Tuesday, May 16, 2006

[911TruthAction] Digest Number 1290

There are 13 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. Fw: John Pilger: Ch�vez is a threat because he offers the alterna
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
2. "To get away with crimes, pretend to be a crime fighter"
From: "jewish_from_brooklyn" jewish_from_brooklyn@yahoo.com
3. Israel's proxy army
From: "jewish_from_brooklyn" jewish_from_brooklyn@yahoo.com
4. Bleier Review essay on 911, link
From: "Ronald" bleier.r@gmail.com
5. Fw: [911_free_discussion] Re: Tell the NSA
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
6. Fw: Treasury Gold Sale Threw Away Billions -=- New trading patterns
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
7. Fw: Israel to act alone against Iran -=- China's buying of oil conce
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
8. Bush / Cheney Reform bill to double Legal immigration numbers + + +
From: "ranger116@webtv.net" ranger116@webtv.net
9. Re: Scott Durr says "Please quit with the Jew thing," Yaacov David
From: "Naveed" flanker12k@yahoo.com
10. Divide and conquer
From: "kattmanduu" kattmann@valornet.com
11. Signs of tyranny looming
From: "John Perna" savefreedom2005@yahoo.com
12. Re: Signs of tyranny looming
From: "mann david" dmann51@yahoo.com
13. On 9/11, Vets, Puppets and Masters (dedicated to Kevin H)
From: "Cathy Garger" savorsuccesslady@yahoo.com

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 1
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Mon May 15, 2006 6:00pm(PDT)
Subject: Fw: John Pilger: Ch�vez is a threat because he offers the alterna

Pilger of course is right. And as you read his article about Chavez, hold
this thought. Saddam was also a Chavez -- if he was not stopped
by -Bush-Clinton-Bush sanctions and the invasion/occupation of his country
he too would have shown what populism and oil can do for the common folk of
a country not under the thumb of the globalists. -- Dick Eastman

----- Original Message -----
From: "James" <lowtech@tmail.com>
To: <anti-capitalism@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2006 12:06 PM
Subject: [A-C] John Pilger: Ch�vez is a threat because he offers the
alternative of a decent society

Ch�vez is a threat because he offers the
alternative of a decent
society

Venezuela's president is using oil revenues to
liberate the poor - no
wonder his enemies want to overthrow him

John Pilger

The Guardian Saturday May 13, 2006

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1773908,00.html

I have spent the past three weeks filming in the
hillside barrios of
Caracas, in streets and breeze-block houses that
defy gravity and
torrential rain and emerge at night like
fireflies in the fog. Caracas
is said to be one of the world's toughest cities,
yet I have known no
fear; the poorest have welcomed my colleagues and
me with a warmth
characteristic of ordinary Venezuelans but also
with the unmistakable
confidence of a people who know that change is
possible and who, in
their everyday
lives, are reclaiming noble
concepts long emptied of
their meaning in the west: "reform", "popular
democracy", "equity",
"social justice" and, yes, "freedom".

The other night, in a room bare except for a
single fluorescent tube, I
heard these words spoken by the likes of Ana
Lucia Fernandez, aged 86,
Celedonia Oviedo, aged 74, and Mavis Mendez, aged
95. A mere
33-year-old, Sonia Alvarez, had come with her two
young children. Until
about a year ago, none of them could read and
write; now they are
studying mathematics. For the first time in its
modern era, Venezuela
has almost 100% literacy.

This achievement is due to a national programme,
called Mision
Robinson, designed for adults and teenagers
previously denied an
education because of poverty. Mision Ribas is
giving everyone a
secondary school education, called a
bachillerato. (The names Robinson
and Ribas refer to Venezuelan
independence
leaders from the 19th
century.) Named, like much else here, after the
great liberator Simon
Bolivar, "Bolivarian", or people's, universities
have opened,
introducing, as one parent told me, "treasures of
the mind, history and
music and art, we barely knew existed". Under
Hugo Ch�vez, Venezuela is
the first major oil producer to use its oil
revenue to liberate the
poor.

Mavis Mendez has seen, in her 95 years, a parade
of governments preside
over the theft of tens of billions of dollars in
oil spoils, much of it
flown to Miami, together with the steepest
descent into poverty ever
known in Latin America; from 18% in 1980 to 65%
in 1995, three years
before Ch�vez was elected. "We didn't matter in a
human sense," she
said. "We lived and died without real education
and running water, and
food we couldn't afford. When we fell ill, the
weakest died. In the
east of the
city, where the mansions are, we were
invisible, or we were
feared. Now I can read and write my name, and so
much more; and
whatever the rich and their media say, we have
planted the seeds of
true democracy, and I am full of joy that I have
lived to witness it."

Latin American governments often give their
regimes a new sense of
legitimacy by holding a constituent assembly that
drafts a new
constitution. When he was elected in 1998, Ch�vez
used this brilliantly
to decentralise, to give the impoverished
grassroots power they had
never known and to begin to dismantle a corrupt
political
superstructure as a prerequisite to changing the
direction of the
economy. His setting-up of misions as a means of
bypassing saboteurs in
the old, corrupt bureaucracy was typical of the
extraordinary political
and social imagination that is changing Venezuela
peacefully. This is
his "Bolivarian
revolution", which, at this
stage, is not dissimilar to
the post-war European social democracies.

Ch�vez, a former army major, was anxious to prove
he was not yet
another military "strongman". He promised that
his every move would be
subject to the will of the people. In his first
year as president in
1999, he held an unprecedented number of votes: a
referendum on whether
or not people wanted a new constituent assembly;
elections for the
assembly; a second referendum ratifying the new
constitution - 71% of
the people approved each of the 396 articles that
gave Mavis and
Celedonia and Ana Lucia, and their children and
grandchildren,
unheard-of freedoms, such as Article 123, which
for the first time
recognised the human rights of mixed-race and
black people, of whom
Ch�vez is one. "The indigenous peoples," it says,
"have the right to
maintain their own economic practices, based on

reciprocity, solidarity
and exchange ... and to define their priorities
... " The little red
book of the Venezuelan constitution became a
bestseller on the streets.
Nora Hernandez, a community worker in Petare
barrio, took me to her
local state-run supermarket, which is funded
entirely by oil revenue
and where prices are up to half those in the
commercial chains.
Proudly, she showed me articles of the
constitution written on the
backs of soap-powder packets. "We can never go
back," she said.

In La Vega barrio, I listened to a nurse,
Mariella Machado, a big round
black woman of 45 with a wonderfully wicked
laugh, stand and speak at
an urban land council on subjects ranging from
homelessness to the Iraq
war. That day, they were launching Mision Madres
de Barrio, a programme
aimed specifically at poverty among single
mothers. Under the
constitution, women have the right to be paid
as
carers, and can borrow
from a special women's bank. From next month, the
poorest housewives
will get about �120 a month. It is not surprising
that Ch�vez has now
won eight elections and referendums in eight
years, each time
increasing his majority, a world record. He is
the most popular head of
state in the western hemisphere, probably in the
world. That is why he
survived, amazingly, a Washington-backed coup in
2002. Mariella and
Celedonia and Nora and hundreds of thousands of
others came down from
the barrios and demanded that the army remain
loyal. "The people
rescued me," Ch�vez told me. "They did it with
all the media against
me, preventing even the basic facts of what had
happened. For popular
democracy in heroic action, I suggest you need
look no further."

The venomous attacks on Ch�vez, who arrives in
London tomorrow, have
begun and resemble uncannily those of the

privately owned Venezuelan
television and press, which called for the
elected government to be
overthrown. Fact-deprived attacks on Ch�vez in
the Times and the
Financial Times this week, each with that
peculiar malice reserved for
true dissenters from Thatcher's and Blair's one
true way, follow a
travesty of journalism on Channel 4 News last
month, which effectively
accused the Venezuelan president of plotting to
make nuclear weapons
with Iran, an absurd fantasy. The reporter
sneered at policies to
eradicate poverty and presented Ch�vez as a
sinister buffoon, while
Donald Rumsfeld was allowed to liken him to
Hitler, unchallenged. In
contrast, Tony Blair, a patrician with no
equivalent democratic record,
having been elected by a fifth of those eligible
to vote and having
caused the violent death of tens of thousands of
Iraqis, is allowed to
continue spinning his truly absurd political

survival tale.

Ch�vez is, of course, a threat, especially to the
United States. Like
the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, who based their
revolution on the English
co-operative moment, and the moderate Allende in
Chile, he offers the
threat of an alternative way of developing a
decent society: in other
words, the threat of a good example in a
continent where the majority
of humanity has long suffered a
Washington-designed peonage. In the US
media in the 1980s, the "threat" of tiny
Nicaragua was seriously
debated until it was crushed. Venezuela is
clearly being "softened up"
for something similar. A US army publication,
Doctrine for Asymmetric
War against Venezuela, describes Ch�vez and the
Bolivarian revolution
as the "largest threat since the Soviet Union and
Communism". When I
said to Ch�vez that the US historically had had
its way in Latin
America, he replied: "Yes, and my
assassination
would come as no
surprise. But the empire is in trouble, and the
people of Venezuela
will resist an attack. We ask only for the
support of all true
democrats."

� John Pilger's new book, Freedom Next Time, is
published next month by
Bantam Press www.johnpilger.com

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 2
From: "jewish_from_brooklyn" jewish_from_brooklyn@yahoo.com
Date: Mon May 15, 2006 6:12pm(PDT)
Subject: "To get away with crimes, pretend to be a crime fighter"

<< "Most people think I am exaggerating when I tell them that the 9-11
"truth movement" is dominated by wolves in sheep's clothing.�

Those of us who expose corruption actually face two problems:

Convincing people that our government is corrupt beyond anything
they dreamed possible.

Convincing people that most of the "truth seekers" are trying to cover up the
corruption, or they are rival criminals trying to take over while Bush appears
vulnerable.

The 9-11 attack is not a game

Thousands of people were murdered, billions of dollars worth of property
was destroyed, and thousands are still suffering health problems from
breathing the demolition debris. And wars are still going on because of
the attack.

The people who did 9-11 have a lot to lose if they are exposed, and they
have a lot to gain if they remain in control.�

Furthermore, 9-11 was not their first crime. Many of them were involved in
other crimes that they must cover up.

Do you really think these people are so foolish that they will sit idly by while
people expose them? If so, take a look at some of the suspicious suicides and
accidents during the past decade.

For example, Gary Webb committed suicide by shooting himself in the head,
twice. Mike Ruppert insists this is possible." >>

http://www.iamthewitness.com/by_Hufschmid11Oct2005.htm

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 3
From: "jewish_from_brooklyn" jewish_from_brooklyn@yahoo.com
Date: Mon May 15, 2006 6:58pm(PDT)
Subject: Israel's proxy army

From: "jewish_from_brooklyn" <jewish_from_brooklyn@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon�May�15,�2006� 9:46 pm
Subject: Re: Tell the NSA

--- In 911_free_discussion@yahoogroups.com, "Name Withheld"
<undisclosed@anonymous.com > wrote:

> It's sad that the most powerful military in history of the world

In the not-so-distant past, it used to be that we had the most powerful
military in the world, but unfortunately the US military is getting gutted and
eviscerated by the Israel-firsters who are running the show at the Pentagon.

Israel has a proxy army, and is using it to kill the Arabs.

Dumb goyim are going to the slaughterhouse for Israel.

Wake up you dumb goyim, for crying out loud !

> is in the hands of the most documented corrupt administration in United states
>
> history.Think about this our buffon commander and chief is such a failure

He is doing a simply wonderful job for Israel and for the people who own him.

Yaacov David ben Shmuel, the former Zionist Jew from Brooklyn.

> that the terrorist send money to the republican national committee reelection
fund.
> Later,

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 4
From: "Ronald" bleier.r@gmail.com
Date: Mon May 15, 2006 7:16pm(PDT)
Subject: Bleier Review essay on 911, link

My article:
9/11, An Inside Job? A Review Essay Based on David Ray Griffin's Research

published in Left Curve, No. 30, [April 2006] is now available online at:

http://leftcurve.org/LC30WebPages/9.11InsideJob.html

Copies and subscriptions to Left Curve can be purchased for $10 ($13, Canada) from
Left Curve
P.O Box 472
Oakland, CA 94604

Email: editor@leftcurve.org

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 5
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Mon May 15, 2006 7:24pm(PDT)
Subject: Fw: [911_free_discussion] Re: Tell the NSA

A man after my own heart: Yaacov David ben Shmuel

----- Original Message -----
From: "jewish_from_brooklyn" <jewish_from_brooklyn@yahoo.com>
To: <911_free_discussion@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2006 6:46 PM
Subject: [911_free_discussion] Re: Tell the NSA

--- In 911_free_discussion@yahoogroups.com, "Jesse Hemingway" <Loree100@...>
wrote:

> It's sad that the most powerful military in history of the world

In the not-so-distant past, it used to be that we had the most powerful
military in the world, but unfortunately the US military is getting gutted
and
eviscerated by the Israel-firsters who are running the show at the Pentagon.

Israel has a proxy army, and is using it to kill the Arabs.

Dumb goyim are going to the slaughterhouse for Israel.

Wake up you dumb goyim, for crying out loud !

> is in the hands of the most documented corrupt administration in United
states >
> history.Think about this our buffon commander and chief is such a failure

He is doing a simply wonderful job for Israel and for the people who own
him.

Yaacov David ben Shmuel, the former Zionist Jew from Brooklyn.

> that the terrorist send money to the republican national committee
reelection fund.
> Later,
> Jesse Hemingway
>

/ / /

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 6
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Mon May 15, 2006 8:12pm(PDT)
Subject: Fw: Treasury Gold Sale Threw Away Billions -=- New trading patterns

From: "Peter Myers" <myers@cyberone.com.au>

May 15, 2006


(1) Ch�vez is a threat because he offers the alternative of a decent society, by John Pilger
(2) New trading patterns reflect superpower waning [ERAInf]
(3) Treasury Gold Sale Threw Away Billions
(4) Iran to replace dollar with euro as oil currency
(5) A future with no bananas?
(6) Employers using illegal immigration to drive wages down

(1) Ch�vez is a threat because he offers the alternative of a decent
society, by John Pilger

Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 13:10:01 EDT From: ECONORTH@aol.com

Ch�vez is a threat because he offers the alternative of a decent
society

Venezuela's president is using oil revenues to liberate the poor - no
wonder his enemies want to overthrow him

John Pilger

The Guardian Saturday May 13, 2006

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1773908,00.html

I have spent the past three weeks filming in the hillside barrios of
Caracas, in streets and breeze-block houses that defy gravity and
torrential rain and emerge at night like fireflies in the fog. Caracas
is said to be one of the world's toughest cities, yet I have known no
fear; the poorest have welcomed my colleagues and me with a warmth
characteristic of ordinary Venezuelans but also with the unmistakable
confidence of a people who know that change is possible and who, in
their everyday lives, are reclaiming noble concepts long emptied of
their meaning in the west: "reform", "popular democracy", "equity",
"social justice" and, yes, "freedom".

The other night, in a room bare except for a single fluorescent tube, I
heard these words spoken by the likes of Ana Lucia Fernandez, aged 86,
Celedonia Oviedo, aged 74, and Mavis Mendez, aged 95. A mere
33-year-old, Sonia Alvarez, had come with her two young children. Until
about a year ago, none of them could read and write; now they are
studying mathematics. For the first time in its modern era, Venezuela
has almost 100% literacy.

This achievement is due to a national programme, called Mision
Robinson, designed for adults and teenagers previously denied an
education because of poverty. Mision Ribas is giving everyone a
secondary school education, called a bachillerato. (The names Robinson
and Ribas refer to Venezuelan independence leaders from the 19th
century.) Named, like much else here, after the great liberator Simon
Bolivar, "Bolivarian", or people's, universities have opened,
introducing, as one parent told me, "treasures of the mind, history and
music and art, we barely knew existed". Under Hugo Ch�vez, Venezuela is
the first major oil producer to use its oil revenue to liberate the
poor.

Mavis Mendez has seen, in her 95 years, a parade of governments preside
over the theft of tens of billions of dollars in oil spoils, much of it
flown to Miami, together with the steepest descent into poverty ever
known in Latin America; from 18% in 1980 to 65% in 1995, three years
before Ch�vez was elected. "We didn't matter in a human sense," she
said. "We lived and died without real education and running water, and
food we couldn't afford. When we fell ill, the weakest died. In the
east of the city, where the mansions are, we were invisible, or we were
feared. Now I can read and write my name, and so much more; and
whatever the rich and their media say, we have planted the seeds of
true democracy, and I am full of joy that I have lived to witness it."

Latin American governments often give their regimes a new sense of
legitimacy by holding a constituent assembly that drafts a new
constitution. When he was elected in 1998, Ch�vez used this brilliantly
to decentralise, to give the impoverished grassroots power they had
never known and to begin to dismantle a corrupt political
superstructure as a prerequisite to changing the direction of the
economy. His setting-up of misions as a means of bypassing saboteurs in
the old, corrupt bureaucracy was typical of the extraordinary political
and social imagination that is changing Venezuela peacefully. This is
his "Bolivarian revolution", which, at this stage, is not dissimilar to
the post-war European social democracies.

Ch�vez, a former army major, was anxious to prove he was not yet
another military "strongman". He promised that his every move would be
subject to the will of the people. In his first year as president in
1999, he held an unprecedented number of votes: a referendum on whether
or not people wanted a new constituent assembly; elections for the
assembly; a second referendum ratifying the new constitution - 71% of
the people approved each of the 396 articles that gave Mavis and
Celedonia and Ana Lucia, and their children and grandchildren,
unheard-of freedoms, such as Article 123, which for the first time
recognised the human rights of mixed-race and black people, of whom
Ch�vez is one. "The indigenous peoples," it says, "have the right to
maintain their own economic practices, based on reciprocity, solidarity
and exchange ... and to define their priorities ... " The little red
book of the Venezuelan constitution became a bestseller on the streets.
Nora Hernandez, a community worker in Petare barrio, took me to her
local state-run supermarket, which is funded entirely by oil revenue
and where prices are up to half those in the commercial chains.
Proudly, she showed me articles of the constitution written on the
backs of soap-powder packets. "We can never go back," she said.

In La Vega barrio, I listened to a nurse, Mariella Machado, a big round
black woman of 45 with a wonderfully wicked laugh, stand and speak at
an urban land council on subjects ranging from homelessness to the Iraq
war. That day, they were launching Mision Madres de Barrio, a programme
aimed specifically at poverty among single mothers. Under the
constitution, women have the right to be paid as carers, and can borrow
from a special women's bank. From next month, the poorest housewives
will get about �120 a month. It is not surprising that Ch�vez has now
won eight elections and referendums in eight years, each time
increasing his majority, a world record. He is the most popular head of
state in the western hemisphere, probably in the world. That is why he
survived, amazingly, a Washington-backed coup in 2002. Mariella and
Celedonia and Nora and hundreds of thousands of others came down from
the barrios and demanded that the army remain loyal. "The people
rescued me," Ch�vez told me. "They did it with all the media against
me, preventing even the basic facts of what had happened. For popular
democracy in heroic action, I suggest you need look no further."

The venomous attacks on Ch�vez, who arrives in London tomorrow, have
begun and resemble uncannily those of the privately owned Venezuelan
television and press, which called for the elected government to be
overthrown. Fact-deprived attacks on Ch�vez in the Times and the
Financial Times this week, each with that peculiar malice reserved for
true dissenters from Thatcher's and Blair's one true way, follow a
travesty of journalism on Channel 4 News last month, which effectively
accused the Venezuelan president of plotting to make nuclear weapons
with Iran, an absurd fantasy. The reporter sneered at policies to
eradicate poverty and presented Ch�vez as a sinister buffoon, while
Donald Rumsfeld was allowed to liken him to Hitler, unchallenged. In
contrast, Tony Blair, a patrician with no equivalent democratic record,
having been elected by a fifth of those eligible to vote and having
caused the violent death of tens of thousands of Iraqis, is allowed to
continue spinning his truly absurd political survival tale.

Ch�vez is, of course, a threat, especially to the United States. Like
the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, who based their revolution on the English
co-operative moment, and the moderate Allende in Chile, he offers the
threat of an alternative way of developing a decent society: in other
words, the threat of a good example in a continent where the majority
of humanity has long suffered a Washington-designed peonage. In the US
media in the 1980s, the "threat" of tiny Nicaragua was seriously
debated until it was crushed. Venezuela is clearly being "softened up"
for something similar. A US army publication, Doctrine for Asymmetric
War against Venezuela, describes Ch�vez and the Bolivarian revolution
as the "largest threat since the Soviet Union and Communism". When I
said to Ch�vez that the US historically had had its way in Latin
America, he replied: "Yes, and my assassination would come as no
surprise. But the empire is in trouble, and the people of Venezuela
will resist an attack. We ask only for the support of all true
democrats."

� John Pilger's new book, Freedom Next Time, is published next month by
Bantam Press www.johnpilger.com

(2) New trading patterns reflect superpower waning [ERAInf]

Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 17:51:17 +0930 From: ERA
<hermann@picknowl.com.au>

New Trading Patterns Reflect the Waning of the Lone Superpower by
William Krehm (Editor, COMER Journal)

May 2006 issue

We have noted previously that Russia, in control of immense gas
reserves, is no longer prepared to sell these simply as positions in
the gas and oil fields in Russia. Assessing the power that has suddenly
come to it because of the tightness of the world oil and gas market,
they have moved on to demanding in return for a position in their oil
and gas fields an investment position in the higher end of the gas and
oil industry: pipelines, ports, retail delivery chains of the foreign
fuel corporations. For that is where the greater profit lies, and part
of the risks of exploration is swapped for an already functioning
investment. At the same time it gives Russia and other countries with
gas and oil assets a chance for expressing their indignation over the
extent of the search and rejection that they have been subjected to in
recent months when trying to purchase US assets connected with oil.

The New York Times (27/04, "Putin Talks of Sending Oil to Asia, Not
Europe" by Andrew E. Kramer) reports: "President Vladimir V. Putin said
Wednesday that Russia should direct future oil and natural gas exports
to Asia because 'unprincipled competition' has blocked its energy
companies from expanding elsewhere.

"With the warning that Russia has other export options, Mr. Putin waded
into a debate in Europe over the plans of Gazprom, the natural gas
monopoly, which is trying to enter the retail gas market.

"This week, the Russian oil pipeline operator Transneft said it would
break ground on Friday on a 1400-mile pipeline from eastern Siberia to
the Pacific Ocean. The pipeline which could carry 1.5 million barrels a
day could divert to exports to Asia that now go to Europe. The swagger
in Mr. Putin's remark suggests his government believes it now has a
strong negotiating hand with Europe.

"After Gasprom briefly cut natural gas exports to Ukraine in January,
European traders questioned Russia's reliability as a supplier.

"It is certainly a large one. At the end of trading on Wednesday, the
stock market value of Gazprom was $267 billion, more than BP, Europe's
largest energy company. The value put Gazprom in second place after
Exxon Mobil in the US. Gazprom is now the fourth-largest company in the
world after Exxon, General Electric and Microsoft.

" 'We often encounter unfair competition on international markets,' Mr.
Putin told a business forum held before the summit with Ms. Merkel.
'Despite the great demand for energy, attempts are made, under all
sorts of pretexts, to restrict us,' he said.

Oil Dollars Add to Russia's Shopping List

"Mrs. Merkel who was brought up in East Germany has taken a firmer line
with Mr. Putin than her predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder. Still, the
German companies E.On and BASF were expected to sign a big natural gas
deal with Gazprom at Tomsk.

"Outside Germany, Gazprom's business is not progressing smoothly.
British news media reported this month that regulators had held eight
meetings on how to block a possible bid by Grazprom to buy Centrica,
Britain's largest gas distributor. Tony Blair's office issued a
statement on Wednesday saying it would not interfere in a Gazprom bid
for Centrica.

"Because of Gazprom's wealth from high energy prices, 'it is very
difficult to find a company not on our watch list,' Mr. Medved said.
Across Europe, Gazprom has found its association with the Russian
government a liability in making acquisitions, analysts say.

That indeed seems to be becoming increasingly the way of thinking of
all the large oil and gas producers. The New York Times (28/04, "Short
Gas Supply Spurs Worry" by Patrick Barta) informs us: "Tokyo An
Indonesian plan to scale back sales of liquified natural gas to
overseas buyers has prompted new concerns about the availability of LNG
in Asia and could portend more tug-of-wars over one of the world's
fastest-growing sources of energy.

"Japan is the world's largest LNG importer and relies heavily on
Indonesian LNG to fuel its utility sector. The prospect of losing
Indonesian gas is forcing Japan to look elsewhere, pursuing resources
that would otherwise be available for the US, Europe, China or South
Korea.

"Word of Indonesia's plans comes amid unease about other big energy
suppliers. Bolivia's new president has pledged a big state role in
developing and selling the Andean nation's considerable reserves. Iran
faces the threat of sanctions that could disrupt exports of its huge
gas and oil output. Other countries - notably Qatar and Australia - are
moving to boost LNG production and Japanese companies have signed deals
for more gas from Australia.

"Japan imported an estimated 58 million metric tons of LNG last year,
or about 41% of the world's total. It is expected to need about 69
million tons a year by 2011. Other countries, including the US and
China, are planning to build more LNG port terminals. Developers of
such terminals typically sign long-term supply agreements with gas
providers to ensure the facilities are fully utilized - so as more
terminals are developed demand should increase further.

In the same issue of The New York Times ("CNOOC Raises Nearly $2
Billion to Fuel Expansion") Shai Oster and Keri Geiger report: "Cnooc
Ltd. has taken advantage of high oil prices by raising nearly $2
billion in a share placement to fund its expansion, which includes
exploring for oil in Nigeria and natural gas in Australia.

"The placement was announced just as the Chinese President Hu Jintao
signed a raft of agreements with the Nigerian government during his
trip to the African nation Wednesday. The deals include Beijing's
commitment to invest $4 billion in infrastructure in exchange for four
oil-drilling licences in Nigeria. The format of infrastructure
commitment for drilling participation that Mr. Putin has been pushing
to the highest levels, is becoming increasingly prominent all down the
feeding line - reflecting the stronger bargaining power of the host
countries.

"Cnooc, China's largest offshore oil company by production, is
aggressively pursuing international expansion. Last week, Cnooc
announced it had completed the $2.7 billion purchase of a 45% stake in
a Nigerian oil field. Earlier in April it bought a 25% stake in an
Australian natural-gas exploration project with BHP Billiton Ltd.
China's demand is among the fastest growing in the world and it has
overtaken Japan to be the second-biggest user of oil, after the US.
China depends on imports, largely from the Middle East and Africa, for
more than a third of its oil needs. The pact signed by Mr. Hu calls for
China to buy a controlling stake in Nigeria's 110,000-barrel-a-day
Kaduna refinery and to build a railroad, power stations, cement
factory, housing and shopping malls. In exchange, Nigeria will offer
right of first refusal to state-run China National Petroleum Corp. on
four oil-exploration blocks in a licensing round to be held in May.

New Channels Opening to the East

The deal was set after Mr. Hu visited Saudi Arabia, one of China's
biggest suppliers of oil. The New York Times (23/04, "Avoiding
Political Talk, Saudis and Chinese Build Trade" by Hassan M. Fattah)
reports: "As President Hu Jintao of China made his first state visit to
Saudi Arabia yesterday, his arrival offered the latest sign of shifting
winds across the oil-rich Gulf region. China has grown as a major
market for oil, and Arab states have begun turning to it as an
alternative to the US and Europe.

" 'We are opening new channels, we are heading east,' said Prince Walid
bin Talai, a billionaire investor and member of the royal family.
'China is a big consumer of oil. Saudi Arabia needs to open new
channels beyond the West. So this is good for both of us.'

"Part of what makes China especially attractive for Saudis is a
hands-off approach to domestic policy. Discussions with the Chinese
focus on economics and rarely on politics, businessmen say. China can
sell technology without the encumbrance of requirements for
Congressional or parliamentary approval.

" 'With the Chinese there are no strings attached,' said Gai Laft,
co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. 'They
don't talk to you about democracy or reform. They give money, the
Saudis give oil and there are no hidden agendas. The Saudis find those
kinds of relationships more appealing.'

"Saudi oil sales to China have more than doubled in recent years, when
King Abdullah visited Beijing. They now account for almost 17% of
China's oil imports. 'Strained relations with the US since the
September 11 terrorist attacks also pushed Saudi interest toward China,
where businessmen can travel without waiting months for a visa, as they
do to visit the US,' said Omar Bahlaiwa, secretary-general for the
Committee for International Trade, a branch of the Saudi Chamber of
Commerce.

"And the recent outcry from Congress and the American public over the
possibility of having ports controlled by a company in Dubai sent a
loud message to the Arab world.

"China's growing technological and military prowess only adds to the
interest. Now, if the US balks at offering modern weaponry to the
Saudis, China would again be a logical source."

And for the chorus, the Saudi sources join in with a conclusion that
will be familiar to ER readers: " 'Things have changed because there
has been a shake-up in the balance of power,' said Muhammad Bin
Huweiden, a political science professor at Emirates University in the
United Arab Emirates who researched Chinese-Arab relations. 'With the
growing power of the Shia, and Iran, Saudi Arabia has felt cornered and
it has begun to look eastward. They are betting that the balance of
power may be achieved again by going to the Chinese.' Of course, an
even greater power shift has resulted from the erosion of Washington's
overworked role as lone superpower. ####

(3) Treasury Gold Sale Threw Away Billions

Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 03:02:17 +0100 From: Rowan Berkeley
<rowan.berkeley@googlemail.com>

Labour's sale of half the Bank of England's reserves to invest in euro
and yen was 'impatient' and 'badly timed'

By Jason Niss�, Independent, London, May 14, 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article422920.ece

Gold hit record highs on Friday, raising the cost of Gordon Brown's
decision to sell half of the UK's reserves to more than $6.5 billion
(�3.4 billion). Between 1999 and 2002 the Chancellor made the Treasury
sell 395 tons of gold -- around 50 percent of the reserves held by the
Bank of England -- taking in $3.5 billion. This was re-invested in
foreign currencies including the euro and the yen. During the sale, the
move was criticised for its bad timing and its potentially political
motivation, allegedly supporting the weak single currency in its
difficult early days. At the time, however, Mr Brown defended the move
as diversifying the UK's reserves, and he pressed for the International
Monetary Fund to follow suit. He was criticised by the then head of the
World Gold Council, Haruko Fukuda, who said: "Gold has been held as a
reserve for thousands of years."

The rise in the value of gold since then has led to further questions
over the strategy and its execution. On Friday the gold price was
$725.75 in London, a record high, having gone up more than 60 per cent
in the past year. Its rise has come along with a general commodities
boom and has been pushed by demand from India. At this price, the 395
tons of gold would be worth $10.1 billion -- nearly three times the
amount the Chancellor banked when he sold it. "The Treasury's
impatience over timing has been very costly," said Vince Cable, the
Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman. The $6.6 billion difference
between today's price and the amount the Treasury received does not
represent pure losses for the British taxpayer. Much of the money was
invested in euros and the yen. The euro has risen over 10 percent
against sterling in the period, and the yen by nearly 25 percent.
However, even if the Treasury had invested in both currencies at the
right time, the losses from the gold selloff would be approaching $6
billion. This is the equivalent of at least 1 percent off income tax in
one year, and is more than four times the �750 million deficit in the
National Health Service budget that is leading to wide-scale cuts at
hospitals up and down the country. The Treasury is adamant that the
selloff was the right thing to do. "Anyone can use hindsight to say
there was a better time to sell, but no one argues that it was the
wrong thing to do," said a source close to the Chancellor.

(4) Iran to replace dollar with euro as oil currency

Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 04:13:28 +0100 From: Rowan Berkeley
<rowan.berkeley@googlemail.com>

Iran: Euro to replace dollar as oil currency

Forex, May 14, 2006
http://www.middleeastforex.com/index.php?section=215

In July Iran will ditch the dollar in favour of the euro as the
currency in which it will accept payments for its oil and natural gas
exports, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Friday. The
switch, first mooted months ago, was expected but Ahmadinejad's
decision comes just as Washington is stepping up pressure on other
United Nations Security Council members to act against Tehran for
flouting agreements taken with the UN's nuclear watchdog. Ahmadinejad's
announcement, made in Baku, Azerbaijan where the Iranian leader is
attending a regional economics conference, appears aimed at weakening
the United States' resolve to seek sanctions against Iran if it does
not comply with the UN International Agency for Atomic Energy's
demands. Some observers beleive the Iranian move could deal a severe
blow the the American currency as many central banks from oil importing
nations could choose to stock up their currency reserves with euros
rather than dollars- AKI.

(5) A future with no bananas?

Date: Sat, 13 May 2006 19:34:19 EDT From: ECONORTH@aol.com A future
with no bananas?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9152-a-future-with-no-bananas.html
Go bananas while you still can. The world's most popular fruit and the
fourth most important food crop of any sort is in deep trouble. Its
genetic base, the wild bananas and traditional varieties cultivated in
India, has collapsed.

Virtually all bananas traded internationally are of a single variety,
the Cavendish, the genetic roots of which lie in India. Three years
ago, New Scientist revealed that the world Cavendish crop was
threatened by pandemics of diseases such as that caused by the black
sigatoka fungus. The main hope for survival of the Cavendish lies in
developing new hybrids resistant to the fungus, but this is a difficult
and time-consuming task because the seedless modern fruit does not
reproduce sexually and has to be bred from cuttings.

Now the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that wild
banana species are rapidly going extinct as Indian forests are
destroyed, while many traditional farmers' varieties are also
disappearing. It could take a global effort to save the bananas' gene
pool.

In fact many of the genes that could save the Cavendish may already
have been lost, says NeBambi Lutaladio, a plant scientist at the FAO's
headquarters in Rome, Italy. One variety that contains genes that
resist black sigatoka survives as a single plant in the botanical
gardens of Calcutta, he says.

(6) Employers using illegal immigration to drive wages down

Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 14:08:40 EDT From: ECONORTH@aol.com

The PC Rampage and its Consequences for Public Dialog

http://www.populistamerica.com/the_pc_rampage_and_its_consequences_fo-
r_public_dialog

April 6, 2006

by Russell Cole

I feel compelled to continue to plead for a dialog concerning illegal
immigration that extends beyond the bombastic PC oratory that is
projected, oftentimes, by members of American society that do not
suffer from the economic impact that the constant influx of cheap labor
manifests.

Economists, as they always do in respect to contentious issues, have
taken a manifold of positions regarding the benefits or detriments of
illegal immigration. However, I can state that the economists who
support the opening of the border with Mexico appear to deploy
justifications, such as, immigrant labor forces those without
highschool degrees to further their education, so to ascend to
employment niches that require technical skills, and, accordingly, pay
better.

This type of rationalization on the part of those who advocate an
open-border with Mexico seems to me, at least, to be as callous, if not
more so, than those who want to establish legislation, making illegal
immigration a felony. To compound the effects of this rhetoric upon
popular-opinion, media sources are parading small to middle sized
business owners, who claim that they would not have a work force
without a stream of temporary labor.

Never do the interviewers query the petite capitalists as to the amount
of income that they extract from their operations on a yearly basis, in
order to assess whether a rather severe reduction of the profiteering
conducted by the owners of the modes of production might provide for
the opportunity to attract American citizens to assume these labor
capacities by offering a living-wage. Therefore, from the failure to
disclose such pertinent information, the population is proffered a
tilted narration, including only limited content, in regards to the
multiplicity of aspects that demand consideration, when externalizing
the experiences of the people who stand to either profit from an
open-border or descend deeper into financial distitude.

Further, not once have I observed an interview with a member of the
African-American urban communities, in order to reveal the negative
effects that this constant injection of bodies into the unskilled
labor-market has upon their earning potential as well as their ability
to even procure a job. I, over the years, have worked in various
warehouses, as a teamster, and I can testify, from my own experiences,
that the individuals who take these jobs have families consisting of
dependents, and so forth.

This is why I become infuriated when I read yet another inflammatory
essay by a member of the New-left establishment who claims that any
opposition to illegal immigration is an embodiment of a racist,
white-supremacist ideology. What do these people know about the effects
of illegal immigration? They exist outside the deplorable conditions in
which the people, who must compete with this continuous exportation of
another country's underclass, live.

Additionally, the rhetoric, consisting of platitudes and hyberbole,
espoused by these brave defenders of illegal immigration, who have
nothing personally to lose, are conspicuously absent of empirical
content. Rather, this discourse consists of ridiculous generalizations
that reduce the complexity of this issue into a dichotomy between those
who embrace multi-culturalism and diversity and those who are
reactionary in the sense that they are endeavoring to preserve some
crystallized conceptualization of American culture, which, as most of
us who side with the American wage-earner, know not to exist in the
first place.

This issue should have nothing to do with cultural or ethnic
considerations. Quite simply - and it would be ostensible, as well, if
not for the obfuscating discourse emanating from brave,
white-middle-class activists who triumphantly blow their horns of
self-righteousness - this social-problem is comprised of multiple
concerns; one of which is the plight of the American wage-earner and
his or her further exploitation resulting from the strange marriage
between the New-left and the neo-conservatives, who chime in harmony as
they advocate a policy that will further saturate the American labor
market, allowing both the Mexican elites and the American
corporate-elites to continue to fill their pockets.

Russell Cole [send him email] is a contributing author to the Populist
Party of America, and is the coordinator for the Populist Party's
Midwest Alliance, the Midwest Populist Party. Read more from Russell
Cole at the Midwest Populist Party blog.

-- Peter Myers, 381 Goodwood Rd, Childers 4660, Australia ph +61 7
41262296 http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers Mirror:
http://mailstar.net/index.html I use the old Mac OS; being
incompatible, it cannot run Windows viruses or transmit them to you. If
my mail does not arrive, or yours bounces, please ring me: this helps
beat sabotage. To unsubscribe, reply with "unsubscribe" in the subject
line; allow 1 day.

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 7
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Mon May 15, 2006 8:13pm(PDT)
Subject: Fw: Israel to act alone against Iran -=- China's buying of oil conce

From: "Peter Myers" <myers@cyberone.com.au>

May 13, 2006

(1) "EU should defend Israel's borders"
(2) Israel to act alone against Iran
(3) NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls
(4) China's buying of oil concessions in Latin America alarms US

(1) "EU should defend Israel's borders"

Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 18:08:13 -0700 From: Jeff Blankfort
<jblankfort@earthlink.net>

"Many countries in the United Nations are not interested in Israel's security.
It should be the responsibility of the UN Security Council and Europe to place
this issue again on the agenda of the United Nations. That this does not happen
demonstrates once again that there is no common European foreign policy.,,

""A European security guarantee for Israel must be part of such a privileged
partnership. That means the EU should defend Israel's borders whenever
necessary..."

HILDEGARD MULLER, member of the German Bundestag, representing D�sseldorf. She
is chair of the German-Israeli Parliamentary Friendship Group and a member of
the presidium of the rightwing Christian Democratic Union

http://www.jcpa.org/israel-europe/ier-muller-05.htm

(2) Israel to act alone against Iran

"Israeli plans for Ballistic Missile strike on Iranian nuclear facilities"

http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20060511-082820-9117r

Nightmare

By Arnaud de Borchgrave THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published May 12, 2006

All indications are that Israel does not plan to rely on either the U.N. or the
United States. Vice President Dick Cheney said 18 months ago, "The Israelis may
well decide to act first and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up
the diplomatic mess afterwards."

At Israel's National Day reception in Washington last week, an Israeli official,
speaking privately and not for attribution said he believed Israel would strike
first in the next "month or two or three" and that fighter bombers would not be
involved as they were to take out Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor before it went
critical in 1981. For Osirak, Israel used 14 F-15s and F-16s. This time, the
Israeli said, it will be missiles. Cruise missiles?, we inquired. No, he
replied, with a gesture of his hand that went up and down again.

What about pinpointing tunnel entrances to widely scattered Iranian nuclear
facilities? The Israeli responded Israel has its own geo-stationary
spy-in-the-sky satellite taking constant pictures of Iran with a resolution down
to 70 centimeters: "We know far more than anyone realizes."

Israel has developed some 100 Jericho-II medium-range ballistic missiles (which
entered service in 1989). Jericho II's range varies from 1,500 to 3,500
kilometers, depending on payload weight. They are deployed in underground caves
and silos.

Israel has several satellites in orbit -- Ofeq-1 through Ofeq-5 -- that were
launched by Shavit space launch vehicles (SLV). The first two stages of the
Shavit were Jericho II missiles. There are unconfirmed reports of an upgraded
Jericho-3 missile with a range of over 3,000 kilometers.

For world opinion, rightly or wrongly, Israeli action against Iran could not
take place without a green light from the White House. This wasn't the case when
Israel vaporized Iraq's Osirak reactor June 7, 1981, at the height of the
Iran-Iraq War. The Reagan White House said, "The U.S. government condemns the
Israeli air strike... the unprecedented character of which cannot but seriously
add to the already tense situation in the area." Most other countries denounced
Israel. It was the world's first air strike against a nuclear plant.

Ten years later, then-Defense Secretary Cheney gave Israeli Air Force chief a
satellite picture of the destroyed Osirak reactor inscribed, "For Gen. David
Ivry, with thanks and appreciation for the outstanding job he did on the Iraqi
Nuclear Program in 1981, which made our job much easier in Desert Storm."

Nonproliferation expert Joseph Cirincione reminds us the raid was also
controversial in Israel. Half the Cabinet opposed bombing. The chief of Israeli
Defense Force intelligence, Yehoshua Saguy, argued Israel should continue to
seek a nonmilitary solution as it would take Iraq five to 10 years to produce
the material for a nuclear weapon. Prime Minister Menachem Begin finally opted
for the worst-case estimate of one-year and gave the order to bomb.

Interestingly enough, the raid did not retard but actually accelerated Saddam
Hussein's program. Iraqi scientists debriefed since Saddam was overthrown say he
had planned to slowly divert plutonium from the reactor, which was under
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. The diversion plan,
explain the specialists, might have escaped detection but would have taken even
longer than the 10 years estimated by Mr. Seguy.

Following the Israeli raid, Saddam, now obsessed, launched a secret underground
program with some 7,000 assigned to produce weapons-grade uranium. Even the 43
days of U.S. bombing of Iraq in January and February 1991, that preceded the
liberation of Kuwait, did not destroy Saddam's hardened underground nuclear
sites. That was achieved after the Gulf war -- by U.N. teams. Since the
mid-1990s, there was nothing left to destroy. But Saddam kept on equivocating as
he wanted Iran to believe he still had some nukes to discourage his rival from
settling scores in his moment of weakness.

The strategic deception worked ? in Washington.

This time Iran has clearly signaled a casus belli to Israel. When President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declares he intends to wipe Israel off the map and then goes
to sea in a sieve by declaring the Holocaust a fiction, it is hard to escape the
conclusion he wants Israel to bomb Iran.

A religious fanatic who believes the return of the 12th imam to Earth will be
preceded by global death and destruction in his own lifetime, Mr. Ahmadinejad
presumably sees an Israeli and/or U.S. attack against Iran closing Muslim ranks
the world over against the imperialist infidels.

The State Department's top proliferation official said the administration is
determined to ensure "not one centrifuge spins in Iran." Israel is certainly
poised to stop the spinning.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called Mr. Ahmadinejad a "psychopath who
speaks like Hitler before taking power." And Israel is not about to succumb to
the appeasement of the 1930s. Or allow a suddenly conciliatory letter from Mr.
Ahmadinejad to Mr. Bush to alter Israel's view of mortal peril to its survival.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United
Press International.

(3) NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls

Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 10:24:57 -0400 From: Don <NX7933@hotmail.com>

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-11-nsa-reax_x.htm
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1961290,00.asp
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1926571,00.asp

By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records
of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and
BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing
information about the calls of ordinary Americans - most of whom aren't
suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or
recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling
patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate
interviews.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: The NSA record collection program

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who,
like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be
identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of
every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.

For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed
records of calls they made - across town or across the country - to family
members, co-workers, business contacts and others.

The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA,
which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,
the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying and tracking suspected
terrorists, they said.

The sources would talk only under a guarantee of anonymity because the NSA
program is secret.

Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, nominated Monday by President Bush to become the
director of the CIA, headed the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005. In that post,
Hayden would have overseen the agency's domestic call-tracking program. Hayden
declined to comment about the program.

The NSA's domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than
what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized
the NSA to eavesdrop - without warrants - on international calls and
international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one
party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in
the NSA's efforts to create a national call database.

In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was
focused exclusively on international calls. "In other words," Bush explained,
"one end of the communication must be outside the United States."

As a result, domestic call records - those of calls that originate and terminate
within U.S. borders - were believed to be private.

Sources, however, say that is not the case. With access to records of billions
of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications
habits of millions of Americans. Customers' names, street addresses and other
personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA's domestic
program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be
cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.

Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, declined to discuss the agency's
operations. "Given the nature of the work we do, it would be irresponsible to
comment on actual or alleged operational issues; therefore, we have no
information to provide," he said. "However, it is important to note that NSA
takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the law."

The White House would not discuss the domestic call-tracking program. "There is
no domestic surveillance without court approval," said Dana Perino, deputy press
secretary, referring to actual eavesdropping.

She added that all national intelligence activities undertaken by the federal
government "are lawful, necessary and required for the pursuit of al-Qaeda and
affiliated terrorists." All government-sponsored intelligence activities "are
carefully reviewed and monitored," Perino said. She also noted that "all
appropriate members of Congress have been briefed on the intelligence efforts of
the United States."

The government is collecting "external" data on domestic phone calls but is not
intercepting "internals," a term for the actual content of the communication,
according to a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the program. This kind
of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; it's been done before,
though never on this large a scale, the official said. The data are used for
"social network analysis," the official said, meaning to study how terrorist
networks contact each other and how they are tied together.

Carriers uniquely positioned

AT&T recently merged with SBC and kept the AT&T name. Verizon, BellSouth and
AT&T are the nation's three biggest telecommunications companies; they provide
local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers.

The three carriers control vast networks with the latest communications
technologies. They provide an array of services: local and long-distance
calling, wireless and high-speed broadband, including video. Their direct access
to millions of homes and businesses has them uniquely positioned to help the
government keep tabs on the calling habits of Americans.

Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the
NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to
participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over
customer information to the government without warrants.

Qwest's refusal to participate has left the NSA with a hole in its database.
Based in Denver, Qwest provides local phone service to 14 million customers in
14 states in the West and Northwest. But AT&T and Verizon also provide some
services - primarily long-distance and wireless - to people who live in Qwest's
region. Therefore, they can provide the NSA with at least some access in that
area.

Created by President Truman in 1952, during the Korean War, the NSA is charged
with protecting the United States from foreign security threats. The agency was
considered so secret that for years the government refused to even confirm its
existence. Government insiders used to joke that NSA stood for "No Such Agency."

In 1975, a congressional investigation revealed that the NSA had been
intercepting, without warrants, international communications for more than 20
years at the behest of the CIA and other agencies. The spy campaign, code-named
"Shamrock," led to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was
designed to protect Americans from illegal eavesdropping.

Enacted in 1978, FISA lays out procedures that the U.S. government must follow
to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches of people believed to
be engaged in espionage or international terrorism against the United States. A
special court, which has 11 members, is responsible for adjudicating requests
under FISA.

Over the years, NSA code-cracking techniques have continued to improve along
with technology. The agency today is considered expert in the practice of "data
mining" - sifting through reams of information in search of patterns. Data
mining is just one of many tools NSA analysts and mathematicians use to crack
codes and track international communications.

Paul Butler, a former U.S. prosecutor who specialized in terrorism crimes, said
FISA approval generally isn't necessary for government data-mining operations.
"FISA does not prohibit the government from doing data mining," said Butler, now
a partner with the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Washington, D.C.

The caveat, he said, is that "personal identifiers" - such as names, Social
Security numbers and street addresses - can't be included as part of the search.
"That requires an additional level of probable cause," he said.

The usefulness of the NSA's domestic phone-call database as a counterterrorism
tool is unclear. Also unclear is whether the database has been used for other
purposes.

The NSA's domestic program raises legal questions. Historically, AT&T and the
regional phone companies have required law enforcement agencies to present a
court order before they would even consider turning over a customer's calling
data. Part of that owed to the personality of the old Bell Telephone System, out
of which those companies grew.

Ma Bell's bedrock principle - protection of the customer - guided the company
for decades, said Gene Kimmelman, senior public policy director of Consumers
Union. "No court order, no customer information - period. That's how it was for
decades," he said.

The concern for the customer was also based on law: Under Section 222 of the
Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are prohibited
from giving out information regarding their customers' calling habits: whom a
person calls, how often and what routes those calls take to reach their final
destination. Inbound calls, as well as wireless calls, also are covered.

The financial penalties for violating Section 222, one of many privacy
reinforcements that have been added to the law over the years, can be stiff. The
Federal Communications Commission, the nation's top telecommunications
regulatory agency, can levy fines of up to $130,000 per day per violation, with
a cap of $1.325 million per violation. The FCC has no hard definition of
"violation." In practice, that means a single "violation" could cover one
customer or 1 million.

In the case of the NSA's international call-tracking program, Bush signed an
executive order allowing the NSA to engage in eavesdropping without a warrant.
The president and his representatives have since argued that an executive order
was sufficient for the agency to proceed. Some civil liberties groups, including
the American Civil Liberties Union, disagree.

Companies approached

The NSA's domestic program began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to
the sources. Right around that time, they said, NSA representatives approached
the nation's biggest telecommunications companies. The agency made an urgent
pitch: National security is at risk, and we need your help to protect the
country from attacks.

The agency told the companies that it wanted them to turn over their
"call-detail records," a complete listing of the calling histories of their
millions of customers. In addition, the NSA wanted the carriers to provide
updates, which would enable the agency to keep tabs on the nation's calling
habits.

The sources said the NSA made clear that it was willing to pay for the
cooperation. AT&T, which at the time was headed by C. Michael Armstrong, agreed
to help the NSA. So did BellSouth, headed by F. Duane Ackerman; SBC, headed by
Ed Whitacre; and Verizon, headed by Ivan Seidenberg.

With that, the NSA's domestic program began in earnest.

AT&T, when asked about the program, replied with a comment prepared for USA
TODAY: "We do not comment on matters of national security, except to say that we
only assist law enforcement and government agencies charged with protecting
national security in strict accordance with the law."

In another prepared comment, BellSouth said: "BellSouth does not provide any
confidential customer information to the NSA or any governmental agency without
proper legal authority."

Verizon, the USA's No. 2 telecommunications company behind AT&T, gave this
statement: "We do not comment on national security matters, we act in full
compliance with the law and we are committed to safeguarding our customers'
privacy."

Qwest spokesman Robert Charlton said: "We can't talk about this. It's a
classified situation."

In December, The New York Times revealed that Bush had authorized the NSA to
wiretap, without warrants, international phone calls and e-mails that travel to
or from the USA. The following month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a
civil liberties group, filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T. The lawsuit
accuses the company of helping the NSA spy on U.S. phone customers.

Last month, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales alluded to that possibility.
Appearing at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Gonzales was asked whether he
thought the White House has the legal authority to monitor domestic traffic
without a warrant. Gonzales' reply: "I wouldn't rule it out." His comment marked
the first time a Bush appointee publicly asserted that the White House might
have that authority.

Similarities in programs

The domestic and international call-tracking programs have things in common,
according to the sources. Both are being conducted without warrants and without
the approval of the FISA court. The Bush administration has argued that FISA's
procedures are too slow in some cases. Officials, including Gonzales, also make
the case that the USA Patriot Act gives them broad authority to protect the
safety of the nation's citizens.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.,
would not confirm the existence of the program. In a statement, he said, "I can
say generally, however, that our subcommittee has been fully briefed on all
aspects of the Terrorist Surveillance Program. ... I remain convinced that the
program authorized by the president is lawful and absolutely necessary to
protect this nation from future attacks."

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.,
declined to comment.

One company differs

One major telecommunications company declined to participate in the program:
Qwest.

According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest's CEO at the time, Joe
Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA's assertion that Qwest didn't need a
court order - or approval under FISA - to proceed. Adding to the tension, Qwest
was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers' information
and how that information might be used.

Financial implications were also a concern, the sources said. Carriers that
illegally divulge calling information can be subjected to heavy fines. The NSA
was asking Qwest to turn over millions of records. The fines, in the aggregate,
could have been substantial.

The NSA told Qwest that other government agencies, including the FBI, CIA and
DEA, also might have access to the database, the sources said. As a matter of
practice, the NSA regularly shares its information - known as "product" in
intelligence circles - with other intelligence groups. Even so, Qwest's lawyers
were troubled by the expansiveness of the NSA request, the sources said.

The NSA, which needed Qwest's participation to completely cover the country,
pushed back hard.

Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that
it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also
tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative
suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise
national security, one person recalled.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its
ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big
telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped
to get more.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA
to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency
refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest)
they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person
recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion
of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A
second person confirmed this version of events.

In June 2002, Nacchio resigned amid allegations that he had misled investors
about Qwest's financial health. But Qwest's legal questions about the NSA
request remained.

Unable to reach agreement, Nacchio's successor, Richard Notebaert, finally
pulled the plug on the NSA talks in late 2004, the sources said.

(4) China's buying of oil concessions in Latin America alarms US

Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 19:32:45 -0400 From: "David Chiang"
<sino.economics@verizon.net>

U.S. worried about China's involvement in Americas
http://www.interfax.cn/showfeature.asp?aid=12759&slug=CHINA-ENERGY-CUBA-US-VENEZUELA

Shanghai. May 12. INTERFAX-CHINA - China's interest in exploring oil and gas on
Cuba's northwestern coast close to the Florida Keys has further raised the
concerns of the United States about the threat that China poses to U.S. energy
security.

China has been trying to boost its presence in the U.S. "backyard", sealing
deals with the left-wing governments of Venezuela and Bolivia, and buying up oil
concessions in Ecuador. It has also sought closer cooperation with Brazil in the
field of oil exploration.

The US, for its part, has expressed its opposition to China's global energy
strategy, claiming that China is not playing by the rules of the international
oil market and is seeking instead to "secure oil at the source".

While the government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has been openly seeking
alternative export markets in the face of U.S. opposition, Beijing has sought to
take advantage. Meanwhile, China's growing interest in Cuba has been aided by
the decades-long hostility towards the Castro regime in Washington.

The U.S. has been urged by Larry Craig, Republican Senator for Idaho, to
consider lifting the 43-year-old trade embargo on the Caribbean island to allow
US companies to participate in the development of oil resources. China, said
Craig in an address to the Senate last month, is "acquiring exclusive rights in
the emerging Cuban off-shore oil sector - thereby forever closing the door on
those resources to the U.S. industry and drastically impacting our foreign
policy in the region."

"We have hamstrung the U.S. energy sector from seeking additional resources in
the region," he added, "while at the same time allowing the likes of China,
Canada, Brazil, Spain, France, and others to freely seek energy opportunities 50
miles off our coast without competition from state of the art technologies and
expertise of our own U.S. gas and oil industries."

He said that potential reserves in the northern Cuban basin could amount to
between 4.6 bln and 9.3 bln barrels, according to a 2005 U.S. Geological Survey
report.

Despite criticisms from the US, the Chinese approach is simple. Acquisitions or
joint exploration deals struck with foreign governments are "normal commercial
practices", and the US, among others, is guilty of "politicizing" the issue.

"We should not politicize the normal trade cooperation [between China and
Cuba]," Fu Mengzi, the director of the U.S. Research Department of China
Institute of Contemporary International Relations, told Interfax on Thursday.

"It's necessary for China to strengthen cooperation with Latin American
countries as it rapidly develops its economy," said Fu.

In February last year, the Cuban President Fidel Castro announced that Chinese
drilling rigs would be used to further explore areas that had been identified by
a Spanish company as promising. The Cuban government also signed a contract with
Sinopec, China's second largest oil developer, to join the Cuba Oil Corporation
(Cubapetroleo) to prospect for oil in a 1,700 sq km block to the north of the
province of Pinar del Rio.

The Shengli Oilfield Company, Sinopec's largest oil producing unit, will be
responsible for the prospecting and the two partners will share production after
commercial operations begin.

Senator Craig told his colleagues on April 26 that US is jeopardizing its energy
security by not letting US oil companies explore potential sources in Cuba.
China, already the world's second largest energy consumer, "is using this area
off our coast as a strategic commodities reserve," said Craig.

Fu Mengzi disagrees with Craig's assessment. "The competition between China and
the U.S. in energy is not really a matter that 'you get more and I lose more',
even though China's impact on the world energy market is growing due to the
rapid economic development," said Fu.

As the top two energy consumers in the world, China and U.S. do have more common
interests than conflicts, and "we should enhance mutual trust," said Fu.

Venezuela to buy 18 oil vessels from China

China's increasing cooperation with Venezuela has already set alarm bells
ringing in Washington.

China has been hoping to strengthen its position in Latin America, cultivating
its links with the region's biggest oil producer, Venezuela, and also signing
pacts with the newly-elected left-wing government of Evo Morales in Bolivia.

Venezuela has been a particular bugbear for the United States, with its
outspoken President Hugo Chavez openly discussing the idea of diverting oil
exports from the US to China.

Plans are underway to construct a pipeline through neighboring Columbia,
allowing oil shipments to bypass the Panama Canal and shifted across the Pacific
Ocean.

Recently, PDVSA, Venezuela's state oil company, signed two cooperation
agreements with the China State Shipbuilding Corporation and the China National
United Oil Corporation, a branch of CNPC, the country's largest oil company.

PDVSA signed a memorandum of understanding with the China State Shipbuilding
Corporation to buy 18 ships to optimize the marine transportation of crude and
its derivatives to the expanding Asian market during the recent visit of its
officials to the Beijing company, said PDVSA on Wednesday.

PDVSA is trying to diversify its markets, and it expects to increase the
proportion of crude exported to Asia from the current 15% to 45% by 2012, the
company said.

The oil tanker deal will involve an investment of USD 1.3 bln and the agreement
also proposed that the Chinese shipbuilding company will help PDVSA with
personnel training in technologies.

During the visit, PDVSA also signed an agreement with the CNPC unit to form a
strategic alliance to boost crude exports to the Asian continent.

The Hugo Chavez government has been keen on cultivating a closer relationship
with China in order to seek to ease its dependence on the United States market.

CNPC sealed two oil supply agreements with PDVSA last November. According to the
deals, the Chinese oil monopoly will receive 100,000 barrels of heavy crude and
60,000 barrels of fuel oil per day from the Venezuelan company over the next two
years.

Venezuela has promised to supply 300,000 barrels of oil to China on a daily
basis

--
Peter Myers, 381 Goodwood Rd, Childers 4660, Australia ph +61 7 41262296
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers Mirror: http://mailstar.net/index.html I
use the old Mac OS; being incompatible, it cannot run Windows viruses or
transmit them to you. If my mail does not arrive, or yours bounces, please ring
me: this helps beat sabotage. To unsubscribe, reply with "unsubscribe" in the
subject line; allow 1 day.

________________________________________________________________________
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Message 8
From: "ranger116@webtv.net" ranger116@webtv.net
Date: Mon May 15, 2006 8:54pm(PDT)
Subject: Bush / Cheney Reform bill to double Legal immigration numbers + + +

Bush / Cheney Reform bill to double Legal immigration numbers + + +

Bush / Cheney Reform bill to double Legal immigration numbers and vastly
reduce skill level requirements (Expect minimum wage to be lowered soon)

(THANKS AGAIN GEORGE AND DICK !)�
�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper
Address:http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060515-122825-2467r.htm

``````````````````````````````````````````````
Bush budget scraps 9,790 border patrol agents / President uses law's
escape clause to drop funding for new homeland security force
Address:http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/02/09/MNGOKB837T1.DTL

``````````````````````````````````````````````
Why NORAD Interceptors Couldn't Catch Those 911 Boeings
Address:http://www.rense.com/general71/catch.htm

``````````````````````````````````````````````
That's all we need !
�We are not overcrowded enough here ! ?
����With Puerto Rico's economy in tatters, many consider moving
to South Florida
Address:http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/nation/14577930.htm

``````````````````````````````````````````````
CIA Spying on ABC
Address:http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/

``````````````````````````````````````````````
����Enjoy your nine dollars
From this week's Republican Tax Cuts
���The Washington Post ran an interesting chart this week that
every Democrat should memorize.
��������It shows your annual savings under the latest
Republican tax cut.
��Here are the figures
$10,000-$20,000: $2
$20,000-$30,000: $9
$30,000-$40,000: $16
$40,000-$50,000: $46
$50,000-$75,000: $100
$75,000-$100,000: $403
$100,000-$200,000: $1,388
$200,000-$500,000: $4,499
$500,000-$1 million: $5,562
More than $1 million: $41,977
����According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median income in the
United States is $44,389. Math has never been my biggest skill, but I
know what "median" means: half fall above, half below. I am aware that
the median may not be the best instrument to use here, because a
relatively small number of super-high earners skew the data. But no
matter how you slice this, most people are getting crumbs. As The Post
noted:
��������Middle-income households would receive an
average tax cut of $20 from the agreement, according to the joint Urban
Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, while 0.02 percent of
households with incomes over $1 million would receive average tax cuts
of $42,000.
����������The bottom line is, the Republicans just
offered huge numbers of taxpayers an annual savings of $2 to $46.
Considering that people scoffed at a $100 gas rebate, this should be
more than enough to make their blood boil anew.
������Let's put aside the wisdom of cutting taxes at a time
of record deficits. Let's put aside the question of straddling our
children and grandchildren with more debt. Let's just look at what is
being offered here. Then let's demagogue until the cows come home.
������It's high time for some good old-fashioned class
warfare. The ads write themselves:
������"The Republicans just bought all of their friends a
shiny new car or a fancy fishing boat.
������You got a fast-food meal. Enjoy your nine dollars."
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/

``````````````````````````````````````````````A
free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should
have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence
from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own
government." -- George Washington

``````````````````````````````````````````````
``````````````````````````````````````````````
List of all amendments to the United States Constitution - Passed and
unpassed
Address:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution

``````````````````````````````````````````````
The CRIME That Covered-Up The Coup
( Read it and Weep - Then get Out and Do Something )
Address:http://www.rense.com/general71/crime.htm

``````````````````````````````````````````````

________________________________________________________________________
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Message 9
From: "Naveed" flanker12k@yahoo.com
Date: Mon May 15, 2006 10:48pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Scott Durr says "Please quit with the Jew thing," Yaacov David

scott durr smells like a disinfo dude

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
- Notebook, 1904

http://www.fightthenwo.org/

----- Original Message ----
From: Dick Eastman <olfriend@nwinfo.net>
To: Undisclosed-Recipient@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2006 7:14:56 PM
Subject: [911TruthAction] Scott Durr says "Please quit with the Jew thing," Yaacov David Ben Shmuel's reply

From: "jewish_from_brooklyn" <jewish_from_brooklyn@yahoo.com>
To: <911_free_discussion@yahoogroups.com>

>> Please quit with the Jew thing,

Just about every key decision-making position is currently being occupied
by Jews and/or Jewish Zionist sympathizers,

Are we supposed to ignore this curious fact ?

Let's assume for a moment that instead of Jews, they were Arabs, and that
US soldiers were killing Israeli citizens while under the command of Muslims.

Do you suppose that it would be irrelevant if THAT were the case ?

Let's not forget those 19 alleged Arabic highjackers and how they provided
justification for a full-scale US invasion of the Muslim world, and how they
provided a virtual carte blanche for military action by the United States
... culminating in the complete destruction of Muslim cities such as Fallujah
and Najaf by proxy forces operating under the command of civilian overlords
with known Zionist sympathies and professional credentials.

We can kill Arabs at the drop of a dime, but we dare not point out the
professional associations and the Zionist sympathies of powerful government
officials.

Are you trying to say that it's irrelevant or perhaps that it's even "taboo" to
point out the Zionist sympathies of people who occupy powerful positions
in the government and in the controlled newsmedia ?

Yaacov David Ben Shmuel. "You can't bullshit this old Jewish dude."

YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS

Visit your group "911TruthAction" on the web.

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
911TruthAction-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

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Message 10
From: "kattmanduu" kattmann@valornet.com
Date: Tue May 16, 2006 1:34am(PDT)
Subject: Divide and conquer

That is the prime strategy of this gang of wannabe's who think they
are in charge. They will apply it everywhere they can to reduce the
resistance from the masses. This group is also a threat to them. If we
the people actually stood up enmass against this regime, they will
panic and call for martial law. Why do you think they are going to put
the national guard on the southern borders? It's not to keep the
people out, but to hold us here when the feces hits the osolating device.
The zionist's from Israel who moved here and gained control of many
major corps and hold high places in our government are just using our
forces to fight the enemies that Israel has made since it's beginning.
If you want to support Israel, move there. Don't come here and take
our jobs and send the money to support a Nazi style government.
Everyone who is not of their religion is less human to them. And treat
them like 3rd class citizens. Isn't ego a sin? Bush is a faux
christian, he gives the religion a bad name. He is just using
christians for cannon fodder and monitary gain, and to keep the
powerbase in his camp. It's all about world domination now, not just
the US, we will be their tools to try to take over. NWO!! Just an
observation of the group, thanks.. KATT

________________________________________________________________________
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Message 11
From: "John Perna" savefreedom2005@yahoo.com
Date: Tue May 16, 2006 3:07am(PDT)
Subject: Signs of tyranny looming

Signs of tyranny looming

If you don't have 15 minutes to look this over, someday when you
have the time and not the content, you'll wish you had.

"The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people."
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

If you don't want to read all the evidence, scroll all the way down
and follow the 2 links for this imperative information.

PRE-SCRIPT When the time comes it will be imperative that you stand
up for what you believe in. What are you going to do? I understand
it is easy to be lazy about these things in the present. When
circumstances become apparent you must not be lazy. Our brethren
and posterity are going ask more from our young generation than have
been demanded from any previous American generations. When the time
comes,know your Rights, be prepared to Act, and expect to do your
part.

On July 5, 1987 the front page of the Miami Herald Newspaper carried
a now famous article describing White House plans to:

A.) DECLARE AN UNDEFINED "NATIONAL EMERGENCY,"
B.) RE-OPEN CONCENTRATION CAMPS FOR PREVENTIVE DETENTION OF LEGAL
DISSIDENTS CERTAIN ETHNIC GROUPS, AND
C.)LEGALLY SUSPEND OUR UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION

On August 14, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft was called
a "menace to Liberty" by Jonathan Turley, in the Los Angeles Times,
for announcing his desire for camps for U.S. citizens he
deems "enemy combatants."

Under the Justice Department's new definition of "enemy combatant"�
which won the enthusiastic approval of the president and Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld�anyone defined as an "enemy combatant,"
very much including American citizens, can be held indefinitely by
the government, without charges, a hearing, or a lawyer. In short,
incommunicado.

On August 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that "the Goose Creek,
South Carolina, facility now has a special wing that could be used
to jail U.S. citizens if the government were to deem them enemy
combatants," a senior administration official said.

The Rex-84 Alpha Explan (Readiness Exercise 1984, Exercise Plan)
showed that FEMA leads 34 other federal agencies, including CIA,
FBI, and U.S. Treasury, in a massive civil readiness exercise.
In 1983, at the annual meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice
Sciences, FEMA's General Frank S. Salcedo recommended expanding
FEMA's power even further. As he saw it at least 100,000 U.S.
citizens, from survivalists to tax protesters, were serious threats
to civil security.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Garden_Plot

Operation: Urban Warrior. US Marines Training with Foreign Troops in
Mock Martial Law Practices Including Disarming American Citizens
Portrayed by Actors and Placing Them in Concentration Camps.During
the urban combat phase of Operation Urban Warrior, U.S. Marines take
cover and move out in Oakland, Calif., March 16.

It was announced recently that Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown
and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland
Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the
event of a national emergency.

In 2002, FEMA sought bids from major real estate and engineering
firms to construct giant internment facilities in the case of a
chemical, biological or nuclear attack or a natural disaster.

Okanogan County Commissioner Dave Schulz went public three years ago
with his contention that his county was home of a modern day
internment camp.

When Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) read a story widely circulated in
the U.S. press in 2003 entitled "Foundations Are in Place for
Martial Law in the United States," he became so alarmed that he gave
a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on the
topic.

In a revealing admission the Director of Resource Management for the
U.S. Army confirmed the validity of a memorandum relating to the
establishment of a civilian inmate labor program under development
by the Department of the Army.

The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, passed in response to abuses by
federal troops in the South after the Civil War, prohibits the use
of the military "to execute the laws" of the U.S. That's been widely
interpreted as a ban on searching, arresting or spying on U.S.
civilians by federal troops.

Northcom's commander, Gen. Ralph "Ed" Eberhart, is the first general
since the Civil War with operational authority exclusively over
military forces within the U.S.

Northcom is doing more than mere coordinating. "Under the banner
of 'homeland security', the military and intelligence communities
are implementing far-reaching changes that blur the lines between
terrorism and other kinds of crises and will break down long-
established barriers to military action and surveillance within the
US."

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, testifying in October
before the Senate Armed Services Committee, agreed that federal
troops have a major role in domestic policing to prevent terrorism.--
---please go here-
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00001385--
--000-.html

State Emergency Health Powers Act
WASHINGTON -- In the event of a bio-terrorist attack using a deadly
and contagious disease such as smallpox, public health officials
want to be able to close roads and airports and, if necessary,
quarantine entire infected cities.
To make that possible, 50 governors are to receive copies of a
proposed law, drafted at the behest of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which could give states immense
power to control their populations.

H.R.3162
AUTHORITY FOR DELAYING NOTICE OF THE EXECUTION OF A WARRANT.
SEC. 213.

May 11, 2006
Reacting to today's news that the NSA is "amassing information about
ordinary Americans," Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) and Rep. Zoe
Lofgren (D-CA) have put out a statement questioning the legality of
the program. Their statement contains this: "when the Attorney
General was forced to testify before the House Judiciary Committee a
few weeks ago, he misled the Committee about the existence of the
program."
"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world,"

MAY 12 2006 CongressDaily
"A former intelligence officer for the National Security Agency said
Thursday he plans to tell Senate staffers next week that unlawful
activity occurred at the agency under the supervision of Gen.
Michael Hayden beyond what has been publicly reported, while hinting
that it might have involved the illegal use of space-based
satellites and systems to spy on U.S. citizens. ..."

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

If the President ever declared Martial Law These are the
implementation plans for the internment of United States citizens
Directed by FEMA. It is legal,This is why.

United States Executive Order
10900-Allows the government to take control over all modes of
transportation, highways, and seaports.
10995-Allows the seizure and control the communication media.
10997-Allows the seizure and control of all electrical power, gas,
petroleum, fuels, and minerals.
10998-Allows the seizure and control of all food resources and
farms.
11000-Allows the mobilization of citizens into work brigades under
government supervision.
11001-Allows the seizure and control of all health, education, and
welfare functions.
11002-Designates the Postmaster General to operate national
registration of all persons.
11004-Allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate
communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to
be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
I will quote Gen. Tommy Franks.....
"What is the worst thing that can happen in our country? Two steps.
The first step would be a nexus between weapons of mass
destruction . . . and terrorism. The second step would be the
western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and
that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years
in this grand experiment that we call democracy."
Franks suggests that a "massive casualty-producing event" might
cause "our population to question our own Constitution and begin to
militarize our country." Franks concluded, "We ain't seen nothing
yet. If terrorism's sting is felt again, fascism may be its
aftermath."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
The -------- FM 3- 19.40 plans were created weeks before 9/11/01-----
-were signed into order weeks after 9/11/01

By Order of the Secretary of the Army:
ERIC K. SHINSEKI
General, United States Army
Chief of Staff
Joel B Hudson
Administrative Assistant to the
Secretary of the Army 0120505
First, I recommend going to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84

HERE IS THE ACTUAL (FM 3-19.40)

I find chapter 5 and 6 particularly disturbing.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-19-
40/

It is also available on the UNITED STATES ARMY website in PDF
format@

http://www.army.mil/usapa/doctrine/Active_FM.html

On the army website it is not easy to find(for obvious reasons) its
1/6th the way down the page entitled MILITARY POLICE
INTERNMENT/RESETTLEMENT OPERATIONS DATED 08/01/2001

If you read this and do nothing, then you will know more about the reason that we lost our freedoms, than anyone else in the whole slave labor camp.

If you want to do something about it,
visit:

www.jbs.org
and
www.thenewamerican.com
and
www.trimonline.org
and
www.getusout.org


---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. PC-to-Phone calls for ridiculously low rates.
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Message 12
From: "mann david" dmann51@yahoo.com
Date: Tue May 16, 2006 6:49am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Signs of tyranny looming

Yeh John and you are one of the symptoms and causes of
looming tyrany - like "put "illegals" on five years of
hard labor building a wall" - etc.- - and the rest of
your opinions.

--- John Perna <savefreedom2005@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Signs of tyranny looming
>
> If you don't have 15 minutes to look this over,
> someday when you
> have the time and not the content, you'll wish you
> had.
>
> "The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people."
>
> Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
>
> If you don't want to read all the evidence, scroll
> all the way down
> and follow the 2 links for this imperative
> information.
>
> PRE-SCRIPT When the time comes it will be imperative
> that you stand
> up for what you believe in. What are you going to
> do? I understand
> it is easy to be lazy about these things in the
> present. When
> circumstances become apparent you must not be lazy.
> Our brethren
> and posterity are going ask more from our young
> generation than have
> been demanded from any previous American
> generations. When the time
> comes,know your Rights, be prepared to Act, and
> expect to do your
> part.
>
>
> On July 5, 1987 the front page of the Miami Herald
> Newspaper carried
> a now famous article describing White House plans
> to:
>
> A.) DECLARE AN UNDEFINED "NATIONAL EMERGENCY,"
> B.) RE-OPEN CONCENTRATION CAMPS FOR PREVENTIVE
> DETENTION OF LEGAL
> DISSIDENTS CERTAIN ETHNIC GROUPS, AND
> C.)LEGALLY SUSPEND OUR UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
>
> On August 14, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft
> was called
> a "menace to Liberty" by Jonathan Turley, in the Los
> Angeles Times,
> for announcing his desire for camps for U.S.
> citizens he
> deems "enemy combatants."
>
> Under the Justice Department's new definition of
> "enemy combatant"�
> which won the enthusiastic approval of the president
> and Defense
> Secretary Donald Rumsfeld�anyone defined as an
> "enemy combatant,"
> very much including American citizens, can be held
> indefinitely by
> the government, without charges, a hearing, or a
> lawyer. In short,
> incommunicado.
>
> On August 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that
> "the Goose Creek,
> South Carolina, facility now has a special wing that
> could be used
> to jail U.S. citizens if the government were to deem
> them enemy
> combatants," a senior administration official said.
>
> The Rex-84 Alpha Explan (Readiness Exercise 1984,
> Exercise Plan)
> showed that FEMA leads 34 other federal agencies,
> including CIA,
> FBI, and U.S. Treasury, in a massive civil readiness
> exercise.
> In 1983, at the annual meeting of the Academy of
> Criminal Justice
> Sciences, FEMA's General Frank S. Salcedo
> recommended expanding
> FEMA's power even further. As he saw it at least
> 100,000 U.S.
> citizens, from survivalists to tax protesters, were
> serious threats
> to civil security.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Garden_Plot
>
> Operation: Urban Warrior. US Marines Training with
> Foreign Troops in
> Mock Martial Law Practices Including Disarming
> American Citizens
> Portrayed by Actors and Placing Them in
> Concentration Camps.During
> the urban combat phase of Operation Urban Warrior,
> U.S. Marines take
> cover and move out in Oakland, Calif., March 16.
>
> It was announced recently that Halliburton
> subsidiary Kellogg, Brown
> and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar
> contract by Homeland
> Security to construct detention and processing
> facilities in the
> event of a national emergency.
>
> In 2002, FEMA sought bids from major real estate and
> engineering
> firms to construct giant internment facilities in
> the case of a
> chemical, biological or nuclear attack or a natural
> disaster.
>
> Okanogan County Commissioner Dave Schulz went public
> three years ago
> with his contention that his county was home of a
> modern day
> internment camp.
>
> When Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) read a story
> widely circulated in
> the U.S. press in 2003 entitled "Foundations Are in
> Place for
> Martial Law in the United States," he became so
> alarmed that he gave
> a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of
> Representatives on the
> topic.
>
> In a revealing admission the Director of Resource
> Management for the
> U.S. Army confirmed the validity of a memorandum
> relating to the
> establishment of a civilian inmate labor program
> under development
> by the Department of the Army.
>
> The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, passed in response to
> abuses by
> federal troops in the South after the Civil War,
> prohibits the use
> of the military "to execute the laws" of the U.S.
> That's been widely
> interpreted as a ban on searching, arresting or
> spying on U.S.
> civilians by federal troops.
>
> Northcom's commander, Gen. Ralph "Ed" Eberhart, is
> the first general
> since the Civil War with operational authority
> exclusively over
> military forces within the U.S.
>
>
> Northcom is doing more than mere coordinating.
> "Under the banner
> of 'homeland security', the military and
> intelligence communities
> are implementing far-reaching changes that blur the
> lines between
> terrorism and other kinds of crises and will break
> down long-
> established barriers to military action and
> surveillance within the
> US."
>
> Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, testifying
> in October
> before the Senate Armed Services Committee, agreed
> that federal
> troops have a major role in domestic policing to
> prevent terrorism.--
> ---please go here-
>
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00001385--
> --000-.html
>
> State Emergency Health Powers Act
> WASHINGTON -- In the event of a bio-terrorist attack
> using a deadly
> and contagious disease such as smallpox, public
> health officials
> want to be able to close roads and airports and, if
> necessary,
> quarantine entire infected cities.
> To make that possible, 50 governors are to receive
> copies of a
> proposed law, drafted at the behest of the Centers
> for Disease
> Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which could give
> states immense
> power to control their populations.
>
> H.R.3162
> AUTHORITY FOR DELAYING NOTICE OF THE EXECUTION OF A
> WARRANT.
> SEC. 213.
>
>
=== message truncated ===

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Message 13
From: "Cathy Garger" savorsuccesslady@yahoo.com
Date: Tue May 16, 2006 7:40am(PDT)
Subject: On 9/11, Vets, Puppets and Masters (dedicated to Kevin H)

Don't think one person can make much of a difference? As a formerly truly clue-less rah-rah liberal Dem voter, I can honestly say that it was on this group (911truthaction) primarily through the posts and links courtesy of Kevin Hammond, that I received my initial indoctrination a couple of years back into learning about US political puppets and the masters who control them.

Below this note is a post I sent this morning to the Vets for 9/11 yahoo group.

This one is dedicated to you, Kevin, my awesome, righteous, un-compromising, hard-hitting, truth-telling friend.

If any of you are interested in helping vets do more than talk about 9/11 truth, we certainly could use your help. We are not talking chit-chat, we're not talking about getting rid of the chimp and the big, bad, quail-shooting sniper, we are not all about posting and debating new research, new articles. (After all, 911blogger.com already does a tremendous job of that).

No, these vets are talking about getting busy in an in-person, active way and waking up their brothers/sisters in arms (and the rest of the public) - as well as making actual criminal prosecutions happen.

Join us if you want to actually do something to help. We need help with fund-raising, spreading the word, planning actions, so many things.

I believe that these vets, in true patriotic fashion of service to their country, are going to make a huge difference in waking up this entire nation as to what *really* happened on 9/11. But we need to increase our numbers, we need to spread the word, and we need support - even if we all sent 5 or 10 bucks, that would add up. Even if we just took on one action on the volunteer page, that would certainly make a tremendous difference, too. And no, you don't have to be a vet to support the group -there are, so far, dozens of supporters, as Auxiliary Members. (Vets will be called Honorary Members).

No action, no matter how insignificant you may think it is, is too small. Because unless we - each and every one of us - DOES SOMETHING to effect change? We are going to only find ourselves in an even-worse mess with this increasingly fascist police state that does apparently *nothing* but sell away Americans' rights, liberties, resources, interests... and our very lives... for a dime.

Our yahoo group is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/v911t

Our website is here: http://www.v911t.org/

To volunteer and to support us: http://www.v911t.org/Volunteer.php

Hugs and love to all,

Cath
Subject: [v911t] Okay then, A Call to Action Is Entertained (Was Veterans Surround Richard Perle, Demand Accountability for His Role in Launching
I like your call to action, J. Provided it is non-violent, that is.

I agree that we need a criminal investigation of all of the perpetrators of the acts of 9/11. But there's even more here than meets the eye.

If we round up all of those involved (and there are more than just a few), and they go to trial and are locked up (or whatever their consequences for being treasonous murderers), the good news would be that we would have justice - for a few.

For a few, you say? Yes. Only for a relative few. Those who we can catch who knew about, who planned, who orchestrated, and who carried out the false flag mass murder attacks on America, the Psy Ops War on American Citizens of 9/11, were called into service by others who backed them.

Here is a fascinating, new and totally analysis of what we need to do to stop the Psychopaths in power. I am still mulling it over. Initially, the revengeful, go-for-the-jugular part of us inside will reject this - at least at first. But the more and more I think about this? I wonder if maybe there isn't something to this...

Read Truth & Reconciliation:
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2006/05/truth-and-reconciliation.html

Here's an analogy. Right now we are being deluged by tiny black ants in my kitchen. I go into the kitchen and routinely swat at them (as I will not poison my family with bug spray). But I know that even if I kill every single ant in my kitchen, there are umpteen others living, working in harmony in droves, somewhere else, ready to propagate more and more ants - regardless of how many on the surface I am able to render lifeless.

The ants that I can *not* see are akin to the rogue players and corporate and financial international controllers, many from other nations, who sit behind the puppets in power in all 3 branches of US government. I hate the term New World Order (it smacks of conspiracy theory) but a google search will explain who really *runs* the US government.

These controllers, like the ants back in the nest, are invisible to us, but since they call the shots (and not W & Cheney, who carry out the orders) we need to get to the very ROOT of the evil-doers. Yeah, removing W & Cheney, Condi, Rummy and the like will make us all feel better as retaliation for the murder of 3,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of other human beings in the Middle East. (Yes, some of us very much do believe that dark-skinned Muslim/Arab citizens are indeed human beings, Mr. President).

If we lock up everyone in this administration and everyone in power in the five-sided building, we will get the current puppets out of harm's way. And new ones will then pop up again and again. The only difference is that next time they may wear disguises - as in, the blue donkey ticket.

The analogy here is that Whack A Mole game you play on the boardwalk arcade at the shore. Once you whack some of the moles, new ones will only then surface from other places and you can never get to whack them all because they only get replaced with fresh new moles.

New moles with fresh new faces. Same old powerful controllers behind them, working to always create new moles to deceive the public into thinking something is different, something has changed.

In a word, the majority of the Democratic Partyl, the non-enlightened, clueless liberal Dems, will be positively orgasmic when they watch their donkey party "centrist" leaders (think Hillary and Edwards) take their oaths of office in upcoming elections while pledging allegiance to some corporate global flag.

No need for public education? Au contraire.

Yeah, impeaching W & Cheney is a great start. But it is actually misleading in a way if people think that that is going to put an end to corruption and malevolence. Install any leading Dem right now in power who marches to the controllers' drumbeat and we will continue to have a bankrupt US economy, a fascist police state, and increasingly brutal wars without end.

So even if we do this criminal investigation as you say, prosecute every single Domestic Terrorist in the Evil Empire (i.e., the US) that was truly responsible for planning and carrying out the attacks, and then lock them all up and throw away the key? We will not have been able to get to the very nest of the malevolence, i.e., those who are supporting the puppets in control of this organized crime outfit that is so benignly called the US federal government.

So, yes, public education is only one leg of the octopus. We need to do more, SO much more. Totally agreed.

Okay, so we have maybe two handfuls of very active, engaged vets on this group and perhaps a dozen or two dozen active "auxiliary member" supporters. Is this enough to effect the change we need to see in the organized crime ring in the District of Crime?

I think not. We need to build this. And if you think this inaccurate, if you think that we need to do nothing but act right now at this very moment? Then please, I beg you, I urge you to please, please right now share your own vision, share your action plan with all of us. How are you going to get to the malevolent ant hill that sits behind the puppets in power?

I assure you, J, that I am not the only one on this list who would more than love to hear your vision and your plan.

Permission granted to forward.

Cathy Garger
http://mytown.ca/garger/


j wrote:
If they don't know by now, they're retards. Probably self-inflicted. We can go forward with action now without them. They'll come around when they're sitting in the dark without the high definition sludge pump telling them how to think. You're trying to place an impossible condition on your decision to act.

If the crazies and the psy ops aren't after you, then you're barking up the wrong tree.

~ S.P. ~


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