and granted conscientious objector
status, it could encourage other soldiers to follow suit.
In the wake of Mejia's turning himself in, the US military command in Iraq
reported that two US Army medics have applied for CO status. The two
notified the army of their request on February 9. They asked to be honorably
discharged from the military because the idea of killing is "revolting" to
them, a US military spokesman said.
senhor san
To: Senhor San
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 5:37 AM
Subject: IF THE 9-11 COMMISSION WON'T HEAR EASTMAN THE COMMISSION IS
BULLSHIT (AND CULPABLE IN OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE)
A Zionist Jew is in overall charge of the 9-11 Commission.
An awful thing to say, right?
But it is also true and it is also essential to exploring and breaking up
an obstruction of justice in the 9-11 high-government-crime mass-murder
case.
Another Zionist Jew, Al Felzenberg, is the Commission's information
gatekeeper whose primary function has been to keep out -- by directing
Pentagon photo-evidence presentations to "black holes" where they never
again emerge to light of day -- everything necessary for a REAL
INVESTIGATION OF WHO ACTUALLY DID 9-11 -- because in particular Zionist
Neo-conservatives running the Pentagon (Wolfowitz, Perle, Kissinger,
Rumsfeld, Gingrich) were the architects of the inside-job false-flag
mass-murder black-up as established by exposure of an operation that had to
have the intimate involvement of top Pentagon power, as, in turn,
established by by multiple photo evdience proving that the Pentagon was
hit by missiles fired by a jet fighter as the Boeing 757, seen by most
witnesses in its approach, actually overflew the Pentagon and, concealed
from the witnesses to the west, by flash and smoke and low morning sun,
was, within 3 seconds, closer to Reagan National Airport, only a mile
beyond, than to the crash.
No one can shake this evidence. The professor who has edited the super-hard
brain twisters for Scientific American, A.K. Dewdney, says that the photo
evidence proves the "small-plane" and "Boeing overfly" thesis, as do other
men of science. Cf.,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TRUTHBAZOOKA/message/5
The lines of proof are multiple -- six separate independent proofs that the
Pentagon attack was carefully planned high-tech "smoke and mirrors"
black-op "wet" (people get killed) operation to attain criminal ends.
Only two responses to "TRUTHBAZOOKA 5" conclusive evidence are being
offered:
1) Silence and censorship -- Felzenberg turning TRUTHBAZOOKA 5 away at the
door -- the monopoly media specifically forbidding any mention of the
"small-plane" evidence or the fact that the entire internet has either
accepted or given up trying to discredit the conclusions derived from this
established unimpeachable evidence.
2) Ad Hominem -- Since the perpetrators at the Pentagon and the people
blocking the emergence of the evidence into the light of public-awareness
and official-recognition day are all Jewish, then the people seeking to
present the information and pointing out the ZIonist Jew background of the
evidence-implicated perpetrators and coverup, then anyone holding or
introducing the 'small-plane" findings must be anti-ZIonist and a "hate"
criminal allied with terrorists who are also anti-Zionist hate criminals
etc. -- even though the small-plane findings imply that no terrorists really
existed, apart from the false-flag black ops of the true 9-11 perpetrators.
But this can't last forever -- either the multi-billionaires will be caught
by the people or the people will be crushed entirely by the
multi-billionaires (Zionism being the ideology of the merchant bankers who,
on paper, own the world.)
Meanwhile, you who have not been to bright, STOP GOING ALONG WITH THE
CHARADE -- THE COMMISSION IS WHITEWASH -- THE 9-11 FAMILIES WILL ONLY GET
TOKEN REVELATIONS OF MERELY THE SECONDARY OFFENSES -- THE OLIGARCHY WILL
NOT ALLOW THE BLOOD ON ITS HANDS TO BE KNOWN -- THE OLIGARCHY MUST BE
OVERTHROWN BY THE PEOPLE COMING TO THEIR OWN CONCLUSIONS FROM THE
EVIDENCE -- WITHOUT ANY WHITEWASH COMMISSION -- AND THEN BY SHEAR WEIGHT OF
PUBLIC AND WORLD OPINION TEARING THESE CRIMINALS FROM POWER (ECONOMIC AND
POLITICAL) ALL AROUND THE WORLD.
Tell a friend.
Dick Eastman
223 S. 64th Ave.
Yakima, Washington
=======
Hamas has distributed playing cards carrying the names of Israeli officials
that would be targeted, in an apparent move to imitate the American deck of
cards of "wanted" former Iraqi officials of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Khaled Mashaal, Hamas political bureau head, told the movement's website
that Hamas' response to Yassin's assassination would be "of the same size
and impact," meaning it would be targeting high-level Israeli officials and
that Hamas does not intend to carry out attacks against "international"
targets, saying the movement would focus its attacks exclusively against
Israel until the ending of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian
territories. "Sharon has become targeted by Palestinian resistance men and
Al-Qassam Brigades, in retaliation for the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed
Yassin,"
REMEMBER, IT WAS ZIONIST JEWS -- THE SO-CALLED 'NEO-CONS' AT THE PENTAGON
WHO WERE BEHIND THE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 MASS-MURDER KILLINGS OF OVER 2000
PEOPLE IN NEW YORK AND ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA. REMEMBER TOO THAT AL QA'EDA IS
A CIA-MOSSAD-MI6 ENTITY INTENDED FOR BLACK-OPS TO UNITED THE WORLD AGAINST
THE (INNOCENT) MOSLEM WORLD AND TO GARNER MORE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC AID FOR
ISRAEL FROM THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AND AMERICAN JEWS (MANY OF WHOM ARE AMONG
THE MOST HATEFUL AND PARANOID AND DYSFUNCTIONAL-TRADITION -BRAINWASHED
PEOPLE ON EARTH.) THE MOSLEMS ARE BEING FRAMED BY THE ZIONISTS AND IT TOOK
OVER 2000 AMERICAN LIVES FOR THEM TO DO IT PROPERLY -- OR SO THEY THOUGHT.
Dick Eastman
===============
Liberal Democrat (i.e. British populist) leader in Parliament, Shirely
Williams writes:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel has chosen to escalate still further
the unending conflict with his Palestinian neighbors by assassinating their
revered spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Sharon has always been a
risk-taker. By escalating the conflict he increases the pressure on his
strongest ally, the United States. The next 10 days may determine the fate
of the region - whether that be ever-growing violence or a massive effort to
bring about a negotiated peace.
Sharon has been trying to convince his fragmented and divided coalition
cabinet to back his proposal for a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and a few
settlements on the West Bank. In return he seeks to exact a high price from
Washington: endorsement of a major incursion into the West Bank amounting to
the annexation of 8 percent of the territory - a territory already reduced
to 22 percent of what was Palestine in 1948, when the state of Israel was
founded.
Eight percent sounds rather modest. But anyone who has travelled recently in
the West Bank, as I have done for the past week with two parliamentary
colleagues, knows it is not. Much of the West Bank, starved of water, is
arid. It is criss-crossed with handsome modern highways, linking one Israeli
settlement to another. Palestinians are not allowed to use them. Access to
Palestinian villages along the route of the roads is blocked by huge stones
and often by checkpoints manned by Israeli soldiers. Palestinian cars and
trucks cannot get through. Palestinians spend hours trying to cross these
lines to tend their fields or to meet family members.
The West Bank is not poorer than Gaza, a crowded enclave where unemployment
is more than 60 percent, which depends on the United Nations or busy
nongovernment organizations for food. But it is even more wretched. It is
almost impossible for a Palestinian anywhere near Jerusalem or any other
Israeli city get a license to build a house.
Since the second intifada began in September 2000, more than 1,000
Palestinian houses have been destroyed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem
for breaching planning laws. These laws appear to have been waived for the
new Israeli settlements on the West Bank, where thousands of white houses
march in regiments over hill after hill, dominating the scattered
Palestinian villages.
Security fences and outposts mark areas for future development, four times
the area of the existing settlements. In between, Palestinian farmers watch
their traditional olive groves and grazing land gradually swallowed up.
Thousands of acres of citrus orchards and olive trees have been uprooted and
destroyed, some by the Israeli military on security grounds. Palestinians
have little left to live on.
What Sharon is seeking from the United States is the legitimization of this
conquest-by-stealth. Sharon's unilateral plan for the West Bank is illegal
in international law and ignores the road map, the peace plan backed by the
international community. If Washington supports Sharon's proposal, the
so-called "two states" solution - a secure and sovereign Israel alongside a
secure and safe Palestine - will be dead in the water.
Israel has the energy, the education and the commitment to be a wonderful
country. It has great achievements to its credit. Sickened by the suicide
bombers that kill innocent Israeli civilians, a majority of the population
longs for a lasting peace.
Israel is also a vibrant democracy. Nongovernment organizations are
flourishing, many of them engaged in helping Palestinians. Physicians for
Human Rights, for example, mobilizes scores of Israeli doctors who give up
their weekends to attend makeshift clinics in Palestinian villages jammed
with desperate parents and sick children. Defiant Israelis rush to defend
Palestinian homes about to be demolished. The newspapers reflect the deeply
divided opinions of Israel's Jewish citizens. But with large areas of the
West Bank off-limits to Israelis, many do not know what is being done in
their name.
Israel's democracy could be the source of a much wider democratic movement
among her neighbors, if only the cycle of revenge and retaliation were
brought to an end. The most promising candidate for democratization is,
paradoxically, Palestine. We parliamentarians, on an all-party visit
sponsored by Christian Aid, encountered a lively civic society in Gaza and
the West Bank, where nonviolent activists run health centers, human rights
groups, and agricultural and environmental projects, each a victory of the
human spirit over despair. These men and women, not the backward-looking and
impotent Palestinian Authority, offer hope for the future, and could become
the partners whom Israel claims to want.
If President George W. Bush blesses Sharon's unilateral plan, and if he
condones a wall that splits farms and families and requisitions large new
areas of Palestinian land, without negotiating a solution acceptable to both
sides, the cancer of this conflict will claim new victims and create an army
of new terrorists.
===========
Dick Eastman recommends:
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
Thomas Jefferson
Bush's most avid supporters are a puritanical bunch. They attend church.
They pray on streetcorners. They bludgeon the unwitting with their
sanctimonious talk of God, Family, and the American Way. So convinced are
they of their moral superiority, they have no qualms about marching toward
even greater material gluttony over a pavement of charred corpses. In fact,
they seem to see this as a divine quest. You don't need a doctorate in
Theology to know that if Hell is real, its inmost pit has got to be reserved
for hypocrites such as these.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
ANALYSIS OF 9-11
Hijackers?
What makes you think you actually KNOW what happened on those planes? All
four were obliterated, along with everyone on board, remember? No crime
scene, no direct evidence, no recognizable remains, no witnesses
whatsoever -- it's a blank canvas. How convenient for any party intent on
launching a new era of global imperialism, and willing to spin this tragedy
into a viable excuse. Indeed, all of the attack's consequences are far
better explained by this agenda than by Bin Laden's purported death wish.
Those presuming to examine this matter, i.e. ALL OF US, need to recognize
that such trickery is a timeless specialty of governments.
And yet from that very day we have allowed the government-media complex to
focus all attention on one rather thin explanation: Crazy Arabs did it!
George W. Bush and his cabinet have made it known to us, in the most
arrogant terms, that they will brook no discussion of other possibilities --
an edict most Americans, in their desperation to believe in this man, seem
to have embraced. The Bush Administration even withholds its "proof" of Al
Qa'eda's guilt; clearly, it considers mere citizens too unimportant to
require full explanations, and once again, we're just rolling over and
taking it.
The phrases 'spiritually broken' and 'morally adrift' come to mind...
Until the full case against Al Qa'eda is made available for public review,
we have absolutely no assurance that this "proof" isn't exactly like the
"proof" of Iraq's weapons programs -- i.e., a big fat lie from top to
bottom. On these terms, wholesale acceptance of the hijacker scenario will
continue to be what it has always been: a pathetic display of blind faith in
this administration's utterances, and in those of its media accomplices. At
present, it is astonishing that anyone places faith of any kind in either
party: by means of the "WMD" debacle, both have proven themselves amoral,
duplicitous, and utterly devoid of humanity. Indeed, why do we give them so
much as a moment of our attention? No one with a lick of sense would do
this.
A rigorous civilian investigation of 9-11 would help resolve such doubts. If
Bush and the rest were standing on firm ground, they would fully support
such a thing. Instead, they have worked to thwart both its formation and its
progress, using every resource within their reach. Some time last year, they
seem to have realized they were only fueling suspicions this way, so Bush
grudgingly approved an "independent" investigation. The arrogance of this
bunch is so disabling, however, that they actually damaged their credibility
even further by naming Henry Kissinger to lead it. This is a man whose
dedication to "US interests" verges on homicidal psychosis (see his
treatment of Cambodians 1970, Chileans 1973, East Timorese and Kurds 1975,
MUCH more). He could only be expected to skew this investigation accordingly
, i. e., to omit and cover up any issue not conducive to empire building.
Ironically, even Henry had the sense to admit he was an inappropriate
choice, thus resigning from this duty, whereupon Bush immediately returned
to his original tactic of stonewalling (1). Could the man possibly have
something to hide?
To appreciate the ugliest possibilities of the 9-11 attack, one must first
become aware of the continuous practice of such manipulations by the entire
progression of American politicians. The need to cultivate this awareness is
itself an enigma: if you have the honesty to see this pattern at all, its
full enormity, emerging over time, will at some point cause your previous
ignorance to amaze you. Imagine living your entire life with an 800-pound
gorilla, then realizing one day it's not a sofa, after all. At the same
time, finding this enlightenment is challenging, because the relevant facts
are usually withheld from the public for decades, seldom appearing in
mainstream discourse even after they become common knowledge -- not because
of some grand conspiracy, but because legions of 'America Firsters,'
including most of the famous and powerful, simply don't want to hear it. The
telling of these facts is an affront to their most cherished political
assumptions. Invariably, they respond with hostile apologetics, ranging from
simple denial and ridicule to the claim that such incidents are random and
unrelated "mistakes." That they can sincerely believe this 'unrelated' claim
is remarkable, given the way it crushes into dust under any burden of
historical proof: America's state crimes have been ethically monstrous, vast
in both scale and number, unilateral in their aggression, virtually
uninterrupted in their chronology, and very coherent in both motive and
method. Certain themes just keep popping up:
1) Greed, particularly for territory;
2) Supremacism, driven only partly by race, perhaps more so by delusions of
national grandeur allowed to ramify without limit;
3) An enthusiasm for "total war" -- i. e., the indiscriminate butchery of
entire populations. This seems most likely to happen when "strategic"
territories, resources, or victories are at stake. That is, when those in
authority feel they "must win," and so discard principle to whatever extent
is necessary;
4) The systemic corruption and antidemocratic functioning of every level of
American government, made abundantly clear by its relations with sworn
enemies of the public interest, namely corporations;
5) The bid for global empire that has all but defined the American agenda
since W.W.II, in flagrant violation of democratic principle.
This last "US interest," discussed openly by flacks and shills only since
9-11 suspended all moral judgment on such matters, actually represents the
driving passion of our ruling elite, going all the way back to the
Revolution. Indeed, grasping the means of power, beginning with sovereign
domain, was their main motive for pursuing revolution at all. Starting then
and continuing ever since, they have whipped the people up to support their
warped appetites, even as they have misrepresented them spectacularly. EVERY
SINGLE TIME we as a people have committed to a war of expansion, we have
been duped into doing so by their twin handservants, American politics and
American media:
1776 to 1890
Innumerable 'Indian wars'
In which the western frontier was pushed through the territories of one
Indian confederation after another, all the way to the Pacific. An early and
definitive example is George Washington's post-revolutionary conquest of the
Ohio Valley, where the Washington Family held deeds to immense tracts of
prime real estate never actually ceded by the Indians. The lore that George
was a "surveyor" is a populist distortion; he was no blue collar grunt,
laying out property lines to earn a living. He was in fact the most
ambitious of an elite family of 'land speculators' -- the colonial
equivalent of venture capitalists -- and his toils were in the service of
his own family fortune. Already one of the richest people in
post-revolutionary America, he was determined to get even richer through the
sale of his Ohio holdings, and wasn't about to be stopped by 'two-legged
vermin' like the Shawnees and Miamis. To this end, he abused his dominance
of the early federal government, arranging for Revolutionary War veterans (a
battle-hardened militia) to be compensated with "land warrants" deep in
Ohio's wilderness, far beyond his own holdings. He also encouraged the
issuance of large bounties, equivalent to several months' income, for Indian
scalps along the upper Ohio River. These were essentially open murder
contracts that targeted ALL Indians, regardless of age, gender, or tribal
affiliation. By this means, genocide was openly subsidized for decades
wherever intact Indian cultures presented an obstacle to "progress."
Primitive as media was, its role in all this was crude but sufficient:
posting the bounties while inflaming the settlers' hatred with tales of
Indian atrocities, real and imagined. In the Ohio Territory, these tactics
rapidly progressed to open war, orchestrated by Washington against
Tecumseh's Shawnee Confederation, and then to the total extermination and
westward displacement of the Ohio tribes (2).
1846 to '48
The Mexican War:
Beginning in 1818, when the Oregon Territory was acquired, American
imperialists developed an intense interest in California. Simply adding it
piecemeal to their territorial inventory wouldn't have worked, however: it
was too isolated, too defensible by the Mexicans. To take California, all of
northern Mexico -- what is now California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New
Mexico, Texas, and portions of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado -- would have
to be taken, requiring the invention of some PRETEXT for doing so. In 1836,
American "adventurers" (freelance political operatives) instigated a
regional coup in the Mexican province of Texas, splitting it off to form an
independent country, the Republic of Texas. Nine years later, this nation
was annexed as the 28th state. Immediately afterward, President Polk made
the predictable move of sending belligerent military incursions into
disputed lands along the new border with Mexico. The Mexicans replied with
patrols of their own, and then clashes developed, leading to the "spilling
of American blood on American soil." Or so the press told it (their bias
could be summed up in a phrase they coined around this time: "Manifest
Destiny"). In fact, the soil in question was situated between the Nueces and
Rio Grande rivers, an area both governments held equal claim to. But no
matter -- the people eagerly accepted this distortion, Polk got his dirty
little war, and then proceeded to steal something like 650,000 square miles
of territory from our next-door neighbor. Add to this the previous criminal
acquisition of territory from Mexico, i.e. the "Lone Star State," and the
area usurped approaches one-third of the contiguous 48 states, or HALF of
what was originally Mexico (3).
Some years later, a fantastic mineral strike in this stolen territory -- the
Comstock Lode -- would provide the Hearst Family with an immense fortune,
soon parlayed by William Randolph into an infamous media empire.
1898 to '99
The Spanish-American War/Philippine Campaign:
Though still a colonial client of Spain during the 1880s and '90s, Cuba was
also a hotbed of insurrection, thanks to the efforts of Jose Marti and
others. By 1898, the Cuban independence movement had Spain's colonial
government on the ropes. The prominence of blacks among the rebels made this
situation alarming for fin de siecle American royalists, among whom
"Darwinist" (i.e. proto-Nazi) political thought was at the height of its
popularity. Also, having just recently subdued the last free-roaming Indian
tribes back home, their passion for grabbing other people's land could now
be expanded into the Caribbean, Central America, and Pacific, via expanded
activities of that handy agency, the US military. So in the fall and winter
of 1897-98, the Hearst syndicate and other news organizations were blasting
Americans with "yellow journalism" on the subject of Cuba -- sensational and
often ludicrous accounts, custom made to induce support of US military
intervention. The public thus primed, the sinking of the battleship USS
Maine in Havana Harbor gave McKinley all the excuse needed to commence
grabbing up not only Cuba, but also Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
It was in the Philippines that the US military took "total war" beyond North
America for the first time. Encouraged by the Filipino's uncanny resemblance
to Native Americans, US troops mass-murdered something like 25% of the
civilian population. As imperial outrages go, this was the equal of anything
that's happened since (4).
A 1975 investigation led by Admiral Rickover determined that the Maine's
hull was breached by an explosion originating INSIDE the ship. This could
have been a spontaneous "coal-bin explosion," or it could have been a bomb
placed by an imperialist traitor. As with 9-11, this catastrophe neatly
erased any inconvenient witnesses to its real mechanics.
1917 to '18
World War I:
Three years into the "Great War," it looked as though Germany would defeat
Britain and France, our primary capitalist hosts in Europe. Big financiers
like J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, who between them had billions
invested "over there," weren't about to just sit back and watch this happen.
They barked orders to their underling, Woodrow Wilson, who then declared
war, using German interference with US shipping activities as a feeble
pretext. Leading up to this, the media minions whipped the public into a war
frenzy, basing their wildly manipulative propaganda on incidents such as the
sinking of the Lusitania, two years earlier. Funny thing about the
Lusitania: it's hold contained a secret, illegal, and massive cargo of
ammunition and other materiel bound for Liverpool, and its passengers were
used as unwitting human shields for this cargo by the US government, which
is why they died. Neither Wilson nor the media of the day ever admitted any
of this (5).
The dynamics behind America's entry into World War II were virtually
identical. Over 500,000 Americans died in these two wars, with 875,000 more
wounded, and an additional and unknown number emotionally shattered, all of
which brought untold misery to their families and communities. Given the
choice between destroying all those lives or allowing the likes of Morgan
and Rockefeller to suffer the tragedy of somewhat less obscene wealth, our
"representatives" chose the former as the lesser sacrifice.
1941 to '45
World War II:
France already lying crushed beneath Hitler's war machine, and Britain under
a devastating siege, the White House was once again compelled to intervene
on behalf of its capitalist masters, whose European investments had grown
two magnitudes since the close of W.W.I. Unlike Wilson, however, FDR did a
truly brilliant job of constructing a pretext. in September of 1940,
Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, a treaty committing
all three countries to counterattack against new foes faced by any one of
them. This gave Roosevelt a back door into Europe via the Pacific. Beginning
one month later, and fourteen months prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, he
launched secret military and economic operations against the Japanese
Empire, obstructing its only access to oil, rubber, and other strategic
resources. The Japanese response to this blockade -- open hostilities
against the United States, beginning with a crippling preemptive attack on
the Pacific Fleet -- was entirely predictable. In fact, it was Roosevelt's
whole purpose in setting up the blockade: Nearly unanimous "isolationist"
sentiment at home was his first military target, and precipitating a
"vicious sneak attack on US soil" was his deliberate design for destroying
that sentiment. For this reason, he concentrated the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii
as never before, where it would be seen as an imminent threat by Japanese
generals. He then withheld intelligence of Japan's attack preparations from
Pearl's top officers, continuing to exclude them even when radio intercepts
revealed the movement of a Japanese carrier group toward Hawaii (6).
From 1941 to '46, and again in 1995, Congress investigated "the intelligence
lapses that made this sneak attack possible" no less than NINE TIMES. On all
of these occasions, officials of the Roosevelt Administration and the Office
of Naval Intelligence perjured themselves and concealed vast amounts of
evidence to preserve the historical fictions surrounding the Pearl Harbor
attack. To this day, the NSA claims "national security" as its basis for
withholding relevant material from the public. "National security" stands
revealed, then, as a euphemism for this government's ruthless grip on
power -- a thing that certainly would be threatened, were we to become fully
aware of the treacheries it spawns. This context radically transforms
"national security" rhetoric into an ideal excuse for all sorts of betrayals
and deceits, and this seems to be it's actual interpretation among those who
"safeguard" it.
The agonies of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, etc. under Hitler, not to mention those
of the Chinese and Koreans under the Japanese Empire, were incidental at
best to US motives for pursuing W.W.II, both before and during. It was only
afterward that the camps were seized upon as a full-blown "pretext in
retrospect" to maximize America's apparent heroism. With each year that has
passed since, this myth has been more shamelessly advanced, so that now some
stunning percentage of Americans believe that "halting genocide" was their
government's main motive for waging war at all.
1945 to '89
The Cold War (a.k.a. W.W.III):
was launched by the closing episode of W.W.II, i.e., the atomic bombing of
Japan. President Truman's official rationalization for the bombing,
trumpeted ad nauseum by the media of the day, was that it was the only way
to end the war quickly, thus avoiding a horrific house-by-house assault of
the entire Japanese Archipelago. In fact, the Japanese were already making
conditional surrender overtures. Accepting their terms, however, would have
made Truman's victory conditional as well, and he was determined to
humiliate them. Even the total surrender he insisted on was only a few
months away, by all signs. Meanwhile, the war in Europe having ended in May,
the Russians were now free to join the allied fight against this old enemy
of theirs, and were preparing to do exactly that. Given enough time to enter
the Pacific War, they would have claimed a portion of Japan upon its
surrender, just as they had recently claimed the eastern half of Europe. To
keep the Soviets from horning in on this pending crown jewel of America's
Pacific Empire, Truman needed his total victory immediately, and The Bomb
gave him an irresistible means by which to secure it. As an early devotee of
anti-Communist paranoia, he was also confronting the Russians with a
demonstration of America's 'invincible technological prowess.' Finally, his
decision to vaporize 200,000 Japanese civilians was made easier by his
avowed hatred of the entire race (7).
The cover provided by the Cold War enabled the United States to pursue its
largest campaign of expansion by far, extending its economic and strategic
tentacles into every corner of the planet and even into space by means of
literally hundreds of "anti-Communist" initiatives, interventions, and proxy
wars. Our present "global hegemony," a source of endless glee for Bush and
other miscreants, didn't "just happen" -- it was the overarching and
unspoken goal of US Cold War politics.
Another important thing to understand about the Cold War: the "War on
Terrorism" is directly adapted from it, just as the Cold War itself
developed directly from W.W.II, which was in turn a direct consequence of
W.W.I, which was Germany and Britain vying with one another for world
domination -- a contest America ended up winning. What an epic of
greed-crazed murderous lunacy! One that the present regime seeks only to
perpetuate, and for the same reasons as always: expansion and consolidation
of empire.
1950 to '53
The Korean War:
To coerce public support for this war, the press and the Truman
Administration whipped up public hysteria about the "Red Menace!" that was
then "swallowing up" obscure Far Eastern precincts. No mention, of course,
that the mounting anti-US sentiment in those precincts resulted entirely
from collaboration between US occupation forces and the Japanese fascists
they were supposedly there to remove. This collaboration ranks as one of the
most arrogant foreign policy blunders in US history. For people throughout
the Far East, it was an unbearable betrayal, as it effectively prolonged
what had already been one of the most gruesome and protracted military
occupations EVER. Similar dynamics had already developed in mainland China,
a hornet's nest so immense that withdrawal quickly resolved as our only sane
option. And also in the Philippines, where US troops and Huk rebels started
out fighting side by side to expel the Japanese. Indigenous sovereignty
being the Huk's ultimate goal, the Americans began killing them, too, as the
Japanese were subdued. Two thousand miles from all these places, in French
Indochina, the exact tensions seen in Korea arose AGAIN in response to
brutal French/Japanese collaboration -- abetted by American field agents,
naturally (8).
In all four places, revolutionary leaders greatly admired America's
political tradition of anti-colonialism and self-determination, and sought
to claim these values for their own countries. They even made earnest
attempts to form friendships with the US; they thought colonialism was a
'european thing,' so that we must therefore be 'the good guys.' For
strategic planners back in Washington, all this was at odds with their grand
design for the Far East: now being vacated by its previous colonial tenants,
it was seen as a "power vacuum," fairly begging for RE-colonization
according to America's obfuscated formula of puppet politics and corporate
infiltration.
American society has yet to recover from the "Red Menace!" propaganda
barrage, which soon became a constant theme of international news coverage,
and remained so for the next 40 years. As a means of inducing mass paranoia
and public consent to limitless militarization, the "Red Menace" lost its
punch following the collapse of the Soviet Union, necessitating its
replacement with a more robust methodology -- the "Terrorist Menace!" Nazi
Germany and Israel being the great innovators of this second method, America
owes a great debt to both of them.
1965 to '73
The Vietnam War:
By way of manipulating Congress into granting him war powers, LBJ reprised
the "vicious sneak attack" gambit with his brazen lies regarding such action
by the North Vietnamese against US Navy vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Beginning in 1969, Nixon and Kissinger expanded on this crime enormously,
adding Laos and Cambodia to North Vietnam as targets of a redoubled 'total
war' initiative. Several million tons of cluster bombs were then used to
totally destroy vast civilian districts in all three countries (districts
simply crawling, mind you, with subsistence farmers bent on global
domination). All of which exactly repeated the pattern of the Korean War --
right down to America not winning (9).
As huge as the American effort against Vietnam was, it was just one element
of a yet more enormous strategy of military encirclement (a.k.a.
"containment") directed against mainland China. Other elements were: the
permanent and massive U.S. military presence in Japan; a similar presence in
Thailand; unlimited military and economic support to Chiang Kai-Shek's exile
government on Formosa (Taiwan); the Korean War and subsequent permanent U.S.
military presence in Korea; a strong strategic interest in India, including
covert support of an otherwise preposterous nuclear weapons program; also, a
U.S.-equipped and -trained covert army of Chinese "nationalists" in eastern
Burma, within what became known as the "Golden Triangle." It was here that
the CIA first learned of the marvels of the international heroin trade.
To advance its "interests," the U.S. government has manipulated the affairs
of every region of the planet on this same incredible scale, and continues
to do so. Other hotspots include Europe, the Middle East, Central Africa,
and all of Latin America and the Pacific.
1991 to 2003
The Gulf War / "No-fly Zones" / Sanctions:
To con Americans into backing this outrage, Daddy Bush and his media
bed-buddies told a couple real whoppers. First there was the one about the
satellite photographs of a massive Iraqi invasion force assembling on the
northern border of Saudi Arabia (10). Then there was the Kuwait Incubator
Hoax, an inventive revival of the childish "babies on bayonets" propaganda
of World War I -- as told by a child, no less (11). As it turned out,
Operation "Desert Storm" was merely the opening episode of a ruthless
destabilization program, aimed primarily at hapless civilians, that would
continue for over a decade, killing no less than 500,000 Iraqis in a fairly
obvious attempt to turn them against their head of state. This fulfills any
sane definition of terrorism, and is probably the most grandiose recent
example of the state-sponsored variety. It was maintained with enthusiasm by
the Clinton Administration.
2001 to present
The "War on Terror" (a.k.a. W.W.IV):
Pretexts include: 1) the 9-11 attack; 2) this Administration's single-minded
incrimination of Al Qa'eda (a CIA proxy), backed up with such things as; 3)
an obviously fraudulent videotape of Osama "confessing;" 4) the conceit that
Al Qa'eda's guilt justified a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan (the
combined strike force for which began building up at least six months prior
to 9-11, disguised as a "war game"); 5) an implied equation between Al
Qa'eda and Iraq's Ba'athite regime, and; 6) the absurd fantasy that Iraq, a
country left all but helpless by the previous campaign, might pose a real
threat to the world's deadliest strategic power.
By rights, I should have included the Civil War in this run-down: all the
ingredients are there, with antidemocratic preservation of domain being
equivalent to expansion. Also, the fable that 'freeing the slaves' was its
entire purpose has to rank among the wildest disinformation campaigns ever
perpetrated upon Americans by our "free press."
Though they never precipitated the full-scale wars their authors had in
mind, a few other nasty episodes are especially relevant to 9-11:
Operation "Northwoods"
A Pentagon plan for a massive "false flag" terror campaign against American
citizens, the purpose being to provide pretext for a full-scale invasion of
Cuba. If approved, it would have entailed such things as sniper attacks on
random US citizens (a la the DC sniper), terrorist bombings, and a bogus
missile attack on an unmanned, remote-controlled US airliner in the
Caribbean, the plane's fictitious passengers to be reported as "entirely
lost." All of this was to be carried out by US intelligence agents posing as
Cuban operatives, whose dirty work would translate directly into the sort of
massive public manipulation campaign this government always launches when it
sees profit in war. The Northwoods plan was called off by Robert McNamara
only when it was submitted for executive approval, having already been
approved by every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (12).
Northwoods would never amount to anything more than a glimmer in some agency
psychopath's eye. In Europe, however, the CIA's most deranged anti-leftist
terror tactics were actually implemented ...
Operation "Stay Behind"; Operation "Gladio"
As part of a larger US withdrawal strategy following W.W.II, the CIA created
underground right-wing militias throughout Western Europe, to be activated
as guerilla armies in the event of invasion by the Soviets. These were known
as "Stay Behind" forces; they were a rogue's gallery of mercenary scum,
dominated by devout ex-Nazis recruited by SS-cum-CIA agent Reinhard Gehlen.
As the years passed and the Soviets failed to provide the anticipated
invasion, the Stay Behinds resorted to other means of justifying their CIA
paychecks. All across Europe, beginning in the 1950s, they morphed into
right-wing hit squads and terrorist groups. They participated in massive
CIA-NATO destabilization efforts against the Soviet Bloc countries,
assassinating Soviet officials, sabotaging industrial plants and public
infrastructure, and generally terrorizing civilian populations. The pattern
should be familiar from similar terror campaigns against Cuba and Nicaragua.
In East Berlin, the activities of Stay Behind units were the primary reason
for the construction of the Berlin Wall. The Stay Behinds did not limit
their mayhem to the Soviet Bloc, however; as time passed, their attention
turned more and more to equivalent activities within their NATO home
countries. Throughout Western Europe, particularly in Italy, leftist
politics had a stronger following than it has seen in the U.S. since the
1930s, and the Stay Behinds were the CIA's primary footsoldiers in its
"dirty tricks" campaign against this percieved enemy. In a psy-war effort to
alienate the public from the political left, they launched bogus left-wing
terror outfits (the "Baader-Meinhof Gang") or framed real leftist
undergrounds (the "Red Brigades") for atrocities they committed themselves.
In Italy, where the Stay Behind operation was code-named "Gladio," agents
posing as left-wing extremists perpetrated many public bombings during the
'70s, killing at least 300 people. These culminated in the August 1980
Bologna Train Station Bombing, which killed 86. The 1978 kidnapping and
murder of Aldo Moro was another Gladio exploit. These activities had one
purpose: to portray the political left as public enemy number one, thus
isolating it domestically while building consent for military escalation and
NATO aggression against the Soviets (13).
* * * * * * * * *
So what's it all about, anyway, all this intrigue and stomping of jackboots
on distant shores? Thanks to its unrivaled military strength and exceptional
geographic isolation (oceans make bitchin' moats), this country is all but
perfectly invulnerable to invasion, and repelling invaders would seem to be
the only defensible function of armies. No one's invaded this country since
the War of 1812, when British expeditions came out of Canada, Florida, and
the Gulf of Mexico. Don't expect a repeat anytime soon. Although a massive
one, the Pearl Harbor Attack was still just a raid, on what at the time was
this country's farthest-flung primary military base.
To keep the entire planet under its thumb, our government burdens us with
the gargantuan cost of the world's largest military, which it mostly uses to
crush pitiful rebellions in the remotest and poorest corners of the world,
places we truly have no business being in. This is exactly like a bully
swaggering around a schoolyard, shaking down all the little kids. Is that
really how you want your government representing you to the rest of the
world? Shouldn't DOMESTIC policy take priority instead? Things like adequate
health care and effective primary education -- programs that would serve the
wants and needs of YOU, their citizen, whom they claim to be their master.
But this is not their priority, and never has been. The geometric growth of
this economy, by various forms of conquest, is their abiding passion, with
domestic policy being attended to almost as an afterthought. To force our
consent, they hypnotize us with lurid visions of one boogeyman after
another, maintaining childish fear as our primary political sensibility,
keeping us dependent, trusting, stupid, distracting us from our own
self-interests...
Why is that?
WHO BENEFITS??
The average American, who spends his or her life chained to the machinery of
wealth production, watching their share of its output dwindle steadily, sure
as hell doesn't. The stratum of society that truly gains from all this just
happens to be the same one that finds employment in high-level intelligence
positions: big-time spooks like Kermit Roosevelt, the Dulles brothers,
Nelson Rockefeller, George H. W. Bush -- i. e. America's ruling families. In
their parlance, "U.S. Interests" is just doublespeak for global empire and
corporate colonialism, and these have always been the real purposes behind
their warmongering.
All told, these wars killed over a million US soldiers, along with many
times this number of civilians and combatants in the lands invaded, and this
isn't even touching on the dozens of proxy wars that have been the American
Empire's main battle front for going on sixty years. All of these millions
of people, American and foreign alike, were MURDERED by a government intent
on advancing the interests of a tiny minority while betraying the rest of
humanity; a government willing to wield its power in their service in any
manner, including technological and economic terror campaigns waged against
entire national populations. And yet this government has the audacity to
call itself a "beacon of hope to the world!" And the majority BELIEVE THEM!!
It simply amazes.
America's shadowy patricians were already too powerful before the Cold War.
And then decades of public hysteria borne of imminent nuclear annihilation
delivered them into the fabled realm of "absolute power." This has been
pretty obvious. Americans have avoided realizing it only by actively
pursuing a mental state of utter denial on this subject, sort of like the
three monkey icons of Shinto. Thanks to this determined ignorance, keeping
the rest of us in the dark has been childishly easy for people like the
Bushes. They can even be incredibly brazen and sloppy and get caught
red-handed, as with Watergate. No biggy: just tell all the boobs it was
Nixon acting alone, assisted by his best buddies, who just happened to be,
um, CIA agents. Yah. They'll never notice this story's unbelievable stench;
they'll be too relieved at having any sort of excuse to NOT think about it.
You know, just like when the Warren Commission's whitewash came out.
One hypothesis is particularly good for sending 'America Firsters' into an
apoplexy of denial: that the political culture now emerging in Washington is
actually a product of 40 years of covert penetration into the Executive
Branch. To substantiate this, one need look no further than the lineage of
our present "leader." His grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a military spy
during W.W.I, a key financial collaborator with the Nazis, and a US Senator.
His father, George H. W. Bush, was heir to the CIA realm under our most
infamous presidential regime, a fixture in presidential politics for 20
years, and all in all one of the creepiest figures ever to darken the
American political stage. The 'quiet coup' that brought this man to power
traces back to the Eisenhower Administration, when the utterly creepy
"National Security" underworld first became a secret and malevolent force in
national politics -- a force whose power is still nearly impossible to
measure. There are ominous glimpses, though: in 1960, Eisenhower's VP and
political heir, Richard M. Nixon, was shouldered aside by John F. Kennedy,
who over the next three years developed grave misgivings about this
underworld and its power. Then he ended up dead, and yes, his assassination
DID stink of black ops, as did the similar jobs on Malcolm X, Martin Luther
King, and his kid brother "Bobby," who would have been the SECOND Kennedy to
sour Nixon's presidential hopes, had he lived to see the 1968 election...
Though the CIA denies it, several independent sources identify George H. W.
Bush as a high-ranking agent during the Kennedy Administration, commanding
covert operations against Cuba. The ships used in Operation "Zapata" (the
"Bay of Pigs" invasion) were named by him, it is said, after members of his
family. Those names indeed correspond with those of his wife and children.
Among the most conclusive sources is an official memorandum from J. Edgar
Hoover, dated November 29, 1963, which refers to a "Mr. George Bush of the
Central Intelligence Agency" (14). The memo refers to Bush's evaluation of
emotional reactions to Kennedy's assassination among Cuban exiles under his
watch.
From here, Bush the Elder went on to become a protege of Richard Nixon's,
was a mid-echelon member of his cabinet beginning in 1971, had very
interesting connections to CREEP, and somehow eluded Congress's Watergate
dragnet.
Watergate and a few other incidents proved that Nixon had a most unwholesome
relationship with the CIA. Once this scandal had hemorrhaged to the point
that Congress could no longer avoid taking action, containing the damage
could be seen as the main theme of its response -- a hallmark of
Congressional investigations. There was far too much eagerness to examine
this matter only in terms narrowly relating to impeachment, thus leaving
larger questions wholly unexplored: did the Watergate break-in really happen
on Nixon's orders, or was the intelligence underworld acting on its own,
using 'dirty tricks' to prop up their man in the White House, exactly as it
has on countless occasions for entire puppet governments all over the world?
In the latter case, letting Nixon take the fall would have been an extreme
measure, but possibly the only sure way to divert attention from an
abhorrent and illegal power structure, thus preserving it. Nixon himself
would have been a likely author of this tactic, as it was he who trumped
Congress' investigation by resigning, whence the entire matter was eagerly
dropped.
Bone-tired of Watergate in any case, the public was predisposed to accept
Nixon's implied guilt as the final answer: "responsibility can't go any
higher than the President, right? Harry 'the buck stops here' Truman said
so." In reaching this conclusion, we were assisted by major media organs,
which immediately began spinning this as Watergate's "final resolution." In
fact, this conclusion resolved nothing -- it left the most crucial questions
hanging in mid-air, soon to be shrouded in rhetoric by professional
apologists from all quarters. Its only definite outcome was the softening of
a renewed public spirit of scrutiny and resistance, which in turn allowed a
deadly authoritarian cancer to resume its march throughout our body politic.
After going underground for seven years, this cancer emerged in full force
as the Reagan Administration.
Dubya's announcement last April of another bogus 'conclusion' -- that of his
Hitlerian conquest of Iraq -- had a strikingly similar effect. Once again,
mounting vigilance was undone by a well-timed lie, universally disseminated.
Following Nixon's resignation, Poppy finally hit the big-time when Gerald
Ford named him Director of the CIA. After toppling Carter, he became VP
himself, and for the next twelve years was at the center of the Reagan era's
continuous parade of treasonous covert operations. A few highlights: 1) the
campaign to prevent an "October Surprise," in which Bush & Co. induced the
Iranians to delay release of the American embassy hostages, thus undermining
Carter's re-election bid; 2) an inhuman terror campaign against the people
and government of Nicaragua, even after Congress declared it illegal, at
which point the CIA was forced to devise covert funding arrangements such as
3) "Iran-Contra" and 4) operation "Watchtower." This last episode, which was
going on around the time of Bush Senior's succession, is easily the most
incredible: the CIA was a major domestic smuggler and distributor of "Crack"
cocaine during the late '80s, when this drug became an inner-city plague
(15).
At this point, the CIA was contemptuously wiping its ass with the
Constitution, and got completely away with it. If this were truly the
America the Boy Scouts taught you to believe in, the exposure of operation
"Watchtower" would have destroyed the CIA.
Late in Reagan's second term, 60 minutes was granted a horrifying personal
interview with Ronnie and Nancy in the Oval Office. Horrifying because, even
though Reagan's Alzheimer's wasn't disclosed for several more years, it was
perfectly obvious the man was totally gone. Faced with a steady stream of
unscripted questions from Mike Wallace, Reagan's usual patter rapidly
degenerated into stark senile mumblings. Desperate to conceal her husband's
incoherence, Nancy kept practically thrusting her face into the cameras.
This is consistent with puzzled accounts of writers and artists of the time,
who, as dinner guests of the Reagans, were mystified as to how such an oaf
could present himself so effectively on television.
All of which implies a striking parallel between the Reagan Presidency and
that of Bush II: in both cases, Bush Senior can be discerned as the man
behind the curtain, while the "president" is a mere speech reader, whose
real job is to keep the public distracted with his amiable, vacuous,
universally televised performances. Dubya's main puppeteers -- Cheney,
Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Powell -- are all Poppy's cronies, going all the way
back to the Nixon Administration. The five Supreme Court Justices who put
Junior in power are also Nixon/Reagan/Bush cronies, and their cancellation
of democratic process was a classic "installation," reminiscent of the CIA's
long-running antidemocratic escapades throughout the world.
It has Poppy's pawprints all over it.
If not for daddy's influence, Silver Coke-spoon Boy would be lucky to find
work fishing golf balls out of water hazards at the local country club. This
is obvious, and widely acknowledged. Most Americans, however, aren't willing
to examine the enormously sinister ramifications, given Poppy's background,
of the Bush Family's dynastic grip on American politics. Most Americans,
after all, are a weak-minded lot -- though harassed by apparitions of
unprecedented corruption, they lack the courage needed to fix their gaze
upon them.
Which brings us to 9-11...
The most venerable means of transmitting control inputs from a plane's
cockpit to its various aerodynamic control surfaces (rudder, ailerons, etc.)
is via a system of cables, i.e. "aircraft cables." With the introduction of
huge planes during and after W.W.II, unassisted human arms could no longer
provide the force needed to actuate proportionately huge control surfaces,
and so hydraulic assist devices and fully hydraulic control systems were
developed. The introduction of autopilots and landing guidance systems over
the next three decades layered yet another 'control system' over this one,
an electronic layer capable of manipulating the hydraulics directly and thus
flying the plane on its own. In the 757- and 767-series planes boarded by
"the hijackers," Boeing expanded this layer enormously, making it much more
sophisticated and integral to the continuous operation of these planes. For
one thing, it continuously monitors such things as attitude, acceleration,
turn rates, etc., and if necessary can assert exclusive control of the
hydraulics at any time, modifying or even overriding pilot decisions that
would otherwise result in drastic maneuvers, inappropriate for passenger
service. Though meant to provide an added margin of safety in the event of
gross pilot error, this arrangement introduces an ominous new dimension: in
a very real sense, the humans on the flight deck have only tenuous control
of flaps, rudder, etc.; the computer, the arbiter between the two, allows
them direct control only on it's own immutable terms. If the computer can
override the pilot some of the time, a potential exists for it to override
the pilot ALL of the time. This is a vulnerable arrangement, as anyone who
has dealt with a virus should know. In other words, the advancing dependency
on avionic interfaces has brought with it an advancing potential for the
total electronic co-optation of those interfaces. As they have grown
exponentially in complexity, so too has the number of entry points by which
such co-optation might be effected. All that was needed was for
technologists to devise a "back door"...
Enter the U.S. government and its defense contractors, who began joint
development of remote flight control and flight circumvention technology at
least two decades ago, using the full force of their virtually infinite R&D
resources. The existence of these programs, and of the resulting technology,
was verified soon after 9-11 by a panel of commercial and military pilots
participating in an independent inquiry (16).
The existence of such technology IN ANY FORM raises intriguing
questions/possibilities about 9-11: 1) could the planes have been hijacked
via this technology alone? 2) Were they? 3) Remote hijacking and on-board
hijacking are not mutually exclusive scenarios; if there were actual human
hijackers on those planes, their plot may have been remotely co-opted by
another party they knew nothing about, leaving them as horrified as anyone
when the planes took control of themselves and banked straight into
buildings.
Photographic evidence and eye-witness accounts support the idea that the
override functionality of the planes' computers was somehow defeated,
allowing "the hijackers" to make prohibited maneuvers. For example, there
are multiple photographs and video clips showing AA Flight 175 making an
outrageously hard turn into the second tower. According to official
information, the plane that hit the Pentagon also made aerobatic descent
maneuvers worthy of a fighter pilot. To have flown the planes in this
manner, Atta and the rest would have needed 1) advanced large plane skills,
and 2) a way to defeat the planes' avionic systems. Since that flight school
they attended in Venice, Fla. probably didn't offer a course titled "Hot-dog
Maneuvers with Airliners 101," they must have possessed these abilities
already, so why would they have bothered with flight lessons at all? Any
benefit they realized in terms of understanding new control layouts would
have been at the cost of increased exposure, thus endangering their mission.
On the other hand, if they were as inexperienced as the presstitutes tell us
("I just want to learn how to steer"), they couldn't possibly have flown the
planes this way at all, which means someone else must have.
However distasteful, there is a real possibility that remote circumvention
occurred on those planes, a possibility that any credible investigation
would hardly ignore. All the more so because the necessary hardware isn't
just a cockamamie theory: a fully developed, totally programmable remote
flight control platform actually exists. Suggestively named the "Flight
Termination System," it is manufactured by Systems Planning Corporation of
Rosslyn, Virginia, which maintains web pages devoted to the FTS and various
subsystems:
A system overview:
http://www.sysplan.com/Radar/FTS
The transmitter hardware:
http://www.sysplan.com/Radar/CTS
Related software:
http://www.sysplan.com/Radar/MkVSW
The CEO of Systems Planning's international division, Dov Zakheim, is a
long-time DoD and Republican Party insider, and a founding member of the
Neoconservative cult. While Bush was still Governor of Texas, Zakheim became
one of his closest advisers, counseling him on defense technology and
strategic aspects of Middle Eastern affairs. After the 2000 "election,"
Rummy rewarded Zakheim with a low-profile but strategically important
position -- Comptroller, i.e. head money man, of the Defense Department.
Zakheim also co-authored the Heritage Foundation's infamous tract,
"Rebuilding America's Defenses," in which the Bush Administration's entire
design for renewed global conquest was laid down a full year prior to 9-11.
On page 63, the authors note that timely implementation of their ideas would
require "some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor."
See for yourself:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
To identify the expansionist motive behind the "9-11 Wars," one need look no
further than this document. Echoing Ziggy Brzezinski's thoughts in "The
Grand Chessboard," the authors identify the Persian Gulf / Central Asian
region as the world's greatest geopolitical prize, and recommend that
decisive control of this region be made a top strategic priority.
The remote control scenario also neatly punctures the 'yada-yada objection'
always employed by conspiracy theory critics: "It couldn't have happened
that way, because too many people would have known, and someone would
blab..." In fact, the most sensitive part of this plot would be that of
anticipating or enabling nineteen flesh-and-blood "hijackers," and yet this
part of the scenario is all but universally accepted. Nineteen men backed by
a larger organization schemed to get on those planes and take control of
them, and then they did; everyone knows they did because CNN has stated this
"fact" about ten thousand times and counting. As for exactly WHICH
organization did the backing, well, there's a saying about 'dead men' ...
Once the patsies were in position, the rest of this scenario -- the "really
unbelievable part" -- could have been carried off in its entirety by a tiny
team wielding extravagant technical skills and multimillion-dollar
equipment. No larger conspiracy is necessary. As for the apparent complicity
of the entire government and media, this is mostly just cynical opportunism
and jello-brained obedience rising to the occasion -- a response easily
anticipated by the real conspirators, for whom history provides a
never-ending parade of examples on which to base such expectations.
Mind you, this is not to say that remote circumvention is definitely what
happened. On its face, this scenario is wildly improbable. Speaking of
improbable, what about four airliners being taken over simultaneously and
used as missiles? Since this actually happened, we have no choice but to
consider fantastic scenarios, and since the official scenario is itself an
unsubstantiated "conspiracy theory," competing scenarios should also receive
serious attention. Our reluctance to question official doctrine on this
matter is a symptom of the societal role most of us have been bred and
trained for: to be ever-faithful hounds, tails thumping the floor as we
contentedly slorp the hand of class authority. Such credulity also becomes
inevitable when the alternative is so unbearable: if someone in Bush's
position is capable of lying to us about something as huge, as
gut-wrenchingly horrible as 9-11, then everything we believe about this
country -- about the nature of civilization itself -- might just be childish
nonsense...
Most people simply don't have the guts to go there.
Given a desperate enough need to sustain the childish belief in
government-as-benevolent-father, a person will adapt that belief to any
circumstance. The behavioral end result can resemble courage; indeed, we are
taught to regard it as the DEFINITION of courage. Actually, it's one of
cowardice's darkest moments. Even a casual examination of Nazi Germany,
where this phenomenon was rampant, will drive this point home.
It's almost funny, the way people readily see the threat of technological
circumvention presented by Diebold's electronic voting machines, yet when
the subject switches to the "Flight Termination System," which is every bit
as real, and to the exactly parallel possibilities it represents vis-a-vis
9-11, they suddenly retreat into profound and combative denial. It's as if a
threshold has been crossed into a realm of possibilities too vile to
entertain, so they simply don't. Never mind that this country's operatives
have been traveling the world, perpetrating similar horrors, for all of the
past century. Rather than acknowledge the possibility of a unifying pattern,
Joe Average would much rather 'shoot the messenger.'
Every so often, such people establish a new high-water mark for cowardice
and facultative stupidity, and the present is definitely one of those times.
After all, the official 9-11 scenario they cling to with such desperate
faith comes from only one source: the Western "intelligence community" --
the most brazen, systematic, resourceful, and interlocked association of
habitual liars this world has ever seen. As should have been made clear by
the 'British dossier' scandal of last winter, the credibility of this bunch
goes past zero into the negative: pending airtight proof, anything they say
should be reflexively deemed a lie. You may remember that MI5 also provided
the identities of "the 19 hijackers" -- information that soon also became
quite suspect. At least six of the hijackers, possibly as many as nine, are
still alive in the Middle East -- a pretty good alibi, considering. Several
of these ex-suspects had their passports or other IDs stolen from them over
the years, and it's entirely possible that all 19 hijackers had stolen
identities, meaning they could have come from anywhere, or been absent
altogether. The US media was pretty slack about acknowledging this at the
time, and since then has dropped this ball entirely (17).
Rather than allow the "intelligence community" to render every detail of our
comprehension on this matter, we would be much wiser to carefully identify
and discard every assumption they hand us.
Far from being a source of independent corroboration, our "free press" is
more like a public relations contractor for the spooks. This is because the
entire fourth estate AND the governments of the West, including their
intelligence services, are essentially employees of a single entity: the
US-dominated coalition of international corporations -- by several
magnitudes the largest concentration of wealth in human history.
The subjugation of governments by such an entity is hardly unprecedented.
The Twentieth Century saw several extremely unsavory examples. It's called
Fascism. You don't need to take my word for this -- just peruse the opinions
of acknowledged experts:
Benito Mussolini:
Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism
because it is a merger of State and corporate power.
Franklin D. Roosevelt:
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate
the growth of private power to the point where it becomes
stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence
is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a
group or any controlling private power. Among us today
a concentration of private power without equal in history is
growing.
For many Americans, the word 'fascist' instantly evokes jackbooted Germans
wearing Swastikas and stuffing Jews into ovens. In fact, that representation
is a cardboard diorama, empty of nuance and historically specific almost to
the point of meaninglessness, which is why the closet fascists who own the
media keep force-feeding it to you.
Fascism is certainly a violation of every noble and enlightened political
impulse. To advance their agenda, fascists must bring about a mass rejection
of egalitarian and democratic ideals, and seem to get the best results by
inflaming and feeding upon common fears and popular bigotries -- racist,
nationalist, classist, religious, political, etc. ANY set of bigotries,
suitably stimulated, will provide fertile soil for fascism, and the
incurably ignorant, always a majority, are easily swayed by such methods --
fascism is a dictator's fantasy formula for subverting democracy. Bigotry,
however, isn't fascism's whole essence; it's simply an expedient means by
which fascism's agents, classic political pragmatists, consolidate the
monolithic pattern of government corruption that is their true calling -- a
syndrome America has been sliding into deeper and deeper throughout its
history. Just look at the consistent warnings from all the presidents who
noticed this trajectory and tried to alert a nation of groveling
candy-asses:
Thomas Jefferson:
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our
moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge
our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to
the laws of our country.
Abraham Lincoln:
The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace
and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more
despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy
and more selfish than a bureaucracy. It denounces,
as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw
light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern
Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two,
the one at the rear is my greatest foe.
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves
me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.
As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned .....
An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money
power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the
prejudices of the people... until wealth is aggregated in a few
hands ... and the Republic is destroyed.
Theodore Roosevelt:
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible
government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no
responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible
government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt
business and corrupt politics is the first task of the
statesmanship of today.
Franklin D. Roosevelt:
The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know,
that a financial element in the large centers has owned
the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, from his farewell address, 1961:
In the councils of government, we must guard against
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military-industrial complex. The potential for
the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
John Kennedy took Eisenhower's warning to heart, apparently. During the last
year of his life, as he contemplated a second term and his own final
contribution to history, he resolved to reverse America's moral and civic
death-spiral, a.k.a. "the Cold War." His ideas included: ending the CIA's
freedom from oversight; abandoning the country's rabid anticommunist stance,
beginning with de-escalation in Vietnam; normalizing relations with Cuba and
Moscow; by doing these things, redirecting Washington's immense weapons
budget into sweeping domestic reforms (18). What's more, Kennedy's popular
mandate was strong enough by this time that he probably would have
succeeded.
From the viewpoint of the corporate capos that truly rule this country, one
aspect of the Cold War was all-important: it was a pork barrel straight out
of their wildest dreams of avarice. Watching Kennedy plant his feet and
reach for its plug, these 'absolute power' addicts would have been sorely
tempted to seek his removal by any means. As it just so happens, several of
them were also supreme civilian commanders of the 'National Security'
apparatus, meaning they had direct control of the most suspect means of
effecting that removal (19).
Since Kennedy's death, dire warnings about corporate power have been
conspicuously absent from the pronouncements of American presidents. Funny,
huh? By daring to stand on his conviction that it was he, not them, who held
the reins of American society, Kennedy quite possibly forced the financial
elite to make an example of him. Since that time, their supremacy has been
unchallenged by politicians.
It's as if democracy itself 'got whacked' by the Corleones and Gambinos!
Fortunately for them, Americans are kept too delusional to notice.
* * * * * * * * *
On the strength of the fear-driven and essentially mindless popular mandate
that followed the 9-11 attack, the Bushes and their kind are now concluding
a plan they began formulating long before 1963: transforming this country
into an abomination, a clinically exact violation of everything their core
public THINKS it believes in. The situation is a three-ring circus of
ironies: People like the Bushes, Ashcroft, etc., don't operate in a vacuum;
they don't suddenly and magically "seize power," any more than Hitler did.
The history of the Nazis holds many lessons of great value to present-day
Americans. Among the more important: political lunatics become dangerous
only when whole populations lose their marbles enough to deliver them into
real power. Truly, it's absurd to blame amoral monsters who insinuate
themselves into high places. OF COURSE they're going to do that; it's why
they were born. The sensible object of that disgust is 'The People' who
allow them to stay there; who idly watch as other groups suffer, too stupid
to realize that tomorrow the guns will turn on them; The People, who hand
these scumbags ALL of their power by becoming eager footsoldiers in the
global mafias they create. Helen Keller knew this:
"Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought!
Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of
murder!
Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human
beings!
Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction!"
So did Emma Goldman:
"How long would authority ... exist, if not for the willingness of the mass
to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen."
No matter what label a government assigns itself -- democratic, communist,
etc. -- The People who live under that government, who are its real
repository of power, have an uncanny way of getting exactly what they
deserve. If a government has descended into utter moral dissolution, and its
people actually deserve better, they will summon the courage to do what's
right for themselves, as did the French, the Russians, the Cubans. If a
government is basically sound, but its people are grotesque petulant infants
gobbling at giant tits of material excess, then it won't be long before that
government sees its opportunity to build jail cells around them. Why not?
Frantic tit-suckers aren't likely to notice, and if they do, a jail cell
isn't so unlike a womb. If by some bizarre chance they should actually
protest, they can simply be told it's for their own safety. Infants are
easily duped with such talk, which they will regard as irrefutable when
backed up with lurid cartoons showing "The Enemy In Action!!"
This was the context in which Jefferson used terms like 'inalienable' and
'self-evident.' People determined to discover their own power will find a
way. So will those determined to live as slaves. The role of government is
secondary. If the American people didn't deserve this buffoon president and
his panel of corporate handlers... if this were other than a land of selfish
tit-feeders, spoiled insane... if "The Home of the Brave" didn't ring quite
so false... then the outrage of the 2000 "election" would have unleashed a
nationwide tsunami of riots, martial law would have been declared, and the
ruling class would have hastily dumped him before things REALLY heated up.
As it stands, Dubya's sickening success is owed primarily to a curious
"political awareness," shared by a decisive majority of Americans:
intuitively, they know they're on the sugar-dumpling end of the global
economy. If staying there means everyone else gets hurled at birth into a
fuming acid bath, well that's okay, too -- just don't ask them to notice.
Just as rampant corruption is symptomatic of fascist governments, this 'let
them eat cake' mindset is also typical of the national populations that
sustain those governments through their complicity and inaction. Corruption
isn't just a disease of governments, elites, etc. -- it's a creeping
contagion that infects whole societies, eventually reducing them to colonies
of moral bacteria. If the wealth of a society is large enough that this
degeneracy can progress long enough, its members become so drained of the
essentials of character that whatever 'Great Things' they've accomplished
become like marble temples built on a lake of pus.
America, for example, once had a heroic reputation among freedom-seekers
around the world. Starting many years ago, the keepers of that legacy grew
so arrogant, so artless, that their attempts to disguise their selfish
motives became transparent to the average ten-year-old, so now America finds
itself becoming an object of generalized hatred. And deservedly: when an
elite cult of villains and cowards waylays all the governments of the world
by holding a nuclear gun to their heads, they SHOULD be hated, and that's
exactly what this government did while its subjects snoozed at the Big Boob
these past five decades. The aggrieved parties will of course be deemed
"just jealous" by the press, whose pronouncements are both source and
product of the tit-feeder mentality.
With Buffoon & Co., the pretenses are now so tissue-thin that even Americans
should have no trouble seeing through them. The one thing stopping them is
all-determining: they don't want to. This sort of delusion even extends to
self-described "liberals," who love to vomit the platitude that "America's
PEOPLE can't be held responsible for the excesses of their GOVERNMENT."
I wish one of these nutless wonders would explain to me exactly how this
works; from where I sit, ultimate responsibility for the criminal conduct of
this government belongs to THEM. After all, thirty years ago most of them
were intensely aware of this government's capacity for evil. Since then,
they've been seduced by accumulations of property, privilege, and mental
lethargy, thereby settling into America's most selfish middle class
generation EVER. Watching them recite fatuous denials to themselves, I'm
reminded of the French Court under Louis XVI. Their stock concept of
'political involvement' -- filling in a ballot once a year -- hardly seems
likely to fix a goddamn thing, since the forces of wealth clearly have both
major parties in their pocket. By all indications, they don't even care; the
interests of wealth have become their own. If Bush's 2000 installation left
any doubt about collusion between the two parties, Schwarzenegger's triumph
in California just removed it. The California Democratic Party simply HAD TO
KNOW that Gray Davis was history, so why did they fail to put all their
marbles behind ONE potent alternative candidate? They can't strategize on
their own behalf worth a damn, but they sure do a bang-up job for the
repugs. Is it insane to wonder if they both get their marching orders from
the same place?
Voting should certainly be part of a larger strategy -- it may not mean as
much as we're told, but at least it's something. Real change, however, would
seem to require much more from us: open dissent and resistance, civil
disobedience, total rejection of bourgeois sensibilities, including
careerism, as this is the path taken by most on their journey into apathy
and selfishness. It's no wonder, then, that causing each of us to nurture
dreams of professional glory has long been this country's most lavish
"philanthropic" project. Our unprecedented university system -- is it really
about giving us all a leg up, or is it a clever and utterly cynical social
engineering program? As they hand out huge endowments, what do the bloodless
billionaires really mean with all their malarkey about "investing in the
future." The working class is the true home of the political left.
Demographically and politically, it once dominated this country, and
thoughtful people didn't always have reason to flee from it. Now it's a
defeated mass of Bush-boosting, TV-mesmerized morons. When class assignment
at birth is an immutable life sentence, intelligent members of an exploited
class tend to become revolutionaries. By its very nature, the "classless"
careerist ethic solves this problem by identifying the gifted among them as
young as possible and reassigning them to a separate social order, where
they're supplied with selfish reasons for staying quiet. Added together,
their class defections and betrayals make up the aforementioned
billionaires' "return on investment." Divide and conquer, divide and
conquer...
In so many ways, the true genius of American politics has been in making
sure the average slob has far too much to lose by rejecting bourgeois
temptations. The tragedy of this design is that it makes us all full
partners in the prevailing order of plunder and corruption. During the Great
Depression, poverty was so rampant here that this formula began to unravel,
prompting our keepers to feign benevolence with an improvised Head
Amputation Prevention System, otherwise known as "the New Deal." Given the
power of the information technology now at their disposal, they seem to be
preparing to let it unravel again, this time to be replaced with an
all-seeing electronic security state. This is probably the real reason
behind the USAPATRIOT Act, rampant domestic spying, mounting repressive
tactics and nationalist propaganda, vast enlargements of prison
infrastructure, and so on. Kudos to all the technological utopians out
there; far be it from them to realize that those in power always pervert
emerging technology into a means of grabbing even more power.
The American political scene is now becoming so ominous that many Americans
are finally waking up, achieving real political awareness for the first time
in their lives. As they discover reality, they are finding themselves in a
horrifying predicament: this country is but a few steps away from becoming
an overt dictatorship, and the Neo-cons seem determined to go the distance.
All they need to do at this point is arrange another "Pearl Harbor."
Anything short of massive, uncompromising civil disobedience seems unlikely
to stop them, and the vast majority of Americans are unlikely to engage in
any such thing. Incapable of even noticing how bountiful their lives are,
what could possibly induce them to reflect on the malevolent work by which
that bounty has been concentrated, or to acknowledge the rights of people
and other beings, living and dead, from whom it has been stolen? The
hopelessness of the situation is deepened by the relentless and all but
inescapable onslaught of commercial media, whose role of promoting this
exact selfishness and civic apathy is now performed with incredible
audacity. Most of these "Good Americans" just trudge along mindlessly in the
rut indicated by their message, willfully oblivious to its subtexts.
America's malaise isn't entirely a product of conscious effort, but on the
other hand, none of it is accidental. How is this possible? The main thing
people use "logic" for is to conceal even from themselves the mediocre
nature of their true motives. America's corruption, like that of all
nations, is an organic phenomenon, i. e. it is neither orchestrated nor
needs to be. It has been advanced not by the lurking efforts of secret
circles so much as by the main thrust of American culture. Those
frontiersmen in Ohio, for example, scarcely needed the inducements
Washington offered them; they were eager to exterminate the Indians and
steal their land. And so it goes. By such means, the corruption of our
entire civic culture has been advanced by all of us, through habits of
thought that lie beneath the level of consciousness -- for example, in the
sane and humane alternatives we consistently choose to NOT consider. Again,
media's leadership in this area has been inestimable.
My gratitude to those who have protested and been civilly disobedient over
the years is beyond measure -- they are the true bearers of Liberty's
flame -- but I am doubly contemptuous of those among them, seduced by
privilege, who have ended up swinging to the other side. They are the very
soul of corruption, and traitors even to their own dreams.
Here's the richest irony of all: Bush's most avid supporters are a
puritanical bunch. They attend church. They pray on streetcorners. They
bludgeon the unwitting with their sanctimonious talk of God, Family, and the
American Way. So convinced are they of their moral superiority, they have no
qualms about marching toward even greater material gluttony over a pavement
of charred corpses. In fact, they seem to see this as a divine quest. You
don't need a doctorate in Theology to know that if Hell is real, its inmost
pit has got to be reserved for hypocrites such as these.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Notes:
1) Even now, the "independent commission" is shot through with incredible
conflicts of interest, exemplified by the present chairman's financial ties
to members of the Bin Laden Family. Such a panel can hardly be expected to
deviate from the gutless pattern of past "investigative commissions": the
Warren Commission, the Rockefeller Commission, the Iran-Contra hearings,
etc.
Chossudovsky, Michel. Who's Who on the 9/11 "Independent" Commission.
see http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO307B.html
2) Churchill, Ward. A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the
Americas, 1492 to the Present. (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997) pp.
209 - 214
3) Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States, 1492 - Present.
(New York: Harper Collins, 1999) pp. 149-169
4) ibid, pp. 297-320
5) ibid, pp. 359-376
6) Stinnett, Robert. Day of Deceit: the Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor.
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000) See ALL
7) many historical documents support this analysis, including:
United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (Pacific War)
(Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1946) p.26:
"Nevertheless, it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks,
air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring
about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion... Based on
a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of
the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that
certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1
November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not
been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no
invasion had been planned or contemplated."
8) Blum, William. Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since
World War II. (Monroe, Maine, USA: Common Courage Press, 1995) pp. 21-23,
39-43, 50, 51, 122-127
9) ibid, pp. 129-145
10) Heller, Jean. Public Doesn't Get Picture With Gulf Satellite Photos. St.
Petersburg Times, 1/6/1991
11) MacArthur, John R. Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf
War. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992) pp. 37-77.
12) Bamford, James. Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National
Security Agency from the Cold War Through the Dawn of a New Century. (New
York: Doubleday, 2001) pp. 82-91
13) Blum. Killing Hope. pp. 106-108
14) A scanned copy of this memo can be seen in
http://www.internetpirate.com/bush.htm -- scroll down
15) Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance. San Jose mercury News, 9/18/1996
available online at:
http://home.attbi.com/~gary.webb/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html
16) de Grand Pre, Donn; Col. US Army (Ret.). The Enemy is inside the Gates
available online at
http://scribblguy.50megs.com/evidence.htm#THE%20ENEMY%20IS%20INSIDE%20THE%20GATES
17) multiple sources:
Kennedy, Dominic. Suicide Hijackers Hid Behind Stolen Arab Identities.
London Times, 9/20/01
MacFarquhar, Neil. A Nation Challenged: The Hijackers; Confusion Over Names
Clouds Identities of Attackers on Jets. New York Times, 9/21/01
available online at
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/international/middleeast/21IDEN.html
Jeffery, Simon. Special Report: Terrorism in the US. The Guardian, 9/21/01
available online at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,601550,00.html
Harrison, David. Revealed: the men with stolen identities. The Daily
Telegraph, 9/23/01
available online at
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/23/widen23.xml
Author unknown. Hijack 'Suspects' Alive and Well. British Broadcasting
Corporation, 9/23/01
available online at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1559000/1559151.stm
18) Hepburn, James. Farewell America. (Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Frontiers
Publishing, 1968) see ALL.
Available online at http://www.voxfux.com/Kennedy/farewell/farewell00.html
19) The most suspect parties here are Nelson Rockefeller and his demonic
lackeys, the Dulles brothers. The threads implicating Rockefeller in
Kennedy's death are explored rigorously in:
Colby, Gerard and Charlotte Dennett. Thy Will Be Done -- The Conquest of the
Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil. (New York, USA:
HarperCollins, 1995)
Approaching this matter from different directions and supporting their
arguments with extraordinary historical documentation, the authors of
'Farewell America' and 'Thy Will Be Done' arrive independently at strikingly
similar conclusions.
senhor san
between monopoly and antimonopoly
----- Original Message -----
From: Dick Eastman
To: standf...@yahoogroups.com ; penta...@yahoogroups.com ;
antiw...@yahoogroups.com ; TRUTHB...@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2004 10:16 AM
Subject: [Antiwar com] Henry Demarest Lloyd (first "Muckraker") "Monopoly
and Social Control" (North Amrican Review, June 1884)
ASK YOURSELF -- HAS KERRY SAID ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT HIS ANTI-TRUST POLICIES
THROUGH HIS JUSTICE DEPARTMENT WILL BE? -- IS THERE ANYREASON TO SUSPECT
THAT HE POLICIES WILL BE DIFFERENT THAN THOSE OF ASHCROFT (JANET RENO IN
PANTS) OR JANET RENO (ASHCROFT IN A DRESS) ????
THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES DO NOT EXIST FOR EITHER OF THE MAJOR PARTY
CANDIDATES OWNED BY THE OLIGARCHS AND FOR THE OLIGARCHS.
I just spent two hours typing this from a The Annals of America -- I want
you to read it -- I hope you will. It gives a an earlier look at the
same monster that perpetrated 9-11 to obtain two and more profitable war
ventures.
Dick Eastman
Monopoly and Social Control (1884)
by Henery Demarest Lloyd
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Henry Demarest Lloyed, the earliest of the social reformers who were later
to be called "muckrakers" because familiar with the problem of trusts and
monopolies while financial editor of the Chicago Tribune. His "Story of a
Great Monopoly" (1881) exposed the methods of the Standard Oil and railroad
trusts and established him as a champion of the consumer, independent
competitor, and the laborer. Lloyd's conviction that "liberty and monopoly
cannot live together" and that goods "cooperatively produced [must be]
cooperatively enjoyed" led him to attack all forms of monopoly in "lords of
Industry," portions of which follow.
When President Gowen of the Reading Railroad was defending that company, in
1875, before a committee of the Pennsylvania legislature, for having taken
part in the combination of the coal companies to cure the evil of "too much
coal" by putting up the price and cutting down the amount of sale, he
pleaded that there were fifty trades in which the same thing was done. He
had a list of them to show the committee. He said:
Every pound of rope we by for our
vessels or for our mines is bought at a
price fixed by a committee of the rope
manufacutrers of the United States. Ev-
ery keg of nails, ever paper of tacks, all
our screws and wrenches and hinges, the
boiler flues fro our locomotives are never
bought except at the price fixed by the
representatives of the mills that manufac-
ture them. Iron beams for your houses
or your bridges can be had only at the
prices agreed upon by a comimnation of
those who produce them. Fire, brick, gas,
pipe, terra-cotta pipe for drainage, every
keg of powder we buy to blast blast coal are
purchased under the same arrangement.
Every pane of window glass in this
house was bought at a scale of prices es-
tablished exactly in the same manner.
White lead, galvanized sheet iron, hose
and belting and files are bought and sold
at a rate determined in the same way.
When my friend Mr. Lane was called
upon to begin his speech the other day
and wanted to delay because the stenog-
rapher had not arrived, I asked Mr. Col-
lins, the stenographer of your committee,
if he would not act. He said, no, it was
against the rules of the committee of ste-
nographers. I said, "Well, Mr. Collins, I
will pay you anything you ask. I want to
get off." "Oh," said he, "prices are es-
tablished by our combination, and I can-
not change them." And when we come
to the cost of labor, which enters more
than anything else in the cost of coal, we
are met by a combination there and are
often obliged to pay the price fixed by it.
Adam Smith said in 1776: "People of the same trade hardly meet together
even for merriment and diversion but the conversation ends in a conspiracy
against the public or in some contrivance to raise prices." The expansive
ferment of the new industry, coming with the nes science, the new land, and
the new liberties of our era, broke up these "conspiracies," and for a
century we heave heard nothing of them; but the race to everrun is being
succeeded by the struggle to divide, and combinations are reappearing on all
sides. This anyone may see from the reports of the proceedings of the
conventions and meeting of innumerable associations of manufacturers and
dealers and even producers which are being hold almost constantly. They
all do something to raise prices or hold them up, and they wind up with
banquets for which we pay.
For years ago the Chicago Lumbermen's Exchange adopted a resolution
declaring it to be "dishonorable" for any dealer to make lower prices than
those published by it for the control of prices in one of the greatest
lumber markets of the world. Monthly reports are required by this exchange
from dealers so that accurate accounts may be kept of stock on hand in order
to regulate prices. The price lists of the exchange are revised and made
"honest" at monthly banquests. In Febrauary 1883, it was found that members
who ostensibly adhereed to the price lists dipped into the dishonorable
practice of competition on the sly by giving buyers greater than usual
discounts. This was forbidden, and another pathway of competition closed. .
. .
The mills of Puget Sound, which supply a large proportion of the lumber
consumed in the Pacific states, formed a combination last year to regulated
the production and sustain prices. It is said by the local newspapers that
the mills which do not belong to the association are hired to stand idle, as
there are too many mills, and the association finds it profitable to sustain
prices at the cost of thousands of dollars paid out in this way. The lumber
market of the Pacific Coast is ruled by the California Lumber Exchange, and
that is controlled by a few powerful firms. The prices of redwood are fixed
by the Redwood Manufacturers' Association, and those of pine by the Pine
Manufacturers' Association. During the past year the retail dealers of San
Francisco have had to sign contracts with these associations, binding
themselves to buy only from members of the associations, to buy and sell
only at prices fixed by them, to give time and discount only according to
rule, and to keep accounts so that every item will be clear to the
inspectors hired by the association to look after the retailers. Finally,
the retailer binds himself, if he is "found guilty" of committing any of the
forbidden sins, to pay a fine which may amount to $1,000, to be divided
among the faithful. The literature of business can show no more remarkable
productions than the printed forms of these contracts. This system is in
imitation of the "special contracts" with shippers which have been put in
force by the Central Pacific Railroad.
Western ranchmen complain that the competition of buyers is disappearing.
They declare that there exist at the Chicago stockyards combinations of
buyers who, by their ability to make large purchases and their agreemtn to
offer but one price, get cattle at their own figures. One member of the
"ring" does the buying today; another tomorrow; and so on. The cattle kings
have combinations to defend themselves from cattle thieves, state
legislatures, and other enemies, and to propose to extend this category so
as to include the middlemen at the stockyards. The Stockgrowers'
Association of Wyoming have $100 million in cattle. At the recent
convention held by this body in Cheyenne, it was unanimously declared that
its business had been "seriously injured by the pooling arrangements
prevailing among buyers at the Chicago stockyards," and the executive
committee were instructed to obtain the fullest possible information as to
the means by which cattle might be shipped direct to the European consumer.
Last July, Messrs. Vanderbuilt, Sloan, and one or two others out of
several hundred owners of coal lands and coal railroads, met in the pleasant
shadows of Saratoga to make "a binding arrangementfor the control of the
coal trade." "Binding arrangement" the sensitive coal presidents say they
prefer to the word "combination." The gratuitous warmth of summer suggested
to these men the need the public would have of artificial heat, at
artificial prices, the coming winter. It was agreed to fix prices and to
prevent the production of too much of the reaw material of warmth by
suspensions of mining. In anticipation of the arrival of the cold wave from
Manitoba, a cold wave was sent out all over the United States, from their
parlors in New York, in an order for half-time work by the miners during the
first three months of this year, and for an increase of prices. These are
the means this combination uses to keep down wages -- the price of men, and
keep up the price of coal -- the wages of capital. . . .
The coal combination was again investigated by the New York legislature
in 1878, after the combination had raised the prices of coal in New York to
double what they had been. the legislature found that private mine
operators who were not burdened like the great companies with extravagant
and often corrupt purchases of coal lands, heavily watered stock, and
disadvantageous contracts forced on them by interested directors, and who
have only to pay the actual cost of producing the coal, "can afford to sell
at a much less price than the railroad coal-producing companies, and would
do so if they could get transportation from the mines to the market." This
is denied them by the great companies.
"The private operators," says the report, "either find themselves
entirely excluded from the benefits of transportation by reason of the high
freights, or find it for their interest to make contracts with the railroads
by which they will not seel to others, and so the railroads have and will
keep the control of the supply of the private operators." TO those who will
not make such contracts, rates are fixed excluding them from the makret,
with the result, usually, of forcing them to sell theri property to the
lords of the pool. "The combination," the committee declared, "can limit
the supply and thereby create such a demand and price as they may deem
advisable." . . .
One of the sights which this coal side of our civilization has to show is
the presence of herds of little children of all ages, from six years upward,
at work in the coal breakers, toiling in dirt and air thick with carbon
dust, from dawn to dark, of every day in the week except Sunday. Those coal
breakers are the only schools they know. A letter from the coal regions in
the Philadelphia Press declares that "there are no schools in the world
where more evil is learned or more innocence destroyed than in the breakers.
It is shocking to watch the vile practices indulged in by these children, to
hear the frightful oaths they use, to see their total disregard for religion
and humanity." In the upper part of Luzerne COunty, out of 22,000
inhabitants, 3,000 are children between six and fifteen years of age, at
work in this way.
"There is always a restlessness among the miners," an officer of one of
the New York companies said, "when we are working them on half time." The
latest news from the region of the coal combination is that the miners are
so dissatisfied with the condition in which they are kept, the by suspension
of work and the importation of competing Hungarian laborers in droves that
they are forming a combination of their own, a revival of the old Miners and
Laborer's Association, which was broken up by the labor troubles of 1874 and
1875.
Combination is busy in those soft-coal districts, whose production is so
large that it must be sent to competitive markets. A pool has just been
formed covering the annual product of 6 million tons of the mines of Ohio.
Indiana and Illinois are to be brought in, and it is planned to extend it to
all the bituminous-coal districts that compete with each other. The
appearance of Mr. Vanderbilt, last December, in the Clearfield district of
Pennsylvania, at the head of a company capitalized for $5 million, was the
first entry of a metropolitan mind into this field. Mr. Vanderbuil's role
is to be that of producer, arrier, dealer, and consumer, all in one.
Untilhe came, the district was occupied by a number of small companies
and small operators, as used to be the case in the anthreacite field in the
old days. But the man who works himself, with his sones, in a small mine,
curring perhaps from twenty to forty tons a day, cannot expect to survive
the approach of the Manhattan capitalist. The small Clearfield producers,
looking at the fate of their kind in the anthracite country, greeted Mr.
Vanderbuilt's arrival with the question, "What is to become of us?" "If the
small operator," said on of the great man's lieutenants, "goes to the wall,
that is his misfortune, not our fault." In March last the prominent
Clearfield companies gave notice that wages must be reduced on the 1st of
April, and immediately thereafter a union of their employees resolved that
if the reduction, which they declared to be "without reason," was made they
would strike. . . .
On the theory of "too much of everything," our industries from railroads
to workingmen, are being organized to prevent milk, nails, lumber, freights,
labor, soothing syrup, and all these orhte things from becoming cheap. The
majority have never yet been able to buy enought of anything. The minority
have too much of everything to sell. Seens of social trouble germinate fast
in such conditions. Society is letting these combinations become
institutions without compelling them to adjust their charges to the cost of
production, which used to be the universal rule of price. Our laws and
commissions to regulate the railroads are but toddling steps in a path in
which we need to walk like men. The change from competition to combination
is nothing less than one of those revolutions which march through history
with giant strides. It is not likely that this revolution will go backward.
Nothing goes backward in this country except reform. When Stephenson said
of railroads that where combination was possible competition was
impossible, he was unconsciously declaring the law of all industry.
Man, the only animal which forgets, has already in a century or two
forgotten that the freedom, the independence of his group, of the state, and
evenof the family, which he has enjoyed for a brief interval, have been
unknown in most of the history of most races. The livery companies of
London, with their gloomy guildhalls, their wealth, their gluttony and
wine-bibbing, their wretched Irish estates, exist today, vain reminders to
us of a time when the entire industray of Eurpope was regimented into
organizations, voluntary at first, afterwards adoped by the law, which did
what wour pools of railroads, laborers, manufacturers, and others are trying
to do. Not only prices but manners were pooled. "The notion," says Cliffe
Leslie, "that every man had a right to settle where he liked, to carry on
any occupation he thought fit, and in whatever manner he chose, to demand
the highest price he could get, or, on the contrary, to offer lower terms
than anyone esle, to make the largest profit possible, and to compete with
other traders without restraint was absolutely contrary to the spirit of the
ages that preceded ours." This system existed for centuries. It is so
unlike our own that the contemplation of it may well shake us out of our
conceit that the transitions, displacements, changes, upheavals, struggles,
exterminations -- from Indians to sewing women -- of the last 250 years
were the normal condition of the race.
Those were not exceptional times. Our day of free competition and free
contract has been the exceptional era in history. Explorer, pioneer,
protestant, reformer, captain of industry could not move in the harness of
the guild brother, the vassal, the monk, and were allowed to throw away
medieval uniforms. But now "the individual withers; the world is more and
more." Society, having let the individual overrun the new worlds to be
conquered, is reestablishing its lines of communication with him. Literary
theorists still repeat the cant of individualsim in law, politics, and
morals; but the world of affairs is gladly accepting in lieu of the liberty
of each to do as he will with his own, all it can get of the liberty given
by laws laws that let no one do as he might with his own. The dream of the
French Revolution, that man was good enought to be emancipated from the
bonds of association and govenment by the simple proclamation of "Liberty,
Fraternity and Equality," was but the frenzied expression of what was called
freedom of self-interest in a quieter but not less bloody revolution, if the
mortality of the factories, the mines, and the tenements be charged to its
accounty. A rope cannot be made of sand; a society cannot be made of
competitive units.
We have given competition its own way and have found that we are not good
enough or wise enough to be trusted with this power of ruining ourselves in
the attempt to ruin others. Free competiton could be let run only in a
community where everyone had learned to say and act, "I am the state." Whe
have had an era of material inventions. We now need a renaissance of moral
inventions, to tap the vast currents of moral magnetism flowing uncaught
over the face of society. Morals and values rise and fall together. If our
combinations have no morals, they can have no values. If the tendency to
combination is irresistible, control of it is imperative.
Monopoly and anti-monopoly, odious as these words have become to the
literary ear, represent the two great tendencies of our time: monopoly, the
tendency to combination; antimonopoly, the demand for social control of it.
As the man is bent toward business or patriotism, he will negotiate
combinations or agitate for laws to regulate them. The first is
captialistic; the second is social. The first, industrial; the second,
moral. The first promotes wealth; the second citizenship. These
combinations are not to be waved away as fresh pictures of folly or total
depravity. Thre is something in them deeper than that.
The Aryan has proved by the experience of thousands of years that he can
travel. "But travel," Emerson says, "is the fool's paradise." We must now
prove that we can stay at home and stand it as well as the Chinese have
done. Future Puritans cannot emigrate from Southhampton to Plymouth Rock.
They can only sail from righteoursness to reighteousness. Our young men can
no longer go west; they must go up or down. Not new land but new virtue
must be the outlet for the future. Our halt at the shores of the Pacific is
a much more serious affair than that which brought our ancestors to a pause
before the barriers of the Atlantic and compelled them to pracise living
together for a few hundred years. We cannot hereafter, as in the past,
recover freedom by going to the praries; we must find it in the society of
the good.
In the presence of the great combinations, in all departments of life,
the moralist and patriot have work to do of a significance never before
approached during the itinerate pahses of our civilization. It may be that
the coming age of combination will issue in a nobleer and fuller liberty for
the individual than has yet been seen; but that consummation will be
possible, not in a day of competitive trade but in one of competitive
morals.
copied 3-27-04 for The Iron Heel yahoogroup list.
The_Iron_He...@yahoogroups.com
senhor san
election-resolution chaos Congress totally deregulated derivatives, -- now,
two years later, JPM (JPMorganCo) has $712 in derivatives for each $1 in US
stock -- YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS!
In 1929, the Financial and Corporation Oligarchs sold short (bet on a fall
in the market, buying promises (futures in stock) from others to provide
stock in the future at current prices (i.e., even if in the future the
stocks are worth at future current prices only a tiny fraction of the
agreed-upon price.) After the "shorted" the market they, Percy Rockefeller,
Bernard Baruch, the Morgan interests and the other Anglo-American investment
banking interests -- ordered their brokers to issue margin calls, i.e., to
call for immediate payment from the masses of the public who had been buying
stock on credit -- which immediately caused runs on banks, collapse in
stock prices, contraction of money supply in the country (most of it
checkbook money based on loans) etc.
Today, selling short is a crude and too easily detected means of mass-murder
economic crime. Today the same positioning to profit from the deliberate
collapsing of an economy is the derivatives market, not the short sell.
Derivatives are simply any "bet" that any financier wants to create on
people that anyone else is willing to buy -- futures, swaptions, any
economic event contingency, functioning like short-sells, but much richer
and varied and flexible and complex and subtle and more effective (allowing
multiplication of the short-sell-type gains by cleaver cascading of
derivatives agreements.
The fact that an insider oligarch investment banking house like JPMorgan
(JPM) is holding over $700 dollars of derivatives (complex "bets") for each
dollar of stock in US firms shows the magnitude of the bubble -- the US
economy is one Hindenburg Zepplin filled with derivatives hydrogen -- all
gas and no productive assets (all of our investment capital has absconded to
China and other slave-labor countries recall) and when the explosion comes,
thants to the derivatives (which include derivatives handling your
securitized mortgages by the way -- and remember all of your personal debt
has been put in a second mortgage which in turn has been securitized and
sold on international markets) --
what I am saying is that everything is primed for the oligarchy to pull the
plug on the united states, ending even the pitiful remnant of a middle-class
that still exists -
I doubt that anyone of my readers owns stock -- most of the victims of what
is coming are those who have been living a semblance of middle-class
existence because the Oligarchy has, until now, needed them -- but they
don't need you any more -- I look forward to welcoming you, but it will be
too bad that you join the enlightened AFTER you have been deprived of all of
the economic means with which you could have fought the oligarchy -- you
bastards (I'm entitled to say that, I think) -- anyway, if there is someone
listening I would recommend NOT BUYING GOLD, but rather Chinese yuan or
EUROs -- I believe the EURO was created to be sufficient monetary leverage
base from which to flip and crash the dollar and the US market -- this will
not be the end of the US money elite -- rather it will be them sheding at
last the remaining vestages of the United States cacoon and becoming the
global masters of their master plan. (JPM now controls 55% of all US banks'
outstanding gold derivatives contracts), a stunning 35% drop in six short
months -- gold will not be safe -- and it is so easily taken from you
before you get to spend it in a nation like the US is now, where pirates
rule with impunity.
How to fight them -- I still say there is only one way -- only by showing
the world the evidence that 9-11 was a mass-murder frameup can the entire
world rise up and overthrow the pirate oligachy -- it was Richard Perle,
Henry Kissinger, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and lesser players Rumsfeld and
Rice who masterminded 9-11 and each of them is an agent of the
Anglo-American financial and corporation oligarchy .
Nothing else should be your concern -- not the phony commission, not the
phony election race -- nothing but exposing the truth to the nation and the
world.
I am talking about this proof:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TRUTHBAZOOKA/message/5
Don't let me see anyone continuing with the same habitual crap while these
life-and-death issues remain unknown to 6 billion people of the earth.
Get off the dime. Don't crap out on humanity.
Dick Eastman
Yakima, Washington
Every man is responsible to every other man.
The author of the following, Adam Hamilton, may not see all of the forest
for the trees, but he deserves credit of putting together the facts --
facts important to those who still have a portfolio and want to move to
safer positions, but more important, those who wish to anticipate and defeat
the oligarch grand plan to enslave common man once again.
--DE
===========
The sheer magnitude of derivatives positions amassed by elite Dow 30
superbank JPMorganChase is amazing. We examine the latest bank derivatives
data from the OCC. /January 4, 2002
A long time ago in a galaxy far away, or it least it seems that way, I
hammered-out an essay on derivatives powerhouse US superbank JPMorganChase.
In my original essay, delicately titled "The JPM Derivatives Monster", I
outlined some incredible research my research group had performed
investigating the gargantuan derivatives dominance of elite Dow 30
money-center bank JPMorganChase (JPM-NYSE).
The essay was, fortunately or unfortunately depending on one's perspective,
published the Friday before the horrific September 11 attacks. Needless to
say, the arcane and often confusing world of derivatives was all of a sudden
infinitely less important than coping with the grisly and heart-wrenching
aftermath of the notorious terrorist attacks on America.
Even rightfully relegated far beneath the long dark shadow of the tragedy,
and even though the essay tipped the scales at almost 7500 words, it drew
over a hundred-thousand hits and hundreds of comments from all over the
planet. I was personally very surprised by the popularity of the original
complex JPM Derivatives Monster essay because derivatives themselves are so
difficult to understand and I assumed that derivatives were pretty low in
significance on most investors' radars and worldviews. Regardless, the huge
response to the essay from almost two-dozen countries as far away as
Germany, Switzerland, Russia, China, and Singapore has been overwhelming.
The original essay showcased data that JPM is required by law to report to
both the United States Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the
United States Securities and Exchange Commission. In early September, the
most current data available on the derivatives positions of US banks was
still from the first quarter of 2001. Today, Q3 2001 official OCC
derivatives data is available and not too far into the future the Q4 2001
derivatives report will be posted by the OCC.
This essay is simply an update of the original "The JPM Derivatives Monster"
essay (available at
http://www.zealllc.com/commentary/monster.htm ). If you have read and
understood that earlier work you will gain far more out of this essay. I try
to write the vast majority of my weekly Internet essays as stand-alone and
self-contained essays, but this one is atypical. I am assuming that you
command the basic background and knowledge of derivatives articulated in the
earlier JPM Derivatives Monster essay (henceforth called "Monster").
Certainly, if you have questions on definitions, concepts, research, data
origins, the data deployed here,
etc, the first place to go look is the September essay.
Before we begin this round, an important disclaimer is in order. When I
penned the earlier Monster essay, my partners and I had absolutely zero
exposure to or stakes in JPM, either long or short. After we completed the
work and research behind the original Monster essay however, we were so
astonished that my partners and I both bet against JPM with our own capital
and recommended JPM short positions and JPM put options to our private
consulting clients and our Zeal Intelligence private newsletter subscribers.
We strongly believe that it is dishonorable to discuss a company without
fully disclosing long or short exposure up front so everyone understands
from where we are coming. Some folks will be uncomfortable with our JPM
short positions, which is great and not a problem, and I strongly encourage
you to read no further if this disclosure sends up red flags in your mind.
Still other folks are more comfortable knowing that "our money is where our
mouths are", so to speak. It is crucial that we all begin on the same page.
On to the battle!
Our first graph is a direct update from Monster. Derivatives data used here
is from the official Q3 2001 "OCC Bank Derivatives Report", "Table 1". Since
the numbers shown below are so mind-blowing that they utterly defy belief, I
strongly encourage you to go download the original PDF file and see the huge
derivatives pyramid with your own eyes at
http://www.occ.treas.gov/deriv/deriv.htm (specifically the file is at
http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/deriv/dq301.pdf). Please don't just take our
word for it! ALWAYS do your own due diligence!
Amazingly, the total derivatives positions held in terms of notional amounts
by US banks literally exploded in the six months between the Q1 and Q3
reports. The US banks ramped up their derivatives positions by an absolute
16.8% in a mere six months, or $7,362b (yes, that is seven thousand BILLION,
or over seven TRILLION dollars). For comparison the US
GDP was only up an anemic 0.8% over the same six months. The exploding broad
US M3 money supply that Greenspan is frantically pumping like there is no
tomorrow in his daring Greenspan Gambit is "only" up 5.1% over the same
period. Any way you slice it, the piling-on of over $7t of additional
derivatives exposure in six months is quite extraordinary.
JPM's share of the US banks' titanic derivatives pie crumbled slightly over
six months from 59.8% in Q1 to 59.3% in Q3. Lest the 2,781 large
institutional investors that are holding 62.5% of JPM's outstanding shares
on behalf of their clients think that JPM's hyper-risky derivatives
positions are abating however, in absolute terms JPM's derivatives exposure
rocketed by $4,158b, or 15.8% to $30,434b in six short months. To put a
massive $4t+ increase in notional derivatives amounts into perspective, the
total broad US M3 money supply only crossed $4t for the first time in United
States history in July of 1989! $4t is BIG bucks folks!
Now JPM is a big bank, indeed the flagship US money-center bank, but the
derivatives pyramid the Dow 30 behemoth has created is even gargantuan by
its giant standards. Per JPM's Q3 earnings release, it commanded $799b in
assets and $43b in stockholders' equity on September 30, 2001. (Per the
official Q3 OCC report, the portions of JPM that deal in derivatives only
had assets of $663b, but we will grant JPM the benefit of the doubt and use
the larger asset number that it reported to the public.)
In terms of total assets, JPM has implied derivatives leverage of 38 times
($30,434b notional derivatives divided by $799b in assets), a big number. In
other words, each $1 of assets controlled by the uber-bank supports
outstanding derivatives contracts with notional values of $38.
For a commercial bank like JPM however, asset size can be a misleading
measure. Most of any bank's assets, including JPM's, are offset by matching
liabilities of the same magnitude. For instance, when you deposit money in a
bank those funds are really yours even though you are letting the bank
temporarily use them. A $100k deposit that you make to a bank account
becomes an asset for the bank that can be lent out but it is offset by an
equal $100k liability to you. Depending on what kind of contract you have
signed with your bank, Demand Checking versus Certificates of Deposit for
instance, you can often demand your money from the bank at any time.
Of JPM's $756b in liabilities at the end of Q3, only $47b were classified as
long-term debt which means they are due further-out than one year into the
future. That leaves roughly $709b of short-term liabilities, amounts that
are due in the next 12 months. Of course the vast majority of these
liabilities will be rolled-over or replaced by newer liabilities, but the
huge amounts of current debt still give a general idea of the short-term and
potentially ethereal nature of JPM's
assets.
What really matters is JPM's stockholders' equity, which contains all the
capital that JPM stockholders own free and clear, both funds that they have
contributed and total profits earned and retained in the entire long and
distinguished corporate histories of JP Morgan and Chase Manhattan. After
the liabilities are subtracted from the assets, JPM shareholders only own
roughly $43b (exactly $42.735b) in equity.
Ominously, this relatively small equity capital balance is supporting a
crushing inverted derivatives pyramid weighing a colossal $30,434b! $30,434b
of notional value derivatives controlled by JPM divided by its shareholders'
equity of $42.735b (note this is a decimal-point in the equity number, NOT a
comma as in the derivatives number) yields a simply unfathomable implied
leverage of derivatives to equity of 712 times! "Holy cow!" as they say in
the American Midwest.
Every single dollar of hard-won JPM equity ever contributed or retained is
supporting a breathtaking $712 in derivatives side-bets! 712x implied
leverage!! Old John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) is probably rolling-over in
his grave, as he was a far more conservative financier, industrialist, and
deal-maker, not a pure financial speculator or hedge fund manager!
This implied derivatives leverage on equity has increased dramatically in
the six short months since the Monster essay, when it was "only" 626 to 1.
The vast JPM inverted derivatives pyramid continues to balloon ever larger,
even through the absolutely unforeseen extreme market turbulence of
September 2001!
The inverted pyramid mental picture is a great way to visualize this
breathtaking leverage. Imagine Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza miraculously
inverted and stood-up balanced on its apex. The relatively small point of
stone pressing into the ground would have to support millions of tons of
stones above it (an estimated five or six million tons), an exceedingly
difficult task. Even if the apex of such an inverted pyramid was constructed
from some unbelievably strong cutting-edge space-age composite that could
support the crushing weight, an inverted balanced pyramid is still very
precarious and dangerous.
For example, what happens if a mighty sandstorm roars out of the desert?
The wind-loading forces coupled with pelting sand exerting lateral pressure
on one or two sides of the inverted Great Pyramid would be enormous, the
whole pyramid would act like a great sail. It would be virtually impossible
to keep the pyramid delicately balanced on its apex unless the sandstorm was
anticipated well in advance and appropriate reinforcement countermeasures
were deployed before it hit. This is probably why you have never seen a
medium or large building engineered to look like an INVERTED pyramid, the
top-heavy design is simply far too unstable. Relatively small outside forces
acting upon it are magnified tremendously by the leverage between the broad
high top of the inverted pyramid and its narrow pointy base.
In the derivatives world, a calm sunny beautiful Egyptian day for the
inverted derivatives pyramid is the equivalent of normal, sedate, fairly
predictable market conditions. The sudden sandstorms that cause massive
wind-loading on only one or two sides of the inverted derivatives pyramid
are unforeseen market volatility. As any options traders will tell you, and
options are the simplest form of derivatives, unforeseen volatility can lead
to legendary profits or bankruptcy-magnitude losses, all in a matter of mere
trading days or hours. In our chaotic and increasingly-weird post September
11th world, it is hard not to imagine more unforeseen volatility sandstorms
barreling off the desert dunes to slam unexpectedly into one side of the
greatest financial balancing act in world history.
For those dabbling in derivatives, making linear assumptions in a non-linear
world can be lethal!
While JPM and two of its money-center superbank peers, Bank of America and
Citibank, now together control a staggering 89.6% of the total US banks'
derivatives markets, 359 commercial banks reported dabbling in derivatives
to the OCC in Q3 2001. In a provocative statistic, this number dropped
dramatically by 9% from the 395 commercial banks playing this same game six
months ago in Q1. As more and more banks begin to comprehend the enormous
hazards of playing around in the unforgiving derivatives markets, more and
more are shedding their derivatives portfolios entirely to greatly reduce
the overall risk to their scarce and valuable capital. As fewer banks risk
their shareholders' and depositors' capital in this merciless speculator's
game, the concentration of the market in only a few mega-banks' hands will
no doubt grow more extreme.
Also provocatively, it is exceedingly interesting to note that derivatives
exposures of this magnitude have never before weathered the violent and
unpredictable financial storms of mighty secular bear markets. Derivatives
essentially began growing in significance in the 1970s and 1980s, and every
investor knows that the greatest bull market in US history ran from
1982-2000 (see "Century of the Dow"). How will the massive inverted
derivatives pyramids fare in brutal and unforgiving bear market
environments? Only time will tell.
Our next graph is also from official OCC data and documents the banks' total
derivatives exposure in notional terms through the 1990s to Q3 2001.
The red line below is the US banks' total notional derivatives exposure on a
quarterly basis. The blue line is the four-quarter moving average of the
annual absolute rate of growth in the total US banks' derivatives holdings.
For example, to get the Q4 2000 data point the Q4 1999 total notional amount
is subtracted from Q4 2000's, and the difference is divided by Q4 1999 to
determine the absolute year-over-year growth rate for each quarter. The
four-quarter moving average of this quotient is the blue line shown below,
representing the annual growth rate in banks' derivatives exposure.
The US banks' derivatives holdings literally exploded in the 1990s, up over
721% from Q1 1990 to Q3 2001 to the current unbelievable $51 trillion with a
"t". Before we actually built this graph, we had assumed that derivatives
were growing at an unprecedented annual rate as the last couple quarters
witnessed the explosive 16.8% absolute growth in six short months. Very
surprisingly however, as the blue four-quarter moving average annual growth
line shows above, periods of 20%+ annualderivatives growth were not uncommon
in the 1990s.
The mean level of the blue line throughout the whole graph is 20.2%,
surprisingly high at least to us. From Q3 2000 to Q3 2001, the latest
available data, US banks' derivatives holdings grew by an absolute 34.3%
(not moving-averaged), which IS high. This stellar rate of growth is
obviously unsustainable! Using some quick shooting-from-the-hip math and the
old "Rule of 72", a 34% annually compounded return doubles in a little over
every two years. If US banks are to control a staggering
$100t of derivatives by Q4 2003, the graph above will have to shoot
parabolic, looking just like the classic NASDAQ bubble graph.
One would think that sooner or later every possible business in the world
that could possibly use an interest-rate swap, currency swap, or
any other kind of derivatives contract would have already deployed them!
Clearly current growth rates in US banks' derivatives exposures will have to
abate significantly in the coming years.
Another interesting point to ponder in the graph above is that the two
steepest slopes in the last six years of the red derivatives line,
indicating the fastest growth, occurred during financial crises. In other
words, during episodes of severe market turbulence, US banks increased their
rate of derivatives growth dramatically. Note the current very steep slope
ending in Q3 2001, the quarter of the diabolical September 11th attacks and
subsequent extreme market volatility, and also the very steep portion in
late 1998 near the Russian Debt Crisis which caused unforeseen volatility
that obliterated elite derivatives-laden hedge-fund Long-Term Capital
Management. It appears that whenever sandstorms roar over the horizon to
buffet the inverted derivatives pyramid, that rather than prudently reducing
exposure US banks simply pile and hang more derivatives onto the
windward side of the inverted pyramid to attempt to stay balanced. Not an
encouraging practice!
Interestingly, the current Q3 2001 year-over-year derivatives growth rate of
34.3% is the highest witnessed since Q4 1998's 31.6% and Q3 1998's 30%, all
near serious market crises!
As I discussed in Monster, the vast majority of US banks' derivatives
outstanding are interest-rate derivatives. This didn't change in the latest
Q3 OCC data. In the Comptroller of the Currency's "Table 3", it claims that
of all US banks' outstanding derivatives, a staggering 84.1% are
interest-rate derivatives. Chase Manhattan and JP Morgan, the two proud
spouses in JPMorganChase, report that 86.2% and 86.9% of their outstanding
derivatives contracts are interest-rate derivatives, respectively. All
together, JPM has at least $20,701b of exposure in notional value terms to
interest-rate derivatives contracts ("Table 8"). This is 484 times JPM's
total shareholders' equity, hyper-extreme interest-rate derivatives
leverage!
As interest-rate swaps and other interest-rate derivatives contracts are the
biggest derivatives game in town for the mega-banks by far, we decided to
look at interest-rate volatility over the last 20 years or so. Everything
else being equal, higher interest-rate volatilities are the equivalent of
the sandstorm-driven wind-loads on our inverted Great Pyramid of Giza we
mentioned above. Extreme interest-rate volatility should cause great concern
for the derivatives departments of the banks attempting to balance these
great inverted pyramids of derivatives.
The blue line in the graph below is the one-year constant maturity
Treasury-Note yield, monthly data direct from the Federal Reserve. The
yellow columns represent volatility in these interest rates. They are
calculated each month as the year-over-year absolute value of the change in
interest rates in percentage terms. (For example, the December 2000 1-Year
T-Note yield less the December 1999 1-Year T-Note yield divided by the
December 1999 yield, absolutely valued.) The resulting quotients are then
smoothed through a 12-month moving average yielding the yellow
blobbish-columns shown below. A change of interest rates from 3% to 4%
((4-3)/3) is considered 33% volatility in this graph, as is a change from 9%
to 12% ((12-9)/9), which also equals 33%.
Interestingly, the current 12-month moving average of absolute interest-rate
volatility in the midst of Greenspan's frantic interest-rate-slashing
extravaganza is currently running about 44%, the second highest spike in two
decades. Not moving-averaged, December 2001 witnessed annual interest-rate
volatility of 66%, extraordinarily high. The average absolute interest-rate
volatility over the last 20 years or so was only about 17.8%. The last time
interest-rate volatility was higher was during the mid-1990s as the Fed
cranked interest rates back up after fighting the customary early-decade US
recession.
In Q4 1995, near the last great interest-rate volatility spike, there were
558 US banks playing the derivatives game. Today there are 36% fewer banks
left in this rough-and-tumble and unforgiving arena. Back then there were
about $11,095b of interest-rate derivatives contracts outstanding in
notional terms. Today that number has skyrocketed to $33,496b ("Table 8"), a
stunning 202% increase in not very many years. Can US banks balancing an
enormous inverted derivatives pyramid worth over $33 TRILLION weather this
current sandstorm of very high interest-rate volatility? The answer remains
to be seen.
On another derivatives front, JPM is a defendant in Reginald Howe's landmark
case filed in federal court alleging active official and money-center bank
suppression of the global gold price. Gold investors will be very interested
to know that JPM's total gold derivatives exposure in notional terms has
plummeted from $57b in Q1 2001, right after the Howe case was filed (when
JPM controlled 68% of all US banks' gold derivatives contracts), to $37b in
Q3 ("Table 9" in the OCC report, JPM now controls 55% of all US banks'
outstanding gold derivatives contracts), a stunning 35% drop in six short
months! There are at least a few potential interpretations that can be
advanced here, although there are no guarantees that any of the following
theories is correct.
First, gold derivatives demand may be shrinking and the market growing less
profitable, so JPM chose to begin making an exit due to normal market
conditions. This is the simplest explanation, but it ignores a lot of
critical gold market data and assumes that there are colossal chance
coincidences. The longer I have observed and traded the markets throughout
my life, the less I believe in coincidences. Markets are giant complex and
intricate tapestries of exquisite cause and effect. A small ripple from a
stone tossed into one corner of the great global financial market pond can
quickly spread to and cause chaos in other far-off market areas that few
people would have anticipated.
Second, JPM is well aware of the mega-bullish fundamentals for gold,
including the enormous annual mined-supply and global demand deficit, the
collapsing gold-carry-trade profits, the vastly overvalued US dollar, and
the dangerous and vicious bear markets in US equities. If JPM expects the
gold markets to soon grow much more volatile as central banks run out of
both gold to lend and willing gold borrowers, it would make perfect sense
for JPM to cut its huge gold derivatives exposure and risk before the coming
gold sandstorms strike. Remember, unforeseen
volatility is the bane of derivatives contracts' existence and can prove
lethal, and JPM STILL has gold derivatives exposure equal to 87% of every
dollar of its stockholder's equity, extraordinarily high!
Third, JPM could be stunned by Reginald Howe's amazingly well-crafted case
and can't believe that Federal Judge Lindsay hasn't thrown it out yet. JPM
may see a potential discovery phase hurtling down the pike like a malevolent
juggernaut and it wants to exit the gold market as soon as possible in an
attempt to avoid a brewing legal firestorm and monumental scandal if the
gold-manipulation scheme breaks public for mainstream Americans. Vacating
the gold derivatives trade before it has Howe's highly-motivated and
tenacious Discovery Team pouring over JPM's private gold-trading records
wouldn't be a bad idea at all.
There are also other intriguing theories which exist on the drastic drop in
JPM's gold derivatives exposure, many of which Bill Murphy has wonderfully
articulated in his awesome and highly-recommended members-only
contrarian-investment website www.LeMetropoleCafe.com.
The vast derivatives mysteries continue to perpetually fascinate and
titillate, defying logic and creating many more new enigmas that need
investigating.
As I wrote back in the original Monster essay, I am still just as
flabbergasted today that big institutional investors, who have a sacred
fiduciary duty to zealously protect the hard-earned capital entrusted to
them by their precious clients, would risk their clients' scarce capital by
investing in JPM, not just a Dow 30 superbank but the biggest inverted
derivatives pyramid in world history!
A "bank" with $712 of derivatives exposure for every $1 in stockholders'
capital, in my humble opinion, is no longer a bank but a de-facto hedge
fund.
Now hedge funds are great and perform a very valuable market service to
sophisticated professional speculators with lots of capital, but a hedge
fund is NOT the place to park crucial retirement investments or college
tuition capital! Hedge funds are ultra-risky speculation vehicles for
the elite that specialize in making very large and risky bets. If JPM is in
reality more like a hedge fund than a classic bank, both retail and
institutional investors alike carefully need to reconsider their JPM
"In financial circles 10 to 1 leverage is considered very aggressive, 100 to
1 is considered to be in the kamikaze realm, but we don't ever recall
hearing about large-scale leveraged operations exceeding 100 to 1 outside of
the horrible example of the doomed super hedge fund Long Term Capital
Management. JPM's management may have effectively created the most leveraged
large hedge fund in the history of the world by using $42b worth of
shareholders' equity to control derivatives representing a notional value of
a staggering $26,276b."
Please note that the numbers in this quote are from the Q1 OCC report, and
are far worse now as we noted above! As I mentioned in Monster, the doomed
LTCM had an inverted derivatives pyramid of an estimated $1,250b supported
by only $3b in owners' capital for an extreme implied leverage ratio of 417
to 1. JPM's implied derivatives-to-equity ratio was sitting at 712 to 1 at
the end of Q3 2001, a staggering number beyond comprehension!
The danger with hyper-extreme leverage is that even a relatively small
unexpected increase in volatility slamming into the inverted derivatives
pyramid on the wrong side, a moderate sandstorm, can cause crushing losses
at the apex of the pyramid, the capital base of the speculating bank
wielding the hyper-leverage. For example, a 1% fluctuation in a market price
is not a big deal on any given day, it happens all the time. Yet, with even
a "mere" 100 to 1 leverage, a 1% price move in the wrong direction can
totally wipe-out the underlying capital. If you have $1k in capital but
control a long bet worth $100k, even a trivial $1k price drop to $99k
obliterates you. Hyper-leverage is playing with fire!
It doesn't matter how intelligent the folks are that are managing these
gargantuan derivatives pyramids. They are probably brilliant
rocket-scientist types, the best in the world. Yet Long-Term Capital
Management also had brilliant rocket-scientists running it too, some of the
brightest financial minds that ever lived. Even with that unparalleled
brainpower, the mighty LTCM was annihilated by a relatively small unforeseen
market event, the Russian Debt Default, that completely blew-up its fragile
inverted derivatives pyramid portfolio.
In addition, even the most brilliant market players in the world make
mistakes. JPM issued an official press release on December 19th that claimed
it had $2.6b in loans and other exposure to financial-disaster-du-jour
Enron! Initially, JPM had "only" reported $0.9b of exposure to Enron. $1.7b
more is a BIG difference. JPM also reported that it had at least $0.9b in
exposure to Argentina at the end of Q3. JPM might not lose all the money it
is owed by Enron and Argentina, but if it does that is a staggering $3.5b!
For comparison, realize that JPM reported that it earned $5.7b last year in
its annual report. If the Enron and Argentina loans alone were to go bad,
that is a potential 61% haircut in 2001 earnings with only two deals that
went sour! The point is not that JPM did anything wrong in loaning money to
Enron and Argentina, just that even the best of the best cannot foresee some
market events which can turn around and painfully bite them.
The more that I ponder JPM's utter dominance of the US banks' derivatives
markets, the more amazed I become that more professional institutional
investors and analysts aren't at least a little concerned that the
unprecedented Morgan House of Derivatives may be far overextended. I am also
amazed, especially after the exceptionally ugly Enron implosion, that the
OCC and other Federal regulators are apparently not at all concerned about a
single company somehow juggling an exceedingly tangled web of derivatives
worth over $30 trillion in notional value terms. Talk about systemic risk!
Regardless of how well JPM has balanced its enormous inverted derivatives
pyramid on top of its comparably infinitesimally-small capital base, in
these chaotic markets of today I can't help but thinking that unforeseen
sandstorms are brewing on the horizons that will place tremendous and
unexpected wind-loads on JPM's fragile derivatives positions. Hopefully
JPM's inverted derivatives pyramid will not crumble and fall to the earth,
as the consequences of such an event for the US financial system could be
dreadful.
Adam Hamilton, CPA
senhor san
Long defends anti-war Louisiana State Senator S. J. Harper in 1918
================
Huey Long, the populist "Kingfish" of Louisiana, Senator, creater of the
national "Share Our Wealth" program and threatening Democratic candidate
bidding fair to depose Franklin Roosevelt in the 1936 elections until gunned
down in 1935 was, bar none except possibly Gandhi, the greatest (in terms of
ability, effort and chosen causes) political mind of the 20th-century.
Here are excerpts from T. Harry Williams, Huey Long (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1969) about a famous case of the 24-year-old lawyer, of whom Supreme
Court Justice (and former President) WIlliam Howard Taft would later say was
one of the finest legal minds ever to argue a case before his court:
Full-fledged laywer at age twenty-one.
"Whatever deception Huey may have employed in arranging the examination,
he used none when he came before the committee. He was well prepared and
serious, and he answered the questions in a straightforward manner and with
accuracy. Only once did he resort to impudence, and he did it knowing that
a brash answer woud please the interrogator. George H. Terriberry, an
expert on admiralty law, asked what young Mr. Long knew about his specialty.
Nothing, Huey replied. Terriberry pressed the issue. "What would you do in
a case involving admiralty law?" Huey handled this one easily. "I'd
associate Mr. Terriberry with me," he said, "and divide the fee with him."
The committee had no hesitation in passing him. Almost immediately, on May
15, 1915, he appeared before the supreme court and was formally admitted to
the bar. ..."
Dark Counsel from "Faust"
"In the course of his work as a compensation lawyer he had frequently
denounced the Louisiana employers' liability law for the meager payments it
allowed to injured workers, but these statements were scarecely heard beyond
Winn parish. Then in the spring of 1916 he went to Senator Harper, who was
a member of the senate committee on capital and labor and sympathetic with
the working class, and showed the old man some amendments he had drafted to
the law. His proposals advocated raising the maximum amount allowable in
injury cases and requiring companies to pay damage assessments in a lump sum
instead of installments. Harper readily agreed to present them to the
committee, but it probably did not occur to him that he could use the young
lawyer's help in Baton Rouge. Huey accompanied him, nonetheless, probably
having invited himself.
"Huey had never seen a legislature in session before, and the sight of
this one filled his idealistic young mind with disgust. Them members seemed
afraid of some mysterious power, he recalled; they kowtowed before it and
guarded their talk as if fearing they "would slip on something" if they
ventured too far. Around the capital he met an older man named "Faust",
whom he did not otherwise identify, who revealed to him what the hidden
power was -- it was the great business interests and particularly the
Standard Oil Company. But the people could change the situation, Huey
argued. Yes, agreed, Faust, but they could not be aroused. A leader who
tried to stir them would be hired over by the interests, Faust said. "Or,"
he concluded, smiling at Huey, they will snuff you out if they can." p. 109
First Showdown, a Promising Defeat
"...He was denied permission to speak and was ridiculed when he tried to
get the floor. Once when he arose, the chairman asked him whom he
represented. "Several thousand common laborers," Huey answered. Were they
paying him anything? the chairman pressed. No, snapped Huey. "They seem to
have good sense," the chairman observed, to loud laughter. Other memebers
of the committee wanted to know why a twenty-two-year-old lawyer who had
just begun practice thought he was competent to advise the legislature on
such a weighty issue. Finally, toward midnight, somebody moved that the
committee adjourn without taking any action, a procedure tantamount to
rejecting the amendments.
Huey had taken all that he could. Without asking for recognition, he got
up from his seat at the foot of the table and began to speak. Later he
thought well enought of his remarks to reporduce them in his autobiography.
His rendition was probably accurate for the most part, although it bears
some evidence of having been polished up. His opening sentence revealed
that his protestations of political innocence had been nothing but pretense.
"For twenty years has the Louisiana Legislature been dominated by the
henchment and attorneys of the interests," he cried. "Those seeking
reforms have from necessity bowed their heads in regret and shame when
witnessing the victories of these corruping influences at this capitol."
ANd now these same influences had the brazen audacity to deny to a
laborer's family a fair compensation for a grievous injury or a lost life.
And to make it worse, they claimed that they were acting in the name of
justice. "What subterfuge!" Huey declared. It was like an infidel
invoking God or an anarchist calling on the government for protection.
These were strange, strong words to fling at a legislative committee.
Huey was charging that his hearers -- and the majority of the legislators --
were purchased tools of the corporations. The committee memebers were
outraged and immediately proceeded to express their feelings by voting down
the amendments.
Huey defending anti-war socialist Senator S. J. Harper brought up on charges
under the "Espionage Act" in 1917
"It had been a spectacular political debut for Huey, and he was grateful
to the man who made it possible, Senator Harper. He had a genuine regard
for the old solon who had lent him money when he went to Tulane and come to
his aid in the DeLoach case. He had to respect too the way Harper had
pulled himself up in the world. As a youth Harper had come to Winnfield
from the country and had worked as a carpenter. Often he made only
seventy-five cents a day, but he saved his money and eventually had enought
to start a general merchandise store and to become a cotton buyer. He was
also able to indulge a taste for reading. He bought books, acquiring over
the course of the years a fair-sized library, and as he read he meditated,
he developed a set of distinctly unconventional ideas. He was vociferously
against war, the Bible, Wall Street bankers, corsets and high heels for
women, intoxicating liquors, strict discipline in prisons, the microbe
theory [showing he read Tolstoy -- de], algebra, and any new notion about
education. The list of things he favored was shorter and included
socialism, practical education, and limitations on wealth. He was
exceedingly critical of clergymen and was probably an atheist. Like some
other rurual radicals of the time, he was convinced that most of the big
international bankers were Jews and were working together to further the
power of world Jewry. His study of their machinations led him to correspond
with Henry Klein of New York City, a Jew who had become a Christian, and who
had written pamphlets denouncing bankers, the Standard Oil Comapny, and the
Jews in general. Klein apprised Harper of even wider ramifications of the
Jewish menace. The Zionists, working throught the governing Sanhedrin of
the Jews, were plotting nothing less than the takeover of the United States
and other great countries. To prove the charge, Klein supplied Harper with
a copy of a document detailing the plan, the Protocols of Zion, which later
scholarship would expose as fraudulent but which seemed genuine enough to
Harper. He gave free voice to all his ideas, and it was a mark of the
unorthodoxzy of Winn voters that they would elect such a man to represent
them in the legislature.
Some recorders of the Long story have concluded that Harper was young
Huey's political mentor and that the senator's economic notions formed the
basis of Long's subsequent economic philosophy. The supposition stems from
the known intimacy of the two men and from an assumption that the older one
must have been the dominant partner. ALthough the conjecture has a certain
plausibility about it, it is, like many that have been made about Long,
erroneous. Contemporaries who knew both menwell state emphatically that
Harper had very little influence on Huey. If influence was exerted, they
imply, Huey exerted it. This is apparent even without their testimony. It
simply was not in Huey's nature to follow anybody out of blind admiration or
to borrow ideas blindluy. He was too calculating to do either. He could
admire Harper's independence and courage, and he could agree with some fo
the senator's ideas, such as placing limitations on wealth. But he was too
realistic to commit himself further. He could see thea the breadth of
Harper's intellectual interests was a weakness in a politician -- the old
man embraced too many ideas, so many that some of them had to be eccentric.
It was all right to talk about limiting wealth, for example, but to advocate
socialism was something else. It was fine to condemn Wall Street bankers,
but to denounce Jewish bankers was another thing. If only for his ideas
about Jews, Huey would have looked on Harper with condescension. He had no
strong prejudices of any kind himself, but if he had had, he would have
concealed them -- a politician was downright foolish if he alienated any
group of voters.
Still, he felt an obligation to help Harper, and he seized an early
opportunity to repay it. The senator had been on outspoken opponent of
America's entrance into the World War. He muted his sentiments somewhat
after the war was declared, but then he demanded that it be financed by
conscripting wealth. Specifically he advocated that the government issue
legal tender certificates instead of bonds; it should emulate the Civil War
example of "our Grand Old Ex-president Abraham Lincoln," he said, using
brave words for a Southern politician. [note: maybe not so brave -- the
people of Longs' and Harper's Winnfield Parish were opposed to secession in
the war between the states, thinking that the secession was a only a rich
man's cause. --de] At first Harper confined his remarks to conversations
and correspondence, but inevitably he grew bolder. He published a pamphlet
detailing his views. Entitled The Issues of the Day -- Free Speech --
Financial Slavery, it denounced bankers and war profiteers, charged that the
war was being waged not for democracy but for Wall Street, and called for a
conscription of wealth. A minority of people already owned most of the
national wealth, the pamphlet claimed and they would own all of it before
this war was ended. Harper followed up this blast by announcing early in
1918 that he would be a candidate for Congress. He had gone too far.
Popular support of the war was as intense and huysterical in Louisiana as in
other parts of the country, and public officials were just as ready to crush
dissent. A federal grand jury in ALexandria promptly indicted Harper on the
absurd charge that he had violated the Espionage Act.
Huey volunteered to serve as the senator's counsel. His first step,
after arranging bail for Harper, was to issue a statement to the press
denouncing the indictment as political persecution of a man whose only crime
had been to oppose the war profiteers. Then, having himself mad the case a
political one, he demanded an early hearing to take advantage of the
atmosphere he had created. At the trial in Shreveport Huey associated his
more experienced brother Julius with with him as co-copunsel. WHile Julius
handled the preliminary motions, Huey circulated among the prospective
jurymen, all of whom, he had discovered were being shadowed by government
agents. He picked out those whom he thought were unfriendly to his case and
ostentatiously bought them drinks and engaged them in whispered
conversations. When the jurors were called, the government asked each one
who had been seen with Huey if he had talked about the case. Each one
answred truthfully that he had not. But the skeptical government attorneys
excused them and thus exhausted all but one of their peremptory challenges.
At this point a recess was called, and Huey was fearful that what he later
called his "prnak" had been discovered. But when the court reconvened, the
presiding judge merely read a statement reprimanding Huey for his remarks to
the press. Huey and Julius were eventually able to win an aquittal for
their client, although not necessarily because of any skill on their part or
of Huey's sharp work with the jury. The government simply had a shaky case.
Huey had been quite right to label the prosecution as political and to fight
it on political grounds.
... Huey hardly ever acted out of pure sentiment or simple motives, and
he did not so act now. Governing everything that he did in this episode was
a cynical doubt as to what the war was for - he did not believe that it was
a crusade to make the world safe for democracy. This conviction was perhaps
his real reason for helping Harper, who had the same suspicion.
... He was always a little uncomfortable at later charges that he had been a
draft dodger. But he met every criticism with boldness. "I did not go into
that war," he proclaimed in the Senate, "I was within the draft age. I
could have gone, except for my dependents. I did not go because I did not
want to go, aside from that fact. . . . I did not go because I was not mad
at anybody over there, for another reason. I did not go because it was not
the first time in history that the sons of America had volunteered
themselves as cannon fodder under the misguided apprehension that it was
going to be a fight for humanity," when in reality they had been used to
centralize "the wealth of the United States and of the world in the hands of
the few." Curiously the attack on his war record came in the late twenties
and early thirties. It was a time when such an accusation helped rather
than hurt his career. Then a man who had realized the "phoniness" of the
World War was thought to be a smart one, indeed."
Huey's skepticism about the nature of the war was a direct result of his
continuing study of a subject that had interested him for years --
maldistribution of wealth. If a few rich men dominated the economy, he
seemed to reason, then they must be running the government and directing
everything that it did. Early in 1918 he expressed his ideas in a letter to
the pricipal newspapers of the state. In this document he cited figures to
prove that two percent of the people owned severy per cent of the wealth.
And every decade this concentration of wealth was increasing, he wrote. Its
most unfortunate effect was that the ordinary man could no longer provide an
education his children. "What do yhou think of such a game of life, so
brutally and cruelly unfair, with the dice so loaded that the child of today
must enter it with only fourteen chances out of a thousand in his favor of
getting a college education. . . . ? he asked.
[Better stop here -- I'd like to type out the whole book --de]
--------
Vote for one:
George W. Bush
John Kerry
Huey Long
(me too)
Read more about Huey Long here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dick_eastman_populism/messages/1
[Also: There was a good movie staring John Goodman as Huey Long, called
Kingfish -- you likely won't find it at Blockbuster or Hollywood Video --
but maybe if you have a locally owned video store in town ... ]