The “Bin Laden” hoax is consuming our time and energy even as the global corporate-financier oligarchs flee forward cashing in on the political capital they presume they have gained by making this announcement. Even a superficial examination of mainstream media’s headlines and interviews with the CIA director himself calls into question the official narrative with mind numbing contradictions and faulty logic even a child could spot.
The CIA itself is only 95% sure, based on facial recognition, that they bagged their rogue agent. A London Guardian report compounds this uncertainty stating that the CIA compared the alleged DNA of this man they claim to have shot dead in Pakistan, not with a previous sample from Osama Bin Laden, but against a Bin Laden family member. If we are to believe any of this at all, the CIA is not even saying they are 100% sure, so why should we be?
“We were never really certain about whether or not Bin Laden was there.”
Stripping further credibility away, was CIA Director Leon Panetta’s interview on PBS where he begins by saying the CIA had no evidence and were entirely uncertain Osama Bin Laden was even in the compound to begin with. According to a Washington Post article, the CIA claims to have had a nearby safe house from which they observed the alleged compound for months. They also confirm that not a single photo or shred of evidence was revealed throughout the course of this lengthy surveillance mission that the elusive, bearded mastermind was present.
But debating the minutiae is self-defeating. Bin Laden has been long dead, according to a myriad of government officials both in America and abroad. We must look at how this stunt is being exploited at home and abroad, rhetorically and geopolitically.
Domestically
It has become an opportunity at home to criticize all who question government statements and further punish those in Western society who still take their responsibility of holding their government accountable seriously. Perhaps the most ridiculous examples can be gleaned from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette article penned by Reg Henry titled, “It’s time for conspiracy theorists to shut up,” where he postulates anyone questioning the “95%” certainty of the CIA is a “lunatic.”
Despite the Jessica Lynch story being completely fabricated, Henry believes her injury and her signing up for service still makes her a hero. He also believes that Pat Tillman is likewise a hero simply for serving, despite being murdered by his own government who then treacherously covered it up. He omits the fact that Tillman had become critical of the war and his true heroism was for standing up against a system willing to murder its own to perpetuate its malicious agenda. Henry might want to read Pat Tillman’s brother’s rebuttal.
How a real American responds to official government statements: Cindy
Sheehan nails government lies and the propagandists who peddle them to
the wall with healthy skepticism and independent, critical thinking.
This attack on those who question the official narrative coming from a known lying, murderous government is not confined to America’s shores. Jim Corr of “The Corrs” fame has been a long-time outspoken critic of the emerging global government and in particular the glaring inconsistencies behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. This vigilance and skepticism has cost him a heavy price, as he faces a constant, unending barrage by pundits like Reg Henry and his counterparts overseas.
Just one of many media barrages unleashed on Jim Corr of Ireland to undermine him personally, and the message of truth he carries.
Most recently he was attacked by the Irish Daily Mirror which stated, “I call it Jim Corr Syndrome and it seems to be contaminating more and more people. It occurs when something big happens and ordinary folk believe the craziest conspiracy story rather than accept the plain truth. Bin Laden is dead. He was shot during a raid by US special forces. End of story. I’m inclined to believe President Obama on this one but Jim doesn’t and he’s not alone out there. Ironically it’s right-wing Christians who are clambering for evidence of bin Laden’s death. So much for faith.” www.youtube.com/watch?v=seU4xsz9vsY&feature=player_embedded
Declan O’Shea of Infowars Ireland breaks down the latest attack on Jim Corr and the absolute absurdity surrounding the recent “Bin Laden” hoax.
Apparently the author, Mr. Pat Flanagan, is also unaware of even the official narrative and how tenuously it stands. He also seems to insist that we should simply have “faith” in our government, a statement that surely sent many brave Irish men who fought for Ireland’s freedom over the centuries, spinning in their graves. Such an attitude has invited some of the darkest chapters in human history. Telling people to “shut up” and have “faith,” are the very hallmarks of a fascist society, and we already see amidst this atmosphere of “shut up” the concurrent expansion of an ever increasing, omnipresent police-state. Will we be told next by Henry and Flanagan that having armed paramilitary guards standing on every street corner like Castro’s Cuba is indicative of freedom?
Geopolitically
The most alarming aspect of this entire “Bin Laden” hoax is its geopolitical implications. While people argue over the minutia of the shoddy government narrative and question the patriotism of skeptics, the alleged killing of Bin Laden in the middle of Pakistan’s intelligence and military community has increased tensions between Washington, Islamabad, and perhaps unnoticed by the likes of Reg Henry and Pat Flanagan, Beijing as well. In fact, a flurry of mainstream media stories covered China’s awareness that this stunt is designed to give America an excuse to enter into Pakistan and thus directly confront China who has an established and growing presence in the region.
AlJazeera’s article, “After Osama, China fears the next target,” indicates that the Chinese are well aware America’s foreign policy to “spread democracy” is in actuality an attempt to contain the rise of China and other emerging economies. While pundits in the West maintain such claims are the makings of “tinfoil hat” conspiracies, a nation of 1.3 billion is mobilizing to confront this very real threat.
The skeptical who might be tempted to accuse China’s leadership of unwarranted “tinfoil hat” paranoia might want to consult the the 2006 Strategic Studies Institute’s report “String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power across the Asian Littoral.” Throughout the report, China’s efforts to secure its oil lifeline from the Middle East to its shores in the South China Sea are examined as are means to maintain American hegemony throughout the Indian and Pacific Ocean. The premise is that, should Western policy wonks and paper-pushers fail to entice China into participating in the “international system” as “responsible stakeholders,” an increasingly confrontational posture must be taken to contain the rising nation.
Dr. Webster Tarpley breaks down on Press TV the greater implications
of the “Bin Laden” hoax, including the threat of general world war. Part II
can be found here. All three interviewees make valid, cogent points.
Considering the current standoff brewing in Pakistan, where we see a convergence of Iranian, Indian, American, Chinese, and Pakistani interests, punctuated by provocative drone attacks just hours after Pakistan warned America over violating its airspace, it is quite clear “confrontation” has become the order of the day. The disposal of “Bin Laden” or at least his politically convenient ghost, signals not a drawing down of America’s global war, but a deep breath being taken before the final plunge into confrontation with Pakistan, China, and Russia.
The dangers are very real. We must not back down from our innate rights to hold our government accountable for the statements it makes regarding the actions it is increasingly unilaterally taking. We must call out those who tell us to “shut up” and “have faith” and remind them that it is not only our right, but our duty to “speak up” and scrutinize everything our government says and does. We must reach out and remind them of the danger servile obedience invites, and the horrifying historical examples that exhibit the results from such a cowardly stance. We are literally being penned in, rallied around the flag, and mobilized for a greater, impending confrontation, of that there is no doubt.
To contact Mr. Reg Henry of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and INTELLIGENTLY remind him of his duty as an American, he can be reached at, [email protected] .
Mr. Pat Flanagan can also be INTELLIGENTLY reminded of his duty as a journalist to objectively examine the evidence before conducting a campaign of degradation against those exercising their rights and duty to call into question their government at, [email protected] .
Tony Cartalucci’s articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at
A sword, a lightning bolt, a key, a globe, and a bird. These are the symbols of your United States Cyber Command, which you’ll be proud to know has “achieved full operational capability.” FOC is when a military organization basically has what it needs and knows how to use it, but we’re guessing our new cyber-commandos will be a little nervous at first, like a prom date just presented with a room key, or a Modern Warfare player with a new weapon attachment. Surely the USCC will get into its stride real soon, enabling it to “operate and defend our networks effectively.” You know what that means: feel free to be a little extra offensive when trolling on foreign soil today. Uncle Sam has your back.
‘The information linking 9/11 hijackers to several Central Oklahoma locales in the days prior to 9/11/01 was “almost accidentally” uncovered by Oklahoma City-based researchers Chris Emery and Holland Van den Nieuwenhof while working on their research into the 1995 Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing here in Oklahoma City.
As Jack Blood announced on his Deadline Live radio program, based in Austin, Texas, Mohamed Atta and up to five of the 19 9/11 hijackers were seen in Oklahoma City between September 6, 2001 and September 8, 2001 by multiple witnesses who have provided signed affidavits confirming these encounters.
The 911 hijackers seen by witnesses with Atta in Oklahoma have been revealed as: Abdulaziz Alomari, Saeed Al-gamdi, Ahmed Alnami, and Hamza Algamdi.’
As Syria’s crackdown on protests has claimed more than 3,000 lives since March, Italian technicians in telecom offices from Damascus to Aleppo have been busy equipping President Bashar al-Assad’s regime with the power to intercept, scan and catalog virtually every e-mail that flows through the country.
Employees of Area SpA, a surveillance company based outside Milan, are installing the system under the direction of Syrian intelligence agents, who’ve pushed the Italians to finish, saying they urgently need to track people, a person familiar with the project says. The Area employees have flown into Damascus in shifts this year as the violence has escalated, says the person, who has worked on the system for Area.
Area is using equipment from American and European companies, according to blueprints and other documents obtained by Bloomberg News and the person familiar with the job. The project includes Sunnyvale, California-based NetApp Inc. (NTAP) storage hardware and software for archiving e-mails; probes to scan Syria’s communications network from Paris-based Qosmos SA; and gear from Germany’s Utimaco Safeware AG (USA) that connects tapped telecom lines to Area’s monitoring-center computers.
The suppliers didn’t directly furnish Syria with the gear, which Area exported from Italy, the person says.
The Italians bunk in a three-bedroom rental apartment in a residential Damascus neighborhood near a sports stadium when they work on the system, which is in a test phase, according to the person, who requested anonymity because Area employees sign non-disclosure agreements with the company.
Mapping Connections
When the system is complete, Syrian security agents will be able to follow targets on flat-screen workstations that display communications and Web use in near-real time alongside graphics that map citizens’ networks of electronic contacts, according to the documents and two people familiar with the plans.
Such a system is custom-made for repression, says Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which promotes tighter sanctions against Syria.
“Any company selling monitoring surveillance technology to the Assad regime is complicit in human rights crimes,” he says.
Privately held Area, which got its start in 1996 furnishing phone taps to Italian law enforcement, has code-named the system “Asfador.” The title is a nod to a Mr. Asfador who cold-called the company in 2008 asking it to bid on the deal, according to one person knowledgeable about the project. The person didn’t know Mr. Asfador’s full name, and efforts to identify him were unsuccessful. The price tag is more than 13 million euros ($17.9 million), two people familiar with the deal say.
Change Outpaces Deals
Area Chief Executive Officer Andrea Formenti says he can’t discuss specific clients or contracts, and that the company follows all laws and export regulations.
He says governments often use what is known as “lawful interception” gear to catch criminals. Without referring specifically to Syria, Formenti says political change can outpace business deals.
“You may consider that any lawful interception system has a very long sales process, and things happen very quickly,” he says, citing the velocity of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s fall, only a year after pitching his Bedouin tent in a Rome park on a visit to Italy. “Qaddafi was a big friend of our prime minister until not long ago.”
When Bloomberg News contacted Qosmos, CEO Thibaut Bechetoille said he would pull out of the project. “It was not right to keep supporting this regime,” he says. The company’s board decided about four weeks ago to exit and is still figuring out how to unwind its involvement, he says. The company’s deep- packet inspection probes can peer into e-mail and reconstruct everything that happens on an Internet user’s screen, says Qosmos’s head of marketing, Erik Larsson.
Monitoring Centers
“The mechanics of pulling out of this, technically and contractually, are complicated,” Larsson says.
The daisy chain of Western companies from the U.S. to Europe shows the route high-tech surveillance equipment takes on its way to repressive regimes that can use it against their own political enemies.
As uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia toppled Arab leaders this year, Assad, 46, has held on, deploying security forces against demonstrators protesting his rule, and defying a call by U.S. President Barack Obama to step down. Bordering Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, Syria has been run by Assad and his late father, Hafez, for a combined 41 years.
Captor Computers
Area is installing the system, which includes the company’s “Captor” monitoring-center computers, through a contract with state-owned Syrian Telecommunication Establishment, or STE, the two people familiar with the project say. Also known as Syrian Telecom, the company is the nation’s main fixed-line operator.
Without the Area gear, Syria’s current electronic surveillance captures only a portion of the nation’s communications, and lacks the new system’s ability to monitor all Internet traffic, say the two people who know of Syria’s capabilities through their work for Area.
Businesses that sell surveillance equipment to Syria should be held accountable for aiding repression, says Osama Edward Mousa, a Syrian blogger who was arrested in 2008 for criticizing the regime and fled to Sweden in 2010.
“Every single company who is selling monitoring technology to the Syrian government is a partner to stopping democracy in Syria,” he says. “They are a partner to the killing of people in Syria. They are helping the Syrian government stay in control.”
Syria Sanctions
The European Union has imposed a series of sanctions against Syria since May, including a ban on arms sales and a freeze on assets of people in the regime. The measures don’t prohibit European companies from selling Syria the sort of equipment in Area’s project.
The U.S. has banned most American exports to Syria other than food or medicine since 2004.
That means the U.S. government may need to determine if the shipment of NetApp’s hardware to Syria violated sanctions, says Hal Eren, a former lawyer for the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control who is in private practice in Washington.
“Products of U.S. origin, whether they’re exported or re- exported, are generally prohibited to Syria,” Eren says.
NetApp, which has a market value of about $15 billion and more than 10,000 employees, makes its products in countries around the globe, according to its most recent annual report.
NetApp ‘Not Aware’
“NetApp takes these matters very seriously and is committed to global trade compliance,” Jodi Baumann, NetApp’s Sunnyvale-based senior director for corporate communications, said in a statement. “We are not aware of any NetApp products being sold or having been sold into Syria.”
The NetApp deal was structured in a way that avoided dealing directly with Area, one of the people familiar with the project says. NetApp’s Italian subsidiary sold the equipment through an authorized vendor in Italy which then re-sold it to Area, the person says.
Utimaco General Manager Malte Pollmann says his company relies on Area to ensure its equipment is used and exported legally. “Area is a trusted long-term partner,” he says.
Utimaco, based in Oberursel near Frankfurt, wasn’t aware of any Syria project involving its gear and rarely knows where partners install its equipment, Pollmann says. “I wouldn’t need to know, because it’s not the duty of any of our end partners to tell us,” Pollmann says. “We don’t sell direct.”
No Information
Sophos Ltd., the Abingdon, England-based provider of security and data-protection software that controls Utimaco, referred questions to Utimaco, said Fiona Halkerston, who handles Sophos media relations at London agency Johnson King Ltd.
STE General Director Baker Baker didn’t respond to a request for comment faxed to his office.
At Syria’s embassy in Rome, a press officer said she had no information about the system and declined to comment on human rights implications of such monitoring.
Syria’s purchase of the system illustrates how authoritarian governments are using Western-produced surveillance technology to track dissidents. In Iran, a Bloomberg News investigation showed, European companies provided or marketed gear to track citizens’ locations and communications that law enforcement or state security agencies would have access to.
Tools for Interrogators
In Bahrain, interrogators of human rights activists used text-message transcripts generated by European surveillance equipment, the investigation found. Other Middle Eastern nations that cracked down on uprisings this year purchased the same gear, including Egypt, Yemen and Syria, according to the report.
In Syria, Area’s system for intercepting e-mail and Web sessions will be more intrusive than simpler equipment for blocking websites.
The U.S. is looking into reports that Syria is using technology made by Blue Coat Systems Inc. (BCSI), another company based in Sunnyvale, to censor the Internet and record browsing histories, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at an Oct. 24 news briefing.
Blue Coat is investigating allegations its filtering gear was sold or transferred to Syria, spokesman Steve Schick says. The company doesn’t sell to Syria and prohibits its partners from selling to Syria or other embargoed countries, he says.
The State Department’s Nuland underscored the ban on virtually all U.S. exports to Syria, responding to a question about Blue Coat during the news conference.
State Department Concerned
“We are concerned about reports of the use of technology by repressive regimes in general, but Syria in particular, to target activists and dissidents,” she said.
Over the past three years, Area has been working to furnish Syria with precisely those tools.
Area, which is based in a modern office building next to Milan’s Malpensa Airport, got the 2008 phone call asking it to compete for the project as it was struggling to collect debts at home, the person familiar with the call says. Along with two Italian competitors, the company had been pressing the Italian government that year to pay overdue bills for interception work, Area CEO Formenti says.
Area won the Syria deal in 2009, two people familiar with the project say. This February, a ship carrying the computers and other equipment arrived in the Syrian port of Latakia, one of the people says.
Death Toll
With the gear in Syria, deployment of Asfador unfolded in parallel with Assad’s escalating crackdown.
The turmoil began in mid-March. Two weeks into the violence, on March 30, Italian employees of NetApp and Area exchanged e-mails in which the computer supplier gave advice to the surveillance company on how to configure equipment that had just been delivered, copies of the correspondence show.
That same day, Assad addressed Syria’s parliament, blaming the protests on a “conspiracy.” “If the battle was imposed on us today, we welcome it,” he said.
By then, more than 90 people had been killed in clashes, according to Amnesty International.
An Area schematic for “NetApp Storage Cluster B,” dated May 26, shows how the U.S. company’s stacks of disks were being wired in computer cabinets. The schematic bears the Asfador code name as well as a cover sheet titled “STE PDN Monitoring Center Project.”
Also on May 26, Syrian security forces killed at least three protesters in the Daraa governorate, bringing the death toll to more than 1,100 people.
Surveillance Room
If Area’s installation is completed as planned, Assad’s government will gain the power to dip into virtually any corner of the Internet in Syria.
Schematics for the system show it includes probes in the traffic of mobile phone companies and Internet service providers, capturing both domestic and international traffic. NetApp storage will allow agents to archive communications for future searches or mapping of peoples’ contacts, according to the documents and the person familiar with the system.
The equipment has already been set up in an air-conditioned room at a telecom exchange building in the Mouhajireen neighborhood of Damascus, where about 30 metal racks hold the computers that handle the surveillance and storage, the person familiar with the installation says. The data center has a linkup to a surveillance room one floor above, where the intercepted communications will stream to some 40 terminals, the person says.
Two people familiar with terms of the deal say that as a final stage of the installation, the contract stipulates Area employees will train the Syrian security agents who will man those workstations — teaching them how to track citizens.
ISLAMABAD – Globally recognised intelligence and forecast STRATFOR has rejected the US Central Intelligence Agency claim that the man killed in Abbottabads compound by US Naval SEALs was al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. This was one of the reasons the CIA kept Pakistans premier intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in dark.
The STRATFOR says: The possibility that bin Laden was already dead and in terms of his impact on terrorist operations, he effectively was. That does not mean, however, that he was not an important ideological leader or that he was not someone the United States sought to capture or kill for his role in carrying out the most devastating terrorist attack in the US history. In its latest intelligence gathering, the STRATFOR claims that aggressive US intelligence collection efforts have come to fruition, as killing of Osama bin Laden was perhaps the top symbolic goal for the CIA and all those involved in the US covert operations. Indeed, President Obama said during his speech on May 1 that upon entering the office, he had personally instructed CIA Director Leon Panetta that killing the al-Qaeda leader was his top priority. The logistical challenges of catching a single wanted individual with Bin Laden level of resources were substantial and while 10 years, the United States was able to accomplish the objective it set out to do in October 2001.
Because of bin Ladens communications limitations, since October 2001 when he fled Tora Bora after the US invasion of Afghanistan, he has been relegated to a largely symbolic and ideological role in al-Qaeda. Accordingly, he issued audiotapes on a little more than a yearly basis, whereas before 2007 he was able to issue videotapes.
The growing infrequency and decreasing quality of his recorded messages was the most notable when al-Qaeda did not release a message marking the anniversary of 9/11 in September 2010 but later followed up with a tape on January 21, 2011.
The bottom line is that from an operational point of view, the threat posed by al-Qaeda – and the wider jihadist movement – is no different operationally after his death.
The killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden represents possibly the biggest clandestine operations success for the United States since the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003, it claimed.
The confirmation of his death is an emotional victory for the United States and could have wider effects on the geopolitics of the region, but bin Ladens death is irrelevant for al-Qaeda and the wider jihadist movement from an operational perspective.
The operation that led to bin Ladens death at a compound deep in Pakistan is among the most significant operational successes for the US intelligence in the past decade.
An important local source told this scribe: If it was not the case why all the evidences leading to the confirmation of Ladens death were eliminated. His was never subjected to postmortem. Neither the DNA was collected nor it was matched.
Another important source conceded: How come one of the wives of bin Laden, Hamal, who remained in the custody of Iranian Intelligence and hidden mole of US intelligence community made her way to Abbottabad. Hamal never appeared in public.
Hamal has deep US connections. When she traveled from Iran to Pakistan her movements were under watch and the watchers had decided Hamal to end her journey in Abbottabad, the sources added.
Senior intelligence analysts in Islamabad argue: A three trillion worth manhunt concluded very discreetly. Dead body of the ‘man killed by SEALs had no media mention as was done by the US authorities in case of Iraqs President Saddam.
After receiving this vital information, this scribe phoned a senior Pakistani journalist in Washington DC early Thursday. He did not rule out latest findings on this subject saying: Why the CIA was in hurry to remove all possible evidences of the bin Ladens killing who dominated world politics for over a decade?
The Washinton-based journalist termed the crash of US Armys Chinook helicopter and killings of over 36 US Naval SEALs as a part of the effort to finish left over evidence which could lead to facts of May 2 US action in Abbottabad.
The STRATFOR further states the primary threat is now posed by al-Qaeda franchise which can attempt to stage an attack in the United States or elsewhere in retribution for bin Ladens death, but they do not have training or capabilities for high-casualty transnational attacks.
Pakistans former spymaster Lt Gen (r) Hamid Gul told TheNation they never challenged credence of the STRATFOR. I agree with the latest intelligence gathering about May 2 operations follow up. This remains one of the reasons the CIA never informed its Pakistan counterpart ISI when it decided to kill a fake bin Laden, he said.
A frightening foreign military intelligence directorate (GRU) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that over the past nearly 36 hours the vast intercontinental military tunnel complex constructed by the United States Air force over the past nearly 45 years was hit with two powerful nuclear explosions at its main terminuses in Colorado and Virginia used nearly exclusively by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
According to this report, this unprecedented nuclear attack began on the evening of 22 August when one of the main air pressure relief tunnels for this CIA tunnel, located at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa Florida, was forced open allowing millions of cubic feet of air to rush suddenly into the atmosphere. The unique sound of this event was captured by video [3rd video] during a baseball game being played at Tropicana Field near MacDill, though US officials blamed the “mystery noise” on a faulty sound system.
This GRU report, however, points out that Russian engineers are well acquainted with this unique sound as they work feverishly to prepare an additional 5,000 bomb shelters ordered by Prime Minister Putin this past spring to be completed by the end of 2012.
Russian engineers were, also, able to duplicate this unique sound this past March when they were called into the Ukraine to vent a number of deep underground tunnels from poison gas that had killed three people near Kiev and which was, likewise, captured by video.
These bizzare sounds were also heard in Belarus
The sounds were also heard in America
People from Canada, United Kingdom and Lithuania have also reported these strange sounds!
Within a few hours of the venting of this vast tunnel complex, this report continues, a nuclear device was detonated at its western terminus located near Trinidad Colorado with the second blast occurring nearly 12 hours later at the eastern terminus near Culpeper Virginia, and both causing powerful earthquakes felt by tens of millions of Americans.
Unbeknownst to the vast majority of the American people is that the vast military tunnel network constructed since the early 1960’s under their country has cost an estimated $40 trillion and with the exception of this attack shows no sign of abating.
The only known photo of one of the massive US Air Force boring machines used to construct this vast tunnel complex was taken by Little Skull Mountain in Nevada in December 1982 [top right photo] and is similar in design to those used to construct the Chunnel between England and France.
Maps of these tunnels, and the underground bases associated with them, have been compiled over the years by many independent researchers along with lists of their probable locations.
The specific tunnel attacked by these nuclear devices, this GRU report says, was being used by the CIA during their moving of their headquarters and all of their assets out of their Langley Virginia location to their new base located in Denver Colorado that was begun in 2005 for reasons still not fully explained.
The GRU speculates that the timing of this attack in hitting the western terminus first, then the eastern one, was more than likely meant to “trap and destroy” whatever the CIA was currently moving through this tunnel from Langley to Denver.
Most interesting to note is that this attack comes nearly a decade to the day after the 11 September 2011 internal war between the CIA and the US military establishment that rained destruction upon America, and then the world, but whose final battle has yet to be fought, or won, by either side.
To what the final outcome of this titanic struggle will be it is not in our knowing, other than to note that when two powerful forces like these collide, and as they have done so many times in the past, the ultimate losers end up being the American people whose delight in total ignorance as to what is happening around them continues to astound the whole world.
Prominent Washington aide John Wheeler was assassinated by a hitman in a targeted killing, his widow has claimed.
Katherine Klyce said the way her late husband’s body was dumped at a landfill site could only have been carried out by a professional.
The 66-year-old suggested his work with the Pentagon over his decades-long career could have made him enemies who wanted rid of him.
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Allegations: Katherine Klyce claims her late husband, prominent Washington aide John Wheeler, was assassinated by a hitman in a targeted killing
She also attacked the police investigation into his death and claimed it hard ‘made her life miserable’.
Officers have confiscated personal items including credit cards and strange charges have been appearing on them in recent weeks including two flights worth $3,000, she said.
The body of Mr Wheeler, 66, a former Army officer who was instrumental in building the iconic Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington DC, was discovered on a landfill in Wilmington, Delaware, on New Year’s Eve.
Career: He had been special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force during the presidency of George W Bush and had worked for two other former presidents
A Harvard and Yale graduate, he had served as a military advisor to three presidents and lived in New Castle with his wife, a silk importer.
Landfill workers found him on New Year’s Eve when a garbage truck containing his body completed its run at the Cherry Island landfill and threw his body out.
He had been put into a commercial dumpster in Newark, Delaware, about
12 miles from his home and 15 miles from Wilmington, where it was picked up by a garbage truck and taken to the landfill site.
Confused: Mr Wheeler was caught on a security camera at a Delaware car park booth just two days before his body was found in a nearby landfill
Disorientated: As he spoke to the attendant in the car park he seemed confused and appeared to be stumbling around
Ms Klyce told Slate.com: ‘I think perhaps no one has been on the reward because they’ve already been paid.
‘The way they disposed of his body, it’s a miracle anybody ever found it. That just sounds like a pro to me.’
Turning to the police she said they had been ‘so bad’ and ‘made my life miserable’.
After Mr Wheeler’s death, the whole family went to Newark police station for interrogation.
Discovery: Landfill workers found Mr Wheeler’s body on New Year’s Eve at the Cherry Island landfill, Delaware
Crime scene: He had been put into a commercial dumpster about 12 miles from his home where it was picked up by a garbage truck and taken to the landfill site
‘They treated us like criminals, all of us. They were rude,’ she said. ‘They just don’t have a clue. I think they wish it would all just go away.’
The two flights on her credit card were from New York to Madrid totalling $3,000. It is not clear if these were made by any police officers or by a third party.
Thomas McInerney, a retired Air Force officer, agreed that Mr Wheeler could have made some powerful enemies during his career.
Legacy: Mr Wheeler was instrumental in the approval and construction of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington DC, which includes more than 58,000 names of servicemen who died in the conflict
‘A man with that experience, it could have been foul play to get some of the secrets he had,’ he said.
Detectives are still clueless as to how Mr Wheeler died but they have turned their attentions towards an ongoing row with his neighbour Frank Marini over his ongoing project to build a home next to theirs.
Mr Wheeler reportedly tried to stop the plans in court and said that the house was too big for the area.
Delaware police have admitted that a smoke bomb was placed under the same neighbour’s house last week but have not released any more details.
Mr Wheeler had been special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force during the presidency of George W Bush.
While working at the Pentagon Mr Wheeler wrote a manual on the effectiveness of biological and chemical weapons and recommended that the US should not use biological warfare.
Although critics initially blasted the design of the Vietnam memorial, which he was instrumental in creating, it has become one of Washington’s most visited sites since its unveiling in 1982.
One type of “defensive” war is one that follows a successful provocation of aggression from the desired enemy. This method was used to begin, and repeatedly to escalate, the Vietnam War, as recorded in the Pentagon Papers. Setting aside the question of whether the United States should have entered World War II, in either Europe or the Pacific or both, the fact is that our country was unlikely to enter unless attacked. In 1928 the U.S. Senate had voted 85 to 1 to ratify the Kellogg-Briand Pact, a treaty that bound — and still binds — our nation and many others never again to engage in war.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s fervent hope for years was that Japan would attack the United States. This would permit the United States (not legally, but politically) to fully enter the war in Europe, as its president wanted to do, as opposed to merely providing weaponry, as it had been doing. On April 28, 1941, Churchill wrote a secret directive to his war cabinet:
“It may be taken as almost certain that the entry of Japan into the war would be followed by the immediate entry of the United States on our side.”
On May 11, 1941, Robert Menzies, the prime minister of Australia, met with Roosevelt and found him ” a little jealous” of Churchill’s place in the center of the war. While Roosevelt’s cabinet all wanted the United States to enter the war, Menzies found that Roosevelt,
” . . . trained under Woodrow Wilson in the last war, waits for an incident, which would in one blow get the USA into war and get R. out of his foolish election pledges that ‘I will keep you out of war.'”
On August 18, 1941, Churchill met with his cabinet at 10 Downing Street. The meeting had some similarity to the July 23, 2002, meeting at the same address, the minutes of which became known as the Downing Street Minutes. Both meetings revealed secret U.S. intentions to go to war. In the 1941 meeting, Churchill told his cabinet, according to the minutes: ” The President had said he would wage war but not declare it.” In addition, “Everything was to be done to force an incident.”
Japan was certainly not averse to attacking others and had been busy creating an Asian empire. And the United States and Japan were certainly not living in harmonious friendship. But what could bring the Japanese to attack?
When President Franklin Roosevelt visited Pearl Harbor on July 28, 1934, seven years before the Japanese attack, the Japanese military expressed apprehension. General Kunishiga Tanaka wrote in the Japan Advertiser, objecting to the build-up of the American fleet and the creation of additional bases in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands:
“Such insolent behavior makes us most suspicious. It makes us think a major disturbance is purposely being encouraged in the Pacific. This is greatly regretted.”
Whether it was actually regretted or not is a separate question from whether this was a typical and predictable response to military expansionism, even when done in the name of “defense.” The great unembedded (as we would today call him) journalist George Seldes was suspicious as well. In October 1934 he wrote in Harper’s Magazine: ” It is an axiom that nations do not arm for war but for a war.” Seldes asked an official at the Navy League:
“Do you accept the naval axiom that you prepare to fight a specific navy?”
The man replied “Yes.”
“Do you contemplate a fight with the British navy?”
“Absolutely, no.”
“Do you contemplate war with Japan?”
“Yes.”
In 1935 the most decorated U.S. Marine in history at the time, Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler, published to enormous success a short book called “War Is a Racket.” He saw perfectly well what was coming and warned the nation:
“At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals…don’t shout that ‘We need lots of battleships to war on this nation or that nation.’ Oh, no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate our 125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only. Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh.
“The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline in the Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.
“The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the United States fleet so close to Nippon’s shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern, through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.”
In March 1935, Roosevelt bestowed Wake Island on the U.S. Navy and gave Pan Am Airways a permit to build runways on Wake Island, Midway Island, and Guam. Japanese military commanders announced that they were disturbed and viewed these runways as a threat. So did peace activists in the United States. By the next month, Roosevelt had planned war games and maneuvers near the Aleutian Islands and Midway Island. By the following month, peace activists were marching in New York advocating friendship with Japan. Norman Thomas wrote in 1935:
“The Man from Mars who saw how men suffered in the last war and how frantically they are preparing for the next war, which they know will be worse, would come to the conclusion that he was looking at the denizens of a lunatic asylum.”
The U.S. Navy spent the next few years working up plans for war with Japan, the March 8, 1939, version of which described “an offensive war of long duration” that would destroy the military and disrupt the economic life of Japan. In January 1941, eleven months before the attack, the Japan Advertiser expressed its outrage over Pearl Harbor in an editorial, and the U.S. ambassador to Japan wrote in his diary:
“There is a lot of talk around town to the effect that the Japanese, in case of a break with the United States, are planning to go all out in a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor. Of course I informed my government.”
On February 5, 1941, Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner wrote to Secretary of War Henry Stimson to warn of the possibility of a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.
As early as 1932 the United States had been talking with China about providing airplanes, pilots, and training for its war with Japan. In November 1940, Roosevelt loaned China one hundred million dollars for war with Japan, and after consulting with the British, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau made plans to send the Chinese bombers with U.S. crews to use in bombing Tokyo and other Japanese cities. On December 21, 1940, two weeks shy of a year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, China’s Minister of Finance T.V. Soong and Colonel Claire Chennault, a retired U.S. Army flier who was working for the Chinese and had been urging them to use American pilots to bomb Tokyo since at least 1937, met in Henry Morgenthau’s dining room to plan the firebombing of Japan. Morgenthau said he could get men released from duty in the U.S. Army Air Corps if the Chinese could pay them $1,000 per month. Soong agreed.
On May 24, 1941, the New York Times reported on U.S. training of the Chinese air force, and the provision of “numerous fighting and bombing planes” to China by the United States. “Bombing of Japanese Cities is Expected” read the subheadline. By July, the Joint Army-Navy Board had approved a plan called JB 355 to firebomb Japan. A front corporation would buy American planes to be flown by American volunteers trained by Chennault and paid by another front group. Roosevelt approved, and his China expert Lauchlin Currie, in the words of Nicholson Baker, “wired Madame Chaing Kai-Shek and Claire Chennault a letter that fairly begged for interception by Japanese spies.” Whether or not that was the entire point, this was the letter:
“I am very happy to be able to report today the President directed that sixty-six bombers be made available to China this year with twenty-four to be delivered immediately. He also approved a Chinese pilot training program here. Details through normal channels. Warm regards.”
Our ambassador had said “in case of a break with the United States” the Japanese would bomb Pearl Harbor. I wonder if this qualified!
The 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force, also known as the Flying Tigers, moved ahead with recruitment and training immediately and first saw combat on December 20, 1941, twelve days (local time) after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
On May 31, 1941, at the Keep America Out of War Congress, William Henry Chamberlin gave a dire warning: “A total economic boycott of Japan, the stoppage of oil shipments for instance, would push Japan into the arms of the Axis. Economic war would be a prelude to naval and military war.” The worst thing about peace advocates is how many times they turn out to be right.
On July 24, 1941, President Roosevelt remarked, “If we cut the oil off , [the Japanese] probably would have gone down to the Dutch East Indies a year ago, and you would have had a war. It was very essential from our own selfish point of view of defense to prevent a war from starting in the South Pacific. So our foreign policy was trying to stop a war from breaking out there.”
Reporters noticed that Roosevelt said “was” rather than “is.” The next day, Roosevelt issued an executive order freezing Japanese assets. The United States and Britain cut off oil and scrap metal to Japan. Radhabinod Pal, an Indian jurist who served on the war crimes tribunal after the war, called the embargoes a “clear and potent threat to Japan’s very existence,” and concluded the United States had provoked Japan.
On August 7th four months before the attack the Japan Times Advertiser wrote: “First there was the creation of a superbase at Singapore, heavily reinforced by British and Empire troops. From this hub a great wheel was built up and linked with American bases to form a great ring sweeping in a great area southwards and westwards from the Philippines through Malaya and Burma, with the link broken only in the Thailand peninsula. Now it is proposed to include the narrows in the encirclement, which proceeds to Rangoon.”
By September the Japanese press was outraged that the United States had begun shipping oil right past Japan to reach Russia. Japan, its newspapers said, was dying a slow death from “economic war.”
What might the United States have been hoping to gain by shipping oil past a nation in desperate need of it?
In late October, U.S. spy Edgar Mower was doing work for Colonel William Donovan who spied for Roosevelt. Mower spoke with a man in Manila named Ernest Johnson, a member of the Maritime Commission, who said he expected “The Japs will take Manila before I can get out.” When Mower expressed surprise, Johnson replied “Didn’t you know the Jap fleet has moved eastward, presumably to attack our fleet at Pearl Harbor?”
On November 3, 1941, our ambassador tried again to get something through his government’s thick skull, sending a lengthy telegram to the State Department warning that the economic sanctions might force Japan to commit ” national hara-kiri.” He wrote: ” An armed conflict with the United States may come with dangerous and dramatic suddenness.”
Why do I keep recalling the headline of the memo given to President George W. Bush prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks? “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S.”
Apparently nobody in Washington wanted to hear it in 1941 either. On November 15th, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall briefed the media on something we do not remember as “the Marshall Plan.” In fact we don’t remember it at all.” We are preparing an offensive war against Japan,” Marshall said, asking the journalists to keep it a secret, which as far as I know they dutifully did.
Ten days later Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote in his diary that he’d met in the Oval Office with Marshall, President Roosevelt, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Admiral Harold Stark, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Roosevelt had told them the Japanese were likely to attack soon, possibly next Monday. That would have been December 1st, six days before the attack actually came. “The question,” Stimson wrote, ” was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves. It was a difficult proposition.” Was it? One obvious answer was to keep the fleet in Pearl Harbor and keep the sailors stationed there in the dark while fretting about them from comfortable offices in Washington, D.C. In fact, that was the solution our suit-and-tied heroes went with.
The day after the attack, Congress voted for war. Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin (R., Mont.), the first woman ever elected to Congress, and who had voted against World War I, stood alone in opposing World War II (just as Congresswoman Barbara Lee [D., Calif.] would stand alone against attacking Afghanistan 60 years later). One year after the vote, on December 8, 1942, Rankin put extended remarks into the Congressional Record explaining her opposition. She cited the work of a British propagandist who had argued in 1938 for using Japan to bring the United States into the war. She cited Henry Luce’s reference in Life magazine on July 20, 1942, to “the Chinese for whom the U.S. had delivered the ultimatum that brought on Pearl Harbor.” She introduced evidence that at the Atlantic Conference on August 12, 1941, Roosevelt had assured Churchill that the United States would bring economic pressure to bear on Japan. “I cited,” Rankin later wrote, ” the State Department Bulletin of December 20, 1941, which revealed that on September 3 a communication had been sent to Japan demanding that it accept the principle of ‘nondisturbance of the status quo in the Pacific,’ which amounted to demanding guarantees of the inviolateness of the white empires in the Orient.”
Rankin found that the Economic Defense Board had gotten economic sanctions under way less than a week after the Atlantic Conference. On December 2, 1941, the New York Times had reported, in fact, that Japan had been “cut off from about 75 percent of her normal trade by the Allied blockade.” Rankin also cited the statement of Lieutenant Clarence E. Dickinson, U.S.N., in the Saturday Evening Post of October 10, 1942, that on November 28, 1941, nine days before the attack, Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., (he of the slogan “kill Japs, kill Japs!” ) had given instructions to him and others to “shoot down anything we saw in the sky and to bomb anything we saw on the sea.”
Whether or not World War II was the “good war” we are so often told it was, the idea that it was a defensive war because our innocent imperial outpost in the middle of the Pacific was attacked out of the clear blue sky is a myth that deserves to be buried.
David Swanson is the author of “War Is A Lie” http://warisalie.org from which this is excerpted.
Weeks after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden at this compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan arrested C.I.A. informants who had assisted in the operation.
WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials.
Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times
A casualty of the recent tension between the countries is an ambitious Pentagon program to train Pakistani paramilitary troops to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the northwestern tribal areas.
Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan. It comes at a time when the Obama administration is seeking Pakistan’s support in brokering an endgame in the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
At a closed briefing last week, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Michael J. Morell, the deputy C.I.A. director, to rate Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism operations, on a scale of 1 to 10.
“Three,” Mr. Morell replied, according to officials familiar with the exchange.
The fate of the C.I.A. informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials said that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he travelled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.
Some in Washington see the arrests as illustrative of the disconnect between Pakistani and American priorities at a time when they are supposed to be allies in the fight against Al Qaeda — instead of hunting down the support network that allowed Bin Laden to live comfortably for years, the Pakistani authorities are arresting those who assisted in the raid that killed the world’s most wanted man.
The Bin Laden raid and more recent attacks by militants in Pakistan have been blows to the country’s military, a revered institution in the country. Some officials and outside experts said the military is mired in its worst crisis of confidence in decades.
American officials cautioned that Mr. Morell’s comments about Pakistani support was a snapshot of the current relationship, and did not represent the administration’s overall assessment.
“We have a strong relationship with our Pakistani counterparts and work through issues when they arise,” said Marie E. Harf, a C.I.A. spokeswoman. “Director Panetta had productive meetings last week in Islamabad. It’s a crucial partnership, and we will continue to work together in the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups who threaten our country and theirs.”
Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said in a brief telephone interview that the C.I.A. and the Pakistani spy agency “are working out mutually agreeable terms for their cooperation in fighting the menace of terrorism. It is not appropriate for us to get into the details at this stage.”
Over the past several weeks the Pakistani military has been distancing itself from American intelligence and counterterrorism operations against militant groups in Pakistan. This has angered many in Washington who believe that Bin Laden’s death has shaken Al Qaeda and that there is now an opportunity to further weaken the terrorist organization with more raids and armed drone strikes.
But in recent months, dating approximately to when a C.I.A. contractor killed two Pakistanis on a street in the eastern city of Lahore in January, American officials said that Pakistani spies from the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, known as the ISI, have been generally unwilling to carry out surveillance operations for the C.I.A. The Pakistanis have also resisted granting visas allowing American intelligence officers to operate in Pakistan, and have threatened to put greater restrictions on the drone flights.
It is the future of the drone program that is a particular worry for the C.I.A. American officials said that during his meetings in Pakistan last week, Mr. Panetta was particularly forceful about trying to get Pakistani officials to allow armed drones to fly over even wider areas in the northwest tribal regions. But the C.I.A. is already preparing for the worst: relocating some of the drones from Pakistan to a base in Afghanistan, where they can take off and fly east across the mountains and into the tribal areas, where terrorist groups find safe haven.
Another casualty of the recent tension is an ambitious Pentagon program to train Pakistani paramilitary troops to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban in those same tribal areas. That program has ended, both American and Pakistani officials acknowledge, and the last of about 120 American military advisers have left the country.
American officials are now scrambling to find temporary jobs for about 50 Special Forces support personnel who had been helping the trainers with logistics and communications. Their visas were difficult to obtain and officials fear if these troops are sent home, Pakistan will not allow them to return.
In a sign of the growing anger on Capitol Hill, Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who leads the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that he believed elements of the ISI and the military had helped protect Bin Laden.
A startling Federal Security Service (FSB) report on the 22 July massacre in Norway states that two-days prior to this catastrophic attack Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg [photo top right with Putin] placed an “urgent” call to Putin “begging” Russia’s leader to help stop the events that left nearly 100 innocent civilians dead.
According to the FSB, Stoltenberg first learned of this plot against his country this past Wednesday after reading a “top secret” report prepared for him by the Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS) on the late March computer attack against Norway’s top military leaders that showed them involved in a conspiracy with Britain’s MI5 Security Service and the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to launch a “two-phase” attack upon Norway modeled after false-flag operations in both Australia and America in the mid-nineties.
The false-flag operations being modeled in Norway were based on the 19 April 1995 bombing attack on the Oklahoma Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building said caused a lone right-wing Christian fundamentalist who used a fertilizer bomb that killed 168, and the 28 April 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Australia where a lone gunman killed 35 mainly because the police failed to show up in a timely manner, and which the aftermath of both attacks caused a fundamental shift away from freedoms and liberties these peoples once enjoyed.
The FSB further reports that this false-flag attack on Norway was a “clear textbook example” of an Operation Northwoods operation designed and prepared by US Military experts. Operation Northwoods was a series of false-flag proposals that originated within the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for the CIA or other operatives, to commit acts of terrorism in US cities and elsewhere in order to influence public opinion and have been used by many Western governments over these past five decades.
FSB experts note in this report that the false-flag attacks on Norway further mirror those of Oklahoma City and Port Arthur in: 1.) A large vehicle holding a powerful fertilizer bomb was able to gain undetected entrance to a protected government centre; 2.) The armed police response to an ongoing massacre of civilians was delayed for reasons still not explained; 3.) A lone suspect has been indentified as the sole perpetrator of the attacks contrary to witness statements that more people were involved; 4.) The lone suspect is denied the right to an open hearing before the public.
This report also notes that within hours of these attacks occurring, a “virtual flood” of information relating to the suspected mastermind of this massacre was released indentifying him as a “blond-haired blue-eyed” Norwegian named Anders Behring Breivik and caricatured as a right-wing Christian fundamentalist. A person which (coincidentally?) the United States had warned barely 24-hours earlier in a video released by their Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was the type of person they feared most would carry out such a terror attack.
The critical problem with the flood of information being released on/or by Breivik, the FSB asserts, is to what is true and what isn’t. This issue was made even more important by American computer experts noting that the Facebook page said belonging to Breivik appears to have been faked, and as they note:
1: Why is there a version of Anders Behring Breivik’s Facebook profile not showing Christian / Conservative? Even Google’s cache of the Facebook profile retrieved on Jul 22, 2011 23:52:36 GMT supports this factor.
2: How was Christian / Conservative added prior to the profile being removed from Facebook? If our PDF was printed out/saved at Jul 23 01:39 GMT, and the profile was deleted soon afterwards by Facebook, how was a detained Anders Behring Breivik able to change it?
3: Which then needs to be asked, Who had access to in changing the Profile before it was removed?
Aside from the “most likely” faked Facebook page, Breivik is, also, said to have posted an astonishingly detailed 1,500-page manifesto and video [view on left] titled “2083: A European Declaration Of Independence” datelined “London, 2011” on the Internet that claims “the number of Muslims in Western Europe is “reaching critical mass” and there is a core of Cultural Communist elites in Western Europe who really want to destroy Western civilization” and that “Europe will burn again.”
Breivik further said he regarded himself as a successor to the medieval Knights Templar, and claimed to have been recruited at a meeting in London in April 2002, which was hosted by two English extremists and attended by eight people in total. Breivik’s ties with London, and hence MI5, was due to his father being a top economist at the Norwegian Embassy in London where Anders was described as a “mummy’s boy” and “privileged” son of an elite liberal family. [Especially interesting to note about this description of “mummy boy” Breivik is his stating that the main target of his attack was Norway’s “Mother of the Nation” and former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.]
The FSB, however, in this report disputes Breivik’s ties with the Knights Templar stating, instead, that this false-flag attack has provided an “ancillary benefit” to the West’s royal and banking elite classes in discrediting this ancient order as “open warfare” between them looms, and as we had detailed in our 21 July report “Murdoch Threat To Expose Obama As “Christ-Child” Ignites Western Fury.”
To the reason(s) behind this attack, this FSB report states, is a “desperate attempt” by British, European Union and American banking interests to force Norway into their “union” [Norway is not a member of the EU] in order to loot their Sovereign Wealth Fund of its estimated $1.5 Trillion in wealth which without the entire Western economy may collapse. Important note, the FSB says, is that what is being done to Norway has already been done to Libya when in what is now called the “Financial Heist of the Century” these same elites launched an unprovoked attack upon this North African nation and promptly looted it of nearly $150 Billion of their Sovereign Wealth Fund in order to sustain their crumpling empire.
Though there is more, much more, contained in this FSB report that we will have to examine further in order to report to you on it accurately upon it. So, and in closing this first report on this tragedy we’ll end with some of the words attributed to Breivik that in light of what this whole issue is being made out to be do, indeed, note us paying attention to them:
“A majority of the people I know support my views, they are just apathetic. They know that there will be a confrontation one day, but they don’t care because it will most likely not happen within the next two decades I am a pioneer in this fight, and I have no doubt whatsoever that we will see a political shift in our favor sooner than we might expect. It might look grim at the moment, but we are after all fighting a self-defeating ideology (Cultural Communism that is, not Islam). The only pragmatic approach towards Islam is to isolate it to Muslim countries once we are in a position to do so — on September 11th, 2083.”
The 1,500-page manifesto written by Anders Behring Breivik. He claims links with far-right groups, including the English Defence League. Photograph: AFP/Getty
Anders Behring Breivik, the man behind the Norway killings that left 93 people dead, began his journey in extremist rightwing politics at a small meeting in London in 2002, according to his online manifesto, and may have attended a far right demonstration in the UK as recently as last year.
In a 1,467-page document that contains chilling details of his preparations for Friday’s attacks, Breivik outlines his UK links, claiming he met eight other extremists from across Europe in London in 2002 to “re-form” the Knights Templar Europe – a group whose purpose was “to seize political and military control of western European countries and implement a cultural conservative political agenda”.
The manifesto, signed “Andrew Berwick London 2011”, contains repeated references to his links to the UK far right group the English Defence League. On Sunday there were unconfirmed reports from one of the organisation’s supporters that the 32-year-old had attended at least one EDL demonstration in the UK in 2010.
“[B]ar one or two doubt the rest of us ever met him, altho he did come over for one of our demo in 2010 … but what he did was wrong,” said an EDL member online.
In the manifesto titled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, Breivik writes: “I used to have more than 600 EDL members as Facebook friends and have spoken with tens of EDL members and leaders. In fact; I was one of the individuals who supplied them with processed ideological material (including rhetorical strategies) in the very beginning.”
The EDL – which has staged a series of street demonstrations, many of which have turned violent, since it was formed two years ago – issued a statement on Sunday condemning the attacks in Norway. It added that the league was a peaceful organisation which rejected all forms of extremism.
“There has never been any official contact between him and the EDL, our Facebook page had 100,000 supporters and receives tens of thousands of comments each day,” it added. “And there is no evidence that Breivik was ever one of those 100,000 supporters.”
The group pointed out that Breivik was critical of the EDL in the “manifesto”, describing it as “dangerously naive”.
Another UK-based organisation, Stop Islamisation of Europe , told Reuters that Breivik had tried to join their Facebook group but had been rejected over his apparent neo-Nazi links. However, they said it was possible he had attended one of its demonstrations.
Emblazoned with a red Iron Cross and published in English, the manifesto appeared online a few hours before the attacks. It appears to be a mixture of bomb-making manual, diary and political rant against a range of perceived enemies from “cultural Marxists” to Muslims, liberals and journalists.
It includes an detailed diary covering the 82 days leading up to the attacks which reveals Breivik’s mood swings, his attempts to make explosives on a remote farm and even his favourite DVDs.
On the day he was to kill 93 people Breivik wrote: “The old saying; ‘If you want something done, then do it yourself’ is as relevant now as it was then.” A few hours later he added: “I believe this will be my last entry. It is now Fri July 22nd, 12.51.” Berwick signed off “AB Justiciar Knight Commander, cell 8, Knights Templar Europe.”
The document details Breivik’s isolated life on the farm as he carried out meticulous preparations for the attack, testing explosives and obtaining weapons.
It reveals an obsession with the Crusades and a supposed threat to Christian Europe posed by Muslim immigrants and mainstream political leaders. Breivik predicts a European civil war will take place in three stages, ending in 2083 with the execution of “cultural Marxists” and the deportation of all Muslims.
Friday’s attack was being planned for at least 18 months, according to the document. Breivik expresses concern that preparations for the attack and the manifesto would alert the security services.
“I do fear sometimes that my endeavours relating to the research of the book, and acquisitions of these addresses has resulted in me being put on various watch lists,” an entry dated March 2010 reads. “The question is; have they flagged me? I guess I will find out eventually.”
In one section Breivik argues that is better to kill civilians than those who would offer more resistance, writing: “It is much more rational and pragmatical to focus on the easier unprotected targets instead of sacrificing good men on an impossible target … we should target unprotected category A and B traitors first and foremost.”
He goes on to outline plans for a possible attack on a gathering of investigative journalists which he says is one of the “most attractive” potential targets.
“To illustrate; in Norway, there is an annual gathering … where the most notable journalists/editors from all the nations media/news companies attend (500 delegates – 98% of them are considered ‘quality category B traitor targets’.”
He sets out a detailed plan for a car or lorry bomb “covered with layers of projectiles for maximum damage” followed by an attack with rifles and flame throwers.
Breivik advocates attacks on traitors across Europe. “[W]e should under normal (optimal) circumstances not exceed (per 2010) aprox. 45 000 dead and 1 million wounded cultural Marxists/multiculturalists in Western Europe.”
Anti-racist groups in the UK said they were not aware of the Knights Templar Europe and cautioned that Breivik may have made up some or all of the details.
Gurgaon: The country’s elite NSG has embarked on an ambitious project to prepare new-age commandos equipped with high-end weapons to undertake specialised counter- terrorism and counter-hijack operations through land, air and water.
The force, known as the ‘black cats’, will churn out close to 2,000 commandos by 2015-16. They will be completely independent to operate in a hostile environment with the help of artificial intelligence gadgets being developed for them indigenously by DRDO and other premier organisations.
“The National Security Guard is now on the verge of a quantum jump. We have set our plans to prepare a modern commando. A five-year plan has been activated. It primarily concentrates on the commando…a commando who will be independent to operate,” NSG DG R K Medhekar said.
He was talking to reporters on the occasion of NSG’s Raising Day at Manesar garrison here.
The plan has been made keeping in mind that a commando should be independent when he operates…his weapon, his body armour, communication devices, body wearable computer. Water and food should be with him on his body. Some elements in this regard are already under trial and we hope to get the first batch of such new age commandos by 2015-16, Medhekar said.
The NSG chief said two battalions (2000 commandos) will emerge out once the trials and tests are complete and they will be able to operate from air, water and land.
Medhekar said the modern commando will be on par with the men of other elite special forces of the world as “terrorists and their designs are advancing with time.”
“This (developing of modern commando) requires a lot of work and developing of data…we are doing it in collaboration with DRDO and artificial intelligence institutes. We have to depend on indigenous methods for this as no one shares their expertise in this field,” Medhekar said.
The NSG DG said the new age commando would be able to transmit real-time images of a crucial operation like the one that killed global terrorist Osama bin Laden in Pakistan’s Abbottabad early this year.
Medhekar said the government has approved a host of sophisticated weapons and other logistical requirements which include corner-shot weapons and advanced sniper guns.
“Some of the finest equipment for bomb disposal teams and digital communication has been procured,” he said.
“Our sanction for manpower has been approved keeping in mind our expansion because of four new hubs and two regional centres that were announced in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. The permanent structure facilities will soon be inaugurated in all the hubs,” he said.
The NSG has created the hubs in Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad including a regional centre each in Hyderabad and Kolkata after 26/11 terror strikes.
The West Bengal government recently approved a 35-acre land in Rajarhat area of Kolkata for the regional centre of the force. However, this is much less land than what NSG was looking for in the eastern metropolis as compared to the 600-acres land for a similar centre which has been handed over by the state government in Hyderabad to the NSG.
The NSG chief also said his commandos will have fresh training exchanges with other special forces of the world including with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the US department of Defense.
Earlier, Union Minister of State for Home M Ramachandran, who was the chief guest, said “responsibilities of the NSG have increased manifold” in the current security scenario and the force should be prepared to meet these expectations.
Talk to Air Force pilots about drones and they’ll be quick to correct you on the nomenclature. The flying robots aren’t really “unmanned,” they’ll stress, but “remotely piloted,” since a real live human being is at the controls far away. But the Navy? Navy aviators want their drone to really fly themselves.
Take the X-47B experimental killer drone made by Northrop Grumman, the first drone intended to fly off an aircraft carrier. At the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space convention outside Washington, Northrop and the Navy and unveiled new details about the tailless, triangular plane and their schedule to get it flying off a carrier. Rule number one of the X-47B: it’s not “remotely piloted.”
Put the phrase “remotely piloted” out of your mind, says Janis Pamiljans, a Northrop vice president who handles the company’s Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration (UCAS-D) portfolio. When it gets on board an aircraft carrier, it’s going to be controlled by a “mouse click,” Pamiljans says. The click of a mouse will turn on the engines. Another will get it to taxi. Keep clicking, and the plane will “take off and come home.”
No joysticks and no pilot controlling it from a metal box somewhere. Just push-button operations and 3.4 million lines of software code and functionality to control the X-47B. “That’s about it,” Pamiljans deadpans.
Not that that’s an understatement or anything. Pamiljans’ counterpart from the Navy, Capt. Jaime Engdahl, tells reporters assembled for a briefing on the future of the plane — which took its first flight at Edwards Air Force Base in February — that if there’s one thing he wants to impress upon the crowd is that there’s something about landing a plane on a ship at sea “that’s special.” It’s not just a floating airstrip, it’s a delicate, precise minuet. And that means the autonomous aspects of the plane have to be suited to the carrier’s crew.
“How we integrate the unmanned vehicle, maneuver it to taxi, its stealth characteristics — it’s a big learning thing,” Engdahl says.
That’s why, by “early to mid 2013,” the plane’s program managers will be simulating carrier operations for a “seamless integration,” using Nimitz-class carrier decks at Pautuxent River, Md., to get both the X-47B and the carriers ready for one another. They’ll be practicing launch operations, “hard” landings, datalink downloads from the plane to the crews, everything. Taxi controllers will have display units mounted on their arms that send radio frequencies to direct the plane across the decks.
The schedule for the plane has slipped: the Navy used to anticipate carrier launches for the X-47B as early as this year. As the schedule stands now, the last round of tests will occur by 2014, when the plane will practice mid-air refueling and successful landing back on a carrier — another mouse click, one that effectively means, “X-47B, find your tanker,” Pamiljans says.
Necessarily, that’s going to mean “a high level of redundancy and reliability,” Engdahl says, or the program’s going to be a crash-prone disaster. There are only two X-47Bs in existence, and Northrop doesn’t plan to build any more.
The one thing they’re not going to test? Weapons. Nothing about the next several years’ worth of testing will involve weapons mounts or releases, Engdahl and Pamiljans both insist. That’s despite the fact that the plane can carry up to 4500 lbs. worth of payload in its twin weapons bays. And that it’s supposed to be a killer. (Even if it moonlights as a stadium-ready rock-n-roller in the video above, produced by Northrop.)
Both Engdahl or Pamiljans accordingly ducked a question about how the plane’s boasted autonomy will handle any weapons releases. Everyone who fears Skynet generally blanches at the idea of robots firing weapons on their own. But the X-47B will be “on autopilot 100 percent of the time,” Engdahl says. Nothing left to do but welcome our robot overlords.
For the second year in a row, more American soldiers—both enlisted men and women and veterans—committed suicide than were killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Excluding accidents and illness, 462 soldiers died in combat, while 468 committed suicide. A difference of six isn’t vast by any means, but the symbolism is significant and troubling. In 2009, there were 381 suicides by military personnel, a number that also exceeded the number of combat deaths.
Earlier this month, military authorities announced that suicides amongst active-duty soldiers had slowed in 2010, while suicides amongst reservists and people in the National Guard had increased. It was proof, they said, that the frequent psychological screenings active-duty personnel receive were working, and that reservists and guardsmen, who are more removed from the military’s medical bureaucracy, simply need to begin undergoing more health checks. This new data, that American soldiers are now more dangerous to themselves than the insurgents, flies right in the face of any suggestion that things are “working.” Even if something’s working, the system is still very, very broken.One of the problems hindering the military’s attempt to address soldier suicides is that there’s no real rhyme or reason to what kind of soldier is killing himself. While many suicide victims are indeed afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after facing heavy combat in the Middle East, many more have never even been deployed. Of the 112 guardsmen who committed suicide last year, more than half had never even left American soil.
“If you think you know the one thing that causes people to commit suicide, please let us know,” Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli told the Army Times, “because we don’t know what it is.”
In 2004, the Bush administration flew twenty billion dollars of shrink-wrapped cash into Iraq on pallets. Now the bulk of that money has disappeared. The funds flown into the war zone were made up of surplus from the UN’s oil-for-food program, as well as money from sales of Iraqi oil and seized Iraqi assets. Recent estimates had the amount of missing money at about $6.6 billion, but according to Al Jazeera, Iraqi Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi says the figure is closer to three times that amount.
Officials were supposed to distribute the money to Iraqi government ministries and U.S. contractors tasked with the reconstruction of Iraq, but it now appears that the bulk of the cash was stolen in what may be one of the largest heists in history.
The Iraqi government argues that U.S. forces were supposed to safeguard the cash under a 2004 agreement, making Washington responsible for the money’s disappearance. Pentagon officials claim that given time to track down the records they can account for all of the money, but the U.S. has already audited the money three times and no trace of what happened to it can be found.
Al Jazeera says that it has been unable to find any documents whatsoever accounting for the money’s disappearance. Some believe that U.S. officials absconded with the money, but it’s more likely, sources say, that corrupt Iraqi officials used the funds to line their own pockets.
To date, it’s estimated that the Iraq War has cost the United States more than a trillion dollars.
‘Now what is [Vice President] Omar Suleiman’s position? No one knows that he remains in his position as vice president. The government of course is going to be changed. But the top brass, all of the members of this military council, [are] all very close hand-picked generals picked by Mubarak over the years. And obviously screened by CIA. So I still have reservations, we’re just starting. We have succeeded in a very important step which is getting rid of Mubarak. But Mubarak for the past five years has not been governing this country.
He’s been sitting in Sharm el-Sheikh where he is now; he has been for five years. He hardly ever comes to Cairo. It has been run by General Omar Suleiman who was vice president until a couple of hours ago, may still be. It was run, from security point of view and from a foreign policy point of view by Omar Suleiman. He is a close friend of the Israelis and of the Americans. Nothing has changed.’
I have been watching the understandable euphoria in Egypt live on Al Jazeera television, but please, there must be a sense of perspective here – and urgently.
There has been NO REVOLUTION so far – a despicable tyrant has gone, but the army that imposed the will of that despicable tyrant for 30 years is now in charge and the Egyptian army is not only controlled by the US, it is funded by massive American military ‘aid’ – second only in scale to Israel.
It is true that the army didn’t fire on the demonstrators as it would have done before, but it did so at the time that its masters in America were calling for Mubarak to step down, in effect, and for the protestors to be left alone. Why did the US government do this after supporting the tyrant for 30 years? Because they want ‘regime change’ in Egypt as part of a domino effect across the whole Middle East to advance a much bigger agenda.
Mubarak’s demise was announced by his vice-president, the US puppet, Omar Suleiman, the head of the vicious and murderous Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate that as well as controlling the population through sheer terror also accepted Muslim detainees arrested by the US to be tortured in Egypt in ways that would have been illegal in America – the so called ‘Extraordinary Rendition’.
And waiting in the wings is America’s (the Illuminati’s) man, Mohamed ElBaradei, who is on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group of Rothschild front-man, George Soros, and his associate Zbigniew Brzezinski, who specialise in triggering and manipulating ‘peoples’ revolutions’ to change regimes while hiding the force that is really behind it all.
It is wonderful to see the joy of the Egyptian people at the end of Mubarak, but the job is only half done and if it ends here nothing will change. ‘Peoples’ revolutions’ covertly inspired by the money and agencies of George Soros in Georgia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and elsewhere also has their moments of enormous euphoria when a regime fell, but any revolution of the people can only be judged by what replaces that which is removed.
Others have been deeply disappointed and disillusioned in the past and if Egypt is not to go the same way the focus and determination must not be lost – and ElBaradei must not prevail, nor anyone else who represents the forces of control and suppression.
Out of the frying pan into the fryer is not a revolution.
Team Spirit (1976–1993) — Annual joint exercise with South Korean forces.
Dwarka(1965)— Pakistan Navy’s attack on the Indian coastal town of Dwarka on 7 September 1965. This was the first use of a Navy in the Indo-Pakistan Wars.
Reforger — Annual American exercise to “return forces to Germany”.
Retail (1946) — British clearance of naval mines laid in Albanian waters.
Silver (1949) — covert British communications tap in Austria
Banner (1969–2007) Deployment of British troops to Northern Ireland. To prevent sectarian killings and support the Police (RUC). Op Banner resulted in over 700 British Armed Forces deaths and 303 Police deaths at the hands of the Irish Republicans
Operation Danube (1968) — Warsaw Pact invasion to halt Czechoslovakia’s “Prague Spring” reforms
The track down operation (1967) — that capture and executed Che Guevara
Operation Condor (1970’s) — — A campaign run by then South American Military Dictatorships’ intelligence services with United States’ support, which goal was extrajudicial and secretly, find, capture and eliminate political dissidents who, had succeeded to escape political repression in their homelands but could be found in any of these other countries.
Operation Pluto (1961) — plan to invade Cuba and overthrow its’ government using an CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles.
Mongoose (1962) — plan for information gathering, sabotage, civil insurrection and the overthrown of the Cuban government.
Phibriglex (1962) — US plan and mock invasion by its armed forces of a Caribbean island. The exercise took place on Vieques and the purpose of the mock invasion was to overthrow a fictitious leader called “Ortsac”, whose name was, in fact, Castro spelled backwards. It occurred in August, shortly before the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is also known by the names Operation Ortsac, Operation Swift Strike II and Exercise Phibriglex-62.
Cubana Flight 455 (1976) — a Cuban civilian flight from Barbados to Jamaica that was brought down by a terrorist attack did by CIA anti-Castro Cuban exiles and members of the Venezuelan secret police.
Amphibian (2001) — South African deployment to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda of observers to verify implementation of the Pretoria Agreement.
Astute (2006) — Deployment of Australian military forces to East Timor following the May 2006 civil unrest.
Citadel — Australia’s contribution to the United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET). Later ongoing peacekeeping actions were known as Operation Tanager.
Scorched Earth — Or Operasi Sapu Bersih in Indonesian, also known as Operation Clean Sweep; campaign of violence and arson allegedly committed by the TNI-supervised pro-integration militias following the 1999 United Nations supervised plebiscite.
Spitfire — Evacuation of foreign nationals from East Timor by Australian defence assets, as a result of post-referendum violence.
Operation Otkos 10 (end Oct-Nov 1991) — Croatian actions against rebel Serbs and regular Serbian forces on area from Mount Bilogora to Mount Papuk (on west of Slavonia)
Able Sentry (1993–94) — Berlin Brigade deployed as part of Multi-National United Nations Protection Forces (UNPROFOR) to the Republic of Macedonia to establish Camp Able Sentry and monitor sanctions imposed by NATO against Serbia/Kosovo. *This mission was later taken over by the (then) Germany-based, 3rd Infantry Div (Mech)
Essential Harvest(2001) — month-long NATO mission of disarming ethnic Albanians in Macedonia
Forage — Canadian contribution to NATO’s Essential Harvest
Kinetic — Canada’s contribution to NATO’s mission KFOR to secure Kosovo and Macedonia and to provide humanitarian needs to displaced persons
Echo — Canada sending air forces to Aviano, Italy to enforce a no-fly zone over Balkan region (UNSFOR and UNKFOR)
Mountain Storm — Macedonian special police operation against Albanian extremists (2007).
Relex (2001) — Australian defence force operations to secure Australia’s northern maritime approaches against illegal immigration. Reactivated in 2004 as Operation Relex II.
Exercise Unified Spirit — large NATO exercise held every two years to train the armed forces of member nations in joint and combined operations.
Operation Vijay (1999) — Indian operations against Pakistan during the Kargil war that took place between May and July 1999 at Kargil district, Jammu & Kashmir, India.
Century (1996) — ill-fated Essex police / Royal Ulster Constabulary operation to pressure persons of interest for information about a drug-related triple murder.
Gaddafi was being demonised by the Reagan-Father Bush administration (the Rothschilds) in the 1980s when the CIA and Mossad led a campaign to destabilise Libya that mirrors what has happened in 2011. Newsweek reported on August 3rd, 1981:
‘The details of the plan were sketchy, but it seemed to be a classic CIA destabilization campaign. One element was a “disinformation” program designed to embarrass Kaddafi and his government. Another was the creation of a “counter government” to challenge his claim to national leadership. A third — potentially the most risky — was an escalating paramilitary campaign, probably by disaffected Libyan nationals, to blow up bridges, conduct small-scale guerrilla operations and demonstrate that Kaddafi was opposed by an indigenous political force.’
Sound familiar? That was 30 years ago.
But so many just buy the lie no matter what the era or generation. As Adolf Hitler said: ‘Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.’ And his propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, said: ‘The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Hitler also said, with equal relevance: ‘What luck for the rulers that men do not think.’
NATO planes pepper-bombed Tripoli in support of the ‘rebels’ on the ground. Thousands of the very civilians that the UN resolution said should be protected were killed in the process. But we hear nothing of this in the mainstream media and precious little of the murder and executions of Gaddafi supporters by the ‘rebels’ throughout the conflict and after they entered Tripoli.
The emphasis is always on alleged executions and killings of rebel supporters by Gaddafi’s forces. No doubt some of these claims are true, but where is the balance? There is none, and Syria is now being demonised to go through the same process of demonise, invade, conquer, control. Richard Haas, president of the Illuminati Council on Foreign Relations which directs US foreign policy, has admitted that the NATO bombing of Libya was not about protecting civilians, but removing Gaddafi. He also called for an ‘international force’ to occupy the country and ‘maintain order’.
It is the same rhetoric, the same blueprint, which we have seen in every other country ‘liberated’ by the architects of tyranny. It really is goodbye Libya: rest in peace. The United States and its conscripted NATO allies are not going to walk away and leave Libya to the Libyans. It is an occupation force to pillage the oil resources and the banking system, and it was always going to be.
The board of a study centre at the London School of Economics with links to the Gaddafi regime in Libya includes no fewer than four men who have served at the highest levels of the British Intelligence community.
As well as Sir Mark Allen, former head of MI6’s Middle East desk, there are two ex-chairmen and one former member of the Joint Intelligence Committee – the top-secret Cabinet Office body which coordinates all national security assessment for ministers.
Gordon Barrass, visiting professor at the centre – known as LSE Ideas – was a member of the JIC in the last years of the Cold War and is a Soviet expert. Sir Colin Budd was chairman of the JIC in 1996-97. And between 2005 and 2007 Sir Richard Mottram was Cabinet Office permanent secretary for intelligence, security and resilience, and chairman of the JIC.
LSE Ideas is at the centre of a storm over the university’s decision to help Colonel Gaddafi seek international acceptance before the Libyan uprising and to accept enormous amounts of cash from his son Saif. Its chairman, formerly one of Tony Blair’s most senior political aides, sought yesterday to distance himself from the scandal.
Sir David Manning is the ex-ambassador to Washington who was Mr Blair’s confidant throughout the run-up to the Iraq war.
He claimed to have no more than a ‘very small association’ with the LSE, which controversially accepted a £1.5million donation from Saif a year after awarding him a questionable PhD. Asked if the LSE should have taken Saif’s cash, Sir David said: ‘It wasn’t a huge sum of money. It’s a pity probably it happened, but if you were trying to draw Libyans into the mainstream of international life then I suspect that was the motivation.’
Angry students are demanding a full-scale inquiry into the Libyan funding controversy which has heaped embarrassment on the LSE as more links emerge between the Ideas centre, the Blair government, security services and big business.
Formed three years ago, the Ideas centre had an income of just over £2.5million between 2008 and 2010, with 94 per cent coming from ‘external sources’. The LSE claims the centre – whose stated aim is ‘understanding how today’s world came into being and how it may be changed’ – has received no money from Libya.
Aside from Sir David, the Ideas advisory board members include Mr Blair’s ex-chief of staff Jonathan Powell, former Foreign Office Minister Baroness Symons – forced to stand down from Libya’s National Economic Development Board this week – and Sir Mark Allen, a former MI6 spy who played a pivotal role in bringing Blair and Colonel Gaddafi together and lobbied ministers to secure the release of the Lockerbie bomber.
Whenever the military rolls out a new robot program, folks like to joke about SkyNet or the Rise of the Machines. But this time, the military really is starting to venture into robot-apocalypse territory: swarms of little semi-autonomous machines that can team up to manufacture complex objects (including, presumably, more robots).
That’s right, the only thing scarier than a swarm of intelligent military mini robots is a swarm of intelligent military mini robots in control of the means of production. And your Navy is hard at work on making it a reality.
The U.S. Navy recently issued a proposal for aspiring mad scientists to build it “a coordinated and distributed swarm of micro-robots” capable of manufacturing “novel materials and structures.”
This isn’t heavy industry, though. They want the robot swarm to use desktop manufacturing — a technology that allows you to “print” 3-D objects using equipment that can fit on your desk and be programmed with nothing more sophisticated than your own laptop.
In its more benign uses, desktop manufacturing takes the form of products like Makerbot, which lets users fabricate cool 3-D objects out of plastic. In the hands of intelligent robots, though, think of this more as the Easy-Bake Oven of the robot apocalypse.
The proposal says the mini manufacturers will be able to “pick and place, dispense liquids, print inks, remove material, join components” and “move cooperatively” to not just make things, but assemble them, as well.
And what exactly will they make? The Navy lists a number of examples like “multifunctional materials” and “metamorphic materials” but its mention of “programmable materials” really caught our ear.
Darpa, the Defense Department’s far-out advanced research wing, has previously experimented with “programmable materials” to create shape-shifting machines like the self-folding origami robot that can change into a small plane and boat.
Former Saudi political prisoners gathered recently in Riyadh to discuss politics. Some former political prisoners feel embittered by the public’s lack of support.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — As one nation after another has battled uprisings across the Arab world, the one major country spared is also its richest — Saudi Arabia, where a fresh infusion of money has so far bought order.
The kingdom is spending $130 billion to pump up salaries, build housing and finance religious organizations, among other outlays, effectively neutralizing most opposition. King Abdullah began wielding his checkbook right after leaders in Tunisia and Egypt fell, seeking to placate the public and reward a loyal religious establishment. The king’s reserves, swollen by more than $214 billion in oil revenue last year, have insulated the royal family from widespread demands for change even while some discontent simmers.
Saudi Arabia has also relied on its unusually close alliance with the religious establishment that has long helped preserve the power of the royal family. The grand mufti, the highest religious official in the kingdom, rolled out a fatwa saying Islam forbade street protests, and clerics hammered at that message in their Friday sermons.
But the first line of defense in this case was the public aid package. King Abdullah paid an extra two months’ salary to government employees and spent $70 billion alone for 500,000 units of low-income housing. As a reward to the religious establishment, he allocated about $200 million to their organizations, including the religious police. Clerics opposed to democratic changes crowed that they had won a great victory over liberal intellectuals.
“They don’t care about the security of the country, all they care about is the mingling of genders — they want girls to drive cars, they want to go the beaches to see girls in bathing suits!” roared Mohamed al-Areefy, a popular young cleric, in a recent Friday sermon.
Financial support to organizations that intellectuals dislike “was a way to cut out their tongues,” he said.
Saudi Arabia, a close ally of the United States, has struggled to preserve what remains of a regional dynamic upended by the Arab Spring — buttressing monarchies and blocking Iran from gaining influence.
While the United States has pressed other Arab nations to embrace democratic changes, it has remained largely silent on Saudi Arabia and the kingdom’s efforts to squelch popular revolts in neighboring Bahrain and Oman.
Saudi Arabia’s efforts have succeeded in the short run, at home and in its Persian Gulf backyard. But some critics call its strategy of effectively buying off public opinion unsustainable because it fails to address underlying problems.
“The problem is that some leaders do not understand what is going on and do not learn the lessons while these things are unfolding in front of their eyes; they do not learn the lessons of history,” said Prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz, 79, a brother of the king.
The prince, whose 14 living children include the billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, said: “These people want to preserve their power, their money and their prestige, so they want to keep the status quo. They are afraid of the word change. This is a problem because they are shortsighted, but the difficulty is I don’t know how to change their way of thinking.”
The monarchy has not completely escaped calls for change. There have been at least three petitions, with a group of youths and even some members of the Sahwa, the staunchly conservative religious movement, calling for an elected consultative council.
The only major street protest scheduled for March 11 largely fizzled — its organizers were anonymous, and its stated goal of toppling the government lacked broad appeal. In the largely Shiite eastern provinces, though, police officers arrested scores of protesters.
The ruling princes have also moved against dissent in other ways, like imposing a new press law with punishments including a roughly $140,000 fine for vaguely defined crimes like threatening national security.
Saudis of all stripes say that they are less concerned about democratic elections than about fixing chronic problems, including the lack of housing, unemployment that is officially 10 percent but likely 20 percent or more, corruption, bureaucratic incompetence and transparency on oil revenues.
