USA IMPERIALISM AND ITS CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, PART TWO

2008-07-05T15:47:00.001-07:00

Dr. Doug Rokke, PhD. Dlind49@aol.com wrote:

please distribute this world wide...

Depleted Uranium Situation Worsens Requiring Immediate Action
By President Bush, Prime Minister Brown, and Prime Minister Olmert

Dr. Doug Rokke, PhD. Dlind49@aol.com
former Director, U.S. Army Depleted Uranium project
June 11, 2008

During the summer of 1991, the United States military had
collected artillery, tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles,
conventional and unconventional munitions, trucks, etc. at
Camp Doha in Kuwait. As result of carelessness this weapons
depot caught fire with consequent catastrophic explosion
resulting in death, injury, illness and extensive
environmental contamination from depleted uranium and
conventional explosives. Recently the emirate of Kuwait
required the United States Department of Defense to remove
the contamination. Consequently, over 6,700 tons of
contaminated soil sand and other residue was collected and
has been shipped back to the United States for burial by
American Ecology at Boise Idaho. When Bob Nichols, an
investigative journalist, and I contacted American Ecology
we found out that they had absolutely no knowledge of U.S.
Army Regulation 700-48, U.S. Army PAM 700-48, U.S. Army
Technical Bulletin 9-1300-278, and all of the medical orders
dealing with depleted uranium contamination, environmental
remediation procedures, safety, and medical care . They had
never heard of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
guidelines for dealing with mixed – hazardous waste such as
radioactive materials and conventional explosives
byproducts. (reference "Approaches for the Remediation of
Federal Facility Sites Contaminated with Explosives or
Radioactive Wastes", EPA/625/R-93/013, September 1993). The
shipment across the ocean, unloading at Longview,
Washington State port, transport by rail, and burial in
Idaho endangers not only the residents of these areas but
poses a significant agricultural threat through introduction
of pests, microbes, etc. foreign to our nation.

Sadly the known adverse health and environmental hazards
from uranium weapons contamination are in our own backyard.
The EPA has listed the former Nuclear Metals- Starmet
uranium weapons manufacturing site in Concord Ma. On EPA’s
Superfund National Priority List because it poses a
significant risk to public health and the environment.
Consequently the community in which our nation was born on
April 18, 1775 is now the location of America’s own closed
dirty bomb factory that will endanger the health and safety
of the descendants of our original patriots- “the
Minutemen”.

The previous delivery of at least 100 GBU 28 bunker busters
bombs containing depleted uranium warheads by the United
States and their use by Israel against Lebanese targets has
resulted in additional radioactive and chemical toxic
contamination with consequent adverse health and
environmental effects throughout the middle east. Israeli
tank gunners are also using depleted uranium tank rounds as
photographs verify.

Today, U.S., British, and now Israeli military personnel are
using illegal uranium munitions- America's and England's
own "dirty bombs" while U.S. Army, U.S. Department of
Energy, U.S. Department of Defense, and British Ministry of
Defence officials deny that there are any adverse health and
environmental effects as a consequence of the manufacture,
testing, and/or use of uranium munitions to avoid liability
for the willful and illegal dispersal of a radioactive toxic
material - depleted uranium.

The use of uranium weapons is absolutely unacceptable, and a
crime against humanity. Consequently the citizens of the
world and all governments must force cessation of uranium
weapons use. I must demand that Israel now provide medical
care to all DU casualties in Lebanon and clean up all DU
contamination.

U.S. and British officials have arrogantly refused to comply
with their own regulations, orders, and directives that
require United States Department of Defense officials to
provide prompt and effective medical care to "all" exposed
individuals. Reference: Medical Management of Unusual
Depleted Uranium Casualties, DOD, Pentagon, 10/14/93,
Medical Management of Army personnel Exposed to Depleted
Uranium (DU) Headquarters, U.S. Army Medical Command 29
April 2004, and section 2-5 of U.S. Army Regulation 700-48.
Israeli officials must not do so now.

They also refuse to clean up dispersed radioactive
Contamination as required by Army Regulation- AR 700-48:
"Management of Equipment Contaminated With Depleted Uranium
or Radioactive Commodities" (Headquarters, Department Of The
Army, Washington, D.C., September 2002) and U.S. Army
Technical Bulletin- TB 9-1300-278: "Guidelines For Safe
Response To Handling, Storage, And Transportation Accidents
Involving Army Tank Munitions Or Armor Which Contain
Depleted Uranium" (Headquarters, Department Of The Army,
Washington, D.C., JULY 1996). Specifically section 2-4 of
United States Army Regulation-AR 700-48 dated September 16,
2002 requires that:
(1) "Military personnel "identify, segregate, isolate,
secure, and label all RCE" (radiologically contaminated
equipment).

(2) "Procedures to minimize the spread of radioactivity will
be implemented as soon as possible."

(3) "Radioactive material and waste will not be locally
disposed of through burial, submersion, incineration,
destruction in place, or abandonment" and

(4) "All equipment, to include captured or combat RCE, will
be surveyed, packaged, retrograded, decontaminated and
released IAW Technical Bulletin 9-1300-278, DA PAM 700-48"
(Note: Maximum exposure limits are specified in Appendix F).

DOD leaders are not showing the DU training tapes to
military personnel. These three video tapes: (1) "Depleted
Uranium Hazard Awareness", (2) "Contaminated and Damaged
Equipment Management", and (3) "Operation of the AN/PDR 77
Radiac Set" are essential to understanding the hazards from
the use of uranium weapons and management of uranium weapons
contamination. DOD leaders must show these tapes to all
military personnel involved in the use of uranium weapons
and the consequent management of uranium contamination.

The previous and current use of uranium weapons, the release
of radioactive components in destroyed U.S. and foreign
military equipment, and releases of industrial, medical,
research facility radioactive materials have resulted in
unacceptable exposures. Therefore, decontamination must be
completed as required by U.S. Army Regulation 700-48 and
should include releases of all radioactive materials
resulting from military operations.

The extent of adverse health and environmental effects of
uranium weapons contamination is not limited to combat zones
in the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan but includes
facilities and sites where uranium weapons were manufactured
or tested including Vieques; Puerto Rico; Colonie, New
York; Concord, MA; Jefferson Proving Grounds, Indiana; and
Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Therefore medical care must be
provided by the United States Department of Defense
officials to all individuals affected by the manufacturing,
testing, and/or use of uranium munitions. Thorough
environmental remediation also must be completed without
further delay.

I am amazed that fifteen years after was I asked to clean up
the initial DU mess from Gulf War 1 and over ten years
since I finished the depleted uranium project that United
States Department of Defense officials and others still
attempt to justify uranium munitions use while ignoring
mandatory requirements. I am dismayed that Department of
Defense and Department of Energy officials and
representatives continue personal attacks aimed to silence
or discredit those of us who are demanding that medical care
be provided to all DU casualties and that environmental
remediation is completed in compliance with U.S. Army
Regulation 700-48. But beyond the ignored mandatory actions
the willful dispersal of tons of solid radioactive and
chemically toxic waste in the form of uranium munitions is
illegal (http://www.traprockpeace.org/karen_parker_du_illegality.pdf
) and just does not even pass the common sense test and
according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, DHS,
is a dirty bomb. DHS issued "dirty bomb" response
guidelines,

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/fr-cont.html

, on January 3, 2006 for incidents within the United States
but ignore DOD use of uranium weapons and existing DOD
regulations. These guidelines specifically state that:
"Characteristics of RDD and IND Incidents: A radiological
incident is defined as an event or series of events,
deliberate or accidental, leading to the release, or
potential release, into the environment of radioactive
material in sufficient quantity to warrant consideration of
protective actions. Use of an RDD or IND is an act of
terror that produces a radiological incident." Thus the use
of uranium munitions is "an act or terror" as defined by
DHS. Finally continued compliance with the infamous March
1991 Los Alamos Memorandum that was issued to ensure
continued use of uranium munitions can not be justified.

In conclusion: the President of the United States- George W.
Bush, the Prime Minister of Great Britain-Gordon Brown, and
the Prime Minister of Israel Olmert must acknowledge and
accept responsibility for willful use of illegal uranium
munitions- their own "dirty bombs"- resulting in adverse
health and environmental effects.

President Bush, Prime Minister Brown, and Prime Minister
Olmert should order:

1. medical care for all casualties,

2. thorough environmental remediation,

3. immediate cessation of retaliation against all of us who
demand compliance with medical care and environmental
remediation requirements,

4. and stop the already illegal the use (UN finding) of
depleted uranium munitions.
References- these references are copies the actual
regulations and orders and other pertinent official
documents:

http://www.traprockpeace.org/twomemos.html

http://www.traprockpeace.org/rokke_du_3_ques.html

http://www.traprockpeace.org/du_dtic_wakayama_Aug2002.html

http://www.traprockpeace.org/karen_parker_du_illegality.pdf

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/fr-cont.html

http://cryptome.org/dhs010306.txt

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/05/15/razing_urged_for_waste_site/
http://www.tdn.com/articles/2008/04/29/area_news/doc4816651072f72767559743.txt

Photo by David Silverman (Getty Images ) Image 71440735 http://editorial.gettyimages.com

RE: DU ALERT....
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/du.htm

DU ALERT 2 ....
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/du2.htm

please distribute this world wide...

2008-06-27T16:52:00.001-07:00

http://countercurrents.org/oneall260608.htm

Will The World Survive GM Cultures And The Damage To The Earth'sEco-Systems?
By Siv O'Neall
26 June, 2008
Axis Of Logic

Monsanto and the other major biotech companies – Syngenta, Bunge, Cargill, etc. – are all set on owning the world's food supply. Monsanto is by far the leader in this nightmare of destroying organic agriculture and millennia-old biodiversity.

They have no respect whatsoever for the lives and the livelihood of farmers or, for that matter, any concern for the people who are exposed to severe health hazards from eating genetically modified foods. Corporate profit is all that counts.

The greatest long-lasting danger from GMOs is the destruction of the earth's eco-systems – the degradation of the soil, the depletion of water resources and the proliferation of pests that were until now barely known, since they were kept under control by the natural balance of predatory insects keeping those that are harmful to the crops from having their potentially damaging effect. More later about this natural equilibrium.

The bio-tech industries have taken a big and dangerous step towards destroying the earth as it has been known for thousands of years. Organic agriculture, biodiversity and natural pest control have made the earth a place for sustainable farming for millennia. However, at this point of delicate balance for the earth's survival, bio-tech corporations want to put an end to everything that is natural in order to make short-term profit from huge monocultures of the genetically modified products that they are falsely marketing as our saviors from world hunger and poverty. [1]

India is one country that has been severely hit by the bio-tech industry with accompanying disasters.

What follows after the farmers change over to GMO seeds after millennia of planting and making a livelihood in organic farming is a horror story of bad harvests, huge debts, increased costs for herbicides and fertilizers (in spite of the companies' promises of lower costs), and the suicides of thousands of farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala – among the Indian states that are hit the worst.

This has been going on for decades and if it were not for a lot of activism being focused on this problem, there is no chance that anything would change, since the corporations are tied in firmly with the governments in the heavy-handed corporatism that rules the world today. The farmers are lured into buying the GM seeds because of low-interest loans and obscene propaganda about giant harvests, less work and lower costs. Bio-tech PR claims there is no need for pesticides and less need for fertilizers, all of which has proved to be inaccurate. Added to this, these seeds are not adjusted to the eco-systems where they are being planted. They frequently need more water than is available and the results are disastrous.

One woman is in the forefront of the fight against the bio-tech industry. Her name is Vandana Shiva and she is based in Delhi. Dr. Vandana Shiva, a former particle physicist, has for the past three decades done more than anyone else as an activist to attract the attention of the world to the deadly corporate horror story of genetically modified products. She attacks the problem from all angles, educating and organizing protest demonstrations through her organization Navdanya.

Navdanya means “nine seeds”, and is a movement promoting diversity – fighting against the privatization of water, campaigning against Basmati biopiracy and generally leading a fight for the rights of rural farmers to a decent livelihood, uncompromised through biopiracy such as is taking place in India and all over the world. Biodiversity, the way farmers have been cultivating the land for millennia is her central argument and monocultures at the giant industrial farms are her principal enemy. She talks about food fascism and the bio-tech industry see her as their most prominent enemy in their vicious attempt of controlling the world's food supply.

Vandana Shiva says on her Navdanya website:

"When I found that dominant science and technology served the interests of [the] powerful, I left academics to found the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), a participatory, public interest research organisation.

"When I found global corporations wanted to patent seeds, crops or life forms, I started Navdanya to protect biodiversity, defend farmers' rights and promote organic farming.
"Navdanya/RFSTE's journey over the past two decades has taken us into creating markets for farmersand promoting tasty, healthy, high quality food for consumers. We have connected the seed to the kitchen, biodiversity to gastronomy. And now we have joined hands with Slow Food to celebrate the quality and cultural diversity of our food."

SIU [2] magazine writes about Vandana Shiva:

"In fact, listening to her may make you rethink many of the world’s established social and political paradigms.
"For example, the generally acknowledged argument that the Green Revolution, at the very least, led to an increase in food production is one of them. 'No, it did not increase production. Wheat and rice production increased, not the overall food production,' argues Shiva, and launches into a lecture that concludes that whatever increase there was had nothing whatsoever to do with the Green Revolution, and that overall it has been a disaster for agriculture and food security in India."

The Mealy Bug, the deadly gift from Monsanto

The latest horror news on GMOs is the Mealy Bug that has been said to be "the deadly gift from Monsanto to Vidarbha, set to destroy all crops and plants". Vidarbha is the eastern part of Maharashtra state, in western India. It is India's most developed and urbanized state. In a press note Kishor Tiwari, President of 'Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti' – a farmers advocacy group – writes that the Mealy Bug is a virus that is imported with the Bt Cotton sold by multinational corporation Monsanto. In the coming summer season it will have an effect on a larger area covering almost all crops and next year it will be set to destroy not only cotton crops but all other food crops as well. Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) has urged the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, to ban Monsanto Bt. Cotton seeds in the agrarian crisis that has hit West Vidarbha. This is of the most urgent importance in order to save more than 3 million distressed and debt-trapped Vidarbha cotton farmers.

The London based Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) posts the following from Ram Kalaspurkar, organic farmer, Vidarbha Organic Farmers Association, Yavatmal, Maharashtra, India :

"I am an organic farmer residing at Yavatmal in the state of Maharashtra. Our organisation, Vidarbha Organic Farmers Association, has been propagating organic farming since 1994. We have been helped a lot by Dr Vandana Shiva. She was the first person to tell us about terminators. Right now, we are working for her organisation Navdanya."

ISIS on their web site has published a letter from Ram Kalaspurkar who refers to a study where they have found that 'Organic Cotton Beats Bt Cotton in India'. They firmly recommend a return to organic cotton, saying that Bt cotton is a trap that has to be avoided. In the article published by ISIS there are photos of plants infested by mealy bugs.
All the infested plots had the Bollgard label, which is supposed to control pests. It is made clear that the mealy bugs have never been found in the region before BT cotton seeds were introduced. (The mealy bug had, however, been found in China two years earlier.)
After the death of the cotton plants, the bug goes over to nearby plants and it has already shifted to Congress weed and many other weeds and plants in fields close by.

The Monsanto website claims:

"Bollgard II technology offers cotton growers efficient, effective pest control with fewer pesticide applications than in conventional cotton crops."

This is just one example of what has proved to be the totally false propaganda pumped out from Monsanto.
Rhea Gala reports from Andhra Pradesh – from VIDARBHA JAN ANDOLAN SAMITI (the following quoted passages are excerpted from the same VJAS source)

"In the fertile regions of Andhra Pradesh ‘white gold’ monocultures of the high-yielding hybrids of ‘Green Revolution’ cotton had turned the state into the pesticide capital of the world even before the advent of genetically modified (GM) Bt cotton. Now, however, the revolution is turning full circle as more and more farmers are opting for low input organic methods that are healthier and economically far more rewarding."

The message is now :

"Return to Organic Cotton and Avoid the Bt Cotton TrapNo more debt, pesticides and suicides for Indian cotton farmers who avoid Bt-cotton and regain livelihood, health, independence and peace of mind with organic methods."

Several Non-Governmental Organizations are working in many villages promoting non-pesticide management (NPM). The government has until now supported high-chemical-input cotton production at national and state level and this has sent the wrong messages to farmers. GM cotton is falsely promoted as the answer to reducing pesticide use, and it is one of many reasons why farmers are giving in to the pressure to grow GM cotton.

"Farmers initially saw the system of industrial production as timesaving and requiring far less knowledge of soils and pests; however it soon proved to be a relentless treadmill. It degraded the soil, depleted scarce water resources and proliferated cotton pests beyond the farmers’ worst nightmares, as both yield and profit progressively diminished."
Research backs up the case for NPM and organic cotton. A report entitled "Bt cotton vs. Non Pesticidal Management of cotton: Findings of a study by the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture 2004-05 compares Bt and NPM cotton in Andhra Pradesh."

The findings are unequivocally in favor of organic cotton. There are vast numbers of beneficial insects that get killed off from GM Bt cotton. Those insects are predators that attack and kill off most of the harmful insects and pests.

"It reports conclusively that Bt cotton is more prone to pests and diseases and that beneficial insects are more prevalent on NPM cotton. It also reports that the cost of pest management of Bt cotton is 690 percent higher than in NPM farming systems and that seed cost of Bt cotton is 355 percent higher than conventional varieties (‘Organic cotton beats Bt Cotton in India’ SiS 27)".

Recreating the natural balance of predators and pests

"The skill of managing pests without recourse to synthetic pesticide requires knowledge of life cycle and behaviour, vigilance, an armoury of pest specific deterrents, and a healthy community of natural predators of pests. To control pests such as the spotted bollworm, American bollworm, tobacco caterpillar, pink bollworm, aphids, jassids, thrips, white fly and mites, each of which is capable of causing between 30 and 50 percent damage to a crop, natural predators are the most effective year after year."

Conclusion

Vandana Shiva [3] by no means limits her activism to Bt cotton. She sets as her goal to recreate natural biodiversity in rice and all the other crops that the bio-tech companies are trying to take over with their GM seeds and products. There exist 100,000 varieties of rice evolved by Indian farmers and the diversity and the 'perenniality' have to be kept alive if we want to save our environment. Genetically modified seeds will lead to increased use of agri-chemicals and will thus increase environmental problems as well as human health problems.

Vandana Shiva addresses principally the dangers of GM farming in India, but the danger to the environment and to the livelihood of millions of people is obviously world-wide. Biodiversity represents the sustenance and livelihood base of small farmers all over the world and a sane environment is naturally the key to the continuation of healthy lives for the billions of people in the world.

Footnotes:

[1] The problem is global, but strong resistance to GMO seeds and foods contaminated by GMOs is taking place in Europe. Corporate-friendly governments are trying to follow in the steps of U.S. pro-GM policies. The European Commission is ambivalent on the issue, but the people of Europe represented by numerous NGOs are leading the fight against this scourge of industrial GM farming in order to save the world from the dangers to people's health and from the destruction of the earth's eco-systems.
See report from ISIS – "Dr. Mae-Wan Ho warns that further indulgence in GMOs will severely damage our chances of surviving the food crisis and global warming; organic agriculture and localised food systems are the way forward"
[2] The Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Higher Education (SIU) is a Norwegian agency that promotes international cooperation in education and research.
[3] For more information on Vandana Shiva and her activism, see 'Monocultures, Monopolies, Myths and the Masculinisation of Agriculture'

(Emphasis added - B.M.)

2008-06-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

Bush Needs To Be Impeached NOW!

By Timothy V. Gatto

11 June, 2008
Countercurrents.org

If there is one thing that Dennis Kucinich has, it’s the courage to tell the truth, even when the deck is stacked against him. In this case he has an entire Congress (or most of them) that seem to want go along to get along. It will be a cold day in hell when the Articles of Impeachment that he delivered in Congress last night, all 35 of them, ever get out of the Committee where they will sit on them until the new elections , mainly because the majority of Democrats in the House have no sense of justice and of course, no spine.

I was glued to C-Span last night. I was mesmerized by the litany of abuses that this sitting President has perpetrated on not only the people of America, but the World. Step by step, Kucinich meticulously brought every charge against George W. Bush and backed those charges up with times, dates and testimony from Administration insiders. This Congressman has done his homework; there was not a single thing I believe he missed. There were a few things that I didn’t even know this President was responsible for, and I follow him like a hawk.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich read each charge in the same way. He always invoked the phrase that Bush failed to live up to his oath and protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. He ten went to Article 2, section 3 that he must he must faithfully execute the laws of the land. Rep. Kucinich went on to make 35 charges against the President. He mentioned the flawed intelligence leading up to the Iraq War that The President had prior knowledge of and he used this flawed knowledge to deceive Congress. He talked of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) which issued White Papers with fraudulent information that Iraq was manufacturing nuclear weapons.

Kucinich also brought up as an article of impeachment, the fact that Bush had known about the National Intelligence Estimate that Iran had stopped their nuclear weapons program in 2003, yet he continued to claim that they were close to manufacturing a nuclear weapon, even though they knew that this information had been discounted by US intelligence.

The Articles’ of Impeachment numbered 35. Each was more damning than the one before. He made the case that of this Administration’s systematic deception that was aimed directly at the American people so that this Administration could pursue what it thought appropriate, regardless of the laws of the United States.

You will be able to see the entire broadcast of Rep. Kucinich’s appearance very soon. I watched it live for over three hours. Everything from the President’s cover-up of Global Warming, to the NSA spying on American citizens was mentioned. The case to me was rock solid. There were so many abuses of power of the Bush Administration that even if the judiciary committee threw out half of the articles of impeachment, there would be more than enough evidence to remove Bush from office.

This MUST be done so that Bush cannot pardon the people in his administration. He must be removed from office to show the American people that we will never suffer another law-breaking tyrant in the Executive Branch. His Impeachment proceedings against Vice-President Cheney are still in the Judicial Committee. Why? When is Congress going to take their Constitutional Oversight responsibilities seriously? To this writer, it seems that we don’t have on dysfunctional branch of government, we have two. Congress needs to wake up and go to work. Even in this election cycle they still have an obligation to do their jobs that we pay them for. The things that I heard last night, again and again, made me quite disgusted with my government. This has got to stop, and today is as good a day as any.

We know that the Republicans will try to stop this impeachment proceeding. The question I have for the Republicans is how can they stop these proceedings in good conscience when they understand the number of laws that this President has broken? Is it good government to let “one of your own” willfully flaunt the laws of this nation and thumb his nose at the Constitution? That would be a travesty. It would not bode well for these Republicans in their election efforts now that the truth has been told. We need to get past this criminal administration and bring the rule of law back to this country. We are viewed by the World as a “Rogue State”, a country that willfully ignores the Geneva Conventions and The World Court. This American has been ashamed of his nation’s performance over the last seven years. I’m sure that many Americans other than this one are feeling the same way. At this particular point, your party affiliation should not enter the picture. What is wrong is wrong and that should be the standard, regardless of the office one holds. This is a country of law. When those laws are broken and circumvented, we lose the basic principles of whom and what we are. President Bush should be held to the same standard that we hold all Americans. To do less would impugn our reputation and make America a nation that let’s itself be dominated by lawbreakers.

timgatto@hotmail.com

www.liberalpro.blogspot.com

2008-05-20T12:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.peterthottam.com/news/news.htm#McGovern%20Letter%20to%20Fallon

Open Appeal for Straight Talk on Iran

by Ray McGovern (May 20, 2008)

Dear Admiral Fallon:

I have not been able to find out how to reach you directly, so I have drafted this letter in the hope it will come to your attention.

First, thank you for honoring the oath we commissioned officers take to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. As you are doubtless aware, that oath has no expiration date; it remains on active duty, so to speak.

You have let it be known that, even though you are now retired, you do not intend to speak, on or off the record, about the looming war with Iran.

You are acutely aware of the dangers of attacking Iran, but seem to be allowing an inbred reluctance to challenge your erstwhile commander in chief to trump that oath, and to prevent you from letting the American people know of the catastrophe about to befall us if, as seems likely, our country attacks Iran.

Two years ago I lectured at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. I found it highly disturbing that, when asked about the oath they took upon entering the academy, several of the "Mids" thought it was to the commander in chief. This brought to my mind the photos of German generals and admirals (as well as top church leaders and jurists) swearing personal oaths to Hitler. Not our tradition, and yet…..

I was aghast that only the third Mid I called on got it right — that the oath is to protect and defend the Constitution, not the president.

Attack Iran: Trash the Constitution

No doubt you are very clear that an attack on Iran would be a flagrant violation of the Constitution of the United States, which stipulates that treaties ratified by the Senate become the supreme law of the land; that the United Nations Charter treaty — which the Senate ratified by a vote of 89 to 2 on July 28, 1945 — expressly forbids attacks on other countries, unless they pose an imminent danger; that there is no provision allowing some other kind of "pre-emptive" or "preventive" attack against a nation that poses no imminent danger; and that Iran poses no imminent danger to the United States or its allies.

You may be forgiven for thinking: Isn't 41 years of service enough; isn't it enough that I resigned in order to remove myself from a chain of command with no conscience or respect for national or international law — that I shuddered at the thought of being charged in some earthly or heavenly court as a war criminal, if I "just followed orders" and helped start an unprovoked war on Iran? Isn't making my misgivings known to journalists last year, realizing fully that this could be a career-ender — isn't all that enough?

With respect, sir, no, that's not enough. The stakes here are extremely high, and together with the integrity you have already shown goes still further responsibility. Sadly, the vast majority of your general officer colleagues have, for whatever reason, ducked that responsibility. You are pretty much it.

In their lust for attacking Iran, administration officials will do their best to marginalize you, but you do not strike me as one likely to be deterred by that. And, prominent a person that you are, the corporate media surely will try to do the same, if you exposed the lies given as justification for attacking Iran.

Indeed, there are clear signs the media have been given their marching orders to support an attack on Iran-to include pre-censorship of factual stories exposing administration hyperbole and fecklessness, as the White House and the Pentagon paint a dubious portrait of the dangers posed by Iran.

Preparing a Captive Audience for War…

At the CIA I used to analyze the Soviet press, so you will understand when I refer to the Washington Post and the New York Times as the White House's Pravda and Izvestiya. Sadly, these days it is as easy as during the days of the controlled Soviet press to follow our own government's evolving line with a daily reading of our own controlled press.

In a word, our newspapers are dutifully revving up for war on Iran, and are even trotting out some of the most widely discredited cheerleaders for war on Iraq — the New York Times' Michael Gordon of aluminum tubes fame, for example, who is again parroting what he gets from administration officials and casting it as news.

In some respects the manipulation and suppression of information in the present lead-up to an attack on Iran is even more flagrant and all encompassing than in early 2003 before the invasion of Iraq.

It seems entirely possible that you are unaware of a recent misadventure that speaks volumes about this — unaware precisely because the media have put the wraps on it. So let me adduce one striking example of what is afoot here. The example has to do with the studied, if disingenuous, effort over recent months to blame all the troubles in southern Iraq on the "malignant" influence of Iran.

Sadly, some of your erstwhile colleagues are among the dramatis personae.

…But Covering Up Fiasco

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen told reporters on April 25 that Gen. David Petraeus would be giving a briefing "in the next couple of weeks" that would provide detailed evidence of "just how far Iran is reaching into Iraq to foment instability." Petraeus' staff alerted U.S. media to a major news event in which captured Iranian arms in Karbala would be displayed and then destroyed.

Small problem. When American munitions experts went to Karbala to inspect the alleged cache of Iranian weapons they found nothing that could be linked credibly to Iran.

News to you? That's because this potentially embarrassing episode went virtually unreported in the media-like the proverbial tree falling in the forest with no corporate media to hear it crash. So Mullen and Petraeus live, uninhibited and unembarrassed, to keep searching for Iranian weapons so the media can then tell a story more supportive of the orders they have been given to find ways to blame Iran for the troubles in Iraq. Luckily for them, a fiasco is only a fiasco if folks know about it.

Media suppression of this misadventure is the most significant aspect of this story, in my view, and a telling indicator of how difficult it is to find honest reporting on these key issues.

Meanwhile, the Iraqis announced that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had formed his own Cabinet committee to investigate U.S. claims about Iranian weapons, and to attempt to "find tangible information and not information based on speculation."

Dismissing the Intelligence Estimate

Top officials from the president on down have been dismissing the key judgment of the National Intelligence Estimate released on December 3, 2007, a judgment concurred in by the 16 intelligence units of our government, that Iran had stopped the weapons-related part of its nuclear program in mid-2003.

Always willing to do his part, the malleable CIA chief, Michael Hayden, on April 30 publicly offered his "personal opinion" that Iran is building a nuclear weapon-the National Intelligence Estimate notwithstanding. For good measure, Hayden added:

"It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to the highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq….Just make sure there's clarity on that."

Voicing his various "opinions," Hayden is beginning to sound like the overly clever lawyers who advised him, orally, that it would be just fine to order NSA to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and like the other attorneys who approved water boarding.

And, please, tell me why we should care about Hayden's "personal opinion?" My neighbor Suzie, who gets her news from FOX, keeps voicing her "personal opinion" that all Muslims want to kill Americans, that generals with blue uniforms are the most trustworthy, and that weapons of mass destruction will still be found in Iraq.

But, seriously, I don't need to tell you about the Haydens and the other smartly saluting, desk-riding headquarters generals here in Washington.

The Price of Silence

What I would suggest is that you have a serious conversation with a real general, Gen. Anthony Zinni, one of your predecessor CENTOM commanders (1997 to 2000). As you know probably better than I, this Marine general is an officer of unusual integrity. Nevertheless, when placed into circumstances very similar to those you now face, he could not find his voice. And so he missed his chance to interrupt-or at least slow down-the juggernaut to war in Iraq. You might ask him how he feels about that now, and what he would advise in current circumstances.

Zinni happened to be one of the honorees at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention on August 26,2002, at which Vice President Dick Cheney delivered the exceedingly alarmist speech, unsupported by our best intelligence, about the nuclear threat and other perils awaiting us at the hands of Saddam Hussein. That speech not only launched the seven-month public campaign against Iraq leading up to the war, but set the terms of reference for the Oct. 1, 2002 National Intelligence Estimate fabricated — yes, fabricated — to convince Congress to approve war on Iraq, which it did ten days later.

Gen. Zinni later shared publicly that, as he listened to Cheney, he was shocked to hear a depiction of intelligence that did not square with what he knew. Although Zinni had retired two years earlier, his role as consultant had required him to stay up to date on intelligence relating to the Middle East. One Sunday morning three and a half years after Cheney's speech, Zinni told Meet the Press. "There was no solid proof that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction…I heard a case being made to go to war."

Zinni had as good a chance as anyone to stop an unnecessary war-not a "pre-emptive war," since there was nothing to pre-empt — and Zinni knew it. What he and other knowledgeable officials could — and should — have tried to block was a war of aggression, defined at the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal as the "supreme international crime."

Sure, Zinni would have had to stick his neck out. He may have had to speak out alone, since most senior officials, like then-CIA Director George Tenet, lacked courage and integrity. In his memoir published a year ago, Tenet writes that Cheney did not follow the usual practice of clearing his August 26, 2002 speech with the CIA; that much of what Cheney said took him completely by surprise; and that Tenet "had the impression that the president wasn't any more aware of what his number-two was going to say to the VFW until he said it."

It is difficult to believe that Cheney's shameless speech took "slam-dunk" Tenet completely by surprise. We know from the Downing Street Minutes, vouched for by the UK as authentic, that Tenet told his British counterpart on July 20, 2002 that the president had decided to make war on Iraq for regime change and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".

Encore: Iran

Admiral Fallon, you know this to be the case also now with respect to the "intelligence" being fixed to "justify" war with Iran. And no one knows better than you that your departure from the chain of command has turned it over completely to smartly saluting martinets. No doubt you have long since taken the measure, for example, of Defense Secretary Robert Gates. So have I.

I was his branch chief when he was a young, disruptively ambitious, CIA analyst. When Ronald Reagan's CIA Director William Casey sought someone to shape CIA analysis to accord with his own conviction that the Soviet Union would never change, Gates leaped at the chance, proved his mettle, and bubbled right up to be chief of analysis. After Casey died, Gates admitted to the Washington Post's Walter Pincus that he (Gates) watched Casey on "issue after issue sit in meetings and present intelligence framed in terms of the policy he wanted pursued." Gates' entire career showed that he learned well at Casey's knee.

So it should come as no surprise that, despite the unanimous judgment of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran stopped the weapons-related aspects of its nuclear program in mid-2003, Gates is now repeating the party line that Iran is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. Some of his earlier statements were more ambiguous, but Gates recently took advantage of the opportunity to bend with the prevailing winds and freshen his own loyalty oath — to the president.

In an interview on events in the Middle East with a New York Times reporter on April 11, Gates was asked whether he was on the same page as the president, Gates replied, "Same line, same word." I imagine you are no more surprised at that than I. Bottom line: Gates will salute smartly and transmit the order, legal or illegal, if Cheney persuades the president to let the Air Force and Navy loose on Iran.

You know the probable consequences; you need to let the rest of the American people know.

A Gutsy Precedent

Can you, Admiral Fallon, be completely alone; can it be that you are the only general officer to resign on principle? And, of equal importance, is there no other general officer, active or retired, who has taken the risk of speaking out in an attempt to inform Americans about President George W. Bush's bellicose fixation with Iran. Thankfully, there is.

Gen. Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush, took the prestigious job of Chairman, President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board when asked by the younger Bush. From that catbird seat, Scowcroft could watch the unfolding of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Over decades dealing with the press, Scowcroft had honed a reputation of quintessential discretion. Thus, it was all the more striking when he did what he decided he had to do to warn Americans about what may be the president's most dangerous fixation.

In an interview with London's Financial Times in mid-October 2004 Scowcroft was harshly critical of the president, charging that Bush had been "mesmerized" by then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger," Scowcroft said. "He has been nothing but trouble."

Needless to say, Scowcroft was given his walking papers and told never to darken the White House doorstep again. His very troubling observations have been largely shunned in the media, and banned from polite conversation here in Washington, although the insight they provide is worth a thousand erudite op-eds. Testifying before Congress on June 16, 2005, I alluded to Scowcroft's comments, and was widely pilloried in the media the next day for being, you guessed it, "anti-Semitic."

A Bush Commitment?

There is ample evidence that Sharon's successors believe they have extracted a commitment from President Bush to "take care of Iran" before he leaves office, and that the president has done nothing to disabuse them of that notion — no matter the consequences.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum at Sharm el Sheikh on Sunday, Bush threw in a gratuitous reference to "Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions."

"To allow the world's leading sponsor of terror to gain the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

Pre-briefing the press, Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley identified Iran as one of the dominant themes of the trip, adding repeatedly what seemed to be the PR formula of the day; namely, that Iran "is very much behind" all the woes afflicting the Middle East, from Lebanon to Gaza to Iraq, even to Afghanistan.

The Rhetoric is Ripening

In the coming weeks, at least until U.S. forces can find some real Iranian weapons in Iraq, the rhetoric is likely to focus on what I call the Big Lie — the claim that Iran's president has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." In his controversial speech in 2005, Ahmadinejad was actually quoting from something Ayatollah Khomeini had said in the early eighties. Khomeini was expressing a hope that a regime that was treating the Palestinians so unjustly would be replaced by a more equitable one.

A distinction without a difference? I think not. Words matter. As you may already know (but most Americans don't), the literal translation from Farsi of what Ahmadinejad said is "The regime occupying Jerusalem much vanish from the pages of time." Contrary to what the administration and corporate media would have us all believe, the Iranian president was not threatening to nuke Israel, push it into the sea, or wipe it off the map — or, as is so often heard, "destroy" it.

President Bush is way out in front on this issue, and this comes through with particular clarity when he ad-libs answers to questions. On October 17, 2007, long after he had been briefed on the key intelligence finding that Iran had stopped the nuclear weapons-related part of its nuclear development program, the president spoke as though, well, "mesmerized." He said:

"But this — we got a leader in Iran who has announced he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems you ought to be interested in preventing them from have (sic) the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously."

Some contend that Bush does not really believe his rhetoric. I rather think he does, for the Israelis seem to have his good ear, with the tin one aimed at the U.S. intelligence he has repeatedly disparaged. But, frankly, which would be worse: that Bush believes Iran to be an existential threat to Israel and thus requires U.S. military action? — or that he knows it's just rhetoric to "justify" U.S. action to "take care of" Iran for Israel?

What You Can Do

Admiral Fallon, you can surely speak authoritatively about what is likely to happen — to U.S. forces in Iraq, for example — if Bush orders your successors to begin bombing and missile attacks on Iran. I imagine you have spent more than one sleepless night sorting through the full array of Iranian options for serious retaliation.

And you could readily update Scowcroft's remarks, by drawing on what you observed of the Keystone Cops efforts of White House ideologues like Iran-Contra convict Elliot Abrams, supported by amateurish covert action operatives and Israeli intelligence, to overturn by force the ascendancy of Hamas in 2006-07 and Hezbollah. (Abrams pled guilty to two misdemeanor counts of misleading Congress about the Iran-Contra affair, but was pardoned by the first President Bush on Dec. 24, 1992.)

Clearly, it is the arch-neoconservative Abrams, aided, instructed, and abetted by the vice president, who is running U.S. policy toward the Middle East. And it is just as clear that the status of the secretary state has been reduced simply to "frequent flyer."

It is easy to understand why no professional military officer would wish to be in the position of taking orders originating from the likes of Abrams — not to mention the vice president.

If you weigh in, as I believe your (non-expiring) oath to protect and defend the Constitution dictates, you might conceivably prompt other sober heads and courageous hearts to speak out. I hope you will agree that an attack on Iran can still be prevented, but it seems that this will take more outspokenness and energy than those of us who see what is coming have been able to muster so far. And the controlled press is a huge problem.

Were you to speak out strongly at this stage, the media could not ignore you. I cannot bring myself to believe that you, like so many on the Hill, would be cowed at the prospect of being pilloried by FOX and branded anti-Semitic. And, who knows; perhaps some of those former subordinate officers who admire you for what you have done, will be encouraged to go and do likewise.

And, in the end, if profound ignorance and ideology — supported by a captive corporate press and abetted by political parties supine before the Israel lobby — enable an attack on Iran, and the Iranians, for example, take thousands of our troops hostage in southern Iraq, you will be able to look in the mirror, and at the rest of us, and say at least you tried.

You will not have to live with the remorse of not knowing what you might have made possible, had you been able to shake your reluctance to speak out.

Leadership does not end with retirement; neither do oaths.

Respectfully,

Ray McGovern
Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

Ray McGovern is a veteran Army intelligence officer and a former CIA analyst for 27 years.

(Emphasis added - B.M.)

2008-05-05T16:24:00.000-07:00

THE COMPLICITY OF AUSTRALIA IN USA WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
by Benajmin Merhav

Contrary to the Australian governments' propaganda Australia is not a fully indepedent country, and it never has been so. Australia has been part of the British empire until the 2nd WW (and it still has the British queen as its head of state). As a matter of fact all of its wars until the 2nd WW had been fought in the service for the British empire.

Even during the 2nd WW , which had been fought against the Hitler regime of fascist Germany, and against Imperial Japan, Australia's military services were part of the defence of the British empire.

Following the end of the 2nd WW, and the crumbling of the British empire, Australia changed its masters - from the British empire rulers to the USA empire rulers. With the change came the change of service, namely, Australia's comprador rulers have now ordered Australians to fight, kill and die for USA imperialism in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. And there are,of course, permanent USA military bases in Australia as part of this service to USA imperialism, as Australia turned into a de facto colony of the USA. No wonder then that along with this service to USA imperialism came also the Australian governments' loyalty to the zionist apartheid regime of Israel too.

The most important USA military base in Australia is, perhaps, Pine Gap in Australia's north. The following is an excerpt from a report/article by Richard Neville.

http://www.richardneville.com/

"...On the flight from Sydney to Alice Springs the desert unfolds for hours beneath the window. On descent it is possible to glimpse a space age compound on the sand backed by the MacDonnell Ranges and distinguished by a clump of enormous white pop art “golf balls”. This is Pine Gap, a US military base built on the traditional land of the indigenous Arrernte people, which started life in 1966. Australians were told the facility was to be a weather station. Later the official cover was a "Space Research Centre". Our citizens remained in the dark until 1975, when Prime Minister Whitlam revealed that Pine Gap’s boss, Richard Stallings, was an agent of the CIA. Up till then, according to former Minister Clyde Cameron, politicians had regarded the base as “a pretty harmless sort of operation”. Whitlam demanded a list of all CIA agents in the country. This infuriated US spy masters, who put pressure on the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) to shut him up. CIA fears over the leaking of Pine Gaps’ secret activities helped to trigger the murky events that toppled the Whitlam government.

Pine Gap’s first generation of satellites was designed to monitor Soviet missile developments and for espionage in South East Asia, especially Vietnam, and later to spy on China. Since then, both its mission and capabilities have expanded dramatically. The base is believed to have provided targeting information for Israel’s 2006 bombing of Lebanon.

Pine Gap is one of largest and most sophisticated satellite ground stations in the world. Its 26 antennas suck information from the sky and distribute it to US commanders in the field, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it is used to co-ordinate air strikes. In the 2003 “shock and awe” invasion of Baghdad, Pine Gap’s space-based signal intercepts of phone calls made by Iraq’s Generals, led directly to the US Air Force strikes against the country’s leadership. According to defense expert Richard Tanter, “all decapitation strikes missed their nominal targets, but resulted in the deaths of large numbers of Iraqi civilians”. There were over 50 Pine Gap directed strikes in the invasion phase. Of four investigated by Human Rights Watch, 42 civilians were killed and zero soldiers. This averages 13 casualties per strike, which, when multiplied by 50, totals 650 corpses. During this time the Australian media and star commentators were waxing lyrical about the Pentagon’s “precision bombing”.


Pine Gap	Baghdad

Australian anti war campaigner, Donna Mulhearn, was in Baghdad in March 2003 when a missile struck the Al Shuala markets, killing over 60 civilians. Donna took a bus to the site and found "complete devastation with pieces of iron and tin mangled into grotesque shapes. Mashed pieces of fruit and cardboard were soaked in the blood and mud, along with pieces of human flesh”. Hundreds were injured and the hospitals lacked anaesthetics. THE MAN WHO MIGHT HAVE RULED IRAQ The US military denied responsibility. British journalist Robert Fisk found a serial number on a fragment of the weapon’s metal in the rubble, which was traced back to the Raytheon corporation, a provider of space and airborne missile and surveillance systems. Raytheon has sole responsibility for maintenance at Pine Gap. In Al Shuala a grieving Shi-ite asked Mulhearn, “Do your people accept this, the killing of children? Do western people have no honour?”

When she found her way to a bus, her eyes stinging with tears, Donna noticed the bloodstains on her boots. “The sight was shocking and caused my body to shake, then go limp”, she recalled. Her first instinct was to “find a corner somewhere in the outskirts of the world and curl up to weep forever”, but that was not to be. She found another option - to stand up as a witness to war crimes. It was this decision that would later take Donna Mulhearn to Pine Gap.

Joint attack facility

Shortly after aerial massacre at Al Shuala, the Americans bombed the palatial dwelling of Mudher al-Kharbit, a construction magnate who had been secretly advising officials from the CIA on how to unite Iraq’s tribal leaders to rise up against Saddam Hussein. “If that effort had succeeded”, reported the New York Times in April this year, “Mr. Kharbit might have become the ruler of Iraq”. Instead, the bomb killed more than a dozen of Kharbit’s family. The intelligence that led to this air strike was almost certainly provided by Pine Gap, and it was not entirely baseless. For reasons related to tribal obligations, Saddam Hussein was hiding at the Kharbit compound that night, but in a separate villa, and emerged unscathed. As well as wiping out Kharbit’s family, the bombing killed 21 other people, including children.

Shock and Awe 2003.
Today US missiles are still raining down on Baghdad

THE MEDIA ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL

According to the NY Times, “the fury it aroused has been widely believed to have helped kick-start the insurgency in western Iraq”. Another question arises. If the intelligence was accurate about the presence of Saddam Hussein, it is likely the US military was aware of the presence of innocent civilians, including women and children. But who wants to think about that? Probably not the people who work at Pine Gap. If Australia wishes to regain its reputation as a fair minded nation, the government will need to take a closer look at this secretive installation, an integral part of the US National Missile Defense scheme, or Star Wars. It aims to put satellite based weapons in space to shoot down any incoming missiles. New radomes (radar + dome) to accommodate the system have already been installed. The majority of Pine Gap’s 1000 staff are Americans drawn from branches of the US military, including the National Security Agency, Army and Navy Information Operations Command, US Navy and Combined Support Group, Air Intelligence Agency, US Air Force, 704th Military Intelligence Brigade, 743rd Military Intelligence Battalion, Marine Cryptologic Support Command, etc. The base is described as a “joint facility”, although key areas are out of bounds to Australians. While visiting US lawmakers are taken on tours of Pine Gap, Federal MP’s are denied entry. (Members of Congress have collectively invested up to $US196 million in companies with Defense Department contracts, earning millions since the onset of the Iraq invasion. Until May 2007, Hillary Clinton held holdings in Honeywell, Boeing and – yes - Raytheon). In 2000, the Howard Government rejected calls by Parliament's Joint Committee on Treaties for a classified briefing on its operations. There is no public debate on the role of Pine Gap, despite its unbending support of all US military actions, regardless of legality or morality. As for the media, they’re asleep at the wheel. CRIMINALS ROAMING THE OUTBACK? Pine Gap hosts the largest CIA facility outside America, so it is reasonable to assume that crimes against humanity, such the kidnap of suspects and their transport to torture zones, have been aided by the capacities of Pine Gap. Day after day, its intelligence kills people. If you regard this is an exaggeration, visit the US Airforce website and click the link marked “airpower summary”, which reveals the number of daily missions conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of these involve air strikes, around a 100 a day, or 36,500 a year, which explains why Pine Gap operates around the clock.

"Raytheon" means the 'Light of the Gods' - the dark Gods

On a December midnight in 2005, after seeking the permission of a traditional custodian of the Arrernte land, four resolute Christians trudged across the central desert with bolt cutters. One of the party was Donna Mulhearn, whose visit to Baghdad led her to bone up on the activities of Pine Gap. The group cut through two fences, scrambled on a rooftop and unfurled their banner: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? YOUR BROTHER’S BLOOD CRIES OUT TO ME. Security guards surrounded them. One shouted, “Get on your knees”. “That’s a good idea”, said one of the group, and prayed to God that the guard would one day cease his co-operation with the violence of Pine Gap. The Christians explained they had entered the base to carry out a Citizen’s Inspection. (A few days before, the facility had been inspected by John Negroponte, the former US Ambassador to Iraq and Director of National Intelligence, who is now Deputy Secretary of State. Renowned for his “dirty work in Honduras” in the 1980’s, Negroponte has long been accused of complicity with human rights abuses, torture and assassinations.

Adele Goldie inspecting the facilities

The four pacifists were arrested, charged with entering a prohibited area and put on trial. One of the defendants, Jim Dowling, told the jury that after Nuremberg, citizens had the right and a duty to take action against a government guilty of war crimes. “When an Apache gunship approaches a target in Iraq”, noted defendant Bryan Law, “it will be receiving data transferred from Pine Gap. When a missile is directed at that target, the information will also have come from Pine Gap”. (The helicopters are still at it. In March this year, six Sunni fighters from the "Awakening" movement allied to the US, were killed in strikes by an AH-64 Apache helicopter in Samarra, Iraq, their bodies loaded onto a pickup.) In March 2003, Donna Mulhearn had witnessed the results of missile strikes on civilians and she asked the jury to “honour the humanity of the unknown person whose blood is on my boots”.

STRIKING AT THE HEART OF NATIONAL SECURITY

Expert witnesses called by the defense to illuminate the operations of Pine Gap were ruled inadmissible by the Alice Springs court, as such testimony was deemed contrary to the national interest. The “Pine Gap Four” were convicted and fined. The government appealed. The prosecutor demanded a jail term, stating the actions of the Christians “struck at the heart of national security”. The case dragged on until March this year, when the defendants were unexpectedly acquitted because their witnesses had been prevented from giving evidence. The trial received scant attention. The courthouse was not ringed with demonstrators. The Australian community remains uninformed about the case and its implications. One of the defendants was interviewed on ABC radio’s Law Report to discuss the legal niceties of the proceedings - not the nasty side of Pine Gap. Dream on Australia! The much-hailed withdrawal of our troops from Iraq is an irrelevant shadow play, because the cut and thrust of the terror war is orchestrated from a military base in Central Australia, impervious to investigation. What if Pine Gap had stuck to its originally claimed role of monitoring weather? The world might have received an early warning on global warming; and the Central Desert, the soul of Australia, would not now be disfigured by an American controlled intelligence weapon of mass destruction.

Outside Alice Springs courthouse:
Jim Dowling, Bryan Law, Adele Goldie, Donna Mulhearn

http://www.richardneville.com/

2008-04-16T15:22:00.001-07:00

Financial Meltdown And
The Madness Of Imperialism

By Raymond Lotta

16 April, 2008
Countercurrents.org

The past 10 days will be remembered as the time the U.S. government discarded a half-century of rules to save American financial capitalism from collapse.”

—David Wessel, economics editor, Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2008

“Be greedy when others are fearful.”

—Warren Buffet, leading investment capitalist, quoted by The Economist, April 5, 2008

[To the possessor of money capital] “the process of production appears merely as an unavoidable intermediate link, as a necessary evil for the sake of money-making. All nations with a capitalist mode of production are therefore seized periodically by a feverish attempt to make money without the intervention of the process of production.”

—Karl Marx, Capital, Volume II, “The Circuit of Money Capital”

The U.S. economy is experiencing the most wrenching financial turmoil since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Global markets have been reeling—as massive loans have turned bad, speculative bubbles have popped, and giant financial institutions have tottered.

Financial turbulence originating in the U.S. has slowly expanded and worsened. There is now a global credit crisis. Banks and financial institutions are weighed down by huge losses caused by “non-performing loans.” Lending channels are choked up, as lenders are being called to pay back their loans, to clean up their balance sheets, and fearful that they are “throwing good money after bad” and won’t be paid back. There is real danger of a breakdown of the financial system. The new president of the International Monetary Fund has stated that the current turmoil poses the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s.1

The U.S. has been at the center of what is now a global financial storm. Bear Stearns, one of the largest and oldest investment banks in the U.S., collapsed in mid-March. The Federal Reserve Bank—which regulates and lubricates the U.S. banking system, and which also plays a special role in the world capitalist economy—has stepped in on an unprecedented scale.

The Federal Reserve took responsibility for $30 billion of basically worthless assets held by Bear Stearns. This paved the way for another financial titan, JP Morgan Chase, to take over the firm. In addition, the Federal Reserve has injected huge amounts of funds into the financial system to ward off additional bank failures and to restore international confidence in the U.S. economy…and to prevent the financial crisis from becoming a total financial breakdown.

Fortune magazine in its April 14 issue analyzes the stakes this way:

“The fear—a justifiable one—is that if one big financial firm fails, it will lead to cascading failures throughout the world. Big firms are so interlinked with one another and with other market players that the failure of one large counterparty, as they’re called, can drag down counterparties all over the globe. And if the counterparties fail, it could down the counterparties’ counterparties, and so on.”2

PART I. A FIRST CUT: UNFOLDING OF THE CRISIS

The financial tornado gathered force in the spring of 2007, starting in the housing sector. The housing boom of the last few years was a boom in mortgage finance. Lenders, and these were not neighborhood finance companies or street-corner usurers but big corporate financial giants, were seeking to make big profits from their ability to tap into foreign capital flooding into the U.S. over the last decade. The Federal Reserve accommodated and encouraged this by keeping interest rates low.

A. Subprime Lending

Enter the world of subprime lending. Subprime loans are loans made to borrowers who would not qualify for a prime mortgage—because they might have “bad credit histories,” etc. And these loans were aggressively marketed, pushed on people through all kinds of deceitful means, with Black and Latino households disproportionately targeted and victimized (see Revolution, “Subprime Mortgage Crisis,” April 13, 2008).

The originators of these subprime loans, along with various financial middle-men, then “securitized” these loans. This means they combined these loans into larger groups of loans, turned them into complex financial products, and then sold them on financial markets. They sought to maximize fees and to “transfer risk” by quickly selling off these loans to other banks and institutional investors (like mutual and pension funds, university endowments, etc.).

But as housing prices turned down and as interest rates went up, homeowners (or those who thought they were homeowners) found themselves strapped with adjustable mortgages requiring larger payments. And many could not afford payments. This triggered a wave of defaults. Investors and institutions that had purchased these mortgage securities (loans that had been grouped into bonds returning interest) found themselves with billions of dollars of near worthless assets. The financial insurers of these loans, yet another layer of “financial middle-men,” could not cover the risks and damage.

B. Global Financial Shocks

In the summer of 2007, fears of big financial losses caused stock market indexes around the world to plummet, including those in the rapidly growing regions of the Third World.

A financial contagion was taking hold.

Over a trillion dollars of funds from around the globe—with much of this from Asia and oil-exporting countries—were invested in the U.S. subprime market. The collapse in the value of mortgage and credit instruments originating in the U.S. weakened the financial balance sheets of banks and other overseas holders of these investments and set off tremors. For instance, in Great Britain, there was a run on the Northern Rock bank; a German bank required a bailout; and a leading French bank was hit hard.

At the same time, financial institutions in the U.S. and elsewhere holding securities of crumbling or dubious value sought to strengthen their overall financial positions. They not only had to “write down,” that is, greatly reduce the value of the bad (“nonperforming”) loans they held. They also had to sell off “healthier” holdings in other parts of the world (investments unrelated to the subprime activities) in order to meet immediate financial commitments. And these sell-offs have had their own destabilizing global repercussions. This was especially the case last year in the stock markets of the Third World.

C. New Dangers and New Risks

By March 2008, the prices of stock of the big Wall Street players involved in this investment activity, firms like Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, had fallen by some 40 percent. And since the onset of the credit crisis, financial institutions in the U.S. have “written down” more than $230 billion in mortgage loans and other assets.3

The Federal Reserve has moved to head off financial panic and to stimulate growth. But these moves have aroused new fears in the still unsettled world financial markets. Why?

There are concerns about the Federal Reserve’s and U.S. Treasury’s ability to absorb what might amount to be hundreds of billions of dollars in bad investments. There are concerns about the ability of the Federal Reserve to pump huge amounts of funds into the U.S. financial system to keep it afloat. There are concerns that short-term and ad hoc efforts to slash interest rates and bail out financial firms may stoke inflation and further weaken the dollar.

This dimension of the crisis, the fragility of the dollar, looms large. It has everything to do with empire. The international role of the dollar—as the world’s leading currency for settling transactions, clearing debts, and holding foreign exchange reserves—is a linchpin of U.S. global supremacy. It is also a linchpin of the whole current global economic order.

But the dollar has been battered in international currency markets. In the last few months, it has sunk to new lows against the euro (the currency used in most of Western Europe), against the Japanese yen, and against the Swiss franc.

Now the dollar has declined considerably in value relative to other major currencies since 2000. But this has been cushioned, managed, and kept functional by the ability of the U.S. economy to attract huge amounts of foreign exchange and foreign capital into financial markets, especially to finance U.S. Treasury debt.

And one of the “disaster scenarios” most worrisome to U.S. imperialist policy makers is the danger of a global run on the dollar: private investors and central banks of other countries unloading their dollar holdings for stronger currencies.

D. A Reflection: Transparency and Anarchy

In early April, on the eve of a gathering of the world’s finance ministers and treasury officials, the International Monetary Fund issued a report on the financial damage caused by the collapse of the housing and credit markets. It warned that financial institutions worldwide might face losses approaching $1 trillion over the next two years.4 This calculation is far above what had been previously estimated. And according to some financial analysts, even this is a gross understatement.

The free market is extolled by bourgeois ideologues for its “transparency.” This is the idea that markets, prices, and interest rates convey all necessary information: about supply, efficiency, choice, and reward.

But one of the distinguishing features of this crisis is the incredible and pervasive lack of knowledge among lenders, borrowers, traders, and insurers about the quality and backing of what they borrow from others…and even of what they lend to others! Things are obscured, covered up, and very opaque.

* There is the anarchy of capitalism, as giant agglomerations of capital battle others for market share and profits, and pursue competitive strategies that have unforeseen effects on the larger system.

* There is the emergence of a newer banking system operating parallel to the older commercial banks. These are the so-called hedge funds, private equity firms, and investment banks. They move huge amounts of capital in and out of financial markets to take advantage of momentary and slight changes in bond prices, interest rates, and currency exchange rates. They borrow against assets that have a shadow existence, far removed from the actual production of value. They have led in creating new financial instruments, in which all kinds of loans of varying risk are bundled together into interest-yielding bonds and the like. And this newer banking system operates in a more unregulated environment than do the commercial banks.

* This is a highly competitive, turbo-charged financial world, where huge blocks of capital seek quick gains at the expense of others. In this setting, speculation, fraud, and deception become part of survival strategies. One example of this in the unfolding of the financial crisis: financial agencies that rate the risk of things like mortgage-backed securities earn higher fees for providing favorable ratings on these new “financial products.” So they lied and deceived investors about real risk. This led to mis-pricing and to baseless expectations of return on investments.

E. A Reflection: A House…Is Not Always a House

As we descend from the skyscrapers of finance to ground level, the human toll comes into clearer view. At the start of 2008, nearly 1.3 million homes in the U.S were in some phase of foreclosure. That works out to more than one in every 100 U.S. households. According to Moody’s Economy.com : “not since the Depression has a larger share of Americans owed more on their homes than they are worth.”5

Think about it. Something as basic and essential as shelter is commodified. A house becomes an investment; its purchase underwritten by tradable financial instruments; and the lure of homeownership then engulfed by the devastating trade winds of the market. And what happens? People’s savings are wiped out. Their creditworthiness is damaged if not destroyed. And many face the prospect of homelessness.

The problem is not that people don’t need houses. Nor is it that society doesn’t have the resources or knowledge to build houses. The problem is that capital stands as a barrier to meeting human need.

PART II: A SECOND CUT:

DEEPER CAUSES AND IMPLICATIONS

Where all this financial turmoil might lead cannot be predicted. A gigantic, speculative credit bubble has burst. Problems in U.S. lending markets and the U.S. banking system have brought on an economic slowdown in the U.S. This in turn is triggering a global slowdown. Consumer goods exporters of Asia that have relied heavily on trade with the U.S. are especially vulnerable. And so too are countries in Eastern Europe that have borrowed heavily to finance growth.

Here is one tiny snapshot of the fallout and pain from the financial crisis. The U.S. housing slump has led to the loss of some 100,000 construction jobs, many that had been filled by undocumented immigrants. That has dramatically slowed the growth of money sent back home by these workers. After nearly quadrupling to $24 billion in 2006 from $6.6 billion in 2000, these earnings sent home grew only 3 percent in 2007, the slowest rate of growth in 20 years.6 Families in Mexico have come to depend on these remittances for food and clothing and other basic essentials.

The buildup and collapse of this latest speculative bubble, and intensifying financial fragility that could lead to massive breakdown, are in fact outward expressions of deeper processes and transformations at work in the world capitalist economy.

We need to take a step back.

A. Globalization and Financialization

For the last 15 years, world capitalist expansion has pivoted on a particular international dynamic and structure. This has involved heightened financialization and parasitism in the advanced capitalist countries —with the United States at the epicenter of this process; and the fuller integration of low-cost, export-producing countries of the Third World into the world capitalist market —with China at the epicenter of this process.

The turning point in this process was the collapse of the social-imperialist Soviet Union in 1990-91. With the implosion of the Soviet bloc, the main geopolitical obstacle to U.S. imperialist freedom of action was removed. At the same time, and very much in connection with this, imperialist globalization accelerated. (This is analyzed in considerable depth in Notes on Political Economy: Our Analysis of the 1980s, Issues of Methodology, and the Current World Situation, 2000, RCP Publications.)

Over the last 15 years, a globally integrated cheap-labor manufacturing economy, with huge labor reserves from China, India, and other parts of the Third World, along with labor from the former Soviet bloc, has been forged. The globalization of production has had enormous effects on world accumulation: raising profitability for imperialist capital, acting to compress wages, and lowering inflationary pressures. The integration of cheap-labor manufacturing into world production is now so deep that in the U.S., fully half of imports (mostly consumer goods) come from the Third World.

A revealing statistic: a University of California study looked into who gains when an iPod manufactured by national firms in China is sold in America for $299. Only $4 stays in China with the firms that assemble the devices, while $160 goes to American companies that design, transport, and retail iPods.7

When we speak of capitalist accumulation, we are referring to the competitive production of surplus value (the source of profit) based on the exploitation of wage labor; and the investment and reinvestment of profit on an expanding, cost-cheapening, and technologically more productive basis.

When we speak of “financialization,” we are referring to three particular features of the larger structure of capitalist accumulation in this period of imperialist globalization: a) the growing political and economic power of the financial layers of the capitalist class; b) the vast expansion of financial activities and of financial services, like organizing and financing corporate takeovers, insuring investments against risk, creating new financial instruments, etc.—activities in which profit-making involves the siphoning, centralization, and reinvestment of surplus value through financial channels; and c) the increasing separation of finance from production.

This process of financialization has gone the furthest in the United States, and it is a major factor in U.S. imperialism’s ability to preserve and extend its dominance in international financial markets.8

Financialization is also a means through which wealth, and effective control over productive forces, is centralized by the imperialist countries—even as production has grown more geographically dispersed and increasingly carried out within subcontractural networks in the Third World.

Financialization involves efforts to squeeze out more “value” from already created value. One measure of this is that in 2006, the daily volume of trading in foreign exchange markets and in derivatives (financial instruments) added up to $11.4 trillion—which almost equals the annual value of global merchandise exports that year. In terms of the shifts in the structure of the U.S. economy, the financial sector’s share of total corporate profits has risen from 8 percent in 1950 to 31 percent last year.9

B. Financialization and Production

As far removed as finance may be from processes of production, and as elaborate and multi-layered as its operations have become, finance cannot break free of the sphere of production. Even as it objectively seeks to do so—and even as the disjuncture between the two spheres (production and finance) grows—it is the underlying conditions and profitability of production that set the overall conditions for the accumulation of capital.

Imperialism is a worldwide system of production and exchange. It is the structure of social production—it is the global production of surplus value based on exploitation of people—that is at the foundation of this whole system. And in relation to the production of surplus value, “financialization” is both parasitic and functional. It is parasitic in the sense that financialization drains value from production.

But financialization is functional to the workings of global capitalism in the sense that it facilitates the gathering of money capital into ever-larger agglomerations of capital and finds new profit-yielding channels in which to rapidly invest it…and just as quickly to withdraw it! Global capital faces all kinds of financial uncertainties and risks on its competitive global playing field as it moves through different channels, or circuits, of production. And the “risk-management” techniques provided by the global financial system are actually vital to the accumulation of capital, to the success of “risk-taking,” in the turbo-charged globalized economy.10 That’s why, for example, money jumps into Thai real estate markets one day, and pulls out and goes into ethanol production in Brazil the next… and then back to mortgage securities.

And there is something else: the inflows and outflows of short-term and speculative capital also act as a perverse means of imposing discipline on and restructuring capitals—a major manufacturing firm can be starved of credit or threatened with a leveraged buyout. And this kind of “financial discipline” has been imposed on whole countries in the Third World—aided, abetted, and orchestrated by the U.S.-dominated International Monetary Fund.

All this is part of the reason that financial instability is a constant feature of capitalism in its more globalized and financialized forms of existence.

Financialization and the globalization of production have been tightly bound up with each other. It can be put this way: there is a relationship between sweatshop labor in Guangdong province in China, the recycling of China’s export earnings into the U.S. Treasury and U.S. financial markets, and the credit-financed expansion in the U.S. of the last decade. Or, to put it more graphically, there is a link between the agony of superexploited labor in the bowels of the new industrial zones of the Third World, the feverish search for high and quick returns at the top of the financial pyramids, and the chaos of the housing markets with people losing their homes in the U.S.

This is an extreme concentration of the nature of world capitalism. This world is highly bound together by production, trade, and finance. The requirements of life (consumer goods) and the requirements of production (machines and raw materials, etc.) are socially produced, that is, they involve the collective and interconnected efforts of wage-laborers in factories, warehouses, and so forth. But this wealth, the technology and means of producing it, and knowledge itself—all this is privately controlled and deployed by a small capitalist class.

C. Barriers, Contradictions, and Shifting Tectonic Plates

What we are witnessing now is that a particular dynamic of growth, marked by intensified financialization, is generating new contradictions and new barriers to sustained accumulation.

The level of debt to economic output in the U.S. is at an all-time high. The financing of the trade and government deficits of U.S. imperialism (that is, providing credit for purchases of imports and having investors buy Treasury debt) depends on a steady and growing inflow of capital from abroad. But the weakening of the dollar and the emergence of competitor currencies, like the euro, increasingly threatens these mechanisms. And very crucial to this has been the process where dollars earned by countries like China through trade with the U.S., are then recycled back into the U.S. economy through purchase of Treasury bonds and other investments.

In the U.S., the financial sector is seriously strained and is a flashpoint of heightened global financial instability, if not breakdown, leading to a major economic slump.

Here we come to a basic point of this analysis: A financial crisis has broken out because of the severe imbalances built up between the financial system—and its expectations of future profits—and the accumulation of capital, that is, the structures and actual production of profit based on exploitation of wage-labor.

The imperialist state is intervening to head off further damage and to discipline and restructure the financial system. But the very complexity of the “financial packages” created during the speculative boom—with their bundled-up loans and long strings of finance—are producing new challenges for policy-makers. As one Yale economist put it, perhaps unintentionally echoing a phrase from Marx: “like the sorcerer’s apprentice, we have created things we do not understand and cannot easily control.”11

This explosive uncertainty is developing against a larger international canvas. Major shifts are taking place in the world capitalist economy. The European market recently eclipsed the U.S. market in size. China’s growing demand for raw materials to fuel its export economy is making it a new player in the scramble for resources and control over them. And China’s increasing importance as a supplier of capital to the U.S. is giving it new leverage. Russia is reemerging as a world imperialist player, owing in part to its vast energy reserves and rising oil and gas prices.

At the same time, and at this very moment of financial crisis, U.S. imperialism’s freedom of maneuver is severely hobbled—and this includes its ability to stimulate the economy through fiscal and monetary policy. The United States has never run such large current account deficits and no single country’s deficit has ever bulked as large relative to the global economy.

D. The Military Fix

Which brings us to one of the “dirty little secrets” of the financial crisis: the military needs and the military costs of empire…and “greater empire.”

There is a brute fact of imperialist accumulation. The whole imperialist system rests on the domination of vast swaths of the globe through savage force, with the U.S. military colossus playing a special role. The U.S. military helps “create the conditions” for U.S. domination, pro-U.S. client regimes in the Third World, and conditions for investment by U.S. corporations.

In the Bush era, U.S. imperialism has been attempting to parlay its military might into a new world order. This involves a restructuring of global political and production relations that will enable it to resolve or mitigate some of the problems and tensions it faces—and to lock in its global supremacy over rivals and potential rivals for decades to come.

The U.S. share of world production has declined to about 20 percent, down from 30 percent forty years ago. But U.S. imperialism is compensating for this by pressing its military advantage as sole imperialist “superpower” (since the collapse of the Soviet Union).

In a recent study, Chalmers Johnson has calculated that defense-related spending for fiscal 2008 will exceed $1 trillion for the first time in history. Leaving out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense spending has doubled since the mid-1990s.12

Militarization is also embedded in the U.S. economy. It is a key structural component of growth, scientific research, and technological prowess of U.S. imperialism. And because of its sheer size, it also plays a role in the attempts of the U.S. imperialist state to “manage” and stimulate the economy.

But the recent wave of militarization has put enormous financial strains on U.S. imperialism. It has produced huge deficits that cannot be sustained without the inflow of capital into the U.S. And the wars for “greater empire” are incurring astronomically greater costs than military and government planners had anticipated. Not least because of the setbacks and difficulties U.S. imperialism has encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is a sharp contradiction for U.S. imperialism—because in many ways it is staking the future of empire on these wars; but these wars have become more costly to wage. And it is the height of hypocrisy for Democrats to now blame the Iraq war for financial crisis—as they consistently voted for war-spending authorizations, to the tune of $500 billion.

PART III: CONCLUSION

This is a financial crisis of historic proportions. And like many other events in the world, this crisis points to the fundamental irrationality and cruelty of the system. It also shows the vulnerability of imperialism to sharp turns that could open up new possibilities for revolutionary advance.

But things unfold in complex, unpredictable, and historically conditioned ways. And as serious and potentially destabilizing as this crisis may become, it is also possible that U.S. imperialism could turn this crisis to its advantage.

We live in an age of “endless war” and environmental devastation. We live in an ever-more globalized capitalist system that thrives on the toil and agony of the great bulk of humanity but that cannot escape the anarchy that lies at its very foundations.

There is necessity and freedom for the imperialists. And so too for the people.

Footnotes

1. Quoted in Steven R. Weisman, “Financial Regulators Suggest Tighter Controls,” The New York Times, April 12, 2008. [back]

2. Allan Sloan, “On the Brink of Disaster,” Fortune, April 14, 2008, p. 82. A useful discussion of derivatives, hedge funds, and the like is found in “The Predators’ Ball Resumes: Financial Mania and Systemic Risk,” Interview with Damon Silvers, Multinational Monitor, May-June 2007. [back]

3. S. Tully, “What’s Wrong With Wall St. and How to Fix It,” Fortune, April 14, 2008, p. 72; Reed Abelson and Louise Story, “G.E. Earnings Drop, Raising Broader Fears,” The New York Times, April 12, 2008. [back]

4. Sean Farrell, “Financial turmoil could cost $1trn, warns IMF as global growth comes under threat,” Independent.co.uk, 9 April 2008. [back]

5. Data from RealityTrac.com, January 29, 2008; Moody’s Economy.com, February 21, 2008. [back]

6. The New York Times, January 24, 2008. [back]

7. Cited in Charlemagne, “Winners and losers,” The Economist, March 1, 2008, p. 56. [back]

8. Among informative studies of financialization, neoliberalism, and dollar hegemony are David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (London: Oxford, 2005); Andrew Glyn, Capitalism Unleashed (London: Oxford, 2006); Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy (New York: Viking, 2006); Ramaa Vasudevan, “Finance, Imperialism, and the Hegemony of the Dollar,” Monthly Review, April 2008; and C.P. Chandrasekhar, “Continuity or Change? Finance Capital in Developing Countries a Decade after the Asian Crisis,” Economic and Political Weekly, December 15, 2007. [back]

9. See Chandrasekhar, “Continuity or Change,” pp. 37-38; The New York Times, December 11, 2007. [back]

10. On financialization as a means to contain financial disorder and to impose neoliberal discipline, see Christopher Rude, “The Role of Financial Discipline in Imperial Strategy,” in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, eds., Socialist Register 2005: The Empire Reloaded (London: Merlin Press, 2004). [back]

11. David Dapice, “Bad Spell on Wall Street,” Policyinnovations.org, January 24, 2008. [back]

12. Chalmers Johnson, “Why the US has really gone broke,” mondediplo.com (English edition), February 5, 2008. [back]

Raymond Lotta is author of the books, America in Decline and Maoist Economics and the Road to Revolutionary Communism, a member of URPE and contributor to Revolution Newspaper

2008-01-18T08:24:00.000-08:00

WHO, UN, US, DU And NGOs

By Clinton Callahan

18 January, 2008
Countercurrents.org

The World Health Organization (WHO) clearly defines characteristic actions of a psychopathic megalomaniac. In particular, such persons should not have access to weapons of mass (and in the case of DU dirty bombs, permanent) destruction.

There is an institution designed to protect the world from such creatures: the UN. When reasonable international laws are being flagrantly broken, the UN is empowered to take immediate action to protect humanity. That is what the UN is for.

Given that the US political military regime has used illegal DU (Depleted Uranium) weapons to make 8% of the world’s surface uninhabitable for all eternity in the most horribly unthinkable way – radioactivity – immediate sanctions against the US and war crime trials for its present regime are now in order. Especially since the same regime is busily arranging to continue its warmongering. The 14 states suing the US government over car emission limits should be suing the US government for war crime trials over using DU weapons in Lebanon, Serbia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and in testing and training grounds in USA and Australia, blowing tons of lethal radioactive dust into the atmosphere around the entire globe – in our names!

There is a petition to the UN: A Call for a War Crimes Tribunal at the United Nations, found at this link: http://www.petitiononline.com/qu9p0205/petition.html

By the filename it looks like the petition went online in 2005. To date there are 135 signatures on that petition. Not 135 million, not 135 thousand. Just 135 people in the whole world are aware or brave (or stupid) enough to put their names on such a petition. How many possible signers have been too afraid to identify themselves as someone who encourages the UN to take actions against the US because they fear being the first ones rounded up and sent to the homeland security prison camps? Is that the America you want to live in?

It is the UN's job to manage any country that gets so out of control that it cannot manage itself. The US is not managing itself. Unconscionable actions by the US have already gone far beyond the domain of mere politics. Do you think that the millions of rounds of DU munitions stockpiled in US military bases in South Korea and Japan are intended to remain just sitting there? The potential contamination force of these illegal weapons represents the genocidal plans of a madman regime.

How much does it take to inspire the UN leadership to reclaim its integrity and disallow the subversion of US-paid indecision makers? How many hundreds of thousands of cancerated soldiers and civilians, and babies born with no brains and organs outside their bodies will finally cause the UN to step up to its rightful responsibility to protect the world's peoples from being victimized by power crazed psychopaths?

When the cat has no claws, the rats rule the world. How much more disgrace will the UN endure before it springs into appropriate action with righteously swift claws? Got any ideas?

Because there are hundreds of thousands of dedicated people around the world right now working through more than 40,000 international NGO’s and having tremendous success in helping others. Courageous groups are inventing and adopting a wide variety of sustainable cultures in experimental ecovillages, providing blueprints that we can follow for carbon free and therefore sustainable lifestyles. But none of these positive seeds of human hope can grow on land that is contaminated by Depleted Uranium weapons fired by twisted minds in a world already suffocating in the greenhouse gases of the future’s squandered oil reserves. Please protect us, UN. Please.

Clinton Callahan is affiliated with www.callahan-academy.com. Author of the book Radiant Joy Brilliant Love, trainer, naturalist and activist currently living in Germany, he can be reached at: clinton@callahan-academy.com.

(Emphasis added - B.M.)

2008-01-15T14:36:00.000-08:00

CONGRESS (USA) MEMBERS REPRESENT BIG BUSINESS AND THEMSELVES, NOT THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE
by Benjamin Merhav

Behind the official false rhetoric about democracy in the USA there is this daily reality of big business rule. Hence the reluctance of Congress to impeach the Bush-Cheney gang. Hence the connivance by Congress in the continuation of USA war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the preparations for a new war : against Iran.

In return for their loyalty to big business Congress members are allowed corruption on a big scale. In addition to corruption instigated by the zionist lobby in Washington, as well as by other lobbies there, there is another form of corruption revealed by the article below, emailed to me by REAL NEWS. Titled, SECRET PORK-BARREL SPENDING, the article is by a Republican Congressman, therefore straight from the horse's mouth.

I looked up the dictionary for the definition of "pork-barrel spending", and I found a reference to http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_Pork_Barrel_Spending
which describes the corrupt practice, concluding as follows :

"Pork-barrel spending amounts to nothing more than bribe-taking, where politicians use their constituents' tax dollars to support their reelection. It's a game of hide-and-seek that harms our representative form of democracy and threatens our fiscal stability."

The question why would the article's author still remain a member of the Republican Party and a member of a corrupt Congress is similar to the question which has been addressed to Ron Paul, the Republican "messiah". Both refuse to support the impeachment of the Republican Bush-Cheney gang.

GENUINE DEMOCRACY IS A DIRECT, PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY !

POWER TO THE PEOPLE NOW (before it is too late) !

	from	REAL NEWS
to		"ben.merhav@gmail.com" ,
date		Jan 16, 2008 6:37 AM
subject		SECRET PORK-BARREL SPENDING
mailed-by		ij.net

"CONGRESS USED TRICKERY TO STEAL SECRET, SELF-SERVING
SPENDING WITHOUT ACTUALLY READING OR VOTING

By John Shadegg, U.S.Congressman, Arizona
January 11, 2008

As they left town for Christmas, Congress passed an unprecedented
end-of-the-year appropriations bill with billions in wasteful spending
designed principally to benefit incumbent members of Congress. This bill
includes thousands of self-serving Member-directed spending projects and
displays total disregard for both legislative process and the
Constitution.

Though civics teaches that both Houses of Congress must
pass a bill before it can be presented to the president for his signature
to become law, this did not happen. Instead the House, fearful of
political fallout, used trickery so members could avoid voting on the
actual bill as it passed the Senate. A dangerous precedent.

The 3,417-page bill (34 pounds) was dropped barely 20 hours before
final consideration by the House. It included 9,170 member-directed
spending projects. Over 300 of these had never been made public, seen by
rank-and-file Members, or passed by either House. Combined with the
2,161 passed earlier, Members gave themselves a total of 11,331
self-serving projects, costing Americans over $20 billion this year.
During a season of goodwill, this bill, and those who crammed it through
Congress, showed none toward American taxpayers, their children, or
grandchildren.

This legislation continues an embarrassing trend in government
pork-barrel spending, funneling untold billions into pet projects
designed to reelect incumbents. Most such projects are not requested, or
even supported, by the departments obligated to deliver them. Many are
outright corrupt -- directing funds to members' contributors, former
staffers, and even family members.

The Democrat leadership promised to
"make this the most honest, ethical, and open Congress in history," yet
under their guidance members of both parties continue brazenly using tax
dollars to benefit themselves.

Senator Ted Stevens matched his "Bridge to Nowhere" with $20 million
for a "Ferry to Nowhere" that appears to benefit his brother-in-law and
former staffers. Congressman Jim Clyburn, the Democrat Whip, obtained
$229,000 for the Drew Wellness Center, a physical fitness center where
his daughter works. In 2003, Clyburn obtained the $900,000 to construct
the center. Clyburn also obtained $3 million for a private charity
associated with the "James Clyburn Golf Center" he established at
taxpayer expense in 2002. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and
Means Committee obtained $1.95 million for a center bearing his name and
bragged on the House Floor that he deserved it. The bill even restored
the now-infamous Hillary Clinton-Chuck Schumer Woodstock museum.
Members devote huge amounts of time to these projects and openly
acknowledge the funds are being used -- not for the larger public good --
but to ensure incumbents' reelection. In a letter to Speaker Pelosi, the
leader of a prominent Congressional Member caucus complained that caucus
members weren't receiving enough projects to ensure the reelection of its
incumbents in "highly contested races." At this rate, members will soon
complain they aren't receiving sufficient bribes to maintain their
lifestyle.

While the short-term ramifications of Washington's corruption and
fiscal promiscuity are disturbing, the long-term consequences for our
children and grandchildren should give every American cause for serious
concern. Because Congress chooses to spend far more than is collected in
current taxes, the government must borrow money to fund our largess.

And borrow we have, to the point where our current national debt is a
whopping $9.2 trillion dollars -- or more accurately $9,193,315,468,
899.43 as of December 21, 2007. That translates to $30,323.94 of debt
for every man, woman, and child in America. (Actually, according to the
Comptroller of the United States, the actual national debt when the IOUs
for Social Security and Medicare are added is $53 trillion --
$53,000,000,000,000.)

Who, exactly, is lending us all this money? Well, Japan has lent us
$586 billion. We owe Communist China $400 billion. Our "friends" in
Saudi Arabia and other oil producing nations have lent us $123 billion.
And here is the really bad news: they expect us to pay them back -- with
interest. In fact, we paid $430 billion in interest on our debt last
year alone.

Of course, current taxpayers are not going to pay anywhere close to
all of that debt -- we can't possibly. So who will be stuck paying for
our wasteful and irresponsible spending? Today's wasteful and corrupt
spending will be tomorrow's obligation. Our children and grandchildren
will be forced to repay today's wasteful spending. Anyone who truly
cares about the future of their children and grandchildren must demand
that Washington put an end to this corrupt and economically disastrous
practice.

One recent survey put Congress's approval rating at eleven percent.
Given the self-serving, wasteful conduct Congress continues to engage in, it is shocking the number is not lower.

There was celebration and back slapping in Washington pre-Christmas
as members congratulated themselves for a job well done. But I suspect,
as Americans learn once again that members of Congress devote more energy
to looking out for themselves than the nation's and our children's
well-being, congressional approval ratings will sink ever further, and
deservedly so."

- John Shadegg is a Republican congressman from Arizona. For more on
member-directed spending projects, see this Congress Daily article.

(Emphasis added - B.M.)

2008-01-14T20:25:00.000-08:00

(USA)ACTION ALERTS ! Take action to save the right to protest on the National Mall! ‏
From:	roses4joanne (roses4joanne@snip.net )
Sent:	Tuesday, 15 January 2008 1:02:32 PM
To:	JOANNE ONEILL (roses4joanne@snip.net)

Government attempting to restrict use of National Mall
Take action right now to defend free speech rights! <>
http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=HPp5i0iCmjteSVealsonRg..

The National Park Service (NPS) is undertaking an initiative similar to that launched to exclude protests from New York City's Great Lawn. It will be used to further restrict or ban protest on the Mall from current levels. This is a component of a nationwide campaign of corporate-sponsored organizations working in partnership with government entities that claim that protests, rallies and demonstrations harm grass or "green space" or "natural resources" and must therefore be restricted or banned or shunted off to designated protest pits.

Take Action

Right now, you can email the National Park Service demanding that there be no restrictions on the right of the people to assemble. We have set up an easy to use mechanism that will allow your message to be sent to the National Parks Service by clicking this link.

http://www.pephost.org/site/R?i=HPp5i0iCmjteSVealsonRg..

It is urgent that people around the country take action to stop the plan of the Bush Administration's Interior Department to obstruct free speech rights for mass assembly protest in Washington, D.C. The Bush White House plans to complete this process and deliver a knockout punch to free speech rights by January, 2009, the very last month that Bush will remain in office.

A lawsuit filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice on behalf of the National Council of Arab Americans and the ANSWER Coalition successfully overturned regulations in New York City that were used to prevent mass assembly protest in the Great Lawn of Central Park during the Republican National Convention. Those planning changes to the use and access to the National Mall have stated that they see structure used to restrict use of the Great Lawn as a model for their activities.

At the hearing the officials tried to quiet the outraged voices of the people, to change the topic of discussion, and to dismiss their concerns. They did, however, keep saying, just send us a message on-line. That is what we are asking everyone to do today.

The government is trying to end the public "comment" period by February 1, 2008. The ANSWER Coalition also demanded at the hearing that the sham process of the NPS be halted. We demanded that a moratorium be declared so that the people of this country can be able and informed to weigh in with their opinion. The National Mall belongs to the people.

Begin Change NOW With Cheney Impeachment Hearings < href="http://democrats.com/" target="_blank">Democrats.com

By an overwhelming 79%-12% margin, Americans want to change the disastrous direction George Bush and Dick Cheney have taken us. But there's no need to wait until January 2009 - we can begin change now with impeachment.

TAKE ACTION TO HAVE HEARINGS

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) is organizing his colleagues ( http://www.wexlerwantshearings.com/ ) to ask House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers to begin Cheney impeachment hearings, and he needs our help.

We're asking other Judiciary Committee Members ( http://judiciary.house.gov/CommitteeMembership.aspx ) to co-sign Wexler's letter to Conyers, and we're asking the rest of Congress to send their own letters to Conyers. Please email your Congressmember here:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/125

NATIONAL CALL IN DAY

On Wednesday, please call your Congressmember through the Capitol Hill Switchboard (202) 224-3121, toll-free at 1-800-828-0498, or directly (http://www.democrats.com/congress ). Tell your Congressmember to urge Chairman Conyers to begin impeachment hearings for Dick Cheney. Then tell your friends and call and email the media. ( http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/media )

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Tell the Candidates: Change Begins NOW

If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, he wouldn't be sniping over the Voting Rights Act of 1964 or Iraq War speeches in 2002.

He'd be leading the largest protests our nation has ever seen to end to the occupation of Iraq, restore the Constitution, massively shift funds from the military to humanity, and impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney for their war crimes and lies.

If the Democratic candidates for President want to compete on who is a better agent of change, it's time for them - all of them - to stop talking and start acting. Email Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, and Barack Obama to

1. Oppose any more Iraq War funds
2. Support Sen. Chris Dodd's filibuster of telco immunity for warrantless wiretapping
3. Support Rep. Robert Wexler's call for Cheney impeachment hearings
4. Support Rep. John Conyers' single-payer non-profit health care plan

http://www.democrats.com/change-now-petition

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Grassroots Impeachment Activists Are Making a Difference

Impeachment activism is exploding from coast to coast.

* John Nirenberg, a retired college professor, has completed a 40-day march from Boston to Washington D.C., where he will ask Speaker Nancy Pelosi to begin impeachment hearings. He's garnered a great deal of media attention along the way and has planned a press conference for noon on January 16th on the Cannon House Office Building Terrace. Watch the end of the march: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/30080

* Citizens with "Impeach" on their shirts were ordered not to view the U.S. Constitution at the National Archives: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/30068

* Subcommittee on the Constitution Chairman Jerrold Nadler's constituents protested repeatedly at his office and went to jail asking for impeachment hearings: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29969 http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29809

* Viggo Mortensen, John Kaminski, Dennis Kucinich, John Nichols, and David Swanson spoke at New Hampshire forum for impeachment. Video: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29968

* A New Hampshire Democratic Party event exploded when Kucinich said the word "Impeach" - http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/30065

* Maine impeachment activism led conservative Democratic congress member Mike Michaud to ask Conyers to begin Cheney impeachment hearings: http://afterdowningstreet.org/me

* A big name impeachment debate shakes up North Carolina: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/30058

* Veterans for Peace brought impeachment to Rep. Pete Visclosky's (D-IN) Town Hall Meetings: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/30051

* Lois Capp's constituents baked her an impeachment pie: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/30079

* Yet another ACLU chapter backs impeachment: http://afterdowningstreet.org/aclu

* Cindy Sheehan to deliver huge stack of pro-impeachment letters to Speaker Nancy Pelosi: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29986

* First newspaper editorialized for Cheney impeachment: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29955

* The Washington and New Hampshire state legislatures are taking up impeachment resolutions this month. The first hearing in Olympia is scheduled for January 17th. Here are details on Washington and New Hampshire, plus the list of resolutions already passed around the country:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/wa and http://afterdowningstreet.org/nh and http://impeachpac.org/resolutions-list

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Boycott General Electric for Censoring Kucinich

General Electric corporate family member NBC has rewritten its criteria for including candidates in debates specifically to exclude the real peace candidate, Dennis Kucinich. Of course GE is a major weapons manufacturer so peace threatens its profits.

Less than 44 hours after NBC sent a congratulatory note and an invitation to Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich to participate in the Jan. 15 Democratic Presidential debate in Las Vegas, the network notified the campaign that it was changing it announced criteria, rescinding its invitation, and excluding Kucinich from the debate.

Contact your congress member and your local media:
http://www.usalone.com/nbc_debates.php

Tell GE you will boycott its products and why.
https://www.ge.com/contact/contact_form.html

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mlk-protest.jpeg

ifc-logo-1.gif

2008-01-04T02:57:00.000-08:00

http://lenzr.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!C608DD7732336975!298.entry

62 Years of Uranium Wars

Hiroshima To Iraq - A Suicidal,Genocidal, Omnicidal Course
By Leuren Moret
04 January

The conduct of secret nuclear wars since 1991, through the use of depleted uranium weaponry by the United States and Great Britain with their allies, has taken place in the Middle East, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan2 and Lebanon.3

It has been carried out for the express purpose of destroying the public health and mutilating the genetic future of vast populations in oil rich and/or pipeline regions. Carpet and grid bombing with depleted uranium weaponry in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan has guaranteed permanent radioactive terrain contamination.

The recent discovery that U.S. depleted uranium bombs dropped by Israel on Lebanon in 2006 contained enriched uranium4,5 suggests covert testing of fourth generation nuclear weapons.

The United States and its allies are fully aware that this weaponry violates the Geneva and Hague Conventions and the 1925 Geneva Poison Gas Protocol.6 It meets the definition of WMD in the U.S. Code7 in two out of three categories. And its use violates U.S. military law.8 since the U.S. is a signatory to The Hague and Geneva Conventions.

The blueprint for depleted uranium radioactive poison gas weaponry dirty bombs, dirty missiles and dirty bullets was contained in a declassified memorandum9 dated Oct. 30, 1943. It was addressed to Gen. Leslie Groves, who was head of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. effort to build atomic bombs in World War II. The recommendation for development of depleted uranium as kinetic energy penetrators was never mentioned in the Groves memo. It was specifically for depopulation.

The Groves memo makes it clear that in 1943, U.S. scientists recommended using radioactive poison gas weapons in order to contaminate the air, water, soil, food, environment and the blood of exposed populations. The long-term contamination is permanent, since uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, making contaminated areas uninhabitable for eternity. For populations that must continue to live in contaminated areas, the long-term effects are lingering illnesses and mutilation of their DNA.

Widespread depleted uranium contamination of DNA in populations results in the potential mutilation of future generations. Mutations induced in the DNA of a single egg or sperm which form a fertilized egg are expressed and repeated in every cell of the developing organism, and defects are passed on to all future generations11.

Not only are U.S. and allied soldiers exposed and civilian populations genocidally targeted, but the depleted uranium pollution is now global.12,13 In reality, we are all Gulf War veterans. Depleted uranium poison gas weaponry, used on a regional scale, meets U.S. National Security Council goals as stated in the "Global 2000 Report: Vision of a Gloomy World" (1980).14 This report recommended that depopulation in third world countries was imperative to the U.S. government purpose of securing mineral and other strategic resources.

Global atmospheric pollution from depleted uranium particulates will result in massive depopulation on a global scale. By increasing death rates and decreasing birth rates globally, more than 2 billion people will be eliminated. Depleted uranium is the ideal weapon to bring about the New World Order, which is global depopulation. In just a few years it has turned Planet Earth into a Death Star.

Depopulation and the accumulation of capital

The following is the depopulation policy thesis set out in this paper: Intentional depopulation and massive genocide are the core policies by which ruling elites drive international relations, economic aid development, strategic weapons development and the design of engineered wars. The operational goal of this intentional depopulation policy is the reduction of the human population.

With presidential approval, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger presented 2 billion people as the desired level of reduction, but in fact the depopulation policy may seek a 2-4 billion reduction, or up to two thirds of the world's population. This depopulation policy is intended by the world's ruling elite to result in control of mineral and strategic resources and water and total control of the world's wealth. One of the most common political epithets for the depopulation policy is "The New World Order."

"All wars are economic in origin," said Bernard Baruch, advisor to presidents during World Wars I and II. Even the 13th century Crusades in the Middle East were not religious wars, but an attempt by special interests in Europe to restabilize and take control over the wealth and revenues of the Silk Road.15 Theology was created to eliminate the "enemies of God" in order to promote and justify the wars of the Crusades, which were fought for a hidden economic benefit.

History in the Middle East repeats itself in the 21st century. The New World Order depopulation policy was consciously accelerated during World War II with the Manhattan Project. During World War II, the Manhattan Project developed three illegal and infamous weapons of mass destruction: the atomic bombs dropped on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, a defoliant developed as Agent Orange for the Vietnam War, and depleted uranium radioactive poison gas weaponry used in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Lebanon since 1991. These weapons of mass destruction were developed specifically for the purpose of depopulation.

After World War II, the international ruling elite the Illuminati, London Money Power, Bilderberg Group, the Club of Rome, and Skull and Bones and, in the U.S., the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, National Security Council and U.S. State Department have all made depopulation of 2 billion people their top priority. The purpose of this planned human mass genocide is to maximize profits and the accumulation of wealth.

Depopulation in Africa Depopulation policy has targeted Africa more heavily than any other continent and has resulted in the ruling elites looting its vast natural resources. It is a "treasure box" of minerals and precious, rare and strategic metals, with more diversity of resource wealth than any other continent. In the book, "Tiny Rowland: The Ugly Face of Neocolonialism in Africa,"16 are details of the role that Tiny Rowland played, as agent of the British Queen, in turning the 1960s dreams of independence of the African nations into the nightmare of a dying continent, plagued by starvation and disease.

Rowland was the CEO and chief architect of Lonrho, the British multinational company that was the headquarters for looting African countries through economic dirty tricks. Through Lonrho, Rowland became the biggest Western businessman in Africa. The book also details how Rowland set up Rio Tinto Mines for the considerable private and personal uranium holdings, worth over $6 billion, of the Queen of England in former British colonies. Not bad for a German former Nazi youth corps member, who was a convicted criminal in Germany before he changed his name, moved to England and became the Queen's buccaneer.

The depopulation policy thesis extends to international collaboration and alliance between private organizations, universities, corporations, governments, the military and quasi-governmental bodies. The concept for AIDS, a new class of bio-weapon, came out of the Club of Rome and was made in laboratories of the Department of Defense. AIDS was one of the early "exotic" bio-weapons developed. It was developed and administered by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). Congress funded the AIDS development project, used to depopulate Africa in combination with famine, two ways known to rapidly increase death rates.

The role of universities

Universities have played a major role in the development of weapons of mass destruction and implementation of depopulation policies. Grants from the DOD increasingly are playing an important role in science research funding in the U.S. In addition to running the nuclear weapons labs, UC Berkeley began DOD-funded research developing "flying spying robotic insects," "smart dust" and other projects prompted by the 2001 events of 911.

This is benign compared to Johns Hopkins University, the largest single university recipient of DOD funding in the U.S., which receives nearly $350 million a year.17 Johns Hopkins University and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where the Manhattan Project started during World War II, have both been involved with research on another aspect of U.S. depopulation policy, the "genome project."

The genome project is a nearly completed scientific program to map the human genome. Human genome mapping and the development of new bio-weapons go hand in hand. Secretly, and in violation of international law, exotic bio-weapons have been under intense development in more than 100 government and military laboratories in the U.S. during the past few decades. Development of bio-weapons and expansion of the laboratories intensified under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to unprecedented levels after 2000.18 They are cost effective, something penny pincher Donald Rumsfeld was known for, but they are nothing new.

In an interview in 1948 between Heinrich Mueller, the former head of the Gestapo, and his CIA interrogator, Mueller reflected the same penny pinching cheapskate concern characteristic of fascists: "If Stalin invades Europe ... a little disease here and there would wipe out Stalin's hoards and leave everything intact. Besides, a small bottle of germs is so much cheaper than an atom bomb, isn't it? Why, you could hold more soldiers in your hand than Stalin could possibly command and you don't have to feed them, clothe them or supply them with munitions. On the other hand, the threat of war ... does wonders ... for the economy."19

Apparently, designing new kinds of bio-weapons for the DOD can be dangerous to a scientist's health. More than 50 world-class scientists have been murdered since 2002 in the U.S. and the U.K. Almost all of them were microbiologists working on ethnic specific bio-weapons.20,21 When population control programs have failed in Third World countries, U.S. foreign policy has proven to be covert and vicious. After birth control and sterilization programs failed in India, it became the target of a deadly and demonic form of U.S. depopulation policy involving both bio-weapons and radiation. AIDS has now spread across the southern half of India. Depleted uranium blowing off the Himalayas, over Pakistan and the oil rich sands of Rajasthan, Utar Pradesh and Gujarat is contaminating the northern half of India and the Himalayan headwaters of nine major rivers of Asia.

Radioactive wars

Heavy grid and carpet bombing with depleted uranium by the U.S. military on the eastern side of Afghanistan beginning in 2001 guaranteed heavy contamination in areas where deep snows in the mountainous regions provide water for Pakistan and parts of western India. By contaminating vital water supplies in vast regions with radioactive contaminants, a secret and invisible low level nuclear war is being carried out against Asia. Radioactive wars with low level radiation will mutilate the DNA of all exposed living things.

This is not just a war against people; it is a war against the environment. Few living things will escape the slow radioactive poisoning which mutilates DNA and is passed on to all future generations.

Biological weapons are under development and testing for population control. Forced sterilization as a means of population control has been covertly introduced in Third World countries, where women receiving vaccines were never able to have a live birth after the vaccination. This was reported in a BBC documentary on women in the Philippines and Mexico who had been used as guinea pigs for a new experimental pregnancy vaccine.22

The HCG vaccine makes a woman's body reject new pregnancies. Black women have involuntarily been sterilized in South African hospitals with the HCG vaccine. They were told, after the birth of a baby, that "we could not leave the hospital until they had 'this shot.'"23 Black newborns, born to parents without AIDS, were given vaccinations before they left the hospital in South Africa, and the babies were soon found to have AIDS.24

In some American Indian tribes, up to 80 percent of the women are sterile. Biopharmaceutical crops are a disaster waiting to happen. Dr. Ignacio Chapela reported that spermicidal corn was being tested by drug companies in Mexico: "Some in Mexico are worried that biopharmaceutical corn could pollute their corn fields. Silvia Ribeiro, who heads the ETC Group's office in Mexico City, has noted with concern that the California-based Epicyte Corp. boasts a spermicidal corn for use as a contraceptive. 'The potential of spermicidal corn as a biological weapon is very high,' she warned, and reminisced about the use of forced sterilizations against indigenous peoples."25

We can no longer trust what used to be sustainers of life. The depopulation weapons of the ruling elite are in the air, in food, in vaccines, in medical procedures, in drinking water, in soils and even in our bodies to be passed on to future generations. The irony in this demonic plan is that we were never informed. The decision was made for us to face genocide and the death of birth.

Nuclear power

The greatest number of nuclear reactors are concentrated in Europe, North America and Japan where the most democratic governments in the world are located. Understandably, democratic governments would be the first targets of the ruling elite in forming a one world corporate government. For this reason, nuclear power has been implemented by powerful hidden forces, despite widespread and long term opposition by citizens in those "democratic" countries. The fact that nuclear power is the most costly energy technology with no solution to disposal of radioactive waste was ignored.

Nuclear power plants deliver the same lethal fission products in their emissions over a period of months and years that a nuclear bomb delivers in a nano second. Chronic exposure to low level radiation in emissions released from nuclear power plants may be deadlier in many ways than one acute exposure to a nuclear bomb detonation. Fresh fission products with very short half-lives from atmospheric tests decay in the atmosphere. But these same dangerous fission products arrive in communities within hours in emissions from nuclear power plants.

Chronic exposure of populations over the past decades has caused untold suffering, public health damage and the sacrifice of generations of children the future of our countries.

Radiation Radiation has a very powerful mutagenic effect, destroying DNA and the genetic future of individuals and populations chronically exposed. It also destroys brain functioning and causes many radiation related illnesses. High rates of infertility, particularly linked to radiation, are increasing globally since 1945. Twenty years ago, 80 percent of men's sperm globally was normal and 20 percent had DNA damage. Today, it is reversed, with only 20 percent of global sperm normal and 80 percent with damaged DNA.

The goal of the New World Order is to reduce birth rates and increase death rates globally. Dr. Ernest Sternglass and the Radiation and Public Health Project26 have independently collected over 6,000 baby teeth from children living around nuclear power plants. They found that strontium-90 radiation levels are as high or higher now in baby teeth than during atmospheric testing. Dr. Sternglass, who was asked by President Kennedy to testify in Congress about the link between radiation from fallout and cancer in children, helped convince the Senate to sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963. He has recently stated, "What we've done is to replace the fallout from bomb testing with the so-called small permitted releases from nuclear plants."27

Domestically, the U.S. government program to promote nuclear power as energy "too cheap to meter" under President Eisenhower had a hidden military agenda as the only known source of plutonium for nuclear weapons. In keeping with the ruling elites' policy of depopulation, intentional genocide and maximization of profit, the nuclear power program has been used as a secret and covert strategic weapon and a very deadly form of engineered nuclear war. Russia and Japan now have the distinction of being two of a few countries in the world where the death rates are higher than the birth rates. Does radiation in these countries have something to do with the distinction of having achieved the ultimate goal of the New World Order?

The Chernobyl accident, releasing huge amounts of fresh fission products into the atmosphere on April 26, 1986, contributed to the downfall of the Soviet Union. The radiation traveled around the world, causing breast cancer clusters wherever it rained the fission products out of the atmosphere. Russia is a sick old man from the impact of that accident. A scientific illustrator traced the path of Chernobyl radiation across Europe by mapping defective insects under the path of the Chernobyl cloud.

Today, Europe is in a pandemic of diabetes as a result of radiation from French atmospheric testing in the Sahara, Chernobyl and depleted uranium used on battlefields since 1991. Japan already has very high infertility, with a declining birth rate and an increasing death rate, as well as an epidemic of radiation related illnesses from the 56 nuclear reactors in Japan. But the opening of Rokkasho, the largest nuclear reprocessing plant in the world, on April 1, 2006, will destroy Japan.

It seems prophetic that it began operating on April Fool's Day, or maybe it's just more CIA twisted humor. The agreement to build the world's first thermonuclear reactor, now located at Rokkasho in northern Japan, ironically was made in a 1985 summit between Reagan and Gorbachov. It will release the equivalent emissions in one year of 365 new nuclear reactors. There are only about 411 commercial nuclear reactors in the world. Japan will soon have the equivalent radioactive emissions of 419 nuclear reactors, in a country the size of California. Japan has a magnitude 8 or greater earthquake every 5 years! Governments around the world are covering up the radiation related illnesses around nuclear power plants, the Chernobyl accident and low level radiation.

There are people in high places in Japan who know what the impact of Rokkasho will be on the health of the environment and public health. The information is already available in the annual vital statistics published each year by the Japanese government. So why would a government knowingly poison and destroy its own citizens? There is a very powerful international hidden nuclear alliance. Nuclear power and uranium supplies and prices are controlled globally by the Rothschild syndicate.

This power and control was not at first obvious. In a two volume series, "The Rothschilds," Japanese journalist Takashi Hirose exposed the well-concealed mechanisms for the Rothschild syndicate's control of nuclear power. A Rothschild serves as the business manager for the Queen of England, who privately and secretly owns massive interests in uranium holdings in Africa, Canada and Australia through Rio Tinto Mines. Hirose's charts of Rothschild intermarriages in his books reveal that the Rothschild syndicate has for centuries extensively intermarried with royal families and nobility globally. He also revealed that Princess Diana's mother was a Rothschild through intermarriages several generations back.

It is easy to understand how the ruling elite and London Money Power have shared common interests and goals, since they mutually benefit by forming alliances. And they know elected officials are easy to bribe. Three secret nuclear wars With little awareness in the global community, the global ruling elite have carried out three continuous and overlapping secret nuclear wars since the end of World War II, with atmospheric testing, nuclear power plants and depleted uranium weaponry. Nuclear technologies certainly meet their depopulation policy goals and, at the same time, the maximization of profits since they own the uranium sources needed for nuclear fuel and have vested interests in nuclear energy. There are also ties to pharmaceutical companies, which further their goals of maximizing profits. They get paid to make the mess, they get paid to clean it up and they get paid to treat the illnesses they caused.

It is repeat business extreme capitalism at its best. The best way to stop it is for cities, towns and villages to get off the grid. Citizens must own the energy companies and shift energy choices to renewable, passive and non-destructive forms of energy. The oil economy is a con game with extortion, racketeering and fraud thrown in. The "peak oil" scare is a hoax, which any geologist knows because it recycles every 20 years to boost oil prices. His Excellency Shiekh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Saudi oil minister from 1962 to 1986, believes that the oil age will end not for lack of oil but because of technology: "(T)he oil prices were destined to crash in the long term and the world would never use up the last drop of oil, because it would not need to: 'The Stone Age did not come to an end because we had a lack of stones, and the oil age will not come to an end because we have a lack of oil.'"28

Globally, nuclear power is being cleverly promoted as "clean energy" and as a solution to global warming by establishment propaganda peddlers like Al Gore, but it is not. There is a hidden agenda and secret economic partnership between members of the ruling elite, with vested interests and huge profits to be made from promotion of nuclear power. The hidden partnership of ruling elites, more specifically certain members of the British and U.S. economic empires, was exposed in "The Queen's Death Star: Bush, Cheney, Howard and the Queen."29

Close to the heart of it is the City of London-centered financier oligarchical group headed by Royal Consort Prince Philip. In faith and in practice, the Royal Consort is a great fan of genocide: "If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels," he said.30 The Royal Consort was merely reflecting the pessimistic Malthusian economic predictions regarding the future of humanity and "population explosion" in the 18th century.

The wealthy Englishman Thomas Robert Malthus expected that forces such as war, pestilence, famine and plague would eliminate a swelling population. Thoughts of depopulation policy for economic gain by the ruling elite were alive and well, even in the 18th century. A secret new nuclear war is developing in Asia, promoted by a partnership of the same ruling elites in the British and U.S. economic empires. Recently, international relations have been driving nuclear power as a form of economic aid development in the countries known as the "Tiger Economies": South Korea, Japan, China and India.

The rising economic power of the Tiger Economies is the greatest threat to the British and U.S. economic empires. Since 2003, nuclear power has been forced onto South Korea, Japan, China and India by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Prime Minister Howard of Australia. The developing British nuclear power program in Asia is a revisit to the Opium Wars in China several centuries ago. The Opium Wars were created purely for British economic gain by weakening the leading government in the world for millenia. The hidden agenda of depopulation and weakening countries that pose a threat is being repeated by impacting the vibrant developing economies in Asia with long lingering illnesses from radiation poisoning and mutilation of the genetic future of vast populations.

Nothing new, the British and U.S. economic empires are infamous for being "economic hit men" with an insatiable hunger for other people's resources and wealth.

Privatizing nuclear weapons for the ruling elites

The nuclear weapons program in the U.K. was privatized in the 1980s. The British contractors are corporations with ties to the London Money Power. Control of nuclear weapons should always be in civilian hands, not under the control of the military, because they will use them to do their job to kill people and destroy things with no responsibility for the aftermath. But "in civilian hands" does not mean in the hands of corporations controlled by the ruling elites either.

They are even more likely to use them to meet their long held goals of depopulation and accumulation of wealth. Following in the footsteps of Britain, the U.S. nuclear weapons program has been undergoing privatization over the past four years. George Schultz, former CEO of Bechtel and former Secretary of State, helped facilitate that transition. Bechtel is one of the new corporate partners on the management contract for Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab, in partnership with the University of California, the sole unchallenged manager for 61 years. Two very important contract changes were made in the process of negotiating the new contract, which was awarded to the University and Bechtel in December 2005. Los Alamos and/or Livermore nuclear weapons labs became manufacturing facilities for production of plutonium cores for nuclear weapons.

This violates the charter of the University of California, which is to conduct basic scientific research at the nuclear weapons labs. And the second very important change in the contract, which was brought up momentarily at a UC Regents' meeting by a sitting regent, was the contract phrase which eliminates academic freedom for scientists conducting research at Los Alamos.

(Emphasis added - B.M.)

2007-12-14T02:48:00.000-08:00

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

Radioactive Ammunition Fired in Middle East May Claim More Lives Than Hiroshima and Nagasaki
by Sherwood Ross

By firing radioactive ammunition, the U.S., U.K., and Israel may have triggered a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East that, over time, will prove deadlier than the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan.

So much ammunition containing depleted uranium (DU) has been fired, asserts nuclear authority Leuren Moret, “The genetic future of the Iraqi people for the most part, is destroyed.”

“More than ten times the amount of radiation released during atmospheric testing (of nuclear bombs) has been released from depleted uranium weaponry since 1991,” Moret writes, including radioactive ammunition fired by Israeli troops in Palestine.

Moret is an independent U.S. scientist formerly employed for five years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and also at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, both of California.

Adds Arthur Bernklau, of Veterans For Constitutional Law, “The long- term effect of DU is a virtual death sentence. Iraq is a toxic wasteland. Anyone who is there stands a good chance of coming down with cancer and leukemia. In Iraq, the birth rate of mutations is totally out of control.”

Moret, a Berkeley, Calif., Environmental Commissioner and past president of the Association for Women Geoscientists, says, “For every genetic defect that we can see now, in future generations there are thousands more that will be expressed.”

She adds, “the (Iraq) environment now is completely radioactive.”

Dr. Helen Caldicott, the prominent anti-nuclear crusader, has written: “Much of the DU is in cities such as Baghdad, where half the population of 5 million people are children who played in the burned- out tanks and on the sandy, dusty ground.”

“Children are 10 to 20 times more susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of radiation than adults,” Caldicott wrote. “My pediatric colleagues in Basra, where this ordnance was used in 1991, report a sevenfold increase in childhood cancer and a sevenfold increase in gross congenital abnormalities,” she wrote in her book, “Nuclear Power is not the Answer”(The New Press).

Caldicott goes on to say the two Gulf wars “have been nuclear wars because they have scattered nuclear material across the land, and people—particularly children— are condemned to die of malignancy and congenital disease essentially for eternity.”

Because of the extremely long half-life of uranium 238, one of the radioactive elements in the shells fired, “the food, the air, and the water in the cradle of civilization have been forever contaminated,” Caldicott explained.

Uranium is a heavy metal that enters the body via inhalation into the lung or via ingestion into the GI tract. It is excreted by the kidney, where, if the dose is high enough, it can induce renal failure or kidney cancer. It also lodges in the bones where it causes bone cancer and leukemia, and it is excreted in the semen, where it mutates genes in the sperm, leading to birth deformities.

Nuclear contamination is spreading around the world, Caldicott adds, with heaviest concentrations in regions within a 1,000-mile radius of Baghdad and Afghanistan.

These are, notably, northern India, southern Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tibet, Pakistan, Kuwait, the Gulf emirates, and Jordan.

“Downwind from the radioactive devastation in Iraq, Israel is also suffering from large increases in breast cancer, leukemia and childhood diabetes,” Moret asserts.

Doug Rokke, formerly the top U.S. Army DU clean-up officer and now anti-DU crusader, says Israeli tanks fired radioactive shells during the invasion of Lebanon last year. U.S. and NATO forces also used DU ammunition in Kosovo. Rokke says he is quite ill from the effects of DU and that members of his clean-up crew have died from it.

As a result of DU bombardments, Caldicott writes, “Severe birth defects have been reported in babies born to contaminated civilians in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan and the incidence and severity of defects is increasing over time.”

Like symptoms have been reported among infants born to U.S. service personnel that fought in the Gulf Wars. One survey of 251 returned Gulf War veterans from Mississippi made by the Veterans Administration found 67% of children born to them suffered from “severe illnesses and deformities.”

Some were born without brains or vital organs or with no arms, hands, or arms, or with hands attached to their shoulders.

While U.S. officials deny DU ammunition is dangerous, it is a fact Gulf War veterans were the first Americans ever to fight on a radioactive battlefield, and their children apparently are the first known to display these ghastly deformities.

Soldiers who survived being hit by radioactive ammunition, as well as those who fired it, are falling ill, often showing signs of radiation sickness. Of the 700,000 U.S. veterans of the first Gulf War, more than 240,000 are on permanent medical disability and 11,000 are dead, published reports indicate.

This is an astonishing toll from such a short conflict in which fewer than 400 U.S. soldiers were killed on the battlefield.

Of course, “depleted uranium munitions were and remain another causative factor behind Gulf War Syndrome(GWS),” writes Francis Boyle, a leading American authority on international law in his book “Biowarfare and Terrorism,” from Clarity Press Inc.

“The Pentagon continues to deny that there is such a medical phenomenon categorized as GWS—even beyond the point where everyone knows that denial is pure propaganda and disinformation,” Boyle writes.

Boyle contends, “The Pentagon will never own up to the legal, economic, tortious, political, and criminal consequences of admitting the existence of GWS. So U.S. and U.K. veterans of Gulf War I as well as their afterborn children will continue to suffer and die. The same will prove true for U.S. and U.S. veterans of Bush Jr.’s Gulf War II as well as their afterborn children.”

Boyle said the use of DU is outlawed under the 1925 Geneva Convention prohibiting poison gas.

Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, writes in his “The Sorrows of Empire”(Henry Holt and Co.) that, given the abnormal clusters of childhood cancers and deformities in Iraq as well as Kosovo, the evidence points “toward a significant role for DU.”

By insisting on its use, Johnson adds, “the military is deliberately flouting a 1996 United Nations resolution that classifies DU ammunition as an illegal weapon of mass destruction.”

Moret calls DU “the Trojan Horse of nuclear war.” She describes it as “the weapon that keeps killing.” Indeed, the half-life of Uranium-238 is 4.5-billion years, and as it decays it spawns other deadly radioactive by-products.

Radioactive fallout from DU apparently blew far and wide. Following the initial U.S. bombardment of Iraq in 2003, DU particles traveled 2,400 miles to Great Britain in about a week, where atmospheric radiation quadrupled.

But it is in the Middle East, predominantly Iraq, where the bulk of the radioactive waste has been dumped.

In the early Nineties, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority warned that 50 tons of dust from DU explosions could claim a half million lives from cancer by year 2000. Not 50 tons, but an estimated two thousand radioactive tons have been fired off in the Middle East, suggesting the possibility over time of an even higher death toll.

Dr. Keith Baverstock, a World Health Organization radiation advisor, informed the media, Iraq’s arid climate would increase exposure from its tiny particles as they are blown about and inhaled by the civilian population for years to come.

The civilian death toll from the August, 1945, U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been put at 140,000 and 80,000, respectively. Over time, however, deaths from radiation sickness are thought to have claimed the lives of another 100,000 Japanese civilians.

Sherwood Ross is a Miami, Florida-based free-lance writer who covers military and political topics. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com. Ross has worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and several wire services and is a contributor to national magazines.

(Emphasis added - B.M.)

2007-12-12T19:38:00.000-08:00

USA BIG BUSINESS REFUSE TO REDUCE THE GLOBAL WARMING CATASTROPHIC IMPACT AS THEY OPPOSE THE BALI AGREEMENT ON REDUCING THE POLLUTION OF OUR PLANET

by Benjamin Merhav

The following two current news items have been downloaded from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) website. This ABC has radio stations and a TV channel. It is financed and controlled by the Australian federal government. Therefore it is a conservative, pro-USA news organisation, like the Australian government itself. The new labour Rudd government is committed to continue the traditional Australian subservience to USA imperialism, even at the cost of catastrophic results for all life on our planet, especially to third world and poor countries which are already suffering horrendous loses of life and infra structure as a result.

However, even such subservience cannot avoid the inevitable disclosure of some facts to the public, as the following two news items show. The first one reveals some of the catastrophic consequences; the second one reveals a little about the USA government intransigence.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/13/2117667.htm

Global warming causing record disasters: report

Posted 3 hours 45 minutes ago

Sidr" height="192" width="285">

Disaster zone: A man perches on a dead cow in the aftermath of last month's cyclone in Bangladesh (AFP Photo: Jewel Samad)

The International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) says global warming caused a record number of natural disasters across the world in 2007, up nearly 20 per cent from a year earlier.

"As of 10 October 2007, the Federation had already recorded 410 disasters, 56 per cent of which were weather-related, which is consistent with the trend of rising numbers of climate change-related disasters," the IFRC said in its World Disasters Report.

In 2006, the IFRC recorded 427 natural disasters, a rise of 70 per cent in the two years since 2004.

Over the last 10 years, the number of natural disasters rose by 40 per cent from the previous decade, while the number of deaths caused by disasters doubled to 1.2 million people from 600,000, the report said.

The number of people on average affected by natural disasters each year rose to 270 million from 230 million over the same period.

"Better reporting of smaller disasters partially explains these increases. However, more severe disasters are also on the increase," the IFRC report said.

The report warned that vulnerable groups in society such as women, disabled people, the elderly and ethnic minorities face extra hardships when coping with natural disasters.

===================================

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/13/2117436.htm

US stalling on short-term climate targets

Posted 6 hours 31 minutes ago
Updated 4 hours 55 minutes ago

PNG PM Michael Somare" height="190" width="285">

No Plan B: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the Bali climate talks (AFP: Jewel Samad)

The United States is resisting efforts to include short-term targets in the final Bali declaration at the UN climate change conference.

The US is joined by Australia, Canada, and Japan in its opposition to signing up for global emission cuts of between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020.

Australia says it supports global emissions cuts, but is waiting on advice from economic research.

But US delegation spokeswoman Paula Dobriansky says a group of developed countries are considering removing a reference to interim cuts in the final declaration.

"We don't want to be prejudging outcomes here," she said.

"The very positive aspect about this is we are in discussions with other countries. In fact many countries have also registered the point of view that they don't want a pre-judgement made here."

Yesterday Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called for a Bali road map to launch the next round of the Kyoto agreement, and took a swipe at the US for its refusal to sign up to Kyoto.

In an address to the conference Mr Rudd said Australia agreed on the need for a "shared global emissions goal" and for developed countries to embrace a "further set of binding emissions targets".

He also took aim at the US for its refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

"There is no plan B, there is no other planet any of us can escape to," he said.

"We need all developed nations, those within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol and those outside, to embrace comparable efforts.

"We must now move forward as a truly united nations with developed and developing countries working in parallel."

Mr Rudd says the Federal Government will decide on its position when research it has commissioned from climate change expert Professor Ross Garnaut is released next June.

Meanwhile, in the United States, several Republican presidential candidates have supported efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, during their final debate before next month's primary elections.

With three weeks to go before voting begins in the state of Iowa, hopefuls including Senator John McCain and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani say climate change must be addressed.

Senator McCain says future generations will suffer if emissions cuts are not made.

"We can do it with technology, with caps and trade, with capitalist and free enterprise motivation," he said. "I'm confident that we can pass on to our children and grandchildren a cleaner and better world."

(Emphasis added- B.M.)

2007-12-03T18:17:00.000-08:00

PROF. FRANCIS BOYLE : THE PENTAGON IS POISED TO RESUME OPEN AIR WEAPONS TESTING (OF BIOLOGICAL AND/OR CHEMICAL WEAPONS)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Boyle, Francis FBOYLE@law.uiuc.edu
Date: Dec 4, 2007 10:30 AM
Subject: FW: [biodefense] FW: Scoop Link: Pentagon Poised To Resume Open Air Weapons Testing
To: ben.merhav@gmail.com
Francis A. Boyle
Law Building504
E. Pennsylvania Ave.Champaign,
IL 61820 USA217-333-7954
(Voice)217-244-1478 (Fax)
(personal comments only)

EXCERPTS :

"...The Pentagon's annual report apparently calls for both the developmental and operational "field testing of (CBW) full systems," not just simulations.The Pentagon's report to Congress contains the following passage: "More than thirty years have passed since outdoor live-agent chemical tests were banned in the United States, and the last outdoor test with live chemical agent was performed, so much of the infra structure for the field testing of chemical detectors no longer exists or is seriously outdated. The currently budgeted improvements in the T&E infrastructurewill greatly enhance both the developmental and operational fieldtesting of full systems, with better simulated representation of threats and characterization of system response."

"T&E" is an acronym for testing and evaluation."Either the military has resumed open-air testing already or they are preparing to do so," said Francis Boyle, a University of Illinois Professor of International Law who authored the implementing legislation for the U.S. Biological Weapons Convention signed into law by President George Bush Sr. and who has tracked subsequent developments closely."

I am stunned by the nature of this development," Boyle said. "This is a major reversal of policy." The 1972 treaty against germ warfare, which the U.S. signed, forbids developing weapons that spread disease, such as anthrax, a pathogen that is regarded by the military as "ideal" for conducting germ warfare."The Pentagon is fully prepared to launch biological warfare by means of anthrax," Boyle charged. "All the equipment has been acquired and all the training conducted and most combat-ready members of U.S. armed forces have been given protective equipment and vaccines that allegedly would protect them from that agent."

Open-air testing takes research into deadly agents out of the laboratories in order to study their effectiveness, including their aerial dispersion patterns, and whether they actually infect and kill in field trials. Since the anthrax attacks on Congress in October, 2001,the Bush administration has funded a vast biological research expansion at hundreds of private and university laboratories in the U.S. and abroad involving anthrax and other deadly pathogens.The anthrax attacks killed five people, including two postal workers,injured 17 others and temporarily shut down the operations of the U.S.Congress, Supreme Court, and other Federal entities.

Although a Federal statute permits the president to authorize open-air testing of CBW agents, Boyle said this "does not solve the compliance problem that it might violate the international Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention as well as their related domestic implementing legislation making such violations crimes."Boyle charged the U.S. is already "in breach" of both conventions and also of U.S. domestic criminal law implementing them.

In February, 2003,for example, the U.S. granted itself a patent on an illegal, long-range biological-weapons grenade, evidently for offensive purposes.Boyle said the development of anthrax for possible offensive purposes is underscored by the government's efforts "to try to stockpile anthrax vaccines and antibiotics for 25-million plus Americans to protect the civilian population in the event there is any 'blowback' from the use of anthrax in biowarfare abroad by the Pentagon.""In theory," Boyle added, "you cannot wage biowarfare abroad unless you can protect your civilian population from either retaliation in kind, or blowback, or both." Under Project BioShield, Homeland Security is spending $5.6 billion to stockpile vaccines and drugs to fight anthrax,smallpox, and other bioterror agents. The project had been marked by delays and operational problems and on December 12th last year Congress passed legislation to pump another $1 billion into BioShield to fund three years of additional research by the private sector.

Boyle said evidence the U.S. has super-weapons-grade anthrax was demonstrated in the October, 2001, anthrax mail attacks on Senators Thomas Daschle(D-S.D.) and Patrick Leahy(D-Vt.) The strain of highly sophisticated anthrax employed has allegedly been traced back to the primary U.S. Army biological warfare campus at Ft. Detrick, Md. The attacks killed five persons and sickened 17 others. A current effort to expand Ft. Detrick has sparked widespread community opposition,according to a report in the Baltimore Sun."Obviously, someone working for the United States government has a stockpile of super-weapons grade anthrax that can be used again domestically for the purposes of political terrorism or abroad to wage offensive warfare," Boyle said.

The Associated Press has reported the U.S. Army is replacing its Military Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick "with a new laboratory that would be a component of a biodefense campus operated by several agencies." The Army told AP the laboratory is intended to continue research solely for defense against biological threats.Undercutting the argument U.S. research is for "defensive" purposes is the fact government scientists have been creating new strains of pathogens for which there is no known cure. Richard Novick, a professor of microbiology at New York University, has stated, "I cannot envision any imaginable justification for changing the antigenicity of anthrax as a defensive measure." Changing a pathogen's antigenicity means altering its basic structure so that existing vaccines will prove ineffective against it.Biological warfare involves the use of living organisms for military purposes. Such weapons can be viral, bacterial, and fungal, among other forms, and can be spread over a large geographic terrain by wind, water,insect, animal, or human transmission, according to Jeremy Rifkin,author of "The Biotech Century"(Penguin).

Boyle said the Federal government has been plowing money into upgrading Ft. Detrick, Md., and other CBW facilities where such pathogens are studied, developed, tested, and stored. By some estimates, the U.S.since 2002 has invested some $43 billion in hundreds of government,commercial, and university laboratories in the U.S. for the study of pathogens that might be used for biological warfare.According to Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright,more than 300 scientific institutions and 12,000 individuals have access to pathogens suitable for biowarfare and terrorism. Ebright found that the Number of National Institute of Health grants to research infectious diseases with biowarfare potential shot up from 33 in the 1995-2000period to 497 by 2006.Ebright has stated the government's ten fold expansion of Biosafety Level-4 laboratories, such as those at FortDetrick, raises the risk of accidents and the diversion of dangerous organisms. "If a worker in one of these facilities removes a single viral particle or a single cell, which cannot be detected or prevented,that single particle or cell can form the basis of an outbreak."During the Cold War era, notably in the Fifties and Sixties, various Government agencies engaged in open-air CBW testing on U.S. soil and on naval vessels at sea to study the effects of weaponized pathogens. U.S. cities, including New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, were among the targets and sickness and even a number of deaths were reported as a result.

According to an article titled "Lethal Breeze" by Lee Davidson in the Deseret News of Salt Lake City of June 5, 1994, "In decades of secret chemical arms tests, the Army released into Utah winds more than a half million pounds of deadly nerve agents." Among them, he said, was VX, a pinhead-sized drop of which can be lethal. The tests were conducted at Dugway Proving Ground but Davidson said the evidence suggests "some(agents) may have escaped with the wind."Pentagon documents obtained by the News listed 1,635 field trials or demonstrations with nerve agents VX, GA and GB between 1951 and 1969,"when the Army discontinued use of actual nerve agents in open-air tests after escaped nerve gas apparently killed 6,000 sheep in Skull Valley,"Davidson wrote. The Skull Valley strike also sickened a rancher and members of his family.Boyle has previously charged the Pentagon with "gearing up to fight and 'win' biological warfare" pursuant to two Bush national strategy directives adopted in 2002 "without public knowledge and review." He contends the Pentagon's Chemical and Biological Defense program was revised in 2003 to implement those directives, endorsing "first-use"strike of chemical and biological weapons in war.

The implementing legislation Boyle wrote that was enacted unanimously by Congress was known as the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989.Boyle has written extensively on the subject. Among his published works are "Biowarfare and Terrorism" and "Destroying World Order: U.S. Imperialism In the Middle East Before and After September 11th," both from Clarity Press."

(Emphasis added - B.M.)

2007-12-02T11:39:00.000-08:00

Francis Boyle: Our Nuremberg Moment

http://dennisloo.blogspot.com/2007/12/francis-boyle-our-nuremberg-moment.html

Law and Resistance:The Republic in Crisis and the People's Response

Speech by Professor Francis A. Boyle ,University of Illinois College of Law

Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 6 p.m.

Northwestern University School of Law Lincoln Auditorium 357 E. Chicago Avenue

Sent by Francis Boyle - Nov 21, 2007 Chicago, Ill.

Sponsored by: National Lawyers Guild, Northwestern University Student Law School and Chicago Chapter of the NLG

Since the impeachable installation of George Bush Jr. as President by the U.S. Supreme Court's Gang of Five, the people of the world have witnessed a government in the United States that has demonstrated little if any respect for fundamental considerations of international law, human rights, or the United States Constitution.

Instead, the world has watched a comprehensive and malicious assault upon the integrity of the international and domestic legal orders by a group of men and women who are thoroughly Machiavellian and Straussian in their perception of international relations and in their conduct of both foreign affairs and American domestic policy.

Even more seriously, in many instances specific components of the Bush Jr. administration's foreign policy constitute ongoing criminal activity under well recognized principles of both international law and United States domestic law, and in particular the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, as well as the Pentagon's own U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 on The Law of Land Warfare, which applies to President Bush Jr. himself as Commander-in-Chief of United States Armed Forces under Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution.

Depending on the substantive issues involved, these international and domestic crimes typically include but are not limited to the Nuremberg offences of “crimes against peace”-- so far Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and perhaps their longstanding threatened war of aggression against Iran. Their criminal responsibility also concerns “crimes against humanity” and war crimes as well as grave breaches of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the 1907 Hague Regulations on land warfare: torture at Guantanamo, Bhagram, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere; enforced disappearances, assassinations, murders, kidnappings, extraordinary renditions, “shock and awe,” depleted uranium, white phosphorous, cluster bombs, Fallujah, etc. Furthermore, various members of the Bush Jr. administration have committed numerous inchoate crimes incidental to these substantive offences that under the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles as well as U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956) are international crimes in their own right: planning, and preparation, which they are currently doing today against Iran; solicitation, incitement, conspiracy, complicity, attempt, aiding and abetting.

Of course the terrible irony of today's situation is that six decades ago at Nuremberg the U.S. government participated in the prosecution, punishment and execution of Nazi government officials for committing some of the same types of heinous international crimes that the Neo-Conservative Straussian members of the Bush Jr. administration currently inflict upon people all over the world. To be sure, I personally oppose the imposition of capital punishment upon any human being for any reason no matter how monstrous their crimes, whether they be Bush Jr., Tony Blair, or Saddam Hussein.

According to basic principles of international criminal law set forth in paragraph 501 of U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10, all high level civilian officials and military officers in the U.S. government who either knew or should have known that soldiers or civilians under their control (such as the C.I.A. or mercenary contractors) committed or were about to commit international crimes and failed to take the measures necessary to stop them, or to punish them, or both, are likewise personally responsible for the commission of international crimes. This category of officialdom who actually knew or should have known of the commission of these international crimes under their jurisdiction and failed to do anything about them include at the very top of America's criminal chain-of-command President Bush Jr. and Vice-President Cheney; former U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld; Secretary of State Rice; Director of National Intelligence Negroponte, who was previously in charge of the contra terror war against the people of Nicaragua that murdered 35, 000 civilians; National Security Advisor Hadley; his Deputy Elliot Abrams, who was also criminally responsible for murdering 35,000 people in Nicaragua; former U.S. Attorney General Gonzales, criminally responsible for the torture campaign launched by the Bush Jr. administration; and the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staffs along with the appropriate Regional Commanders-in-Chiefs, especially for Central Command CENTCOM).

These U.S. government officials and their immediate subordinates are responsible for the commission of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes as specified by the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles as well as by U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 of 1956. Today in international legal terms, the Bush Jr. administration itself should now be viewed as constituting an ongoing criminal conspiracy under international criminal law in violation of the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, because of its formulation and undertaking of serial wars of aggression, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that are legally akin to those perpetrated by the former Nazi regime in Germany. As a consequence, American citizens possess the basic right under international law and the United States domestic law, including the U.S. Constitution, to engage in acts of civil resistance designed to prevent, impede, thwart, or terminate ongoing criminal activities perpetrated by Bush Jr. administration officials in their conduct of foreign affairs policies and military operations purported to relate to defense and counter-terrorism.

For that very reason, large numbers of American citizens have decided to act on their own cognizance by means of civil resistance in order to demand that the Bush Jr. administration adhere to basic principles of international law, of U.S. domestic law, and of our own Constitution in its conduct of foreign affairs and military operations. Mistakenly, however, such actions have been defined to constitute classic instances of "civil disobedience" as historically practiced in the United States. And the conventional status quo admonition by the U.S. power elite and its sycophantic news media for those who knowingly engage in “civil disobedience” has always been that they must meekly accept their punishment for having performed a prima facie breach of the positive laws as a demonstration of their good faith and moral commitment.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

Today's civil resisters are the sheriffs! The Bush Jr. administration officials are the outlaws!

Here I would like to suggest a different way of thinking about civil resistance activities that are specifically designed to thwart, prevent, or impede ongoing criminal activity by members of the Bush Jr. administration under well-recognized principles of international and U.S. domestic law. Such civil resistance activities represent the last constitutional avenue open to the American people to preserve their democratic form of government with its historical commitment to the rule of law and human rights.

Civil resistance is the last hope America has to prevent the Bush Jr. administration from moving even farther down the path of lawless violence in Southwest Asia, military interventionism in Latin America and Africa, and nuclear confrontation with Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China.

Such measures of "civil resistance" must not be confused with, and indeed must be carefully distinguished from, acts of "civil disobedience" as traditionally defined. In today's civil resistance cases, what we witness are U.S. citizens attempting to prevent the ongoing commission of international and domestic crimes under well-recognized principles of international law and U.S. domestic law. This is a phenomenon essentially different from the classic civil disobedience cases of the 1950s and 1960s where incredibly courageous African Americans and their supporters were conscientiously violating domestic laws for the express purpose of changing them.

By contrast, today's civil resisters are acting for the express purpose of upholding the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, human rights, and international law.

Applying the term “civil disobedience” to such civil resistors mistakenly presumes their guilt and thus perversely exonerates the Bush Jr. administration criminals.Civil resistors disobeyed nothing, but to the contrary obeyed international law and the United States Constitution.

By contrast, Bush Jr. administration officials disobeyed fundamental principles of international law as well as U.S. criminal law and thus committed international crimes and U.S. domestic crimes as well as impeachable violations of the United States Constitution. The civil resistors are the sheriffs enforcing international law, U.S. criminal law and the U.S. Constitution against the criminals working for the Bush Jr. administration!

Today the American people must reaffirm our commitment to the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles by holding our government officials fully accountable under international law and U.S. domestic law for the commission of such grievous international and domestic crimes. We must not permit any aspect of our foreign affairs and defense policies to be conducted by acknowledged “war criminals” according to the U.S. government's own official definition of that term as set forth in U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956), the U.S. War Crimes Act, and the Geneva Conventions.

The American people must insist upon the impeachment, dismissal, resignation, indictment, conviction, and long-term incarceration of all U.S. government officials guilty of such heinous international and domestic crimes. That is precisely what American civil resisters are doing today!

This same right of civil resistance extends pari passu to all citizens of the world community of states. Everyone around the world has both the right and the duty under international law to resist ongoing criminal activities perpetrated by the Bush Jr. administration and its nefarious foreign accomplices in allied governments such as in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Georgia, etc.

If not so restrained, the Bush Jr. administration could very well precipitate a Third World War. In this regard, during the course of an October 17, 2007 press conference, President Bush Jr. terrorized the entire world with the threat of World War III if he could not work his illegal will upon Iran. Then Russian President Vladimir Putin responded in kind by likewise terrorizing the entire world with the prospect of yet another Cuban Missile Crisis if he did not get his way on the needlessly provocative anti-ballistic missile systems that the Bush Jr. administration plans to locate in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The publicly threatened U.S./Israeli attack upon Iran could readily set off a chain of events that would culminate in World War III, and could easily go nuclear. It is my opinion that the Bush Jr. administration would welcome the outbreak of a Third World War, and in any event is fully prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons against Muslim and Arab states and peoples.

After September 11, 2001 the United States of America has vilified and demonized Muslims and Arabs almost to the same extent that America inflicted upon the Japanese and Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. As the Nazis had previously demonstrated with respect to the Jews, a government must first dehumanize and scapegoat a race of people before its citizens will tolerate if not approve their elimination: Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In post-9/11 America we are directly confronted with the prospect of a nuclear war of extermination conducted by our White Racist Judeo-Christian Power Elite against People of Color in the Muslim and Arab worlds in order to steal their oil and gas. The Crusades all over again. But this time nuclear Armageddon stares all of humankind right in the face!

We American lawyers must be inspired by the stunning example set by those heroic Pakistani lawyers now leading the struggle against the brutal Bush-supported Musharraf military dictatorship. We American lawyers must now lead the fight against the Bush Jr. dictatorship! This is our Nuremberg Moment!Thank you. B) Copyright 2007 by Francis A. Boyle. All Rights reserved.***

[Francis Boyle is professor of law at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. A Harvard law graduate, for the last twenty years he has been involved as lawyer and/or witness in the major cases challenging U.S. defense policy, notably nuclear issues and, in recent years, preemptive wars. He speaks and writes regularly on civil resistance and anti-war issues. Most recently he helped to defend Camilo Mejia, the first military resister to the current Iraq War.]

(Emphasis added - B.M.)