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How the CIA Recruited Islamists
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How the CIA Recruited
The Monitor (Kampala)
BOOK REVIEW
August 22, 2004
Posted to the web August 23, 2004
Kampala
This third instalment in our four-part serialisation of Prof. Mahmood Mamdani's book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, looks at how America organised political Islam to fight off the Soviet Union: -
Afghanistan: The High Point in the Cold War
In an article he wrote in Dawn, the Pakistani political thinker and activist Eqbal Ahmad draws our attention to an American television image from 1985. On the White House lawn, President Ronald Reagan is introducing, with great fanfare, a group of Afghan men, all leaders of the mujahideen, to the media: "These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America's founding fathers." This was the moment when America tried to harness extreme versions of political Islam in the struggle against the Soviet Union.
The half decade that followed defeat in Vietnam witnessed other setbacks in U.S. foreign policy. This trend was illustrated dramatically in 1979 when popular revolutions swept away two U.S.-backed dictatorships, one in Nicaragua, and the other in Iran. At the end of the same year, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Who would have guessed that the Soviet Union would collapse only a decade later, leaving the United States as the sole, triumphant superpower? If 9/11 cut short the celebration of that victory, it also posed the question: At what price was the Cold War won? To answer this question requires focusing on the Reagan presidency, for it was Ronald Reagan who claimed that the defeat of U.S.-backed dictatorships in the Third World was evidence that the Soviet Union was "on a roll," and it was Reagan who demanded that all possible resources be marshalled to "roll back" the Soviet Union, "by all means necessary." Afghanistan, more than any other location, was the high point of the Cold War.
The Afghan War made the counterrevolutionary operation in Nicaragua pale by comparison, both in the extent of resources mustered and in the gravity of its after-effects. There were 100,000 Soviet ground troops in Afghanistan at the height of the war. Afghanistan presented the United States with an opportunity to hand the Soviet Union its own Vietnam. Reagan formulated this into a strategic objective, thereby approaching the Afghan War from a perspective more global than regional. As it stretched through the near decade of the Reagan presidency, the Afghan War turned into the bloodiest regional conflict in the world. This largest CIA paramilitary operation since Vietnam also turned out to be the longest war in Soviet history.
The revolutions of 1979 had a profound influence on the conduct of the Afghan War. The Iranian Revolution led to a restructuring of relations between the United States and political Islam. Prior to it, America saw the world in rather simple terms: on one side was the Soviet Union and militant Third World nationalism, which America regarded as a Soviet tool; on the other side was political Islam, which America considered an unqualified ally in the struggle against the Soviet Union. Thus, the United States supported the Sarekat-i-Islam against Sukarno in Indonesia, the Jamaat-i-Islami against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan, and the Society of Muslim Brothers against Nasser in Egypt. The expectation that political Islam would provide a local buffer against secular nationalism was also broadly shared by U.S. allies within the region, from Israel to conservative Arab regimes. Until events proved the foolhardiness of the project, Israel hoped to encourage an Islamist political movement in the Occupied territories and play it off against the secular nationalism of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Israeli intelligence allowed Hamas to operate unhindered during the first intifada - letting it open a university and bank accounts and even possibly helping it with funding - only to confront a stronger Hamas as the organizer of the second intifada. In Egypt, Anwar Sadat appeared as a liberator of political Islam after the death of Nasser. Between 1971 and 1975, Sadat released Islamists who had been languishing in jail and gave them, first, the freedom to publicise their views and, later, the freedom to organise. I cite these instances not to tarnish and discredit the movements concerned because they were supported by American or Israeli intelligence, but to show how the unintended consequences of misinformed, cynical, and opportunistic actions can boomerang on their perpetrators.
The impact of the Iranian Revolution was dramatised by the humiliating saga of the American embassy hostages. The first student occupation of the embassy occurred shortly after Khomeini's return to Iran on February 14, 1979, but Khomeini and Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan moved quickly to expel the occupiers. Eight months later, circumstances changed radically: when the U.S. government welcomed the deposed shah to New York for medical treatment, Khomeini responded with criticism of the United States as "the Great Satan." Within a month, some three thousand Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took ninety hostages. This time, Khomeini and the government responded differently. After the release of women and black Marine guards, the remaining fifty-two American diplomats were held for 444 days.
The Iranian Revolution introduced a new political development on the world scene: here was an Islamist regime that was not only Islamist and anti-Communist but at the same time fervently nationalist, determined to act independently of all foreign influences, particularly the United States. The more this became clear, the more official America expanded its search for friends in the neighborhood.
Soon, secular but brutal regimes like that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq were recruited as American allies. While the second embassy occupation was in progress, the forces of Saddam Hussein invaded southwest Iran on September 20, 1980 - with open encouragement from the United States. The Iraqi war against Iran saw the first post-Vietnam use of chemical weapons in war, and America was the source of both the weapons and the training needed to use them.
The revolution in Iran taught the United States to distinguish between two faces of political Islam: the revolutionary and the elitist. The revolutionary side saw the organisation of Islamic social movements and mass participation as crucial to ushering in an independent Islamist state. In contrast, the elitist side distrusted popular participation; its notion of an Islamist state was one that would contain popular participation, not encourage it. Before the Iranian revolution complicated the picture by sharpening the difference between these sides in Iran, the United States had operated with a simple formula, one that identified the revolutionary face of political Islam with Iran and the She's sect in Islam, and the elitist face with majority-Sunni pro-American regimes such as those in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
The Nicaraguan Revolution was the source of a different kind of lesson: how to organise and pursue a counterrevolutionary war by means both overt and covert. This first significant attempt to roll back a nationalist pro-Soviet Third World government taught the Reagan administration how to harness support from diverse quarters toward a single objective. Two lessons from the contra experience were particularly useful: the first was a benign attitude toward the drug trade as a source of cash to carry out a clandestine war; and the second was the need to involve the entire neighbourhood - Christian-right ministries, the network of secular conservative political lobbies, and paramilitary mercenary outfits - in the war effort.
Secret American aid to opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul had begun before the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan. CIA and State Department documents seized during the embassy takeover in Tehran reveal that the United States had begun quietly meeting Afghan-rebel representatives in Pakistan in April 1979, eight months before Soviet military intervention. This was confirmed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security advisor, in a later interview with the Paris-based Le Nouvel Observateur (January 15-21, 1998):
Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [From the Shadows] that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahidin in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period, you were the national security advisor to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahidin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, December 24 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion, this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
The passage from the Carter to the Reagan presidency also exacerbated the shift in U.S. foreign policy from containment to rollback. In Afghanistan, as in Nicaragua, the Carter administration had preferred a two-track approach, combining the carrot and the stick, approving moderate levels of covert support for anti-Communist allies, whether governments or groups, alongside a search for a negotiated settlement. Containment, in this sense, was guided by the search for coexistence. In contrast, the Reagan administration had absolutely no interest in arriving at negotiated settlements. Rather than coexistence, the point of the Reagan policy was payback: everything must be done to turn the Afghan War into the Soviet Union's Vietnam. The single objective was to bleed the Soviet Union white. The CIA was determined that nothing comes in the way of the "real task" in Afghanistan: "killing Russians." Among the more influential "bleeders" in Washington was Reagan's assistant secretary of defence, Richard Perle. He would later have a second coming as a prominent hawk on the George W. Bush team after 9/11.
If the Reagan administration was predisposed to groups with hard-line ideological opposition to the Soviet Union and no interest in a compromise settlement, successive Pakistani governments had a pathological distrust of Afghan nationalism. This became clear when his cousin and former prime minister, Mohammad Daud deposed the Afghan king, Zahir Shah, in a bloodless coup, in July 1973. Dud put together a republican alliance of sections of the military and a wing of the Communist Party named after its newspaper, Percham (banner).
The new nationalist government took up the popular cause of Pashtunistan, which demanded a homeland for the Pashtun people. Not only were roughly half of Afghanistan's population ethnic Pashtuns, millions of Pashtuns also lived in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), on the other side of an artificial border drawn by the British at the height of their colonial empire in India. Fearful of Afghan nationalism, Pakistani governments were open to supporting antinationalist forces in Afghanistan, and Zia ul-Haq's was no exception.
The ideological opposition to nationalism, including to Daud's authoritarian version, came mainly from Communists and Islamists, mostly university students and professors who were strongly international in their outlook. Increasing popular opposition to Daud's rule led to a second military coup known as the Saur Revolution that brought both factions of the Communist Party, Percham and Khalq (also named after its newspaper), into government. With this revolution of April 17, 1978, Communist "internationalism" became officially respectable, and Islamist "internationalism" was labelled subversive. Moderate and extremist Islamist radicals fled Kabul University for refuge in Pakistan, where they were welcomed.
The 1978 Communist coup also created a decisive shift in U.S. relations with Pakistan. The Carter administration had cut aid to Pakistan in 1977, a response to both its dismal human-rights record at home - dramatised by the army's judicial murder of an elected prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto - and the global implications of its accelerated nuclear programme. The coup and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan changed all this: "literally days after the Soviet invasion, Carter was on the telephone with Zia offering him hundreds of millions of dollars in economic and military aid in exchange for cooperation in helping rebels." Zia held out for more, and the Carter-Zia partnership remained lukewarm. The real warming came with the Reagan administration, which offered Pakistan "a huge, six-year economic and military aid package which elevated Pakistan to the third largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid" - after Israel and Egypt.
During the Reagan presidency, there was sustained cooperation between the CIA and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), and neither party had much interest in a negotiated settlement. Both intelligence agencies came to share a dual objective: militarily, to provide maximum firepower to the mujahideen and, politically, to recruit the most radically anti-Communist Islamists to counter Soviet forces.
The combined result was to flood the region not only with all kinds of weapons but also with the most radical Islamist recruits. They flocked to ISI-run training camps in Pakistan, where they were "ideologically charged with the spark of holy war and trained in guerrilla tactics, sabotage and bombings." The Islamist recruits came from all over the world, not only Muslim-majority countries such as Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Indonesia, but also such Muslim-minority countries as the United States and Britain. There is the well-known example of Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, dubbed by Lawrence Wright, writing in The New Yorker, the "gatekeeper of the Jihad" in the mid-eighties.
"A Palestinian theologian who had a doctorate in Islamic law from Al-Azhar University," Sheikh Azzam "went on to teach at King Abdul Aziz University, in Jidda, where one of his students was Osama bin Laden." Azzam travelled the globe under CIA patronage. He appeared on Saudi television and at rallies in the United States. A CIA asset who appeared as the embodiment of the holy warrior and "toured the length and breadth of the United States in the early and mid-1980s recruiting for holy war, ostensibly only in Afghanistan," Azzam was also one of the founders of Hamas. Azzam's message was clear:
participation in the jihad is not just a political obligation but also a religious duty. The point of the jihad is not only to kill the enemy, the Russian, but also to invite "martyrdom." In a 1988 recruitment video examined by Wright, Azzam says: "I reached Afghanistan and could not believe my eyes. I travelled to acquaint people with jihad for years... We were trying to satisfy the thirst for martyrdom. We are still in love with this." Azzam's formula for the holy war was simple: "Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences, and no dialogues." It neatly echoed the combined CIA-ISI objective.
The CIA, in collaboration with the ISI of Pakistan, worked out the blueprint for the Afghan jihad. For the actual conduct of the war, the CIA acquired weapons and specialists in guerrilla warfare from different countries and delivered them, along with intelligence and surveillance information on Afghanistan, to the ISI. The ISI was responsible for transport of weapons to the border, supervised the training of Afghan fighters inside Pakistan, and coordinated their operations inside Afghanistan. While ISI was the main regional proxy in the operation, the second line included the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with the intelligence services of Britain, China, the Philippines, and even Israel also involved. The basic lesson of Indochina, southern Africa, and Central America was applied with great care: this was to be an operation in which the CIA would be at more than arm's length. It would be a proxy war run through third and fourth parties.
As different tasks were subcontracted to different agencies, the blueprint of the war unfolded in a compartmentalised fashion. The point was to ensure the direct involvement of as few Americans as possible; fewer still were in direct contact with the mujahideen or their field commanders. While subcontracting removed American presence from the ground, and thus the possibility of any direct damage to American personnel, its unintended consequence was to give substantial freedom to the subcontractors to bypass central command and deal directly with agencies such as the CIA or DEA. The result was a lack of coherence in overall American policy.
Beyond the front-line proxy states and their intelligence agencies, increasingly the intermediaries were private institutions, both religious and secular. The overall effect was progressively to privatise the war on an international basis. From this dynamic emerged the forces that carried out the operation we know as 9/11.
Had the anti-Soviet crusade been organised in a national framework, the CIA would have looked for mainly Afghani recruits to wage it. But with the war recast as an international jihad, the CIA looked for volunteers from Muslim populations all over the globe.
Outside of Pakistan, the Arab countries were the main source of volunteers, who became known as Afghan-Arabs. The non-Afghani recruits were known by hyphenated identities, as Afghan-Algerians, Afghan-Indonesians, and so on. A network of recruitment centres was set up, linking key points in the Arab world - Egypt and Saudi Arabia - with Pakistan.
Eventually, they spread as far as Sudan to the south, Indonesia to the east, and Chechnya to the north, and Kosovo to the west. Sensitive to the critique from within the religious right that they had failed to support the Palestinian struggle meaningfully, members of the Saudi establishment encouraged local dissidents to join the Afghan jihad, and the Egyptian government looked the other way as local Islamists made their way to Afghanistan.
A third major Arab source of recruitment was Algeria. Martin Stone writes "the Pakistani embassy in Algeria alone issued 2,800 visas to Algerian volunteers during the 1980s." The numbers recruited and trained were impressive by any reckoning: the estimate of foreign radicals "directly influenced by the Afghan jihad" is upwards of one hundred thousand. The Afghan-Arabs constituted an elite force and received the most sophisticated training. Fighters in the Peshawar-based Muslim "international brigade" received the relatively high salary of around $1,500 per month.
The CIA looked for a Saudi prince to lead this crusade but was unable to find one. It settled for the next best, the son of an illustrious family closely connected to the Saudi royal house. We need to remember that Osama bin Laden did not come from a backwater family steeped in premodernity but from a cosmopolitan family. The bin Laden family endows programmes at universities such as Harvard and Yale. Bin Laden was recruited, with U.S. approval at the highest level, by Prince Turki al-Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence.
According to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, Osama bin Laden first travelled to Peshawar in 1980 and met mujahideen leaders there, and for the next two years he returned frequently with Saudi donations for the cause. In 1982, he decided to settle in Peshawar.
In 1986, bin Ladin worked as the major contractor to build a large ClA-funded project: the Khost tunnel complex deep under the mountains close to the Pakistani border. The Khost complex housed a major arms depot, a training facility, and a medical centre for the mujahideen. It is the Khost complex that President Clinton decided in 1998 to bomb with Tomahawk cruise missiles. It is also in the Khost complex - the famed mountain caves - that the United States later fought al-Qaeda remnants in its own Afghan War.
Though Osama bin Laden had been a student of Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, the first Afghan-Arab gatekeeper of the jihad in the mid-eighties, a break between Azzam and bin Laden came toward the end of the Afghan jihad. The parting of the ways was the result of a disagreement in 1989 over the future of the jihad: bin Laden "envisioned an all-Arab legion, which eventually could be used to wage jihad in Saudi Arabia and Egypt," whereas Azzam "strongly opposed making war against fellow-Muslims." Soon after, Azzam and two of his sons were blown up by a car bomb as they were driving to a mosque in Peshawar.
A meeting was held toward the end of 1989 in the town of Khost to decide on the future of the jihad. One of the ten at the meeting was a Sudanese fighter named Jamal al-Fadl. He testified in a New York courtroom in one of the trials connected with the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in East Africa that a new organisation was created in that meeting to wage jihad beyond the borders of Afghanistan. That organisation was al-Qaeda, "the Base." Bin Laden thus emerged as the organiser and patron of the most prominent privatised arm of the American jihad.
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Copyright © 2005 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
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How the CIA Recruited
The Monitor (Kampala)
BOOK REVIEW
August 22, 2004
Posted to the web August 23, 2004
Kampala
This third instalment in our four-part serialisation of Prof. Mahmood Mamdani's book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, looks at how America organised political Islam to fight off the Soviet Union: -
Afghanistan: The High Point in the Cold War
In an article he wrote in Dawn, the Pakistani political thinker and activist Eqbal Ahmad draws our attention to an American television image from 1985. On the White House lawn, President Ronald Reagan is introducing, with great fanfare, a group of Afghan men, all leaders of the mujahideen, to the media: "These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America's founding fathers." This was the moment when America tried to harness extreme versions of political Islam in the struggle against the Soviet Union.
The half decade that followed defeat in Vietnam witnessed other setbacks in U.S. foreign policy. This trend was illustrated dramatically in 1979 when popular revolutions swept away two U.S.-backed dictatorships, one in Nicaragua, and the other in Iran. At the end of the same year, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Who would have guessed that the Soviet Union would collapse only a decade later, leaving the United States as the sole, triumphant superpower? If 9/11 cut short the celebration of that victory, it also posed the question: At what price was the Cold War won? To answer this question requires focusing on the Reagan presidency, for it was Ronald Reagan who claimed that the defeat of U.S.-backed dictatorships in the Third World was evidence that the Soviet Union was "on a roll," and it was Reagan who demanded that all possible resources be marshalled to "roll back" the Soviet Union, "by all means necessary." Afghanistan, more than any other location, was the high point of the Cold War.
The Afghan War made the counterrevolutionary operation in Nicaragua pale by comparison, both in the extent of resources mustered and in the gravity of its after-effects. There were 100,000 Soviet ground troops in Afghanistan at the height of the war. Afghanistan presented the United States with an opportunity to hand the Soviet Union its own Vietnam. Reagan formulated this into a strategic objective, thereby approaching the Afghan War from a perspective more global than regional. As it stretched through the near decade of the Reagan presidency, the Afghan War turned into the bloodiest regional conflict in the world. This largest CIA paramilitary operation since Vietnam also turned out to be the longest war in Soviet history.
The revolutions of 1979 had a profound influence on the conduct of the Afghan War. The Iranian Revolution led to a restructuring of relations between the United States and political Islam. Prior to it, America saw the world in rather simple terms: on one side was the Soviet Union and militant Third World nationalism, which America regarded as a Soviet tool; on the other side was political Islam, which America considered an unqualified ally in the struggle against the Soviet Union. Thus, the United States supported the Sarekat-i-Islam against Sukarno in Indonesia, the Jamaat-i-Islami against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan, and the Society of Muslim Brothers against Nasser in Egypt. The expectation that political Islam would provide a local buffer against secular nationalism was also broadly shared by U.S. allies within the region, from Israel to conservative Arab regimes. Until events proved the foolhardiness of the project, Israel hoped to encourage an Islamist political movement in the Occupied territories and play it off against the secular nationalism of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Israeli intelligence allowed Hamas to operate unhindered during the first intifada - letting it open a university and bank accounts and even possibly helping it with funding - only to confront a stronger Hamas as the organizer of the second intifada. In Egypt, Anwar Sadat appeared as a liberator of political Islam after the death of Nasser. Between 1971 and 1975, Sadat released Islamists who had been languishing in jail and gave them, first, the freedom to publicise their views and, later, the freedom to organise. I cite these instances not to tarnish and discredit the movements concerned because they were supported by American or Israeli intelligence, but to show how the unintended consequences of misinformed, cynical, and opportunistic actions can boomerang on their perpetrators.
The impact of the Iranian Revolution was dramatised by the humiliating saga of the American embassy hostages. The first student occupation of the embassy occurred shortly after Khomeini's return to Iran on February 14, 1979, but Khomeini and Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan moved quickly to expel the occupiers. Eight months later, circumstances changed radically: when the U.S. government welcomed the deposed shah to New York for medical treatment, Khomeini responded with criticism of the United States as "the Great Satan." Within a month, some three thousand Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took ninety hostages. This time, Khomeini and the government responded differently. After the release of women and black Marine guards, the remaining fifty-two American diplomats were held for 444 days.
The Iranian Revolution introduced a new political development on the world scene: here was an Islamist regime that was not only Islamist and anti-Communist but at the same time fervently nationalist, determined to act independently of all foreign influences, particularly the United States. The more this became clear, the more official America expanded its search for friends in the neighborhood.
Soon, secular but brutal regimes like that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq were recruited as American allies. While the second embassy occupation was in progress, the forces of Saddam Hussein invaded southwest Iran on September 20, 1980 - with open encouragement from the United States. The Iraqi war against Iran saw the first post-Vietnam use of chemical weapons in war, and America was the source of both the weapons and the training needed to use them.
The revolution in Iran taught the United States to distinguish between two faces of political Islam: the revolutionary and the elitist. The revolutionary side saw the organisation of Islamic social movements and mass participation as crucial to ushering in an independent Islamist state. In contrast, the elitist side distrusted popular participation; its notion of an Islamist state was one that would contain popular participation, not encourage it. Before the Iranian revolution complicated the picture by sharpening the difference between these sides in Iran, the United States had operated with a simple formula, one that identified the revolutionary face of political Islam with Iran and the She's sect in Islam, and the elitist face with majority-Sunni pro-American regimes such as those in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
The Nicaraguan Revolution was the source of a different kind of lesson: how to organise and pursue a counterrevolutionary war by means both overt and covert. This first significant attempt to roll back a nationalist pro-Soviet Third World government taught the Reagan administration how to harness support from diverse quarters toward a single objective. Two lessons from the contra experience were particularly useful: the first was a benign attitude toward the drug trade as a source of cash to carry out a clandestine war; and the second was the need to involve the entire neighbourhood - Christian-right ministries, the network of secular conservative political lobbies, and paramilitary mercenary outfits - in the war effort.
Secret American aid to opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul had begun before the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan. CIA and State Department documents seized during the embassy takeover in Tehran reveal that the United States had begun quietly meeting Afghan-rebel representatives in Pakistan in April 1979, eight months before Soviet military intervention. This was confirmed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security advisor, in a later interview with the Paris-based Le Nouvel Observateur (January 15-21, 1998):
Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [From the Shadows] that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahidin in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period, you were the national security advisor to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahidin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, December 24 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion, this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
The passage from the Carter to the Reagan presidency also exacerbated the shift in U.S. foreign policy from containment to rollback. In Afghanistan, as in Nicaragua, the Carter administration had preferred a two-track approach, combining the carrot and the stick, approving moderate levels of covert support for anti-Communist allies, whether governments or groups, alongside a search for a negotiated settlement. Containment, in this sense, was guided by the search for coexistence. In contrast, the Reagan administration had absolutely no interest in arriving at negotiated settlements. Rather than coexistence, the point of the Reagan policy was payback: everything must be done to turn the Afghan War into the Soviet Union's Vietnam. The single objective was to bleed the Soviet Union white. The CIA was determined that nothing comes in the way of the "real task" in Afghanistan: "killing Russians." Among the more influential "bleeders" in Washington was Reagan's assistant secretary of defence, Richard Perle. He would later have a second coming as a prominent hawk on the George W. Bush team after 9/11.
If the Reagan administration was predisposed to groups with hard-line ideological opposition to the Soviet Union and no interest in a compromise settlement, successive Pakistani governments had a pathological distrust of Afghan nationalism. This became clear when his cousin and former prime minister, Mohammad Daud deposed the Afghan king, Zahir Shah, in a bloodless coup, in July 1973. Dud put together a republican alliance of sections of the military and a wing of the Communist Party named after its newspaper, Percham (banner).
The new nationalist government took up the popular cause of Pashtunistan, which demanded a homeland for the Pashtun people. Not only were roughly half of Afghanistan's population ethnic Pashtuns, millions of Pashtuns also lived in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), on the other side of an artificial border drawn by the British at the height of their colonial empire in India. Fearful of Afghan nationalism, Pakistani governments were open to supporting antinationalist forces in Afghanistan, and Zia ul-Haq's was no exception.
The ideological opposition to nationalism, including to Daud's authoritarian version, came mainly from Communists and Islamists, mostly university students and professors who were strongly international in their outlook. Increasing popular opposition to Daud's rule led to a second military coup known as the Saur Revolution that brought both factions of the Communist Party, Percham and Khalq (also named after its newspaper), into government. With this revolution of April 17, 1978, Communist "internationalism" became officially respectable, and Islamist "internationalism" was labelled subversive. Moderate and extremist Islamist radicals fled Kabul University for refuge in Pakistan, where they were welcomed.
The 1978 Communist coup also created a decisive shift in U.S. relations with Pakistan. The Carter administration had cut aid to Pakistan in 1977, a response to both its dismal human-rights record at home - dramatised by the army's judicial murder of an elected prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto - and the global implications of its accelerated nuclear programme. The coup and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan changed all this: "literally days after the Soviet invasion, Carter was on the telephone with Zia offering him hundreds of millions of dollars in economic and military aid in exchange for cooperation in helping rebels." Zia held out for more, and the Carter-Zia partnership remained lukewarm. The real warming came with the Reagan administration, which offered Pakistan "a huge, six-year economic and military aid package which elevated Pakistan to the third largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid" - after Israel and Egypt.
During the Reagan presidency, there was sustained cooperation between the CIA and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), and neither party had much interest in a negotiated settlement. Both intelligence agencies came to share a dual objective: militarily, to provide maximum firepower to the mujahideen and, politically, to recruit the most radically anti-Communist Islamists to counter Soviet forces.
The combined result was to flood the region not only with all kinds of weapons but also with the most radical Islamist recruits. They flocked to ISI-run training camps in Pakistan, where they were "ideologically charged with the spark of holy war and trained in guerrilla tactics, sabotage and bombings." The Islamist recruits came from all over the world, not only Muslim-majority countries such as Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Indonesia, but also such Muslim-minority countries as the United States and Britain. There is the well-known example of Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, dubbed by Lawrence Wright, writing in The New Yorker, the "gatekeeper of the Jihad" in the mid-eighties.
"A Palestinian theologian who had a doctorate in Islamic law from Al-Azhar University," Sheikh Azzam "went on to teach at King Abdul Aziz University, in Jidda, where one of his students was Osama bin Laden." Azzam travelled the globe under CIA patronage. He appeared on Saudi television and at rallies in the United States. A CIA asset who appeared as the embodiment of the holy warrior and "toured the length and breadth of the United States in the early and mid-1980s recruiting for holy war, ostensibly only in Afghanistan," Azzam was also one of the founders of Hamas. Azzam's message was clear:
participation in the jihad is not just a political obligation but also a religious duty. The point of the jihad is not only to kill the enemy, the Russian, but also to invite "martyrdom." In a 1988 recruitment video examined by Wright, Azzam says: "I reached Afghanistan and could not believe my eyes. I travelled to acquaint people with jihad for years... We were trying to satisfy the thirst for martyrdom. We are still in love with this." Azzam's formula for the holy war was simple: "Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences, and no dialogues." It neatly echoed the combined CIA-ISI objective.
The CIA, in collaboration with the ISI of Pakistan, worked out the blueprint for the Afghan jihad. For the actual conduct of the war, the CIA acquired weapons and specialists in guerrilla warfare from different countries and delivered them, along with intelligence and surveillance information on Afghanistan, to the ISI. The ISI was responsible for transport of weapons to the border, supervised the training of Afghan fighters inside Pakistan, and coordinated their operations inside Afghanistan. While ISI was the main regional proxy in the operation, the second line included the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with the intelligence services of Britain, China, the Philippines, and even Israel also involved. The basic lesson of Indochina, southern Africa, and Central America was applied with great care: this was to be an operation in which the CIA would be at more than arm's length. It would be a proxy war run through third and fourth parties.
As different tasks were subcontracted to different agencies, the blueprint of the war unfolded in a compartmentalised fashion. The point was to ensure the direct involvement of as few Americans as possible; fewer still were in direct contact with the mujahideen or their field commanders. While subcontracting removed American presence from the ground, and thus the possibility of any direct damage to American personnel, its unintended consequence was to give substantial freedom to the subcontractors to bypass central command and deal directly with agencies such as the CIA or DEA. The result was a lack of coherence in overall American policy.
Beyond the front-line proxy states and their intelligence agencies, increasingly the intermediaries were private institutions, both religious and secular. The overall effect was progressively to privatise the war on an international basis. From this dynamic emerged the forces that carried out the operation we know as 9/11.
Had the anti-Soviet crusade been organised in a national framework, the CIA would have looked for mainly Afghani recruits to wage it. But with the war recast as an international jihad, the CIA looked for volunteers from Muslim populations all over the globe.
Outside of Pakistan, the Arab countries were the main source of volunteers, who became known as Afghan-Arabs. The non-Afghani recruits were known by hyphenated identities, as Afghan-Algerians, Afghan-Indonesians, and so on. A network of recruitment centres was set up, linking key points in the Arab world - Egypt and Saudi Arabia - with Pakistan.
Eventually, they spread as far as Sudan to the south, Indonesia to the east, and Chechnya to the north, and Kosovo to the west. Sensitive to the critique from within the religious right that they had failed to support the Palestinian struggle meaningfully, members of the Saudi establishment encouraged local dissidents to join the Afghan jihad, and the Egyptian government looked the other way as local Islamists made their way to Afghanistan.
A third major Arab source of recruitment was Algeria. Martin Stone writes "the Pakistani embassy in Algeria alone issued 2,800 visas to Algerian volunteers during the 1980s." The numbers recruited and trained were impressive by any reckoning: the estimate of foreign radicals "directly influenced by the Afghan jihad" is upwards of one hundred thousand. The Afghan-Arabs constituted an elite force and received the most sophisticated training. Fighters in the Peshawar-based Muslim "international brigade" received the relatively high salary of around $1,500 per month.
The CIA looked for a Saudi prince to lead this crusade but was unable to find one. It settled for the next best, the son of an illustrious family closely connected to the Saudi royal house. We need to remember that Osama bin Laden did not come from a backwater family steeped in premodernity but from a cosmopolitan family. The bin Laden family endows programmes at universities such as Harvard and Yale. Bin Laden was recruited, with U.S. approval at the highest level, by Prince Turki al-Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence.
According to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, Osama bin Laden first travelled to Peshawar in 1980 and met mujahideen leaders there, and for the next two years he returned frequently with Saudi donations for the cause. In 1982, he decided to settle in Peshawar.
In 1986, bin Ladin worked as the major contractor to build a large ClA-funded project: the Khost tunnel complex deep under the mountains close to the Pakistani border. The Khost complex housed a major arms depot, a training facility, and a medical centre for the mujahideen. It is the Khost complex that President Clinton decided in 1998 to bomb with Tomahawk cruise missiles. It is also in the Khost complex - the famed mountain caves - that the United States later fought al-Qaeda remnants in its own Afghan War.
Though Osama bin Laden had been a student of Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, the first Afghan-Arab gatekeeper of the jihad in the mid-eighties, a break between Azzam and bin Laden came toward the end of the Afghan jihad. The parting of the ways was the result of a disagreement in 1989 over the future of the jihad: bin Laden "envisioned an all-Arab legion, which eventually could be used to wage jihad in Saudi Arabia and Egypt," whereas Azzam "strongly opposed making war against fellow-Muslims." Soon after, Azzam and two of his sons were blown up by a car bomb as they were driving to a mosque in Peshawar.
A meeting was held toward the end of 1989 in the town of Khost to decide on the future of the jihad. One of the ten at the meeting was a Sudanese fighter named Jamal al-Fadl. He testified in a New York courtroom in one of the trials connected with the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in East Africa that a new organisation was created in that meeting to wage jihad beyond the borders of Afghanistan. That organisation was al-Qaeda, "the Base." Bin Laden thus emerged as the organiser and patron of the most prominent privatised arm of the American jihad.
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Copyright © 2005 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
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Friday, August 27, 2004
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Schroeder in a Bind: THE WORLD MONETARY SYSTEM HAS CRACKED IN GERMANY TODAY!
I completely disagree with this analysis, but it will be an interesting article to follow.
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2004/2004_30-39/2004-34/this_wk.html
THE WORLD MONETARY SYSTEM HAS CRACKED IN GERMANY TODAY!
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
August 18, 2004
The address delivered today in Berlin by Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, marks the actual beginning of the collapse of the rotten-ripe world monetary-financial system. This began, a few weeks ago, with seemingly small, easily overlooked events, beginning in a way which is ironically comparable to the way in which the issue of freedom to travel for vacations abroad, triggered the series of events leading quickly to the already inevitable 1989 collapse of the (East) German Democratic Republic (DDR). That irony aside, it is the biggest, most dangerous global monetary-financial crisis in modern world history. It is not something about to happen; it is something already under way, a crisis which can not be stopped unless certain emergency measures which I have prescribed are taken immediately.
The key to the issues posed afresh in Berlin today, is that this is not a Germany crisis. It is a world crisis which chose to erupt, as a world crisis, in Germany today. It is an already erupting world crisis of not only the European and U.S. economies, but a general breakdown crisis of the world's present monetary-financial system. The present IMF-centered system, the floating-exchange-rate system, will not survive the ricocheting global effects of this presently onrushing crisis pouring out of Germany. No part of the world, China included, will escape the fury of this global storm. Thus, what is happening in Berlin today, is predetermining the choice of fate already presented to the U.S.A. now.
Unless the relevant present rules of the European Union, and the system of "globalization," are taken down immediately, nothing will be able to stop the worldwide avalanche which began four weeks ago, in the German state of Saxony.
I explain.
Technically, the remedies available to the government of Germany were clear. The precedents for the required action by the government were broadly the same specified at a 1931 Berlin meeting of the Friedrich List Gesellschaft by the eminent Dr. Wilhelm Lautenbach. Had Lautenbach's proposal been enacted, Adolf Hitler would not have happened. The measures proposed by Lautenbach then, were broadly identical with the actions taken against the policies of the "American Bruening," President Hoover, by incoming President Franklin Roosevelt. What is happening to Germany today, is most nearly comparable, strategically, to what happened to Germany then.
The problems standing in the way of Chancellor Schroeder's appropriate action, were chiefly three. 1) Globalization, which must be repealed in a sweeping way, if not only Germany, but each and all among the nations of Western and Central Europe are to survive the presently onrushing crisis. 2) Those clinically insane policies of the European Union, which stand in the way of the only possible recovery programs which could be launched by any German government at this time. 3) The blackmail of Germany by not only Standard & Poor's threats, but the backing of that blackmail by a concert of international financier oligarchs of the same character and disposition as that Synarchist International which established each and all of the fascist regimes in continental Europe during the interval 1922-45.
Notably, the de facto current U.S. government of Prime Minister Tony Blair-confederate Vice President Dick Cheney, represents a set of ideologies and financier interests which is essential a carbon-copy of the Synarchist International of the 1922-45 interval, including the Nazi-controlled, U.S.-hating Synarchist party of Mexico's haters of that nation's own President Lazaro Cardenas. The perpetual, nuclear-enhanced "preventive" war policies of Bush puppet-master Cheney represent currently the cutting political-strategic edge of the fascist threat to nations of continental Europe, as well as the internal affairs of the U.S.A. today.
Against the background of those superseding realities, the tragic feature of today's address by Chancellor Schroeder is that he takes upon himself the moral responsibility for the outrageous conditions which a concert of international financier-oligarchical interests have imposed upon his German government and nation. The danger of that is, that the Chancellor will draw upon himself the hatred which, in fact, Germany's current oppressors should receive. There is presently no visible, viable alternative to Chancellor Schroeder in Germany. There lies the element of a potential German tragedy now.
Under saner world political conditions, the leading nations of the world would have responded by calling an international, emergency monetary-financial conference, at which they would have combined their authorities and influence to impose a remedy upon the reluctant present world monetary-financial system. For, if Germany goes down into the status of a "failed nation-state," as it might, under these present trends, no part of the world will escape the terrible chain-reaction effects that would bring about.
A collapse of Germany is the unleashing of a chain-reaction which would quickly be the end of stable government in all continental Western and Central Europe, and that, in turn, is the trigger of an immediate unleashing of a chain-reaction collapse of the entire present world monetary-financial system. The category of "failed states" must therefore be applied, now, to those nations, other than Germany, which allowed the inevitable consequences of the relevant European Union decisions to be unleashed, and to the incompetence of the present Presidency of the U.S.A., in continuing to push global policies which will bring down the highly charged, acutely vulnerable world system now.
The immediately needed decisions are essentially elementary ones. 1) End the tyrannical and destructive European Union rulings, and permit member-states to resume their sovereign right to create long-term capital loans to launch a general recovery of production and employment sufficient to bring Germany, among others, to a state of balance on current accounts of income and expense, as distinct from long-term capital formation. 2) Use this mechanism of state credit to negotiate long-term trade agreements among, especially, the nations of the Eurasian continent. 3) Use the fact of a general breakdown crisis to override all globalization; restore "fair trade" policies, by treaty agreements among nations which take cognizance of the prolonged emergency conditions of the world today; launch large-scale modernized basic economic infrastructure as a leading stimulant of national economy, and give special emphasis on promotion of what is known as the "Mittelstand" in Germany.
There must also be immediate steps toward reaching permanent long-term agreements establishing a return to the principles of the original fixed-exchange-rate Bretton Woods system. There must be overriding recognition, that without a fixed-exchange-rate system, it were impossible to sustain long-term credit at rates of between 1-2% simple interest.
The transition needed will be a politically difficult one, but if we recognize the danger of not taking such measures, then we will find the way to reach the understandings which lead to the kinds of agreements we must make. If we fail to do so, as many of our descendants as manage to survive our generation's great folly, will curse us, as much for what we have failed to, as for what we have done.
If we do not pull Germany out of this, the whole world system will go down in perhaps an increasingly uncontrolled, perhaps uncontrollable fashion. The German government must be afforded the latitude and support to make the changes which will prevent the now threatened disintegration of that crucial nation of the entire world system.
As for the ongoing U.S. general election process, the current events in Germany now, change everything. Unless either the Kerry campaign blows its chances, or the Cheney regime and its puppet Bush resort to orchestrating a fascist takeover through managed terror or related incidents, the Bush Administration's skein will have now run out. That is the problem hotly to be watched, in the reverberations coming out of Berlin today.
MANIFESTO FOR THE MONDAY DEMONSTRATIONS
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
August 17, 2001
Today, only 15 short years after the historic Monday demonstrations of 1989 which ushered in the end of the German Democratic Republic, demonstrations are once again taking place in many cities across Germany. The immediate trigger has been a protest against extreme injustices mandated by the Hartz IV law, a law which would plunge millions of so-called long-term unemployed into outright poverty. But Hartz IV was merely the proverbial last straw. As the Econometric Institute in Halle once again confirmed in August, actual unemployment in Germany is at least 8.6 million, if we include entire categories of people who are not even counted in the official unemployment statistics. That's over 2 million more unemployed than in 1933.
The men and women who suddenly poured onto the streets in many cities in Germany's new eastern states—but also in the west—are doing so because they have perceived something monstrous lurking behind our red-green administration's desperate austerity policy. Exactly what could be driving the Social Democracy, with its deep historical identity as the party of social welfare, to break with its own tradition, and to carry out a destruction of Germany's social-welfare system so brutal, that its local representatives in the current and upcoming elections could never, not in a million years, shove it down the throats of their constituencies? And which is going to result in the SPD's election results plummeting into the single digits, inevitably leading to splits, and the party's total destruction. What can account for this suicidal behavior?
The answer is simple, though not immediately apparent: The SPD leadership, and also the boards of directors of the banks and insurance companies, who only discuss it openly behind closed boardroom doors, know full well that the global financial system is hopelessly bankrupt, and that all endeavors to prevent it from collapsing at least until after the U.S. elections, are a highly risky proposition. But instead of drawing the proper conclusions from this—namely, deciding to put the reorganization of the world financial system, in the tradition of Roosevelt's original Bretton Woods system, at the top of the agenda—the Schröder administration is attempting to solve the budget deficit by imitating Brüning's austerity policies, doing so at the expense of society's most defenseless members. And despite this, Oskar Lafontaine is completely on the wrong track with his demand that Chancellor Schröder resign, because the opposition's austerity policy is a good deal more brutal than what we have now. So, the watchword today isn't "Schröder out," but rather: "Schröder must change his policy."
And that means nothing less than this: Schröder must be made to understand that the changes which we need, are far more fundamental than simple-minded austerity measures. Because the crisis now confronting this administration is not simply one of high unemployment. That's merely a symptom of the fact that what we're dealing with, is a collapse of the entire global financial system—not just the system in Germany, but the entire European Union system, and beyond that, the entire system which is connected with today's globalized economy.
The people who took to the streets in Monday demonstrations, first in Saxony and then in many other parts of Germany, against the horrors of Hartz IV, sensed that something much bigger is at stake than what is being admitted in public. But the behavior of politicians from all parties currently represented in the parliament, speaks volumes about the fact that none of them understands, or will admit, that we're looking at a crisis of the entire European Union system. All their attempts to trivialize the specific problems erupting to the surface with Hartz IV, simply prove the point. Regardless of whether Economics Minister Clement insists that the protests must finally stop; others maintain that the protests are legitimate, but should not occur on Mondays; while yet others vituperate that to speak about Hartz IV during the state election campaign, is simply a campaign trick; or, they say that participation in the demonstrations can be wished away by pronouncing the right political incantations—all these arguments merely highlight a horrific lack of understanding of the reality now confronting us.
There are historical parallels between today's great economic and financial crisis, and the Great Depression of the 1930s. At that time, there were two alternatives: There was the path which led from Brüning's austerity policy, through von Papen, to Hjalmar Schacht and Hitler, which is what we took in Germany, unfortunately. In America, on the other hand, Franklin Delano Roosevelt countered Hoover, who was likewise following a Brüning-style austerity policy, with his New Deal policy, and led the United States successfully out of the Depression.
Those latter impulses existed in Germany as well: Dr. Wilhelm Lautenbach, the Economics Ministry's chief economist, at a conference of the Friedrich List Society in 1931, proposed his Lautenbach Plan for how the unemployment problem could be conquered through state credit creation for well-defined projects serving the general welfare. And this form of credit generation would not be inflationary, because these productive investments would be creating real capital value, and would also significantly increase tax revenues.
That same impulse was also present within Germany's trade union movement, in the form of the Woytinsky-Tarnow-Baade Plan, which went so far as to propose a reconstruction program on an international scale, and which had the support of the General German Trade Union Alliance (Allgemeine Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund). Had these plans been implemented in 1931, unemployment would have been eliminated, and the social conditions in 1993 that made Hitler's seizure of power possible, would not have existed. Similarly, the problem with Hartz IV today, is that the Schröder administration is repeating the Brüning administration's mistakes, which, unless reversed, will lead to similar results—or worse.
And just like back then, out of the dynamic of a world economic crisis, the threat is now emerging of a new world war—athough this time, it is the imperial policies of the United States and Great Britain in Southwest Asia, which threaten to spark the outbreak of worldwide asymmetrical warfare. And for this reason as well, Schröder should not be toppled, because he took the correct stand against German participation in the Iraq war, whereas his opposition, with a naiveté verging on lunacy, swallowed whole the lies and manipulated threat analyses being fed to them by the neo-conservatives. Indeed, there are very real grounds to fear that a future CDU-led administration would practice that same hasty and blind obedience to the war party in the United States—not to mention the fact that the Herzog Commission has made it clear that under Frau Merkel, we could expect an even more brutal and more incompetent austerity policy than we have now.
The global financial system is currently in the final throes of a systemic collapse. It is just as unsalvageably bankrupt as the G.D.R. system was in October 1989. And just as the reasons for the collapse of the communist planned economy lay within the system itself—for example, the mechanism of primitive accumulation as described by the Soviet economist Preobrazhensky—so, too, it is with the collapse of the unfettered, neo-liberal free-market economy, and of so-called globalization.
The reasons for this collapse are not to be found in some sort of cyclical boom-and-bust scenario, but rather in the paradigm shift which has taken place within the G-7 countries over approximately the past 40 years. Beginning in the mid-1960s, the industrialized countries of the West have undergone a systematic transformation, away from a society of producers, into one of consumers. Economic growth, based on scientific and technological progress, has been increasingly supplanted by speculation; in the place of real economics, monetarism has taken over. If we equate the real economy with a person in good health, and speculation with a cancerous growth, then we can say that in the meantime, the world economy is a patient whose body has been almost completely taken over by the cancer. The real economy has increasingly fallen victim to the speculative bubble—and that bubble must continue to grow, or else it will burst.
What developed in Germany's new states following the collapse of communism, first with the bludgeon of privatization as wielded by the Treuhand under the direction of Birgit Breuel, was the idea that the new god was: profit, profit, and more profit. This was the end-product of an ideology that took root in the Western G-7 countries beginning in the mid-1960s. The crucial turning-point away from production, and toward speculation, was President Richard Nixon's abandonment of the fixed exchange-rate system on Aug. 15, 1971. With his action, Nixon ended the old Bretton Woods system, by releasing the dollar from its gold-reserve backing, thereby opening the door for the creation of the so-called eurodollar market. The wave of globalization following the collapse of the Soviet Union was only the final step in this process of ever-expanding destruction of production, and transformation into purely money-based economics.
During the Federal Republic's post-war reconstruction period, it was a point of honor and identity for the entrepreneur of the small to medium-sized industrial firm (Mittelstand), to produce products of the best possible quality, and only to take out as much profit as was necessary for sustaining the owner's family, while investing all the rest into innovation and expansion, so that the firm would remain competitive for generations to come, while at the same time, the firm was contributing to improving the general welfare. But now that attitude has changed into its opposite.
Today, one's identity lies not in the production process, but rather in the consumption of the greatest number of products at the lowest price. Our new coin is not highly qualified, well-paying jobs in the domestic market, but rather sweatshop production in the countries of the South, whereby the fact that most of this cheap production is based on sweatshop and child-labor working conditions, is not considered to be relevant. The transformation into a shareholder-value society means the extraction of the maximum of profit—now, immediately, without any consideration given to the long haul. Anyone who still believes that he has to make a living through honest labor or investment into real production, is dismissed as old-fashioned and an idiot; stock trades, speculation in stocks, or in even riskier financial derivatives—"money makes money"—that's the "in" thing nowadays.
This neo-liberal paradigm shift, which we have only briefly sketched here, also has a cultural component. The combination of the ideology of the '60s generation, when the students of the Frankfurt School were all too ready to throw the Classical humanist tradition into the trash, rendered this generation receptive to the rock-drug-sex counterculture. The Brandt educational reforms, which boasted that they had finally succeeded in dumping the educational dead weight of 2,500 years of European cultural achievement, did the rest of the work to help ready the soil for the catastrophic findings of the Pisa Study. And along with ever-dwindling rationality, and ever-shrinking knowledge in the domain of physical science, there also grew a receptiveness for mysticism, and for ideas borrowed from the pre-Christian cult of Gaia. Oligarchical campaigns, deliberately rigged by the Club of Rome and similar institutes, over the ostensible limits to growth, and the danger of overpopulation, did their part in promoting a gradual "greening" of the Zeitgeist.
Why is it of life-or-death importance that we understand the effects of this paradigm shift on popular consciousness in Germany? Because that is the only way we will be able to answer the question we put to you at the outset, namely, why the SPD is committing political suicide. Because there is only one way that Chancellor Schröder can get out of his predicament: He must reach back to the SPD's social-democratic tradition; he must use the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau [Reconstruction Finance Agency] as a de facto national bank, to make approximately 200 billion euros in government credit available annually; and, by absolute support for scientific and technological progress, he must see to it, that Germany's economy takes its place once again among the top producers on the world market. If the SPD fails to act decisively to reverse the slide into neo-liberalism and ecologism, then it will be doomed to continue along its course into political suicide, until it has destroyed itself entirely.
The reality is that very soon, the worldwide financial system is going to be rocked by immense shocks, which will make the bankruptcy of the pyramid firms in Albania in 1997 seem like child's play in comparison. You might recall that these firms, which the government had encouraged the population to invest their savings into, on promises of double-digit interest earnings, suddenly announced that they were bankrupt. The banks closed their doors, and the population, who saw themselves tricked out of their life savings, began to riot, plundering grocery stores, but also arms depots; and the police and the army plundered right along with them. It was a long time before the country got back to normal, with the assistance of the Italian Army.
Just how close we are to just such an explosion, on a far, far greater scale, is indicated by the price of oil, which has been climbing, more or less continuously, for the past six months, such that today the price is twice as high as its equilibrium price should be, even from the standpoint of today's economy. The Deutsche Bank's global energy strategist Adam Sieminski has warned repeatedly, that the oil price could easily go up to $100 a barrel—which, unfortunately, is already on the immediate horizon, given the increasing military tensions in Southwest Asia, and the prospect of an expansion of military operations against Iran. Even an oil price of $50 to $60 could well be the detonator for exploding the entire world financial system.
In the pressure of the moment, during such an "Albanian" shock, everything will depend upon whether the government is ready to stand behind the motto "People first!" The government must see to it, that salaries, pensions, and social-support benefits are paid, that small personal savings accounts are protected, that hospitals and old-age homes receive their supplies, and so forth. And at that moment of acute financial collapse, it is only the government which can coordinate those functions.
Such an emergency intervention, whereby the people's needs are set above all other considerations, is the diametric opposite of the kind of emergency measures under which a policy in the tradition of Hjalmar Schacht is implemented, in the interests of saving the international financial system. Under a Schachtian policy, the goal is to drastically reduce the population's standard of living, in order, somehow, to maintain the nominal value of the banks' financial paper. Whereas with our opposite policy, in the interests of the people, emergency measures are merely temporary, urgent measures, to be immediately replaced by a comprehensive reconstruction program, on the model of Roosevelt's New Deal, and of the post-1945 Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau.
American Versus English System
In 1990, I warned in a series of leaflets and talks, that within only a few years, there would be a much more serious collapse, if the communist economic system were simply painted over with the equally bankrupt free-market economy system. I argued that it was necessary to apply the principles of physical economy, as developed by Leibniz, via America's first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, by Friedrich List, by Mathew Carey and his son Henry, Lincoln's advisor, by Count Witte, and by Lyndon LaRouche. The study of the principles of physical economy is indeed one of the most important tasks for anyone who wants to make a serious contribution to solving the economic crisis.
In his treatise on American political economy, the German national-economist Friedrich List—who, among other things, founded the Tariff Union (Zollverein), but who also built the railway line running between Leipzig and Dresden, spent many years in the United States, and in 1933, became American Consul in Leipzig—drew the fundamental distinction between the American system (physical economy) and the English system (free trade). Since the economic systems of both the United States and Great Britain today are totally on the side of globalization, and what List described as the English system, and since this distinction is not easy to see nowadays, let us quote from List himself:
"American national-economy and English national-economy are, in keeping with the different situations of those two nations, utterly distinct from one another. The aim of English national-economy is to manufacture for the entire world, to monopolize all manufacturing—even at the expense of the lives of the [English] citizen—around the world, and especially to keep its own colonies in a state of perpetual childhood and slavery, through political-control measures, and through the superiority of English capital, English experts, and the English fleet. The aim of American national-economy, is to bring the three branches of economy into harmonious union, since without this, no national economy can attain completeness. Its goal is to meet its own needs with the aid of its own raw materials and its own industry, to populate an unsettled country, to attract foreign immigrants, foreign capital, and foreign skills, as well as to increase its power and its means of self-defense, in order to secure its independence and the nation's future growth. Its ultimate goal is to be free, independent, and powerful, and to enjoy every other freedom, power, and prosperity as it pleases.
"English national-economy seeks to dominate; American national-economy strives only to become independent. Since there is no similarity between the two systems, there is likewise no similarity between the results arising from these systems."
Even if the specific relationship between America and England during List's time is different than today, the basic distinction which List makes between the American system of physical economy, and the English system of unfettered free-market economy, is quite applicable to the current situation in the new Federal states. Because the policy of privatization at any price, as it has been practiced by the Treuhand ever since the murder of Rohwedder, has in fact resulted in these states being kept in a state of perpetual infancy, slavery, and domination. The only intent behind this economic denuding of the eastern states, has been to dominate all the former Comecon countries, through a system of globalization—or, put another way, to incorporate them into the Anglo-American neo-liberal ;empire.
One of the excuses most widely bandied about to explain away the economic misery of the eastern states, was that people had no experience in how to transform a formerly communist country into a market-oriented one. But that is a barefaced lie, because in reality, the Kohl administration utterly capitulated to geopolitical pressure from the circles of George Bush, Sr., Margaret Thatcher, and François Mitterrand, who, among other things, wanted to use an over-hasty currency union to prevent the emergence of a unified and economically powerful Germany.
There did indeed exist one idea back then, about how the east could be built up and modernized with a kind of Marshall Plan, by bringing in and upgrading whatever industrial capacity was already available in the east. That was the program developed by my husband, Lyndon LaRouche, and proposed by me, for a Paris-Berlin-Vienna Productive Triangle, which envisioned economically developing the east of Germany, and of Europe, with modern infrastructure and "development corridors." This program was based on the principles of physical economy, otherwise known as the American System. It is the program which, after 15 years of so-called free market economy, still today represents the solution to how the east can, and must, be developed.
The Source of Social Wealth
A society's wealth comes neither from the ownership of land and raw materials, nor from the right to buy cheap and to sell dear.
Rather, its source lies exclusively in man's cognitive nature, which distinguishes him from all other living creatures. It is man's capacity to repeatedly generate hypotheses concerning the laws of the physical universe—hypotheses which, if they are adequate, lead to technological progress. If these qualititative breakthroughs are then forged into new technologies and applied to the process of production, the result is an increase in the productivity of labor, and in industrial capacity, and the creation of surplus value.
This cognitive nature of man is the reason why, uniquely among all living creatures, man can improve the physical basis of his own existence, and can repeatedly increase his species' relative potential population density. Scientific and technological progress, however, is not optional; it is necessary, because at every stage of man's development, his resources are relatively limited, and unless those resources are defined anew by higher levels of technology, there would be an ecological and demographic collapse—as has, in fact, frequently occurred in the course of human history, as we can study this in museums displaying the remains of collapsed cultures and civilizations which failed to produce the required qualititative progress before it was too late. It is this cognitive faculty of man, which is responsible for the fact that over the past 20,000 years, our species' population potential has increased from approximately 10 million, to about 6 billion living souls today.
Once it is understood that this creative feature of human reason is the sole source of social wealth, then it is incumbent upon governments which are committed to the general welfare, to do everything to develop this cognitive faculty of all of their citizens, in the best possible way. That is the litmus test.
If, on the other hand, one maintains that man's potential is limited by a combination of genetic material and educational influences from infancy until puberty, and that therefore, there's no need to invest much in education, since everything is predetermined anyway—as Angela Merkel's favorite birthday speaker and crooner, Wolf Singer, likes to remarkel*—then this is the mark of an extremely oligarchical mind-set, if not something still worse. Flashbacks to the Nazis' eugenics policy come to mind.
If our free will is predetermined by neurological processes taking place long before the conscious part of our mind swings into action, then man would in fact be a slave to some sort of arbitrary, materialist laws—call it Calvin, or dialectical materialism, or what you will—and thus, man would be incapable of changing either himself, or his world. And for whom, we must ask, would such an idea be most useful? Why, naturally, for those who currently hold the reins of power, and who have no interest in changing anything—and I'm not talking here about governments.
Every human being has a potentially unlimited potential, and whether he can develop at least an approximation of that full potential, depends not least on whether, as a child or a young person, he or she was fortunate enough to have met other people who ignited their spark of creativity within—be it an elder family member, a teacher, or a friend. It also depends on whether the person has the opportunity to acquire a good education in the Humboldt sense—i.e., being able to relive the qualitative discoveries of others, in science and in art. And the more that a person can develop in this way, the better able he is to live a fulfilling live, and the more productive he can be, and the more he contributes to social wealth.
For this reason, too, Hartz IV is based on an axiomatic fallacy. Because the whole idea that an unemployed person must accept any and every job offer, regardless of whether he is over-qualified or qualified in a different field—that alone means a lowering of his productivity, not to mention the fact that this legislation is in violation of the right to freely choose one's profession, and the right to personal freedom. The solution is not job creation at any cost, and reduction in the employee's productivity; rather, the solution is to create new, and ever more productive jobs.
* Barely translatable pun on Merkel's name: bemerken (to remark) is altered to read: bemerkeln.
Necessity for a National Debate
Because the global economic and financial crisis will certainly come to a dramatic head in the short term, it is urgently necessary that representatives of different organizations and institutions, who are participating in the protest against Hartz IV, come to an understanding as quickly as possible about the principles of a positive alternative to the austerity policy. This could occur in the form of a round-table discussion. Here are only some of the aforementioned indispensable principles, about which clarity must be established as quickly as possible.
1. The aim of the demonstrations is not to overthrow the government, but rather, to fundamentally alter its economic policy.
2. Since the strategic context of the Hartz IV policy is the total breakdown crisis of the global world financial system, a solution within the system of flexible exchange rates is not possible, and a return to a fixed exchange rate is indispensable.
3. Any Federal budget-driven austerity policy in the tradition of Brüning only makes the problem worse, because the real problem of creation of full, productive employment is not being addressed.
4. In the event of a dramatic collapse of the international financial system, which is to be expected, certain emergency measures must be taken by the government, based on the principle that the people's interests must come first. Therefore adequate time must be allowed so that the necessary negotiations for a New Bretton Woods System can be conducted on an international level.
5. Based on the real world situation, everything conceivable must be undertaken to influence the U.S.A. so that it return to a system of fixed exchange rates, and to a policy in the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt. With our European neighbors we must adhere to the idea of a common Europe, yet of a Europe of nations which are sovereign republics.
6. In Germany we need the immediate creation of 200 billion euros in productive credit per year through the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, in order to invest in modern infrastructure, such as the development of Transrapid lines as part of the Eurasian Land-Bridge. At the same time, the new industrialization of the new Federal states, whose industrial potential after 1990-91 has been dismantled through the policy of reckless, sweeping privatization, must be a priority, so that these states can satisfy their function as bridgeheads in the development of the Eurasian Land-Bridge.
7. We must be connected with the great tradition of our Classical culture, to the music of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, to the works of Lessing, Mendelssohn, and Schiller, to the scientific tradition of Leibniz, Kästner, Gauss, Riemann, and Cantor, and to the theoretical ideas of statecraft of vom Stein, von Humboldt, and List, to name only some. Only thus can we mobilize in ourselves, and in the population, the moral greatness and sublimity of thought, which we need to overcome this crisis.
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2004/2004_30-39/2004-34/this_wk.html
THE WORLD MONETARY SYSTEM HAS CRACKED IN GERMANY TODAY!
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
August 18, 2004
The address delivered today in Berlin by Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, marks the actual beginning of the collapse of the rotten-ripe world monetary-financial system. This began, a few weeks ago, with seemingly small, easily overlooked events, beginning in a way which is ironically comparable to the way in which the issue of freedom to travel for vacations abroad, triggered the series of events leading quickly to the already inevitable 1989 collapse of the (East) German Democratic Republic (DDR). That irony aside, it is the biggest, most dangerous global monetary-financial crisis in modern world history. It is not something about to happen; it is something already under way, a crisis which can not be stopped unless certain emergency measures which I have prescribed are taken immediately.
The key to the issues posed afresh in Berlin today, is that this is not a Germany crisis. It is a world crisis which chose to erupt, as a world crisis, in Germany today. It is an already erupting world crisis of not only the European and U.S. economies, but a general breakdown crisis of the world's present monetary-financial system. The present IMF-centered system, the floating-exchange-rate system, will not survive the ricocheting global effects of this presently onrushing crisis pouring out of Germany. No part of the world, China included, will escape the fury of this global storm. Thus, what is happening in Berlin today, is predetermining the choice of fate already presented to the U.S.A. now.
Unless the relevant present rules of the European Union, and the system of "globalization," are taken down immediately, nothing will be able to stop the worldwide avalanche which began four weeks ago, in the German state of Saxony.
I explain.
Technically, the remedies available to the government of Germany were clear. The precedents for the required action by the government were broadly the same specified at a 1931 Berlin meeting of the Friedrich List Gesellschaft by the eminent Dr. Wilhelm Lautenbach. Had Lautenbach's proposal been enacted, Adolf Hitler would not have happened. The measures proposed by Lautenbach then, were broadly identical with the actions taken against the policies of the "American Bruening," President Hoover, by incoming President Franklin Roosevelt. What is happening to Germany today, is most nearly comparable, strategically, to what happened to Germany then.
The problems standing in the way of Chancellor Schroeder's appropriate action, were chiefly three. 1) Globalization, which must be repealed in a sweeping way, if not only Germany, but each and all among the nations of Western and Central Europe are to survive the presently onrushing crisis. 2) Those clinically insane policies of the European Union, which stand in the way of the only possible recovery programs which could be launched by any German government at this time. 3) The blackmail of Germany by not only Standard & Poor's threats, but the backing of that blackmail by a concert of international financier oligarchs of the same character and disposition as that Synarchist International which established each and all of the fascist regimes in continental Europe during the interval 1922-45.
Notably, the de facto current U.S. government of Prime Minister Tony Blair-confederate Vice President Dick Cheney, represents a set of ideologies and financier interests which is essential a carbon-copy of the Synarchist International of the 1922-45 interval, including the Nazi-controlled, U.S.-hating Synarchist party of Mexico's haters of that nation's own President Lazaro Cardenas. The perpetual, nuclear-enhanced "preventive" war policies of Bush puppet-master Cheney represent currently the cutting political-strategic edge of the fascist threat to nations of continental Europe, as well as the internal affairs of the U.S.A. today.
Against the background of those superseding realities, the tragic feature of today's address by Chancellor Schroeder is that he takes upon himself the moral responsibility for the outrageous conditions which a concert of international financier-oligarchical interests have imposed upon his German government and nation. The danger of that is, that the Chancellor will draw upon himself the hatred which, in fact, Germany's current oppressors should receive. There is presently no visible, viable alternative to Chancellor Schroeder in Germany. There lies the element of a potential German tragedy now.
Under saner world political conditions, the leading nations of the world would have responded by calling an international, emergency monetary-financial conference, at which they would have combined their authorities and influence to impose a remedy upon the reluctant present world monetary-financial system. For, if Germany goes down into the status of a "failed nation-state," as it might, under these present trends, no part of the world will escape the terrible chain-reaction effects that would bring about.
A collapse of Germany is the unleashing of a chain-reaction which would quickly be the end of stable government in all continental Western and Central Europe, and that, in turn, is the trigger of an immediate unleashing of a chain-reaction collapse of the entire present world monetary-financial system. The category of "failed states" must therefore be applied, now, to those nations, other than Germany, which allowed the inevitable consequences of the relevant European Union decisions to be unleashed, and to the incompetence of the present Presidency of the U.S.A., in continuing to push global policies which will bring down the highly charged, acutely vulnerable world system now.
The immediately needed decisions are essentially elementary ones. 1) End the tyrannical and destructive European Union rulings, and permit member-states to resume their sovereign right to create long-term capital loans to launch a general recovery of production and employment sufficient to bring Germany, among others, to a state of balance on current accounts of income and expense, as distinct from long-term capital formation. 2) Use this mechanism of state credit to negotiate long-term trade agreements among, especially, the nations of the Eurasian continent. 3) Use the fact of a general breakdown crisis to override all globalization; restore "fair trade" policies, by treaty agreements among nations which take cognizance of the prolonged emergency conditions of the world today; launch large-scale modernized basic economic infrastructure as a leading stimulant of national economy, and give special emphasis on promotion of what is known as the "Mittelstand" in Germany.
There must also be immediate steps toward reaching permanent long-term agreements establishing a return to the principles of the original fixed-exchange-rate Bretton Woods system. There must be overriding recognition, that without a fixed-exchange-rate system, it were impossible to sustain long-term credit at rates of between 1-2% simple interest.
The transition needed will be a politically difficult one, but if we recognize the danger of not taking such measures, then we will find the way to reach the understandings which lead to the kinds of agreements we must make. If we fail to do so, as many of our descendants as manage to survive our generation's great folly, will curse us, as much for what we have failed to, as for what we have done.
If we do not pull Germany out of this, the whole world system will go down in perhaps an increasingly uncontrolled, perhaps uncontrollable fashion. The German government must be afforded the latitude and support to make the changes which will prevent the now threatened disintegration of that crucial nation of the entire world system.
As for the ongoing U.S. general election process, the current events in Germany now, change everything. Unless either the Kerry campaign blows its chances, or the Cheney regime and its puppet Bush resort to orchestrating a fascist takeover through managed terror or related incidents, the Bush Administration's skein will have now run out. That is the problem hotly to be watched, in the reverberations coming out of Berlin today.
MANIFESTO FOR THE MONDAY DEMONSTRATIONS
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
August 17, 2001
Today, only 15 short years after the historic Monday demonstrations of 1989 which ushered in the end of the German Democratic Republic, demonstrations are once again taking place in many cities across Germany. The immediate trigger has been a protest against extreme injustices mandated by the Hartz IV law, a law which would plunge millions of so-called long-term unemployed into outright poverty. But Hartz IV was merely the proverbial last straw. As the Econometric Institute in Halle once again confirmed in August, actual unemployment in Germany is at least 8.6 million, if we include entire categories of people who are not even counted in the official unemployment statistics. That's over 2 million more unemployed than in 1933.
The men and women who suddenly poured onto the streets in many cities in Germany's new eastern states—but also in the west—are doing so because they have perceived something monstrous lurking behind our red-green administration's desperate austerity policy. Exactly what could be driving the Social Democracy, with its deep historical identity as the party of social welfare, to break with its own tradition, and to carry out a destruction of Germany's social-welfare system so brutal, that its local representatives in the current and upcoming elections could never, not in a million years, shove it down the throats of their constituencies? And which is going to result in the SPD's election results plummeting into the single digits, inevitably leading to splits, and the party's total destruction. What can account for this suicidal behavior?
The answer is simple, though not immediately apparent: The SPD leadership, and also the boards of directors of the banks and insurance companies, who only discuss it openly behind closed boardroom doors, know full well that the global financial system is hopelessly bankrupt, and that all endeavors to prevent it from collapsing at least until after the U.S. elections, are a highly risky proposition. But instead of drawing the proper conclusions from this—namely, deciding to put the reorganization of the world financial system, in the tradition of Roosevelt's original Bretton Woods system, at the top of the agenda—the Schröder administration is attempting to solve the budget deficit by imitating Brüning's austerity policies, doing so at the expense of society's most defenseless members. And despite this, Oskar Lafontaine is completely on the wrong track with his demand that Chancellor Schröder resign, because the opposition's austerity policy is a good deal more brutal than what we have now. So, the watchword today isn't "Schröder out," but rather: "Schröder must change his policy."
And that means nothing less than this: Schröder must be made to understand that the changes which we need, are far more fundamental than simple-minded austerity measures. Because the crisis now confronting this administration is not simply one of high unemployment. That's merely a symptom of the fact that what we're dealing with, is a collapse of the entire global financial system—not just the system in Germany, but the entire European Union system, and beyond that, the entire system which is connected with today's globalized economy.
The people who took to the streets in Monday demonstrations, first in Saxony and then in many other parts of Germany, against the horrors of Hartz IV, sensed that something much bigger is at stake than what is being admitted in public. But the behavior of politicians from all parties currently represented in the parliament, speaks volumes about the fact that none of them understands, or will admit, that we're looking at a crisis of the entire European Union system. All their attempts to trivialize the specific problems erupting to the surface with Hartz IV, simply prove the point. Regardless of whether Economics Minister Clement insists that the protests must finally stop; others maintain that the protests are legitimate, but should not occur on Mondays; while yet others vituperate that to speak about Hartz IV during the state election campaign, is simply a campaign trick; or, they say that participation in the demonstrations can be wished away by pronouncing the right political incantations—all these arguments merely highlight a horrific lack of understanding of the reality now confronting us.
There are historical parallels between today's great economic and financial crisis, and the Great Depression of the 1930s. At that time, there were two alternatives: There was the path which led from Brüning's austerity policy, through von Papen, to Hjalmar Schacht and Hitler, which is what we took in Germany, unfortunately. In America, on the other hand, Franklin Delano Roosevelt countered Hoover, who was likewise following a Brüning-style austerity policy, with his New Deal policy, and led the United States successfully out of the Depression.
Those latter impulses existed in Germany as well: Dr. Wilhelm Lautenbach, the Economics Ministry's chief economist, at a conference of the Friedrich List Society in 1931, proposed his Lautenbach Plan for how the unemployment problem could be conquered through state credit creation for well-defined projects serving the general welfare. And this form of credit generation would not be inflationary, because these productive investments would be creating real capital value, and would also significantly increase tax revenues.
That same impulse was also present within Germany's trade union movement, in the form of the Woytinsky-Tarnow-Baade Plan, which went so far as to propose a reconstruction program on an international scale, and which had the support of the General German Trade Union Alliance (Allgemeine Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund). Had these plans been implemented in 1931, unemployment would have been eliminated, and the social conditions in 1993 that made Hitler's seizure of power possible, would not have existed. Similarly, the problem with Hartz IV today, is that the Schröder administration is repeating the Brüning administration's mistakes, which, unless reversed, will lead to similar results—or worse.
And just like back then, out of the dynamic of a world economic crisis, the threat is now emerging of a new world war—athough this time, it is the imperial policies of the United States and Great Britain in Southwest Asia, which threaten to spark the outbreak of worldwide asymmetrical warfare. And for this reason as well, Schröder should not be toppled, because he took the correct stand against German participation in the Iraq war, whereas his opposition, with a naiveté verging on lunacy, swallowed whole the lies and manipulated threat analyses being fed to them by the neo-conservatives. Indeed, there are very real grounds to fear that a future CDU-led administration would practice that same hasty and blind obedience to the war party in the United States—not to mention the fact that the Herzog Commission has made it clear that under Frau Merkel, we could expect an even more brutal and more incompetent austerity policy than we have now.
The global financial system is currently in the final throes of a systemic collapse. It is just as unsalvageably bankrupt as the G.D.R. system was in October 1989. And just as the reasons for the collapse of the communist planned economy lay within the system itself—for example, the mechanism of primitive accumulation as described by the Soviet economist Preobrazhensky—so, too, it is with the collapse of the unfettered, neo-liberal free-market economy, and of so-called globalization.
The reasons for this collapse are not to be found in some sort of cyclical boom-and-bust scenario, but rather in the paradigm shift which has taken place within the G-7 countries over approximately the past 40 years. Beginning in the mid-1960s, the industrialized countries of the West have undergone a systematic transformation, away from a society of producers, into one of consumers. Economic growth, based on scientific and technological progress, has been increasingly supplanted by speculation; in the place of real economics, monetarism has taken over. If we equate the real economy with a person in good health, and speculation with a cancerous growth, then we can say that in the meantime, the world economy is a patient whose body has been almost completely taken over by the cancer. The real economy has increasingly fallen victim to the speculative bubble—and that bubble must continue to grow, or else it will burst.
What developed in Germany's new states following the collapse of communism, first with the bludgeon of privatization as wielded by the Treuhand under the direction of Birgit Breuel, was the idea that the new god was: profit, profit, and more profit. This was the end-product of an ideology that took root in the Western G-7 countries beginning in the mid-1960s. The crucial turning-point away from production, and toward speculation, was President Richard Nixon's abandonment of the fixed exchange-rate system on Aug. 15, 1971. With his action, Nixon ended the old Bretton Woods system, by releasing the dollar from its gold-reserve backing, thereby opening the door for the creation of the so-called eurodollar market. The wave of globalization following the collapse of the Soviet Union was only the final step in this process of ever-expanding destruction of production, and transformation into purely money-based economics.
During the Federal Republic's post-war reconstruction period, it was a point of honor and identity for the entrepreneur of the small to medium-sized industrial firm (Mittelstand), to produce products of the best possible quality, and only to take out as much profit as was necessary for sustaining the owner's family, while investing all the rest into innovation and expansion, so that the firm would remain competitive for generations to come, while at the same time, the firm was contributing to improving the general welfare. But now that attitude has changed into its opposite.
Today, one's identity lies not in the production process, but rather in the consumption of the greatest number of products at the lowest price. Our new coin is not highly qualified, well-paying jobs in the domestic market, but rather sweatshop production in the countries of the South, whereby the fact that most of this cheap production is based on sweatshop and child-labor working conditions, is not considered to be relevant. The transformation into a shareholder-value society means the extraction of the maximum of profit—now, immediately, without any consideration given to the long haul. Anyone who still believes that he has to make a living through honest labor or investment into real production, is dismissed as old-fashioned and an idiot; stock trades, speculation in stocks, or in even riskier financial derivatives—"money makes money"—that's the "in" thing nowadays.
This neo-liberal paradigm shift, which we have only briefly sketched here, also has a cultural component. The combination of the ideology of the '60s generation, when the students of the Frankfurt School were all too ready to throw the Classical humanist tradition into the trash, rendered this generation receptive to the rock-drug-sex counterculture. The Brandt educational reforms, which boasted that they had finally succeeded in dumping the educational dead weight of 2,500 years of European cultural achievement, did the rest of the work to help ready the soil for the catastrophic findings of the Pisa Study. And along with ever-dwindling rationality, and ever-shrinking knowledge in the domain of physical science, there also grew a receptiveness for mysticism, and for ideas borrowed from the pre-Christian cult of Gaia. Oligarchical campaigns, deliberately rigged by the Club of Rome and similar institutes, over the ostensible limits to growth, and the danger of overpopulation, did their part in promoting a gradual "greening" of the Zeitgeist.
Why is it of life-or-death importance that we understand the effects of this paradigm shift on popular consciousness in Germany? Because that is the only way we will be able to answer the question we put to you at the outset, namely, why the SPD is committing political suicide. Because there is only one way that Chancellor Schröder can get out of his predicament: He must reach back to the SPD's social-democratic tradition; he must use the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau [Reconstruction Finance Agency] as a de facto national bank, to make approximately 200 billion euros in government credit available annually; and, by absolute support for scientific and technological progress, he must see to it, that Germany's economy takes its place once again among the top producers on the world market. If the SPD fails to act decisively to reverse the slide into neo-liberalism and ecologism, then it will be doomed to continue along its course into political suicide, until it has destroyed itself entirely.
The reality is that very soon, the worldwide financial system is going to be rocked by immense shocks, which will make the bankruptcy of the pyramid firms in Albania in 1997 seem like child's play in comparison. You might recall that these firms, which the government had encouraged the population to invest their savings into, on promises of double-digit interest earnings, suddenly announced that they were bankrupt. The banks closed their doors, and the population, who saw themselves tricked out of their life savings, began to riot, plundering grocery stores, but also arms depots; and the police and the army plundered right along with them. It was a long time before the country got back to normal, with the assistance of the Italian Army.
Just how close we are to just such an explosion, on a far, far greater scale, is indicated by the price of oil, which has been climbing, more or less continuously, for the past six months, such that today the price is twice as high as its equilibrium price should be, even from the standpoint of today's economy. The Deutsche Bank's global energy strategist Adam Sieminski has warned repeatedly, that the oil price could easily go up to $100 a barrel—which, unfortunately, is already on the immediate horizon, given the increasing military tensions in Southwest Asia, and the prospect of an expansion of military operations against Iran. Even an oil price of $50 to $60 could well be the detonator for exploding the entire world financial system.
In the pressure of the moment, during such an "Albanian" shock, everything will depend upon whether the government is ready to stand behind the motto "People first!" The government must see to it, that salaries, pensions, and social-support benefits are paid, that small personal savings accounts are protected, that hospitals and old-age homes receive their supplies, and so forth. And at that moment of acute financial collapse, it is only the government which can coordinate those functions.
Such an emergency intervention, whereby the people's needs are set above all other considerations, is the diametric opposite of the kind of emergency measures under which a policy in the tradition of Hjalmar Schacht is implemented, in the interests of saving the international financial system. Under a Schachtian policy, the goal is to drastically reduce the population's standard of living, in order, somehow, to maintain the nominal value of the banks' financial paper. Whereas with our opposite policy, in the interests of the people, emergency measures are merely temporary, urgent measures, to be immediately replaced by a comprehensive reconstruction program, on the model of Roosevelt's New Deal, and of the post-1945 Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau.
American Versus English System
In 1990, I warned in a series of leaflets and talks, that within only a few years, there would be a much more serious collapse, if the communist economic system were simply painted over with the equally bankrupt free-market economy system. I argued that it was necessary to apply the principles of physical economy, as developed by Leibniz, via America's first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, by Friedrich List, by Mathew Carey and his son Henry, Lincoln's advisor, by Count Witte, and by Lyndon LaRouche. The study of the principles of physical economy is indeed one of the most important tasks for anyone who wants to make a serious contribution to solving the economic crisis.
In his treatise on American political economy, the German national-economist Friedrich List—who, among other things, founded the Tariff Union (Zollverein), but who also built the railway line running between Leipzig and Dresden, spent many years in the United States, and in 1933, became American Consul in Leipzig—drew the fundamental distinction between the American system (physical economy) and the English system (free trade). Since the economic systems of both the United States and Great Britain today are totally on the side of globalization, and what List described as the English system, and since this distinction is not easy to see nowadays, let us quote from List himself:
"American national-economy and English national-economy are, in keeping with the different situations of those two nations, utterly distinct from one another. The aim of English national-economy is to manufacture for the entire world, to monopolize all manufacturing—even at the expense of the lives of the [English] citizen—around the world, and especially to keep its own colonies in a state of perpetual childhood and slavery, through political-control measures, and through the superiority of English capital, English experts, and the English fleet. The aim of American national-economy, is to bring the three branches of economy into harmonious union, since without this, no national economy can attain completeness. Its goal is to meet its own needs with the aid of its own raw materials and its own industry, to populate an unsettled country, to attract foreign immigrants, foreign capital, and foreign skills, as well as to increase its power and its means of self-defense, in order to secure its independence and the nation's future growth. Its ultimate goal is to be free, independent, and powerful, and to enjoy every other freedom, power, and prosperity as it pleases.
"English national-economy seeks to dominate; American national-economy strives only to become independent. Since there is no similarity between the two systems, there is likewise no similarity between the results arising from these systems."
Even if the specific relationship between America and England during List's time is different than today, the basic distinction which List makes between the American system of physical economy, and the English system of unfettered free-market economy, is quite applicable to the current situation in the new Federal states. Because the policy of privatization at any price, as it has been practiced by the Treuhand ever since the murder of Rohwedder, has in fact resulted in these states being kept in a state of perpetual infancy, slavery, and domination. The only intent behind this economic denuding of the eastern states, has been to dominate all the former Comecon countries, through a system of globalization—or, put another way, to incorporate them into the Anglo-American neo-liberal ;empire.
One of the excuses most widely bandied about to explain away the economic misery of the eastern states, was that people had no experience in how to transform a formerly communist country into a market-oriented one. But that is a barefaced lie, because in reality, the Kohl administration utterly capitulated to geopolitical pressure from the circles of George Bush, Sr., Margaret Thatcher, and François Mitterrand, who, among other things, wanted to use an over-hasty currency union to prevent the emergence of a unified and economically powerful Germany.
There did indeed exist one idea back then, about how the east could be built up and modernized with a kind of Marshall Plan, by bringing in and upgrading whatever industrial capacity was already available in the east. That was the program developed by my husband, Lyndon LaRouche, and proposed by me, for a Paris-Berlin-Vienna Productive Triangle, which envisioned economically developing the east of Germany, and of Europe, with modern infrastructure and "development corridors." This program was based on the principles of physical economy, otherwise known as the American System. It is the program which, after 15 years of so-called free market economy, still today represents the solution to how the east can, and must, be developed.
The Source of Social Wealth
A society's wealth comes neither from the ownership of land and raw materials, nor from the right to buy cheap and to sell dear.
Rather, its source lies exclusively in man's cognitive nature, which distinguishes him from all other living creatures. It is man's capacity to repeatedly generate hypotheses concerning the laws of the physical universe—hypotheses which, if they are adequate, lead to technological progress. If these qualititative breakthroughs are then forged into new technologies and applied to the process of production, the result is an increase in the productivity of labor, and in industrial capacity, and the creation of surplus value.
This cognitive nature of man is the reason why, uniquely among all living creatures, man can improve the physical basis of his own existence, and can repeatedly increase his species' relative potential population density. Scientific and technological progress, however, is not optional; it is necessary, because at every stage of man's development, his resources are relatively limited, and unless those resources are defined anew by higher levels of technology, there would be an ecological and demographic collapse—as has, in fact, frequently occurred in the course of human history, as we can study this in museums displaying the remains of collapsed cultures and civilizations which failed to produce the required qualititative progress before it was too late. It is this cognitive faculty of man, which is responsible for the fact that over the past 20,000 years, our species' population potential has increased from approximately 10 million, to about 6 billion living souls today.
Once it is understood that this creative feature of human reason is the sole source of social wealth, then it is incumbent upon governments which are committed to the general welfare, to do everything to develop this cognitive faculty of all of their citizens, in the best possible way. That is the litmus test.
If, on the other hand, one maintains that man's potential is limited by a combination of genetic material and educational influences from infancy until puberty, and that therefore, there's no need to invest much in education, since everything is predetermined anyway—as Angela Merkel's favorite birthday speaker and crooner, Wolf Singer, likes to remarkel*—then this is the mark of an extremely oligarchical mind-set, if not something still worse. Flashbacks to the Nazis' eugenics policy come to mind.
If our free will is predetermined by neurological processes taking place long before the conscious part of our mind swings into action, then man would in fact be a slave to some sort of arbitrary, materialist laws—call it Calvin, or dialectical materialism, or what you will—and thus, man would be incapable of changing either himself, or his world. And for whom, we must ask, would such an idea be most useful? Why, naturally, for those who currently hold the reins of power, and who have no interest in changing anything—and I'm not talking here about governments.
Every human being has a potentially unlimited potential, and whether he can develop at least an approximation of that full potential, depends not least on whether, as a child or a young person, he or she was fortunate enough to have met other people who ignited their spark of creativity within—be it an elder family member, a teacher, or a friend. It also depends on whether the person has the opportunity to acquire a good education in the Humboldt sense—i.e., being able to relive the qualitative discoveries of others, in science and in art. And the more that a person can develop in this way, the better able he is to live a fulfilling live, and the more productive he can be, and the more he contributes to social wealth.
For this reason, too, Hartz IV is based on an axiomatic fallacy. Because the whole idea that an unemployed person must accept any and every job offer, regardless of whether he is over-qualified or qualified in a different field—that alone means a lowering of his productivity, not to mention the fact that this legislation is in violation of the right to freely choose one's profession, and the right to personal freedom. The solution is not job creation at any cost, and reduction in the employee's productivity; rather, the solution is to create new, and ever more productive jobs.
* Barely translatable pun on Merkel's name: bemerken (to remark) is altered to read: bemerkeln.
Necessity for a National Debate
Because the global economic and financial crisis will certainly come to a dramatic head in the short term, it is urgently necessary that representatives of different organizations and institutions, who are participating in the protest against Hartz IV, come to an understanding as quickly as possible about the principles of a positive alternative to the austerity policy. This could occur in the form of a round-table discussion. Here are only some of the aforementioned indispensable principles, about which clarity must be established as quickly as possible.
1. The aim of the demonstrations is not to overthrow the government, but rather, to fundamentally alter its economic policy.
2. Since the strategic context of the Hartz IV policy is the total breakdown crisis of the global world financial system, a solution within the system of flexible exchange rates is not possible, and a return to a fixed exchange rate is indispensable.
3. Any Federal budget-driven austerity policy in the tradition of Brüning only makes the problem worse, because the real problem of creation of full, productive employment is not being addressed.
4. In the event of a dramatic collapse of the international financial system, which is to be expected, certain emergency measures must be taken by the government, based on the principle that the people's interests must come first. Therefore adequate time must be allowed so that the necessary negotiations for a New Bretton Woods System can be conducted on an international level.
5. Based on the real world situation, everything conceivable must be undertaken to influence the U.S.A. so that it return to a system of fixed exchange rates, and to a policy in the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt. With our European neighbors we must adhere to the idea of a common Europe, yet of a Europe of nations which are sovereign republics.
6. In Germany we need the immediate creation of 200 billion euros in productive credit per year through the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, in order to invest in modern infrastructure, such as the development of Transrapid lines as part of the Eurasian Land-Bridge. At the same time, the new industrialization of the new Federal states, whose industrial potential after 1990-91 has been dismantled through the policy of reckless, sweeping privatization, must be a priority, so that these states can satisfy their function as bridgeheads in the development of the Eurasian Land-Bridge.
7. We must be connected with the great tradition of our Classical culture, to the music of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, to the works of Lessing, Mendelssohn, and Schiller, to the scientific tradition of Leibniz, Kästner, Gauss, Riemann, and Cantor, and to the theoretical ideas of statecraft of vom Stein, von Humboldt, and List, to name only some. Only thus can we mobilize in ourselves, and in the population, the moral greatness and sublimity of thought, which we need to overcome this crisis.
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Friday, August 20, 2004
Thursday, August 19, 2004
Porter Goss - CIA Chief Nominee
I've stayed away posting anything about the nomination of Porter Goss. The primary reason for doing so is the thought that given the bogus nature of the 911 Commission and the circus like side show that is sometimes called the Congress of the US, I thought a focus on Goss would tend to draw any reader into accepting the idea that the nomination mattered and was worthy of discussion. It does not matter and is not worthy.
However, just to open the door to one commonly accepted theory about why our govt. has been hijacked (The Rise of the NeoCons!), here's this entry:
http://www.wanniski.com/PrintPage.asp?TextID=3774
For me, there has to be more to the story of what subversive forces are in play than is in the above article, so much so that focusing on the details and personalities seems to be a sure way to make sure the big picture is obscured.
Remember that malfeasance of our govt. has continued for decades and has been immune from which political party may have controlled the Congress or the White House.
However, just to open the door to one commonly accepted theory about why our govt. has been hijacked (The Rise of the NeoCons!), here's this entry:
http://www.wanniski.com/PrintPage.asp?TextID=3774
For me, there has to be more to the story of what subversive forces are in play than is in the above article, so much so that focusing on the details and personalities seems to be a sure way to make sure the big picture is obscured.
Remember that malfeasance of our govt. has continued for decades and has been immune from which political party may have controlled the Congress or the White House.
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Monday, August 16, 2004
Sunday, August 15, 2004
What kind of World does Joan Swirsky Want?
Not really a 911-Truth Posting here.....
Newsmax, though, is a rich cauldron serving witches brew.
The Oddest Couple and Their Hidden Agendas
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/8/13/120712.shtml
Joan Swirsky takes on Teresa Kerry
Ann Coulter must be proud, or possibly jealous of Ms. Swirsky
In addition to the War on Terrorism, this seems to be a war on liberials or any one who dares disagree with Republican machine. What happened to compassionate conservatism?
I suppose that there wouldn't be a Joan Swirsky or Ann Coulter if their writing didn't succeed in rallying support for the Republican cause. I can only imagine, however, want kind of government and environment for the discussion of legitimate differences among this diverse American public is created when this is how we talk against the opposition.
I tried to be fair and locate slams against Laura Bush by anti Republicans / anti Bushies.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/31/31_guest_commentary.html
Tim Wise takes on Laura Bush
I tried to find the most vitriolic smear possible against Laura Bush link on the web, but really could not find much. Here's one slam
http://rwor.org/a/v24/1181-1190/1186/poets.htm
There were various posts that Laura's bad driving in her younger years caused a death, but no one, thank goodness, takes that to mount a full-scale invective.
Newsmax, though, is a rich cauldron serving witches brew.
The Oddest Couple and Their Hidden Agendas
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/8/13/120712.shtml
Joan Swirsky takes on Teresa Kerry
Ann Coulter must be proud, or possibly jealous of Ms. Swirsky
In addition to the War on Terrorism, this seems to be a war on liberials or any one who dares disagree with Republican machine. What happened to compassionate conservatism?
I suppose that there wouldn't be a Joan Swirsky or Ann Coulter if their writing didn't succeed in rallying support for the Republican cause. I can only imagine, however, want kind of government and environment for the discussion of legitimate differences among this diverse American public is created when this is how we talk against the opposition.
I tried to be fair and locate slams against Laura Bush by anti Republicans / anti Bushies.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/31/31_guest_commentary.html
Tim Wise takes on Laura Bush
I tried to find the most vitriolic smear possible against Laura Bush link on the web, but really could not find much. Here's one slam
http://rwor.org/a/v24/1181-1190/1186/poets.htm
There were various posts that Laura's bad driving in her younger years caused a death, but no one, thank goodness, takes that to mount a full-scale invective.
911 Truth Reporting in Long Island Press - Sander Hicks
If you are new to this blog, the most important entry is: 911 Truth! Congrats, Daniel Hopsicker
please search for it, it is the best way to begin to see the truth
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.longislandpress.com/v02/i08040226/news_02.asp
please search for it, it is the best way to begin to see the truth
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.longislandpress.com/v02/i08040226/news_02.asp
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Another Point of Truth: Sander Hicks
http://sanderhicks.com/archives.html
Here's an example of the level of detail that Mr. Hicks has been able to document and who some of the peripherial figures may be.
http://sanderhicks.com/hilliarddub.html
Here's an example of the level of detail that Mr. Hicks has been able to document and who some of the peripherial figures may be.
http://sanderhicks.com/hilliarddub.html
Another Point of Truth: Catherine Austin Fitts
http://www.solari.com/gideon/q301.pdf
This is a link to a pdf file. Must have Adobe Reader
This site was established by Catherine Austin Fitts, who was a Wall Street insider and went to work for HUD under Jack Kemp. . She has one whale of a story to tell that points toward the same corruption of HUD, robber Corporations, Drugs. After they take their huge slices of the pie, America is left to deteriorate.
Her site, www.solari.com is about people taking back power over their communities.
This is a link to a pdf file. Must have Adobe Reader
This site was established by Catherine Austin Fitts, who was a Wall Street insider and went to work for HUD under Jack Kemp. . She has one whale of a story to tell that points toward the same corruption of HUD, robber Corporations, Drugs. After they take their huge slices of the pie, America is left to deteriorate.
Her site, www.solari.com is about people taking back power over their communities.
Beau Elliot - The Daily Iowan
This is the second online article I've seen from Mr. Elliot about 911. Very cool.
http://www.dailyiowan.com/news/2004/07/27/Opinions/Safety.In.Numbness-695944.shtml
http://www.dailyiowan.com/news/2004/07/27/Opinions/Safety.In.Numbness-695944.shtml
911 Truth! Congrats, Daniel Hopsicker
This is a FIVE STAR ALARM!
http://www.breakfornews.com/Daniel-Hopsicker.htm
At this website, Fintan Dunne has the audio interview with Mr. Hopsicker
http://www.madcowprod.com/
You have to go to these links and just pay a little attention. You won't believe how much success Mr. Hopsicker is having with first hand evidence and how it meshes with evidence pointed to by Sibel Edmonds.
http://www.breakfornews.com/Daniel-Hopsicker.htm
At this website, Fintan Dunne has the audio interview with Mr. Hopsicker
http://www.madcowprod.com/
You have to go to these links and just pay a little attention. You won't believe how much success Mr. Hopsicker is having with first hand evidence and how it meshes with evidence pointed to by Sibel Edmonds.
There is something very curious going on
Justice Disputes Key Terror Case Evidence
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040812/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/terror_trial
Well, it's not curious really, if you suspect the level to which disinformation is being sent out to terrorize the American public.
For those of you who haven't been following this, let me explain. The press, (all mass media, newspapers and TV outlets), earlier in the week had been spewing forth the news story that Las Vegas officials were told about terror threats, and those rascals cared more about making money than saving lives. And Las Vegas officials and Casinos suppressed the public's right to know. Those evil Bastards! You are either for GW Bush, or you are for the Terrorists, and Vegas is for the Terrorists.
Well, now we have evidence that these news stories seem to be a malicious pack of falsehoods.
It seems you don't need PACs or other organizations to pay for commercials, if you just let the FBI, UPI, and AP do all the heavy lifting.
The posted story above totally under-cuts the idea that the tape in question, showing the alleged casing of Las Vegas, had the slighest relation to any terrorist activity or plans.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040812/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/terror_trial
Well, it's not curious really, if you suspect the level to which disinformation is being sent out to terrorize the American public.
For those of you who haven't been following this, let me explain. The press, (all mass media, newspapers and TV outlets), earlier in the week had been spewing forth the news story that Las Vegas officials were told about terror threats, and those rascals cared more about making money than saving lives. And Las Vegas officials and Casinos suppressed the public's right to know. Those evil Bastards! You are either for GW Bush, or you are for the Terrorists, and Vegas is for the Terrorists.
Well, now we have evidence that these news stories seem to be a malicious pack of falsehoods.
It seems you don't need PACs or other organizations to pay for commercials, if you just let the FBI, UPI, and AP do all the heavy lifting.
The posted story above totally under-cuts the idea that the tape in question, showing the alleged casing of Las Vegas, had the slighest relation to any terrorist activity or plans.
Moveon.org
Videos of Ads are Online
Pretty Fun!
https://www.moveonpac.org/donate/switchad_winners.html?ad_id=11&id=
Pretty Fun!
https://www.moveonpac.org/donate/switchad_winners.html?ad_id=11&id=
Down the Rabbit Hole...
It's really is by accident that my previous post about Carter led to this posting that will bring my blogging "full circle" from my very first post.
As I remembered back over my years of looking at internet based "conspiracy materials" I had to re-examine why I put so much credence in the "October Surprise" story. Below is a small sample of what keeps me up at night. It's what kept me up at night after 9/11 wondering why the truth was being withheld. Why didn't Bush want a 9/11 Commission?
In my first blog entry I posted the www.orlingrabbe.com web site. You'll notice that Dr. Grabbe is a key person among others that seem to have tapped the pipeline to the underworld that we may be dealing with. Keep his name in mind.
If you browse thru or search the links below, you'll see what all the hulablu is about.
Let start with an interview of SaraMcClendon. Note: I have not spent any time confirming this is real, but if this is real, it certainly ties many of the pieces together.
http://www.pdxnorml.org/MCCLENDN
Then take a glance at the following:
http://www.geocities.com/mdmorrissey/october.htm
http://www.io.com/~patrik/october.htm
http://www.williambowles.info/spysrus/norman_grabbe.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a37eb4cb879ff.htm
http://www.daywilliams.com/clinton-related_deaths.html
Let me state emphatically: I have no way of knowing whether any of this is true. I have no claim that Pres. Bill Clinton, or any other person that may have been mentioned in any of the links, is guilty of any crime. I don't know for sure whether there is a real "Orlin Grabbe".
I tend to believe that there a Sibel Edmonds (major newspaper reports), a Sarah Mcclendon (think she is on TV as a reporter from time to time trying to expose just a smidgen of the treactory going on). And there are many OK City bombing anomolies that have not been touched in my blog yet.
As you begin to absorb that possibilty that some of the above may be true, it's not so hard to realise that, also, the tragic events of 9/11 are not what they have been represented to be.
I would ask anyone, whether they believe any of this, to watch. Watch the current events in the US, the terror alerts, the Wars, the Homeland Security nonsense, the Patriot Act, all the FBI interference with FBI agents reports prior to and post 911, the fake terror drills like the one documented in this blog in Tenn. Wonder to yourself where the Abu Graibe story would have been without Seymour Hersh. And although I should save the link for a separate post, note how ongoing web "news stories" such as this http://www.womenswallstreet.com/WWS/article_landing.aspx?titleid=1&articleID=733, could hardly be crafted better to create mass hysteria!
I don't think it's a stretch to say we are witnessing the most amazing psyops (pyschological operation) ever, and what a piece of art it is!
As I remembered back over my years of looking at internet based "conspiracy materials" I had to re-examine why I put so much credence in the "October Surprise" story. Below is a small sample of what keeps me up at night. It's what kept me up at night after 9/11 wondering why the truth was being withheld. Why didn't Bush want a 9/11 Commission?
In my first blog entry I posted the www.orlingrabbe.com web site. You'll notice that Dr. Grabbe is a key person among others that seem to have tapped the pipeline to the underworld that we may be dealing with. Keep his name in mind.
If you browse thru or search the links below, you'll see what all the hulablu is about.
Let start with an interview of SaraMcClendon. Note: I have not spent any time confirming this is real, but if this is real, it certainly ties many of the pieces together.
http://www.pdxnorml.org/MCCLENDN
Then take a glance at the following:
http://www.geocities.com/mdmorrissey/october.htm
http://www.io.com/~patrik/october.htm
http://www.williambowles.info/spysrus/norman_grabbe.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a37eb4cb879ff.htm
http://www.daywilliams.com/clinton-related_deaths.html
Let me state emphatically: I have no way of knowing whether any of this is true. I have no claim that Pres. Bill Clinton, or any other person that may have been mentioned in any of the links, is guilty of any crime. I don't know for sure whether there is a real "Orlin Grabbe".
I tend to believe that there a Sibel Edmonds (major newspaper reports), a Sarah Mcclendon (think she is on TV as a reporter from time to time trying to expose just a smidgen of the treactory going on). And there are many OK City bombing anomolies that have not been touched in my blog yet.
As you begin to absorb that possibilty that some of the above may be true, it's not so hard to realise that, also, the tragic events of 9/11 are not what they have been represented to be.
I would ask anyone, whether they believe any of this, to watch. Watch the current events in the US, the terror alerts, the Wars, the Homeland Security nonsense, the Patriot Act, all the FBI interference with FBI agents reports prior to and post 911, the fake terror drills like the one documented in this blog in Tenn. Wonder to yourself where the Abu Graibe story would have been without Seymour Hersh. And although I should save the link for a separate post, note how ongoing web "news stories" such as this http://www.womenswallstreet.com/WWS/article_landing.aspx?titleid=1&articleID=733, could hardly be crafted better to create mass hysteria!
I don't think it's a stretch to say we are witnessing the most amazing psyops (pyschological operation) ever, and what a piece of art it is!
Jimmy Carter's Meddling?
This will be a first of sorts for my blog postings...
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/8/12/161746.shtml
I'm actually posting an article from www.newsmax.com that I agree with in some part, even if it is clearly the Republican character assasination machine at work.
Areas not mentioned in this article are initiatives such as Habitat for Humanity, for which Carter was instrumental in nurturing. http://www.habitat.org/how/carter.html
And, then there's this Jimmy Carter: warrior for peace
http://www.ucc.org/justice/witness/wfj102102.htm
In the end, Pres. Carter's legacy is a mixed bag. For those of us who think "cold warrior Pres. R Reagan" wasn't exactly the best Pres. ever, we have Pres. Carter's clumsiness partially to thank for Reagan's land slide victory. Of course Republicans were just cutting their teeth on new dirty tricks techniques that made Nixon look like the amateur that he was. http://www.rense.com/general30/skoldeal.htm
The link above that I've used is probably the most sensational of any that I could have used, but the 1980 "October Surprise" story, is, boiled down to it's essense, historical fact, I think.
[8/13/2004 12:57 a.m. Update
I was not able to find mainstream substanciation of what I believe about the October Surprise. Please see my post "Down the Rabbit Hole"
]
The writer of this particular story, Sherman H. Skolnick, can take you on a journey into conspiracies beyond your wildest dreams. He seems to thrive on in-your-face broad swipes which allege collaboration of sinister forces that just boogle the mind. My personal feeling is that he sets himself up to too easily be taken as a crack pot. (Of course, if there are any readers out there reading this blog, I'm sure some of you have that same name tag (Crack Pot) for me, or as the comedian says: "Here's your Sign! http://www.mistupid.com/people/page013.htm) If the details that Sherman speaks of in his previous writing and his continuing publications turn out to be true, it would expose, I think, the biggest scam against mankind that has ever been pulled off.
However, getting back to Pres Carter and my post here....
Unfortunately, with publications such as Newsmax we'll only hear the libel that fits their agenda.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/8/12/161746.shtml
I'm actually posting an article from www.newsmax.com that I agree with in some part, even if it is clearly the Republican character assasination machine at work.
Areas not mentioned in this article are initiatives such as Habitat for Humanity, for which Carter was instrumental in nurturing. http://www.habitat.org/how/carter.html
And, then there's this Jimmy Carter: warrior for peace
http://www.ucc.org/justice/witness/wfj102102.htm
In the end, Pres. Carter's legacy is a mixed bag. For those of us who think "cold warrior Pres. R Reagan" wasn't exactly the best Pres. ever, we have Pres. Carter's clumsiness partially to thank for Reagan's land slide victory. Of course Republicans were just cutting their teeth on new dirty tricks techniques that made Nixon look like the amateur that he was. http://www.rense.com/general30/skoldeal.htm
The link above that I've used is probably the most sensational of any that I could have used, but the 1980 "October Surprise" story, is, boiled down to it's essense, historical fact, I think.
[8/13/2004 12:57 a.m. Update
I was not able to find mainstream substanciation of what I believe about the October Surprise. Please see my post "Down the Rabbit Hole"
]
The writer of this particular story, Sherman H. Skolnick, can take you on a journey into conspiracies beyond your wildest dreams. He seems to thrive on in-your-face broad swipes which allege collaboration of sinister forces that just boogle the mind. My personal feeling is that he sets himself up to too easily be taken as a crack pot. (Of course, if there are any readers out there reading this blog, I'm sure some of you have that same name tag (Crack Pot) for me, or as the comedian says: "Here's your Sign! http://www.mistupid.com/people/page013.htm) If the details that Sherman speaks of in his previous writing and his continuing publications turn out to be true, it would expose, I think, the biggest scam against mankind that has ever been pulled off.
However, getting back to Pres Carter and my post here....
Unfortunately, with publications such as Newsmax we'll only hear the libel that fits their agenda.
Friday, August 13, 2004
911, Christianity, "One World Order"
Would it surprise you to know that some individuals and groups don't think Bush is leading us to become a more Christian nation?
Sure, you say there are fringe groups for every viewpoint.
I want to tread lightly here. I don't claim to be an expert on this.
There are various groups who believe the Fed. Govt., in collusion with other world powers, is betraying our values and our future. These groups / individuals often rally around opposition to the movement toward "One World Order" (OWO), which is a phrase G HW Bush used during his Presidency. For the anti-OWO person, the events of 911 and the Patriot Act, and the Middle East Wars are part of an overall coordinated series of events that will destroy America's sovereignty.
Here's a typical article....
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2004/110804mentalhealth.htm
Why do I make a post on this, anyway?
Here's why:
The websites http://www.prisonplanet.com, and the sister site http://www.propagandamatrix.com regularly have news and information that explains what may be the truth behind the scenes in our changing America. There is Alex Jones' radio show, on the internet and on traditional talk radio. Mr. Jones is convinced we are seeing a police state in the making, and wants to sound the alarm. He was on record during the Summer of 2001 (http://www.prisonplanet.tv/articles/august2004/082604alexwarned.htm), as predicting an occurence was about to happen like what happened on 911. He doesn't claim to be devinely inspired, but works to use historical facts and current news to document the progression of our loss of liberty that should concern us all.
Even if you have no interest in accepting the overall framework, his radio interviews, his research, his web postings have been extremely worthwhile for truth-telling. His efforts will always be a valuable portion of the total picture, if we can ever find a way to share the whole story of 911 with the World at large.
Sure, you say there are fringe groups for every viewpoint.
I want to tread lightly here. I don't claim to be an expert on this.
There are various groups who believe the Fed. Govt., in collusion with other world powers, is betraying our values and our future. These groups / individuals often rally around opposition to the movement toward "One World Order" (OWO), which is a phrase G HW Bush used during his Presidency. For the anti-OWO person, the events of 911 and the Patriot Act, and the Middle East Wars are part of an overall coordinated series of events that will destroy America's sovereignty.
Here's a typical article....
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2004/110804mentalhealth.htm
Why do I make a post on this, anyway?
Here's why:
The websites http://www.prisonplanet.com, and the sister site http://www.propagandamatrix.com regularly have news and information that explains what may be the truth behind the scenes in our changing America. There is Alex Jones' radio show, on the internet and on traditional talk radio. Mr. Jones is convinced we are seeing a police state in the making, and wants to sound the alarm. He was on record during the Summer of 2001 (http://www.prisonplanet.tv/articles/august2004/082604alexwarned.htm), as predicting an occurence was about to happen like what happened on 911. He doesn't claim to be devinely inspired, but works to use historical facts and current news to document the progression of our loss of liberty that should concern us all.
Even if you have no interest in accepting the overall framework, his radio interviews, his research, his web postings have been extremely worthwhile for truth-telling. His efforts will always be a valuable portion of the total picture, if we can ever find a way to share the whole story of 911 with the World at large.
Cheney: Winning our Hearts and Minds Daily
Thursday, Aug. 12, 2004
Cheneys Slam Kerry's Call for 'Sensitive' War on Terrorism
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/8/12/94352.shtml
The Bush / Kerry death match brings up a paradox (namely that Kerry, in speaking out against Bush, is presenting himself as an unappealing alternative) for most anybody like me in the antiwar camp. Even when taken in context:
http://www.gop.com/RNCResearch/Read.aspx?ID=4514
the fact that Kerry "buys" into the idea of a "War on Terror", sensitive or not, takes him to a world full of propagandistic ruses setup by the current administration.
In looking at this, I know it's trite to say, but so fiting: Orwell is dancing, high jumping, doing gymnastics in his grave!
Cheneys Slam Kerry's Call for 'Sensitive' War on Terrorism
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/8/12/94352.shtml
The Bush / Kerry death match brings up a paradox (namely that Kerry, in speaking out against Bush, is presenting himself as an unappealing alternative) for most anybody like me in the antiwar camp. Even when taken in context:
http://www.gop.com/RNCResearch/Read.aspx?ID=4514
the fact that Kerry "buys" into the idea of a "War on Terror", sensitive or not, takes him to a world full of propagandistic ruses setup by the current administration.
In looking at this, I know it's trite to say, but so fiting: Orwell is dancing, high jumping, doing gymnastics in his grave!
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Rummy's Charitable Side
Everybody needs to perform outreach activities in their spare time.
Look at how this key govt. official finds time to make sure world oil interests don't go hungry.
http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=656
Look at how this key govt. official finds time to make sure world oil interests don't go hungry.
http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=656
The Original No-Fly List was already outrageously administered, will this plan be better or worse
Tuesday, August 10, 2004 · Last updated 4:22 p.m. PT
No-fly list raises civil-liberty concerns
By DAVID KRAVETS ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Sept. 11 Commission wants the government to expand the no-fly list airlines now check to keep suspected terrorists off planes, consolidating as many as 12 secret lists maintained by different intelligence agencies.
That worries the American Civil Liberties Union, which has already sued the government, saying the airlines' effort to keep terror suspects and other dangerous people off planes ensnares innocent passengers and subjects them to unnecessary searches and delays. Also, the government provides no way for those wrongly named to get themselves removed.
"Right now, if you're on the list, you're in a no-fly jail. There is now no way out of this," said Barry Steinhardt, the director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project.
Commissioners agree the government has a "definite interest" in ensuring the protection of passengers' civil liberties as well as their safety. Their report, however, didn't spell out how the government should improve its checks and balances for the watch lists.
In lawsuits filed in San Francisco and Seattle, the ACLU has demanded the government explain how wrongly flagged travelers - usually targeted because they have names similar to those on the list - can get off it. The ACLU also wants to know how many people are on the list.
"They have to make the best efforts to make sure it's accurate and has to have a procedure to make sure people mistakenly identified can get off the list," Steinhardt said.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who privately reviewed the government's "sensitive" data, ordered the government in June to further explain why it hasn't disclosed certain documents in response to the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act request.
Breyer said the government has refused to say why the number of people on the list should not be disclosed. He also wonders why the government classified its procedure for adding names to the list as "non-disclosable sensitive security information."
"In many instances, the government has not come close to meeting its burden, and, in some cases, has made frivolous claims of exemption," Breyer wrote.
Authorities have repeatedly refused comment on Breyer's ruling or questions about the no-fly list.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Transportation Security Administration and other agencies cite security concerns for not publicly disclosing to the ACLU why two of the group's clients - peace activists who publish a magazine critical of the Bush administration - were detained at San Francisco International Airport. The two believe they were wrongly detained because their names popped up in the database.
The agencies even blacked out names of government officials in charge of the list, including the FBI employee responsible for responding to inquiries from the public regarding names appearing on the list.
President Bush last year authorized the FBI to establish the consolidated database the commission recommends be used at airports. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, when announcing the creation of the still unfinished mega-database last year, said "the job of the new Terrorist Screening Center is to make sure we get this information out to our agents on the borders and all those who can put it to use on the front lines."
The Sept. 11 Commission urged that the government take over pre-screening responsibilities from the airlines even before a new system is developed.
The list the airlines use includes only the people the government believes "pose a direct threat to aviation." Many names of potential terrorists, now kept in a slew of government databases, have been held back from the airlines because some agencies consider the information too sensitive to share.
That problem can be solved, the commission said, if the lists are consolidated and the TSA takes charge of preflight passenger screening.
"Because air carriers implement the program, concerns about sharing intelligence information with private firms and foreign countries keep the U.S. government from listing all terrorist and terrorist suspects who should be included," the report said.
The airline industry has welcomed that recommendation, which is expected to be the subject of congressional debate this month. House leaders say they want legislation to implement the commission's proposals in September, and Senate leaders by October.
"We are all for the government being in charge of that, of the government assuming that responsibility," said Diana Cronan, a spokeswoman for the Air Transport Association of America, which represents 22 airlines, including all major U.S. carriers. "They have all the information. They're trained and they have the intelligence."
The commission noted its airline screening proposal, as well as other ideas that would increase the government's power over the public, could tread on civil liberties. That's why it recommends the creation of an executive branch board committed "to defend our civil liberties" at a "time of increased and consolidated government authority."
"How that may be fashioned is probably best left to the Congress and president," said commission spokesman Jonathan Stull.
No-fly list raises civil-liberty concerns
By DAVID KRAVETS ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Sept. 11 Commission wants the government to expand the no-fly list airlines now check to keep suspected terrorists off planes, consolidating as many as 12 secret lists maintained by different intelligence agencies.
That worries the American Civil Liberties Union, which has already sued the government, saying the airlines' effort to keep terror suspects and other dangerous people off planes ensnares innocent passengers and subjects them to unnecessary searches and delays. Also, the government provides no way for those wrongly named to get themselves removed.
"Right now, if you're on the list, you're in a no-fly jail. There is now no way out of this," said Barry Steinhardt, the director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project.
Commissioners agree the government has a "definite interest" in ensuring the protection of passengers' civil liberties as well as their safety. Their report, however, didn't spell out how the government should improve its checks and balances for the watch lists.
In lawsuits filed in San Francisco and Seattle, the ACLU has demanded the government explain how wrongly flagged travelers - usually targeted because they have names similar to those on the list - can get off it. The ACLU also wants to know how many people are on the list.
"They have to make the best efforts to make sure it's accurate and has to have a procedure to make sure people mistakenly identified can get off the list," Steinhardt said.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who privately reviewed the government's "sensitive" data, ordered the government in June to further explain why it hasn't disclosed certain documents in response to the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act request.
Breyer said the government has refused to say why the number of people on the list should not be disclosed. He also wonders why the government classified its procedure for adding names to the list as "non-disclosable sensitive security information."
"In many instances, the government has not come close to meeting its burden, and, in some cases, has made frivolous claims of exemption," Breyer wrote.
Authorities have repeatedly refused comment on Breyer's ruling or questions about the no-fly list.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Transportation Security Administration and other agencies cite security concerns for not publicly disclosing to the ACLU why two of the group's clients - peace activists who publish a magazine critical of the Bush administration - were detained at San Francisco International Airport. The two believe they were wrongly detained because their names popped up in the database.
The agencies even blacked out names of government officials in charge of the list, including the FBI employee responsible for responding to inquiries from the public regarding names appearing on the list.
President Bush last year authorized the FBI to establish the consolidated database the commission recommends be used at airports. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, when announcing the creation of the still unfinished mega-database last year, said "the job of the new Terrorist Screening Center is to make sure we get this information out to our agents on the borders and all those who can put it to use on the front lines."
The Sept. 11 Commission urged that the government take over pre-screening responsibilities from the airlines even before a new system is developed.
The list the airlines use includes only the people the government believes "pose a direct threat to aviation." Many names of potential terrorists, now kept in a slew of government databases, have been held back from the airlines because some agencies consider the information too sensitive to share.
That problem can be solved, the commission said, if the lists are consolidated and the TSA takes charge of preflight passenger screening.
"Because air carriers implement the program, concerns about sharing intelligence information with private firms and foreign countries keep the U.S. government from listing all terrorist and terrorist suspects who should be included," the report said.
The airline industry has welcomed that recommendation, which is expected to be the subject of congressional debate this month. House leaders say they want legislation to implement the commission's proposals in September, and Senate leaders by October.
"We are all for the government being in charge of that, of the government assuming that responsibility," said Diana Cronan, a spokeswoman for the Air Transport Association of America, which represents 22 airlines, including all major U.S. carriers. "They have all the information. They're trained and they have the intelligence."
The commission noted its airline screening proposal, as well as other ideas that would increase the government's power over the public, could tread on civil liberties. That's why it recommends the creation of an executive branch board committed "to defend our civil liberties" at a "time of increased and consolidated government authority."
"How that may be fashioned is probably best left to the Congress and president," said commission spokesman Jonathan Stull.
Pravda: Iraq's slide toward separation
http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/101/397/13719_Iraq.html
Why do we care, we'll be going next door to Iran...?
Why do we care, we'll be going next door to Iran...?
Remember the Berg Beheading
http://www.foxnews.com/video2/player.html?11344&FNL&FOX%20Exclusive&acc&U.S.%20%26%
(you may need to click [options] after clicking link or go to Fox's site)
(no objectionable content)
I can't prove the Berg video was a fake, but Fox News interviews the guy from California who recently put his fake out: (video link)
For Fox News, the tone of this interview is not out of usual character. Yet, it's still astounding to see heavy demonization that the Fox News anchor spews against the "terrorists." Murdock and Karl Rove must be proud.
(you may need to click [options] after clicking link or go to Fox's site)
(no objectionable content)
I can't prove the Berg video was a fake, but Fox News interviews the guy from California who recently put his fake out: (video link)
For Fox News, the tone of this interview is not out of usual character. Yet, it's still astounding to see heavy demonization that the Fox News anchor spews against the "terrorists." Murdock and Karl Rove must be proud.
Iraq Atrocity Watch
This is a few weeks old.....
If Abu Ghraib is still being covered up, this could be accurate:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200407/s1156598.htm
If Abu Ghraib is still being covered up, this could be accurate:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200407/s1156598.htm
The Right to Choose
I respect the sincerity and logic of those who have a moral argument against the act of abortion.
I firmly support a woman's ability for access to abortion services as part of the healthcare system.
http://www.saveroe.com/
Here's a site that is all about adoption resources.
http://naic.acf.hhs.gov/parents/index.cfm
Before we had a War Criminal as President, and the Bill of Rights was suspended, I thought Abortion Rights was at the top of the list as a national political issue.
I firmly support a woman's ability for access to abortion services as part of the healthcare system.
http://www.saveroe.com/
Here's a site that is all about adoption resources.
http://naic.acf.hhs.gov/parents/index.cfm
Before we had a War Criminal as President, and the Bill of Rights was suspended, I thought Abortion Rights was at the top of the list as a national political issue.
Do I Believe Every 911 Alternative Viewpoint
Pentagon 911:
No, I don't believe everything. Here's a link to a Alternative Viewpoint
It doesn't help that Rummy really did say what is reported here (mid way thru article):
http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/Missile-Not-Flight-77.html
Here's the debunk... maybe:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2004/08-23-2004/facts.htm
If the above area of discussion were the only significant 911 possible "anomaly", I'd venture to say that there wouldn't be a 911 Truth Movement. But, this just scratches the surface. Here are some tasty morsels:
http://www.madcowprod.com
http://911forthetruth.com
http://unansweredquestions.org
And then, there's Sibel Edmonds, FBI Whistleblower
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0408/S00012.htm
She's one brave soul.
No, I don't believe everything. Here's a link to a Alternative Viewpoint
It doesn't help that Rummy really did say what is reported here (mid way thru article):
http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/Missile-Not-Flight-77.html
Here's the debunk... maybe:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2004/08-23-2004/facts.htm
If the above area of discussion were the only significant 911 possible "anomaly", I'd venture to say that there wouldn't be a 911 Truth Movement. But, this just scratches the surface. Here are some tasty morsels:
http://www.madcowprod.com
http://911forthetruth.com
http://unansweredquestions.org
And then, there's Sibel Edmonds, FBI Whistleblower
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0408/S00012.htm
She's one brave soul.
Boys and Girls, We Have Surprise for you: Terror Exercises Coming to Your Community
There's a reason this stuff is happenning.
http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?id=15678&siteSection=1
Another tidbit that will be explained in due time.
If you dare, read the whole story at http://www.prisonplanet.com
http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?id=15678&siteSection=1
Another tidbit that will be explained in due time.
If you dare, read the whole story at http://www.prisonplanet.com
Laying the Foundation
Here we have a seemingly meaningless post. This link gives you some nice pictures and diagrams of Lower Manhatten after 911. Don't worry, nothing gruesome.
http://members.fortunecity.com/911/wtc/WTC_ch7.htm
For any of you who haven't spent a lot of time investigating the events on 9/11, this is a your door to open up some truth.
Hint: Don't bother reading the 911 Commission Report
http://members.fortunecity.com/911/wtc/WTC_ch7.htm
For any of you who haven't spent a lot of time investigating the events on 9/11, this is a your door to open up some truth.
Hint: Don't bother reading the 911 Commission Report
More Preaching
Some of you may have guessed my favorite bumper sticker at this point:
If you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention!
Our President, he's a uniter. And new, improved, he says he wants to be a peace President.....
http://www.spectacle.org/0804/tripp.html
If you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention!
Our President, he's a uniter. And new, improved, he says he wants to be a peace President.....
http://www.spectacle.org/0804/tripp.html
Winning your Hearts and Minds
Warning: Strong Political / Ethical / Human Rights Lecture Ahead
Ok People, some of you will not be able to go here with me, but just stick you toe in the water,
www.rense.com/general52/pick.htm
If you aren't ready for this, just consider it a tiny friendly nudge.
Ok People, some of you will not be able to go here with me, but just stick you toe in the water,
www.rense.com/general52/pick.htm
If you aren't ready for this, just consider it a tiny friendly nudge.
Yes, I live in Kentucky
Here's a blogger story about a newbie from out of state moving to our progressive state!
http://americablog.blogspot.com/archives/2004_08_08_americablog_archive.html#109226338925322051
http://americablog.blogspot.com/archives/2004_08_08_americablog_archive.html#109226338925322051
First Entry
Links worth your time:
Internet Radio: Wellness, Indentifying and Overcoming Toxic Influences
http://www.meria.net
Daily Howler
http://www.dailyhowler.com
Suppressed Information Critical to Making Sense of Our World
http://www.unansweredquestions.org
Finance Phd Takes On the Spooks (nudity)
http://www.orlingrabbe.com
Internet Radio: Wellness, Indentifying and Overcoming Toxic Influences
http://www.meria.net
Daily Howler
http://www.dailyhowler.com
Suppressed Information Critical to Making Sense of Our World
http://www.unansweredquestions.org
Finance Phd Takes On the Spooks (nudity)
http://www.orlingrabbe.com
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