Another Day in the Empire
Washington Post Explains How the Nazi-Created CIA Protects Us
Friday November 18th 2005, 9:31 am
Dana Priest of the Washington Post tells us the CIA has “joint operation centers in more than 2 dozen nations” and the agency’s job is “to track and capture suspected terrorists and to destroy or penetrate their networks.” Never mind that the CIA created the Islamic Terror Network (along with MI6, Mossad, and other intelligence “services”) and this is sort of like a cop selling drugs to a street corner pusher and then busting the dealer and his customers. Call it job security, or rather terror security. If not for the CIA’s billion dollar effort in Afghanistan, there would be no al-Qaeda. But I suppose we can’t expect Priest and the Washington Post to mention such bothersome details.
Priest writes: “The Americans and their counterparts at the centers, known as CTICs [Counterterrorist Intelligence Centers], make daily decisions on when and how to apprehend suspects, whether to whisk them off to other countries for interrogation and detention, and how to disrupt al Qaeda’s logistical and financial support.” In other words, the CIA and its freelancers are completely out of the accountability loop and are free to kidnap anybody they want, mostly Arab and Muslim cab drivers and dirt farmers, and torture, rape, and kill them. Of course, this does not put an end to terrorism but instead make sure more terrorism is created, as the victims of this abuse and sadism are certain to become “al-Qaeda” terrorists or sympathizers, that is to say they will support attacks against the United States (since “al-Qaeda” is more a state of mind than an actual organization).
“The network of centers reflects what has become the CIA’s central and most successful strategy in combating terrorism abroad: persuading and empowering foreign security services to help. Virtually every capture or killing of a suspected terrorist outside Iraq since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks—more than 3,000 in all—was a result of foreign intelligence services’ work alongside the agency, the CIA deputy director of operations told a congressional committee in a closed-door session earlier this year.”
As usual, a bit of translation is in order. The CIA’s “central and most successful strategy,” as it has remained since the terror organization was created with implementation of the National Security Act of 1947, is to align itself with fascists far and wide, military dictators and the sadistic goons that rise to the surface of the political cesspool favored by the CIA (a natural occurrence since the CIA nurtured “extensive relationships” with “former Nazi war criminals,” including “at least five associates of the notorious Nazi Adolf Eichmann” and “at least 100 officers within the [Reinhard] Gehlen organization” who were “former SD or Gestapo officers,” see The CIA and Nazi War Criminals at the National Security Archive). Thus “empowering foreign security services” means allowing various morally repugnant scumbags and bottom-feeders to wantonly torture and kill, something the CIA has done at the behest of various presidents since Truman created the agency.
“The initial tip about where an al Qaeda figure is hiding may come from the CIA, but the actual operation to pick him up is usually organized by one of the joint centers and conducted by a local security service, with the CIA nowhere in sight. ‘The vast majority of successes involved our CTICs,” one former counterterrorism official said. “The boot that went through the door was foreign.’”
Again, this is nothing new and Priest’s report is hardly revelatory. From its very inception in 1947, the CIA has employed proxies to do much of the actual dirty work—from fascist Greek Colonels mass murdering “communists” (anybody who opposed their regime) to “Baby Doc” Duvalier hacking to death the opposition with machetes in Haiti—the CIA has often lurked in the shadows and is usually “nowhere in sight.”
“The centers are also part of a fundamental, continuing shift in the CIA’s mission that began shortly after the 2001 attacks. No longer is the agency’s primary goal to recruit military attaches, diplomats and intelligence operatives to steal secrets from their own countries. Today’s CIA is desperately seeking ways to join forces with other governments it once reproached or ignored to undo a common enemy.”
In fact, recruiting “military attaches, diplomats and intelligence operatives to steal secrets from their own countries” has never been the CIA’s “primary goal,” but rather window dressing. As noted above, the purpose of the CIA is to make sure fascist and authoritarian governments rule for the sake of the “investment climate” on Wall Street and other neolib rat holes. As the former CIA agent John Stockwell has noted, the “CIA and the big corporations were, in my experience, in step with each other,” in other words the CIA, and in fact the U.S. government in general, does the bidding of transnational corporations. “Now more clearly than ever, the CIA, with its related institutions, is exposed as an agency of destabilization and repression. Throughout its history, it has organized secret wars that killed millions of people in the Third World who had no capability of doing physical harm to the United States,” Stockwell writes elsewhere. As for the “common enemy” mentioned by Priest, this happens to be most of the people in the world.
“The White House has stepped up its criticism of Uzbek President Islam Karimov in the past year for his authoritarian rule and repression of dissidents. But joint counterterrorism efforts with Tashkent continued until recently. In Indonesia, as the State Department doled out tiny amounts of assistance to the military when it made progress on corruption and human rights, the CIA was pouring money into Jakarta and developing intelligence ties there after years of tension. In Paris, as U.S.-French acrimony peaked over the Iraq invasion in 2003, the CIA and French intelligence services were creating the agency’s only multinational operations center and executing worldwide sting operations.”
Isn’t that special. No mention here of the fact “Bush welcomed Uzbek President Islam Karimov to the White House, and the United States has given Uzbekistan more than $500 million for border control and other security measures [i.e., money provided for torture and murder],” according to the New York Times. In fact, Uzbekistan is an important stop along the bloody trail of Bush’s rape and torture gulag. “Uzbekistan’s role as a surrogate jailer for the United States has been confirmed by a half-dozen current and former intelligence officials working in Europe, the Middle East and the United States. The CIA declined to comment on the prisoner transfer program, but an intelligence official estimated that the number of terrorism suspects sent by the United States to Tashkent is in the dozens…. Details of the CIA’s prisoner transfer program have emerged in recent months from a handful of former detainees who have been released, primarily from prisons in Egypt and Afghanistan. In some cases, the prisoners said they were beaten and tortured while being held.” Islam Karimov, the dictator of Uzbekistan, “is very much George Bush’s man in central Asia,” according to Craig Murray of the Guardian. “There is not a senior member of the US administration who is not on record saying warm words about Karimov. There is not a single word recorded by any of them calling for free elections in Uzbekistan,” or criticizing Karimov for shooting down hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators or boiling to death opponents, such as Muzafar Avazov and Husnidin Alimov in the Jaslik prison in 2002.
As for Indonesia, the Nazi-infused CIA has a long and sordid relationship with the country—or rather its fascistic military. According to former CIA agent Ralph McGehee, “the CIA universally compiles local ‘Subversive Control Watch Lists’ of leftists for attention by the local government,” in other words the CIA has specialized in providing death lists to fascist governments. McGehee elaborates:
After the CIA’s overthrow of Arbenz’s government in Guatemala in 1954, the U.S. gave the new government lists of opponents to be eliminated. In Chile from 1971 through 1973, the CIA fomented a military coup through forgery and propaganda operations and compiled arrest lists of thousands,many of whom were later arrested and assassinated. In Bolivia in 1975, the CIA provided lists of progressive priests and nuns to the government which planned to harass, arrest and expel them. To curry the favor of Khomeini, in 1983 the CIA gave his government a list of KGB agents and collaborators operating in Iran. Khomeini then executed 200 suspects and closed down the communist Tudeh party. In Thailand, I provided the names of hundreds of leftists to Thai security services. The Phoenix program in Vietnam was a massive U.S.-backed program to compile arrest and assassination lists of the Viet Cong for action by CIA-created Provisional Reconnaissance Unit death squads. In fact, former Director of the CIA William Colby compared the Indonesian operation directly to the Vietnam Phoenix Program. Colby further admitted directing the CIA to concentrate on compiling lists of members of the PKI [Communist Party of Indonesia] and other left groups.
Thus in Indonesia, in 1965 and 1966, between 250,000 and 1,000,000 people were killed, many of them as a result of the diligent work of the CIA. “The CIA desperately wants to conceal evidence of its role in the massacre, which it admits was one of the century’s worst. The U.S. media seem equally determined to protect the American image from consequences of covert operations.” Dana Priest, as an official stenographer tasked with writing glowing reviews of how the CIA protects us from CIA-created terrorism, certainly does not put any of this into context. Of course, it should be noted that the Washington Post was, under the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird, probably the numero uno disinformation and propaganda asset for the agency (Philip Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, was a documented CIA agent).
“The first two CTICs were established in the late 1990s to watch and capture Islamic militants traveling from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt and Chechnya to join the fighting in Bosnia and other parts of the former Yugoslavia, two former intelligence officers said,” Priest writes.
Translation: the CTICs were facilitating the movement of terrorists into these countries, in particular Chechnya and Bosnia. “As was revealed during the Kosovo crisis,” writes Anup Shah, “some NATO members (e.g. the U.S.’s CIA) had long trained the KLA against Yugoslavia” and “other western-trained Islamic terrorist groups have also been operating in Chechnya in the past.” Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab, the main Chechnya rebel leaders, were trained and indoctrinated in CIA and sustained by Pakistan’s ISI, according to Michel Chossudovsky. “Despite Washington’s perfunctory condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the indirect beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the Anglo-American oil conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources and pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin.” As fits the CIA’s list of job requirements, Basayev “has also been involved in a number of rackets including narcotics, illegal tapping and sabotage of Russia’s oil pipelines, kidnapping, prostitution, trade in counterfeit dollars and the smuggling of nuclear materials.”
Priest expends a few thousand glowing words, making excuses for this massive terror organization, based on Nazi intelligence and initially staffed with Nazi war criminals, while never telling us the truth about the CIA: in addition to being the largest, most organized, and well funded terror organization in the world, it is a primary example of the Hegelian dialectic: it utilizes the Fichtean “thesis—antithesis—synthesis” model, first covertly creating terrorism, then reacting as our saviors to its custom-made terrorism, and finally proposing draconian measures to combat the terrorism it initially fabricated, thus dismantling our liberties and erecting a police state, as all faithful Nazis demand authoritarian government.
Friday, November 18, 2005
BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Two charged 'over Iraq memo leak'
BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Two charged 'over Iraq memo leak'
Two men have been charged under the Official Secrets Act following the leak of a secret government memo.
The document involved - the Foreign Office's Iraq in the Medium Term - referred to "heavy-handed" US tactics, a government source told the BBC.
Its contents were reported in the Sunday Times in May last year.
Ex-civil servant David Keogh and former MP's researcher Leo O'Connor, both from Northampton, will appear before Bow Street magistrates on 29 November.
Political researcher
Mr Keogh, 49, is a former Cabinet Office communications worker.
Mr O'Connor, 42, worked as a researcher for Tony Clarke, the former MP for Northampton South.
The pair received police bail.
Mr Keogh was charged with an offence under section three of the Official Secrets Act, Mr O'Connor under section five.
Two men have been charged under the Official Secrets Act following the leak of a secret government memo.
The document involved - the Foreign Office's Iraq in the Medium Term - referred to "heavy-handed" US tactics, a government source told the BBC.
Its contents were reported in the Sunday Times in May last year.
Ex-civil servant David Keogh and former MP's researcher Leo O'Connor, both from Northampton, will appear before Bow Street magistrates on 29 November.
Political researcher
Mr Keogh, 49, is a former Cabinet Office communications worker.
Mr O'Connor, 42, worked as a researcher for Tony Clarke, the former MP for Northampton South.
The pair received police bail.
Mr Keogh was charged with an offence under section three of the Official Secrets Act, Mr O'Connor under section five.
Family Members Of Doomed 911 Flights 'Strangely Silent' About Irregularities and Inconsistencies Of Official Government Story
Family Members Of Doomed 911 Flights 'Strangely Silent' About Irregularities and Inconsistencies Of Official Government Story
Family Members Of Doomed 911 Flights 'Strangely Silent' About Irregularities & Inconsistencies Of Official Government Story
Except for Ellen Mariani, whose husband was reported on Flight 175, others who lost relatives on the airplanes have kept quiet in stark contrast to those who lost loved ones at Ground Zero. But when those from the 'airplane community' talk like Linda Gay and Frank Calley, who respectively had family members on Flight 11 and 77, they accept the government 9/11 story hook, line and sinker.
By Greg Szymanski
11-18-5
Linda Gay believes her husband died in the fiery crash on Flight 11, believes the government conducted a fair investigation and blames the entire event on President Clinton who had eight years to catch Osama bin laden but failed.
Gay lost her husband, Peter, 54, a vice president of Raytheon Co. on 9/11. Four years later, she still lives in Tewksbury, Mass., claiming as she did right after the tragic event, she is satisfied with her government's efforts at getting at the truth behind 9/11, satisfied with the money she received from the victim's compensation fund and satisfied with not pursuing her husband's death any further.
"I guess I am different than most people, but I just don't believe in suing the airlines or the government over something they couldn't control," said Gay this week in a rare conversation this week from her home in Tewksbury, as she reflected back about the death of her husband, a top executive with a defense technology company doing business with the Pentagon.
"Looking back, one thing strange was that the night before the flight and the early morning on 9/11, Peter seemed more reluctant than usual to leave for California on business like he did every Tuesday for the last year.
"He was the type that didn't like to be away from home, but on 9/11 he seemed more apprehensive about leaving than usual. The last thing we said was the normal goodbyes before he took the limousine and that was it. I never saw him again and had it confirmed he was on Flight 11 late in the afternoon at 2p.m. when American Airlines called."
Giving a rare interview, Gay's belief in the official 9/11 story and her reluctance to speak out is a pattern seen among many of the families of those who died on the four doomed airliners.
In fact, save Ellen Mariani, who lost her husband on Flight 175, the rest of the jetliner family community has never publicly questioned the government's official 9/11 story and has pretty much stayed quiet in the background, out of the public eye.
What makes this surprising, if not downright suspicious, is that it is in stark contrast to the majority of family members who lost loved ones at Ground Zero, a group that has hundreds of outspoken critics of the government's official story, a group unafraid to publicly blame the Bush administration for being the real culprits behind 9/11.
For example, there are literally hundreds of survivors and family members from Ground Zero who protest the government regularly, saying Bush and the neo-cons are hiding the truth about 9/11 to protect their own skin.
But in stark contrast only Mariani has gone public with her disgust of the government from the airline group, a fact that shouldn't be ignored when trying to unweave the complex web of deceit woven by the neo-con culprits behind 9/11.
Take, for example, the across the board silence from the airline family community who has never really spoken out about obvious irregularities in the flights themselves, NORAD's slow response, flight manifest irregularities and, basically, the total lack of a serious investigation regarding their missing relative.
If we want to believe Gay, the answer is simple: total trust in the government and the system. But if we want to look farther, we may find the silence among the flight family community as the tip of the iceberg behind the entire 9/11 mystery.
Take, for example, the simple law of averages. Doesn't it make sense that at least a handful out of the approximately 261 who died on the planes would have had a few family members as outspoken critics?
But besides this strange veil of silence blanketing the entire group, there are many other stranger things concerning the airline families, a series of unexplainable facts and occurrences that draws attention to what may be the 'Achilles heel' of the 9/11 mystery if, that is, investigators dig deep enough.
First, the Arctic Beacon has tried to contact at least 10 airline family members besides Gay, all who have repeatedly refused to answer the telephone or return emails. Julie Sweeney, whose husband, Brian, a former Navy F-14 pilot on Flight 175 who made two calls prior to the plane supposedly hitting the South Tower, said she was too busy to talk, acting apprehensive and wondering how the Arctic Beacon got her phone number.
After making an phone appointment the next day, Sweeney at the time of this publication failed to answer the phone at least 10 times, a sign she no longer wanted to speak after having time to reflect on the situation.
In contrast, family members who experienced Ground Zero losses have been more than happy to speak, as over a hundred family members of Ground Zero victims have been contacted by the Arctic Beacon, and even more by pother publications, with an overwhelming majority having no problem to talk openly about their loss and their feelings about the 9/11 investigation.
Why the difference? There are no polls or experts to figure this out, but one simple explanation is the flight families are hiding something. Although this may be jumping to conclusions, what other conclusion can be drawn when nobody wants to talk?
Besides these speculations, it also should be noted that several psychologists and psychiatrists contacted said the typical reaction to a loss of a loved one in a situation like 9/11 is to strip all allegiance to state, country and employer, as the only motivation left for those who have paid the ultimate price is getting at the truth and nothing but the truth.
However, strangely, the reaction by the 9/11 airline community, less Mariani, is just the opposite. Let's look at some of the glaring oddities about the airplane family members and why the government's story should have at least sparked some doubt among them:
Remember Gay and those who remained silent, as the law construes silence as consent, believe or give the appearance to believe the official government story hook, line and sinker, despite the existence of credible evidence Flight 11 and 77 never even existed and, for all intents and purposes, may very well have been only 'phantom flights.'
According to Bureau of Traffic Safety (BTS) statistics both flights officially never took- off on 9/11, as well as showing no elapsed run-way time, wheels-off time and taxi-out time. However, Flights 11 and 77 on both 9/10 and 9/12 had all the recorded data properly logged.
Why the discrepancy? No one has ever given an official explanation for the BTS missing flight data, even though it is well known that airports are extremely meticulous about recording accurate BTS data for each and every flight in and out of its airport for liability purposes.
But, more importantly, if this is a clear indication Flight 11 and 77 were only 'phantom flights" and never existed, why then wouldn't some of the family members publicly voice their concerns?
Four years after 9/11, the answer still remains a guarded mystery, but then there is a lot of mysterious evidence regarding the flights, or the absence thereof, which has never been answered.
For example, why hasn't the government turned over airport surveillance tapes, readily available for all flights, but suspiciously unavailable for all of the four doomed flights on 9/11? Again, why hasn't there been a public outcry by the 9/11 family airplane community when obvious information regarding their loved ones is being withheld?
This, however, is only the tip of the iceberg: Start with the obvious "pod" hanging from the underbelly of the airplane that struck the South Tower, the airplane purported by the government to be Flight 175.
However, after looking at the video footage taken by CNN, pictures on Newsweek magazine and other video tapes, it's obvious what hit the South Tower wasn't Flight 175, but actually a military "drone" made to look like it. And it should be noted that when United Airlines was asked to respond about the strange existence of the "pod" on the airliner's underbelly, officials didn't deny its existence but simply refused to answer, citing national security as an excuse.
But, again a major question is why with this glaring evidence staring the whole world in the face, hasn't the real people with a vested interest and loss - the airline family members -- demanded a public investigation?
Why? For the same reason they haven't, excluding perhaps Mariani, demanded an investigation into the BTS records, the missing surveillance tapes, NORAD's pitiful response time, unsubstantiated autopsy reports, miraculous evidence and personal belongings recovered from the wreckage and glaring inconsistencies concerning the actual flight lists, not to mention the fact that seven of the 19 hijackers are reportedly alive, well and living abroad.
However, specifically concerning the recovery of 'miraculous evidence' and discrepancies in the flight lists, one of the most interesting cases is that of Waleed Iskandar, purported to be a passenger on Flight 11.
As unbelievable as it sounds, Iskandar's parents were notified by the Ground Zero Recovery Team a year after 9/11 that they found the unscathed Wells Fargo ATM card of their son, who allegedly perished on the doomed flight.
After being notified of the miraculous find, Joseph and Samia Iskandar were sent their son's bank card within days, noting it was in "perfect condition," but never really publicly questioned the late timing of the incredible find or the suspicious nature of a flimsy ATM card surviving such a towering inferno.
What's even more suspicious is that their son, a 34-year-old Harvard graduate, was never even listed as a passenger on Flight 11, either on the original manifest or on the official list provided by American Airlines, even though every reference to him afterwards on internet memorials or in newspaper accounts lists him as a Flight 11 passenger.
One would think, Iskandar's family would have publicly questioned the numerous errors and discrepancies concerning Flight 11 and, of course, the official passenger list which never listed their son. But instead they have remained silent, his parents even failing to return over 25 messages left and emails sent over a two-week period concerning these very important issues.
"It's only my opinion but if that was my son, I'd be raising holy hell about the crazy government investigation and the information withheld about Flight 11," said one 9/11 family member who lost a loved one, but wanted to remain anonymous.
Besides the strange silence from the Iskandar's, the miraculous recovery of Flight 77 passenger, Suzanne Calley's, California ID card, driver's license and wedding ring, all found in perfect condition at the Pentagon, has also been accepted without questions asked by her surviving husband, Frank. Despite numerous questions regarding Flight 77 and the Pentagon crash, Calley's husband believes the government has done its level best when it came to the handling of his wife's case, his wife's military autopsy and subsequent government investigation into the Pentagon crash.
And it's hard to believe Calley and the other Flight 77 family members haven't been screaming from the rafters, demanding justice after looking at the facts of the secret investigation and the glaring inconsistencies concerning the military autopsy performed under the cloak of darkness.
But, again, Calley and the others seem to be in 100 percent agreement with the Pentagon since none of them have so much as whispered criticism against a government investigation lacking obvious credibility.
To make the point clear, here is exactly what Calley had to say about the Pentagon investigation and a run-down of the discrepancies in the Pentagon autopsy of the alleged Flight 77 victims as reported last week in the Arctic Beacon:
As told to another family member who lost a loved one in 9/11, Calley said:
"They told me they found her remains, but I decided not to look. The Pentagon officials also said the remains of at least 19 others on board the plane were also identified by a military medical group.
"Immediately after the crash, I was assigned a personal liaison who handled my case. He was cooperative and helpful and I decided I didn't want to see Suzanne's remains."
What's strange about the autopsy investigation is that none of the family members, including Calley, have demanded an independent investigation, relying solely on government medical reporting as advised by the Pentagon liaisons, a personal military attaché conveniently provided for each individual family.
The question has to be asked why would the military go to such extremes as to provide personal attachés unless they wanted to hide manipulate and control what should have been an independent crime scene investigation.
And, even stranger, questions like this should have been asked and independent investigations demanded by family members, all collectively as a group remaining strangely silent when it is the natural reaction of someone who loses a loved one, to travel to the ends of the earth to get at the truth.
Although the government medical team played up the fact it undertook the most comprehensive autopsy in medical history, utilizing DNA and dental records, none of the family members of those who allegedly died on 9/11, like Calley, can now ever be 100 percent sure of the results since the government controlled the autopsy, an independent investigation never being allowed and in the case of Calley, the remains of his wife's body has subsequently been cremated.
"Even though it's four years after 9/11, I still understand that family members can still be grieving. But wouldn't they want positive independent DNA testing done to prove their loved ones actually died in the crash," said on family member who lost a loved one 9/11 but wanted to remain anonymous.
"I never received any remains or evidence of the person I lost on 9/11, but if there were any remains, I surely would have had them independently tested instead of relying on the word of the government.
And that's exactly what transpired in the strange and unexplainable autopsy investigation of the Flight 77 passengers, conducted essentially in the cover of darkness by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP).
And after reading the report, it is filled with so many inconsistencies and generalities that it makes one wonder why Calley and the other family members - not a single one of them - ever insisted on independent DNA proof, matching the remains held by the government with that of their loved ones.
In fact, the AFIP in its report dated November 16, 2001, incredibly said it positively identified nearly all the bodies, including the Flight 77 passengers, a medical feat which several medical experts considered miraculous if not, impossible, considering the short amount of time and the amount of devastation at the crime scene.
Remember that Calley was told by his private Pentagon attaché that 19 passengers were positively identified from Flight 77, but the AFIP reports that184 of the 189 who died at the scene, including all but one of the airplane passengers, were positively identified within about two months.
But, to make matters worse, even these numbers have been seriously questioned by an independent medical investigator named Thomas R. Olmsted, M.D., who made a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in order to get to the bottom of what he calls a staged and phony government autopsy report in order to cover up for "monsters who planned this crime."
Dr. Olmsted said about the AFIP autopsy:
"A list of names on a piece of paper is not evidence, but an autopsy by a pathologist, is. I undertook by FOIA request to get the autopsy list. Guess what? Still no Arabs on the list. It is my opinion that the monsters who planned this crime made a mistake by not including Arabic names on the original list to make the ruse seem more believable.
"When airline disasters occur, airlines will routinely provide a manifest list for anxious families. You may have noticed that even before Sep 11th, that airlines are pretty meticulous about getting an accurate headcount before takeoff. It seems very unlikely to me, that five Arabs sneaked onto a flight with weapons."
Dr. Olmsted then calls attention to the blatant discrepancy of the names on the airline passenger manifest and the names provided by the official Pentagon autopsy report, showing also that three names were on the autopsy that never even were listed as passengers on the airplane, an obvious indication of foul play never explained by the Pentagon.
Further Dr.Olmsted found through his FOIA request that although the medical examiners positively all of the passengers, they did not identify any of the Arab hijackers onboard, who were also not listed on the original flight manifest.
"The AFIP suggest these numbers; 189 killed, 125 worked at the Pentagon and 64 were passengers on the plane. The AA list only had 56 and the list just obtained has 58. They did not explain how they were able to tell "victims" bodies from "hijacker" bodies," said Dr. Olmsted. "In fact, from the beginning no explanation has been given for the extra five suggested in news reports except that the FBI showed us the pictures to make up the difference, and that makes it so.
"No Arabs wound up on the morgue slab; however, three additional people not listed by American Airline sneaked in. I have seen no explanation for these extras (on the autopsy list but not listed as passengers.) I did give American the opportunity to "revise" their original list, but they have not responded. The new names are: Robert Ploger, Zandra Ploger, and Sandra Teague.
"The AFIP claims that the only "passenger" body that they were not able to identify is the toddler, Dana Falkenberg, whose parents and young sister are on the list of those identified. The satanic masterminds behind this caper may be feeling pretty smug about the perfect crime, but they have left a raft of clues tying these unfortunates together."
Editor's Note: Of course, not all family members of the airline victims have been contacted. If there exists anyone who disagrees with the official 9/11story or wants to comment about this article, the Arctic Beacon requests you contact our office so that your story and opinions can be heard.
Greg Szymanski is an independent investigative journalist.
Family Members Of Doomed 911 Flights 'Strangely Silent' About Irregularities & Inconsistencies Of Official Government Story
Except for Ellen Mariani, whose husband was reported on Flight 175, others who lost relatives on the airplanes have kept quiet in stark contrast to those who lost loved ones at Ground Zero. But when those from the 'airplane community' talk like Linda Gay and Frank Calley, who respectively had family members on Flight 11 and 77, they accept the government 9/11 story hook, line and sinker.
By Greg Szymanski
11-18-5
Linda Gay believes her husband died in the fiery crash on Flight 11, believes the government conducted a fair investigation and blames the entire event on President Clinton who had eight years to catch Osama bin laden but failed.
Gay lost her husband, Peter, 54, a vice president of Raytheon Co. on 9/11. Four years later, she still lives in Tewksbury, Mass., claiming as she did right after the tragic event, she is satisfied with her government's efforts at getting at the truth behind 9/11, satisfied with the money she received from the victim's compensation fund and satisfied with not pursuing her husband's death any further.
"I guess I am different than most people, but I just don't believe in suing the airlines or the government over something they couldn't control," said Gay this week in a rare conversation this week from her home in Tewksbury, as she reflected back about the death of her husband, a top executive with a defense technology company doing business with the Pentagon.
"Looking back, one thing strange was that the night before the flight and the early morning on 9/11, Peter seemed more reluctant than usual to leave for California on business like he did every Tuesday for the last year.
"He was the type that didn't like to be away from home, but on 9/11 he seemed more apprehensive about leaving than usual. The last thing we said was the normal goodbyes before he took the limousine and that was it. I never saw him again and had it confirmed he was on Flight 11 late in the afternoon at 2p.m. when American Airlines called."
Giving a rare interview, Gay's belief in the official 9/11 story and her reluctance to speak out is a pattern seen among many of the families of those who died on the four doomed airliners.
In fact, save Ellen Mariani, who lost her husband on Flight 175, the rest of the jetliner family community has never publicly questioned the government's official 9/11 story and has pretty much stayed quiet in the background, out of the public eye.
What makes this surprising, if not downright suspicious, is that it is in stark contrast to the majority of family members who lost loved ones at Ground Zero, a group that has hundreds of outspoken critics of the government's official story, a group unafraid to publicly blame the Bush administration for being the real culprits behind 9/11.
For example, there are literally hundreds of survivors and family members from Ground Zero who protest the government regularly, saying Bush and the neo-cons are hiding the truth about 9/11 to protect their own skin.
But in stark contrast only Mariani has gone public with her disgust of the government from the airline group, a fact that shouldn't be ignored when trying to unweave the complex web of deceit woven by the neo-con culprits behind 9/11.
Take, for example, the across the board silence from the airline family community who has never really spoken out about obvious irregularities in the flights themselves, NORAD's slow response, flight manifest irregularities and, basically, the total lack of a serious investigation regarding their missing relative.
If we want to believe Gay, the answer is simple: total trust in the government and the system. But if we want to look farther, we may find the silence among the flight family community as the tip of the iceberg behind the entire 9/11 mystery.
Take, for example, the simple law of averages. Doesn't it make sense that at least a handful out of the approximately 261 who died on the planes would have had a few family members as outspoken critics?
But besides this strange veil of silence blanketing the entire group, there are many other stranger things concerning the airline families, a series of unexplainable facts and occurrences that draws attention to what may be the 'Achilles heel' of the 9/11 mystery if, that is, investigators dig deep enough.
First, the Arctic Beacon has tried to contact at least 10 airline family members besides Gay, all who have repeatedly refused to answer the telephone or return emails. Julie Sweeney, whose husband, Brian, a former Navy F-14 pilot on Flight 175 who made two calls prior to the plane supposedly hitting the South Tower, said she was too busy to talk, acting apprehensive and wondering how the Arctic Beacon got her phone number.
After making an phone appointment the next day, Sweeney at the time of this publication failed to answer the phone at least 10 times, a sign she no longer wanted to speak after having time to reflect on the situation.
In contrast, family members who experienced Ground Zero losses have been more than happy to speak, as over a hundred family members of Ground Zero victims have been contacted by the Arctic Beacon, and even more by pother publications, with an overwhelming majority having no problem to talk openly about their loss and their feelings about the 9/11 investigation.
Why the difference? There are no polls or experts to figure this out, but one simple explanation is the flight families are hiding something. Although this may be jumping to conclusions, what other conclusion can be drawn when nobody wants to talk?
Besides these speculations, it also should be noted that several psychologists and psychiatrists contacted said the typical reaction to a loss of a loved one in a situation like 9/11 is to strip all allegiance to state, country and employer, as the only motivation left for those who have paid the ultimate price is getting at the truth and nothing but the truth.
However, strangely, the reaction by the 9/11 airline community, less Mariani, is just the opposite. Let's look at some of the glaring oddities about the airplane family members and why the government's story should have at least sparked some doubt among them:
Remember Gay and those who remained silent, as the law construes silence as consent, believe or give the appearance to believe the official government story hook, line and sinker, despite the existence of credible evidence Flight 11 and 77 never even existed and, for all intents and purposes, may very well have been only 'phantom flights.'
According to Bureau of Traffic Safety (BTS) statistics both flights officially never took- off on 9/11, as well as showing no elapsed run-way time, wheels-off time and taxi-out time. However, Flights 11 and 77 on both 9/10 and 9/12 had all the recorded data properly logged.
Why the discrepancy? No one has ever given an official explanation for the BTS missing flight data, even though it is well known that airports are extremely meticulous about recording accurate BTS data for each and every flight in and out of its airport for liability purposes.
But, more importantly, if this is a clear indication Flight 11 and 77 were only 'phantom flights" and never existed, why then wouldn't some of the family members publicly voice their concerns?
Four years after 9/11, the answer still remains a guarded mystery, but then there is a lot of mysterious evidence regarding the flights, or the absence thereof, which has never been answered.
For example, why hasn't the government turned over airport surveillance tapes, readily available for all flights, but suspiciously unavailable for all of the four doomed flights on 9/11? Again, why hasn't there been a public outcry by the 9/11 family airplane community when obvious information regarding their loved ones is being withheld?
This, however, is only the tip of the iceberg: Start with the obvious "pod" hanging from the underbelly of the airplane that struck the South Tower, the airplane purported by the government to be Flight 175.
However, after looking at the video footage taken by CNN, pictures on Newsweek magazine and other video tapes, it's obvious what hit the South Tower wasn't Flight 175, but actually a military "drone" made to look like it. And it should be noted that when United Airlines was asked to respond about the strange existence of the "pod" on the airliner's underbelly, officials didn't deny its existence but simply refused to answer, citing national security as an excuse.
But, again a major question is why with this glaring evidence staring the whole world in the face, hasn't the real people with a vested interest and loss - the airline family members -- demanded a public investigation?
Why? For the same reason they haven't, excluding perhaps Mariani, demanded an investigation into the BTS records, the missing surveillance tapes, NORAD's pitiful response time, unsubstantiated autopsy reports, miraculous evidence and personal belongings recovered from the wreckage and glaring inconsistencies concerning the actual flight lists, not to mention the fact that seven of the 19 hijackers are reportedly alive, well and living abroad.
However, specifically concerning the recovery of 'miraculous evidence' and discrepancies in the flight lists, one of the most interesting cases is that of Waleed Iskandar, purported to be a passenger on Flight 11.
As unbelievable as it sounds, Iskandar's parents were notified by the Ground Zero Recovery Team a year after 9/11 that they found the unscathed Wells Fargo ATM card of their son, who allegedly perished on the doomed flight.
After being notified of the miraculous find, Joseph and Samia Iskandar were sent their son's bank card within days, noting it was in "perfect condition," but never really publicly questioned the late timing of the incredible find or the suspicious nature of a flimsy ATM card surviving such a towering inferno.
What's even more suspicious is that their son, a 34-year-old Harvard graduate, was never even listed as a passenger on Flight 11, either on the original manifest or on the official list provided by American Airlines, even though every reference to him afterwards on internet memorials or in newspaper accounts lists him as a Flight 11 passenger.
One would think, Iskandar's family would have publicly questioned the numerous errors and discrepancies concerning Flight 11 and, of course, the official passenger list which never listed their son. But instead they have remained silent, his parents even failing to return over 25 messages left and emails sent over a two-week period concerning these very important issues.
"It's only my opinion but if that was my son, I'd be raising holy hell about the crazy government investigation and the information withheld about Flight 11," said one 9/11 family member who lost a loved one, but wanted to remain anonymous.
Besides the strange silence from the Iskandar's, the miraculous recovery of Flight 77 passenger, Suzanne Calley's, California ID card, driver's license and wedding ring, all found in perfect condition at the Pentagon, has also been accepted without questions asked by her surviving husband, Frank. Despite numerous questions regarding Flight 77 and the Pentagon crash, Calley's husband believes the government has done its level best when it came to the handling of his wife's case, his wife's military autopsy and subsequent government investigation into the Pentagon crash.
And it's hard to believe Calley and the other Flight 77 family members haven't been screaming from the rafters, demanding justice after looking at the facts of the secret investigation and the glaring inconsistencies concerning the military autopsy performed under the cloak of darkness.
But, again, Calley and the others seem to be in 100 percent agreement with the Pentagon since none of them have so much as whispered criticism against a government investigation lacking obvious credibility.
To make the point clear, here is exactly what Calley had to say about the Pentagon investigation and a run-down of the discrepancies in the Pentagon autopsy of the alleged Flight 77 victims as reported last week in the Arctic Beacon:
As told to another family member who lost a loved one in 9/11, Calley said:
"They told me they found her remains, but I decided not to look. The Pentagon officials also said the remains of at least 19 others on board the plane were also identified by a military medical group.
"Immediately after the crash, I was assigned a personal liaison who handled my case. He was cooperative and helpful and I decided I didn't want to see Suzanne's remains."
What's strange about the autopsy investigation is that none of the family members, including Calley, have demanded an independent investigation, relying solely on government medical reporting as advised by the Pentagon liaisons, a personal military attaché conveniently provided for each individual family.
The question has to be asked why would the military go to such extremes as to provide personal attachés unless they wanted to hide manipulate and control what should have been an independent crime scene investigation.
And, even stranger, questions like this should have been asked and independent investigations demanded by family members, all collectively as a group remaining strangely silent when it is the natural reaction of someone who loses a loved one, to travel to the ends of the earth to get at the truth.
Although the government medical team played up the fact it undertook the most comprehensive autopsy in medical history, utilizing DNA and dental records, none of the family members of those who allegedly died on 9/11, like Calley, can now ever be 100 percent sure of the results since the government controlled the autopsy, an independent investigation never being allowed and in the case of Calley, the remains of his wife's body has subsequently been cremated.
"Even though it's four years after 9/11, I still understand that family members can still be grieving. But wouldn't they want positive independent DNA testing done to prove their loved ones actually died in the crash," said on family member who lost a loved one 9/11 but wanted to remain anonymous.
"I never received any remains or evidence of the person I lost on 9/11, but if there were any remains, I surely would have had them independently tested instead of relying on the word of the government.
And that's exactly what transpired in the strange and unexplainable autopsy investigation of the Flight 77 passengers, conducted essentially in the cover of darkness by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP).
And after reading the report, it is filled with so many inconsistencies and generalities that it makes one wonder why Calley and the other family members - not a single one of them - ever insisted on independent DNA proof, matching the remains held by the government with that of their loved ones.
In fact, the AFIP in its report dated November 16, 2001, incredibly said it positively identified nearly all the bodies, including the Flight 77 passengers, a medical feat which several medical experts considered miraculous if not, impossible, considering the short amount of time and the amount of devastation at the crime scene.
Remember that Calley was told by his private Pentagon attaché that 19 passengers were positively identified from Flight 77, but the AFIP reports that184 of the 189 who died at the scene, including all but one of the airplane passengers, were positively identified within about two months.
But, to make matters worse, even these numbers have been seriously questioned by an independent medical investigator named Thomas R. Olmsted, M.D., who made a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in order to get to the bottom of what he calls a staged and phony government autopsy report in order to cover up for "monsters who planned this crime."
Dr. Olmsted said about the AFIP autopsy:
"A list of names on a piece of paper is not evidence, but an autopsy by a pathologist, is. I undertook by FOIA request to get the autopsy list. Guess what? Still no Arabs on the list. It is my opinion that the monsters who planned this crime made a mistake by not including Arabic names on the original list to make the ruse seem more believable.
"When airline disasters occur, airlines will routinely provide a manifest list for anxious families. You may have noticed that even before Sep 11th, that airlines are pretty meticulous about getting an accurate headcount before takeoff. It seems very unlikely to me, that five Arabs sneaked onto a flight with weapons."
Dr. Olmsted then calls attention to the blatant discrepancy of the names on the airline passenger manifest and the names provided by the official Pentagon autopsy report, showing also that three names were on the autopsy that never even were listed as passengers on the airplane, an obvious indication of foul play never explained by the Pentagon.
Further Dr.Olmsted found through his FOIA request that although the medical examiners positively all of the passengers, they did not identify any of the Arab hijackers onboard, who were also not listed on the original flight manifest.
"The AFIP suggest these numbers; 189 killed, 125 worked at the Pentagon and 64 were passengers on the plane. The AA list only had 56 and the list just obtained has 58. They did not explain how they were able to tell "victims" bodies from "hijacker" bodies," said Dr. Olmsted. "In fact, from the beginning no explanation has been given for the extra five suggested in news reports except that the FBI showed us the pictures to make up the difference, and that makes it so.
"No Arabs wound up on the morgue slab; however, three additional people not listed by American Airline sneaked in. I have seen no explanation for these extras (on the autopsy list but not listed as passengers.) I did give American the opportunity to "revise" their original list, but they have not responded. The new names are: Robert Ploger, Zandra Ploger, and Sandra Teague.
"The AFIP claims that the only "passenger" body that they were not able to identify is the toddler, Dana Falkenberg, whose parents and young sister are on the list of those identified. The satanic masterminds behind this caper may be feeling pretty smug about the perfect crime, but they have left a raft of clues tying these unfortunates together."
Editor's Note: Of course, not all family members of the airline victims have been contacted. If there exists anyone who disagrees with the official 9/11story or wants to comment about this article, the Arctic Beacon requests you contact our office so that your story and opinions can be heard.
Greg Szymanski is an independent investigative journalist.
Keld Bach�s Press Cuttings � Blog Archive � Bush Gang swore Saddam was behind 9/11 in lawsuit
Keld Bach�s Press Cuttings � Blog Archive � Bush Gang swore Saddam was behind 9/11 in lawsuit
« Fallujah - a documentary
State denial adds insult to torture victims’ injuries »
Bush Gang swore Saddam was behind 9/11 in lawsuit
By Evelyn Pringle
Much to the dismay of President Bush, Americans can remember all on their own, without any coaching from Democrats, that in the run up to war in Iraq, it was top official from the administration who were making the claim that Saddam was in cahoots with bin Laden and that he was secretly involved to 9/11.
The fact that the administration’s disinformation campaign was entirely successful is evidenced by an October 2004, Harris Poll, taken three weeks before the last presidential election, which reported that 62% of all voters, and 84% of those planning to vote for Bush, still believed that Saddam had ‘’strong links” to Al Qaeda, and that 41% of all voters, and 52% of Bush backers, believed that Saddam had ‘’helped plan and support the hijackers” who had attacked the country on 9/11.
As we now know, the basis for these allegations were false but the saddest part of the situation is that many Americans are just now beginning to realize that Bush knew the stories were false for more than a year when he cited them as justification for taking the country to war.
Documents recently declassified and made public show that the administration was warned by the Defense Intelligence Agency in February 2002, that the tale about a trip to Prague by the leader of the 9/11 highjacker, Mohamed Atta, had come from an unreliable drunk, and that the story about Iraq training members of al Qaeda on the use of chemical and biological weapons was deliberately fabricated by an Iraqi defector.
A recent poll conducted by NBC and the Wall Street Journal, indicates that Americans recognize the significance of this revelation, where 57% of Americans now believe that Bush misled the country about prewar intelligence; a 52% majority of those polled say the war was not worth it; and by a 58% to 38% margin, Americans believe that Bush has not given good enough reasons to keep our troops in Iraq.
The debate over who was most responsible for convincing the nation that there was a link between Saddam and 9/11 will probably continue for years but an important piece of the puzzle can be found by zeroing in on a woman by the name of Laurie Mylroie, that most people have probably never heard.
Mylroie had been pushing for an all-out war against Iraq for a decade. In the run-up to the first Gulf war, Mylroie, along with the recently fired New York Times reporter Judith Miller, wrote a book titled, “Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf.”
The original Iraq war obsession originated at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think-tank that served as a home base for the many neocons who were rendered powerless during the Clinton years such as Richard Perle, who became chairman of the Defense Policy Board under Bush, and Paul Wolfowitz, who moved into the number-2 position at the Pentagon, and Newt Gingrich and John Bolton, to name just a few.
In 2000, at a time when Dick Cheney sat on AEI’s board, the group’s publishing arm put out a book by Mylroie titled, “A Study in Revenge: Saddam Hussein’s Unfinished War Against America.”
In the author’s acknowledgement section of the book, Mylroie thanked a familiar case of characters, including John Bolton and the staff of AEI, for their assistance. She also wrote thanks to Scooter Libby for his “generous and timely assistance.”
Mylroie noted that Paul Wolfowitz was instrumental to her in writing the book and said, “At critical times, he provided crucial support for a project that is inherently difficult.” She said that Wolfowitz’s wife (at the time), had “fundamentally shaped the book.”
Neocon, Richard Perle, described the book as “splendid and wholly convincing,”
If Mylroie is to be believed, Saddam was involved in every anti-American terrorist event that took place since the early 1990s, from the bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which she says may have been “the work of both bin Laden and Iraq,” to the federal building in Oklahoma City.
She also accuses Saddam of involvement in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center even though the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, the US Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, the CIA, the National Security Council, and the State Department, all determined that there was no evidence of the Iraq’s involvement in the attack back in the mid-1990s.
Mylroie has also claimed that the TWA flight 800 which crashed into Long Island Sound is a likely Iraqi plot even after a lengthily investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board determined that it was an accident.
She maintains that in 2000, Saddam provided the expertise for the bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 sailors, even though no law enforcement agency has ever made such a claim. She even blames Saddam for the anthrax sent through the mail shortly after 9/11.
Once Bush became president, the neocons were brought back into power as either members of the administration or members of the influential Defense Policy Board and war against Iraq became the administration’s obsession, with Mylroie and the hawks working hand and hand to promote the theory that Saddam was involved in every terrorist act against the US over the past decade.
After the attacks on 9/11, the race towards Iraq was on, and Mylroie’s book was reissued by Harper Collins under the new title, “The War Against America.” The foreword for the second edition was written by Woolsey, who described her work as “brilliant and brave.”
The book’s cover displayed an endorsement from Paul Wolfowitz which stated: “Provocative and disturbing … argues powerfully that the shadowy mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing … was in fact an agent of Iraqi intelligence.”
In the book’s acknowledgment, Mylroie thanks Wolfowitz for being “kind enough to listen to this work presented orally and later to read the manuscript. At critical times, he provided crucial support for a project that is inherently difficult.” She also praised the assistance of John Bolton.
Now, a nutcase like Mylroie, if left to her own devices, would probably have been harmless. But when the neocons made her a consultant to the Pentagon, the position granted grossly misplaced credibility to her hair-brained conspiracy theories.
There is no doubt that she was hired to convince the world that Saddam played a role in 9/11 and although I don’t know how much she was paid, its plenty obvious that the Bush team got a lot of bang for the buck.
In February 2003, Mylroie was featured for an interview on Canadian television where she discussed why Bush was going to war against Iraq and at the same time, emphasized the certainty of a Saddam-9/11 link. Shortly after the interview got underway, she stated:
“Listen, we’re going to war because President Bush believes Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. Al Qaeda is a front for Iraqi intelligence…[the U.S.] bureaucracy made a tremendous blunder that refused to acknowledge these links … the people responsible for gathering this information, say in the C.I.A., are also the same people who contributed to the blunder on 9/11 and the deaths of 3,000 Americans, and so whenever this information emerges they move to discredit it.”
Contrary to what the Bush team is saying today, if Mylroie is to be believed during this Februar 2003 interview, it doesn’t sound like the CIA was claiming that there was a link between Saddam and bin Laden a month before the war began.
On March 12, 2003, Mylroie wrote an article in the New York Sun titled, “Blind to Saddam’s 9-11 Role,” in which she wrote:
“Iraq, along with Al Qaeda, was most probably involved in the September 11 attacks, and President Bush understands that. Already on September 17, six days later, Mr. Bush affirmed, “I believe Iraq was involved, but I’m not going to strike them now,” as Bob Woodward’s “Bush at War” discloses.”
“Indeed, at Thursday’s press conference, Mr. Bush said that Iraq has financed and trained Al Qaeda and similar terrorist groups,” Mylroie added. “That is why Mr. Bush is willing to take the risk entailed in war against Iraq,” she said.
At one point, Mylroie attempted to convince the 9/11 Commission that, “there is substantial reason to believe that these masterminds [of both the ‘93 and 9/11 Trade Center attacks] are Iraqi intelligence agents.”
However, her testimony was apparently not persuasive, because in regard to the 9/11 attacks, the Commission’s final report states that the “Intelligence Community has no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other al-Qaida strike.”
One of Mylroie’s more recent ventures included writing a book titled, “Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department tried to Stop the War on Terror.” This title is somewhat baffling in light of the speeches in recent days by Bush himself stating that everyone was in agreement with his assessment of the need to go to war and that it was the evidence produced by the intelligence agencies and not his White House that led to the war against Iraq.
The fact is that in the run up to war, Mylroie wore a wide variety of hats. But one of her most important jobs by far came when she testified as an expert witness in lawsuit against a group of defendants that included the Taliban, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, bin Laden, Saddam and the Republic of Iraq.
The suit was filed by two families on behalf of the estates of 9/11 victims, George Eric Smith, a senior business analyst for Sun Gard Asset Management, and Timothy Soulas, a senior managing director and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald Securities.
The lawsuit represents the one and only time that the truth or falsity of the Saddam-9/11 connection has ever been tested. In the end, the Judge in the case delivered a verdict in favor of the families based on specific claims by Mylroie and top administration officials, that a definite link between Saddam and 9/11 did in fact exist.
US District Court Judge, Harold Baer, entered a default judgment for the plaintiffs in January 2003, because the time allowed for a response had passed, and the defendants had failed to file an answer to the plaintiff’s complaint.
In March 2003, Judge Baer held 2 days of hearings to determine the amount of damages that should be awarded to the families. The lawyers for the plaintiff’s presented evidence to establish what they considered a “conclusive link” between Saddam and 9/11, which included declassified interviews with Iraqi defectors who appeared on a television news show and said that Saddam used a jet airplane in a remote area of Iraq to train hijackers.
The most convincing evidence came from testimony by former CIA Director, R James Woolsey, a member of the administration’s Defense Policy Board, and statements made by Colin Powell and George Tenet.
On May 8, 2003, Judge Baer released his written findings in the case and awarded damages to the plaintiffs in the amount of $104 million, to be paid by defendants, Saddam, bin Laden, al-Qaida, the Taliban, and the former Iraqi government.
In his written findings, Judge Baer acknowledged that he based his decision on the statements of Woolsey, Powell, Tenet, and Mylroie, all of whom he considered experts on the Saddam-9/11 connection, and said: “The opinion testimony of the plaintiffs’ experts is sufficient to meet plaintiffs’ burden that Iraq collaborated in or supported bin Laden/al Qaeda’s terrorist acts of September 11. . .”
“Their opinions, coupled with their qualifications as experts on this issue,” Jude Baer wrote, “provide a sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to draw inferences which could lead to the conclusion that Iraq provided material support to al Qaeda and that it did so with knowledge and intent to further al Qaeda’s criminal acts.”
He cited some specific statements that he relied upon in formulating a believe that there was a link between Saddam and 9/11, and included the following from Tenet and Powell:
“Both Director Tenet and Secretary Powell mentioned ’senior level contacts’ between Iraq and al Qaeda going back to the early 1990s [although both acknowledged that part of the interactions in the early to mid-1990s pertained to achieving a mutual non-aggression understanding];” Baer noted, “both mentioned that al Qaeda sought to acquire poison gas and training in its use from Iraq; both mentioned that al Qaeda members have been in Iraq, including Baghdad, after September 2001. . . .”
“Director Tenet’s carefully worded letter included in substance the same allegations,” he said, “but with less detail, that Secretary of State Colin Powell made before the U.N. Security Counsel on Feb. 5, 2003, in his remarks about ‘the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network. . . .’ ,” Judge Baer wrote.
He also outlined the testimony provided by Woolsey. “[Former CIA] Director [James] Woolsey,” the Judge said, “reviewed several facts that tended in his view to show Iraq’s involvement in acts of terrorism against the United States in general and likely in the events of September 11 specifically.”
Judge Baer discussed specific portions of Woolsey’s testimony that led to his ruling against the defendants, and stated in part: “First, Director Woolsey described the existence of a highly secure military facility in Iraq where non-Iraqi fundamentalists [e.g., Egyptians and Saudis] are trained in airplane hijacking and other forms of terrorism.”
“Through satellite imagery and the testimony of three Iraqi defectors, [he] demonstrated the existence of this facility, called Salman Pak, which has an airplane but no runway,” the decision noted. “The defectors also stated that these fundamentalists were taught methods of hijacking using utensils or short knives,” Judge Baer wrote.
“Second,” Baer continued, “Director Woolsey mentioned a meeting that allegedly occurred in Prague in April 2001 between Mohammad Atta, the apparent leader of the hijackings, and a high-level Iraqi intelligence agent.”
“According to James Woolsey,” the Judge said, “the evidence indicates that this was an ‘operational meeting’ because Atta flew to the Czech Republic and then returned to the United States shortly afterwards.”
“Third,” Baer explained, “Woolsey noted that his conclusion was also based on ‘contacts,’ which refer to interactions between Hussein/Iraq and bin Laden/al Qaeda that are described in a letter from George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, to Senator Bob Graham on October 7, 2002.”
In his findings, Judge Baer next referred to the testimony of Laurie Mylroie, on which he based his conclusion that Saddam was involved in 9/11. It is apparent that he believed her claims that Saddam was involved in all the terrorist attacks.
“Dr. Mylroie described Iraq’s covert involvement in acts of terrorism against the United States in the past, including the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993,” Baer stated in his opinion.
“Dr. Mylroie testified to at least four events that served as the basis for her conclusion that Iraq played a role in the September 11 tragedy,” he explained. “First, she claimed that Iraq provided and continues to provide support to two of the main perpetrators of the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993,” he said.
“Second, she noted bin Laden’s fatwah against the United States, which was motivated by the presence of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia to fight the Gulf War against Iraq,” his findings explained.
“Third,” he wrote, “she noted that threats by bin Laden in late 1997 and early 1998 which led up to the bombing of the U.S. embassies [on August 7, 1998] were ‘in lockstep’ with Hussein’s threats about ousting the U.N. weapons inspectors, which he eventually did on August 5, 1998.”
Judge Baer also quoted other portions of her testimony and said, “Dr. Mylroie concluded that ‘Iraq, I believe, did provide support and resources for the September 11 attacks. I agree with [Iraqi defector] Captain [Sabah] Khodada when he said that … it took a state like Iraq to carry out an attack as really sophisticated, massive and deadly as what happened on September 11′.”
After hearing the assertions of these top administration officials, Judge Baer concluded that: “Plaintiffs have shown, albeit barely, ‘by evidence satisfactory to the court’ that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al Qaeda.”
The judge’s decision is proof of the fact that the White House is home to the guilty parties who deliberately mislead Americans. His written findings document the fraud perpetrated on the country by top administration officials in taking the country to war based on the false claim that Saddam was involved in 9/11.
For those Americans still wondering about a motive, the first and foremost goal of the neocons was to gain control of the world’s oil supply and the number two goal, was to set up an elaborate profiteering scheme to funnel billions of tax dollars into their own bank accounts for many years to come. It really is that simple.
My advice to any disbelievers, is to go on the internet and do a google search on each of the top administration officials and policy makers to find out who stood to benefit off a war in Iraq, and who has benefited the most so far financially.
To make sure this advice would produce results, I just went and typed 3 words in quotes, “Bush” “war” “profit” and did a google search of the world wide web. The first article on the top of the list was published by the Observer, a well-known newspaper in the UK, and this is what it said in part:
Bush ally set to profit from the war on terror
Antony Barnett and Solomon Hughes
Sunday May 11, 2003
James Woolsey, former CIA boss and influential adviser to President George Bush, is a director of a US firm aiming to make millions of dollars from the ‘war on terror’, The Observer can reveal.
Further down in the article it said:
Woolsey is not alone among the members of the Pentagon’s highly influential Defence Policy Board to profit from America’s war on terror. [Link to article]
The American watchdog, the Centre for Public Integrity, showed that nine of the board’s members have ties to defence contractors that won more than $76bn in defence contracts in 2001 and 2002. Woolsey’s fellow neo-conservative, Richard Perle, had to resign his chairmanship of the board because of conflicts of interest, although he remains a board member.
Next I scrolled down and clicked on an article published in the December 2, 2001, San Francisco Chronicle, and this is what it said in part:
As America’s military involvement abroad deepens, profits are increasing for the Carlyle Group — and, it turns out, for thousands of California civil servants.
The Carlyle who, you ask?
The Carlyle Group, as in a secretive Washington, D.C., investment firm managing some $14 billion in assets, including stakes in a number of defense- related companies.
Carlyle counts among its chieftains former Defense Secretary (and deputy CIA Director) Frank Carlucci, former Secretary of State James Baker and, most notably, former President George Bush.
Until October, the Carlyle Group also maintained financial ties with none other than the family of Osama bin Laden, but those links were severed when it was agreed that the relationship was becoming a tad embarrassing for all concerned.
Critics of the Carlyle Group have grown increasingly vocal in recent weeks, particularly over the perception that a private organization with unmistakable links to the White House is benefiting from America’s military action in Afghanistan.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/12/02/bu172807.dtl
The roots of the Iraq profiteering scheme are deeply planted in the back yard of the White House, and as I demonstrated above, it requires very little effort to verify the allegation that the fruits of the scheme do not far from the tree.
« Fallujah - a documentary
State denial adds insult to torture victims’ injuries »
Bush Gang swore Saddam was behind 9/11 in lawsuit
By Evelyn Pringle
Much to the dismay of President Bush, Americans can remember all on their own, without any coaching from Democrats, that in the run up to war in Iraq, it was top official from the administration who were making the claim that Saddam was in cahoots with bin Laden and that he was secretly involved to 9/11.
The fact that the administration’s disinformation campaign was entirely successful is evidenced by an October 2004, Harris Poll, taken three weeks before the last presidential election, which reported that 62% of all voters, and 84% of those planning to vote for Bush, still believed that Saddam had ‘’strong links” to Al Qaeda, and that 41% of all voters, and 52% of Bush backers, believed that Saddam had ‘’helped plan and support the hijackers” who had attacked the country on 9/11.
As we now know, the basis for these allegations were false but the saddest part of the situation is that many Americans are just now beginning to realize that Bush knew the stories were false for more than a year when he cited them as justification for taking the country to war.
Documents recently declassified and made public show that the administration was warned by the Defense Intelligence Agency in February 2002, that the tale about a trip to Prague by the leader of the 9/11 highjacker, Mohamed Atta, had come from an unreliable drunk, and that the story about Iraq training members of al Qaeda on the use of chemical and biological weapons was deliberately fabricated by an Iraqi defector.
A recent poll conducted by NBC and the Wall Street Journal, indicates that Americans recognize the significance of this revelation, where 57% of Americans now believe that Bush misled the country about prewar intelligence; a 52% majority of those polled say the war was not worth it; and by a 58% to 38% margin, Americans believe that Bush has not given good enough reasons to keep our troops in Iraq.
The debate over who was most responsible for convincing the nation that there was a link between Saddam and 9/11 will probably continue for years but an important piece of the puzzle can be found by zeroing in on a woman by the name of Laurie Mylroie, that most people have probably never heard.
Mylroie had been pushing for an all-out war against Iraq for a decade. In the run-up to the first Gulf war, Mylroie, along with the recently fired New York Times reporter Judith Miller, wrote a book titled, “Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf.”
The original Iraq war obsession originated at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think-tank that served as a home base for the many neocons who were rendered powerless during the Clinton years such as Richard Perle, who became chairman of the Defense Policy Board under Bush, and Paul Wolfowitz, who moved into the number-2 position at the Pentagon, and Newt Gingrich and John Bolton, to name just a few.
In 2000, at a time when Dick Cheney sat on AEI’s board, the group’s publishing arm put out a book by Mylroie titled, “A Study in Revenge: Saddam Hussein’s Unfinished War Against America.”
In the author’s acknowledgement section of the book, Mylroie thanked a familiar case of characters, including John Bolton and the staff of AEI, for their assistance. She also wrote thanks to Scooter Libby for his “generous and timely assistance.”
Mylroie noted that Paul Wolfowitz was instrumental to her in writing the book and said, “At critical times, he provided crucial support for a project that is inherently difficult.” She said that Wolfowitz’s wife (at the time), had “fundamentally shaped the book.”
Neocon, Richard Perle, described the book as “splendid and wholly convincing,”
If Mylroie is to be believed, Saddam was involved in every anti-American terrorist event that took place since the early 1990s, from the bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which she says may have been “the work of both bin Laden and Iraq,” to the federal building in Oklahoma City.
She also accuses Saddam of involvement in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center even though the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, the US Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, the CIA, the National Security Council, and the State Department, all determined that there was no evidence of the Iraq’s involvement in the attack back in the mid-1990s.
Mylroie has also claimed that the TWA flight 800 which crashed into Long Island Sound is a likely Iraqi plot even after a lengthily investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board determined that it was an accident.
She maintains that in 2000, Saddam provided the expertise for the bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 sailors, even though no law enforcement agency has ever made such a claim. She even blames Saddam for the anthrax sent through the mail shortly after 9/11.
Once Bush became president, the neocons were brought back into power as either members of the administration or members of the influential Defense Policy Board and war against Iraq became the administration’s obsession, with Mylroie and the hawks working hand and hand to promote the theory that Saddam was involved in every terrorist act against the US over the past decade.
After the attacks on 9/11, the race towards Iraq was on, and Mylroie’s book was reissued by Harper Collins under the new title, “The War Against America.” The foreword for the second edition was written by Woolsey, who described her work as “brilliant and brave.”
The book’s cover displayed an endorsement from Paul Wolfowitz which stated: “Provocative and disturbing … argues powerfully that the shadowy mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing … was in fact an agent of Iraqi intelligence.”
In the book’s acknowledgment, Mylroie thanks Wolfowitz for being “kind enough to listen to this work presented orally and later to read the manuscript. At critical times, he provided crucial support for a project that is inherently difficult.” She also praised the assistance of John Bolton.
Now, a nutcase like Mylroie, if left to her own devices, would probably have been harmless. But when the neocons made her a consultant to the Pentagon, the position granted grossly misplaced credibility to her hair-brained conspiracy theories.
There is no doubt that she was hired to convince the world that Saddam played a role in 9/11 and although I don’t know how much she was paid, its plenty obvious that the Bush team got a lot of bang for the buck.
In February 2003, Mylroie was featured for an interview on Canadian television where she discussed why Bush was going to war against Iraq and at the same time, emphasized the certainty of a Saddam-9/11 link. Shortly after the interview got underway, she stated:
“Listen, we’re going to war because President Bush believes Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. Al Qaeda is a front for Iraqi intelligence…[the U.S.] bureaucracy made a tremendous blunder that refused to acknowledge these links … the people responsible for gathering this information, say in the C.I.A., are also the same people who contributed to the blunder on 9/11 and the deaths of 3,000 Americans, and so whenever this information emerges they move to discredit it.”
Contrary to what the Bush team is saying today, if Mylroie is to be believed during this Februar 2003 interview, it doesn’t sound like the CIA was claiming that there was a link between Saddam and bin Laden a month before the war began.
On March 12, 2003, Mylroie wrote an article in the New York Sun titled, “Blind to Saddam’s 9-11 Role,” in which she wrote:
“Iraq, along with Al Qaeda, was most probably involved in the September 11 attacks, and President Bush understands that. Already on September 17, six days later, Mr. Bush affirmed, “I believe Iraq was involved, but I’m not going to strike them now,” as Bob Woodward’s “Bush at War” discloses.”
“Indeed, at Thursday’s press conference, Mr. Bush said that Iraq has financed and trained Al Qaeda and similar terrorist groups,” Mylroie added. “That is why Mr. Bush is willing to take the risk entailed in war against Iraq,” she said.
At one point, Mylroie attempted to convince the 9/11 Commission that, “there is substantial reason to believe that these masterminds [of both the ‘93 and 9/11 Trade Center attacks] are Iraqi intelligence agents.”
However, her testimony was apparently not persuasive, because in regard to the 9/11 attacks, the Commission’s final report states that the “Intelligence Community has no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other al-Qaida strike.”
One of Mylroie’s more recent ventures included writing a book titled, “Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department tried to Stop the War on Terror.” This title is somewhat baffling in light of the speeches in recent days by Bush himself stating that everyone was in agreement with his assessment of the need to go to war and that it was the evidence produced by the intelligence agencies and not his White House that led to the war against Iraq.
The fact is that in the run up to war, Mylroie wore a wide variety of hats. But one of her most important jobs by far came when she testified as an expert witness in lawsuit against a group of defendants that included the Taliban, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, bin Laden, Saddam and the Republic of Iraq.
The suit was filed by two families on behalf of the estates of 9/11 victims, George Eric Smith, a senior business analyst for Sun Gard Asset Management, and Timothy Soulas, a senior managing director and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald Securities.
The lawsuit represents the one and only time that the truth or falsity of the Saddam-9/11 connection has ever been tested. In the end, the Judge in the case delivered a verdict in favor of the families based on specific claims by Mylroie and top administration officials, that a definite link between Saddam and 9/11 did in fact exist.
US District Court Judge, Harold Baer, entered a default judgment for the plaintiffs in January 2003, because the time allowed for a response had passed, and the defendants had failed to file an answer to the plaintiff’s complaint.
In March 2003, Judge Baer held 2 days of hearings to determine the amount of damages that should be awarded to the families. The lawyers for the plaintiff’s presented evidence to establish what they considered a “conclusive link” between Saddam and 9/11, which included declassified interviews with Iraqi defectors who appeared on a television news show and said that Saddam used a jet airplane in a remote area of Iraq to train hijackers.
The most convincing evidence came from testimony by former CIA Director, R James Woolsey, a member of the administration’s Defense Policy Board, and statements made by Colin Powell and George Tenet.
On May 8, 2003, Judge Baer released his written findings in the case and awarded damages to the plaintiffs in the amount of $104 million, to be paid by defendants, Saddam, bin Laden, al-Qaida, the Taliban, and the former Iraqi government.
In his written findings, Judge Baer acknowledged that he based his decision on the statements of Woolsey, Powell, Tenet, and Mylroie, all of whom he considered experts on the Saddam-9/11 connection, and said: “The opinion testimony of the plaintiffs’ experts is sufficient to meet plaintiffs’ burden that Iraq collaborated in or supported bin Laden/al Qaeda’s terrorist acts of September 11. . .”
“Their opinions, coupled with their qualifications as experts on this issue,” Jude Baer wrote, “provide a sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to draw inferences which could lead to the conclusion that Iraq provided material support to al Qaeda and that it did so with knowledge and intent to further al Qaeda’s criminal acts.”
He cited some specific statements that he relied upon in formulating a believe that there was a link between Saddam and 9/11, and included the following from Tenet and Powell:
“Both Director Tenet and Secretary Powell mentioned ’senior level contacts’ between Iraq and al Qaeda going back to the early 1990s [although both acknowledged that part of the interactions in the early to mid-1990s pertained to achieving a mutual non-aggression understanding];” Baer noted, “both mentioned that al Qaeda sought to acquire poison gas and training in its use from Iraq; both mentioned that al Qaeda members have been in Iraq, including Baghdad, after September 2001. . . .”
“Director Tenet’s carefully worded letter included in substance the same allegations,” he said, “but with less detail, that Secretary of State Colin Powell made before the U.N. Security Counsel on Feb. 5, 2003, in his remarks about ‘the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network. . . .’ ,” Judge Baer wrote.
He also outlined the testimony provided by Woolsey. “[Former CIA] Director [James] Woolsey,” the Judge said, “reviewed several facts that tended in his view to show Iraq’s involvement in acts of terrorism against the United States in general and likely in the events of September 11 specifically.”
Judge Baer discussed specific portions of Woolsey’s testimony that led to his ruling against the defendants, and stated in part: “First, Director Woolsey described the existence of a highly secure military facility in Iraq where non-Iraqi fundamentalists [e.g., Egyptians and Saudis] are trained in airplane hijacking and other forms of terrorism.”
“Through satellite imagery and the testimony of three Iraqi defectors, [he] demonstrated the existence of this facility, called Salman Pak, which has an airplane but no runway,” the decision noted. “The defectors also stated that these fundamentalists were taught methods of hijacking using utensils or short knives,” Judge Baer wrote.
“Second,” Baer continued, “Director Woolsey mentioned a meeting that allegedly occurred in Prague in April 2001 between Mohammad Atta, the apparent leader of the hijackings, and a high-level Iraqi intelligence agent.”
“According to James Woolsey,” the Judge said, “the evidence indicates that this was an ‘operational meeting’ because Atta flew to the Czech Republic and then returned to the United States shortly afterwards.”
“Third,” Baer explained, “Woolsey noted that his conclusion was also based on ‘contacts,’ which refer to interactions between Hussein/Iraq and bin Laden/al Qaeda that are described in a letter from George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, to Senator Bob Graham on October 7, 2002.”
In his findings, Judge Baer next referred to the testimony of Laurie Mylroie, on which he based his conclusion that Saddam was involved in 9/11. It is apparent that he believed her claims that Saddam was involved in all the terrorist attacks.
“Dr. Mylroie described Iraq’s covert involvement in acts of terrorism against the United States in the past, including the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993,” Baer stated in his opinion.
“Dr. Mylroie testified to at least four events that served as the basis for her conclusion that Iraq played a role in the September 11 tragedy,” he explained. “First, she claimed that Iraq provided and continues to provide support to two of the main perpetrators of the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993,” he said.
“Second, she noted bin Laden’s fatwah against the United States, which was motivated by the presence of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia to fight the Gulf War against Iraq,” his findings explained.
“Third,” he wrote, “she noted that threats by bin Laden in late 1997 and early 1998 which led up to the bombing of the U.S. embassies [on August 7, 1998] were ‘in lockstep’ with Hussein’s threats about ousting the U.N. weapons inspectors, which he eventually did on August 5, 1998.”
Judge Baer also quoted other portions of her testimony and said, “Dr. Mylroie concluded that ‘Iraq, I believe, did provide support and resources for the September 11 attacks. I agree with [Iraqi defector] Captain [Sabah] Khodada when he said that … it took a state like Iraq to carry out an attack as really sophisticated, massive and deadly as what happened on September 11′.”
After hearing the assertions of these top administration officials, Judge Baer concluded that: “Plaintiffs have shown, albeit barely, ‘by evidence satisfactory to the court’ that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al Qaeda.”
The judge’s decision is proof of the fact that the White House is home to the guilty parties who deliberately mislead Americans. His written findings document the fraud perpetrated on the country by top administration officials in taking the country to war based on the false claim that Saddam was involved in 9/11.
For those Americans still wondering about a motive, the first and foremost goal of the neocons was to gain control of the world’s oil supply and the number two goal, was to set up an elaborate profiteering scheme to funnel billions of tax dollars into their own bank accounts for many years to come. It really is that simple.
My advice to any disbelievers, is to go on the internet and do a google search on each of the top administration officials and policy makers to find out who stood to benefit off a war in Iraq, and who has benefited the most so far financially.
To make sure this advice would produce results, I just went and typed 3 words in quotes, “Bush” “war” “profit” and did a google search of the world wide web. The first article on the top of the list was published by the Observer, a well-known newspaper in the UK, and this is what it said in part:
Bush ally set to profit from the war on terror
Antony Barnett and Solomon Hughes
Sunday May 11, 2003
James Woolsey, former CIA boss and influential adviser to President George Bush, is a director of a US firm aiming to make millions of dollars from the ‘war on terror’, The Observer can reveal.
Further down in the article it said:
Woolsey is not alone among the members of the Pentagon’s highly influential Defence Policy Board to profit from America’s war on terror. [Link to article]
The American watchdog, the Centre for Public Integrity, showed that nine of the board’s members have ties to defence contractors that won more than $76bn in defence contracts in 2001 and 2002. Woolsey’s fellow neo-conservative, Richard Perle, had to resign his chairmanship of the board because of conflicts of interest, although he remains a board member.
Next I scrolled down and clicked on an article published in the December 2, 2001, San Francisco Chronicle, and this is what it said in part:
As America’s military involvement abroad deepens, profits are increasing for the Carlyle Group — and, it turns out, for thousands of California civil servants.
The Carlyle who, you ask?
The Carlyle Group, as in a secretive Washington, D.C., investment firm managing some $14 billion in assets, including stakes in a number of defense- related companies.
Carlyle counts among its chieftains former Defense Secretary (and deputy CIA Director) Frank Carlucci, former Secretary of State James Baker and, most notably, former President George Bush.
Until October, the Carlyle Group also maintained financial ties with none other than the family of Osama bin Laden, but those links were severed when it was agreed that the relationship was becoming a tad embarrassing for all concerned.
Critics of the Carlyle Group have grown increasingly vocal in recent weeks, particularly over the perception that a private organization with unmistakable links to the White House is benefiting from America’s military action in Afghanistan.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/12/02/bu172807.dtl
The roots of the Iraq profiteering scheme are deeply planted in the back yard of the White House, and as I demonstrated above, it requires very little effort to verify the allegation that the fruits of the scheme do not far from the tree.
A Distinction Without A Difference | The Wall Street Examiner
A Distinction Without A Difference The Wall Street Examiner
A Distinction Without A Differenceby Anon Examiner, Sunday November 13 2005It's well-established that the U.S. is living high on the hog thanks to the "kindness of strangers"-- ever increasing purchases of US sovereign and private debt by foreign investors, and foreign central banks in particular. This will make for some very interesting geopolitics over the next 10-15 years or so, and the middle class in the US, which is most of us, is likely to pay the price. Analysis falls into two major camps.There's the Bernanke/Kudlow/GaveKal camp that says the U.S. is doing the developing world a big favor by sopping up all their excess savings and spending it on SUVs, plasma TVs, etc., thereby creating employment and business opportunities in the industrializing world.Then there's the Bonner/Noland/Austrian camp that says U.S. debt creation is unsustainable, fraught with peril and will end in tears.Maybe they're both correct, depending on your time frame and where you stand.From an intermediate perspective, I tend to come down on the side of Bernanke. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. From a longer-term perspective, I think the Bonner-type folks are on to something.John Mauldin recently liberally quoted from the new GaveKal book "Our Brave New World." If the excerpts are any indication, it sures makes me think--contrary to their thesis--that the average Joe in the U.S. is going to get hammered one of these days.Their view is that the U.S. is the world's leader in financial and business creativity and will continue to outsource more and more of the low-margin grunt work. This will keep the coffers overflowing in the U.S.This is likely so.But, of course, this will benefit the captains of industry---creative or otherwise---at the expense of the broad swath of the American public whose jobs will be downsized or capsized.GaveKal agrees and doesn't see a problem with that: "Over time, the job market in developed economies (like the U.S.) will consist of a minority of very creative individuals who work for themselves, and a majority who work in the service industry for the creative minds and/or the tourists coming in from the industrial world."While GaveKal sees this as a shiny new paradise, it actually sounds a lot like the Armageddon-like predictions of a world where the top 1% are filthy, stinking rich (kind of like now), the top 10% are friends and family of the stinking rich sucking off the teat of the top 1%, and the rest of us are shining the shoes, manning the burger pits, detailing the Porsches and giving backrubs to hedge fund managers, global wildcat financiers and GOOG muckedymucks.In short, GaveKal's Distopian vision of the future of the U.S. sounds more similar to present-day Saudi Arabia, than to an updated version of what was once known as "the American Dream."The fact that our 1% is supposedly merit-based and comprised of brilliant, 'creative' financial engineers, as opposed to wealth-by-surname as in Saudi Arabia, seems like a distinction without a difference to me. The end result is the same: a society where a handful own and control nearly everything with the rest doing their bidding. In this way, GaveKal's vision of a grand, creative meritocracy looks suspiciously similar to every other society throughout history that has concentrated wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands.GaveKal also goes on to say that newly-created wealth from the 'industrial' world will continue to flood the 'creative' world (U.S.) because (take your pick): 1) we respect rule of law; 2) property rights are protected; 3) we are the 'fun world (?). So they believe U.S. assets will always be overvalued.Seems like classic 'home bias' to me. But they could be right for a while longer.I have no doubt that the world will go on. Global living standards have improved immeasurably since the caveman days despite wars, plague, pestilence, stock market crashes and fad diets. But there are still a few glitches to work out.The new engines of world growth, for example, have some crosses to bear. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia is still, last I checked, a dictatorship (benign or otherwise) owned lock, stock and barrel (pun intended) by one family who stole it fair and square from another family back in 1903. Now they are hoping to fight back Islamic Fundamentalists, the newest tribe on the block. I also read today that they are considering allowing women to drive cars...someday.China remains communist, has hundreds of millions living hand-to-mouth, and just last week passed new rules censoring instant cellphone messaging to crack down on dissent.India graduates more software engineers than any nation on earth. But half the women in the country are still illiterate. So we have a ways to go. Will we get there? I hope so. But the path we take may surprise us all, GaveKal and Bonner included.Of course, from a trader's perspective, if you keep positions manageable and time frames short, I'm not sure any of this matters. As JimmyScreamer might say, buy HAGWUS (HANS/AAPL/GOOG/WFMI/UNH/SNDK) for a year-end run.Anonymous Examiners are analysts, investors, and traders who have given the Wall Street Examiner permission to post their thoughts, but wish to protect their identities. The views expressed are those of the writer only, and not necessarily those of The Wall Street Examiner, its publisher, editors, or staff. The purpose of this article is for education and information only, and should under no circumstances be construed as an invitation to purchase or sell securities. Neither the writer nor The Wall Street Examiner undertake to update this article. Readers are urged to consult with a qualified financial professional before making any investment decision. The Wall Street Examiner welcomes all well reasoned points of view. If you would like to submit an article, whether with, or without your byline contact editor Lee Adler.
A Distinction Without A Differenceby Anon Examiner, Sunday November 13 2005It's well-established that the U.S. is living high on the hog thanks to the "kindness of strangers"-- ever increasing purchases of US sovereign and private debt by foreign investors, and foreign central banks in particular. This will make for some very interesting geopolitics over the next 10-15 years or so, and the middle class in the US, which is most of us, is likely to pay the price. Analysis falls into two major camps.There's the Bernanke/Kudlow/GaveKal camp that says the U.S. is doing the developing world a big favor by sopping up all their excess savings and spending it on SUVs, plasma TVs, etc., thereby creating employment and business opportunities in the industrializing world.Then there's the Bonner/Noland/Austrian camp that says U.S. debt creation is unsustainable, fraught with peril and will end in tears.Maybe they're both correct, depending on your time frame and where you stand.From an intermediate perspective, I tend to come down on the side of Bernanke. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. From a longer-term perspective, I think the Bonner-type folks are on to something.John Mauldin recently liberally quoted from the new GaveKal book "Our Brave New World." If the excerpts are any indication, it sures makes me think--contrary to their thesis--that the average Joe in the U.S. is going to get hammered one of these days.Their view is that the U.S. is the world's leader in financial and business creativity and will continue to outsource more and more of the low-margin grunt work. This will keep the coffers overflowing in the U.S.This is likely so.But, of course, this will benefit the captains of industry---creative or otherwise---at the expense of the broad swath of the American public whose jobs will be downsized or capsized.GaveKal agrees and doesn't see a problem with that: "Over time, the job market in developed economies (like the U.S.) will consist of a minority of very creative individuals who work for themselves, and a majority who work in the service industry for the creative minds and/or the tourists coming in from the industrial world."While GaveKal sees this as a shiny new paradise, it actually sounds a lot like the Armageddon-like predictions of a world where the top 1% are filthy, stinking rich (kind of like now), the top 10% are friends and family of the stinking rich sucking off the teat of the top 1%, and the rest of us are shining the shoes, manning the burger pits, detailing the Porsches and giving backrubs to hedge fund managers, global wildcat financiers and GOOG muckedymucks.In short, GaveKal's Distopian vision of the future of the U.S. sounds more similar to present-day Saudi Arabia, than to an updated version of what was once known as "the American Dream."The fact that our 1% is supposedly merit-based and comprised of brilliant, 'creative' financial engineers, as opposed to wealth-by-surname as in Saudi Arabia, seems like a distinction without a difference to me. The end result is the same: a society where a handful own and control nearly everything with the rest doing their bidding. In this way, GaveKal's vision of a grand, creative meritocracy looks suspiciously similar to every other society throughout history that has concentrated wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands.GaveKal also goes on to say that newly-created wealth from the 'industrial' world will continue to flood the 'creative' world (U.S.) because (take your pick): 1) we respect rule of law; 2) property rights are protected; 3) we are the 'fun world (?). So they believe U.S. assets will always be overvalued.Seems like classic 'home bias' to me. But they could be right for a while longer.I have no doubt that the world will go on. Global living standards have improved immeasurably since the caveman days despite wars, plague, pestilence, stock market crashes and fad diets. But there are still a few glitches to work out.The new engines of world growth, for example, have some crosses to bear. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia is still, last I checked, a dictatorship (benign or otherwise) owned lock, stock and barrel (pun intended) by one family who stole it fair and square from another family back in 1903. Now they are hoping to fight back Islamic Fundamentalists, the newest tribe on the block. I also read today that they are considering allowing women to drive cars...someday.China remains communist, has hundreds of millions living hand-to-mouth, and just last week passed new rules censoring instant cellphone messaging to crack down on dissent.India graduates more software engineers than any nation on earth. But half the women in the country are still illiterate. So we have a ways to go. Will we get there? I hope so. But the path we take may surprise us all, GaveKal and Bonner included.Of course, from a trader's perspective, if you keep positions manageable and time frames short, I'm not sure any of this matters. As JimmyScreamer might say, buy HAGWUS (HANS/AAPL/GOOG/WFMI/UNH/SNDK) for a year-end run.Anonymous Examiners are analysts, investors, and traders who have given the Wall Street Examiner permission to post their thoughts, but wish to protect their identities. The views expressed are those of the writer only, and not necessarily those of The Wall Street Examiner, its publisher, editors, or staff. The purpose of this article is for education and information only, and should under no circumstances be construed as an invitation to purchase or sell securities. Neither the writer nor The Wall Street Examiner undertake to update this article. Readers are urged to consult with a qualified financial professional before making any investment decision. The Wall Street Examiner welcomes all well reasoned points of view. If you would like to submit an article, whether with, or without your byline contact editor Lee Adler.
Eberle articulates the wrong cause...(sure it will appeal to morons)
The Loft � Blog Archive � You can trust me� I�m from the U.N.
Blogger Thought: This silly argument is being played out as UN=evil world govt. likely to be usurped by freedom hating rouge nations. What a load of hooey!
Blogger Thought: This silly argument is being played out as UN=evil world govt. likely to be usurped by freedom hating rouge nations. What a load of hooey!
' Colorful Moose'
My son had a field trip at the Nature and Science museum in Denver.
I took this picture of a diorama scene dipicting views from the
Rocky Mountain region of Colorado.
I took this picture of a diorama scene dipicting views from the
Rocky Mountain region of Colorado.
Ellsberg Of The American Resistance
Ellsberg Of The American Resistance
Blogger Thoughts: I think Lang has it wrong about Ellsberg. (and Richard Clark)
Blogger Thoughts: I think Lang has it wrong about Ellsberg. (and Richard Clark)
Arafat died after a poison was injected into his ear
Haaretz - Israel News
By Haaretz Staff
Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat died after a poison was injected into his ear, according to statements made by senior PA official Ahmad Abdul Rahman that appeared yesterday in the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper.
Abdul Rahman, who serves as an advisor to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, granted an interview to the paper on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of Arafat's death.
Advertisement
According to Abdul Rahman, who is also a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, Arafat was poisoned at the end of September 2003 and lost 13 kilograms over the course of 16 days. Doctors were unable to identify Arafat's ailment during this period. Abdul Rahman added that Arafat loved the closeness of the people around him. He said there is no doubt that one of them injected a poison into his ear, which caused his death over the long term.
By Haaretz Staff
Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat died after a poison was injected into his ear, according to statements made by senior PA official Ahmad Abdul Rahman that appeared yesterday in the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper.
Abdul Rahman, who serves as an advisor to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, granted an interview to the paper on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of Arafat's death.
Advertisement
According to Abdul Rahman, who is also a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, Arafat was poisoned at the end of September 2003 and lost 13 kilograms over the course of 16 days. Doctors were unable to identify Arafat's ailment during this period. Abdul Rahman added that Arafat loved the closeness of the people around him. He said there is no doubt that one of them injected a poison into his ear, which caused his death over the long term.
Don't Call Guantanamo a Gulag
Don't Call Guantanamo a Gulag
Blogger Thoughts: Of course I don't agree with this. Ms. Marsden was on O'Reilly tonight. Just wanted to see whether Marsden's writing matches the BS from O'Reilly.
Blogger Thoughts: Of course I don't agree with this. Ms. Marsden was on O'Reilly tonight. Just wanted to see whether Marsden's writing matches the BS from O'Reilly.
Fox News Bill O'Reilly blogging
Chuck Hagel said to Bill: "Let's get real." Totally rebuffed O'Reilly.
'CIA Fake' WRH Responds to our Amman Investigation :: Break For News :: Breaking News and Multimedia
'CIA Fake' WRH Responds to our Amman Investigation :: Break For News :: Breaking News and Multimedia
Blogger Thoughts: I've got a major issue with the way breakfornews.com is hell bent to say so many places, including WRH, are misleading. This post is interesting in any case.
Blogger Thoughts: I've got a major issue with the way breakfornews.com is hell bent to say so many places, including WRH, are misleading. This post is interesting in any case.
WHEELS: STILL COMING OFF.
TAPPED: November 2005 Archives
WHEELS: STILL COMING OFF. It gets very tedious plugging Mark Schmitt posts all the time, but he wrote one over the weekend reflecting on the speedy collapse of the Republican governing operation that's highly worth reading:
A great deal of Bush/Rove/DeLay's success over the past five years has come from pushing through party-line votes as if they were confidence votes in a parliamentary system. Many of the votes pushed through with massive arm-twisting and unprecedented procedures, such as the Medicare prescription drug bill and the 2003 tax bill, were sold on the basis that the president needs the victory. You may not think this is good policy, wavering Republicans were told, but if the president wins, he gets reelected and we all win; we lose, and our whole edifice of power collapses.
And just as in a parliamentary system, that works until it stops working. And when it stops working, the government is finished. After reelection, the confidence vote argument lost some steam. Seeing Bush as a burden in 2006 rather than an asset for reelection, it loses still more. Having chosen to govern as a party, rather than national, leader, Bush has few of the resources that other presidents have had to salvage themselves, and the same goes for the Republican leadership in Congress.The breakdown has continued unabated this week, with the Senate dispensing with extensions of the president's capital gains and dividend tax cuts and House leaders still struggling desperately to pass the spending reconciliation bill. And when (if!) the spending and tax cut bills make it to conferences, of course, the difficulties in reaching agreements are only going to worsen. Most delightful of all for Democratic spectators is the looming specter of House Republican leadership elections in January. As subscription-only Roll Call reports today:
The willingness of more lawmakers to speak openly of January elections will likely depend on this week’s reconciliation vote. Floor action on the bill was postponed once already for lack of support and the final outcome will be viewed as a key test of not just Blunt’s ability to serve as both leader and Whip but also of the entire current leadership slate, all the way up to Hastert…
The talk of leadership elections has worried some DeLay backers. Earlier this week, Rep. Joe Wilson (S.C.) circulated a letter to his GOP colleagues reminding them, “During this time of challenge in our Conference, we must continue to support Tom.”
“I urge you to not only oppose any notion of having early leadership elections, but also to refrain from discussing the issue,” he wrote.Wilson and other DeLay stalwarts seem to have already lost this battle. More broadly, heading into 2006 it's a bit hard to think of what might serve as a force to reverse the trajectory of entropy and breakdown the GOP finds itself in now.
UPDATE: A huge appropriations bill went down for a startling defeat this afternoon on the House floor. (This was the same bill from which Arlen Specter trimmed over a billion dollars in pork, as Matt mentioned yesterday.) See Mike Crowley's two posts for some Hill sources' on-the-ground reports of the "anarchy" on the floor.
--Sam Rosenfeld
Posted at 02:51 PM
CATASTROPHIC SUCCESS? Looks like Samuel Alito is making Tom Davis nervous:
The Republican lawmaker who helped guide the GOP to an expanded majority in the House three years ago warned yesterday that a Supreme Court ruling overturning a woman's legal right to an abortion -- a possibility if the high court shifts further to the right -- could hurt his party's political prospects and cause a ''sea change" in suburban voting habits.
Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee through the 2002 election, said that if the Supreme Court threw out Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that established that abortion rights were protected by the Constitution, ''you're going to have a lot of very nervous suburban candidates."There's some debate in progressive circles about what the real-world impact of overturning Roe would be. I tend to come down with Scott Lemieux, who argues convincingly that the effects of a reversal would be so disastrous for women across the country that the political calculations simply don't matter.
But the political case, too, is unclear. It certainly wouldn't demobilize the Christian right, which would then fight on every front to regulate and criminalize abortion, but it might create a parallel mobilization on the left. That's clearly what Davis fears, particularly as any backlash is likely to concentrate itself in the suburban and exurban regions that have emerged as the new demographic base for Republicans. True or not, Davis' admission does show that there's a serious contingent of Republicans deeply concerned by the prospects of a successful social conservative agenda. With Alito looking like a clear vote against Roe and Republicans joining with Democrats to demand his honesty and forthrightness, we may be seeing the emergence of cracks in a Republican Party that loved the Christian right's support but was never onboard or comfortable with its vision. So long as they had no chance of implementing it, that scarcely mattered. Now, however, the success of the Christian Coalition's project looks possible. And while Davis was the first to sound the alarm, I don't think he'll be the last.
--Ezra Klein
WHEELS: STILL COMING OFF. It gets very tedious plugging Mark Schmitt posts all the time, but he wrote one over the weekend reflecting on the speedy collapse of the Republican governing operation that's highly worth reading:
A great deal of Bush/Rove/DeLay's success over the past five years has come from pushing through party-line votes as if they were confidence votes in a parliamentary system. Many of the votes pushed through with massive arm-twisting and unprecedented procedures, such as the Medicare prescription drug bill and the 2003 tax bill, were sold on the basis that the president needs the victory. You may not think this is good policy, wavering Republicans were told, but if the president wins, he gets reelected and we all win; we lose, and our whole edifice of power collapses.
And just as in a parliamentary system, that works until it stops working. And when it stops working, the government is finished. After reelection, the confidence vote argument lost some steam. Seeing Bush as a burden in 2006 rather than an asset for reelection, it loses still more. Having chosen to govern as a party, rather than national, leader, Bush has few of the resources that other presidents have had to salvage themselves, and the same goes for the Republican leadership in Congress.The breakdown has continued unabated this week, with the Senate dispensing with extensions of the president's capital gains and dividend tax cuts and House leaders still struggling desperately to pass the spending reconciliation bill. And when (if!) the spending and tax cut bills make it to conferences, of course, the difficulties in reaching agreements are only going to worsen. Most delightful of all for Democratic spectators is the looming specter of House Republican leadership elections in January. As subscription-only Roll Call reports today:
The willingness of more lawmakers to speak openly of January elections will likely depend on this week’s reconciliation vote. Floor action on the bill was postponed once already for lack of support and the final outcome will be viewed as a key test of not just Blunt’s ability to serve as both leader and Whip but also of the entire current leadership slate, all the way up to Hastert…
The talk of leadership elections has worried some DeLay backers. Earlier this week, Rep. Joe Wilson (S.C.) circulated a letter to his GOP colleagues reminding them, “During this time of challenge in our Conference, we must continue to support Tom.”
“I urge you to not only oppose any notion of having early leadership elections, but also to refrain from discussing the issue,” he wrote.Wilson and other DeLay stalwarts seem to have already lost this battle. More broadly, heading into 2006 it's a bit hard to think of what might serve as a force to reverse the trajectory of entropy and breakdown the GOP finds itself in now.
UPDATE: A huge appropriations bill went down for a startling defeat this afternoon on the House floor. (This was the same bill from which Arlen Specter trimmed over a billion dollars in pork, as Matt mentioned yesterday.) See Mike Crowley's two posts for some Hill sources' on-the-ground reports of the "anarchy" on the floor.
--Sam Rosenfeld
Posted at 02:51 PM
CATASTROPHIC SUCCESS? Looks like Samuel Alito is making Tom Davis nervous:
The Republican lawmaker who helped guide the GOP to an expanded majority in the House three years ago warned yesterday that a Supreme Court ruling overturning a woman's legal right to an abortion -- a possibility if the high court shifts further to the right -- could hurt his party's political prospects and cause a ''sea change" in suburban voting habits.
Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee through the 2002 election, said that if the Supreme Court threw out Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that established that abortion rights were protected by the Constitution, ''you're going to have a lot of very nervous suburban candidates."There's some debate in progressive circles about what the real-world impact of overturning Roe would be. I tend to come down with Scott Lemieux, who argues convincingly that the effects of a reversal would be so disastrous for women across the country that the political calculations simply don't matter.
But the political case, too, is unclear. It certainly wouldn't demobilize the Christian right, which would then fight on every front to regulate and criminalize abortion, but it might create a parallel mobilization on the left. That's clearly what Davis fears, particularly as any backlash is likely to concentrate itself in the suburban and exurban regions that have emerged as the new demographic base for Republicans. True or not, Davis' admission does show that there's a serious contingent of Republicans deeply concerned by the prospects of a successful social conservative agenda. With Alito looking like a clear vote against Roe and Republicans joining with Democrats to demand his honesty and forthrightness, we may be seeing the emergence of cracks in a Republican Party that loved the Christian right's support but was never onboard or comfortable with its vision. So long as they had no chance of implementing it, that scarcely mattered. Now, however, the success of the Christian Coalition's project looks possible. And while Davis was the first to sound the alarm, I don't think he'll be the last.
--Ezra Klein
Delicate Arch Sunset
Arches National Park, Utah. The snow-covered La Sal Mountains are in the background.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)