oK CAN YOU UN(shit I took the caps off( stand when you are drunk. Tonite I am going to write as we get drunk. Dont ask me who is present with me as I see lots an they do not want to press charges. Police is not my forte.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
1990's
I lived in Chelsea Park Off Chelsea Road in them days in 1990's. I was going to UWE doing a course in Electronics. I got to know lots of people and one of them was Cathy. She became a Police Officer and still is. I met her today. I spoke to her told her that I will give her my Mobile number so that we can meet and have a cup of tea later as I was given a lift; and in a hurry and I just wanted to see her later than in the foyer of a electrical wholesalers;old friends and all. Hmmmm.... She said, "Hmmm sorry I will rather not as it is not ....". Shite what the frigging hell she thinks she frigging is? Frigging queen? I was very angry and told her " In that case I will see you.... a... around." That is very uncool for a frigging copper. OK may be she is a Seargeant or a frigging Inspector or a Commander. Still she got a past just like me in the same frigging space and time. I will like her to lose her coolmmission I tell you. Hope she reads this undercover and all. Frigging shite past, I do love some of it. Good thing is ..... never mind.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Monday, January 28, 2008
New inventions
No matter how you look at it the difference is there. Those who "wants to make money without thinking about the future" and the those "who care"? Now we got to loOk at this spectrum of people who care. They are the people who have no research done in to the subject but they got this gut feeling. But then take the other side: they alreadY done the research into the subject and they know what to say in the debate AND WIN WITHOUT A DUE PROCESS AND THEY KNOW IT.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Sunday, January 27, 2008
War On Terror
"Political analyst Azhar al-Teengane says the only Iraqis who support the occupation are those benefiting directly from it.
"The occupation is good for politicians who have made money, militiamen, contractors and opportunists," Teengane said. "These form not more than 5 percent of Iraqi people."
Self-rule could help lower anti-U.S. sentiment, said resident Jalal al-Taee. "In order to improve the situation, the U.S. army should let the people of this city run it." "
This comes from an article in ICH.
Well to make it very simple there are a minority in US, Israel and the west who has major shares in the Military Industrial Complex. There are loads of people in these countries who work for the MIC. So it is very hard for the polititians to get the policies which support war out. You have to have a war. That is the bottom line; ask any major polititian.
Think about it; the General in US army will lobby for war otherwise his job is not going to be there; the workers in the MIC will lobby the polititians otherwise their jobs will not be there; the shareholders will lobby the polititians otherwise they will not get filthy rich. These has to be realised by the root people of the world and willed into the policies by the people so that the corrupt polititians will not be able to twist the words.
Even if the self rule is given to these countries they will be corrupted by the MIC. Only way out is gradually cut the MIC to a smaller size in US to start with and then the rest of the world.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"The occupation is good for politicians who have made money, militiamen, contractors and opportunists," Teengane said. "These form not more than 5 percent of Iraqi people."
Self-rule could help lower anti-U.S. sentiment, said resident Jalal al-Taee. "In order to improve the situation, the U.S. army should let the people of this city run it." "
This comes from an article in ICH.
Well to make it very simple there are a minority in US, Israel and the west who has major shares in the Military Industrial Complex. There are loads of people in these countries who work for the MIC. So it is very hard for the polititians to get the policies which support war out. You have to have a war. That is the bottom line; ask any major polititian.
Think about it; the General in US army will lobby for war otherwise his job is not going to be there; the workers in the MIC will lobby the polititians otherwise their jobs will not be there; the shareholders will lobby the polititians otherwise they will not get filthy rich. These has to be realised by the root people of the world and willed into the policies by the people so that the corrupt polititians will not be able to twist the words.
Even if the self rule is given to these countries they will be corrupted by the MIC. Only way out is gradually cut the MIC to a smaller size in US to start with and then the rest of the world.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Allah on the Holodeck
This is bloody good. Congragulations US, I say. The article explains what digital morphing is in a rudimentary way and gives the examples of ideas what can be done. Bin Laden's video could be one of them some say.
"Allah on the Holodeck
Pentagon planners started to discuss digital morphing after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Covert operators kicked around the idea of creating a computer-faked videotape of Saddam Hussein crying or showing other such manly weaknesses, or in some sexually compromising situation. The nascent plan was for the tapes to be flooded into Iraq and the Arab world.
The tape war never proceeded, killed, participants say, by bureaucratic fights over jurisdiction, skepticism over the technology, and concerns raised by Arab coalition partners.
But the "strategic" PSYOPS scheming didn't die. What if the U.S. projected a holographic image of Allah floating over Baghdad urging the Iraqi people and Army to rise up against Saddam, a senior Air Force officer asked in 1990?
According to a military physicist given the task of looking into the hologram idea, the feasibility had been established of projecting large, three-dimensional objects that appeared to float in the air.
But doing so over the skies of Iraq? To project such a hologram over Baghdad on the order of several hundred feet, they calculated, would take a mirror more than a mile square in space, as well as huge projectors and power sources.
And besides, investigators came back, what does Allah look like?"
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"Allah on the Holodeck
Pentagon planners started to discuss digital morphing after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Covert operators kicked around the idea of creating a computer-faked videotape of Saddam Hussein crying or showing other such manly weaknesses, or in some sexually compromising situation. The nascent plan was for the tapes to be flooded into Iraq and the Arab world.
The tape war never proceeded, killed, participants say, by bureaucratic fights over jurisdiction, skepticism over the technology, and concerns raised by Arab coalition partners.
But the "strategic" PSYOPS scheming didn't die. What if the U.S. projected a holographic image of Allah floating over Baghdad urging the Iraqi people and Army to rise up against Saddam, a senior Air Force officer asked in 1990?
According to a military physicist given the task of looking into the hologram idea, the feasibility had been established of projecting large, three-dimensional objects that appeared to float in the air.
But doing so over the skies of Iraq? To project such a hologram over Baghdad on the order of several hundred feet, they calculated, would take a mirror more than a mile square in space, as well as huge projectors and power sources.
And besides, investigators came back, what does Allah look like?"
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Quotes, PTSD
"A few may take their own lives. In 2006, suicide rates for soldiers leapt to a 26-year high with 99 deaths, one-fourth of them by troops diagnosed with PTSD, according to the Defense Department. Statistically, male veterans commit suicide at twice the rate of their nonveteran peers.
Defense Department research shows one-third of Iraq war veterans have sought help for mental health issues, and officials estimate 150,000 troops have suffered concussions — mild traumatic brain injuries — since the war in Iraq began."
Read this if you get a bit of time. I shed a few tears on this. I don't expect everyone to cry but it is moving I tell you.
Analysing the past
Formulating the future
I missed the present horribly
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Defense Department research shows one-third of Iraq war veterans have sought help for mental health issues, and officials estimate 150,000 troops have suffered concussions — mild traumatic brain injuries — since the war in Iraq began."
Read this if you get a bit of time. I shed a few tears on this. I don't expect everyone to cry but it is moving I tell you.
Analysing the past
Formulating the future
I missed the present horribly
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Blacker Than Black
Ahhhh ha..... no one can call anyone black if you can see the bugger, says the boffins at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y..
"All materials reflect some light. Ordinary black paint reflects 5 to 10 percent. The darkest manmade material, prior to the Lin group’s discovery, reflected just under a fifth of a percent, Lin said. The new material has a total reflective index of less than a twentieth of a percent—in total, 0.045 percent, he said.
Its unique properties are due to “the loosely-packed forest of carbon nanotubes, which is full of nanoscale [roughly atomic-sized] gaps and holes to collect and trap light,” Lin said. “Such a nanotube array not only reflects light weakly, but also absorbs light strongly. These combined features make it an ideal candidate for one day realizing a super-black object.”"
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"All materials reflect some light. Ordinary black paint reflects 5 to 10 percent. The darkest manmade material, prior to the Lin group’s discovery, reflected just under a fifth of a percent, Lin said. The new material has a total reflective index of less than a twentieth of a percent—in total, 0.045 percent, he said.
Its unique properties are due to “the loosely-packed forest of carbon nanotubes, which is full of nanoscale [roughly atomic-sized] gaps and holes to collect and trap light,” Lin said. “Such a nanotube array not only reflects light weakly, but also absorbs light strongly. These combined features make it an ideal candidate for one day realizing a super-black object.”"
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Global Warming and Farting, Frogs with Teflon coating & Robotic Snot
Did you know that.....?
"There are 1.4 billion cows worldwide, each producing 500 litres of methane a day and accounting for 14% of all emissions of the gas.
Carbon dioxide is by far the biggest contributor to climate change, but methane has 23 times the warming potential of CO2 so reducing its emission is also considered important."
Of course you did....
Did you know kangaroo farts are environmentally friendly?
Ha ha you did not!
"Scientists already know that kangaroo stomachs are more than just green. Instead of methane, they produce acetate, a chemical that improves digestion. Feed laced with kangaroo bacteria could give rise to livestock that is not only greener, but also faster-growing and more fertile.
Methane-busting feed supplements could be available commercially in as little as three years, but some scientists point to a more direct solution – instead of slapping a hunk of beef or lamb on the barbie, why not kangaroo meat? This would help cap the marsupial population, which has reached plague proportions in parts of Australia, and connoisseurs say the meat is good. " It is also low in fat, high in protein and kangaroos are the ultimate free-range animal," says Peter Ampt of the University of New South Wales."
Next time you go to the local butcher ask...... no.... no.... demand for a pound of best kanga roast. By the way if you want to know more about farts go here.
Did you know that the scientists at the University of Michigan, created non-stick frog cells? Why? Leave the frogs alone they are becoming extinct!
There is something called antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) which are the first line of defence against bacterial infection in all animals from insects to frogs to humans. Boffins found the best form of AMPs called pexiganan in the skin of Xenopus laevis frog.
AMPs attack viruses, fungi and even cancer cells, so drugs designed to mimic them could have widespread medical applications. But there is a problem..... There is a protein-degrading enzymes called proteases, which is secreted by the bacteria and naturally present in the body. This stuff breaks the AMPs down before they can do any thing to the horrid bacteria. So the boffins increased the doze of AMPs but then the sticky part of the AMPs started attacking the host's cell membranes creating toxic effects eg kill the red blood cells.
In the meantime the Teflon is non stick. How? Teflon is fluorinated polymers, plastic-like compounds composed of chains of carbon atoms completely surrounded by fluorine atoms. Fluorine makes the surface slippery and inert to all chemicals.
So Neil Marsh biological chemist at the University of Michigan, "replaced certain amino acids in pexiganan with fluorinated alternatives, and called the new, non-stick peptide fluorogainin-1".
Did you know snot makes you smell better..... hang on you don't smell better with snot....... let us start again.....
Did you know snot enhances your sense of smell?
Mmmmm tricky this. I got a big nose because I used to dig me nose and eat the snot . Tasty!
First it is the itchyness in the nose which makes me dig it. Then as we all kids do taste it, does not matter what it is. As a baby we all did it, taste it. The salty taste is nice and daring so I kept on doing it when no one is watching me.
Right back to smell business. Here it is.
"Mucus, it turns out, separates the myriad chemical compounds that make up the smell of, say, frying onions. These compounds travel through the mucus at different speeds, hitting our scent receptors at different times. By dissecting and separating smells in this way, mucus allows our brains to identify scents more quickly and accurately.
It was with this in mind that, in April, Professor Julian Gardner of the University of Warwick started to improve his electronic noses, which have been used (without mucus) for years, in everything from the production of artificial fragrances to quality control in crisp factories.
"We built a polymer that replicates the function of snot," says Gardner. "It's not green but it has the same consistency as human snot and, applied to our sensors, means our artificial noses are at least five times better than those without snot.""
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"There are 1.4 billion cows worldwide, each producing 500 litres of methane a day and accounting for 14% of all emissions of the gas.
Carbon dioxide is by far the biggest contributor to climate change, but methane has 23 times the warming potential of CO2 so reducing its emission is also considered important."
Of course you did....
Did you know kangaroo farts are environmentally friendly?
Ha ha you did not!
"Scientists already know that kangaroo stomachs are more than just green. Instead of methane, they produce acetate, a chemical that improves digestion. Feed laced with kangaroo bacteria could give rise to livestock that is not only greener, but also faster-growing and more fertile.
Methane-busting feed supplements could be available commercially in as little as three years, but some scientists point to a more direct solution – instead of slapping a hunk of beef or lamb on the barbie, why not kangaroo meat? This would help cap the marsupial population, which has reached plague proportions in parts of Australia, and connoisseurs say the meat is good. " It is also low in fat, high in protein and kangaroos are the ultimate free-range animal," says Peter Ampt of the University of New South Wales."
Next time you go to the local butcher ask...... no.... no.... demand for a pound of best kanga roast. By the way if you want to know more about farts go here.
Did you know that the scientists at the University of Michigan, created non-stick frog cells? Why? Leave the frogs alone they are becoming extinct!
There is something called antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) which are the first line of defence against bacterial infection in all animals from insects to frogs to humans. Boffins found the best form of AMPs called pexiganan in the skin of Xenopus laevis frog.
AMPs attack viruses, fungi and even cancer cells, so drugs designed to mimic them could have widespread medical applications. But there is a problem..... There is a protein-degrading enzymes called proteases, which is secreted by the bacteria and naturally present in the body. This stuff breaks the AMPs down before they can do any thing to the horrid bacteria. So the boffins increased the doze of AMPs but then the sticky part of the AMPs started attacking the host's cell membranes creating toxic effects eg kill the red blood cells.
In the meantime the Teflon is non stick. How? Teflon is fluorinated polymers, plastic-like compounds composed of chains of carbon atoms completely surrounded by fluorine atoms. Fluorine makes the surface slippery and inert to all chemicals.
So Neil Marsh biological chemist at the University of Michigan, "replaced certain amino acids in pexiganan with fluorinated alternatives, and called the new, non-stick peptide fluorogainin-1".
Did you know snot makes you smell better..... hang on you don't smell better with snot....... let us start again.....
Did you know snot enhances your sense of smell?
Mmmmm tricky this. I got a big nose because I used to dig me nose and eat the snot . Tasty!
First it is the itchyness in the nose which makes me dig it. Then as we all kids do taste it, does not matter what it is. As a baby we all did it, taste it. The salty taste is nice and daring so I kept on doing it when no one is watching me.
Right back to smell business. Here it is.
"Mucus, it turns out, separates the myriad chemical compounds that make up the smell of, say, frying onions. These compounds travel through the mucus at different speeds, hitting our scent receptors at different times. By dissecting and separating smells in this way, mucus allows our brains to identify scents more quickly and accurately.
It was with this in mind that, in April, Professor Julian Gardner of the University of Warwick started to improve his electronic noses, which have been used (without mucus) for years, in everything from the production of artificial fragrances to quality control in crisp factories.
"We built a polymer that replicates the function of snot," says Gardner. "It's not green but it has the same consistency as human snot and, applied to our sensors, means our artificial noses are at least five times better than those without snot.""
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Put Option On America
I started reading this artcle called "Put Option On America ". Well I am going to site some excerpts from it and exoplain about it.
This is something I never had any idea about. Who is Francesco Cossiga? He was the Italian Prime Minister in 1979-1980 (Christian Democrat). Then he was the president of Italy from 1992 to 1999. The article says:
"Meanwhile, regarding CIA/Mossad...former Italian President and Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga fired a truth missile (12-05-07) with the declaration that the attacks of 9-11 were run by the CIA, and Mossad with Zionist aid, something he insists is commonly accepted by global intelligence agencies. (1) Cossiga was forced to resign in 1992 after admitting he helped set up the CIA’s Operation Gladio, where a group of neo-fascist paramilitary operatives carried out false flag operations across Europe from the 1960s through the 1980s that were blamed on leftists. An agent of Gladio, Vincenzo Vinciguerra, in the Italian parliamentary investigation of 2000 that revealed the attacks were being overseen by the U.S. intelligence apparatus, stated under oath: "You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple—to force...the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security." False flag terror has long been in the playbook of the CIA, as well as MOSSAD (Israel’s "CIA")."
Well finished reading the part 1 got only the above bit of news I was not aware of. And it is full of put options and call options in the stock market. Yawn Yawn.
Nothing in Part 2 but just about what we know of the Trade Centre saga. Then in part 3 I found this:
"Those cherished American icons, Hollywood, Disney—they are now Jewish. Production and distribution of films had been mostly Jewish-controlled since the early 20th century, then Walt Disney’s death in 1966 removed the last barrier to total control. Jews grabbed Walt’s company, and now call all the shots in the movie industry.
In 2003, 94% of American box-office receipts went to the Jewish companies: 20th Century Fox (News Corp.); Universal (NBC Universal); Warner Brothers; Disney; Columbia (Sony); Paramount (Viacom); Dreamworks."
The part 3 of the article is here. You can get the other two from there.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
This is something I never had any idea about. Who is Francesco Cossiga? He was the Italian Prime Minister in 1979-1980 (Christian Democrat). Then he was the president of Italy from 1992 to 1999. The article says:
"Meanwhile, regarding CIA/Mossad...former Italian President and Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga fired a truth missile (12-05-07) with the declaration that the attacks of 9-11 were run by the CIA, and Mossad with Zionist aid, something he insists is commonly accepted by global intelligence agencies. (1) Cossiga was forced to resign in 1992 after admitting he helped set up the CIA’s Operation Gladio, where a group of neo-fascist paramilitary operatives carried out false flag operations across Europe from the 1960s through the 1980s that were blamed on leftists. An agent of Gladio, Vincenzo Vinciguerra, in the Italian parliamentary investigation of 2000 that revealed the attacks were being overseen by the U.S. intelligence apparatus, stated under oath: "You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple—to force...the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security." False flag terror has long been in the playbook of the CIA, as well as MOSSAD (Israel’s "CIA")."
Well finished reading the part 1 got only the above bit of news I was not aware of. And it is full of put options and call options in the stock market. Yawn Yawn.
Nothing in Part 2 but just about what we know of the Trade Centre saga. Then in part 3 I found this:
"Those cherished American icons, Hollywood, Disney—they are now Jewish. Production and distribution of films had been mostly Jewish-controlled since the early 20th century, then Walt Disney’s death in 1966 removed the last barrier to total control. Jews grabbed Walt’s company, and now call all the shots in the movie industry.
In 2003, 94% of American box-office receipts went to the Jewish companies: 20th Century Fox (News Corp.); Universal (NBC Universal); Warner Brothers; Disney; Columbia (Sony); Paramount (Viacom); Dreamworks."
The part 3 of the article is here. You can get the other two from there.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Monday, January 21, 2008
This Road is for Jews ONLY
This Road is for Jews ONLY.
Yes, There Is Apartheid in Israel
By Shlamit Aloni (Israeli human rights activist)
By Shlamit Aloni (Israeli human rights activist)
Jews-only By-Pass Road (one of many) on stolen Palestinian land toJews-only settlements on stolen Palestinian land. Palestinians are not allowed on these roads, at least partially subsidized by unwitting US taxpayers. Any Palestinian caught on these roads is subject to arrest, confiscation of his vehicle and he may even be shot at and killed. There are no signs that say it is for "Jews-only" because the Jewish state of Israel doesn't want Americans to know that Israel is an apartheid state. But OOPS! The cat is now out of the bag and it's not going back in.
"We Should Start Eating Insects"
Cricket pies, fried grasshoppers and mealworm quiche: Welcome to the new culinary delights. Or so hopes Arnold van Huis, an entomology professor in Wageningen, the Netherlands. Van Huis is working to bring a range of entomological appetizers to the market.
Marco Visscher: Why should we eat insects?
Arnold van Huis: While the world population is growing and our global wealth is advancing, meat consumption is rising dramatically. Currently, 70 percent of farmland is being used for meat production. If this trend continues, it will prove unsustainable. Moreover, livestock is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, including methane and nitrous oxide. Insects have a much lower environmental burden, while their nutritional value measures up to chicken or beef.
Visscher: Don't they taste awful?
van Huis: That depends on how you prepare the dish. I'm not so wild about cakes made using crushed flies from East Africa--a couple of which I have at home -- but sautéed crickets in a warm chocolate dip make a great snack."
Visscher: Isn't it primitive to eat insects?
van Huis: It's quite normal for most of the world. In tropical countries, people don't eat caterpillars, beetle larvae, grasshoppers and termites because they don't have a choice but because they taste good. Plus insects are high in protein and have essential fatty acids and important vitamins. Which is why food programs in developing countries should increase their focus on insects. Currently, vegetable consumption is emphasized, but it's much more efficient to get nutrients from animals. Because traditional meat is often too expensive, insects could be a very good alternative.
Visscher: Isn't the psychological barrier in the West simply too great?
van Huis: The first time you bite into a grasshopper might be a little 'hard to swallow.' But there are ways to handle this. Insects can be ground industrially so they're less recognizable, just as a filet doesn't really resemble a particular animal. There are some 1,400 edible insects, which can enrich and diversify our food supply.
*****
Four Recipes for an Insect-Rich Diet
Banana Worm BreadCompliments of Iowa State University Entomology Club
Ingredients:
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
2 bananas, mashed
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts
2 eggs
1/4 cup dry-roasted army worms
Directions:
Mix together all ingredients. Bake in greased loaf pan at 350 degrees for about 1 hour.
*******
Mealworm Fried RiceCompliments of Iowa State University Entomology Club
Ingredients:
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. oil
3/4 c. water
1/4 c. chopped onions
4 tsp. soy sauce
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
1 c. minute rice
1 c. cooked mealworms
Directions:
Scramble egg in a saucepan, stirring to break egg into pieces. Add water, soy sauce, garlic and onions. Bring to a boil. Stir in rice. Cover; remove from heat and let stand five minutes.
*******
Rootworm Beetle DipCompliments of Iowa State University Entomology Club
Ingredients:
2 cup low-fat cottage cheese
1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons skim milk
1/2 cup reduced calorie mayonnaise
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon onion, chopped
1 1/2 tsp. dill weed
1 1/2 tsp. Beau Monde
1 cup dry-roasted rootworm beetles
Directions:
Blend first 3 ingredients. Add remaining ingredients and chill.
*******
Ant Brood Tacos
Compliments of EatBug.com
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter or peanut oil
1/2 pound ant larvae and pupae
3 serrano chilies, raw, finely chopped
1 tomato, finely chopped
Pepper, to taste
Cumin, to taste
Oregano, to taste
1 handful cilantro, chopped
Taco shells, to serve
Directions:
Heat the butter or oil in a frying pan and fry the larvae or pupae. Add the chopped onions, chilies, and tomato, and season with salt. Sprinkle with ground pepper, cumin, and oregano, to taste. Serve in tacos and garnish with cilantro. (Not living in an area exceptionally prolific with ants, I have never been able to try this recipe. But it sounds perfectly delicious! I found it in 'Creepy Crawly Cuisine', an excellent recipe book.)
Well I am going to give my fish 'n chips and yummie........ And my friend this one makes it logical why we should eat mud and things like that init?
"What if I told you," Joel Weinstock said, "there were countries where the doctors had never seen hay fever?"
It is another piece of evidence, another "aha" moment in the global medical mystery that Weinstock - the chief of gastroenterology and hepatology at Tufts-New England Medical Center - has narrowed down to one chief suspect: the worms.
Weinstock, 59, specializes in studying why immunological diseases - everything from hay fever and asthma to diabetes and multiple sclerosis - are on the rise in developed countries but remain relatively uncommon in undeveloped countries. He believes these diseases, many of which were almost unheard of 100 years ago, are because of changes in our environment, a lack of exposure to something. And he thinks that something may be the worms.
"We realized that one thing people always had was intestinal worms," he said. "But in the mid-20th century we started deworming children in developed countries. So we've developed a theory that perhaps deworming was helping these diseases."
This theory - which is currently being tested in laboratory trials on how parasitic worms, known as helminths, regulate response to disease - has earned Weinstock the title of "Best and Brightest" from Esquire magazine, which honored him in its recent "Genius Issue." The magazine hailed his theory as a glimpse into a "brand-new scientific revolution, a paradigm shift in the way we think about the human body."
The crux of that scientific revolution is a bit of role reversal. The parasites that we have been told to avoid - such as hookworm and pinworm - may be the good guys, while excessive hygiene may be the bad guy.
"I get about 5,000 e-mails a year from patients all over the world asking what to do," he said. "People know that something isn't right. They keep their kids in the cleanest environments and they get asthma. We get all of these things that were rare becoming common. And a lot of it comes down to hygiene. Excessive hygiene can potentially lead to disease."
The "hygiene hypothesis," which was first proposed nearly two decades ago, argues that aspects of cleanliness prevent the immune system from programming itself to fight off disease.
"The big question is what are those aspects? We don't want to go back to the standards of the 1800s," Weinstock said. "Public hygiene and cleanliness are very good for us, but removing ourselves entirely from our natural environment is bad for us. We need to figure out the aspects of dirt and exposure that are good for us and hopefully we can find a balance."
Weinstock, who ran a center for digestive diseases at the University of Iowa before arriving at Tufts-NEMC in 2005, said that being a researcher has always come naturally to him.
"I grew up in the space race. When other kids went to play sports, I went to the library to read about rocket motors. My friends and I loved to tinker. Research was my hobby then, and it hasn't gone away," he said.
He said he hopes his research will soon lead to helminths-based drug therapies and vaccines.
"Will people be afraid to take a worm pill?" he asked, acknowledging an obvious squeamishness. "I don't think so."
And while he is cautious about advising any of his desperate e-mailers until all of the facts are in, he is comfortable telling parents one thing.
"When people ask me what to do, I tell them to let their kids play in the dirt," he said.
"And it's OK if they don't wash their hands every time."
Hometown: Grew up in Detroit; lives in Weston.
Education: Earned a Bachelor of Science in biology from the University of Michigan in 1969, and graduated from the Wayne State University School of Medicine in 1973.
Family: Wife, Alison, is a nurse; daughter, Lisa, 24, works in community services; son Jeff, 21, is a junior at UMass-Amherst; son Andrew, 16, is a student at Weston High School.
Hobbies: Weinstock enjoys gardening and traveling, but says his research is his hobby. "It's not work," he says. "It's play. I love what I do."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Marco Visscher: Why should we eat insects?
Arnold van Huis: While the world population is growing and our global wealth is advancing, meat consumption is rising dramatically. Currently, 70 percent of farmland is being used for meat production. If this trend continues, it will prove unsustainable. Moreover, livestock is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, including methane and nitrous oxide. Insects have a much lower environmental burden, while their nutritional value measures up to chicken or beef.
Visscher: Don't they taste awful?
van Huis: That depends on how you prepare the dish. I'm not so wild about cakes made using crushed flies from East Africa--a couple of which I have at home -- but sautéed crickets in a warm chocolate dip make a great snack."
Visscher: Isn't it primitive to eat insects?
van Huis: It's quite normal for most of the world. In tropical countries, people don't eat caterpillars, beetle larvae, grasshoppers and termites because they don't have a choice but because they taste good. Plus insects are high in protein and have essential fatty acids and important vitamins. Which is why food programs in developing countries should increase their focus on insects. Currently, vegetable consumption is emphasized, but it's much more efficient to get nutrients from animals. Because traditional meat is often too expensive, insects could be a very good alternative.
Visscher: Isn't the psychological barrier in the West simply too great?
van Huis: The first time you bite into a grasshopper might be a little 'hard to swallow.' But there are ways to handle this. Insects can be ground industrially so they're less recognizable, just as a filet doesn't really resemble a particular animal. There are some 1,400 edible insects, which can enrich and diversify our food supply.
*****
Four Recipes for an Insect-Rich Diet
Banana Worm BreadCompliments of Iowa State University Entomology Club
Ingredients:
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
2 bananas, mashed
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts
2 eggs
1/4 cup dry-roasted army worms
Directions:
Mix together all ingredients. Bake in greased loaf pan at 350 degrees for about 1 hour.
*******
Mealworm Fried RiceCompliments of Iowa State University Entomology Club
Ingredients:
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. oil
3/4 c. water
1/4 c. chopped onions
4 tsp. soy sauce
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
1 c. minute rice
1 c. cooked mealworms
Directions:
Scramble egg in a saucepan, stirring to break egg into pieces. Add water, soy sauce, garlic and onions. Bring to a boil. Stir in rice. Cover; remove from heat and let stand five minutes.
*******
Rootworm Beetle DipCompliments of Iowa State University Entomology Club
Ingredients:
2 cup low-fat cottage cheese
1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons skim milk
1/2 cup reduced calorie mayonnaise
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon onion, chopped
1 1/2 tsp. dill weed
1 1/2 tsp. Beau Monde
1 cup dry-roasted rootworm beetles
Directions:
Blend first 3 ingredients. Add remaining ingredients and chill.
*******
Ant Brood Tacos
Compliments of EatBug.com
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter or peanut oil
1/2 pound ant larvae and pupae
3 serrano chilies, raw, finely chopped
1 tomato, finely chopped
Pepper, to taste
Cumin, to taste
Oregano, to taste
1 handful cilantro, chopped
Taco shells, to serve
Directions:
Heat the butter or oil in a frying pan and fry the larvae or pupae. Add the chopped onions, chilies, and tomato, and season with salt. Sprinkle with ground pepper, cumin, and oregano, to taste. Serve in tacos and garnish with cilantro. (Not living in an area exceptionally prolific with ants, I have never been able to try this recipe. But it sounds perfectly delicious! I found it in 'Creepy Crawly Cuisine', an excellent recipe book.)
Well I am going to give my fish 'n chips and yummie........ And my friend this one makes it logical why we should eat mud and things like that init?
"What if I told you," Joel Weinstock said, "there were countries where the doctors had never seen hay fever?"
It is another piece of evidence, another "aha" moment in the global medical mystery that Weinstock - the chief of gastroenterology and hepatology at Tufts-New England Medical Center - has narrowed down to one chief suspect: the worms.
Weinstock, 59, specializes in studying why immunological diseases - everything from hay fever and asthma to diabetes and multiple sclerosis - are on the rise in developed countries but remain relatively uncommon in undeveloped countries. He believes these diseases, many of which were almost unheard of 100 years ago, are because of changes in our environment, a lack of exposure to something. And he thinks that something may be the worms.
"We realized that one thing people always had was intestinal worms," he said. "But in the mid-20th century we started deworming children in developed countries. So we've developed a theory that perhaps deworming was helping these diseases."
This theory - which is currently being tested in laboratory trials on how parasitic worms, known as helminths, regulate response to disease - has earned Weinstock the title of "Best and Brightest" from Esquire magazine, which honored him in its recent "Genius Issue." The magazine hailed his theory as a glimpse into a "brand-new scientific revolution, a paradigm shift in the way we think about the human body."
The crux of that scientific revolution is a bit of role reversal. The parasites that we have been told to avoid - such as hookworm and pinworm - may be the good guys, while excessive hygiene may be the bad guy.
"I get about 5,000 e-mails a year from patients all over the world asking what to do," he said. "People know that something isn't right. They keep their kids in the cleanest environments and they get asthma. We get all of these things that were rare becoming common. And a lot of it comes down to hygiene. Excessive hygiene can potentially lead to disease."
The "hygiene hypothesis," which was first proposed nearly two decades ago, argues that aspects of cleanliness prevent the immune system from programming itself to fight off disease.
"The big question is what are those aspects? We don't want to go back to the standards of the 1800s," Weinstock said. "Public hygiene and cleanliness are very good for us, but removing ourselves entirely from our natural environment is bad for us. We need to figure out the aspects of dirt and exposure that are good for us and hopefully we can find a balance."
Weinstock, who ran a center for digestive diseases at the University of Iowa before arriving at Tufts-NEMC in 2005, said that being a researcher has always come naturally to him.
"I grew up in the space race. When other kids went to play sports, I went to the library to read about rocket motors. My friends and I loved to tinker. Research was my hobby then, and it hasn't gone away," he said.
He said he hopes his research will soon lead to helminths-based drug therapies and vaccines.
"Will people be afraid to take a worm pill?" he asked, acknowledging an obvious squeamishness. "I don't think so."
And while he is cautious about advising any of his desperate e-mailers until all of the facts are in, he is comfortable telling parents one thing.
"When people ask me what to do, I tell them to let their kids play in the dirt," he said.
"And it's OK if they don't wash their hands every time."
Hometown: Grew up in Detroit; lives in Weston.
Education: Earned a Bachelor of Science in biology from the University of Michigan in 1969, and graduated from the Wayne State University School of Medicine in 1973.
Family: Wife, Alison, is a nurse; daughter, Lisa, 24, works in community services; son Jeff, 21, is a junior at UMass-Amherst; son Andrew, 16, is a student at Weston High School.
Hobbies: Weinstock enjoys gardening and traveling, but says his research is his hobby. "It's not work," he says. "It's play. I love what I do."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Money
What is money
Money is a man made unit of measurement to use as a payment for goods, for services or a debt. If you like a very complicated and detailed explanation about money check wikipedia.
Wonder how long ago we started to dance with this devil. Oi some people love the devil. According to A History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day by Glyn Davies, rev. ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996. 716p. ISBN 0 7083 1351 5; chronologically it kind of happened in Mesapotamia in c. 3000 - c. 2000 BC, when they started a banking system which was used by the temples and palaces for the accounting and storage of initially grain but later other goods including cattle, agricultural implements, and precious metals.
Then in the Bronze age 3000 BC - 1500 BC there was a land called Cappadocia, which is present day Central Anatolia in Turkey. Yeah we are talking about a very old civilisation which branched out into lots of other civilisations. These are the Hatti's. But even before that, in 3000 BC, the writing was developed to aid the accounting system of the palaces and the temples of Mesapotamia. Then in 2500 to 1550 BC the rulers of Cappadocia made ingots of silver and gurenteed their weight. These were used in transaction of goods. Call them money I would but read on.
Now you must be thinking why the hell is this guy started on this boring subject. yes it is boring. But it is what keeps most of us going at a rat race. I am stuck in a very mundane place called benefit dependency. And the world financial system is going into a very nasty turn. I been listening to the boffins talking about it for about 5 years about this impending 'disaster'. But I could not understand the whole thing. Why because it is not exactly a straight forword thingy. OK. Do you know that the Chinese Government and other governments have been buying the national debt of US. Now who wants to buy some one else's debt?
Do you know? Please let me know if you know.
Now back to the scene of money and grit.
This is a bit more complicated than I thought. The boffins cannot agree on the subject of "History of Money"; so they devised another way of explaining the history called, "Numismatics (Latin: numisma, nomisma, "coin"; from the Greek: νομίζειν nomÃzein, "to use according to law"), is the scientific study of currency and its history in all its varied forms."
But it is to make it more complicated. If we remember there were lots of things used money in our past. So some of them were metal wooden coins or medals and things like credit cards then there are the paper money, and last the stocks and bonds. That is all it is about. No hassle, or when hassle crops up we will sort it out.
"Ochre was one of the first pigments to be used by human beings. Pieces of haematite, worn down as though they had been used as crayons, have been found at 300,000 year old Homo heidelbergensis sites in France and Czechoslovakia. Neandertal burial sites sometimes include ochre as a grave good. The oldest evidence of mining activity, at the "Lion Cave" in Swaziland, is a 43,000 year old ochre mine. In Germanic rune lore, red ochre was often used in place of blood to redden, or tint, the runes and thereby instilling the spirit of life into the rune, enabling it to be used for magical purposes."
Red Ochre has been used as money in the good old days. In Australia the Abosrigines used it as money. So people who lived near these places with good Red Ochre must have been like the Oil Man today init. Then some cultures were using seashels, strong beads, and ivory were used for money. As these cannot be counterfeited, easily storable and transportable, lots of similar pieces of equal size available, they were used for bridal money, implements etc. But all else was of barter system. But by then people started thinking about coincidence of various needs like rics and salt for mutual satisfaction. Other wise whats the use of all of us having rice to sell and none has salt. And they needed something, in place of salt or rice, to carry it around and which is equal to the rice at home to sell. Now we get the ugly head of real science of money coming out.
They came out with Commodity Money. So if I have rice and my neighbour has fruit and the two harvests different times we have a problem, unless we have something like copper, gold, coconuts - things which can be stored for years without going moldy - transacted according to a certain measurement.
The Economic Organization of a P.O.W. Camp by R.A. Radford is a bloody good read about how cigarettes become a commodity money in the WW3 POW camps. I think I will have to go back to the article one day to go through it with intent.
Out of all the commodities used by man the best is gold which has lasted many years upto date.
"The U.S. dollar was originally specified by the Coinage Act of 1792 to be a unit of weight (471.25 grains of troy silver (about 30.54 g of silver)) and not one of money as it is thought of today. The value of gold or silver contained in the dollar was then converted into relative value in the economy for the buying and selling of goods. This allowed the value of things to remain fairly constant over time, except for the influx and outflux of gold and silver in the nation's economy. According to an evaluation of data from the U.S. Department of Treasury, the cost of goods and services remained relatively consistent between 1635 and 1913, around a level of roughly 25 times the buying power of the U.S. dollar in 2006"
Says the Wikipedia.
"The origins of sterling lie in the reign of King Offa of Mercia, who introduced the silver penny. It copied the denarius of the new currency system of Charlemagne's Frankish Empire. As in the Carolingian system, 240 pennies weighed 1 pound (corresponding to Charlemagne's libra), with the shilling corresponding to Charlemagne's solidus and equal to 12 pence. At the time of the penny's introduction, it weighed 22.5 troy grains of fine silver (30 tower grains)(c. 1.5 g), indicating that the Mercian pound weighed 5400 troy grains (the Mercian pound became the basis of the Tower Pound, which weighed 5,400 Troy grains, equivalent to 7200 tower grains). At this time, the name sterling had yet to be acquired. The penny swiftly spread throughout the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and became the standard coin of what was to become England."
About The British Pond Sterling.
"The franc was introduced by King John II in 1360. Its name comes from the inscription reading Johannes Dei Gratia Francorum Rex ("Jean by the grace of God King of the Franks") and its value was set as one livre tournois (a money of account). Francs were later minted under Charles V, Henri III and Henri IV.
Louis XIII of France stopped minting the franc in 1641 (replacing it with the Écu and Louis d'Or), but use of the name "franc" continued in accounting as a synonym for the livre tournois."
Lots of french words; it must be the French Franc.
"Before unification, the different German states issued a variety of different currencies, though most were linked to the Vereinsthaler, a silver coin containing 16⅔ grams of pure silver. Although the Mark was based on gold rather than silver, a fixed exchange rate between the Vereinsthaler and the Mark of 3 Mark = 1 Vereinsthaler was used for the conversion. Southern Germany had used the Gulden as the standard unit of account, which was worth 4⁄7 of a Vereinsthaler and, hence, became worth 1.71 (15⁄7) Mark in the new currency. Bremen had used a gold based Thaler which was converted directly to the Mark at a rate of 1 gold Thaler = 3.32 (39⁄28) Mark. Hamburg had used its own Mark prior to 1873. This was replaced by the Goldmark at a rate of 1 Hamburg Mark = 1.2 Goldmark.
From January 1, 1876 onwards, the Mark became the only legal tender. The name Goldmark was created later to distinguish it from the Papiermark (paper mark) which suffered a massive loss of value through hyperinflation following the First World War. The Goldmark was on a gold standard with 2790 Mark equal to 1 kilogram of pure gold."
The Germans have done badly either- I nearly typed Germen?
"After several earlier attempts the Austro-Hungarian Empire adopted the gold standard in 1892 according to the plan of Sándor Wekerle secretary of finance. This plan included the introduction of the new currency, the Krone. It consted of 100 Heller (Austria) or Fillér (Hungary). The value of the Krone was set at 2 Krone = 1 Gulden (Florin, or forint in Hungarian) of the previous silver-based currency. From 1900 onwards, Krone notes were the only legal banknotes of the Empire."
The countries who governed the money market 19th century can be seen by this statement.
"During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many other countries adopted the gold standard. As a consequence, conversion rates between different currencies could be determined simply from the respective gold standards. The pound sterling was equal to 4.886 U.S. dollars, 25.22 French francs (or equivalent currencies in the Latin Monetary Union), 20.43 German Marks or 24.02 Austro-Hungarian Krones. Discussions took place following the 1865 International Monetary Conference in Paris concerning the possibility of the UK joining the Latin Monetary Union and a Royal Commission on International Coinage examined the issues,[5] resulting in a decision against joining monetary union."
And people who live in UK note this:
"Prior to World War I, the United Kingdom had one of the world's strongest economies, holding 40% of the world's overseas investments. However, by the end of the war the country owed £850 million, mostly to the United States, with interest costing the country some 40% of all government spending."
Hai Karamba if you go to war you paay the price. Right now I sm interested about the financial state of the west and who is creating it?
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Money is a man made unit of measurement to use as a payment for goods, for services or a debt. If you like a very complicated and detailed explanation about money check wikipedia.
Wonder how long ago we started to dance with this devil. Oi some people love the devil. According to A History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day by Glyn Davies, rev. ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996. 716p. ISBN 0 7083 1351 5; chronologically it kind of happened in Mesapotamia in c. 3000 - c. 2000 BC, when they started a banking system which was used by the temples and palaces for the accounting and storage of initially grain but later other goods including cattle, agricultural implements, and precious metals.
Then in the Bronze age 3000 BC - 1500 BC there was a land called Cappadocia, which is present day Central Anatolia in Turkey. Yeah we are talking about a very old civilisation which branched out into lots of other civilisations. These are the Hatti's. But even before that, in 3000 BC, the writing was developed to aid the accounting system of the palaces and the temples of Mesapotamia. Then in 2500 to 1550 BC the rulers of Cappadocia made ingots of silver and gurenteed their weight. These were used in transaction of goods. Call them money I would but read on.
Now you must be thinking why the hell is this guy started on this boring subject. yes it is boring. But it is what keeps most of us going at a rat race. I am stuck in a very mundane place called benefit dependency. And the world financial system is going into a very nasty turn. I been listening to the boffins talking about it for about 5 years about this impending 'disaster'. But I could not understand the whole thing. Why because it is not exactly a straight forword thingy. OK. Do you know that the Chinese Government and other governments have been buying the national debt of US. Now who wants to buy some one else's debt?
Do you know? Please let me know if you know.
Now back to the scene of money and grit.
This is a bit more complicated than I thought. The boffins cannot agree on the subject of "History of Money"; so they devised another way of explaining the history called, "Numismatics (Latin: numisma, nomisma, "coin"; from the Greek: νομίζειν nomÃzein, "to use according to law"), is the scientific study of currency and its history in all its varied forms."
But it is to make it more complicated. If we remember there were lots of things used money in our past. So some of them were metal wooden coins or medals and things like credit cards then there are the paper money, and last the stocks and bonds. That is all it is about. No hassle, or when hassle crops up we will sort it out.
"Ochre was one of the first pigments to be used by human beings. Pieces of haematite, worn down as though they had been used as crayons, have been found at 300,000 year old Homo heidelbergensis sites in France and Czechoslovakia. Neandertal burial sites sometimes include ochre as a grave good. The oldest evidence of mining activity, at the "Lion Cave" in Swaziland, is a 43,000 year old ochre mine. In Germanic rune lore, red ochre was often used in place of blood to redden, or tint, the runes and thereby instilling the spirit of life into the rune, enabling it to be used for magical purposes."
Red Ochre has been used as money in the good old days. In Australia the Abosrigines used it as money. So people who lived near these places with good Red Ochre must have been like the Oil Man today init. Then some cultures were using seashels, strong beads, and ivory were used for money. As these cannot be counterfeited, easily storable and transportable, lots of similar pieces of equal size available, they were used for bridal money, implements etc. But all else was of barter system. But by then people started thinking about coincidence of various needs like rics and salt for mutual satisfaction. Other wise whats the use of all of us having rice to sell and none has salt. And they needed something, in place of salt or rice, to carry it around and which is equal to the rice at home to sell. Now we get the ugly head of real science of money coming out.
They came out with Commodity Money. So if I have rice and my neighbour has fruit and the two harvests different times we have a problem, unless we have something like copper, gold, coconuts - things which can be stored for years without going moldy - transacted according to a certain measurement.
The Economic Organization of a P.O.W. Camp by R.A. Radford is a bloody good read about how cigarettes become a commodity money in the WW3 POW camps. I think I will have to go back to the article one day to go through it with intent.
Out of all the commodities used by man the best is gold which has lasted many years upto date.
"The U.S. dollar was originally specified by the Coinage Act of 1792 to be a unit of weight (471.25 grains of troy silver (about 30.54 g of silver)) and not one of money as it is thought of today. The value of gold or silver contained in the dollar was then converted into relative value in the economy for the buying and selling of goods. This allowed the value of things to remain fairly constant over time, except for the influx and outflux of gold and silver in the nation's economy. According to an evaluation of data from the U.S. Department of Treasury, the cost of goods and services remained relatively consistent between 1635 and 1913, around a level of roughly 25 times the buying power of the U.S. dollar in 2006"
Says the Wikipedia.
"The origins of sterling lie in the reign of King Offa of Mercia, who introduced the silver penny. It copied the denarius of the new currency system of Charlemagne's Frankish Empire. As in the Carolingian system, 240 pennies weighed 1 pound (corresponding to Charlemagne's libra), with the shilling corresponding to Charlemagne's solidus and equal to 12 pence. At the time of the penny's introduction, it weighed 22.5 troy grains of fine silver (30 tower grains)(c. 1.5 g), indicating that the Mercian pound weighed 5400 troy grains (the Mercian pound became the basis of the Tower Pound, which weighed 5,400 Troy grains, equivalent to 7200 tower grains). At this time, the name sterling had yet to be acquired. The penny swiftly spread throughout the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and became the standard coin of what was to become England."
About The British Pond Sterling.
"The franc was introduced by King John II in 1360. Its name comes from the inscription reading Johannes Dei Gratia Francorum Rex ("Jean by the grace of God King of the Franks") and its value was set as one livre tournois (a money of account). Francs were later minted under Charles V, Henri III and Henri IV.
Louis XIII of France stopped minting the franc in 1641 (replacing it with the Écu and Louis d'Or), but use of the name "franc" continued in accounting as a synonym for the livre tournois."
Lots of french words; it must be the French Franc.
"Before unification, the different German states issued a variety of different currencies, though most were linked to the Vereinsthaler, a silver coin containing 16⅔ grams of pure silver. Although the Mark was based on gold rather than silver, a fixed exchange rate between the Vereinsthaler and the Mark of 3 Mark = 1 Vereinsthaler was used for the conversion. Southern Germany had used the Gulden as the standard unit of account, which was worth 4⁄7 of a Vereinsthaler and, hence, became worth 1.71 (15⁄7) Mark in the new currency. Bremen had used a gold based Thaler which was converted directly to the Mark at a rate of 1 gold Thaler = 3.32 (39⁄28) Mark. Hamburg had used its own Mark prior to 1873. This was replaced by the Goldmark at a rate of 1 Hamburg Mark = 1.2 Goldmark.
From January 1, 1876 onwards, the Mark became the only legal tender. The name Goldmark was created later to distinguish it from the Papiermark (paper mark) which suffered a massive loss of value through hyperinflation following the First World War. The Goldmark was on a gold standard with 2790 Mark equal to 1 kilogram of pure gold."
The Germans have done badly either- I nearly typed Germen?
"After several earlier attempts the Austro-Hungarian Empire adopted the gold standard in 1892 according to the plan of Sándor Wekerle secretary of finance. This plan included the introduction of the new currency, the Krone. It consted of 100 Heller (Austria) or Fillér (Hungary). The value of the Krone was set at 2 Krone = 1 Gulden (Florin, or forint in Hungarian) of the previous silver-based currency. From 1900 onwards, Krone notes were the only legal banknotes of the Empire."
The countries who governed the money market 19th century can be seen by this statement.
"During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many other countries adopted the gold standard. As a consequence, conversion rates between different currencies could be determined simply from the respective gold standards. The pound sterling was equal to 4.886 U.S. dollars, 25.22 French francs (or equivalent currencies in the Latin Monetary Union), 20.43 German Marks or 24.02 Austro-Hungarian Krones. Discussions took place following the 1865 International Monetary Conference in Paris concerning the possibility of the UK joining the Latin Monetary Union and a Royal Commission on International Coinage examined the issues,[5] resulting in a decision against joining monetary union."
And people who live in UK note this:
"Prior to World War I, the United Kingdom had one of the world's strongest economies, holding 40% of the world's overseas investments. However, by the end of the war the country owed £850 million, mostly to the United States, with interest costing the country some 40% of all government spending."
Hai Karamba if you go to war you paay the price. Right now I sm interested about the financial state of the west and who is creating it?
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Rich People,
Damn and gas man I am writing lots today init? Hold on, that means I am reading lots more today. Yesterday I spent 10 hours doing this other blog of mine, and then realised that it was not saved. I tried to save it and the signal went from very low to no signal and that was that, 10 hours work down the drain. Hmmm grrrr.
Did you know that: "Economic figures show that in 2005, the wealthiest 0.1 percent of the country’s population had nearly as much income as all 150 million Americans who make up the lower economic half of the country. Of each dollar people earned in 2005, the top ten percent got 48.5 cents, the highest percentage since 1929, just before the Great Depression."
It is looking grim. 1929; a shiver went down me spine, though I was not alive that time that fuckup brought WW2 into the scene. I just read another article where the Scottish Equitable established in 1800's not allowing the customers to withdraw large amounts for 12 months. Reason there is not enough cash and if they withdraw the company has to sell its assets. That is what some of the companies are doing. Guess why Mr Brown is doing in China. US are not happy China buying US assets by China but does not mind the Saudis, Dubaians etc doing it. So Brown wants China to invest money in UK. Well buy the assets.
If you are as crazy as I am reading Merican stuff without really understanding them go here.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Did you know that: "Economic figures show that in 2005, the wealthiest 0.1 percent of the country’s population had nearly as much income as all 150 million Americans who make up the lower economic half of the country. Of each dollar people earned in 2005, the top ten percent got 48.5 cents, the highest percentage since 1929, just before the Great Depression."
It is looking grim. 1929; a shiver went down me spine, though I was not alive that time that fuckup brought WW2 into the scene. I just read another article where the Scottish Equitable established in 1800's not allowing the customers to withdraw large amounts for 12 months. Reason there is not enough cash and if they withdraw the company has to sell its assets. That is what some of the companies are doing. Guess why Mr Brown is doing in China. US are not happy China buying US assets by China but does not mind the Saudis, Dubaians etc doing it. So Brown wants China to invest money in UK. Well buy the assets.
If you are as crazy as I am reading Merican stuff without really understanding them go here.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Find the Truth About Bush's Wars
THE WARS ARE NOT ABOUT TERRORISM
The Bush Administration's Curious Behavior
Hours after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush told the world the United States would take the fight directly to the terrorists and the states that harbored them. Thus the Bush Administration's "War on Terror" was born.
Less than a month later, on October 7, Mr. Bush launched a savage aerial bombardment of Afghanistan. He had the support of a shocked American citizenry and a sympathetic world, all of whom expected justice to be delivered soon to the terrorist Osama bin Laden and the harboring state embodied in the Taliban.
The incursion into Afghanistan was sold as the first action in the "War on Terror." It was a brilliantly executed charade.
Flashback to October 12, 2000, a year earlier. The USS Cole, an American Navy destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden, has suffered heavy damage from a terrorist attack, perpetrated by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.
Three weeks later officials of the Clinton Administration met with theTaliban in the Sheraton Hotel in Hamburg, Germany. To avoid a violent retaliation of furious bombing, the Taliban offered the unconditional surrender of Osama bin Laden.
Before the details of the transfer were completed, however, a Supreme Court ruling gave George W. Bush the White House, and the message was passed: the actual handover of bin Laden will be deferred until the Bush Administration is sworn in.
Once in office, the new Administration asked the Taliban to delay the handover of Osama bin Laden at least until February. As winter faded into spring, and spring into summer, the Administration demurred twice more.
Then Osama bin Laden struck again, on September 11, 2001.
On September 15, Taliban officials were flown in U.S. Air Force C-130 aircraft to the Pakistani city of Quetta, where the deal was sweetened. The standing offer of surrendering Osama bin Laden was renewed, but now the Taliban would also oversee the closure of bin Laden's bases and training camps.
This time the White House simply rejected the offer out of hand. It did so again when the offer was repeated several weeks later, and days after that President Bush ordered the violence to begin.
The invasion of Afghanistan was something vastly different than a quest to apprehend a terrorist..
Sources for this section:
1. "Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Hand bin Laden Over," Guardian Unlimited (UK), October 14, 2001.
2. "Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Surrender bin Laden," Andrew Buncombe, The Independent (UK), October 15, 2001.
3. "Dreamers and Idiots: Britain and the US did everything to avoid a peaceful solution in Iraq and Afghanistan," George Monbiot, The Guardian (UK), November 11, 2003.
4. "How Bush Was Offered bin Laden and Blew It," Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch, November 1, 2004.
5. "Did Bush try to stop bin Laden in his first eight months in office?" MSNBC Countdown, September 28, 2006.
The War in Afghanistan
The commitment to invade Afghanistan was made long before 9/11.
The Bush Administration wanted to secure for American energy companies-notably the Enron and Unocal Corporations-the strategic pipeline route across Afghanistan to the Caspian Basin. But the Taliban had signed a contract in 1996 with the Bridas Corporation of Argentina, preempting the route.
Scarcely settled in Washington in early 2001, the Bush Administration immediately pressed the Taliban to rescind the Bridas contract, and undertook planning for military intervention should negotiations fail. Administration officials and the Taliban met for talks three times throughout the spring and summer, in Washington D.C., Berlin, and Islamabad-but to no avail.
At the last session, in August, 2001 the Administration threatened a "carpet of bombs" if the Taliban did not comply. The Taliban would not. Soon thereafter-still weeks before September 11-President Bush notified Pakistan and India he would attack Afghanistan "before the end of October."
Then 9/11. Then two more refusals of Osama bin Laden's head. Then, on October 7, the Bush Administration looses the carpet of bombs.
Since then Afghanistan has been supplied with a puppet government, the Bridas contract is history, and the country is dotted today with permanent U.S. military bases in close proximity to the pipeline route. It was a war of conquest and occupation.
Counter-terrorism is scarcely visible. Osama bin Laden remains at large, the yield of "terrorists" to date consists of several hundred iconic and badly treated wretches in Guantanamo Bay, and terrorism in the Middle East has intensified, not diminished.
Sources for this section:
1. "Players on a rigged grand chessboard: Bridas, Unocal, and the Afghanistan pipeline," Larry Chin, Online Journal, March, 2002.
2. Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism, Paul Sperry, WND Books, 2003.
3. Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections, February 23, 2003.
4. "A Timeline of Oil and Violence: Afghanistan", see the website, http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm
5. "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat," New York Times, September 24, 2006.
6. "From Afghanistan to Iraq: Connecting the Dots with Oil," Richard W. Behan, AlterNet, February 5, 2007.
THE WARS ARE ABOUT AMERICAN HEGEMONY-AND OIL
The War in Iraq
The template for the invasion of Iraq was crafted in 1992, in Richard Cheney's Defense Department during the first Bush Administration. It was a document advocating a U.S. posture of singular global dominance in economic, diplomatic, and military power. The authors were Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Their document spoke explicitly about the need to secure "...access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil," and Iraq was in the crosshairs.
In 1996, the Project for the New American Century was created, touting the term "global hegemony," and seeking to maintain America's status as the world's only superpower, using preemptive war if necessary. Among the founders of the PNAC were the earlier advocates of world dominion: Richard Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Donald Rumsfeld, and Jeb Bush were founding members as well.
In a 1998 letter to President Clinton the PNAC people once again sought the invasion of Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and 15 others signed the letter.
In September of 2000 the Project for the New American Century once more advocated the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Then four months later, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis "Scooter" Libby-and 24 others from the PNAC-moved into top positions in the Bush Administration.
The commitment to invade Iraq was made at the first meeting of President Bush's National Security Council in January of 2001.
The rationale was ideological, apparently: by means of a preemptive war, to take an initial step toward global hegemony. A more tangible objective would soon emerge.
Sources for this section:
1. "Empire Builders: Neoconservatives and their blueprint for U.S. Power," Christian Science Monitor , a series appearing June, 2005.
2. The website of the Project for the New American Century. See http://www.newamericancentury.org/
3. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill, by Ron Suskind, Simon and Schuster, 2004.
4. "From Afghanistan to Iraq: Connecting the Dots with Oil," Richard W. Behan, AlterNet, February 5, 2007.
Regime Change
In December of 2002, 3 months before his country was invaded, Saddam Hussein invited the Bush Administration to send U.S. troops into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, and he said he could prove Iraq was not involved in 9/11. His entreaty was turned aside by President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Two months later Hussein promised unlimited access to the FBI to search for WMD's, support for the US position on Israel and Palestine, and even some limited rights to Iraq's oil. All this was rejected. Finally, in desperation Saddam Hussein offered personally to depart Iraq for exile in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Once again he was refused by the White House, and soon thereafter cruise missiles pounded Baghdad and U.S. tanks rolled across the border from Kuwait.
Regime change was not the objective: that could have been achieved bloodlessly with Saddam Hussein's exile. Combating terrorism couldn't possibly have been the objective, either: when President Bush invaded Iraq, there was no sign of al Qaeda in the country at all. There had to be some other purpose.
Sources for this section:
1. "Dreamers and Idiots: Britain and the US did everything to avoid a peaceful solution in Iraq and Afghanistan," George Monbiot, The Guardian (UK), November 11, 2003.
2. "Llego el momento de deshacerse de Saddam," El Pais (Spain), a transcript of a conversation between George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Jose Maria Anzar in Crawford, Texas, February 22, 2003. Published September 26, 2007.
Oil
Within weeks of taking office the Bush Administration was studying maps of the Iraqi oil fields, pipelines, refineries, tanker terminals, and undeveloped oil exploration blocks. A National Security Council document dated February 3, 2001 spoke of "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields." Later in the year the Bush State Department undertook the "Future of Iraq Project," in one element of which Administration bureaucrats and oil company representatives planned the postwar deconstruction of Iraq's nationalized oil industry. It would be replaced by a clever form of privatization, hugely favoring American and British oil companies. This planning was underway in October of 2001, exactly a year before Congress authorized military force in Iraq.
The State Department's plan was codified in a model "hydrocarbon law" drafted during Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, with direct participation of the American and British oil companies. The law was not translated from English into Arabic until elections had been held; then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's cabinet approved the law on February 15, 2007 and submitted it to Parliament for passage.
The hydrocarbon law when passed will grant immensely profitable access for international oil companies to an estimated 81% of Iraq's undeveloped crude oil reserves. The favored companies are Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, Royal Dutch/Shell, and BP/Amoco.
Enactment of the hydrocarbon law was proposed as a mandatory "benchmark" by President Bush in a speech on January 10, 2007. The benchmark was made statutory when the Democratic Congress passed the Iraq Accountability Act a short time later.
The tangible objective for invading and occupying Iraq was suspected early by the war's opponents and it is now confirmed: to secure access to the country's immense oil and gas resources. Evidence of success is everywhere. Iraq now has a puppet government and five permanent American "mega-bases" to house 100,000 troops for 50 years. The American embassy in Baghdad is ten times larger than any other U.S. embassy in the world. And in November, President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki signed a document called The Declaration of Principles, to assure an "enduring relationship" between their governments.
Sources for this section:
1. For copies of the Iraqi oil field maps, see the website of Judicial Watch, at: http://www.judicialwatch.org/oil-field-maps
2. "Contract Sport," by Jane Mayer,The New Yorker, Issue 23, February 16, 2004.
3. Crude Designs: the Ripoff of Iraq's Oil Wealth, Gregg Mutitt, ed., the Platform Group, United Kingdom.
4. "Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil," by Joshua Holland, published on the AlterNet website, October 16, 2006.
5. "Slick Connections: U.S. Influence on Iraqi Oil," Erik Leaver and Greg Mutitt, Foreign Policy in Focus, July 18, 2007.
6. "Imperial Opportunities for U.S. Builders," Tom Engelhardt, Asia Times, November 6, 2007.
7. "An 'Enduring' Relationship for Security and Enduring an Occupation for Oil," Ann Wright, truthout website, December 5, 2007.
And so, Speaker Pelosi, here we are after six years of fraudulence, engaged in two wars of conquest and occupation the Bush Administration orchestrated in defiance of honesty, decency, morals, and law. Half a million lives and half a trillion dollars have been poured into the cesspool of their lies and deceit.
Truth and justice are the bedrocks of our existence as a nation. The Bush Administration has trampled truth. We cannot tolerate the withholding of justice as well. Madam Speaker, you must impeach.
Or can you refute this history?
Richard W. Behan lives and writes on Lopez Island, off the northwest coast of Washington state. He can be reached at rwbehan@rockisland.com .
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
The Bush Administration's Curious Behavior
Hours after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush told the world the United States would take the fight directly to the terrorists and the states that harbored them. Thus the Bush Administration's "War on Terror" was born.
Less than a month later, on October 7, Mr. Bush launched a savage aerial bombardment of Afghanistan. He had the support of a shocked American citizenry and a sympathetic world, all of whom expected justice to be delivered soon to the terrorist Osama bin Laden and the harboring state embodied in the Taliban.
The incursion into Afghanistan was sold as the first action in the "War on Terror." It was a brilliantly executed charade.
Flashback to October 12, 2000, a year earlier. The USS Cole, an American Navy destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden, has suffered heavy damage from a terrorist attack, perpetrated by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.
Three weeks later officials of the Clinton Administration met with theTaliban in the Sheraton Hotel in Hamburg, Germany. To avoid a violent retaliation of furious bombing, the Taliban offered the unconditional surrender of Osama bin Laden.
Before the details of the transfer were completed, however, a Supreme Court ruling gave George W. Bush the White House, and the message was passed: the actual handover of bin Laden will be deferred until the Bush Administration is sworn in.
Once in office, the new Administration asked the Taliban to delay the handover of Osama bin Laden at least until February. As winter faded into spring, and spring into summer, the Administration demurred twice more.
Then Osama bin Laden struck again, on September 11, 2001.
On September 15, Taliban officials were flown in U.S. Air Force C-130 aircraft to the Pakistani city of Quetta, where the deal was sweetened. The standing offer of surrendering Osama bin Laden was renewed, but now the Taliban would also oversee the closure of bin Laden's bases and training camps.
This time the White House simply rejected the offer out of hand. It did so again when the offer was repeated several weeks later, and days after that President Bush ordered the violence to begin.
The invasion of Afghanistan was something vastly different than a quest to apprehend a terrorist..
Sources for this section:
1. "Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Hand bin Laden Over," Guardian Unlimited (UK), October 14, 2001.
2. "Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Surrender bin Laden," Andrew Buncombe, The Independent (UK), October 15, 2001.
3. "Dreamers and Idiots: Britain and the US did everything to avoid a peaceful solution in Iraq and Afghanistan," George Monbiot, The Guardian (UK), November 11, 2003.
4. "How Bush Was Offered bin Laden and Blew It," Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch, November 1, 2004.
5. "Did Bush try to stop bin Laden in his first eight months in office?" MSNBC Countdown, September 28, 2006.
The War in Afghanistan
The commitment to invade Afghanistan was made long before 9/11.
The Bush Administration wanted to secure for American energy companies-notably the Enron and Unocal Corporations-the strategic pipeline route across Afghanistan to the Caspian Basin. But the Taliban had signed a contract in 1996 with the Bridas Corporation of Argentina, preempting the route.
Scarcely settled in Washington in early 2001, the Bush Administration immediately pressed the Taliban to rescind the Bridas contract, and undertook planning for military intervention should negotiations fail. Administration officials and the Taliban met for talks three times throughout the spring and summer, in Washington D.C., Berlin, and Islamabad-but to no avail.
At the last session, in August, 2001 the Administration threatened a "carpet of bombs" if the Taliban did not comply. The Taliban would not. Soon thereafter-still weeks before September 11-President Bush notified Pakistan and India he would attack Afghanistan "before the end of October."
Then 9/11. Then two more refusals of Osama bin Laden's head. Then, on October 7, the Bush Administration looses the carpet of bombs.
Since then Afghanistan has been supplied with a puppet government, the Bridas contract is history, and the country is dotted today with permanent U.S. military bases in close proximity to the pipeline route. It was a war of conquest and occupation.
Counter-terrorism is scarcely visible. Osama bin Laden remains at large, the yield of "terrorists" to date consists of several hundred iconic and badly treated wretches in Guantanamo Bay, and terrorism in the Middle East has intensified, not diminished.
Sources for this section:
1. "Players on a rigged grand chessboard: Bridas, Unocal, and the Afghanistan pipeline," Larry Chin, Online Journal, March, 2002.
2. Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism, Paul Sperry, WND Books, 2003.
3. Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections, February 23, 2003.
4. "A Timeline of Oil and Violence: Afghanistan", see the website, http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm
5. "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat," New York Times, September 24, 2006.
6. "From Afghanistan to Iraq: Connecting the Dots with Oil," Richard W. Behan, AlterNet, February 5, 2007.
THE WARS ARE ABOUT AMERICAN HEGEMONY-AND OIL
The War in Iraq
The template for the invasion of Iraq was crafted in 1992, in Richard Cheney's Defense Department during the first Bush Administration. It was a document advocating a U.S. posture of singular global dominance in economic, diplomatic, and military power. The authors were Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Their document spoke explicitly about the need to secure "...access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil," and Iraq was in the crosshairs.
In 1996, the Project for the New American Century was created, touting the term "global hegemony," and seeking to maintain America's status as the world's only superpower, using preemptive war if necessary. Among the founders of the PNAC were the earlier advocates of world dominion: Richard Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Donald Rumsfeld, and Jeb Bush were founding members as well.
In a 1998 letter to President Clinton the PNAC people once again sought the invasion of Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and 15 others signed the letter.
In September of 2000 the Project for the New American Century once more advocated the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Then four months later, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis "Scooter" Libby-and 24 others from the PNAC-moved into top positions in the Bush Administration.
The commitment to invade Iraq was made at the first meeting of President Bush's National Security Council in January of 2001.
The rationale was ideological, apparently: by means of a preemptive war, to take an initial step toward global hegemony. A more tangible objective would soon emerge.
Sources for this section:
1. "Empire Builders: Neoconservatives and their blueprint for U.S. Power," Christian Science Monitor , a series appearing June, 2005.
2. The website of the Project for the New American Century. See http://www.newamericancentury.org/
3. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill, by Ron Suskind, Simon and Schuster, 2004.
4. "From Afghanistan to Iraq: Connecting the Dots with Oil," Richard W. Behan, AlterNet, February 5, 2007.
Regime Change
In December of 2002, 3 months before his country was invaded, Saddam Hussein invited the Bush Administration to send U.S. troops into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, and he said he could prove Iraq was not involved in 9/11. His entreaty was turned aside by President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Two months later Hussein promised unlimited access to the FBI to search for WMD's, support for the US position on Israel and Palestine, and even some limited rights to Iraq's oil. All this was rejected. Finally, in desperation Saddam Hussein offered personally to depart Iraq for exile in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Once again he was refused by the White House, and soon thereafter cruise missiles pounded Baghdad and U.S. tanks rolled across the border from Kuwait.
Regime change was not the objective: that could have been achieved bloodlessly with Saddam Hussein's exile. Combating terrorism couldn't possibly have been the objective, either: when President Bush invaded Iraq, there was no sign of al Qaeda in the country at all. There had to be some other purpose.
Sources for this section:
1. "Dreamers and Idiots: Britain and the US did everything to avoid a peaceful solution in Iraq and Afghanistan," George Monbiot, The Guardian (UK), November 11, 2003.
2. "Llego el momento de deshacerse de Saddam," El Pais (Spain), a transcript of a conversation between George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Jose Maria Anzar in Crawford, Texas, February 22, 2003. Published September 26, 2007.
Oil
Within weeks of taking office the Bush Administration was studying maps of the Iraqi oil fields, pipelines, refineries, tanker terminals, and undeveloped oil exploration blocks. A National Security Council document dated February 3, 2001 spoke of "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields." Later in the year the Bush State Department undertook the "Future of Iraq Project," in one element of which Administration bureaucrats and oil company representatives planned the postwar deconstruction of Iraq's nationalized oil industry. It would be replaced by a clever form of privatization, hugely favoring American and British oil companies. This planning was underway in October of 2001, exactly a year before Congress authorized military force in Iraq.
The State Department's plan was codified in a model "hydrocarbon law" drafted during Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, with direct participation of the American and British oil companies. The law was not translated from English into Arabic until elections had been held; then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's cabinet approved the law on February 15, 2007 and submitted it to Parliament for passage.
The hydrocarbon law when passed will grant immensely profitable access for international oil companies to an estimated 81% of Iraq's undeveloped crude oil reserves. The favored companies are Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, Royal Dutch/Shell, and BP/Amoco.
Enactment of the hydrocarbon law was proposed as a mandatory "benchmark" by President Bush in a speech on January 10, 2007. The benchmark was made statutory when the Democratic Congress passed the Iraq Accountability Act a short time later.
The tangible objective for invading and occupying Iraq was suspected early by the war's opponents and it is now confirmed: to secure access to the country's immense oil and gas resources. Evidence of success is everywhere. Iraq now has a puppet government and five permanent American "mega-bases" to house 100,000 troops for 50 years. The American embassy in Baghdad is ten times larger than any other U.S. embassy in the world. And in November, President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki signed a document called The Declaration of Principles, to assure an "enduring relationship" between their governments.
Sources for this section:
1. For copies of the Iraqi oil field maps, see the website of Judicial Watch, at: http://www.judicialwatch.org/oil-field-maps
2. "Contract Sport," by Jane Mayer,The New Yorker, Issue 23, February 16, 2004.
3. Crude Designs: the Ripoff of Iraq's Oil Wealth, Gregg Mutitt, ed., the Platform Group, United Kingdom.
4. "Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil," by Joshua Holland, published on the AlterNet website, October 16, 2006.
5. "Slick Connections: U.S. Influence on Iraqi Oil," Erik Leaver and Greg Mutitt, Foreign Policy in Focus, July 18, 2007.
6. "Imperial Opportunities for U.S. Builders," Tom Engelhardt, Asia Times, November 6, 2007.
7. "An 'Enduring' Relationship for Security and Enduring an Occupation for Oil," Ann Wright, truthout website, December 5, 2007.
And so, Speaker Pelosi, here we are after six years of fraudulence, engaged in two wars of conquest and occupation the Bush Administration orchestrated in defiance of honesty, decency, morals, and law. Half a million lives and half a trillion dollars have been poured into the cesspool of their lies and deceit.
Truth and justice are the bedrocks of our existence as a nation. The Bush Administration has trampled truth. We cannot tolerate the withholding of justice as well. Madam Speaker, you must impeach.
Or can you refute this history?
Richard W. Behan lives and writes on Lopez Island, off the northwest coast of Washington state. He can be reached at rwbehan@rockisland.com .
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"Al-Alam TV correspondent in Basra Ni'mah Abd-al-Razzaq)
Iran is backing the armed groups in southern Iraq. This accusation which the US and British forces of occupation have continuously and repeatedly made in the past few years has not been backed up with facts, according to the (Iraqi) field commanders in southern Iraq. The commander of Basra Police, Staff Maj-Gen Jalil Khalaf, described the US and British accusations against Iran as nothing more than a political game, saying that the Iraqi security services have not found any evidence which would point to an Iranian interference in southern Iraq.
(Staff Maj-Gen Khalaf - recording)
I tell you this in all honesty, when I find any evidence I will announce it openly, but so far I have not found any. In my capacity as field commander and as a professional, I tell you I have not found any evidence. As regards the countries (concerned), it is their problem and this is politics."
This is something we already had proof of but this is the first time it came from an army general. Blimey first its Pak generals now its Iraq generals. Wonder who be next.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Iran is backing the armed groups in southern Iraq. This accusation which the US and British forces of occupation have continuously and repeatedly made in the past few years has not been backed up with facts, according to the (Iraqi) field commanders in southern Iraq. The commander of Basra Police, Staff Maj-Gen Jalil Khalaf, described the US and British accusations against Iran as nothing more than a political game, saying that the Iraqi security services have not found any evidence which would point to an Iranian interference in southern Iraq.
(Staff Maj-Gen Khalaf - recording)
I tell you this in all honesty, when I find any evidence I will announce it openly, but so far I have not found any. In my capacity as field commander and as a professional, I tell you I have not found any evidence. As regards the countries (concerned), it is their problem and this is politics."
This is something we already had proof of but this is the first time it came from an army general. Blimey first its Pak generals now its Iraq generals. Wonder who be next.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Pak Red Button (update)
Well all that we heard from the bloody media was a spin to destabilize Pakistan to make it easier for the US to interfere with the politics of Pakistan with the rest of the world i n tow. But it seems to be not working as the Pak generals have wised up to the game and given this interview.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Policy Exchange
What the frigging heck is Policy Exchange?
From the horses mouth - their own website "About Us" explains thus:
"Policy Exchange is an independent think tank whose mission is to develop and promote new policy ideas which will foster a free society based on strong communities, personal freedom, limited government, national self-confidence and an enterprise culture.
Policy Exchange is committed to an evidence-based approach to policy development. We work in partnership with academics and other experts and commission major studies involving thorough empirical research of alternative policy outcomes. We believe that the policy experience of other countries offers important lessons for government in the UK. We also believe that government has much to learn from business and the voluntary sector.
The Chairman of our Board of Trustees is Charles Moore. The other Trustees are Theodore Agnew, Richard Briance, Camilla Cavendish, Richard Ehrman, Robin Edwards, Virginia Fraser, Lizzie Noel, George Robinson, Andrew Sells, Tim Steel, Alice Thomson and Rachel Whetstone."
Very neat init. That looks very good for the social life of all of us. If you go to the "Support Us" Link you find that it is a charity. So a charity even though they say they are independantly funded, might do the biddings of the funding agents, wouldn't they? I sent an email to the website requesting the donars list. See what happens.
Now the reason I brought this Policy Exchange thingy out for discussion is; I found an article in the WSWS about them.
My wee bit of research took me to the wikipedia explanation of the subject and it looks devious by the second. Mr Brown what are you upto? I am getting browned off man. Read this if you are too lazy to go to the link.
"Policy Exchange is a British think tank based in London. It describes itself as right of centre, but has also been labeled "neo-con attack dog" on account of the involvement of neoconservatives within the organisation, such as Research Director, Dean Godson, and its founder, MP Michael Gove, and the nature of its reports on Islam (discussed below). According to The Daily Telegraph, it is both "the largest, but also the most influential think tank on the right", being described as David Cameron's 'favourite think tank'."
Further I went to wikipedia and checked Charles Moore's page. Not much written there as it is just a stub. But if you google him the first link is about him voicing his abject horror of the abduction of Alan Johnston of the BBC.
"Watching the horrible video of Alan Johnston of the BBC broadcasting Palestinian propaganda under orders from his kidnappers, I found myself asking what it would have been like had he been kidnapped by Israelis, and made to do the same thing the other way round."
Any way my point is he is right-winged-neocon-stooge for the Zionists. Sorry if I am a bit blunt.
I found the pdf articles "The Hijacking of British Islam" and "Living apart together". The second was authoured by three people Viz. Munira Mirza, Abi Senthilkumaran and Zein Ja'far, of whome I could not find any Zionist connection but to the contrary.
The first which created the uproar, was written by Denis MacEoin who is a novelist and a former lecturer in Islamic studies. But he is another Zionist poodle who seems to be muddying the Muslim world by being a specialist in the subject, according to this.
"In recent years, he has become active in pro-Israel advocacy (hasbara), chiefly in his capacity as a writer. He continues to work on Islamic issues, particularly the development of radical Islam. In December 2007 the BBC news program Newsnight produced evidence that suggested some material on which MacEoin's report on radical Islam in the UK for Policy Exchange The Hijacking Of British Islam was based had been forged.[1]. Before this, several university-based academics had questioned the authenticity of the report and the political motives of its authors. Dr Gabriele Marranci, at the University of Aberdeen who has studied Muslim communities in depth, stated he had found many problems with the research early on[2] and had posed a number of open questions to Dr MacEoin regarding the Policy Exchange report which are yet to be answered. This has led to accusations of partisanship and bias against Dr Eoin on the basis of his declared antipathy to Islam after he stated: "I do not hold a brief for Islam. On the contrary, I have very negative feelings about it...I am pro-Israeli and involve myself in the defence of Israel".".
Now do you see my point? I had a treat the other day, as I took a taxi from Barton Hill to me place. Yep it was raining, and my back was paining. The Taxi Man was a Sunni Arab Muslim. He was ranting and raving about what he would do if he catches Bush lurking about in Bristle. Hmmm chances are none. But the emotions cannot be ignored at all. There are lots of non muslims like myself, who are angry about the way the Christian right with the Zionists have taken power, from the people, in most of the West. This is a classic example looks like.
When you think about our own past in this country we have had a lot of personal grievances about other races and nations like the frigging French. How many English will shout "Kill the Frog!" init? That does not mean, that all the English get together and kill the French, but if it happened in the past, then it was done politically and that is what is happening now about the Muslims. And that is screwy.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
From the horses mouth - their own website "About Us" explains thus:
"Policy Exchange is an independent think tank whose mission is to develop and promote new policy ideas which will foster a free society based on strong communities, personal freedom, limited government, national self-confidence and an enterprise culture.
Policy Exchange is committed to an evidence-based approach to policy development. We work in partnership with academics and other experts and commission major studies involving thorough empirical research of alternative policy outcomes. We believe that the policy experience of other countries offers important lessons for government in the UK. We also believe that government has much to learn from business and the voluntary sector.
The Chairman of our Board of Trustees is Charles Moore. The other Trustees are Theodore Agnew, Richard Briance, Camilla Cavendish, Richard Ehrman, Robin Edwards, Virginia Fraser, Lizzie Noel, George Robinson, Andrew Sells, Tim Steel, Alice Thomson and Rachel Whetstone."
Very neat init. That looks very good for the social life of all of us. If you go to the "Support Us" Link you find that it is a charity. So a charity even though they say they are independantly funded, might do the biddings of the funding agents, wouldn't they? I sent an email to the website requesting the donars list. See what happens.
Now the reason I brought this Policy Exchange thingy out for discussion is; I found an article in the WSWS about them.
My wee bit of research took me to the wikipedia explanation of the subject and it looks devious by the second. Mr Brown what are you upto? I am getting browned off man. Read this if you are too lazy to go to the link.
"Policy Exchange is a British think tank based in London. It describes itself as right of centre, but has also been labeled "neo-con attack dog" on account of the involvement of neoconservatives within the organisation, such as Research Director, Dean Godson, and its founder, MP Michael Gove, and the nature of its reports on Islam (discussed below). According to The Daily Telegraph, it is both "the largest, but also the most influential think tank on the right", being described as David Cameron's 'favourite think tank'."
Further I went to wikipedia and checked Charles Moore's page. Not much written there as it is just a stub. But if you google him the first link is about him voicing his abject horror of the abduction of Alan Johnston of the BBC.
"Watching the horrible video of Alan Johnston of the BBC broadcasting Palestinian propaganda under orders from his kidnappers, I found myself asking what it would have been like had he been kidnapped by Israelis, and made to do the same thing the other way round."
Any way my point is he is right-winged-neocon-stooge for the Zionists. Sorry if I am a bit blunt.
I found the pdf articles "The Hijacking of British Islam" and "Living apart together". The second was authoured by three people Viz. Munira Mirza, Abi Senthilkumaran and Zein Ja'far, of whome I could not find any Zionist connection but to the contrary.
The first which created the uproar, was written by Denis MacEoin who is a novelist and a former lecturer in Islamic studies. But he is another Zionist poodle who seems to be muddying the Muslim world by being a specialist in the subject, according to this.
"In recent years, he has become active in pro-Israel advocacy (hasbara), chiefly in his capacity as a writer. He continues to work on Islamic issues, particularly the development of radical Islam. In December 2007 the BBC news program Newsnight produced evidence that suggested some material on which MacEoin's report on radical Islam in the UK for Policy Exchange The Hijacking Of British Islam was based had been forged.[1]. Before this, several university-based academics had questioned the authenticity of the report and the political motives of its authors. Dr Gabriele Marranci, at the University of Aberdeen who has studied Muslim communities in depth, stated he had found many problems with the research early on[2] and had posed a number of open questions to Dr MacEoin regarding the Policy Exchange report which are yet to be answered. This has led to accusations of partisanship and bias against Dr Eoin on the basis of his declared antipathy to Islam after he stated: "I do not hold a brief for Islam. On the contrary, I have very negative feelings about it...I am pro-Israeli and involve myself in the defence of Israel".".
Now do you see my point? I had a treat the other day, as I took a taxi from Barton Hill to me place. Yep it was raining, and my back was paining. The Taxi Man was a Sunni Arab Muslim. He was ranting and raving about what he would do if he catches Bush lurking about in Bristle. Hmmm chances are none. But the emotions cannot be ignored at all. There are lots of non muslims like myself, who are angry about the way the Christian right with the Zionists have taken power, from the people, in most of the West. This is a classic example looks like.
When you think about our own past in this country we have had a lot of personal grievances about other races and nations like the frigging French. How many English will shout "Kill the Frog!" init? That does not mean, that all the English get together and kill the French, but if it happened in the past, then it was done politically and that is what is happening now about the Muslims. And that is screwy.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Monday, January 14, 2008
"The report mentions a 20-year-old soldier, convalescing from the lost of his foot in the Iraqi insurgent hotbed of Fallujah, who killed his 2-year-old daughter by striking her against a wall."
This is from an article about the Ex Iraq Vets coming home after their tour of duty and what sort of state of mind they be. Well this is for the book man. You will read all about it.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
This is from an article about the Ex Iraq Vets coming home after their tour of duty and what sort of state of mind they be. Well this is for the book man. You will read all about it.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Report: Israel planning to assassinate Haniyeh
Power of the Israelis is apparent when you see they can openly plan to kill other people in any where in the world and boast about it. What a world we live in. If someone does a criminal act we capture the guy and resort to some sort of courts to deal with them. But Fucking Zionists can go to that country and kill these people without a word from the fucking pigs like Bush and Brown and Zarchozy. Shit man spoilt my whole day. I am not politically or other wise Palestinian. Or side them in the astrocacies they create. But there must be a course of action which shouldd be adhered to no matter who you are. That shouil be international init?
"Israel is planning to assassinate exiled Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal, deposed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, and former PA Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, but is waiting to give the green light on the operation until after US President George W. Bush leaves the region, the London-based newspaper, Al-Hayat reported on Sunday."
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"Israel is planning to assassinate exiled Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal, deposed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, and former PA Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, but is waiting to give the green light on the operation until after US President George W. Bush leaves the region, the London-based newspaper, Al-Hayat reported on Sunday."
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Sunday, January 13, 2008
Holocaust of the Jews and the Palestinian Problems
It is very remote to find a jewish person who went through the holocaust and lived; let alone to come out and proclaim her disgust at the treatment by the Zionists against the Palestinians. I read an article written by a Rabbi who came out of the concentration camps and it was about the Zionist organisation who made it worse for the Jews in Germany that time. What the Zionists in US and UK did, was, made a declaration prohibiting the Jews in Germany not to work for the German war machine. That did a lot of harm to the Jewish people who were working with the other Gremans without a problem. Even local German people who were friendly towords the Jews turned against them.
Hedy Epstein's life story can be found here, her own website. In there I read that there were around 100,000 children came to UK in 1939 on the Kindertransport organised by the Quakers. Wonder how many are still alive and agree with her.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Hedy Epstein's life story can be found here, her own website. In there I read that there were around 100,000 children came to UK in 1939 on the Kindertransport organised by the Quakers. Wonder how many are still alive and agree with her.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
U.S.-Iranian Naval Incident (Video)
Check this video to see the real events that took place recorded by the Iranian Navy.
If this video is not working sorry about it as there is a known bug in the system. I will upload it later.
If this video is not working sorry about it as there is a known bug in the system. I will upload it later.
U.S.-Iranian Naval Incident
This is another blunder by our cousins across the Atlantic Ocean. Bush went wild with enthusiasm when he heard about it and made the stupid public announcement about it. But later themedia found out that it is nothing serious.
"Then I think the next major thing that happened was a briefing by the commander of the 5th fleet in Bahrain, the Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, which is very interesting. If you look carefully at the transcript, which was not reported accurately by the media, or not reported at all practically, the commander—or rather, Vice Admiral Cosgriff actually makes it clear that the ships were never in danger, that they never believed they were in danger, and that they were never close to firing on the Iranian boats. And this is the heart of what actually happened, which was never reported by the US media."
To read the whole article.
Have you heard about the "Filipino Monkey"? Ha Ha. It is a heckler who goes on the Ch 16 in radio communication systems. According to this article he has been there in the Gulf for a long time.
"In recent years, American ships operating in the Middle East have had to contend with a mysterious but profane voice known by the ethnically insulting handle of “Filipino Monkey,” likely more than one person, who listens in on ship-to-ship radio traffic and then jumps on the net shouting insults and jabbering vile epithets. Several navy ship drivers interviewed by Navy Times are raising the possibility that the Monkey, or an imitator, was indeed featured in that video. Rick Hoffman, a retired captain who commanded the cruiser Hue City and spent many of his 17 years at sea in the Persian Gulf said, "For 25 years there's been this mythical guy out there who, hour after hour, shouts obscenities and threats.”"
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
"Then I think the next major thing that happened was a briefing by the commander of the 5th fleet in Bahrain, the Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, which is very interesting. If you look carefully at the transcript, which was not reported accurately by the media, or not reported at all practically, the commander—or rather, Vice Admiral Cosgriff actually makes it clear that the ships were never in danger, that they never believed they were in danger, and that they were never close to firing on the Iranian boats. And this is the heart of what actually happened, which was never reported by the US media."
To read the whole article.
Have you heard about the "Filipino Monkey"? Ha Ha. It is a heckler who goes on the Ch 16 in radio communication systems. According to this article he has been there in the Gulf for a long time.
"In recent years, American ships operating in the Middle East have had to contend with a mysterious but profane voice known by the ethnically insulting handle of “Filipino Monkey,” likely more than one person, who listens in on ship-to-ship radio traffic and then jumps on the net shouting insults and jabbering vile epithets. Several navy ship drivers interviewed by Navy Times are raising the possibility that the Monkey, or an imitator, was indeed featured in that video. Rick Hoffman, a retired captain who commanded the cruiser Hue City and spent many of his 17 years at sea in the Persian Gulf said, "For 25 years there's been this mythical guy out there who, hour after hour, shouts obscenities and threats.”"
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
CIA Reveals: We Said In 1974 That Israel Had Nuclear Weapons
This one I read in a red mist and then I realised I did not understand most of it. Hope some one can simplify it for me and put it down on the comments. Thanks.
"CIA Reveals: We Said In 1974 That Israel Had Nuclear Weapons
By Amir Oren
11/01/08 "Haaretz" -- -- The Central Intelligence Agency, backed by bodies including the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Defense Intelligence Agency, determined in August 1974 that Israel had nuclear "weapons in being," a "small number" of which it "produced and stockpiled."
Israel was also suspected of providing nuclear materials, equipment or technology to Iran, South Africa and other then-friendly countries.
This top secret document, consigned to the CIA's vaults for almost 32 years, was suddenly released to the public this week, during U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Israel and on the eve of his trip to the Persian Gulf.
A small part of the document was released in early 2006 under a Freedom of Information Request placed by scholars Avner Cohen and William Burr, but only as an attachment to a 1975 State Department paper ostensibly disputing the the portrayal of Israel's nuclear weapons as a fact.
This served the Department of State's effort to avoid addressing Israel's nuclear status in response to a query by Congressman Alan Steelman.
The Department of State, led in this exercise by officials Joseph Sisco, Alfred (Roy) Atherton and Harold Saunders, tried to depict the 1974 Special National Intelligence Assesment, "Prospects for further proliferation of nuclear weapons," as a CIA project, while in fact it was an agency-wide effort that included its own intelligence chief, William Hyland, as a senior member of the board that agreed to the conclusions.
The CIA was asked yesterday via e-mail about the strange coincidence of the document's release a mere month after the publication of its awkwardly worded NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program. It did not respond by deadline.
The issue of an American double standard regarding the nuclear activities of Israel and Iran often comes up when senior American officials visit the Gulf, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates did last month.
In both the original 1974 document and the 1975 State Department paper (in which it was retyped), the entire intelligence community determined, "Israel already has produced nuclear weapons." This analysis was based on "Israeli acquisition of large quantities of uranium," in part covertly; on Israel's ambiguous efforts to enrich uranium; and on the huge investment in the "Jericho" surface-to-surface missile "designed to accommodate nuclear warheads." Short of a grave threat to the nation's existence, Israel was not expected to confirm its suspected capability "by nuclear testing or by threats of use."
While Israel's nuclear weapons "cannot be proven beyond a shadow of doubt," several bodies of information point strongly toward a program stretching back over a number of years, the document states.
The 1974 document describes the Jericho project, from its inception in France through its migration to Israel to the replacement of the original inertial guidance system by an Israeli design "based on components produced in Israel under licenses from U.S. companies."
Israel Aircraft Industries is responsible for the development of the missile and has constructed a number of facilities for production and testing north of Tel Aviv, near Haifa, at Ramle and nearby it "a missile assembly and checkout plant."
On Iran, the 1974 NIE said, "there is no doubt of the Shah's ambition to make Iran a power to reckon with. If he is alive in the mid-80's, if Iran has a full-fledged nuclear power industry and all the facilities necessary for nuclear weapons, and if other countries have proceeded with weapons development, we have no doubt that Iran will follow suit."
The Shah's ouster in 1979 (and death a year later) apparently slowed down Iran's nuclear project.
The authors of the NIE wrote that the U.S. helped France expedite its nuclear program, France in turn helped Israel, and much like France and India, Israel, "while unlikely to foster proliferation as a matter of national policy, probably will prove susceptible to the hue of economic and political advantages to be gained from exporting materials, technology and equipment relevant to nuclear weapons programs."
© Copyright 2008 Haaretz. All rights reserved
Comments (16) Comment (0) "
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"CIA Reveals: We Said In 1974 That Israel Had Nuclear Weapons
By Amir Oren
11/01/08 "Haaretz" -- -- The Central Intelligence Agency, backed by bodies including the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Defense Intelligence Agency, determined in August 1974 that Israel had nuclear "weapons in being," a "small number" of which it "produced and stockpiled."
Israel was also suspected of providing nuclear materials, equipment or technology to Iran, South Africa and other then-friendly countries.
This top secret document, consigned to the CIA's vaults for almost 32 years, was suddenly released to the public this week, during U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Israel and on the eve of his trip to the Persian Gulf.
A small part of the document was released in early 2006 under a Freedom of Information Request placed by scholars Avner Cohen and William Burr, but only as an attachment to a 1975 State Department paper ostensibly disputing the the portrayal of Israel's nuclear weapons as a fact.
This served the Department of State's effort to avoid addressing Israel's nuclear status in response to a query by Congressman Alan Steelman.
The Department of State, led in this exercise by officials Joseph Sisco, Alfred (Roy) Atherton and Harold Saunders, tried to depict the 1974 Special National Intelligence Assesment, "Prospects for further proliferation of nuclear weapons," as a CIA project, while in fact it was an agency-wide effort that included its own intelligence chief, William Hyland, as a senior member of the board that agreed to the conclusions.
The CIA was asked yesterday via e-mail about the strange coincidence of the document's release a mere month after the publication of its awkwardly worded NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program. It did not respond by deadline.
The issue of an American double standard regarding the nuclear activities of Israel and Iran often comes up when senior American officials visit the Gulf, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates did last month.
In both the original 1974 document and the 1975 State Department paper (in which it was retyped), the entire intelligence community determined, "Israel already has produced nuclear weapons." This analysis was based on "Israeli acquisition of large quantities of uranium," in part covertly; on Israel's ambiguous efforts to enrich uranium; and on the huge investment in the "Jericho" surface-to-surface missile "designed to accommodate nuclear warheads." Short of a grave threat to the nation's existence, Israel was not expected to confirm its suspected capability "by nuclear testing or by threats of use."
While Israel's nuclear weapons "cannot be proven beyond a shadow of doubt," several bodies of information point strongly toward a program stretching back over a number of years, the document states.
The 1974 document describes the Jericho project, from its inception in France through its migration to Israel to the replacement of the original inertial guidance system by an Israeli design "based on components produced in Israel under licenses from U.S. companies."
Israel Aircraft Industries is responsible for the development of the missile and has constructed a number of facilities for production and testing north of Tel Aviv, near Haifa, at Ramle and nearby it "a missile assembly and checkout plant."
On Iran, the 1974 NIE said, "there is no doubt of the Shah's ambition to make Iran a power to reckon with. If he is alive in the mid-80's, if Iran has a full-fledged nuclear power industry and all the facilities necessary for nuclear weapons, and if other countries have proceeded with weapons development, we have no doubt that Iran will follow suit."
The Shah's ouster in 1979 (and death a year later) apparently slowed down Iran's nuclear project.
The authors of the NIE wrote that the U.S. helped France expedite its nuclear program, France in turn helped Israel, and much like France and India, Israel, "while unlikely to foster proliferation as a matter of national policy, probably will prove susceptible to the hue of economic and political advantages to be gained from exporting materials, technology and equipment relevant to nuclear weapons programs."
© Copyright 2008 Haaretz. All rights reserved
Comments (16) Comment (0) "
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Friday, January 11, 2008
US Blunders,
I like to laugh at the the bloody North american States of Shite. There is a story about the Elections in Argentina for its Presidency. Cristina Kirchner who won the elections scored 45% to the closest loser who had 25%.
On Aug 4th 2007 US arrested 5 men at Argentine customs with $ 800,000. They were four Venezuelans and one Uruguayan. The bag man with the lolly was Guido Antonini Wilson, a Venezuelan/American with dual citizenship. He is wanted in Argentina for money laundering and Argentine government had repeatedly applied for extrdition without success.
US claims that the other 4 people when arrested tried to make Antonini keep silent about the origin and the destination of the money, from the US customs officials, and US claims, without proof except the word of a money launderer, that the money came from Venezuela for Ms Kirchner's election campaign, and those 4 people are agents for a foreign nation. The foreign agents have to register with the US gov otherwise they can be indicted.
The reality is if Venezuelan gov wanted to give any money to Kirchner they could have sent it in deplomatic bag, without resorting to using a money launderer who is wanted in Argentina. The other reason is Ms Kirchner won the election with a large majority and everyone knew about it before. Why should she want any more money?
Good!
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
On Aug 4th 2007 US arrested 5 men at Argentine customs with $ 800,000. They were four Venezuelans and one Uruguayan. The bag man with the lolly was Guido Antonini Wilson, a Venezuelan/American with dual citizenship. He is wanted in Argentina for money laundering and Argentine government had repeatedly applied for extrdition without success.
US claims that the other 4 people when arrested tried to make Antonini keep silent about the origin and the destination of the money, from the US customs officials, and US claims, without proof except the word of a money launderer, that the money came from Venezuela for Ms Kirchner's election campaign, and those 4 people are agents for a foreign nation. The foreign agents have to register with the US gov otherwise they can be indicted.
The reality is if Venezuelan gov wanted to give any money to Kirchner they could have sent it in deplomatic bag, without resorting to using a money launderer who is wanted in Argentina. The other reason is Ms Kirchner won the election with a large majority and everyone knew about it before. Why should she want any more money?
Good!
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Healthcare
Is there any one in UK or US who care about there healthcare? No is the answer. According to The study by the Commonwealth Fund and published in the January/February issue of the journal Health Affairs measured developed countries' effectiveness at providing timely and effective healthcare, US is the last in the list of 19 and UK the one before. Check this.
"The 19 countries, in order of best to worst, were: France, Japan, Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States."
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"The 19 countries, in order of best to worst, were: France, Japan, Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States."
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Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Untouchables, Hudood laws & Pak Red Button (update) (update)
I wish I can go to these places and do something about it. Come on Lottery give me a few million Pounds init?
This is what the caste system treat human beings in India the fifth largest industrial power. The people who live there firmly believe I suppose these acts are legit init?
"The Dalits here live in pipes. Most of the pipes are about 1.5 metres in diameter; a number have mud-brick extensions and doorways fashioned from scrap wood and metal. The smaller pipes are only 75cm in diameter and the tenants must crawl on their hands and knees to enter. On a corrugated iron sheet that forms the side of one of the houses, letters of the English alphabet are scrawled. A young boy, using a stick as his pointer, runs through the list for us from start to finish."
Grrrrrr... Do you know what "Hudood laws" means. I just came across this term in a news article about MS Bhutto's death and the implications there after. And in there this person having first known Benazir Bhutto from high school in Karachi, and then later in Cambridge
(Massachussetts), talks about Ms Bhutto's past work.
"Q: Was Ms. Bhutto a model for Pakistani women?
A: She was courageous and single-minded. And she
showed that a woman could be the head of a
conservative Islamic state. Nevertheless, it is
hard to see what she wanted beyond personal
power. Although she said that she was fighting
for grand causes, I'm still trying to figure out
what they were. She certainly did nothing for
Pakistani women during her two stints in power
and left untouched the horrific Hudood laws,
according to which a rape victim needs to produce
4 witnesses to the act of penetration (else she
could be punished for fornication)."
Cor blimey what the heck? Init? So I went and had a wee look at what the wikipedia has to say about the subject. The link is there, so go ahead and ave a look, I can't do everything you know, said the donkey to.....
And in this article says this:
""This law is used mostly for revenge," says Parveen Parvez, a lawyer at Karachi’s City Courts, talking about Pakistan’s Zina, or adultery, laws that are part of the HudoodOrdinance of 1979. "Most cases are registered by parents against their daughters who have married of their own choice, or husbands whose wives re-marry after divorce.""
Well further research shows that this law has been amended by "Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Act, 2006 " in 1 dec 2006.
There is a continueing debate in the press about the Pakistan's nuclear arsenal which is 50 missilles or so. But in this article it is looking at a different way.
"Q: Let's talk about Pakistan's nukes. There a lot
of concern about the possibility that nuclear
weapons could end up into the hands of Islamic
fundamentalists. Early in December the Washington
Post revealed that a small group of U.S. military
experts and intelligence analysts convened in
Washington for exploring strategies to secure
Pakistani nukes if the Pakistani regime falls
apart. Their conclusions were very scaring, as, -
there are no palatable ways to forcibly ensure
the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. What
do you think about this?
A: The government says there is absolutely no
danger of loose nukes. Pakistan has been sending
serving officers of the Strategic Plans Division,
which is the agency responsible for handling
nuclear weapons, to the United States for
training in safety measures (PAL's locking
devices, storing procedures, etc). But there's no
way of telling if this will be effective.
Extremists have already penetrated deep into the
army and the intelligence agencies. We now see
repeated evidence: for example, last month an
unmarked bus carrying employees of the Inter
Services Intelligence [Pakistan's secret
intelligence], was collecting employees early in
the morning. It was boarded by a suicide bomber
who blew himself up killing 25. It was an inside
job.
And now there are many other such examples, such
as that of an army man killing 16 Special
Services Group commandos in a suicide attack at
Ghazi Barotha. A part of the establishment is
clearly at war with another part. There are also
scientists, as well as military people, who are
radical Islamists. Many questions come to mind:
can there be collusion between different
field-level commanders, resulting in the
hijacking of a nuclear weapon? Could outsider
groups develop links with insiders? Given the
absence of accurate records of fissile material
production, can one be certain that small
quantities of highly enriched uranium or weapons
grade plutonoium have already not been diverted?
I do not know the answers. Nobody does."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
This is what the caste system treat human beings in India the fifth largest industrial power. The people who live there firmly believe I suppose these acts are legit init?
"The Dalits here live in pipes. Most of the pipes are about 1.5 metres in diameter; a number have mud-brick extensions and doorways fashioned from scrap wood and metal. The smaller pipes are only 75cm in diameter and the tenants must crawl on their hands and knees to enter. On a corrugated iron sheet that forms the side of one of the houses, letters of the English alphabet are scrawled. A young boy, using a stick as his pointer, runs through the list for us from start to finish."
Grrrrrr... Do you know what "Hudood laws" means. I just came across this term in a news article about MS Bhutto's death and the implications there after. And in there this person having first known Benazir Bhutto from high school in Karachi, and then later in Cambridge
(Massachussetts), talks about Ms Bhutto's past work.
"Q: Was Ms. Bhutto a model for Pakistani women?
A: She was courageous and single-minded. And she
showed that a woman could be the head of a
conservative Islamic state. Nevertheless, it is
hard to see what she wanted beyond personal
power. Although she said that she was fighting
for grand causes, I'm still trying to figure out
what they were. She certainly did nothing for
Pakistani women during her two stints in power
and left untouched the horrific Hudood laws,
according to which a rape victim needs to produce
4 witnesses to the act of penetration (else she
could be punished for fornication)."
Cor blimey what the heck? Init? So I went and had a wee look at what the wikipedia has to say about the subject. The link is there, so go ahead and ave a look, I can't do everything you know, said the donkey to.....
And in this article says this:
""This law is used mostly for revenge," says Parveen Parvez, a lawyer at Karachi’s City Courts, talking about Pakistan’s Zina, or adultery, laws that are part of the HudoodOrdinance of 1979. "Most cases are registered by parents against their daughters who have married of their own choice, or husbands whose wives re-marry after divorce.""
Well further research shows that this law has been amended by "Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Act, 2006 " in 1 dec 2006.
There is a continueing debate in the press about the Pakistan's nuclear arsenal which is 50 missilles or so. But in this article it is looking at a different way.
"Q: Let's talk about Pakistan's nukes. There a lot
of concern about the possibility that nuclear
weapons could end up into the hands of Islamic
fundamentalists. Early in December the Washington
Post revealed that a small group of U.S. military
experts and intelligence analysts convened in
Washington for exploring strategies to secure
Pakistani nukes if the Pakistani regime falls
apart. Their conclusions were very scaring, as, -
there are no palatable ways to forcibly ensure
the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. What
do you think about this?
A: The government says there is absolutely no
danger of loose nukes. Pakistan has been sending
serving officers of the Strategic Plans Division,
which is the agency responsible for handling
nuclear weapons, to the United States for
training in safety measures (PAL's locking
devices, storing procedures, etc). But there's no
way of telling if this will be effective.
Extremists have already penetrated deep into the
army and the intelligence agencies. We now see
repeated evidence: for example, last month an
unmarked bus carrying employees of the Inter
Services Intelligence [Pakistan's secret
intelligence], was collecting employees early in
the morning. It was boarded by a suicide bomber
who blew himself up killing 25. It was an inside
job.
And now there are many other such examples, such
as that of an army man killing 16 Special
Services Group commandos in a suicide attack at
Ghazi Barotha. A part of the establishment is
clearly at war with another part. There are also
scientists, as well as military people, who are
radical Islamists. Many questions come to mind:
can there be collusion between different
field-level commanders, resulting in the
hijacking of a nuclear weapon? Could outsider
groups develop links with insiders? Given the
absence of accurate records of fissile material
production, can one be certain that small
quantities of highly enriched uranium or weapons
grade plutonoium have already not been diverted?
I do not know the answers. Nobody does."
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
The Highjacking of a Nation Part 2: The Auctioning of Former Statesmen & Dime a Dozen Generals By Sibel Edmonds
Here is the part 2 of her article. Read on and learn my man!
November 29, 2006
The Highjacking of a Nation
Part 2: The Auctioning of Former Statesmen & Dime a Dozen Generals
By Sibel Edmonds
“The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes.”- - Justice Felix Frankfurter
It used to be the three branches - congress, the executive, and the courts - that we considered the make-up of our nation’s federal government. And some would point to the press as a possible fourth branch, due to the virtue of its influence in shaping our policies. Today, more and more people have come to view corporate and foreign lobby firms, with their preponderant clout and enormous power, as the official fourth branch of our nation’s government. Not only do I agree with them, I would even take it a step further and give it a higher status it certainly deserves.
Operating invisibly under the radar of media and public scrutiny, lobby groups and foreign agents have become the ‘epicenter’ of our government, where former statesmen and ‘dime a dozen generals’ cash in on their connections and peddle their enormous influence to the highest bidders turned clients. These groups’ activities shape our nation’s policies and determine the direction of the flow of its taxpayer driven wealth, while to them the interests of the majority are considered irrelevant, and the security of the nation is perceived as inconsequential.
In Part1 of this series I used Saudi influence via its lobby and foreign agents by default as a case to illustrate how certain foreign interests, combined with their U.S. agents and benefactors, override the interests and security of the entire nation. This illustrative model case involved three major elements: the purchasing of a few ‘dime a dozen generals,’ bidding high in the auctioning of ‘former statesmen,’ and buying one or two ex-congressmen turned lobbyists. In addition, the piece emphasized the importance of the “Military Industrial Complex (MIC),” which became a de facto ‘foreign agent’ by the universally recognized principle of ‘mutual benefit.’
This article will attempt to illustrate the functioning of the above model in the case of another country, the Republic of Turkey, and its set of agents and operators in the U.S. In doing so, I want to emphasize the importance of separating the populace of example nations - Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, Pakistan… - from their regimes and select key participating actors. As is the case with our nation, they too suffer the consequences of their regime’s self-serving policies and conduct. Not only that, they also have to endure what they consider ‘U.S. imposed policies’ that further the interests of only a few. Think of it this way, the majority of us in the States do not see the infamous and powerful neocon cabal as the chosen and accepted representatives of our nation’s values and objectives. We do not want to be perceived and judged based on the actions of a few at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. The same is valid for these nations’ citizenry; so let not their corrupt and criminal regimes be the basis of our judgment of them.
Moreover, as we all know, those subject to criticism in these articles have mastered the art of spinning when it comes to the media and propaganda. The Israeli lobby is quick to stamp all factually backed criticism as ‘anti-Semitic’ and attack it as such. The Turkish lobby, in this regard, as with everything else, follows its Israeli mentors; they label all dissent and criticism as anti-Turkey, or, Kurdish or Armenian propaganda; while the Saudi lobby goes around kicking and screaming ‘anti-Muslim propaganda.’ I am not known to be ‘politically correct’ and am often criticized for it. I readily accept that and all responsibilities associated with it. I am not seeking a position as a diplomat, neither am I serving any business, organization, or media channel furthering a particular ideology. This is me, saying it as I see it; no more, no less. By the end of this series it should be obvious, at least for many, that the selection of the nations encompasses varied sides and affiliations. Moreover, the main purpose, and the target of these commentaries, goes to the heart of our own government and its epicenter; lobbyists and the MIC.
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Many Americans, due to the effective propaganda and spin machine of Turkey’s agents in the U.S., and relentless efforts by high-level officials and lobbying groups on Turkish networks’ payroll, do not know much about Turkey; its position and importance in the areas of terrorism, money laundering, illegal arms sales, industrial and military espionage, and the nuclear black-market. Not many people in the States would name Turkey among those nations that threaten global security, the fight against terrorism, nuclear proliferation, or the war on drugs. For the purpose of this article it is necessary to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of Turkey, its strategic location within global criminal networks, its various networks and entities operating behind seemingly legitimate fronts, and its connection to the military and political machine in the U.S.
For many Americans Turkey is one of the closest allies of the United States; a most important member of NATO; a candidate for EU membership; and the only Middle-Eastern close ally and partner of Israel. Some acknowledge Turkey’s highly prized status in the United States due to its location as the artery connecting Europe to Asia, its cross borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria to its East and South, with the Balkan states to its west, and with the Central Asian nations to its north and northeast. Others may recognize the country as one of the top U.S. customers for military technology and weapons.
Interestingly enough, these same qualities and characteristics which make Turkey an important ally and strategic partner for the nation states, make it extremely crucial and attractive to global criminal networks active in transferring illegal arms and nuclear technology to rogue states; in transporting Eastern Narcotics, mainly from Afghanistan through the Central Asian states into Turkey, where it is processed, and then through the Balkan states into Western Europe and the U.S.; and in laundering the proceeds of these illegal operations via its banks and those on the neighboring island of Cyprus.
The Real Lords of the Poppy Fields
It is a known fact that there often is a nexus between terrorism and organized crime. Terrorists use Narco-traficking and international crime to support their activities. Frequently, the same criminal gangs involved in narcotics smuggling have links to other criminal activities, such as illegal arms sales, and to terrorist groups. The Taliban's link to the drug trade is irrefutable. In 2001, a report by the U.N. Committee of Experts on Resolution 1333 for sanctions against the Taliban stated that “funds raised from the production and trade of opium and heroin are used by the Taliban to buy arms and war materials and to finance the training of terrorists and support the operation of extremists in neighboring countries and beyond.”
Afghanistan supplies almost 90% of the world's heroin, which is the country’s main cash crop, contributing over $3 billion a year in illegal revenues to the Afghan economy, which equals 50% of the gross national product. In 2004, according to the U.S. state department, 206,000 hectares were cultivated, a half a million acres, producing 4,000 tons of opium. “It is not only the largest heroin producer in the world, 206,000 hectares is the largest amount of heroin or of any drug that I think has ever been produced by any one country in any given year,” says Robert Charles, former assistant secretary of state for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, overseeing anti-drug operations in Afghanistan.
Heroin trafficking is also the main source of funding for the al-Qaeda terrorists. A Time Magazine article in August 2004 reported that al-Qaeda has established a smuggling network that is peddling Afghan heroin to buyers across the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, and in turn is using the drug revenues to purchase weapons and explosives. The article states: “…al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies are increasingly financing operations with opium sales. Anti-drug officials in Afghanistan have no hard figures on how much al-Qaeda and the Taliban are earning from drugs, but conservative estimates run into tens of millions of dollars.” Anti-drug officials say the only way to cut off al-Qaeda's pipeline is to attack it at the source: by destroying the poppy farms themselves. This year, Afghanistan's opium harvest is expected to exceed 3,600 tons—enough to produce street heroin worth $36 billion.
Key congressional leaders have been pressing the Pentagon to crack down on the major drug traffickers in Afghanistan upon learning that Al Qaeda is relying more than ever on illicit proceeds from the heroin trade. Congressional investigators who returned from the region in 2004 found that traffickers are providing Osama bin Laden and other terrorists with heroin as funds from Saudi Arabia and other sources dry up. "We now know Al Qaeda's dominant source of funding is the illegal sale of narcotics," said Rep. Kirk-IL, a member of the House Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, as reported by Washington Times. Rep. Kirk added that Bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror organization is reaping $28 million a year in illicit heroin sales.
It is puzzling to observe that in reporting this major artery of terrorists’ funding, the U.S. mainstream media and political machine do not dare to go beyond the poppy fields of Afghanistan and the fairly insignificant low level Afghan warlords overseeing the crops. Think about it; we are talking about nearly $40 billion worth of products in the final stage. Do you believe that those primitive Afghan warlords, clad in shalvars, sporting long ragged beards, and walking with long sticks handle transportation, lab processing, more transportation, distribution, and sophisticated laundering of the proceeds? If yes, then think again. This multi billion-dollar industry requires highly sophisticated networks and people. So, who are the real lords of Afghanistan’s poppy fields?
For Al Qaeda’s network Turkey is a haven for its sources of funding. Turkish networks, along with Russians’, are the main players in these fields; they purchase the opium from Afghanistan and transport it through several Turkic speaking Central Asian states into Turkey, where the raw opium is processed into popular byproducts; then the network transports the final product into Western European and American markets via their partner networks in Albania. The networks’ banking arrangements in Turkey, Cyprus and Dubai are used to launder and recycle the proceeds, and various Turkish companies in Turkey and Central Asia are used to make this possible and seem legitimate. The Al Qaeda network also uses Turkey to obtain and transfer arms to its Central Asian bases, including Chechnya.
Since the 1950s Turkey has played a key role in channeling into Europe and the U.S. heroin produced in the "Golden Triangle" comprised of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. These operations are run by mafia groups closely controlled by the MIT (Turkish Intelligence Agency) and the military. According to statistics compiled in 1998, Turkey’s heroin trafficking brought in $25 billion in 1995 and $37.5 billion in 1996. That amount makes up nearly a quarter of Turkey’s GDP. Only criminal networks working in close cooperation with the police and the army could possibly organize trafficking on such a scale. The Turkish government, MIT and the Turkish military, not only sanctions, but also actively participates in and oversees the narcotics activities and networks.
In July 1998, Le Monde Diplomatique reported that in an explosive document made public at a press conference in Istanbul, the MIT, Turkish Intelligence Agency, accused Turkey’s national police, of having “provided police identity cards and diplomatic passports to members of a group which, in the guise of anti-terrorist activities, traveled to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary and Azerbaijan to engage in drug trafficking”. MIT provided a list of names of some of the traffickers operating under the protection of the police. The Turkish police returned the compliment and handed over a list of named drug traffickers employed by the MIT!
In January 1997, Tom Sackville, minister of state at the British Home Office, stated that 80% of the heroin seized in Britain came from Turkey, and that his government was concerned by reports that members of the Turkish police, and even of the Turkish government, were involved in drug trafficking.
In an article published in Drug Link Magazine, Adrian Gatton cites the case of Huseyin Baybasin, the famous Turkish heroin kingpin now in jail in Holland. Baybasin explains: “I handled the drugs which came through the channel of the Turkish Consulate in England,” and he adds: “I was with the Mafia but I was carrying this out with the same Mafia group in which the rulers of Turkey were part.” The article also cites a witness statement given to a UK immigration case involving Baybasin’s clan, and states that Huseyin Baybasin had agreed to provide investigators with information about what he knew of the role of Turkish politicians and officials in the heroin trade. The article quotes Mark Galeotti, a former UK intelligence officer and expert on the Turkish mafia, “Since the 1970s, Turkey has accounted for between 75 and 90 per cent of all heroin in the UK. The key traffickers are Turks or criminals who operate along that route using Turkish contacts.” In 2001, Chris Harrison, a senior UK Customs officer in Manchester, told veteran crime reporter Martin Short that Customs could not get at the Turkish kingpins because they are “protected” at a high level.
In 1998, the highly official International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) of the U.S. State Department, revealed that “about 75% of the heroin seized in Europe is either produced in, or derives from, Turkey”, that “4 to 6 tons of heroin arrive from there every month, heading for Western Europe” and that “a number of laboratories for the purification of the opium used in transforming the basic morphine into heroin are located on Turkish soil". The report stresses that Turkey is one of the countries most affected by money-laundering, which takes place particularly via the countries of the ex-Soviet Union, such as Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan, through the medium of casinos, the construction industry, and tourism. INCSR’s 2006 report cites Turkey as a major transshipment point and base of operations for international narcotics traffickers and associates trafficking in opium, morphine base, heroin, precursor chemicals and other drugs.
We know that Al Qaeda and Taliban’s main source of funding is the illegal sale of narcotics. Based on all the reports, facts, and expert statements, we know that Turkey is a major, if not the top, player in the transportation, processing, and distribution of all the narcotics derived from the Afghan poppies, and as a result, it is the major contributing country to Al Qaeda. Yet, to date, more than five years into our over exhaustive ‘war on terror propaganda’, have we heard any mentioning of, any tough message to, any sanction against, or any threat that was issued and targeted at Turkey?
We all know of our president’s ‘selective evilization’ of countries that have been ‘chosen’ to be on our hit list. But how many of us know of our government’s ‘selective go free cards’ that have been issued to those ‘ally countries’ that directly fund and support the terrorist networks? In fact, our government would rather move heaven and earth, gag ‘whistleblowers’ with direct knowledge of these facts, classify congressional and other investigative reports, create a media black-out on these ‘allies’ terrorist supporting activities, than do the right thing; do what it really takes to counter terrorism.
…and the WMDs we actually located & have known about
In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush declared he would keep “the world's most destructive weapons" from Al Qaeda and its allies by keeping those weapons from evil governments. Later he told a campaign audience in Pennsylvania, “We had to take a hard look at every place where terrorists might get those weapons and one regime stood out: the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.” Well, the Iraqi WMD that never was!
Here is what CIA Director Porter Goss said bluntly before the Senate Intelligence Committee in February 2004, “It may be only a matter of time before Al Qaeda or other groups attempt to use chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons. We must focus on that.” And we know that he knows; has known for the longest time!
Seymour Hersh in his March 2003 article quotes Robert Gallucci, a former United Nations weapons inspector who is now dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, “Bad as it is with Iran, North Korea, and Libya having nuclear-weapons material, the worst part is that they could transfer it to a non-state group. That’s the biggest concern, and the scariest thing about all this. There’s nothing more important than stopping terrorist groups from getting nuclear weapons.”
Although numerous prestigious reports by agencies and organizations such as IAEA, and news articles in the European media, have clearly established Turkey, and various international networks operating in and out of Turkey, as major players within the global nuclear black-market and illegal arms sales, the relevant agencies and main media in the U.S. have maintained a completely silent and hands off position.
Nuclear black-market related activities depend on Turkey for manufacturing nuclear components, and on its strategic location as a transit point to move goods and technology to nations such as Iran, Pakistan, and others. Not only that, Turkey’s status and close relationship with the U.S. enables it to obtain (steal) technology and information from the U.S.
Lying at the crossroads not only between Europe and Asia, but also between the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, Turkey is already a well-established transit zone for illicit goods, including nuclear material and illegal weapons sales. According to a report by Turkish Atomic Energy Authority (TAEA), at least 104 nuclear smuggling incidents had occurred in the past eight years in Turkey. For instance, in September 1999, 5 Kilograms of Uranium enriched to 4.6 percent were confiscated from an international smuggling ring in Turkey, which included four Turkish, one Azerbaijani, and three Kazakhstani citizens. The report cites over one hundred incidents like this, and these are only cases that have been intercepted and reported.
Turkey played a major role in Pakistan and Libya’s illicit activities in obtaining nuclear technologies. In June 2004, Stephen Fidler, a reporter for Financial Times reported that in 2003, Turkish centrifuge motors and converters destined for Libya's nuclear weapons program turned up in Tripoli aboard a ship that had sailed from Dubai. One of those detained individuals in this incident, a ‘respected and successful’ Turkish Businessman, Selim Alguadis, was cited in a public report from the Malaysian inspector-general of police into the Malaysian end of a Pakistani-led clandestine network that supplied Libya, Iran and North Korea with nuclear weapons technologies, designs and expertise. According to the report, “he supplied these materials to Libya." Mr. Alguadis also confessed that he had on several occasions met A Q Khan, the disgraced Pakistani scientist who has admitted transmitting nuclear expertise to the three countries. Selim Alguadis remains a successful businessman in Turkey with companies in several other countries. He was released immediately after being turned over to Turkish authorities. His partner, another well-known and internationally recognized wealthy businessman, Gunes Cire, also actively participated in transferring nuclear technology and parts to Iran, Pakistan and North Korea. Although under investigation by several international communities, Alguadis and his partners continued to roam free in Turkey and conduct their illegitimate operations via their ‘legit international business’ front companies.
David Albright and Corey Hinderstein of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) identify Turkey’s major role in the nuclear black-market. According to their report, workshops in Turkey made the centrifuge motor and frequency converters used to drive the motor and spin the rotor to high speeds. These workshops imported subcomponents from Europe, and they assembled these centrifuge items in Turkey. Under false end-user certificates, these components were shipped from Turkey to Dubai for repackaging and shipment to Libya.
Turkey’s illegal arms smuggling activities are not limited to Europe and the Middle East; many of these activities reach U.S. soil. According to a report published by the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, in April 2004 the Italian police searched a container destined for the port of New York onboard a Turkish ship at the port of Tauro during a routine customs inspection, sparked by discrepancies between the various customs declarations. Inside the container more than 8,000 AK47 assault rifles, 11 submachine guns, and magazines worth over seven million dollars were discovered.
Our tough talking president works very hard to sound convincing when he says ‘we have to take a hard look at every place where terrorists might get those weapons;’ in fact, he has succeeded in fooling many into believing those words. However, while he was determined to move heaven and earth to get our nation into a war and a quagmire with a country that did NOT possess ‘those weapons,’ he refused and continues to refuse to look at his own ‘allies-packed backyard’ where he would find a few that not only do possess ‘those weapons,’ but also distribute and sell them to the highest bidders no matter what their affiliation.
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Curiously enough, despite these highly publicized reports and acknowledgements of Turkey’s role in these activities, Turkey continues to receive billions of dollars of aid and assistance annually from the United States. With its highly placed co-conspirators and connections within the Pentagon, State Department and U.S. Congress, Turkey never has to fear potential sanctions or meaningful scrutiny; just like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The criminal Turkish networks continue their global criminal activities right under the nose of their protector, the United States, and neither the catastrophe falling upon the U.S. on September Eleven, nor their direct and indirect role and ties to this terrorist attack, diminish their role and participation in the shady worlds of narcotics, money laundering and illegal arms transfer.
The ‘respectable’ Turkish companies established and operate bases in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and other similar former soviet states. Many of these front companies, disguised under construction and tourism entities, have received millions of dollars in grants from the U.S. government, allocated to them by the U.S. congress, to establish and operate criminal networks throughout the region; among their networking partners are Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Albanian Mafia. While the U.S. government painted Islamic charity organizations as the main financial source for Al Qaeda terrorists, it was hard at work trying to cover up the terrorists’ main financial source: narcotics and illegal arms sales. Why?
For years and years, information and evidence being collected by the counterintelligence operations of certain U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies has been prevented from being transferred to criminal and narcotics divisions, and from being shared with the Drug Enforcement Agency and others with prosecutorial power. Those with direct knowledge have been prevented from making this information available and public by various gag orders and invocation of the State Secrets Privilege. Why?
Is this due to the fact that the existence and survival of many U.S. allies; Turkey, almost all Central Asian nations, and after the September Eleven attack, Afghanistan; greatly depend on cultivating, processing, transporting, and distributing these illegal substances? Is it caused by the fact that a major source of income for those who procure U.S. weapons and technology, our military industrial complex’s bread and butter, is being generated from this illegal production and illegal dealings? Or, is it the fear of exposing our own financial institutions, lobbying firms, and certain elected and appointed officials, as beneficiaries?
When it comes to criminal and shady global networks most people envision either Mafiosi like entities who keep to themselves and are separated from society, or, street level gangster-like criminals. Contrary to these expectations, the top tier Turkish criminal networks consist mainly of respectable looking businessmen, some of whom are among the top international businessmen, diplomats, politicians, and scholarly individuals. Their U.S. counterparts are equally respected and recognizable; some of whom are high-level appointed bureaucrats within the State Department and the Pentagon; some are elected officials, and others consist of the combination of the two who have now set up their own companies and lobbying groups.
The American Turkish Council (ATC)
Operating tax-free and under the radar is one of the most powerful “non-profit” associations in the U.S., the American Turkish Council (ATC). Some who are familiar with its operations and players describe it as ‘Mini AIPAC;’ this description aces it. ATC followed the AIPAC model; with the direct help of AIPAC & JINSA, it created a base out of which to stretch its tentacles, reaching the highest echelons of our government. While the ATC is an association in name and in charter, the reality is that it and other affiliated associations are the U.S. government, lobbyists, foreign agents, and MIC. Investigative journalist, John Stanton, correctly describes the ATC as an extraordinary group of elite and interconnected Republicans, Democrats and corporate and military heavyweights who are spearheading one of the most ambitious strategic gambits in U.S. history.
Included in ATC’s management, board of directors, and advisors; in addition to Turkish individuals of ‘interest;’ is a dizzying array of U.S. individuals. The ATC is led by Ret. General Brent Scowcroft, who serves as Chairman of the Board; George Perlman of Lockheed Martin, the Executive Vice President; other board members include: Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Ret. General Elmer Pendleton, Ret. General Joseph Ralston, Ret. Col. Preston Hughes, Alan Colegrove of Northrop Grumman, Frank Carlucci of Carlyle Group, Christine Vick of Cohen Group, Representative Robert Wexler, Former Rep. Ed Whitfield…Basically many formers; statesmen, ‘dime a dozen generals,’ and representatives.
On the members - paying clients – side; their list includes all the MIC’s who’s who, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman; the Washington Lobby scene’s who’s who; The Cohen Group, The Livingston Group, Washington Group International…
Of course, there are also many Turkish companies that are members of the ATC. Most of these companies have branches and operations in Libya, Dubai, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. Although the official listings of their businesses are cited as ‘construction,’ ‘real estate’, ‘manufacturing,’ and ‘tourism’; the main activities of these businesses are known to be related to global illegal arms sales and narcotic processing and trafficking. These companies provide necessary fronts and channels to launder proceeds. Curiously enough, hundreds of millions of dollars have been granted by the United States government, approved by the congress, to these Turkish companies under the guise of various ‘U.S. Central Asian development programs;’ and ‘Iraq & Afghanistan reconstruction programs.’
Stanton notes: ‘ATC is joined in the creation of the New EuroAsia by the American Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (AACC). AACC’s Honorary Council of Advisors just happens to have General Scowcroft and the following persons of significance: Henry Kissinger and James Baker III. Former Council members include Dick Cheney and Richard Armitage, and Board of Trustee members include media-overkill subject Richard Perle of AEI, and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas.’
The MIC Factor
In part1 we discussed the MIC as ‘agents by default;’ marriages and loyalties based on ‘mutual benefit;’ our previous example was Saudi Arabia, top customer of U.S. weaponry. Well, Turkey only tails the Saudis slightly in that category; between 1992 and 1996, Turkey was the second largest importer of weaponry, spending more than $7 billion in four years. A report by the World Policy Institute shows that Turkey is the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, behind Israel and Egypt. Between 1994 and 2003, Turkey took delivery of more than $6.8 billion in U.S. weaponry and services.
In fiscal year 1989, U.S. aid to Turkey was $563,500,000. According to a Multi National Monitor Report, in 1991, Turkey received more than $800 million in U.S. aid, “an exceptional return” on its $3.8 million investment in Washington lobbyists. At the time, International Advisors, INC. (Douglas Feith & Richard Perle lobbying firm as registered agents for Turkey) was paid more than $1 million for representing Turkey in the U.S. for the purpose of securing these types of deals. In 2003, Turkey received a $1 billion aid package. During this period their registered and known lobbyists were the Livingston Group, headed by the former Speaker of the House Bob Livingston, and Solarz Associates, headed by a formerly powerful Representative, Stephen Solarz. Turkey, from 2000 to 2004, for only four years, paid Livingston $9 million for his lobbying services. What did the Republic of Turkey get for its $2 million per year investment in Ex-Congressman Livingston’s services?
A Joint Report by the Federation of American Scientists and the World Policy Institute found that the vast majority of U.S. arms transfers to Turkey were subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. In many cases, these taxpayer funds are supporting military production and employment in Turkey, not in the United States. Of the $10.5 billion in U.S. weaponry delivered to Turkey since 1984, $8 billion in all has been directly or indirectly financed by grants and subsidized loans provided by the U.S. government. Many of the largest deals - such as Lockheed Martin's sale of 240 F-16s to the Turkish air force and the FMC Corporation's provision of 1,698 armored vehicles to the Turkish army - involve co-production and offset provisions which steer investments, jobs, and production to Turkey as a condition of the sale. For example, Turkey's F-16 assembly plant in Ankara - a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) - employs 2,000 production workers, almost entirely paid for with U.S. tax dollars.
Let’s recap the above data: Not only does our government, actually, our taxpayers, subsidize $8 billion of Turkey’s $10 billion weapons purchases; the production of this weaponry and the associated employment occurs not in the U.S., but overseas, in Turkey. We, the taxpayers, are subsidizing these purchases; our nation readily transfers its technology to a country that ranks high in global narcotics, terrorist and WMD related activities; while a select few MIC related firms such as Lockheed and the pimping middlemen, the lobbyists, get fatter and richer.
One Stop Shop: The Cohen Group
Like many other former statesmen, William Cohen, former Secretary of Defense, dived into the business of lobbying and consulting, and created his own Washington firm, The Cohen Group, which works for some of the largest companies in the defense industry, such as Lockheed Martin, and serves numerous foreign players. The Cohen Group is one of the primary and most active members of the American Turkish Council (ATC). Cohen’s client, Lockheed Martin, happens to be on the board of ATC, in addition to being listed as ATC’s top paying client.
The group claims on its Website that its principals have "a century and a half of combined experience in the Congress, the Defense Department, the State Department, the White House, and state and local governments" and that they “have developed extensive expertise and relationships with key international political, economic, and business leaders and acquired invaluable experiences with the individuals and institutions that affect our clients' success abroad.” Abroad indeed. With a few ‘dime a dozen generals’ and former statesmen, the firm owes its phenomenal speedy success to interests ‘abroad’ and of course, the MIC! Let’s look, with great amazement, I hope, at how this ingenious lobby venture serves as foreign agent for several influences without having to register as such; with complete immunity against any scrutiny.
According to Intelligence Online, in its March 27, 2006 issue, Cohen accompanied Bush on his trip to India and Pakistan in March 2006. The Cohen Group is very active in India; Joseph Ralston, Cohen’s Vice Chairman, led two delegations of U.S. Defense Chiefs to India the previous year. The trips were organized in conjunction with the U.S. India Business Council; among the participants were Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing.
On June 9, 2006, Intelligence Online reports ‘already operating in India, the Cohen Group headed by William Cohen, has just opened an office in Beijing... Since 2003 the Cohen Group has equally been employing Christine Vick. She is a former Vice President of Kissinger Associates; the consultancy founded by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and had been in charge of the firm’s Chinese business.’
Prior to the October 2005 release of Paul Volcker's report on violations of the United Nations' Iraq oil-for-food program, the Australian wheat exporter AWB Limited hired Cohen’s firm. AWB paid approximately $A300 million in trucking fees on its wheat contracts to a Jordanian company, Alia, which owns no trucks! The funds were funnelled to Saddam’s regime. AWB hired Cohen Group as part of its ‘strategy, ’ code-named ‘Project Rose’, to deal with the UN inquiry headed by Paul Volcker and corruption allegations made against it by U.S. wheat farmers and ‘hostile US politicians.’ Cohen Group is not a law firm; what kind of services and representation is it providing for this criminal case?
So who are the key players at Cohen’s lobby firm, giving it its value? Well of course, a handful of powerful formers; in addition to Cohen as the top principal we have former Undersecretary of State Mark Grossman, and two formerly high-level ‘dime a dozen generals:’ General Joseph Ralston and General Paul Kern; let’s briefly look at them; shall we?
Ret. General Paul Kern
Cohen Group senior counselor is retired general Paul J. Kern, a former head of the Army Materiel Command, who recently served on a panel convened by the Defense Department to recommend improvements in how it acquires weapons systems; of course, a topic of great interest to Cohen clients.
Pentagon’s Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment Panel , DAPAP, was created to recommend changes in the awarding of military contracts. Over half of this panel is executives of large defense corporations. Among the Committee’s six members are Frank Cappuccio, VP of Lockheed Martin, and retired General Kern, who is the Senior Counselor of the Cohen Group!
When the Pentagon is informed of wasteful practices, it commonly ignores them. Congressman Walter Jones, (R-N.C.) is quoted as understating, "We’ve got an agency that is not doing its job of being a watchdog for the taxpayers." Retired Army Reserve officer Paul Fellencer Sr. complained to the Pentagon’s fraud hot line last year about $200-million worth of outrageous overpayments for ordinary supplies. Pentagon investigators never bothered to call him and dismissed his tip as "unsubstantiated," the news service said.
One wonders how many American citizens are aware of the fact that a ‘dime a dozen general’ such as Kern, who happens to be a Senior Counsel of a lobby firm with foreign interests and MIC representation, who happens to sit on the board of Lockheed Martin, gets to sit on a panel that monitors and advises on awarding military contracts to the private MIC companies by the Pentagon. Would it take an absolute genius to figure out that this is ‘putting a fox in charge of the hen house’? If not, then how could this get past the decision makers at the Pentagon? How come our lawmakers, those in charge of ensuring the checks and balances in our government, those we consider our representatives, sit there either unaware or unbothered by this red flag visible from a hundred miles away? What happened to ‘investigative journalists with good noses;’ were they all inflicted by congested sinuses at the same time?
Fmr. Gen. Joseph Ralston
General Joseph Ralston, one of Cohen Group’s Vice Chairmen, is on the board of Lockheed Martin, which paid the Cohen Group $550,000 in 2005, according to a Lockheed filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ralston is also a member of the 2006 Advisory Board of the American Turkish Council (ATC), and one of Turkey’s top advocates. If you think this ‘dime a dozen general’ ended one career and removed himself from the U.S. government by becoming ‘the foreign agent man,’ think again after reading the following.
On August 28, 2006, the U.S. State Department appointed the former U.S. Air Force General, current Vice Chairman of the Cohen Group, board member of American Turkish Council, registered lobbyist for Lockheed Martin, Joseph Ralston, as a “Special Envoy” for countering the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK)! Lo and behold, Ralston’s appointment came as Turkey was finalizing the purchase of 30 new Lockheed Martin F-16 aircraft valued at $3 billion, and as Turkey was due to make its decision on the $10 billion purchase of the new Lockheed Martin F-35 JSF aircraft. Coincidentally, the U.S. Congress approved the sale of the F-16s to Turkey in October 2006, shortly after Ralston’s return from Turkey.
While the implications of Ralston’s appointment caused a major stir within the Kurdish community and organizations, mainly pointing to Ralston’s position with the Turkish lobby in the U.S. (he is on the board of ATC), and within Turkey’s own communities, pointing to Ralston’s position with Lockheed Martin (he is on the board of Lockheed Martin), our own media, watchdog organizations, and congress let this gargantuan conflict of interest pass under the radar.
Our government sent this man, Ralston, as a special envoy to help resolve the highly critical Northern Iraq situation with possible dire consequences in the near future. Considering Ralston’s livelihood and his loyalties, as a member of the board of the directors of Lockheed Martin, as the vice chairman of a lobbying firm with foreign interests, as an advisor and board member for the most powerful Turkish Lobby group, ATC, who did this man represent while in Turkey as the special envoy? What interests did he really represent; Iraq’s situation, Lockheed’s livelihood, which depends on further conflicts and bloodshed; the corrupt and criminal government of Turkey and its representation via ATC; or, the furthering of the Cohen Group’s future pimping opportunities?
Why in the world did no one within the U.S. mainstream media give even the slightest coverage of this conflict of interest? Why did no one, Democrat or Republican, in our congress make a peep? Why haven’t we heard anyone asking Ralston the most important question, in dire need of an answer: ‘Who’s your daddy Ralston; boy?’ Ralston’s position is no different than what is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as: “A person conceived and born out of wedlock.” With the possibility of any one of four daddies, and without the benefit of a DNA test, how do we go about determining Ralston’s real daddy?
Fmr. Undersecretary Marc Grossman
The second Vice Chairman of Cohen’s firm is Marc Grossman, who was the U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs in the State Department from 2001 until 2005. From November 1994 to June 1997, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. In January 2005 Grossman resigned from his position and joined the Cohen Group. In late December 2005, Grossman joined Ihlas Holding, a large and alleged shady Turkish company which is also active in several Central Asian countries. Grossman is reported to receive $100,000 per month for his advisory position with Ihlas.’ Most and foremost, Grossman is known for his extraordinarily cozy relationship with Turkey and Israel; followed by Pakistan.
Here is Grossman as the key speaker at an ATC conference in March 2002; while Undersecretary of State; and here it is followed by Grossman’s visit to Turkey in December 2002, to approve the $3 billion U.S. aid to Turkey for the Iraq Cooperation deal. There he goes again, Grossman back to Turkey in December 2003 re: approval of Turkey’s eligibility to participate in tenders for Iraq’s reconstruction! Here is Grossman as the key speaker at an ATC Conference held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in December 2004, while Undersecretary. Here is Grossman as the guest of honor and key speaker at the American Turkish Society dinner in New York in February 2005, while Undersecretary. Here he is again, at the lavish Turkish Ottoman Dinner Gala in November 2005. Here is Grossman at the award dinner gala by the Turkish lobby group, the Assembly of American Turkish Association (ATAA), in Chicago, receiving his award in November 2005. Here is Grossman as the key speaker at the ATC annual conference in March 2006, and later, in June 2006, at the MERIA Conference to discuss Turkey’s importance to the U.S. & Israel. This list can go on for pages and pages; but I believe you all get it; right?
Here is a comment by Wolfowitz during his visit to Turkey: ”I'm delighted to be back in Turkey and so is my colleague Marc Grossman, who feels like Turkey is a second home.” Second home indeed, Mr. Grossman!
Please do not make the grave and naive mistake of assuming that Grossman found and obtained his highly lucrative and questionable positions after his resignation in January 2005. Within two months after his confident resignation, this boy got the vice chairmanship of the Cohen Group. Only six months later, Grossman ended up securing a ‘special advisory’ position for a foreign company that reported his monthly fee at $100,000 a month. The industrious Grossman seems to be juggling so many balls simultaneously: numerous foreign sponsored dinner speeches, the demanding pimping activities of Cohen’s firm, the very ‘special advising’ of a shady foreign company…
We all have a pretty good idea how long and how much work it takes to secure that level of income and those positions. Did Grossman beat the odds and get lucky as soon as he got out of the State Department? Did he hit the jackpot? Or, did he diligently and industriously work at it, while in his position as the ambassador to Turkey and as Deputy Secretary of State? Did he sell his soul while under his oath of office? Did he sell our government’s soul? Did he sell our nation and its interests? If so; for what and how much?
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Long gone are the days when generals were content to retire and go back home where they held their heads high as honorable patriots and heroes who had served their nation; where they marched in their towns’ parades as proud distinguished men and women who had fulfilled their duty to the people. Today, as we clearly see, they perceive themselves and their authority as a commodity; they go about marketing their worth (nationally and internationally; foreign and domestic) long before they leave their positions as public servants.
The same goes for many of our statesmen. While in office, Grossman and others like him appear to have one objective in mind and in action: to make sure that their future employer who is waiting for them on the other side of the revolving door will receive special and lucrative arrangements so that they can be compensated handsomely later.
In Part1, we briefly described the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), established to insure that the American public and its lawmakers know the source of propaganda intended to sway public opinion, policy, and laws; and the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) of 1995, which was passed to make the regulation and disclosure of lobbying the federal government more effective. The article emphasized that both of these cosmetic laws are filled with exemptions and loopholes that allow minimization of, and in some cases complete escape from, warranted scrutiny, and have serious loopholes and limitations.
The Cohen Group is an excellent case, illustrating the futility of FARA, since the firm does not have to be registered. They can claim that Turkey is not their ‘direct’ client; they can argue that they are not getting paid ‘directly’ by the government of Turkey or any other foreign entity or government. They certainly can; no matter that Grossman receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from a dubious Turkish company. Does Cohen discount Grossman’s Vice Chairmanship salary accordingly? No matter that half a million dollars per year from their client Lockheed Martin is mainly for services provided to Turkey, and having the group’s second chairman serve on Lockheed’s board is another way to get around all restrictions. The incestuous relationship twists and turns: The Cohen Group on the board of ATC, The Cohen Group a paying member client of ATC, The Cohen Group as Lockheed’s lobbyist, Cohen’s men on the board of Lockheed, Lockheed on the board of ATC, Lockheed also a paying client of ATC…How is your head; spinning yet?
We are proud of the large turnout at the ballot box for the midterm elections a few weeks ago; a sign of participatory citizenship. Perhaps we’ll be repeating this phenomenon, if not increasing it, for the presidential elections in two years; another means to demonstrate our ‘democratic government process in action’ for badly needed change. But who really runs our country? Who really shapes our public policies and determines the flow of our hard-earned tax money entrusted to our government? If you had the patience to go through this article, which sheds light on only a fragment of what really takes place behind our backs, within the halls of our government, in all three branches, you would start questioning your significance as a voter and taxpayer, and you would begin wondering whether you are governed by who you think you are.
The foreign influence, the lobbyists, the current highly positioned civil servants who are determined future ‘wanna be’ lobbyists, and the fat cats of the Military Industrial Complex, operate successfully under the radar, with unlimited reach and power, with no scrutiny, while selling your interests, benefiting from your tax money, and serving the highest bidders regardless of what or who they may be. This deep state seems to operate at all levels of our government; from the President’s office to Congress, from the military quarters to the civil servants’ offices. Let’s let Marcus Cicero’s timeless warning from over two thousand years ago put the finishing touch on this article:
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder[er] is less to fear.”- - Marcus Tullius Cicero
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Sibel Edmonds is the founder and director of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC). Ms. Edmonds worked as a language specialist for the FBI. During her work with the bureau, she discovered and reported serious acts of security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence that had national security implications. After she reported these acts to FBI management, she was retaliated against by the FBI and ultimately fired in March 2002. Since that time, court proceedings on her case have been blocked by the assertion of “State Secret Privilege”; the Congress of the United States has been gagged and prevented from any discussion of her case through retroactive re-classification by the Department of Justice. Ms. Edmonds is fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani; and has a MA in Public Policy and International Commerce from George Mason University, and a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University. PEN American Center awarded Ms. Edmonds the 2006 PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award.
© Copyright 2006, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Information in this release may be freely distributed and published provided that all such distributions make appropriate attribution to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
If you cannot find the links in this blog, I have majority of them filed, Email me!
November 29, 2006
The Highjacking of a Nation
Part 2: The Auctioning of Former Statesmen & Dime a Dozen Generals
By Sibel Edmonds
“The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes.”- - Justice Felix Frankfurter
It used to be the three branches - congress, the executive, and the courts - that we considered the make-up of our nation’s federal government. And some would point to the press as a possible fourth branch, due to the virtue of its influence in shaping our policies. Today, more and more people have come to view corporate and foreign lobby firms, with their preponderant clout and enormous power, as the official fourth branch of our nation’s government. Not only do I agree with them, I would even take it a step further and give it a higher status it certainly deserves.
Operating invisibly under the radar of media and public scrutiny, lobby groups and foreign agents have become the ‘epicenter’ of our government, where former statesmen and ‘dime a dozen generals’ cash in on their connections and peddle their enormous influence to the highest bidders turned clients. These groups’ activities shape our nation’s policies and determine the direction of the flow of its taxpayer driven wealth, while to them the interests of the majority are considered irrelevant, and the security of the nation is perceived as inconsequential.
In Part1 of this series I used Saudi influence via its lobby and foreign agents by default as a case to illustrate how certain foreign interests, combined with their U.S. agents and benefactors, override the interests and security of the entire nation. This illustrative model case involved three major elements: the purchasing of a few ‘dime a dozen generals,’ bidding high in the auctioning of ‘former statesmen,’ and buying one or two ex-congressmen turned lobbyists. In addition, the piece emphasized the importance of the “Military Industrial Complex (MIC),” which became a de facto ‘foreign agent’ by the universally recognized principle of ‘mutual benefit.’
This article will attempt to illustrate the functioning of the above model in the case of another country, the Republic of Turkey, and its set of agents and operators in the U.S. In doing so, I want to emphasize the importance of separating the populace of example nations - Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, Pakistan… - from their regimes and select key participating actors. As is the case with our nation, they too suffer the consequences of their regime’s self-serving policies and conduct. Not only that, they also have to endure what they consider ‘U.S. imposed policies’ that further the interests of only a few. Think of it this way, the majority of us in the States do not see the infamous and powerful neocon cabal as the chosen and accepted representatives of our nation’s values and objectives. We do not want to be perceived and judged based on the actions of a few at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. The same is valid for these nations’ citizenry; so let not their corrupt and criminal regimes be the basis of our judgment of them.
Moreover, as we all know, those subject to criticism in these articles have mastered the art of spinning when it comes to the media and propaganda. The Israeli lobby is quick to stamp all factually backed criticism as ‘anti-Semitic’ and attack it as such. The Turkish lobby, in this regard, as with everything else, follows its Israeli mentors; they label all dissent and criticism as anti-Turkey, or, Kurdish or Armenian propaganda; while the Saudi lobby goes around kicking and screaming ‘anti-Muslim propaganda.’ I am not known to be ‘politically correct’ and am often criticized for it. I readily accept that and all responsibilities associated with it. I am not seeking a position as a diplomat, neither am I serving any business, organization, or media channel furthering a particular ideology. This is me, saying it as I see it; no more, no less. By the end of this series it should be obvious, at least for many, that the selection of the nations encompasses varied sides and affiliations. Moreover, the main purpose, and the target of these commentaries, goes to the heart of our own government and its epicenter; lobbyists and the MIC.
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Many Americans, due to the effective propaganda and spin machine of Turkey’s agents in the U.S., and relentless efforts by high-level officials and lobbying groups on Turkish networks’ payroll, do not know much about Turkey; its position and importance in the areas of terrorism, money laundering, illegal arms sales, industrial and military espionage, and the nuclear black-market. Not many people in the States would name Turkey among those nations that threaten global security, the fight against terrorism, nuclear proliferation, or the war on drugs. For the purpose of this article it is necessary to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of Turkey, its strategic location within global criminal networks, its various networks and entities operating behind seemingly legitimate fronts, and its connection to the military and political machine in the U.S.
For many Americans Turkey is one of the closest allies of the United States; a most important member of NATO; a candidate for EU membership; and the only Middle-Eastern close ally and partner of Israel. Some acknowledge Turkey’s highly prized status in the United States due to its location as the artery connecting Europe to Asia, its cross borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria to its East and South, with the Balkan states to its west, and with the Central Asian nations to its north and northeast. Others may recognize the country as one of the top U.S. customers for military technology and weapons.
Interestingly enough, these same qualities and characteristics which make Turkey an important ally and strategic partner for the nation states, make it extremely crucial and attractive to global criminal networks active in transferring illegal arms and nuclear technology to rogue states; in transporting Eastern Narcotics, mainly from Afghanistan through the Central Asian states into Turkey, where it is processed, and then through the Balkan states into Western Europe and the U.S.; and in laundering the proceeds of these illegal operations via its banks and those on the neighboring island of Cyprus.
The Real Lords of the Poppy Fields
It is a known fact that there often is a nexus between terrorism and organized crime. Terrorists use Narco-traficking and international crime to support their activities. Frequently, the same criminal gangs involved in narcotics smuggling have links to other criminal activities, such as illegal arms sales, and to terrorist groups. The Taliban's link to the drug trade is irrefutable. In 2001, a report by the U.N. Committee of Experts on Resolution 1333 for sanctions against the Taliban stated that “funds raised from the production and trade of opium and heroin are used by the Taliban to buy arms and war materials and to finance the training of terrorists and support the operation of extremists in neighboring countries and beyond.”
Afghanistan supplies almost 90% of the world's heroin, which is the country’s main cash crop, contributing over $3 billion a year in illegal revenues to the Afghan economy, which equals 50% of the gross national product. In 2004, according to the U.S. state department, 206,000 hectares were cultivated, a half a million acres, producing 4,000 tons of opium. “It is not only the largest heroin producer in the world, 206,000 hectares is the largest amount of heroin or of any drug that I think has ever been produced by any one country in any given year,” says Robert Charles, former assistant secretary of state for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, overseeing anti-drug operations in Afghanistan.
Heroin trafficking is also the main source of funding for the al-Qaeda terrorists. A Time Magazine article in August 2004 reported that al-Qaeda has established a smuggling network that is peddling Afghan heroin to buyers across the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, and in turn is using the drug revenues to purchase weapons and explosives. The article states: “…al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies are increasingly financing operations with opium sales. Anti-drug officials in Afghanistan have no hard figures on how much al-Qaeda and the Taliban are earning from drugs, but conservative estimates run into tens of millions of dollars.” Anti-drug officials say the only way to cut off al-Qaeda's pipeline is to attack it at the source: by destroying the poppy farms themselves. This year, Afghanistan's opium harvest is expected to exceed 3,600 tons—enough to produce street heroin worth $36 billion.
Key congressional leaders have been pressing the Pentagon to crack down on the major drug traffickers in Afghanistan upon learning that Al Qaeda is relying more than ever on illicit proceeds from the heroin trade. Congressional investigators who returned from the region in 2004 found that traffickers are providing Osama bin Laden and other terrorists with heroin as funds from Saudi Arabia and other sources dry up. "We now know Al Qaeda's dominant source of funding is the illegal sale of narcotics," said Rep. Kirk-IL, a member of the House Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, as reported by Washington Times. Rep. Kirk added that Bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror organization is reaping $28 million a year in illicit heroin sales.
It is puzzling to observe that in reporting this major artery of terrorists’ funding, the U.S. mainstream media and political machine do not dare to go beyond the poppy fields of Afghanistan and the fairly insignificant low level Afghan warlords overseeing the crops. Think about it; we are talking about nearly $40 billion worth of products in the final stage. Do you believe that those primitive Afghan warlords, clad in shalvars, sporting long ragged beards, and walking with long sticks handle transportation, lab processing, more transportation, distribution, and sophisticated laundering of the proceeds? If yes, then think again. This multi billion-dollar industry requires highly sophisticated networks and people. So, who are the real lords of Afghanistan’s poppy fields?
For Al Qaeda’s network Turkey is a haven for its sources of funding. Turkish networks, along with Russians’, are the main players in these fields; they purchase the opium from Afghanistan and transport it through several Turkic speaking Central Asian states into Turkey, where the raw opium is processed into popular byproducts; then the network transports the final product into Western European and American markets via their partner networks in Albania. The networks’ banking arrangements in Turkey, Cyprus and Dubai are used to launder and recycle the proceeds, and various Turkish companies in Turkey and Central Asia are used to make this possible and seem legitimate. The Al Qaeda network also uses Turkey to obtain and transfer arms to its Central Asian bases, including Chechnya.
Since the 1950s Turkey has played a key role in channeling into Europe and the U.S. heroin produced in the "Golden Triangle" comprised of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. These operations are run by mafia groups closely controlled by the MIT (Turkish Intelligence Agency) and the military. According to statistics compiled in 1998, Turkey’s heroin trafficking brought in $25 billion in 1995 and $37.5 billion in 1996. That amount makes up nearly a quarter of Turkey’s GDP. Only criminal networks working in close cooperation with the police and the army could possibly organize trafficking on such a scale. The Turkish government, MIT and the Turkish military, not only sanctions, but also actively participates in and oversees the narcotics activities and networks.
In July 1998, Le Monde Diplomatique reported that in an explosive document made public at a press conference in Istanbul, the MIT, Turkish Intelligence Agency, accused Turkey’s national police, of having “provided police identity cards and diplomatic passports to members of a group which, in the guise of anti-terrorist activities, traveled to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary and Azerbaijan to engage in drug trafficking”. MIT provided a list of names of some of the traffickers operating under the protection of the police. The Turkish police returned the compliment and handed over a list of named drug traffickers employed by the MIT!
In January 1997, Tom Sackville, minister of state at the British Home Office, stated that 80% of the heroin seized in Britain came from Turkey, and that his government was concerned by reports that members of the Turkish police, and even of the Turkish government, were involved in drug trafficking.
In an article published in Drug Link Magazine, Adrian Gatton cites the case of Huseyin Baybasin, the famous Turkish heroin kingpin now in jail in Holland. Baybasin explains: “I handled the drugs which came through the channel of the Turkish Consulate in England,” and he adds: “I was with the Mafia but I was carrying this out with the same Mafia group in which the rulers of Turkey were part.” The article also cites a witness statement given to a UK immigration case involving Baybasin’s clan, and states that Huseyin Baybasin had agreed to provide investigators with information about what he knew of the role of Turkish politicians and officials in the heroin trade. The article quotes Mark Galeotti, a former UK intelligence officer and expert on the Turkish mafia, “Since the 1970s, Turkey has accounted for between 75 and 90 per cent of all heroin in the UK. The key traffickers are Turks or criminals who operate along that route using Turkish contacts.” In 2001, Chris Harrison, a senior UK Customs officer in Manchester, told veteran crime reporter Martin Short that Customs could not get at the Turkish kingpins because they are “protected” at a high level.
In 1998, the highly official International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) of the U.S. State Department, revealed that “about 75% of the heroin seized in Europe is either produced in, or derives from, Turkey”, that “4 to 6 tons of heroin arrive from there every month, heading for Western Europe” and that “a number of laboratories for the purification of the opium used in transforming the basic morphine into heroin are located on Turkish soil". The report stresses that Turkey is one of the countries most affected by money-laundering, which takes place particularly via the countries of the ex-Soviet Union, such as Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan, through the medium of casinos, the construction industry, and tourism. INCSR’s 2006 report cites Turkey as a major transshipment point and base of operations for international narcotics traffickers and associates trafficking in opium, morphine base, heroin, precursor chemicals and other drugs.
We know that Al Qaeda and Taliban’s main source of funding is the illegal sale of narcotics. Based on all the reports, facts, and expert statements, we know that Turkey is a major, if not the top, player in the transportation, processing, and distribution of all the narcotics derived from the Afghan poppies, and as a result, it is the major contributing country to Al Qaeda. Yet, to date, more than five years into our over exhaustive ‘war on terror propaganda’, have we heard any mentioning of, any tough message to, any sanction against, or any threat that was issued and targeted at Turkey?
We all know of our president’s ‘selective evilization’ of countries that have been ‘chosen’ to be on our hit list. But how many of us know of our government’s ‘selective go free cards’ that have been issued to those ‘ally countries’ that directly fund and support the terrorist networks? In fact, our government would rather move heaven and earth, gag ‘whistleblowers’ with direct knowledge of these facts, classify congressional and other investigative reports, create a media black-out on these ‘allies’ terrorist supporting activities, than do the right thing; do what it really takes to counter terrorism.
…and the WMDs we actually located & have known about
In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush declared he would keep “the world's most destructive weapons" from Al Qaeda and its allies by keeping those weapons from evil governments. Later he told a campaign audience in Pennsylvania, “We had to take a hard look at every place where terrorists might get those weapons and one regime stood out: the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.” Well, the Iraqi WMD that never was!
Here is what CIA Director Porter Goss said bluntly before the Senate Intelligence Committee in February 2004, “It may be only a matter of time before Al Qaeda or other groups attempt to use chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons. We must focus on that.” And we know that he knows; has known for the longest time!
Seymour Hersh in his March 2003 article quotes Robert Gallucci, a former United Nations weapons inspector who is now dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, “Bad as it is with Iran, North Korea, and Libya having nuclear-weapons material, the worst part is that they could transfer it to a non-state group. That’s the biggest concern, and the scariest thing about all this. There’s nothing more important than stopping terrorist groups from getting nuclear weapons.”
Although numerous prestigious reports by agencies and organizations such as IAEA, and news articles in the European media, have clearly established Turkey, and various international networks operating in and out of Turkey, as major players within the global nuclear black-market and illegal arms sales, the relevant agencies and main media in the U.S. have maintained a completely silent and hands off position.
Nuclear black-market related activities depend on Turkey for manufacturing nuclear components, and on its strategic location as a transit point to move goods and technology to nations such as Iran, Pakistan, and others. Not only that, Turkey’s status and close relationship with the U.S. enables it to obtain (steal) technology and information from the U.S.
Lying at the crossroads not only between Europe and Asia, but also between the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, Turkey is already a well-established transit zone for illicit goods, including nuclear material and illegal weapons sales. According to a report by Turkish Atomic Energy Authority (TAEA), at least 104 nuclear smuggling incidents had occurred in the past eight years in Turkey. For instance, in September 1999, 5 Kilograms of Uranium enriched to 4.6 percent were confiscated from an international smuggling ring in Turkey, which included four Turkish, one Azerbaijani, and three Kazakhstani citizens. The report cites over one hundred incidents like this, and these are only cases that have been intercepted and reported.
Turkey played a major role in Pakistan and Libya’s illicit activities in obtaining nuclear technologies. In June 2004, Stephen Fidler, a reporter for Financial Times reported that in 2003, Turkish centrifuge motors and converters destined for Libya's nuclear weapons program turned up in Tripoli aboard a ship that had sailed from Dubai. One of those detained individuals in this incident, a ‘respected and successful’ Turkish Businessman, Selim Alguadis, was cited in a public report from the Malaysian inspector-general of police into the Malaysian end of a Pakistani-led clandestine network that supplied Libya, Iran and North Korea with nuclear weapons technologies, designs and expertise. According to the report, “he supplied these materials to Libya." Mr. Alguadis also confessed that he had on several occasions met A Q Khan, the disgraced Pakistani scientist who has admitted transmitting nuclear expertise to the three countries. Selim Alguadis remains a successful businessman in Turkey with companies in several other countries. He was released immediately after being turned over to Turkish authorities. His partner, another well-known and internationally recognized wealthy businessman, Gunes Cire, also actively participated in transferring nuclear technology and parts to Iran, Pakistan and North Korea. Although under investigation by several international communities, Alguadis and his partners continued to roam free in Turkey and conduct their illegitimate operations via their ‘legit international business’ front companies.
David Albright and Corey Hinderstein of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) identify Turkey’s major role in the nuclear black-market. According to their report, workshops in Turkey made the centrifuge motor and frequency converters used to drive the motor and spin the rotor to high speeds. These workshops imported subcomponents from Europe, and they assembled these centrifuge items in Turkey. Under false end-user certificates, these components were shipped from Turkey to Dubai for repackaging and shipment to Libya.
Turkey’s illegal arms smuggling activities are not limited to Europe and the Middle East; many of these activities reach U.S. soil. According to a report published by the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, in April 2004 the Italian police searched a container destined for the port of New York onboard a Turkish ship at the port of Tauro during a routine customs inspection, sparked by discrepancies between the various customs declarations. Inside the container more than 8,000 AK47 assault rifles, 11 submachine guns, and magazines worth over seven million dollars were discovered.
Our tough talking president works very hard to sound convincing when he says ‘we have to take a hard look at every place where terrorists might get those weapons;’ in fact, he has succeeded in fooling many into believing those words. However, while he was determined to move heaven and earth to get our nation into a war and a quagmire with a country that did NOT possess ‘those weapons,’ he refused and continues to refuse to look at his own ‘allies-packed backyard’ where he would find a few that not only do possess ‘those weapons,’ but also distribute and sell them to the highest bidders no matter what their affiliation.
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Curiously enough, despite these highly publicized reports and acknowledgements of Turkey’s role in these activities, Turkey continues to receive billions of dollars of aid and assistance annually from the United States. With its highly placed co-conspirators and connections within the Pentagon, State Department and U.S. Congress, Turkey never has to fear potential sanctions or meaningful scrutiny; just like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The criminal Turkish networks continue their global criminal activities right under the nose of their protector, the United States, and neither the catastrophe falling upon the U.S. on September Eleven, nor their direct and indirect role and ties to this terrorist attack, diminish their role and participation in the shady worlds of narcotics, money laundering and illegal arms transfer.
The ‘respectable’ Turkish companies established and operate bases in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and other similar former soviet states. Many of these front companies, disguised under construction and tourism entities, have received millions of dollars in grants from the U.S. government, allocated to them by the U.S. congress, to establish and operate criminal networks throughout the region; among their networking partners are Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Albanian Mafia. While the U.S. government painted Islamic charity organizations as the main financial source for Al Qaeda terrorists, it was hard at work trying to cover up the terrorists’ main financial source: narcotics and illegal arms sales. Why?
For years and years, information and evidence being collected by the counterintelligence operations of certain U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies has been prevented from being transferred to criminal and narcotics divisions, and from being shared with the Drug Enforcement Agency and others with prosecutorial power. Those with direct knowledge have been prevented from making this information available and public by various gag orders and invocation of the State Secrets Privilege. Why?
Is this due to the fact that the existence and survival of many U.S. allies; Turkey, almost all Central Asian nations, and after the September Eleven attack, Afghanistan; greatly depend on cultivating, processing, transporting, and distributing these illegal substances? Is it caused by the fact that a major source of income for those who procure U.S. weapons and technology, our military industrial complex’s bread and butter, is being generated from this illegal production and illegal dealings? Or, is it the fear of exposing our own financial institutions, lobbying firms, and certain elected and appointed officials, as beneficiaries?
When it comes to criminal and shady global networks most people envision either Mafiosi like entities who keep to themselves and are separated from society, or, street level gangster-like criminals. Contrary to these expectations, the top tier Turkish criminal networks consist mainly of respectable looking businessmen, some of whom are among the top international businessmen, diplomats, politicians, and scholarly individuals. Their U.S. counterparts are equally respected and recognizable; some of whom are high-level appointed bureaucrats within the State Department and the Pentagon; some are elected officials, and others consist of the combination of the two who have now set up their own companies and lobbying groups.
The American Turkish Council (ATC)
Operating tax-free and under the radar is one of the most powerful “non-profit” associations in the U.S., the American Turkish Council (ATC). Some who are familiar with its operations and players describe it as ‘Mini AIPAC;’ this description aces it. ATC followed the AIPAC model; with the direct help of AIPAC & JINSA, it created a base out of which to stretch its tentacles, reaching the highest echelons of our government. While the ATC is an association in name and in charter, the reality is that it and other affiliated associations are the U.S. government, lobbyists, foreign agents, and MIC. Investigative journalist, John Stanton, correctly describes the ATC as an extraordinary group of elite and interconnected Republicans, Democrats and corporate and military heavyweights who are spearheading one of the most ambitious strategic gambits in U.S. history.
Included in ATC’s management, board of directors, and advisors; in addition to Turkish individuals of ‘interest;’ is a dizzying array of U.S. individuals. The ATC is led by Ret. General Brent Scowcroft, who serves as Chairman of the Board; George Perlman of Lockheed Martin, the Executive Vice President; other board members include: Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Ret. General Elmer Pendleton, Ret. General Joseph Ralston, Ret. Col. Preston Hughes, Alan Colegrove of Northrop Grumman, Frank Carlucci of Carlyle Group, Christine Vick of Cohen Group, Representative Robert Wexler, Former Rep. Ed Whitfield…Basically many formers; statesmen, ‘dime a dozen generals,’ and representatives.
On the members - paying clients – side; their list includes all the MIC’s who’s who, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman; the Washington Lobby scene’s who’s who; The Cohen Group, The Livingston Group, Washington Group International…
Of course, there are also many Turkish companies that are members of the ATC. Most of these companies have branches and operations in Libya, Dubai, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. Although the official listings of their businesses are cited as ‘construction,’ ‘real estate’, ‘manufacturing,’ and ‘tourism’; the main activities of these businesses are known to be related to global illegal arms sales and narcotic processing and trafficking. These companies provide necessary fronts and channels to launder proceeds. Curiously enough, hundreds of millions of dollars have been granted by the United States government, approved by the congress, to these Turkish companies under the guise of various ‘U.S. Central Asian development programs;’ and ‘Iraq & Afghanistan reconstruction programs.’
Stanton notes: ‘ATC is joined in the creation of the New EuroAsia by the American Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (AACC). AACC’s Honorary Council of Advisors just happens to have General Scowcroft and the following persons of significance: Henry Kissinger and James Baker III. Former Council members include Dick Cheney and Richard Armitage, and Board of Trustee members include media-overkill subject Richard Perle of AEI, and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas.’
The MIC Factor
In part1 we discussed the MIC as ‘agents by default;’ marriages and loyalties based on ‘mutual benefit;’ our previous example was Saudi Arabia, top customer of U.S. weaponry. Well, Turkey only tails the Saudis slightly in that category; between 1992 and 1996, Turkey was the second largest importer of weaponry, spending more than $7 billion in four years. A report by the World Policy Institute shows that Turkey is the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, behind Israel and Egypt. Between 1994 and 2003, Turkey took delivery of more than $6.8 billion in U.S. weaponry and services.
In fiscal year 1989, U.S. aid to Turkey was $563,500,000. According to a Multi National Monitor Report, in 1991, Turkey received more than $800 million in U.S. aid, “an exceptional return” on its $3.8 million investment in Washington lobbyists. At the time, International Advisors, INC. (Douglas Feith & Richard Perle lobbying firm as registered agents for Turkey) was paid more than $1 million for representing Turkey in the U.S. for the purpose of securing these types of deals. In 2003, Turkey received a $1 billion aid package. During this period their registered and known lobbyists were the Livingston Group, headed by the former Speaker of the House Bob Livingston, and Solarz Associates, headed by a formerly powerful Representative, Stephen Solarz. Turkey, from 2000 to 2004, for only four years, paid Livingston $9 million for his lobbying services. What did the Republic of Turkey get for its $2 million per year investment in Ex-Congressman Livingston’s services?
A Joint Report by the Federation of American Scientists and the World Policy Institute found that the vast majority of U.S. arms transfers to Turkey were subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. In many cases, these taxpayer funds are supporting military production and employment in Turkey, not in the United States. Of the $10.5 billion in U.S. weaponry delivered to Turkey since 1984, $8 billion in all has been directly or indirectly financed by grants and subsidized loans provided by the U.S. government. Many of the largest deals - such as Lockheed Martin's sale of 240 F-16s to the Turkish air force and the FMC Corporation's provision of 1,698 armored vehicles to the Turkish army - involve co-production and offset provisions which steer investments, jobs, and production to Turkey as a condition of the sale. For example, Turkey's F-16 assembly plant in Ankara - a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) - employs 2,000 production workers, almost entirely paid for with U.S. tax dollars.
Let’s recap the above data: Not only does our government, actually, our taxpayers, subsidize $8 billion of Turkey’s $10 billion weapons purchases; the production of this weaponry and the associated employment occurs not in the U.S., but overseas, in Turkey. We, the taxpayers, are subsidizing these purchases; our nation readily transfers its technology to a country that ranks high in global narcotics, terrorist and WMD related activities; while a select few MIC related firms such as Lockheed and the pimping middlemen, the lobbyists, get fatter and richer.
One Stop Shop: The Cohen Group
Like many other former statesmen, William Cohen, former Secretary of Defense, dived into the business of lobbying and consulting, and created his own Washington firm, The Cohen Group, which works for some of the largest companies in the defense industry, such as Lockheed Martin, and serves numerous foreign players. The Cohen Group is one of the primary and most active members of the American Turkish Council (ATC). Cohen’s client, Lockheed Martin, happens to be on the board of ATC, in addition to being listed as ATC’s top paying client.
The group claims on its Website that its principals have "a century and a half of combined experience in the Congress, the Defense Department, the State Department, the White House, and state and local governments" and that they “have developed extensive expertise and relationships with key international political, economic, and business leaders and acquired invaluable experiences with the individuals and institutions that affect our clients' success abroad.” Abroad indeed. With a few ‘dime a dozen generals’ and former statesmen, the firm owes its phenomenal speedy success to interests ‘abroad’ and of course, the MIC! Let’s look, with great amazement, I hope, at how this ingenious lobby venture serves as foreign agent for several influences without having to register as such; with complete immunity against any scrutiny.
According to Intelligence Online, in its March 27, 2006 issue, Cohen accompanied Bush on his trip to India and Pakistan in March 2006. The Cohen Group is very active in India; Joseph Ralston, Cohen’s Vice Chairman, led two delegations of U.S. Defense Chiefs to India the previous year. The trips were organized in conjunction with the U.S. India Business Council; among the participants were Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing.
On June 9, 2006, Intelligence Online reports ‘already operating in India, the Cohen Group headed by William Cohen, has just opened an office in Beijing... Since 2003 the Cohen Group has equally been employing Christine Vick. She is a former Vice President of Kissinger Associates; the consultancy founded by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and had been in charge of the firm’s Chinese business.’
Prior to the October 2005 release of Paul Volcker's report on violations of the United Nations' Iraq oil-for-food program, the Australian wheat exporter AWB Limited hired Cohen’s firm. AWB paid approximately $A300 million in trucking fees on its wheat contracts to a Jordanian company, Alia, which owns no trucks! The funds were funnelled to Saddam’s regime. AWB hired Cohen Group as part of its ‘strategy, ’ code-named ‘Project Rose’, to deal with the UN inquiry headed by Paul Volcker and corruption allegations made against it by U.S. wheat farmers and ‘hostile US politicians.’ Cohen Group is not a law firm; what kind of services and representation is it providing for this criminal case?
So who are the key players at Cohen’s lobby firm, giving it its value? Well of course, a handful of powerful formers; in addition to Cohen as the top principal we have former Undersecretary of State Mark Grossman, and two formerly high-level ‘dime a dozen generals:’ General Joseph Ralston and General Paul Kern; let’s briefly look at them; shall we?
Ret. General Paul Kern
Cohen Group senior counselor is retired general Paul J. Kern, a former head of the Army Materiel Command, who recently served on a panel convened by the Defense Department to recommend improvements in how it acquires weapons systems; of course, a topic of great interest to Cohen clients.
Pentagon’s Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment Panel , DAPAP, was created to recommend changes in the awarding of military contracts. Over half of this panel is executives of large defense corporations. Among the Committee’s six members are Frank Cappuccio, VP of Lockheed Martin, and retired General Kern, who is the Senior Counselor of the Cohen Group!
When the Pentagon is informed of wasteful practices, it commonly ignores them. Congressman Walter Jones, (R-N.C.) is quoted as understating, "We’ve got an agency that is not doing its job of being a watchdog for the taxpayers." Retired Army Reserve officer Paul Fellencer Sr. complained to the Pentagon’s fraud hot line last year about $200-million worth of outrageous overpayments for ordinary supplies. Pentagon investigators never bothered to call him and dismissed his tip as "unsubstantiated," the news service said.
One wonders how many American citizens are aware of the fact that a ‘dime a dozen general’ such as Kern, who happens to be a Senior Counsel of a lobby firm with foreign interests and MIC representation, who happens to sit on the board of Lockheed Martin, gets to sit on a panel that monitors and advises on awarding military contracts to the private MIC companies by the Pentagon. Would it take an absolute genius to figure out that this is ‘putting a fox in charge of the hen house’? If not, then how could this get past the decision makers at the Pentagon? How come our lawmakers, those in charge of ensuring the checks and balances in our government, those we consider our representatives, sit there either unaware or unbothered by this red flag visible from a hundred miles away? What happened to ‘investigative journalists with good noses;’ were they all inflicted by congested sinuses at the same time?
Fmr. Gen. Joseph Ralston
General Joseph Ralston, one of Cohen Group’s Vice Chairmen, is on the board of Lockheed Martin, which paid the Cohen Group $550,000 in 2005, according to a Lockheed filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ralston is also a member of the 2006 Advisory Board of the American Turkish Council (ATC), and one of Turkey’s top advocates. If you think this ‘dime a dozen general’ ended one career and removed himself from the U.S. government by becoming ‘the foreign agent man,’ think again after reading the following.
On August 28, 2006, the U.S. State Department appointed the former U.S. Air Force General, current Vice Chairman of the Cohen Group, board member of American Turkish Council, registered lobbyist for Lockheed Martin, Joseph Ralston, as a “Special Envoy” for countering the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK)! Lo and behold, Ralston’s appointment came as Turkey was finalizing the purchase of 30 new Lockheed Martin F-16 aircraft valued at $3 billion, and as Turkey was due to make its decision on the $10 billion purchase of the new Lockheed Martin F-35 JSF aircraft. Coincidentally, the U.S. Congress approved the sale of the F-16s to Turkey in October 2006, shortly after Ralston’s return from Turkey.
While the implications of Ralston’s appointment caused a major stir within the Kurdish community and organizations, mainly pointing to Ralston’s position with the Turkish lobby in the U.S. (he is on the board of ATC), and within Turkey’s own communities, pointing to Ralston’s position with Lockheed Martin (he is on the board of Lockheed Martin), our own media, watchdog organizations, and congress let this gargantuan conflict of interest pass under the radar.
Our government sent this man, Ralston, as a special envoy to help resolve the highly critical Northern Iraq situation with possible dire consequences in the near future. Considering Ralston’s livelihood and his loyalties, as a member of the board of the directors of Lockheed Martin, as the vice chairman of a lobbying firm with foreign interests, as an advisor and board member for the most powerful Turkish Lobby group, ATC, who did this man represent while in Turkey as the special envoy? What interests did he really represent; Iraq’s situation, Lockheed’s livelihood, which depends on further conflicts and bloodshed; the corrupt and criminal government of Turkey and its representation via ATC; or, the furthering of the Cohen Group’s future pimping opportunities?
Why in the world did no one within the U.S. mainstream media give even the slightest coverage of this conflict of interest? Why did no one, Democrat or Republican, in our congress make a peep? Why haven’t we heard anyone asking Ralston the most important question, in dire need of an answer: ‘Who’s your daddy Ralston; boy?’ Ralston’s position is no different than what is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as: “A person conceived and born out of wedlock.” With the possibility of any one of four daddies, and without the benefit of a DNA test, how do we go about determining Ralston’s real daddy?
Fmr. Undersecretary Marc Grossman
The second Vice Chairman of Cohen’s firm is Marc Grossman, who was the U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs in the State Department from 2001 until 2005. From November 1994 to June 1997, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. In January 2005 Grossman resigned from his position and joined the Cohen Group. In late December 2005, Grossman joined Ihlas Holding, a large and alleged shady Turkish company which is also active in several Central Asian countries. Grossman is reported to receive $100,000 per month for his advisory position with Ihlas.’ Most and foremost, Grossman is known for his extraordinarily cozy relationship with Turkey and Israel; followed by Pakistan.
Here is Grossman as the key speaker at an ATC conference in March 2002; while Undersecretary of State; and here it is followed by Grossman’s visit to Turkey in December 2002, to approve the $3 billion U.S. aid to Turkey for the Iraq Cooperation deal. There he goes again, Grossman back to Turkey in December 2003 re: approval of Turkey’s eligibility to participate in tenders for Iraq’s reconstruction! Here is Grossman as the key speaker at an ATC Conference held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in December 2004, while Undersecretary. Here is Grossman as the guest of honor and key speaker at the American Turkish Society dinner in New York in February 2005, while Undersecretary. Here he is again, at the lavish Turkish Ottoman Dinner Gala in November 2005. Here is Grossman at the award dinner gala by the Turkish lobby group, the Assembly of American Turkish Association (ATAA), in Chicago, receiving his award in November 2005. Here is Grossman as the key speaker at the ATC annual conference in March 2006, and later, in June 2006, at the MERIA Conference to discuss Turkey’s importance to the U.S. & Israel. This list can go on for pages and pages; but I believe you all get it; right?
Here is a comment by Wolfowitz during his visit to Turkey: ”I'm delighted to be back in Turkey and so is my colleague Marc Grossman, who feels like Turkey is a second home.” Second home indeed, Mr. Grossman!
Please do not make the grave and naive mistake of assuming that Grossman found and obtained his highly lucrative and questionable positions after his resignation in January 2005. Within two months after his confident resignation, this boy got the vice chairmanship of the Cohen Group. Only six months later, Grossman ended up securing a ‘special advisory’ position for a foreign company that reported his monthly fee at $100,000 a month. The industrious Grossman seems to be juggling so many balls simultaneously: numerous foreign sponsored dinner speeches, the demanding pimping activities of Cohen’s firm, the very ‘special advising’ of a shady foreign company…
We all have a pretty good idea how long and how much work it takes to secure that level of income and those positions. Did Grossman beat the odds and get lucky as soon as he got out of the State Department? Did he hit the jackpot? Or, did he diligently and industriously work at it, while in his position as the ambassador to Turkey and as Deputy Secretary of State? Did he sell his soul while under his oath of office? Did he sell our government’s soul? Did he sell our nation and its interests? If so; for what and how much?
* * * *
Long gone are the days when generals were content to retire and go back home where they held their heads high as honorable patriots and heroes who had served their nation; where they marched in their towns’ parades as proud distinguished men and women who had fulfilled their duty to the people. Today, as we clearly see, they perceive themselves and their authority as a commodity; they go about marketing their worth (nationally and internationally; foreign and domestic) long before they leave their positions as public servants.
The same goes for many of our statesmen. While in office, Grossman and others like him appear to have one objective in mind and in action: to make sure that their future employer who is waiting for them on the other side of the revolving door will receive special and lucrative arrangements so that they can be compensated handsomely later.
In Part1, we briefly described the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), established to insure that the American public and its lawmakers know the source of propaganda intended to sway public opinion, policy, and laws; and the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) of 1995, which was passed to make the regulation and disclosure of lobbying the federal government more effective. The article emphasized that both of these cosmetic laws are filled with exemptions and loopholes that allow minimization of, and in some cases complete escape from, warranted scrutiny, and have serious loopholes and limitations.
The Cohen Group is an excellent case, illustrating the futility of FARA, since the firm does not have to be registered. They can claim that Turkey is not their ‘direct’ client; they can argue that they are not getting paid ‘directly’ by the government of Turkey or any other foreign entity or government. They certainly can; no matter that Grossman receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from a dubious Turkish company. Does Cohen discount Grossman’s Vice Chairmanship salary accordingly? No matter that half a million dollars per year from their client Lockheed Martin is mainly for services provided to Turkey, and having the group’s second chairman serve on Lockheed’s board is another way to get around all restrictions. The incestuous relationship twists and turns: The Cohen Group on the board of ATC, The Cohen Group a paying member client of ATC, The Cohen Group as Lockheed’s lobbyist, Cohen’s men on the board of Lockheed, Lockheed on the board of ATC, Lockheed also a paying client of ATC…How is your head; spinning yet?
We are proud of the large turnout at the ballot box for the midterm elections a few weeks ago; a sign of participatory citizenship. Perhaps we’ll be repeating this phenomenon, if not increasing it, for the presidential elections in two years; another means to demonstrate our ‘democratic government process in action’ for badly needed change. But who really runs our country? Who really shapes our public policies and determines the flow of our hard-earned tax money entrusted to our government? If you had the patience to go through this article, which sheds light on only a fragment of what really takes place behind our backs, within the halls of our government, in all three branches, you would start questioning your significance as a voter and taxpayer, and you would begin wondering whether you are governed by who you think you are.
The foreign influence, the lobbyists, the current highly positioned civil servants who are determined future ‘wanna be’ lobbyists, and the fat cats of the Military Industrial Complex, operate successfully under the radar, with unlimited reach and power, with no scrutiny, while selling your interests, benefiting from your tax money, and serving the highest bidders regardless of what or who they may be. This deep state seems to operate at all levels of our government; from the President’s office to Congress, from the military quarters to the civil servants’ offices. Let’s let Marcus Cicero’s timeless warning from over two thousand years ago put the finishing touch on this article:
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder[er] is less to fear.”- - Marcus Tullius Cicero
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Sibel Edmonds is the founder and director of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC). Ms. Edmonds worked as a language specialist for the FBI. During her work with the bureau, she discovered and reported serious acts of security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence that had national security implications. After she reported these acts to FBI management, she was retaliated against by the FBI and ultimately fired in March 2002. Since that time, court proceedings on her case have been blocked by the assertion of “State Secret Privilege”; the Congress of the United States has been gagged and prevented from any discussion of her case through retroactive re-classification by the Department of Justice. Ms. Edmonds is fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani; and has a MA in Public Policy and International Commerce from George Mason University, and a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University. PEN American Center awarded Ms. Edmonds the 2006 PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award.
© Copyright 2006, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Information in this release may be freely distributed and published provided that all such distributions make appropriate attribution to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
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