In 1989 President George H. W. Bush began the multi-billion dollar Project Hammer program using an investment strategy to bring about the economic destruction of the Soviet Union including the theft of the Soviet treasury, the destabilization of the ruble, funding a KGB coup against Gorbachev in August 1991 and the seizure of major energy and munitions industries in the Soviet Union. Those resources would subsequently be turned over to international bankers and corporations. On November 1, 2001, the second operative in the Bush regime, President George W. Bush, issued Executive Order 13233 on the basis of “national security” and concealed the records of past presidents, especially his father’s spurious activities during 1990 and 1991. Consequently, those records are no longer accessible to the public. [1] The Russian coup plot was discussed in June 1991 when Yeltsin visited with Bush in conjunction with his visit to the United States. On that same visit, Yeltsin met discreetly with Gerald Corrigan, the chairman of the New York Federal Reserve. [2]

Because of numerous Presidential Executive Orders, the ethically questionable Project Hammer was deemed legal. Of course, even Hitler’s acts were “lawful,” as he had manipulated the laws to accommodate his actions. Many of Reagan’s executive orders were actually authored by Vice President Bush or his legal associates, and it is possible that Project Hammer was created by Reagan’s CIA Director, William Casey, who had directed OSS operations through Alan Dulles in Europe during World War II. Prior to his OSS affiliation, Casey worked for the Board of Economic Warfare which allegedly targeted “Hitler’s economic jugular.” [3] Allen Dulles, brother of John Foster Dulles, was the Director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961. He was a senior partner at the Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Rockefeller Empire and other mammoth trusts, corporations and cartels.

Project Hammer was staffed with CIA operatives and others associated with the National Security apparatus. Covert channels were already in place as a result of other illegal Bush activities. Thus, it was a given (1) that the project would use secret, illegal funds for unapproved covert operations, and (2) that the American public and Congress would not be informed about the illegal actions perpetrated in foreign countries. The first objective was allegedly to crush Communism, a growing political philosophy and social movement that was initially funded by the usual group of international bankers who now supported their demise. To this end, the “Vulcans,” under George H. W. Bush, waged war against the Soviet Union. [4]

The Return of the Vulcans

In their reincarnation in the administration of George W. Bush, the Vulcans functioned as a supposedly benign group, led by Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) member Condoleezza Rice, who attempted to augment and compensate for the Bush’s lack of experience and education concerning foreign policy during his presidential campaign. Rice had been President George H. W. Bush’s Soviet and East European Affairs Advisor in the National Security Council during the Soviet Union’s dissolution and during the German reunification (July 1, 1990). The resurrected Vulcan group included Richard Armitage, Robert Blackwill, Stephen Hadley, Richard Perle, Rabbi Dov S. Zakheim, Robert Zoellick and Paul Wolfowitz. Other key campaign figures included Dick Cheney, George P. Shultz and Colin Powell, all influential but not actually a part of the Vulcan Group. All of these people, associated with the George H. W. Bush administration, returned to powerful, strategic positions in George W. Bush’s administration.

Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz have been accused of being agents for the Israeli government. Investigations by Congress and the FBI have substantiated those allegations. Zakheim and his family were heavily involved in Yeshivat Sha’alvim, an educational organization in which students are taught to render absolute commitment to the State of Israel. [5]

Many of these individuals were also members of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) which was established in the spring of 1997 with the intention of promoting American Global leadership at any cost. The chairman and co-founder was William Kristol, son of Irving Kristol (CFR), considered the godfather of neo-conservatism which promotes the ideas of Max Shachtman and Leo Strauss, a noted Zionist and professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Kristol’s co-founder was Robert W. Kagan (CFR). Kristol is also the editor and co-founder, along with John Podhoretz, of the Weekly Standard Magazine, established September 17, 1995 and owned by Rupert Murdoch until August 2009. This “conservative” magazine is edited by William Kristol and Fred Barnes and promotes Middle East warfare and a huge military budget, a mentality that infects the most popular “conservative” talk show radio hosts. Kristol is a trustee for the Manhattan Institute which was founded by CIA Director William Casey and was staffed with former CIA officers.

The Vulcans had almost limitless financing from a cache known by several names – the Black Eagle Trust, the Marcos gold, Yamashita’s Gold, the Golden Lily Treasure, or the Durham Trust. Japan, under Emperor Hirohito, appointed a brother, Prince Chichibu, to head Golden Lily, established in November 1937 before Japan’s infamous Rape of Nanking, to accompany and follow the military. The Golden Lily operation carried out massive plunder throughout Asia and included an army of jewelers, financial experts and smelters. [6] While the Nazis also engaged in plundering the countries they invaded, they were not as organized and methodical as the Japanese. After the Allied blockade, Golden Lily headquarters were moved from Singapore to Manila where 175 storage sites were built by slave laborers and POWs. Billions of dollars worth of gold and other plundered treasures were stockpiled in these underground caverns, some of which were discovered by the notorious Cold Warrior, Edward G. Lansdale who directed the recovery of some of the vaults. Truman and subsequent presidents, without congressional knowledge, have used those resources to finance the CIA’s chaotic clandestine activities throughout the world. Much of the Middle East chaos is financed by those pillaged funds. A tiny portion of that treasure was the source of Ferdinand Marcos’ vast wealth. Marcos worked with the CIA for decades using Golden Lily funds to bribe nations to support the Vietnam War. In return, Marcos was allowed to sell over $1 trillion in gold through Australian brokers. [7]

In July 1944, the leaders of forty-four nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to plan the post-war economy and to discuss organizing a global political action fund which would use the Black Eagle Trust ostensibly to fight communism, bribe political leaders, enhance the treasuries of U.S. allies, and manipulate elections in foreign countries and other unconstitutional covert operations. Certainly, those politicos who managed the funds also received financial benefits. This trust was headed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson, assisted by John J. McCloy (later head of the World Bank) and Robert Lovett (later Secretary of Defense) and consultant Robert B. Anderson (later Secretary of the Treasury). [8] Anderson later operated the Commercial Exchange Bank of Anguilla in the British West Indies and was convicted of running illegal offshore banking operations and tax evasion. Investors lost about $4.4 million. Consequently, he was sent to prison for a token amount of time, one month. He was also under house arrest for five years. He could have received a ten-year sentence but Judge Palmieri considered Anderson’s “distinguished service” to the country in the “top levels of Government.” [9]

Between 1945 and 1947 huge quantities of gold and platinum were deposited in prominent banks throughout the world. These deposits came to be known as the Black Eagle Trust. Swiss banks, because of their neutrality, were pivotal in maintaining these funds. These funds were allocated to fighting communism and paying bribes and fixing elections in places like Italy, Greece, and Japan. [10] Stimson and McCloy, both retired from government service, continued their involvement in the management of the Black Eagle Trust. Robert B. Anderson, who toured the treasure sites with Douglas MacArthur, set up the Black Eagle Trust and later became a member of Eisenhower’s cabinet. [11] In order to maintain secrecy about the Trust, Washington officials insisted that the Japanese did not plunder the countries they invaded. Japanese officials who wanted to divulge the facts were imprisoned or murdered in a way that made it look like suicide, a common CIA tactic. [12] The Germans paid reparations to thousands of victims while the Japanese paid next to nothing. Military leaders who opposed foreign policies that embraced exploitation of third world countries were suicided or died from mysterious causes, which includes individuals such as George S. Patton, Smedley D. Butler and James V. Forrestal.

The Vulcan’s effort to crush Communism and end the Cold War was largely funded by that Japanese plunder. The Vulcans were resurrected when George W. Bush was installed as president in 2000, facilitated by election maneuvers, probably lots of payoffs, and Jeb Bush’s purge of Florida voters. They conducted other illegal operations, like securities fraud and money laundering. This entailed murder and false imprisonment to prevent penitent participants from divulging the activities of the group. During the process of accomplishing the main objective of destroying the Soviet Union, the operatives made massive profits. In September 1991, George H. W. Bush and Alan Greenspan, both Pilgrims Society members, financed $240 billion in illegal bonds to economically decimate the Soviet Union and bring Soviet oil and gas resources under the control of Western investors, backed by the Black Eagle Trust and supported later by Putin who for the right price purged certain oligarchs. The $240 billion in illegal bonds were apparently replaced with Treasury notes backed by U.S. taxpayers. [13] To conceal the clearance of $240 billion in securities, the Federal Reserve, within two months, increased the money supply to pre-9/11 numbers which resulted in the American taxpayer refinancing the $240 billion. [14]

The Takeover of Russia’s Oil Industry

BP Amoco became the largest foreign direct investor in Russia in 1997 when it paid a half-billion dollars to buy a 10 percent stake in the Russian oil conglomerate Sidanko. Then in 1999, Tyumen Oil bought Sidanko’s prize unit, Chernogorneft which allegedly made BP Amoco’s investment worthless. Tyumen offered to cooperate with BP Amoco on the development of Chernogorneft but BP Amoco was not interested. [15] In October 1998, Halliburton Energy Services had entered into an agreement with Moscow-based Tyumen Oil Company (TNK). Their efforts were focused on the four western Siberia fields, the first one being the Samotlorskoye field. [16] TNK has proven oil reserves of 4.3 billion barrels and possibly as many as 6.1 billion barrels, with crude oil production and refining capabilities of 420,000 barrels/day and 230,000 barrels/day, respectively. TNK markets gasoline through 400 retail outlets. [17] In 2002 Halliburton and Sibneft, Russia’s fifth largest crude oil producer, signed an agreement. Sibneft will use Halliburton’s new technologies to improve well construction and processing while Halliburton directs all project management. [18]

Tyumenskaya Neftyanaya Kompaniya (Tyumen Oil Company) was established in 1995 by government decree. It is now TNK-BP, the leading Russian oil company and ranks among the top ten privately owned oil companies worldwide in terms of crude oil production. The company, formed in 2003, resulted from the merger of BP’s Russian oil and gas assets and the oil and gas assets of Alfa, Access/Renova group (AAR). BP and AAR each own fifty percent of TNK-BP. The shareholders of TNK-BP own almost fifty percent of Slavneft, a vertically integrated Russian oil company. [19] This transaction was the biggest in Russian corporate history and was managed by Vladimir Lechtman, the Moscow partner for Jones Day, a global law firm with thirty offices and 2,200 lawyers worldwide. TNK-BP, Russia’s second-largest oil company employs almost 100,000 people and operates in Samotlor. [20]

Putin was financially rewarded by the collaborators and was happy to purge some annoying industrialists who stood in the way. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was the manager of Yukos, the company that he built into Russia’s second-largest oil company after acquiring it for $168 million when his Bank MENATEP, the first privately owned but notoriously corrupt bank since 1917 and wiped out in August 1998, purchased it through a controversial government privatization auction in 1995. MENATEP was named as a defendant in the Avisma lawsuit which was filed on August 19, 1999. [21] The bank may have facilitated the large-scale theft of Soviet Treasury funds before and following the USSR’s collapse in 1991. [22] His company had borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from western banks. [23] He was arrested on October 25, 2003 and sentenced in June 2005 to eight years on fraud and tax evasion charges. He was allegedly targeted as a political enemy by President Vladimir Putin who went after other big business owners who apparently made money by acquiring states assets. Yukos was sold piecemeal to pay off $28 billion in back tax charges. Yukos was seized and given to Rosneft. [24]

When Khodorkovsky was arrested, his secretive business arrangement with the Rothschild family was exposed as Jacob Rothschild assumed Khodorkovsky’s 26% control of Yukos while Khodorkovsky’s directorial seat on the Yukos board went to Edgar Ortiz, a former Halliburton vice president during Dick Cheney’s reign as CEO at Halliburton. Cheney, as President and CEO of Halliburton, automatically had an association with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR). [25] In November 1997, Dick Chaney, in anticipation of imminent events, had appointed Edgar Ortiz as president of Halliburton Energy Services, their global division. [26]

The Yukos Oil Company merged with the smaller Sibneft Oil Company on October 3, 2003 which created Russia’s largest oil and gas business and the world’s forth-largest private oil company. [27] On May 11, 2007 Halliburton announced they had made an agreement with the Tyumen State Oil and Gas University to open a new employee-training center in Russia to grow their business in that country and in the surrounding region. They are currently training students from five countries, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia and the United Kingdom. [28] Halliburton was awarded a $33 million contract by TNK-BP to provide oil field services to develop the Ust-Vakh field in Western Siberia. [29]

September 11 – Black Op Cover-up

Three top securities brokers had offices in the World Trade Center, Cantor Fitzgerald, Euro Brokers and Garbon Inter Capital. Flight 11 struck just under the floors where Cantor Fitzgerald was located. Cantor Fitzgerald, with possible connections to the U.S. Intelligence apparatus, was America’s biggest securities broker and apparently the main target. Within minutes, an explosion in the North Tower’s vacant 23rd floor, right under the offices of the FBI and Garbon Inter Capital on the 25th floor caused a huge fire from the 22nd through the 25th floors. At the same time, there was an explosion in the basement of the North Tower. [30] A vault in the North Tower basement held less than $1 billion in gold, much of which was reportedly moved before 9/11. However, the government had hundreds of billions of dollars of securities which were summarily destroyed. The Federal Reserve, untouched by the crisis at its downtown offices (as they had everything backed up to a remote location), assumed emergency powers that afternoon. The $240 billion in securities were electronically cleared. [31] Then, at 9:03, Flight 175 slammed into the 78th floor of the South Tower just below the 84th floor where Euro Brokers were located. [32] Brian Clark, the manager at Euro Brokers, heard numerous explosions, apparently unrelated to what he referred to as the oxygen-starved fire caused by the plane crash.

The September 11 attacks related to the financial improprieties during the preceding ten years which spurred at least nine federal investigations which were initiated in 1997-1998, about the same time that Osama bin Laden, after twenty years as a CIA asset, announced a fatwa against the U.S. The records of many of those investigations were held in the Buildings Six and Seven and on the 23rd floor of the North Tower. Those investigations were sure to reveal the black Eagle Trust shenanigans. [33] Building Seven, not hit by a plane, collapsed at 5:20:33 p.m. but was vacated as early as 9:00 when evacuees claimed to see dead bodies and sporadic fires within the building.

By 2008 and even earlier the covert securities were worth trillions. The securities used to decimate the Soviets and end the Cold War were stored in certain broker’s vaults in the World Trade Center where they were destroyed on September 11, 2001. They would have come due for settlement and clearing on September 12, 2001. [34] The federal agency investigating these bonds, the Office of Naval Intelligence was in the section of the Pentagon that was destroyed on September 11. Renovations at the Pentagon were due to be completed on September 16, 2001. However, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), the entity that often monitors war games, was hurriedly moved. If they were monitoring the simultaneous war games that morning, they would have realized that the games were used as a distraction from the actual assault. Whatever hit the pentagon struck the Navy Command Center and the offices of the Chief of Naval Operations Intelligence Plot (CNO-IP). [35] There were 125 fatalities in the Pentagon; thirty-one percent of them were people who worked in the Naval Command Center, the location of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Thirty-nine of the forty people who worked in the Office of Naval Intelligence died. [36]

On September 10, 2001 Rumsfeld announced that the Pentagon couldn’t account for $2.3 trillion, “We are, as they say, tangled in our anchor chain. Our financial systems are decades old. According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. We cannot share information from floor to floor in this building because it’s stored on dozens of technological systems that are inaccessible or incompatible.” [37] It was forgotten the following morning. Accountants, bookkeepers and budget analysts who were in the section of the Pentagon being renovated met their unexpected deaths. The destruction of accounting facts and figures will prevent discovery of where that money went. I am quite certain someone knows where it is. Certainly this is not merely gross incompetence but private seizure of public funds. [38] At the time Rabbi Dov

Zakheim was chief-financial officer for the Department of Defense. [39] In 1993, Zakheim worked for SPS International, part of System Planning Corporation, a defense contractor. His firm’s subsidiary, Tridata Corporation directed the investigation of the first “terrorist” attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. [40]

Certain National Security officials who had participated in the Cold War victory in 1991 thus comprised the collateral damage of the Cold War. They, along with hundreds of innocent people were in the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. Their deaths were presumably required to conceal the existence of the Black Eagle Trust, along with the numerous illegal activities it had funded for over 50 years. This massive destruction, and the lost lives, constitutes a massive cover-up and continued lawlessness by the brotherhood of death, Skull and Bones, and their accomplices, the Enterprise. [41] The Enterprise was established in the 1980s as a covert fascist Cold Warriors faction working with other groups like Halliburton’s private security forces and the Moonies. Citibank is connected to the Enterprise, along with all the CIA front banks, Nugen Hand and BCCI.

Double Dipping

Alvin B. “Buzzy” Krongard was elected Chief Executive Officer of Alexander Brown and Sons in 1991 and Chairman of the Board in 1994. Bankers Trust purchased Alexander Brown and Sons in 1997 to form BT Alex Brown. Krongard relinquished his investments in Alex Brown to Banker’s Trust as part of the merger. He became Vice Chairman of Banker’s Trust where he personally interacted with wealthy clients who were intimately linked to drug money laundering. After a year of possible networking, Krongard joined (or as Michael Ruppert suggests, rejoined) the CIA in 1998 where his friend, Director George Tenet, concentrated his skills on private banking ventures within the elite moneyed community. Senate investigations verify that private banking firms frequently engage in money laundering from illicit drugs and corporate crime operations. [42] On January 28, 2000 the Reginald Howe and GATA Lawsuit was filed which accused certain U.S. bullion banks of illegally dumping U.S. Treasury gold on the market. The lawsuit named Deutsche bank Alex Brown, the U.S. Treasury, Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve, and Citibank, Chase, as defendants. Gerald Corrigan was accused of having private knowledge of the scheme. [43] Krongard became the Executive Director of the CIA, essentially the Chief Operating Officer, and the number three man on March 16, 2001. Krongard, while at the CIA, arranged for Blackwater’s Erik Prince to get his first contract with the U.S. government, and later joined its board.

Richard Wagner, a data retrieval expert, estimated that more than $100 million in illegal transactions appeared to have rushed through the WTC computers before and during the disaster on September 11, 2001. A Deutsche Bank employee verified that approximately five minutes before the first plane hit the tower that the Deutsche Bank computer system in their WTC office was seized by an outside, unknown entity. Every single file was swiftly uploaded to an unidentified locality. This employee escaped from the building, but lost many of his friends. He knew, from his position in the company, that Alex Brown, the Deutsche Bank subsidiary participated in insider trading. Senator Carl Levin claimed that Alex Brown was just one of twenty prominent U.S. banks associated with money laundering. [44]

Andreas von Bülow, a Social Democratic Party member of the German parliament (1969-1994), was on the parliamentary committee on intelligence services, a group that has access to classified information. Von Bülow was also a member of the Schalck-Golodkowski investigation committee which investigates white-collar crime. He has estimated that inside trader profits surrounding 9/11 totaled approximately $15 billion. Von Bülow told The Daily Telegraph “If what I say is right, the whole US government should end up behind bars.” Further, he said, “They have hidden behind a veil of secrecy and destroyed the evidence…they invented the story of 19 Muslims working within Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda in order to hide the truth of their own covert operation.” He also said, “I’m convinced that the US apparatus must have played a role and my theory is backed up by the [Washington] government’s refusal to present any proof whatsoever of what happened.” [45]

On September 26, CBS reported that the amount was more than $100 million and that seven countries were investigating the irregular trades. Two newspapers, Reuters and the New York Times, and other mainstream media reported that the CIA regularly monitors extraordinary trades and economic irregularities to ascertain possible criminal activities or financial assaults. In fact, the CIA uses specialized software, PROMIS, to scrutinize trades. [46]

Numerous researchers believe, with justification, that the transactions in the financial markets are indicative of foreknowledge of the events of 9/11, the attacks on the twin towers and the pentagon. One of the trades, for $2.5 million, a pittance compared to the total, went unclaimed. Alex Brown, once managed by Krongard, was the firm that placed the put options on United Airlines stock. President Bush awarded Krongard by appointing him as CIA Executive Director in 2004. [47]

Between September 6 and 7, 2001, the Chicago Board Options Exchange received purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines and only 396 call options. If 4,000 of those options were purchased by people with foreknowledge, they would have accrued about $5 million. On September 10, the Chicago exchange received 4,516 put options on American Airlines compared to 748 calls. The implications are that some insiders might profit by about $4 million. These two incidents were wholly irregular and at least six times higher than normal. [48]

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Company, who occupied floors 43-46, 56, 59-74 of the World Trade Center, Tower 2, saw 2,157 of its October $45 put options bought in the three trading days before Black Tuesday. This compares to an average of 27 contracts per day before September 6. Morgan Stanley’s share price fell from $48.90 to $42.50 in the aftermath of the attacks. Assuming that 2,000 of these options contracts were bought based upon knowledge of the approaching attacks, their purchasers could have profited by at least $1.2 million. The U.S. government never again mentioned the trade irregularities after October 12, 2001. [49] Catastrophic events serve two purposes for the top criminal element in society – the perpetrators seize resources while their legislative accomplices impose burdensome restrictions on the citizens to make them more submissive and silent.

[1] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, pp. 4-5

[2] Ibid, p. 20

[3] Ibid, pp. 4-5

[4] Ibid

[5] September 11 Commission Report by E. P. Heidner, 2008, p. 108

[6] Gold Warriors, America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave, Verso Publishing, 2003, pp. 32-43

[7] Ibid, pp. 318

[8] Ibid, pp. 14-15

[9] Ex-Treasury Chief Gets 1-Month Term in Bank Fraud Case by Frank J. Prial, New York Times, June 28, 1987

[10] Gold Warriors, America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave, Verso Publishing, 2003, p. 5

[11] Ibid, p. 98

[12] Ibid, p. 102

[13] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, pp. 4-6

[14] Ibid, p. 29

[15] Tyumen Oil of Russia Seeks Links to Old Foes After Winning Fight By Neela Banerjee, New York Times, December 2, 1999

[16] Halliburton Energy Services Enters Into Alliance Agreement With Tyumen Oil Company, Press Release, October 15, 1998, http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/1998/hesnws_101598.jsp

[17] Ibid

[18] Halliburton Press Release, Halliburton And Russian Oil Company Sibneft Sign Framework Agreement, February 7, 2002, http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/2002/corpnws_020702.jsp

[19] TNK-BP, Our company, http://www.tnk-bp.com/company/

[20] Russia’s largest field is far from depleted By Jerome R. Corsi, Word Net Daily, November 04, 2005, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47219

[21] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, p. 28

[22] Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, Source Watch, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mikhail_B._Khodorkovsky

[23] Russia’s Ruling Robbers by Mark Ames, Consortium News, March 11, 1999, http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/c031199a.html

[24] “Sovest” Group Campaign for Granting Political Prisoner Status to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, February 7, 2008

[25] Halliburton Man to Sub for Khodorkovsky, Simon Ostrovsky, Moscow Times, April 30, 2004 as noted in the September 11 Commission Report, p. 233; See also Arrested Oil Tycoon Passed Shares to Banker, Washington Times, November 2, 2003

[26] Halliburton Press Release, Ortiz Named President Of Halliburton Energy Services, November 19, 1997, http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/1997/hesnws_111997.jsp

[27] Russia: Yukos-Sibneft union forms world’s No. 4 oil producer, Global Finance, Jun 2003, http://mikhail_khodorkovsky_society.blogspot.com/

[28] Halliburton Opens Russia Training Center, International Business Times, May 11, 2007, http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20070511/halliburton-training.htm

[29] Halliburton gets Russia work, Oil Daily, January 26, 2006, http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-5579583_ITM

[30] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, p. 2

[31] Ibid, p. 29

[32] Ibid, pp. 2

[33] Ibid, p. 28-29

[34] “Sioux City, Iowa, July 25, 2005 TomFlocco.com , According to leaked documents from an intelligence file obtained through a military source in the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), on or about September 12, 1991 non-performing and unauthorized gold-backed debt instruments were used to purchase ten-year “Brady” bonds.

The bonds in turn were illegally employed as collateral to borrow $240 billion–120 in Japanese Yen and 120 in

Deutsch Marks–exchanged for U.S. currency under false pretenses; or counterfeit and unlawful conversion of collateral against which an unlimited amount of money could be created in derivatives and debt instruments…”

from Cash payoffs, bonds and murder linked to White House 9/11 finance, Tom Flocco, tomflocco.com

[35] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, p. 45

[36] Ibid, p. 2

[37] Rumsfeld’s comments were on the Department of defense web site but have been understandably removed, http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2001/s20010910-secdef.ht

[38] The War On Waste Defense Department Cannot Account For 25% Of Funds — $2.3 Trillion, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml

[39] September 11 Commission Report by E. P. Heidner, 2008, p. 108

[40] Following Zakheim and Pentagon Trillions to Israel and 9-11By Jerry Mazza, July 31, 2006, http://www.rense.com/general75/latest.htm

[41] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, p. 6

[42] Crossing the Rubicon, the Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil by Michael C. Ruppert, New Society Publishers, Canada, 2004, p. 56

[43] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, p. 28

[44] Crossing the Rubicon, the Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil by Michael C. Ruppert, New Society Publishers, Canada, 2004, pp. 243-247

[45] USA staged 9/11 Attacks, German best-seller by Kate Connolly, National Post & London Telegraph, November 20, 2003

[46] Crossing the Rubicon, the Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil by Michael C. Ruppert, New Society Publishers, Canada, 2004, pp. 243-247

[47] Ibid, pp. 243-247

[48] Ibid, pp. 243-247

[49] Ibid, pp. 243-247

Television is the primary source of news and entertainment in the United States and in most of the world. Some Americans still read daily papers and some depend on the internet but the vast majority relax in front of the television and click on the channel of their choice.  http://www.hearusnow.org/other/6/20/000/

The world media is an oligopoly. http://www.thenation.com/special/bigten.html Oligopolies and monopolies exert inordinate power over the marketplace. Toyota is a major force in the new car market.  Individual reports of sticky brake pedals failed to gain their attention.  Media and government intervention finally forced them to fix several problems.  Similar situations are common.  During the winter months when visitors from the North increase demand, Wal-Mart regularly runs out of items that Southern customers need.  Their regard for individual customers can be gauged by their failure to provide an explanation or even information on when the product will be available.  If you have tried to get technical support or warranty work on a recent purchase you probably have experienced the frustrating procedures mega-corporations use to discourage complaints.

Small businesses where a responsible party works on the premises are rare.  Fewer big businesses are easier for governments to control but less attentive and more frustrating for the individual customer.

Media mergers have kept pace with those in other industries but the media has special significance.  Accurate reporting of news is essential to the maintenance of a free democratic society.

The power of the press was recognized and manipulated many years ago.  In 1915 a J. P. Morgan study found that 25 newspapers could provide sufficient control of the news to force congress to spend large sums of money with Morgan steel, ship building, and powder companies.  Potential profits from acquiring the ability to control public opinion were worth the cost of purchasing control of 25 newspapers. http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Morgan-Buys-Newspapers9feb17.htm

What Morgan interests allowed to lapse others retrieved   Americans have been and are being manipulated by the press and media.  At a Bilderberg meeting in Baden Baden, Germany in 1991 http://www.bilderberg.org/1991.htm David Rockefeller is reported to have said “We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”

Since the end of WWII the media has been distorted by three factors: First, mergers and buyouts have centered control in fewer and fewer individuals.  Second, as David Rockefeller’s remarks confirm, many of the owners and key players are Bilderberg fellow travelers.  Third, all of the key players in the major media networks are Jewish and most are secular Zionists. http://www.rense.com/general44/sevenjewishamericans.htm Control is extensive; covering press; television, network and cable; movies; magazines; and book publishing. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/giants/

One study determined that 65 percent of the programming on three of the cable networks involved Jewish guests, hosts, and experts.  Council on Foreign Relations members and Blacks are also popular sources for expert opinion.  The views, opinions, and prejudices of 2 percent of our population are being forcibly imposed on the remaining 98 percent.

The mindset behind this concentration of power was defined in a 2001 essay entitled “The Jewish Stake in America’s Changing Demography” by Dr. Stephen Steinlight.  He wrote, “More tacitly and subconsciously, I was taught the superiority of my people to the gentiles who had oppressed us. We were taught to view non-Jews as untrustworthy outsiders, people from whom sudden gusts of hatred might be anticipated, people less sensitive, intelligent, and moral than ourselves. We were also taught that the lesson of our dark history is that we could rely on no one.” http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/back1301.html

Israeli professor Anita Shapira adds to motivational clarity, ”In a world where Jews filled the role of outsiders, it was only natural for us to seek salvation in theories of universal redemption that cross national borders and states, abolish differences of religion and of origin, and predict the coming of a just kingdom on earth in which Jews would stop being foreign.” http://www.hagshama.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=2080&subject=73

Our media, our government, our money, and our educational system are controlled by people who have a foreign agenda, who consider us inferior enemies who cannot be trusted. http://www.rense.com/general85/ownh.htm

It was a mostly Jewish Zionist Neo-Con cabal that maneuvered us into the invasion of Iraq and it is that same cabal that is pushing for an attack on Iran. http://article.nationalreview.com/423580/how-to-save-the-obama-presidency-bomb-iran/daniel-pipes

One writer aptly describes the media operation, “Despite the appearance of variety, there is no real dissent, no alternative source of facts or ideas accessible to the great mass of people that might allow them to form opinions at odds with those of the media masters. They are presented with a single view of the world—a world in which every voice proclaims the equality of the races, the inerrant nature of the Jewish “Holocaust” tale, the wickedness of attempting to halt the flood of non-White aliens pouring across our borders, the danger of permitting citizens to keep and bear arms, the moral equivalence of all sexual orientations, and the desirability of a “pluralistic,” cosmopolitan society rather than a homogeneous, White one. It is a view of the world designed by the media masters to suit their own ends—and the pressure to conform to that view is overwhelming. People adapt their opinions to it, vote in accord with it, and shape their lives to fit it.” http://www.realnews247.com/who_rules_america_updated_2004.htm

The Jewish world population is not homogeneous.  There are a substantial number of Israeli Jews who deplore the theft of Palestinian land; there are Jews who believe the nation of Israel is an illegitimate creation; http://www.jewsnotzionists.org/homeintro.htm there are religious Jews who obey the Law of Moses; there are Jews who adhere to the teachings of the Talmud and there are secular Jews whose only religious belief involves their right to Palestinian land.

In addition there are Messianic Jews of various stripes and persuasions.  Some are real Christians whom God has brought to the Savior.  They are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Secular Jews and those who practice Judaism are religious rivals and from a Christian perspective no different from Muslims.

Ironically, Christians are all riled up about Muslims but are mostly ignorant of the more dangerous threat surreptitious Zionist Jewish influence is to us and our religion.  I am a fan of Chuck Baldwin and appreciate his willingness to confront threats to righteousness and freedom. http://www.covenantnews.com/baldwin100205.htm His latest article addresses the threat the United Nations poses and the deterioration of our armed forces that are now 20 percent female and soon to be home to open homosexuality.  However, he fails to mention that homosexuality, sexual immorality, mixed marriage, torture, pornography, Christian bashing, mass immigration, gun confiscation, reparations, restriction on freedom of speech and illegal and unnecessary wars have been promoted by the press and media in the United States for several decades.  Baldwin is not alone.  Christians have been manipulated, their theology has been distorted, and they have been cowed into silence.

The fear of Jewish retaliation is real.   Henry Ford was sullied, Charles Lindbergh was vilified, Joe McCarthy was hounded to death, Pat Buchanan has been squelched, and Miersheimer and Walt have been marginalized. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy

Pastor Baldwin describes a threat from the United Nations but the Neo-Con dominated George W. Bush administration appeared to divorce the UN and begin an independent effort at world domination by military and financial means.

As I have indicated in previous articles this departure could be interpreted as a split between the powerful gentile forces behind the new world order and the equally, if not more, powerful forces that control the United States and support world hegemony from Jerusalem. Zionists are quasi-religious using the Torah to support Israeli dominance.  The military/industrial complex that is behind globalism is religiously humanistic and equally antagonistic to Christianity, Zionism, Judaism, and Islam.

Zionism, Judaism, Humanism, and Islam have financial power at their disposal while, with the exception of the Vatican, Christians are relatively poor.  Christians must get their house in order, stop the paralyzing emphasis on end time theology, embrace the potentially world changing writings of John Calvin and R. J. Rushdoony and venture forth into the fray with the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, and the Word of God.  If we first humble ourselves, pray, forsake our evil ways and become willing to obey God He will fight on our side.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob cannot lose and we cannot win without Him.

But there was other evidence of an obliterated job market hiding behind the cheerful headlines.  After revising the employment numbers in 2009, The New York Times reported, “…the economy lost 150,000 jobs in December, far more than the 85,000 initially reported.”  Overall in 2009, the adjusted numbers showed an additional “…1.36 million fewer jobs…” (February 5, 2010).

And yet the unemployment rate dropped.  One reason this happened is that the U.S. government uses a separate, more unreliable survey to calculate the unemployment rate, in contrast to the survey used to calculate job losses.  There are other more important ways the government obscures the unemployment numbers: if you are no longer receiving unemployment benefits you’re not counted as unemployed; if you’ve given up looking for a job, you’re not counted either.  You are counted, however, if you are working only 15 hours a week, or if you’re a temporary worker.

In this way the government cooks the books to bring fake optimism to the masses.  The mainstream media reports these fraudulent numbers without asking questions, so that the Democrats can continue doing absolutely nothing towards creating jobs.

But there is a method to the madness.  Mass unemployment brings incredible pressure on workers’ wages and benefits.  The mere threat of being unemployed puts unorganized workers in a precarious position when they’re told to work for less.

The organized labor movement is suffering from the recession too.  In 2009 the number of workers belonging to unions fell by 771,000.   Since union workers have higher standards of living, this number implies a further drop in wages and benefits overall.

These depressing numbers are cheered by corporations and politicians alike.  To them, “economic recovery” means corporate recovery — an increase in profits, nothing more.  And lower wages mean that profits are going to be even higher.

The shallow recovery that politicians are boasting about has been limited to some big businesses, especially Wall Street.  Obama rejoiced at the recent news of 5.7 percent increase in GDP, even though this increase came at the expense of hundreds of thousands of jobs.  The New York Times also added insight to how corporations are boosting profits:

“Instead of adding workers, many companies are squeezing their existing work forces to produce more. Productivity rose by a seasonally adjusted 6.2 percent in the fourth quarter…”  (February 5, 2010).

To summarize: jobs continue to be cut by the thousands, while the remaining workers are forced to work harder with the same or often lower wages and benefits.  This is the “new economy” that politicians speak of when they discuss “increasing exports” on the world market, a plan that requires that U.S. workers make lower wages to compete with the slave-wages overseas.

This is why the Democrats are doing nothing of substance to create living wage jobs.  They tell lies about the job market recovering, creating false hopes by announcing skewed employment numbers to the public.

Such illusions can have only a temporary pacifying effect.  Resentment is building up and optimistic speeches are wearing thin.  But action is needed.  Workers and the unemployed must unite to demand the creation of living wage jobs — a real jobs program that rebuilds America’s infrastructure and promotes education and social services.  A good first step would be for union members to demand that all unions, from the very top to the bottom, organize the unorganized,  and fight for the jobless by building a massive spring demonstration in Washington, DC, and on the West Coast for a massive jobs program.

The Washington Post described that portion of her speech as follows:

“Serving up fiery rhetoric with a broad smile, she attacked the administration’s policies on the economy and on national security, assailing in particular the decision to read Miranda rights to the man accused of attempting to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.

‘Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at great risk because that’s not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this,’ Palin said to thunderous applause. ‘They know we’re at war, and to win that war we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.’”

It is alarming to hear this nonsense being repeated and then devoured so enthusiastically by Palin’s audience, primarily because it simply is not true.

In fact, law enforcement officials have gained a great deal of intelligence from Abdulmutallab, proving that a rights-based approach can actually be much more effective than the previous administration’s preferred pro-torture/anti-rights methodology.

After all, experts agree that torture does not work. It does not produce reliable intelligence, because the victim is likely to say whatever he thinks his torturer wants to hear, in order to make the pain stop. Palin’s former running mate John McCain made that very point when he told the story of how, when asked under torture in Vietnam to provide his captors with the names of the members of his flight squadron, he instead rattled off the names of the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line, “knowing that providing them false information was sufficient to suspend the abuse.”

And, because torture is illegal, and because information obtained under torture is not reliable, it is not admissible in court, opening up another can of worms: If the only proof you have against a defendant was obtained under torture, you have no basis for conviction. But what if the defendant is deemed too dangerous to release?

As Georgetown Law Professor David Cole wrote in a 2005 article for the Los Angeles Times:

“[B]y electing early on to violate the universal prohibition on torture and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment, the [Bush] administration has not only inflicted unconscionable harm on detainees from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo, and done incalculable damage to the U.S. image abroad, it has painted itself into a corner. It is becoming increasingly unacceptable to hold so-called enemy combatants indefinitely without trial. But we have shielded the vast majority of them from being tried for the wrongs they may well have committed.”

But all these facts are apparently not enough to stop Palin and her rabid fans from calling for more of the same. So, for this reason and many more, if Palin does decide to run for the presidency in 2012 as her fans are hoping, Democrats and others must work very, very hard to keep her from winning. Regardless of President Obama’s shortcomings and unkept promises, we cannot afford another neocon in the White House any time soon. There’s still far too much healing to be done.

There was a unifying vision, but it was simplistic. Since the victims and losers were good, it followed that the winners were bad. From the point of view of downtrodden blacks, America was racist; from the point of view of oppressed workers, it was exploitative; from the point of view of conquered Hispanics and Indians, it was imperialistic. There was much to condemn in American history, little or nothing to praise. … Whereas the Europeans who arrived in the New World were genocidal predators, the Indians who were already there believed in sharing and hospitality (never mind the profound cultural differences that existed among them), and raped Africa was a continent overflowing with kindness and communalism (never mind the profound cultural differences that existed there).

One has to wonder whether Mr. Gewen thought that all the victims of the Holocaust were saintly and without profound cultural differences.

Prominent American historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. once said of Zinn: “I know he regards me as a dangerous reactionary. And I don’t take him very seriously. He’s a polemicist, not a historian.”

In the obituaries that followed Zinn’s death, this particular defamation was picked up around the world, from the New York Times, Washington Post, and the leading American wire services to the New Zealand Herald and Korea Times.

Regarding reactionaries and polemicists, it is worth noting that Mr. Schlesinger, as a top advisor to President John F. Kennedy, played a key role in the overthrow of Cheddi Jagan, the democratically-elected progressive prime minister of British Guiana (now Guyana). In 1990, at a conference in New York City, Schlesinger publicly apologized to Jagan, saying: “I felt badly about my role thirty years ago. I think a great injustice was done to Cheddi Jagan.” ¹ This is to Schlesinger’s credit, although the fact that Jagan was present at the conference may have awakened his conscience after 30 years. Like virtually all the American historians of the period who were granted attention and respect by the mainstream media, Schlesinger was a cold warrior. Those like Zinn who questioned the basic suppositions of the Cold War abroad, and capitalism at home, were regarded as polemicists.

One of my favorite Howard Zinn quotes: “The chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying. It is omission or de-emphasis of important data. The definition of ‘important’, of course, depends on one’s values.” ² A People’s History and his other writings can be seen as an attempt to make up for the omissions and under-emphases of America’s dark side in American history books and media.

Haiti, Aristide, and ideology

It’s a good thing the Haitian government did virtually nothing to help its people following the earthquake; otherwise it would have been condemned as “socialist” by Fox News, Sarah Palin, the teabaggers, and other right-thinking Americans. The last/only Haitian leader strongly committed to putting the welfare of the Haitian people before that of the domestic and international financial mafia was President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Being of a socialist persuasion, Aristide was, naturally, kept from power by the United States — twice; first by Bill Clinton, then by George W. Bush, the two men appointed by President Obama to head the earthquake relief effort. Naturally.

Aristide, a reformist priest, was elected to the presidency, then ousted in a military coup eight months later in 1991 by men on the CIA payroll. Ironically, the ousted president wound up in exile in the United States. In 1994 the Clinton White House found itself in the awkward position of having to pretend — because of all their rhetoric about “democracy” — that they supported the democratically-elected Aristide’s return to power. After delaying his return for more than two years, Washington finally had its military restore Aristide to office, but only after obliging the priest to guarantee that after his term ended he would not remain in office to make up the time lost because of the coup; that he would not seek to help the poor at the expense of the rich, literally; and that he would stick closely to free-market economics. This meant that Haiti would continue to be the assembly plant of the Western Hemisphere, with its workers receiving starvation wages, literally. If Aristide had thoughts about breaking the agreement forced upon him, he had only to look out his window — US troops were stationed in Haiti for the remainder of his term. ³

On February 28, 2004, during the Bush administration, American military and diplomatic personnel arrived at the home of Aristide, who had been elected to the presidency once again in 2002, to inform him that his private American security agents must either leave immediately to return to the United States or fight and die; that the remaining 25 of the American security agents hired by the Haitian government, who were to arrive the next day, had been blocked by the United States from coming; that foreign and Haitian rebels were nearby, heavily armed, determined and ready to kill thousands of people in a bloodbath. Aristide was then pressured into signing a “letter of resignation” before being kidnapped and flown to exile in Africa by the United States. ⁴ The leaders and politicians of the world who pontificate endlessly about “democracy” and “self-determination” had virtually nothing to say about this breathtaking act of international thuggery. Indeed, France and Canada were active allies of the United States in pressing Aristide to leave. ⁵

And then US Secretary of State Colin Powell, in the sincerest voice he could muster, told the world that Aristide “was not kidnapped. We did not force him onto the airplane. He went onto the airplane willingly. And that’s the truth.” ⁶ Powell sounded as sincere as he had sounded a year earlier when he gave the UN his now-famous detailed inventory of the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons that Saddam Hussein was preparing to use.

Howard Zinn is quoted above saying “The chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying. It is omission or de-emphasis of important data.” However, that doesn’t mean the American mainstream media don’t create or perpetuate myths. Here’s the New York Times two months ago: “Mr. Aristide, who was overthrown during a 2004 rebellion …” ⁷ Now what image does the word “rebellion” conjure up in your mind? The Haitian people rising up to throw off the shackles put on them by a dictatorship? Or something staged by the United States?

Aristide has stated that he was able to determine at that crucial moment that the “rebels” were white and foreign. ⁸ But even if they had been natives, why did Colin Powell not explain why the United States disbanded Aristide’s personal security forces? Why did he not explain why the United States was not protecting Aristide from the rebels, which the US could have done with the greatest of ease, without so much as firing a single shot? Nor did he explain why Aristide would “willingly” give up his presidency.

The massive US military deployment to Haiti in the wake of the earthquake has been criticized in various quarters as more of an occupation than a relief mission, with the airport in the capital city now an American military base, and with American forces blocking various aid missions from entering the country in order, apparently, to serve Washington’s own logistical agenda. But the large military presence can also serve to facilitate two items on Washington’s political agenda — preventing Haitians from trying to emigrate by sea to the United States and keeping a lid on the numerous supporters of Aristide lest they threaten to take power once again.

That which can not be spoken

“The purpose of terrorism is to provoke an overreaction,” writes Fareed Zakaria, a leading American foreign-policy pundit, editor of Newsweek magazine’s international edition, and Washington Post columnist, referring to the “underwear bomber”, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and his failed attempt to blow up a US airliner on Christmas day. “Its real aim is not to kill the hundreds of people directly targeted but to sow fear in the rest of the population. Terrorism is an unusual military tactic in that it depends on the response of the onlookers. If we are not terrorized, then the attack didn’t work. Alas, this one worked very well.” ⁹

Is that not odd? That an individual would try to take the lives of hundreds of people, including his own, primarily to “provoke an overreaction”, or to “sow fear”? Was there not any kind of deep-seated grievance or resentment with anything or anyone American being expressed? No perceived wrong he wished to make right? Nothing he sought to obtain revenge for? Why is the United States the most common target of terrorists? Such questions were not even hinted at in Zakaria’s article.

At a White House press briefing concerning the same failed terrorist attack, conducted by Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan, veteran reporter Helen Thomas raised a question:

Thomas: “What is really lacking always for us is you don’t give the motivation of why they want to do us harm. … What is the motivation? We never hear what you find out on why.”

Brennan: “Al Qaeda is an organization that is dedicated to murder and wanton slaughter of innocents. … [They] attract individuals like Mr. Abdulmutallab and use them for these types of attacks. He was motivated by a sense of religious sort of drive. Unfortunately, al Qaeda has perverted Islam, and has corrupted the concept of Islam, so that [they're] able to attract these individuals. But al Qaeda has the agenda of destruction and death.”

Thomas: “And you’re saying it’s because of religion?”

Brennan: “I’m saying it’s because of an al Qaeda organization that uses the banner of religion in a very perverse and corrupt way.”

Thomas: “Why?”

Brennan: “I think … this is a long issue, but al Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland.”

Thomas: “But you haven’t explained why.” ¹⁰

American officials rarely even make the attempt to explain why. And American journalists rarely press them to explain why; certainly not like Helen Thomas does.

And just what is it that has such difficulty crossing the lips of these officials? It is the idea that anti-American terrorists become anti-American terrorists to retaliate for what the United States has done to countries or people close to them or what Israel has done to them with unequivocal American support.

Osama bin Laden, in an audiotape, also commented about Abdulmutallab: “The message we wanted you to receive through him is that America shall not dream about security until we witness it in Palestine.” ¹¹

We have as well the recent case of Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian doctor-turned-suicide bomber, who killed seven CIA employees at a base in Afghanistan December 30. His widow later declared: “I am proud of him. … My husband did this against the U.S. invasion.” Balawi himself had written on the Internet: “I have never wished to be in Gaza, but now I wish to be a … car bomb that takes the lives of the biggest number of Jews to hell.” ¹²

It should be noted that the CIA base attacked by Balawi was heavily involved in the selection of targets for the Agency’s remote-controlled aircraft along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, a program that killed more than 300 people in the previous year. ¹³

There are numerous examples of terrorists citing American policies as the prime motivation behind their acts ¹⁴, so many that American officials, when discussing the newest terrorist attack, have to tread carefully to avoid mentioning the role of US foreign policy; and journalists typically fail to bring this point home to their reader’s consciousness.

It works the same all over the world. In the period of the 1950s to the 1980s in Latin America, in response to a long string of hateful Washington policies, there were countless acts of terrorism against US diplomatic and military targets as well as the offices of US corporations.

The US bombing, invasion, occupation and torture in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bombing of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, and the continuing Israeli-US genocide against the Palestinians have created an army of new anti-American terrorists. We’ll be hearing from them for a terribly long time. And we’ll be hearing American officials twist themselves into intellectual and moral knots as they try to avoid confronting these facts.

In his “State of the Union” address on January 27, President Obama said: “But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.” Well, ending America’s many wars would free up enough money to do anything a rational, humane society would want to do. Eliminating the military budget would pay for free medical care for everyone. Free university education for everyone. Creating a government public works project that could provide millions of decently-paid jobs, like repairing the decrepit infrastructure and healing the environment to the best of our ability. You can add your own favorite projects. All covered, just by ending the damn wars. Imagine that.

Notes

1. The Nation, June 4, 1990, pp.763-4 ^?
2. “Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian” (1993), p.30 ^?
3. http://killinghope.org/bblum6/haiti2.htm ^?
4. Statement of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, March 5, 2004, from exile in the Central African Republic, Pacific News Service (San Francisco); David Swanson, “What Bush Did to Haiti“, January 18, 2010; William Blum, “Rogue State”, pp.219-20) ^?
5. Miami Herald, March 1, 2004 ^?
6. CNN, March 1, 2004 ^?
7. New York Times, November 27, 2009 ^?
8. Aristide statement, op. cit. ^?
9. Newsweek, January 18, 2010, online January 9 ^?
10. White House press briefing, January 7, 2010 ^?
11. ABC News, January 25, 2010 ^?
12. Associated Press, January 7, 2010 ^?
13. Washington Post, January 1, 2010 ^?
14. Rogue State, chapter 1, “Why do terrorists keep picking on the United States?”; this chapter ends in 2005; some later examples can be provided by the author.

My friend Bernie says he’s suffering from Afghanistan information exhaustion. “During all those months that Obama was dragging his feet about escalating the war in Afghanistan, did you ever get the impression,” he asked, “that foxes were in the hen house, chickens were squawking and running around crazily, wolves were tearing the foxes to pieces, and farmers were shooting wildly into the coop with no regard for the innocent?”

I stared at him, mouth agape, my mind trying to shore up all that activity. “Well … I –”

“And that’s just the generals — David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal — and their boss, or cohort, defense secretary Robert Gates. They were everywhere — everywhere!” Bernie said, rolling his eyes. “And still are. Turn on the TV, pick up a newspaper, open a magazine, check out Congress, look under a rock — peek behind a tree — and there they are. They’re a three-man brigade — “we’re going in, we’re coming out — we’re winning, we’re losing. Or maybe not. We won’t know for 15 years…20 years…or until it’s over –”

Bernie shook his head in disgust, and headed for the door. “You keep telling me to walk a mile in Obama’s shoes; that he’s got a lot on his plate. Well,” Bernie said grimly, “every time I try to do that, I nearly drown. And, if you’re paying attention, you know he’s having trouble keeping his own balance out there on those turbulent partisan political seas.”

President…who?

Bernie says he’d like to give President Obama credit, or blame him, for the decision to expand the war in Afghanistan, but is convinced that Obama’s input was neither wanted nor accepted by the three top war dogs. I agree. What those of us familiar with military protocol — with a properly functioning chain of command — witnessed was a crude, but effective, military coup.

Aided by an eager and complicit media, for months these insubordinates fueled the fire of Obama’s inability to come to a quick decision to meet their demands. They brushed him aside as idealistic and inexperienced. Commander-in-Chief? C’mon, get real. During the recent health-care fiasco, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) put into words what all Republicans, not a few Democrats, and far too many military brass think of Obama…

“…I believe he didn’t serve in government long enough to understand really how things work…Remember, he was in the Senate four years, but effectively only two years because he spent two years where he was hardly ever here at all — he was campaigning for president. He really does not have an understanding of how Congress operates.”

The release of more than 320 billion tons of carbon (GtC) from buried early biospheres, adding more than one half of the original carbon inventory of the atmosphere (~590 GtC) to the atmosphere-ocean system, has triggered a fundamental shift in the state of the atmosphere at a rate of 2 ppm CO2/year, a pace unprecedented in the geological record with the exception of the effects of CO2 released from craters excavated by large asteroid impacts.

Recent paleoclimate studies, using multiple proxies (soil carbonate δ13C, boron/calcium, stomata leaf pores), indicate that the current CO2 level of 388 ppm and CO2-equivalent level of 460 ppm (which includes the methane factor), commits warming above pre-industrial levels to 3 to 4 degrees C in the tropics and 10 degrees C in polar regions [1], leading to an ice-free Earth.

Such conditions existed in the early Pliocene (5.2 Ma) and mid-Pliocene (2.8 Ma) Pliocene, about the time Australopithecine bipeds were emerging from tropical forests [2]. Pliocene climates changed gradually and pre-historic humans responded through migration. There is nowhere the 6.5 billion of contemporary humans can go, not even the barren planets into the study of which space agencies have been pouring more funding than governments allocated for environmental mitigation to date [3].

It appears difficult to explain to the public and politicians that, at 460 ppm CO2-equivalent, the climate is tracking close to the upper stability limit of the Antarctic ice sheet, defined at approximately 500 ppm [4]. Once transcended, mitigation measures would hardly be able to re-form the cryosphere, which serves as the Earth’s thermostat, from which cold ocean and wind current emanate – keeping lower latitudes cool. Once the ice melts the atmosphere-ocean system shifts to greenhouse Earth conditions such as existed about 15 Ma (mid-Miocene), before 40 Ma (Eocene), and much of the Cretaceous (141 – 65 Ma), when only small burrowing mammals could live on land.

About 2.8 Ma, the mid-Pliocene, temperatures rose by at least 3 degrees C above pre-industrial and sea levels rose by 25+/-12 meters [5]. About 15 million years ago the rise of CO2 to near~500 ppm resulted in global temperatures about 4 degrees C above pre-industrial level and sea level by about 40 meters. Since the early 20^th century the rate of sea level rise increased from about 1 mm/year to about 3.5 mm/year [6] (1993 – 2009 mean rate 3.2+/-0.4 mm/year (Figure 1).

The world is in a lag period, when the consequences of human greenhouse gas emissions and land clearing are increasingly manifest, including atmospheric energy levels which drive hurricanes and is shifting climate zones toward the poles, with consequent desertification of temperate zones, i.e. southern Europe, southern Australia, southern Africa. The desiccated forests become prey to firestorms, such as in Victoria and California.

Global warming is modulated by the ENSO cycle, including relatively cool La-Nina phases (Figure 2). Studiously ignorant climate change deniers, who would like to call themselves “sceptics”, use these cycles to claim “global cooling” [7]. In contravention of basic laws of thermodynamics (Stefan-Boltzmann law, Kirchoff law) which underlie the infrared absorption/emission resonance effect of greenhouse molecules, they invoke the role of short-lived (9 days average atmospheric residence) water vapour but neglect the long-term effects (centuries to millennia) of the well-mixed CO2 and nitric oxides. The increased frequency of the El-Nino is tracking toward conditions of permanent El-Nino, free from the effects of polar-derived currents (Humboldt Current, California Current). Such conditions existed about 2.8 Ma ago [8] (Figure 3).

Climate change is appropriately described as a global oxygenation event affecting geological carbon deposits as well as the present biosphere. At 2 ppm/year the scale of carbon oxidation exceeds the highest recorded geological rate of 0.4 ppm/year, recorded at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary at 55 Ma when about 2000 GtC were burnt, triggering an extinction of species [4].

Hopes for a meaningful binding agreement in Copenhagen, described as “the most important meeting in the history of the human species.” (Joachim Schellnhuber), and for a supposed presidential “Messiah” to wave the magic wand, collapsed in December, 2009, in the sorry mess of vested and tribal interests.

The international system required to protect the lives of the young and future generation is failing. According to the Global Carbon Project “Carbon emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and land use changes reached almost 10 billion tonnes in 2007” [9]. Those who deny the reality of climate change around the globe seek uncertainties in future climate projections, cf. dates of Himalayan glacier melt or Amazon deforestation. This ignores the evidence for dangerous climate trajectories even where the precise dates of future events can not be determined, namely, Himalayan glaciers melt may precede or postdate 2035. Presumably the claims of “conspiracy” on the part of the scientific world include the pioneers of atmospheric physics (Joseph Fourier, John Tyndall, Svante Arrhenius and Guy Chalendar), as well as those who defined the basic thermodynamic laws of the greenhouse process (Stefan, Bolzmann, Kirschner)?

Most of all those who criticise the IPCC ignore the fact that, to date, the IPCC reports have UNDERESTIMATED ice melt rates, sea level rise, feedback effects and the proximity of tipping points, not least the looming release of hundreds of GtC as methane from permafrost, lake sediments and bogs.

Governments continue to pour the planet’s dwindling resources into wars (US$1.4 trillion in 2008) and bank bailouts (US$0.7 trillion).  Entertainment and media are projected to cost US$2 trillion in 2011. Between 1958 and 2009 the US (NASA) spent US$823 billion on space exploration searching among other for water and microbes on other planets [10]. Now they have found water on Mars and the Moon, while pH of the terrestrial oceans has declined between 1751 and 1994 by 0.075 (8.179 to 8.104) [11], threatening the marine food chain.

Good planets are hard to come by

1. Pagani M. et al. 2010.   http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n1/abs/ngeo724.html
2. deMenocal P.B. 1995. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/270/5233/53
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA Budget#Annual _budget.2C_1958-2008;
4. Zachos J.C. et al. 2008 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7176/full/nature06588.html
5. Haywood M. and Williams M. 2005. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118652116/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
6. Rahmstorf S. 2007. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1135456 http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
7. Easterling D.R. and Wehner M.F. 2009. http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037810.shtml
8. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;312/5779/1485
9. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/26/2374776.htm
10. http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/09/24/nasa-finds-water-ice-in-mars-craters/ http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/09/24/new-evidence-of-water-on-the-moon/
11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

Right from the time of the 19th century Great Game, first identified by Rudyard Kipling in his book Kim, Afghanistan has been at the centre of great power rivalry. In the 21st century, the players, the prize and the playing field of the New Great Game have changed. The New Great Game has evolved out of the ethos, rules and parameters of the Old Great Game.  more>>

Iqbal Malhotra – The New Great Game: The River of Destiny

It is time, however, that we awaken to the reality of what our military is becoming and where it is heading. Suffice it to say, this is not your father’s army.

On December 8, 1941, my father, Ed Baldwin–along with his two brothers, Bud and Gene–marched down to a recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, to enlist. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor the day before, and no branch of service had to beg people to enlist that day. Bud joined the Navy. Gene joined the Marines. When government officials saw Dad’s resume, they selected him to help construct the atomic bomb. All three brothers served their country with distinction throughout the war.

But what all of us need to realize is, World War II was the last constitutionally fought war in which America has been engaged. The United Nations was created at the end of WWII, and ever since then, our military forces have increasingly become the “peacekeeping” arm of that evil institution.

Since WWII, American forces have fought major wars in South Korea, South Vietnam (including Laos and Cambodia), Kosovo, the Persian Gulf (Kuwait), Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan–all for the benefit of the United Nations. Add to these major wars lesser conflicts (except to those Americans killed or wounded in them) such as Lebanon, Dominican Republic, Congo (Zaire), Iran, El Salvador, Libya, Grenada, Honduras, Chad, Panama, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Tanzania, and Somalia. And this does not take into account the countless CIA-sponsored Black Ops missions that have taken place all over the world.

Yes, American forces have been used to both put people in power and take people out of power all over the world. And as often as not, the people we put in power were counted among the “bad guys,” while the people we removed from power were “good guys.” Remember, our own CIA was the organization most responsible for the rise to power of Osama Bin Laden. And it was the US government that surreptitiously set up the murder of Dr. Jonas Savimbi, who was one of the best friends the United States had overseas. Plus, does anyone remember how the US treated our friend, the Shah of Iran? Yes, some of us are old enough to remember when Iran was one of the best friends we had in that region of the world.

But mind you, not one single war in which American forces have been engaged since WWII has been constitutionally fought. Not one!

Ever since the United Nations was created, its interests have dominated the usage of US forces. In fact, our military today is quickly morphing into the tip of the spear for a burgeoning, global New World Order. To those with eyes to see, the evidence is everywhere. It’s not even being hidden anymore. Have you seen that new US Navy television commercial? It boldly proclaims, “The US Navy: A GLOBAL FORCE For Good.” (Emphasis added.)

This politically correct, UN-dominated New World Order has changed (and is changing) our US military right before our eyes. It has taken the greatest and proudest independent fighting force in the world–one created to defend the people and property of the United States–and turned it into a global military policeman for the evil Machiavellians at the UN.

In order to convert the US military into a true “Global Force,” several changes are being forced upon our fighting men.

First, more and more women are entering the US military.

Currently, women comprise about 20% of military personnel. And for the first time in US history, women are actively engaged in combat units in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The massive integration of women in combat may serve the interests of political correctness, but it does not serve the interests of combat effectiveness. Neither does it serve the interests of family and child rearing. And I don’t care how old fashioned that sounds!

Wives and mothers are the backbone of family nurturing. To willingly take mothers away from their children–and subject both mother and child to the separation and suffering that military life demands–is both unnatural and cruel.

And there is another stark reality that few people want to discuss: the fact that 30% of all women in the US military are raped. Yes, you read it right: 30%.

According to NPR, “In 2003, a survey of female veterans found that 30 percent said they were raped in the military. A 2004 study of veterans who were seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder found that 71 percent of the women said they were sexually assaulted or raped while serving. And a 1995 study of female veterans of the Gulf and earlier wars, found that 90 percent had been sexually harassed.”

See the report at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103844570

Government and military brass know that the introduction of women into the military environment (especially the combat environment) is reaping problems of epidemic proportions, but they are deliberately ignoring and even covering them up.

For example, does anyone recall the name Jamie Leigh Jones? According to ABC News, “A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

“Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.”

See the report at:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3977702&page=1

And this story leads into another phenomenon being created within this New World Order army: the way our government and military are increasing their use of “private” or “independent” contractors. In the past, these people were always known simply as mercenaries. Call them what you will, mercenaries are now a major component of the way our government wages war.

According to Global Research, “The growing use of private armies not only subjects target populations to savage warfare but makes it easier for the White House to subvert domestic public opinion and wage wars.

“Americans are less inclined to oppose a war that is being fought by hired foreign mercenaries, even when their own tax dollars are being squandered to fund it.

“‘The increasing use of contractors, private forces, or, as some would say, “mercenaries,” makes wars easier to begin and to fight–it just takes money and not the citizenry,’ said Michael Ratner, of New York’s Center for Constitutional Rights. ‘To the extent a population is called upon to go to war, there is resistance, a necessary resistance to prevent wars of self-aggrandizement, foolish wars, and, in the case of the United States, hegemonic imperialist wars.’”

See the report at:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14972

Remember, at any given moment, there might be as many–if not more–mercenaries fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as there are US military forces. For example, according to the Christian Science Monitor, in early 2008, the number of mercenaries fighting in Iraq numbered more than 190,000. Remember, in addition to the benefit of not drafting US citizens to fight these perpetual wars (and thus avoid incurring the wrath and resistance of the American public), mercenaries enjoy the luxury of not having to comply with the military rules of engagement. And the stories of atrocities committed by US-employed mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan are too numerous to list.

In addition to the Jamie Jones case mentioned above, consider the case where Blackwater (now called Xe) mercenaries mowed down 17 Iraqi citizens in an unprovoked attack. And, of course, no one at Blackwater was held accountable for these murders. Reports of abuse, cruelty, and savagery by mercenaries in Iraq are commonplace. According to the Global Research report, “Many soldiers of fortune on private payrolls previously served dictators in South Africa, Chile, and elsewhere.”

The Washington Post quotes Brigadier General Karl Horst, an advisor to the U.S. Joint Force Command as saying, “These guys [mercenaries] run loose in this country [Iraq] and do stupid stuff. There’s no authority over them, so you can’t come down on them hard when they escalate force . . . They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath. It happens all over the place.”

And you wonder why the United States is viewed so negatively around the world?

Granted, there is a place and proper use for mercenaries. Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor of The Progress Report, rightly observes, “One alternative to U.S. military action against terrorists who have attacked the U.S. and other countries, and are threatening further attacks, is to enact Letters of Marque and Reprisal. Article I, Section 8, paragraph 11 of the U.S. Constitution authorizes Congress to ‘grant letters of Marque and Reprisal and make rules concerning captures on land and water.’ A ‘reprisal’ means an action taken in return for some injury. A reprisal could be a seizing of property or guilty persons in retaliation for an attack and injury. It could include forces used against the perpetrators for the redress of grievances. A reprisal could even involve killing a terrorist who is threatening further harm and cannot be captured.

“‘Marque’ is related to ‘marching’ and means crossing or marching across a border in order to do a reprisal. So a letter of Marque and Reprisal would authorize a private person, not in the U.S. armed forces, to conduct reprisal operations outside the borders of the U.S.A.

“Such Letters are grantable not just by the U.S. Constitution, but also by international law, which is why it was able to be included in the Constitution. The Letters are grantable whenever the citizens or subjects of one country are injured by those in another country and justice is denied by the government of that country, as happened with the attack by persons who were in Afghanistan.”

See Foldvary’s column at:

http://www.progress.org/fold232.htm

And that is exactly what Congressman Ron Paul attempted to do. He proposed H.R. 3076, the September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001, to authorize the U.S. State Department to issue such Letters. See Dr. Paul’s Press Release at:

http://www.house.gov/paul/press/press2001/pr101101.htm

However, neither the Congress nor the White House–Democrat or Republican–has any intention of following the Constitution; therefore, Letters of Marque and Reprisal were never authorized. As a result, no authority has been granted to these mercenaries to wage war on behalf of anyone, especially not the people of the United States.

But what unauthorized mercenaries do accomplish is to fulfill the demands of internationalists and globalists to use unaccountable and uncontrolled (at least by normal military protocols) private armies for their own personal and nefarious purposes.

The next step for our politically correct “Global Force” is the authorization for homosexuals to serve openly in the US military. This has long been the goal of globalists, and it is now about to happen.

It was globalist President Bill Clinton who introduced the current “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that allows homosexuals to serve in the US armed forces–but not openly. Of course, this was a major departure from US military history. From George Washington’s Continental army until the Clinton administration, homosexuality was deemed “incompatible” with military service. And now globalist Barack Obama is leading Congress to change the policy even further by allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the US military.

However, please consider this: if our governmental and military leaders would cover up the raping of American servicewomen by servicemen, don’t you know that they will cover up the raping of American servicemen by homosexual servicemen? Mark this down: mixing sex (heterosexual or homosexual) and military service is a recipe for disaster. And the potential damage inflicted upon military units (especially combat units) is exacerbated exponentially by the introduction of large numbers of homosexuals and women into those units. (This is the universal sentiment of virtually every active duty or retired serviceman I have ever spoken with.) But it does fit perfectly into the plans of the New World Order architects, who want to use the US military as much for the advancement of their politically correct agenda as they do for any actual military purpose.

Plus, dare I mention how that many violent gangs in North America are encouraging their members to join the US military in order to learn tactics and skills, which enable them to more effectively inflict their criminality upon the American people? Well, it’s true. And our military brass knows it’s true, and yet they still allow these thugs to enter our military. Hispanic gang members, especially, are entering the US military in droves.

According to a report in The American Conservative magazine, “[R]ecent figures indicate that gang membership in the Armed Forces significantly surpasses civilian levels. Stars and Stripes reported that 1 to 2 percent of the military are gang members, compared to 0.02 percent of the general population.”

See the report at:

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/may/05/0012/

No, ladies and gentlemen, it is not your father’s army. And, sadly, while many of our fine military leaders (not to mention many of our active duty soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines) see all of this taking place, they are practically powerless to stop it, because political correctness and globalism run rampant in Washington, D.C., including at the Pentagon.

The book is a heart breaking depressing story of the Baroud family’s journey from paradise to hell. It is a flight that starts in Beit Daras, a small pictorial village in the south of Palestine. It ends in a Gaza refugee camp. It is a tragic journey of a rural self-sufficient population that is driven into total dispossession, humiliation and absolute poverty. And yet, there is a beam of light along the book namely resistance: Ramzy’s father Mohammed, was a freedom fighter. He didn’t win a single war, not even a battle, yet, against all odds, in spite of his poverty and illness, he managed to educate his children and to plant hope in their young souls, to fuel Ramzy with fierceness, which along the years transformed the young man into a monumental inspirational writer and an icon of intellectual resistance.

My Father Was A Freedom Fighter may be one of the saddest books ever written, yet, Baroud peppered it with his witty sarcastic humour. In between sobbing and laughter we come to intimately grasp the depth of the Palestinian misery. We come also to understand the level of the depth of Israeli brutality. We comprehend why the Palestinians and Arab nations failed for so many years. As the tide is changing and people around the world gather a better understanding of the sinister murderous capacity of the Jewish state, we come to realise that there was not much of a chance for the Palestinians in 1948 to grasp what they were up against. I would even take it further and argue that even nowadays, some fail to fully grasp the depth and strength of the viciousness of Israel and the Zionist ideology. However, reading Baroud’s book reveals the dark truth: the people of Gaza at least know it all by now.

In a very thorough manner Baroud manages to review the political shift within the Palestinian society. Through the story of his father, a self taught intellectual and a Russian literature enthusiast we learn about the complexity of the relationships between Marx, Arab Nationalism and Islam. The magical power of the book is due to its natural insistence to explore the Palestinian history from a Palestinian perspective. It is Palestino-centric in every possible good sense. After so many years of left and Jewish hegemony within the Palestinian solidarity discourse, now is the time to learn  what Palestinians think about their reality, about the Left, Islam, Pan-Arabism, Hamas, PLO, Nakba, Naksa*, Israel, Zionism, USA, their priorities and so on. Rather than suggesting what should happen in Palestine, what kind of a state it should be and what political model the Palestinians should follow, we have here an opportunity to understand what Palestine and Palestinians are as themselves.

The Austrian philospher Otto Weininger taught us that “in art, self-exploration is exploration of the world…..” (Weininger Otto, 2003, Sex and Character, Howard Fertig, New York: Author’s preface, pg. I). The scientist is observing the material and physical world, the philosopher is looking into the realm of ideas and the artist is looking into the inner self. As interesting as it may be, the artist is telling us something about the world just from looking inside. To a certain extent, My Father Was A Freedom Fighter is such a Weiningerian poetic artistic exercise. Baroud takes us into his own world. Through the poesis, the tears, the pain and the joy we understand the world we live in, how merciless it is, yet, Baroud reminds us all along that we are also free to resist and to hope for a change.

Here are Baroud’s words describing his transforming moment while confronting IDF soldiers around the outbreak of the 1^st Intifada. Baroud was a High School student at the time.

“Engulfed by my own rebellious feelings, I picked up another stone, and a third. I moved forward, even as bullets flew, even as my friends began falling all around me. I could finally articulate who I was, and for the first time on my own terms. My name was Ramzy, and I was the son of Mohammed, a freedom fighter from Nuseirat, who was driven out of his village of Beit Daras, and a grandson of a peasant who died with a broken heart and was buried beside the grave of my brother, a little boy who died because there was no medicine in the refugee camp’s UN clinic. My mother was Zarefah, a refugee who couldn’t spell her name, whose illiteracy was compensated for by a heart overflowing with love for her children and her people, a woman who had the patience of a prophet. I was a free boy; in fact, I was a free man” (My Father Was A freedom Fighter. Ramzy Baroud, pg’ 132)

Baroud is not just a free man, he is also a free spirit, a spirit that can guide others through the Zionist darkness that threatens to swallow what is left of ethics and universalism. To resist is apparently the true meaning of freedom.

Long Live Palestine

* Naksa- an Arabic name for the defeat of the Arabs during the 1967.

To buy Ramzy’s book on Amazon