The rational for this proposal is that lithium in very small amounts appears to have many public health and social benefits including better mental health and less crime.
Studies in Texas, central Japan and throughout Austria have shown a negative relationship between suicide rate and the amount of lithium naturally present in public water supplies.
A study conducted in North Carolina suggested a negative relationship between community drinking water lithium content and mental hospital admission rates.
If all these benefits were attributable to an element such as calcium, which as a carbonate mainly accounts for the hardness of water, most people would likely support its addition to public water supplies.
However, lithium is widely known as an anti-mania drug capable of reducing the demented to a condition of docility. Naturally, therefore, calls for lithium supplementation of drinking water are interpreted by many as evidence of a plot to reduce the population to a condition of docile servility.
What is not generally recognized is that the potential benefits of lithium to the population at large are attributed to amounts of the element in the range of 50 to 100 millionths of a gram per day, whereas a therapeutic dose of lithium for the treatment of mania is several thousand times as much, and close to the threshold for toxicity.
But if trace amounts of lithium represent no hazard to the public, their addition to the water supply is nevertheless questionable in the present state of knowledge, despite the potential benefits.
Research in this field will not be undertaken by the pharmaceutical industry because lithium cannot be patented. What is needed, therefore, is a broad-ranging program of publicly funded research to evaluate claims that have been made concerning the role of lithium in human nutrition and health.
In the meantime, those interested in experimenting with lithium as a nutritional supplement can drink lithium-rich mineral waters such as Catalan Vichy (1.3 mg of lithium per liter), enjoyed by the Romans more than two thousand years ago or San Pellegrino water (0.2 mg of lithium per liter), likely available at a grocery store near you.
Noam Chomsky's 2006 "analysis" of US government 9/11 complicity is being promoted by Alternet.org as if it was news. That's because Chomsky basically sides with the editors there and their dismissive attitudes toward looking at the evidence.
In this battle of ideas, it warms my heart that Alternet's boards are swamped with controversy the minute they try to push this garbage onto the unsuspecting.
I remain a bit dazed though that hard core "leftists" accept Chomsky's thin dismissal, and ignore the most important admission Chomsky has made:
"I mean even if it [US GOVERNMENT COMPLICITY IN THE 9/11 ATTACKS] were true, which is extremely unlikely, who cares? I mean it doesn't have any significance." -Noam Chomsky
If you aren't familiar with this quote, read it again. Play the linked video. Come to terms with what he is saying. Chomsky gives the same dismissal to the JFK assassination (at the end of the clip). It just doesn't matter. To whom? Noam? To whom?
I suppose one could argue that JFK is dead 44 years now, and so America has moved on.* Not so for 9/11. Not on your life.
Chomsky has admitted that HE doesn't care if elements of the government were criminally complicit and treasonous in the 9/11 attacks, and that his school of followers shouldn't (doesn't) concern themselves either.
That's quite powerful stuff, given that many "lefty" pinhead types have internalized the marching orders and come up with elaborate mental gymnastics to convince themselves that 9/11 is "irrelevant." You see the "irrelevant" dismissal repeated in the threads over at that video post.
Example, "fireballs" says:
"9/11 truthers, you might be right in some form. There might be enough logical inconsistencies in the media's narrative of that day to produce some amount of scepticism. All of that is irrelevant. It does not matter if the towers fell due to controlled demolition. It does not matter what caused the collapse of WTC 7. It does not matter because you cannot prove what did happen, and the government is not going to help you, no matter how loud you shout outside of its doors."
You really have to wonder the mindset that admits the government could have participated in the mass murder of our fellow civilians, and yet works overtime trying to dismiss it as "irrelevant."
Well obviously it's not "irrelevant" to us, nor to the family members affected by it, nor to a hell of a lot of people around the world. That it is apparently "irrelevant" to Noam Chomsky and his dwindling band of followers speaks volumes about their priorities, as well as their morality, or apparent lack thereof. Perhaps it is they who are "irrelevant?"
Treason does not matter to these people.
So many derelictions of duty before 9/11 point to high treason (in the Clinton and Bush regimes), deliberate, calculated, with historical precedents and whistleblowers exposing the reality. None of that can sway the Chomskyites, because their leader seems to have some charismatic cult of personality hold on their ability to reason these things through. ...
Noam Chomsky: Controlled Asset of the New World Order
The Pied Piper of the Left
Noam Chomsky is often hailed as America's premier dissident intellectual, a fearless purveyor of truth fighting against media propaganda, murderous U.S. foreign policy, and the crimes of profit-hungry transnational corporations.
He enjoys a slavish cult-like following from millions leftist students, journalists, and activists worldwide who fawn over his dense books as if they were scripture. To them, Chomsky is the supreme deity, a priestly master whose logic cannot be questioned.
However, as one begins to examine the interviews and writings of Chomsky, a different picture emerges. His books, so vociferously lauded in leftist circles, appear to be calculated disinformation designed to distract and confuse honest activists. Since the 1960's, Chomsky has acted as the premier Left gatekeeper, using his elevated status to cover up the major crimes of the global elite.
His formula over the years has stayed consistent: blame "America" and "corporations" while failing to examine the hidden Globalist overclass which pulls the strings, using the U.S. as an engine of creation and destruction. Then after pinning all the worlds ills on American imperialism, Chomsky offers the solution of world government under the United Nations.
In his book "The Conspirator's Hierarchy," Dr. John Coleman named Chomsky as a deep cover CIA agent working to undermine social protest groups. Certainly Dr. Coleman's claims appear validated by an honest review of Chomsky's role as a Left gatekeeper.
Since 9-11 [the attacks of 2001-09-11], he has steadfastly refused to discuss the evidence of government complicity and prior knowledge. Furthermore, he claims that the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Bilderberg Committee, and Trilateral Commission are "nothing organizations." When critiquing poverty, he never mentions the Federal Reserve and their role in manipulating the cycle of debt.
Similarly, he claims that the CIA was never a rogue organization and is an innocent scapegoat; that JFK was killed by the lone assassin Lee Harvey Oswald; that the obvious vote fraud in 2004 did not occur; and that "peak oil" is real and good for humanity.
What he does advocate is population control, gun control, support for UNESCO, and the end of national sovereignty in favor of a one-world government under the U.N. In other words, the major goals of the New World Order. Chomsky's role in propaganda paradigm is much like that of Karl Marx: to present a false liberation ideology which actually supports the desired solutions of the elite. Marx pointed out the inequalities and brutality of capitalism and then advocated a one world bank, army, and government with the abolition of private property and religion; in other words, the major goals of the New World Order.
Tens of millions of activists worldwide still remain trapped by this scam, failing to recognize the inherent autocratic and elitist structures of Marxism-Leninism or the newer incarnation under Chomsky.
The Globalist elites and their army of social scientists at the Tavistock Institute understand that people are going to question the inequities of the current economic system. For example, why is wealth distributed so unequally between classes and countries? Why are those living in third world nations allowed to die from preventable diseases and starvation? Why does the U.S. government sponsor and direct such murderous foreign policy? Why was America attacked on 9-11?
In other words, why is the world embroiled in such violence? Who is behind all this suffering? And most importantly, what solutions would relieve the poverty and destruction plaguing the worldwide population?
Enter Chomsky, the controlled opposition, to play the role of re-direct agent. He discusses a mere fraction of the real elite manipulation and then quickly pushes his followers into dead-end solutions and alienating rhetoric. Chomsky's hero status is further amplified by Left gatekeeper publications like Z Magazine, DemocracyNow!, The Progressive, and The Nation.
Is it a coincidence that all of those magazines receive major funding from Globalist front-groups like the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Endowment, and MacArthur Foundation? Chomsky may be the head gatekeeper, but he works alongside a network of fellow Globalist assets like Amy Goodman who do their best to appear radical while avoiding all the hardcore issues and deliberately leading the Left into oblivion.
The following analysis will show that Chomsky, a deep cover agent for the New World Order, a master of black propaganda whose true motives become clear with a sober and honest examination.
September 11, 2001
Noam Chomsky has acted as the premier Left gatekeeper in the aftermath of the 9-11 crimes, lashing out at the 9-11 truth movement and claiming [that] any suggestions of government complicity are fabrications. The "radical" Chomsky takes a position so deeply rooted in denial that it makes the staged 9-11 whitewash commission look like an honest study. He belligerently refuses to discuss any of the massive evidence proving government foreknowledge and participation in the crimes, claiming it would destroy the activist movements worldwide:
"If the left spends its time on this, that's the end of the left, in my opinion: the mainstream would be utterly delighted. It is highly likely that nothing significant will be found. And if -- which I very greatly doubt -- something is found that would quickly send everyone in Washington to the death chamber, the left is unlikely to emerge triumphant."
In other words, Chomsky is telling his followers to ignore the evidence because according to him, none exists. However even if there is massive evidence, responsible activists should ignore it because it would be "the end of the Left." Chomsky's role as a 9-11 gatekeeper goes even further as he denies each piece of evidence individually. The following examples should suffice:
[First], as most honest 9-11 researchers know, 7 of the accused 19 hijackers are alive, proving the official story is a fabrication. Many of the remaining 12 were trained as U.S. Air Force bases and CIA-connected Huffman Aviation [in Venice, FL]. Many of the accused "religious fanatics" acted more like degenerate contract agents, as they flashed wads of cash, visited strip clubs, drank profusely, blew cocaine, smoked weed, cavorted with strippers and had strange meetings in the drug-rich Florida keys.
Men like Mohammed Atta fit the M.O. of an undercover CIA drug runner: a man trained at U.S. Air Force bases, fluent in many languages, able to evade INS regulations, working with drug dealers, and receiving wired bank funds from CIA-linked Pakistani intelligence. There remains no photographic evidence of these supposed hijackers ever getting on the planes (walking through airport security does not count). Furthermore, the autopsy list of Flight 77 which supposedly hit the Pentagon listed none of the accused hijackers.
Regarding the evidence of government complicity in training the hijackers, Chomsky wrote the following:
"Nothing empirical is impossible. Thus, it is conceivable that everyone in the White House is totally insane. And in my opinion, that's what they would have had to be to try something that would have been very likely to turn into an utter fiasco, and if by some miracle had succeeded, would almost certainly have leaked, so that they would all be facing the death sentence. Possible, but not likely."
[Second], what about the unprecedented NORAD [North American Air Defense] stand down on 9-11 which broke standard operation procedure? Over 67 times in 2001, NORAD had dispatched [interceptors for] jets when they deviated from their flight path. In 1999, when golfer Payne Stewart's single engine Lear [jet] depressurized, NORAD planes were flying around the vessel in 20 minutes.
But on 9-11, Ben Sliney, in his first day on the job as hijacking coordinator for the FAA, delayed calls to NORAD. Meanwhile NORAD ran at least 7 hijacking drills that morning like Operation Vigilant Guardian, where commercial jets crashed into government buildings in Manhattan, Washington DC, and Virginia. These "mock" drills, designed to [go] live on 9-11, helped to distract the honest people within NORAD and the FAA, and to evade suspicion from patriotic investigators within the CIA, FBI, and NSA's Echelon network.
Of the subject of the NORAD stand down, Chomsky wrote the following:
"Whether NORAD followed SOP, I have no idea, not having investigated the matter. I think the case is very weak, and diverts people from the really serious issues."
[Third], how about the document called "Operation Northwoods" signed off in 1962 by the Joint Chiefs of Staff like Generals Lemnitzer and Landsdale? These men, sworn to protect the Constitution, devised a plan to create false-flag terrorism in order to engineer a war with Cuba. Their treasonous plans included the following:
"Hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft could appear to continue as harassing measures condoned by the Government of Cuba."
"Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government."
"We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba . . . casualty lists in U.S. newspapers cause a helpful wave of indignation."
This document was discovered in the National Archives and has been the subject of mainstream articles by ABC News and others. It stands as clear evidence that the U.S. government has designed plans to engineer terrorist attacks and blame them on foreign enemies. Yet Noam Chomsky does not think the Northwoods document matters:
"Operation Northwoods example is only one of many reasons for being skeptical about this: it doesn't even come close, and it was not carried out. Furthermore, there is nothing in history that even remotely resembles what is being proposed. Of course, that does not show that the thesis is impossible: nothing could show that, by definition. And if someone can put together some evidence and refute the arguments as to why it is extraordinarily unlikely, then the matter will be worth pursuing."
Chomsky's role as the chief 9-11 gatekeeper proves he is distracting his leftist followers from the truth. Instead of facing the clear facts, he claims that 19 hijackers did it and that al-Qaeda is a real terrorist enemy. When presented with documented evidence, from living hijacker patsies to the NORAD stand down, he simply claims it doesn't exist. He resorts to emotional "they would never do it" appeals in order to deny the obvious.
Chomsky is exhibiting far more than logical skepticism, but instead is actively engaging in disinformation.
9-11 Prior Knowledge
Chomsky's denial of government complicity in the crimes of September 11 [2001] is one thing, but he goes further, claiming the government had no prior knowledge of the attacks. Mind you, this is a position even weaker than Michael Moore's tepid [documentary film] "Fahrenheit 9-11", which at least tacitly suggested a degree of prior knowledge. Chomsky's position is untenable. For a man who prides himself on science and logic, his steadfast refusal to acknowledge mainstream media reports finds him using arguments similar to Holocaust deniers: one can show them photographs, videos, testimony, and physical evidence but the burden of proof is impossible. Such is the case with Chomsky who ignores the many government admissions of prior knowledge widely available even in the 9-11 whitewash commission report. Here is Noam Chomsky writing on government prior knowledge:
"That tells us even less. Every intelligence agency is flooded, daily, with information of very low credibility. In retrospect, one can sometimes pick out pieces that mean something. At the time, that's a virtual impossibility. By arguments like this we can prove that someone blew up the White House yesterday."
If they did not have prior knowledge, why were [vice president] Cheney and NORAD running drills that morning where hijacked jets flew into buildings in New York, Washington DC and Virginia? ...
On 27 May 2011, the New York Times has an article entitled: Egypt’s Next Crisis
In this article we read about a political meeting, in the town of Kafr Shukr, where a chicken farmer named Ayman Dahroug declares:
"The truth is, there are no leaders in Kafr Shukr anymore.
"It’s only the Muslim Brotherhood that works here now.
"They are in Kafr Shukr every day."
The Muslim Brotherhood buy imported meat at a discount and sell it to the poor in the town.
Cairo 1880
According to the New York Times article:
"Egypt is in the agony of self-discovery...
"Other Arab revolutions founder or lapse into civil wars...
"(In Egypt) workers are striking throughout the country...
"Many ... warn of a possible takeover by Islamists, who could assume power through the ballot box only to impose an Iran-style theocracy.
"These fears are not groundless; there are certainly people, in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world, who do not want to see a popular revolution succeed...
The Guardian reported today that British PM, David Cameron, has stepped down as a patron of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in a “move pro-Palestinian campaigners claim is a result of pressure.”
The JNF was originally a Zionist fund set up to buy land in Palestine to establish Jewish settlements before the creation of the state of Israel. Since 1948 it has been operating as a global charity specialising in planting trees over Palestinian stolen land and eradicated villages.
Sofiah Macleod of the UK-based Stop the JNF Campaign told the Guardian that it was the organisation's lobbying that had led Cameron to withdraw. "There has been a change in public opinion and awareness about Israel's behaviour and there was specific pressure on [Cameron] to step down from the JNF," she said." ...
Bangkok, Thailand May 28, 2011 - Russia's President Medvedev, according to the Australian, has "endorsed calls for Colonel Gaddafi to leave office and offered to help to negotiate his exit. " It is a move that has "surprised and delighted" both London and Washington after Russia's initial protest against the extralegal military action that was executed upon an Iraq War-style pack of lies.
This apparent backpedaling by Russia coincides with increased bombardments of Libya's capital of Tripoli and calls by France and Britain to send in helicopter gunships in an effort to increase the level of murder and mayhem in order to force the Libyan government to meet "concessions." The contrived globalist International Criminal Court (ICC), has also attempted to place pressure upon Libya through an "arrest warrant" targeting Qaddafi.
An Entirely Fake Court
The "arrest warrant" issued by the ICC is based on evidence acquired from "30 missions to 11 States, and through interviews with a large number of persons, including key insiders and eyewitnesses." The ICC itself notes that the "unprecedented cooperation" it has received has come from "States and organizations, none of which are currently working in Libya." Undeterred by their admittedly tenuous investigation, they go on to provide an enumerated list of their "evidence."
Beginning with a quotation from the Introduction her ladyship's report:
To argue or find to the contrary [i.e. that Khan, Tanweer, Hussein and Lindsay were not the bombers] would be irrational. It would be to ignore a huge body of evidence from a vast array of sources. Had there been a conspiracy falsely to implicate any of the four in the murder plot, as some have suggested, it would have been of such massive proportions as to be simply unthinkable in a democratic country. It would have involved hundreds of ordinary people, members of the bombers’ families, their friends, their fellow terrorists, independent experts, scientists, as well as various police forces and the Security Service. It would have cost millions of pounds to fabricate the forensic evidence. Independent barristers and solicitors who have had access to the source material (for example the CCTV footage) during the criminal trials and these proceedings would have had to be involved. Just to state the proposition is to reveal its absurdity.
The Antagonist comments:
We will gloss over, for the moment, the fact that there was no need to fabricate CCTV evidence for the simple reason that there was no CCTV evidence at all of three of the accused on the London Underground on the morning of 7 July 2005, however the fact that the police lied about when they viewed some footage from Luton is certainly noteworthy.
And
Conspiracies to "falsely implicate" individuals and groups of individuals that are "Simply unthinkable in a democratic country" are in fact quite routine and commonplace in democratic countries. The British State has a particularly exemplary history of "conspiracy to falsely implicate" through "independent experts, scientists, as well as various police forces and the Security Service." We need not look terribly far back in history to find the cases of the Birmingham 6, the Guildford 4, the Maguire 7, Danny MacNamee, Judith Ward, and many others of Irish descent against whom the State conspired for its own politically expedient gains. Countless similar examples exist. Just to state the proposition (that the aforementioned were falsely implicated) was also dismissed as absurd at the time.
That the inquests did not uncover any such conspiracy comes as no surprise, for the function of an inquest is to determine how an individual died, where they died and when they died. The function is most certainly not that of a criminal investigation, in much the same way as the function of an inquest -- as re-stated both by Hallett and her Counsel to the Inquests, Hugo Keith QC -- is most certainly not "to attribute blame or apportion guilt to individuals". Yet, in both instances of improper function of an inquest, this is what has occurred and the inquests have masqueraded as a legitimate form of investigation, trial and prosecution of four unrepresented men accused of a heinous crime.
Instead of "a conspiracy falsely to implicate any of the four in the murder plot... of such massive proportions as to be simply unthinkable in a democratic country" that "would have involved hundreds of ordinary people, members of the bombers’ families, their friends, their fellow terrorists, independent experts, scientists, as well as various police forces and the Security Service" and "cost millions of pounds to fabricate the forensic evidence", what the public are left with is the same tidy, if inconsistent, unsubstantiated and unproven, 'narrative' that we started with and a proxy investigation, trial, prosecution, and judgement "that cost millions of pounds" that "involved hundreds of ordinary people... families, their friends...independent experts, scientists, as well as various police forces and the Security Service."
The very same process succinctly described by Lady Justice Hallett outlining why "a conspiracy falsely to implicate any of the four in a murder plot" could not have occurred, is exactly the process by which the four accused have indeed been implicated, accused, tried and found guilty.
There is more, and the commentary deserves reading in its entirety. There are also some interesting readers' comments, including this by Bridget:
J7 [Truth] have always maintained it is the State that must prove its narrative not ours to construct alternatives. As there must be a mass of evidence not adduced to the Inquests nor released to the public it remains impossible to offer an alternative hypothesis that we can credibly construct. Therefore we call on our supporters and the wider public to continue to campaign for the release of the evidence. If the State has the evidence to support it's narrative then that shouldn't be a problem. ...
As soon as an alternative is put forward, the focus shifts from examining the official account to examining the alternative account.
This remains true. A people who question the State are far more empowered and dangerous imo than those who shift attention away from it.
In relation to the J7 inquest, Stef Zucconi has a good post about disinformation, distraction and defamation in the manipulation of public perception such as is required in the concealment of state crimes against democracy.
Such manipulation is undertaken via both the mainstream media and the alternative media. In this context, it is of interest to remember that during WW1, President Wilson set the Committee for Public Information, headed by former newspaper man George Creel.
The purpose of the CPI was to influence American public opinion toward supporting U.S. participation in World War I via a prolonged propaganda campaign. ...
The committee used newsprint, posters, radio, telegraph, cable and movies to broadcast its message. It recruited about 75,000 "Four Minute Men," volunteers who spoke about the war at social events for an ideal length of four minutes..."
Which leads one to ask whether Cass Sunstein's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is anything other than an Internet-age incarnation of George Creel's Committee of Public Information? If so, 75,000 operatives working an eight hour day could surely transform the Internet consensus on anything of government concern. And remember the government shills use software that enables them to operate under multiple personalities. So 75,000 shills might look like 37.5 million.
In understanding the manipulation of public perception it is also necessary to take account of the difficulty most people have in entertaining a hypothesis as opposed to a definite assertion. This has important practical implications for those who seek publicly to question an official narrative.
Without a thorough forensic investigation, which only the state can undertake, the public will always have to deal with uncertainty about many political events including possible state crimes. This in turn means that most people will either reject conspiracy theories out of hand in preference for the definitive official storys or they will adopt the conspiracy theory without noting the uncertainties relating to it, thereby entering the realm of irrational certainty where they can be singled out and ridiculed by advocates of the official view. Moreover, the defenders of the official story can create their own conspiracy nuts, the easier to dismiss all conspiracy theorists as lunatics.
Thus to expect either truth or rationality in Internet discussion of critical events such as 9/11, 7/7 forums would be a triumph of hope not only over experience, but also of logic.
The story seems so far out that it is hard to take it in the least bit seriously except that it raises one very curious question: if the Fukushima nuclear disaster was the result of Force 9.1 earthquake, why was there virtually no earthquake damage -- only damage by the tsunami, which occurred 40 minutes after the quake and destroyed hitherto undamaged buildings?
To make it clear why that is so remarkable, one needs to understand that a force 9.1 magnitude earthquake releases energy equivalent to half a gigaton of TNT, that's five hundred million tons of TNT, or the energy released by 50,000 Hiroshima-sized nukes.
It appears, however, that contrary to the claim made in this article, the quake epicenter was offshore, not on land, although it was close -- about 120 km East of the city of Sendai.
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.
It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came – next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their faces alight with material dreams – visions of a stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! – then home from the war, bronzed heros, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation – "God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"
In a sensational and explosive TV report, the Pakistani News Agency has provided a live interview with an eye witness to the US attack on the alleged compound of Osama bin Laden. The eye witness, Mohammad Bashir, describes the event as it unfolded. Of the three helicopters, "there was only one that landed the men and came back to pick them up, but as he [the helicopter] was picking them up, it blew away and caught fire." The witness says that there were no survivors, just dead bodies and pieces of bodies everywhere. "We saw the helicopter burning, we saw the dead bodies, then everything was removed and now there is nothing."
I always wondered how a helicopter could crash, as the White House reported, without at least producing injuries. Yet, in the original White House story, the SEALs not only survived a 40-minute firefight with al Qaeda, "the most highly trained, most dangerous, most vicious killers on the planet," without a scratch, but also survived a helicopter crash without a scratch.
The Pakistani news report is available on you tube. The Internet site, Veterans Today, posted a translation along with a video of the interview. Information Clearing House made it available on May 17.
If the interview is not a hoax and the translation is correct, we now know the answer to the unasked question: Why was there no White House ceremony with President Obama pinning medals all over the heroic SEALs who tracked down and executed Public Enemy Number One?
The notion that Obama had to keep the SEALs’ identity secret in order to protect the SEALs from al Qaeda detracts from the heroic tough guy image of the SEALs, and it strains credulity that Obama’s political handlers would not have milked the occasion for all it is worth.
So says Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and potential candidate for president of Egypt.
Indeed, post-revolutionary Egypt appears to be coming apart.
Since the heady days of Tahrir Square, Salafis have been killing Christians. Churches have been destroyed. Gangs have conducted mass prison breaks. The Muslim Brotherhood brims with confidence.
And demands are rising for the prosecution and execution of former president Hosni Mubarak.
May 27, 2011: When Britain lost control of Egypt in 1956, Prime Minister Anthony Eden said he wanted the nationalist president Gamal Abdel Nasser "destroyed … murdered … I don’t give a damn if there’s anarchy and chaos in Egypt." Those insolent Arabs, Winston Churchill had urged in 1951, should be driven "into the gutter from which they should never have emerged."
The language of colonialism may have been modified; the spirit and the hypocrisy are unchanged. A new imperial phase is unfolding in direct response to the Arab uprising that began in January and has shocked Washington and Europe, causing an Eden-style panic. The loss of the Egyptian tyrant Mubarak was grievous, though not irretrievable; an American-backed counterrevolution is under way as the military regime in Cairo is seduced with new bribes and power shifting from the street to political groups that did not initiate the revolution. The western aim, as ever, is to stop authentic democracy and reclaim control.
Libya is the immediate opportunity. The NATO attack on Libya, with the UN Security Council assigned to mandate a bogus "no fly zone" to "protect civilians," is strikingly similar to the final destruction of Yugoslavia in 1999. There was no UN cover for the bombing of Serbia and the "rescue" of Kosovo, yet the propaganda echoes today. Like Slobodan Milosevic, Muammar Gaddafi is a "new Hitler," plotting "genocide" against his people. There is no evidence of this, as there was no genocide in Kosovo. In Libya there is a tribal civil war; and the armed uprising against Gaddafi has long been appropriated by the Americans, French and British, their planes attacking residential Tripoli with uranium-tipped missiles and the submarine HMS Triumph firing Tomahawk missiles, a repeat of the "shock and awe" in Iraq that left thousands of civilians dead and maimed. As in Iraq, the victims, which include countless incinerated Libyan army conscripts, are media unpeople.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 23, 2011: A new report from the Anti-Defamation League raises concerns about a conservative student group, which it says has ties to white supremacists and a plan to expand at universities across the country.
The student group—Youth for Western Civilization—says it's not a racist organization. Its stated mission is "to organize, educate, and train activists dedicated to the revival of Western Civilization."
But the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization, says in its report that the student group uses "Western civilization" as a euphemism for "white culture."
Youth for Western Civilization was founded in 2006 by Kevin DeAnna, a recent graduate of American University's School of International Service, and the organization will host its first conference in June, in Washington, D.C.
"The fact that they're having their first national conference is something that makes it more an issue of concern for us, because of their desire to grow and strategize," said Marilyn Mayo, co-director of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism....
From the Youth for Western Civilization Mission Statement
Why We Care About Western Civilization
It is ours. We have the self-evident right and duty to work for the survival of our own culture and civilization.
While this reason is sufficient in itself, Western Civilization has also given priceless gifts to the rest of mankind, including advances in medicine, the arts, and scientific exploration.
There is no reason to believe that the advances of modernity and the political freedoms we enjoy will endure with the extinction of the civilization that allowed them to exist. Western Civilization is our civilization and in spite of the continual assault and hatred it endures from the radical left, we wish to revive the West, rather than see our civilization be sent to the graveyard of history. ...
DENVER Apr.23, 2003 - A $9.75 million libel award against the Anti-Defamation League for publicly calling an Evergreen couple anti-Semitic was upheld Tuesday by a federal appeals court.
William and Dorothy Quigley won the judgment in April 2000 after the ADL's remarks at a news conference. The incident arose out of a dispute between the Quigleys and neighbors Mitchell and Candice Aronson, who are Jewish. The original judgment was $10.5 million, but a judge reduced that to $9.75 million in 2001 because the Quigleys had won a separate but related judgment against the Aronsons over wiretapping violations.
The ADL appealed the libel judgment, but the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the smaller award.
The title of the Anti Defamation League’s smear against Youth for Western Civilization, “ADL Documents Link Between Campus Group and White Supremacists,” is very telling. The operative word is “link.” The ADL does not claim that I or any member of the group is a “white supremacist,” but rather that that we are “linked” to people who they claim to be white supremacist.
The extent of these “links” are unsolicited praise on message boards, people who decided to be “fans” of our Facebook page, and people who showed up in the audience to events we held that are open to the public.
I honestly had not even heard of over half the people I am allegedly “linked” to. The ADL and their liberal allies are the same people screaming McCarthyism whenever anyone brings us Barack Obama’s actual ties (as opposed to Facebook linked or audience linked) to radical left wingers and racists like Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.
The ADL implicitly acknowledges that no one involved in YWC has said anything “racist” when they accuse us of “avoid[ing] using overtly bigoted rhetoric” in favor of “euphemistic language” to make our points.
What are these evil code words? According to the ADL, “Western Civilization” means white, and when we refer to “members of the multiculti” and “racial grievance groups” we mean to disparage all minorities.
These smears are prima facie frivolous.
We have many minority members who support Western Civilization and many of the “members of the multiculti ” we oppose are white (such as the majority of the staff at the ADL.) “Western Civilization” is not a euphemism, and we have clearly defined what we mean by it on our website.
If the ADL wants to fight real ”racism” they should look at groups like the National Council of La Raza, which means “the race”—not much of an euphemism. Instead the ADL has teamed up with La Raza to try to shut down opponents of illegal immigration.
This is the real motive of their attack on YWC.
The ADL lobbied in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens and filed a brief against Arizona’s SB 1070. They have a long history of slandering virtually all opponents of mass immigration such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform and Pat Buchanan as “racists” to try to silence them. The ADL is so unscrupulous in their witch hunts against supposed racists and extremists, that they were found liable in federal court for illegally wiretapping and defaming private citizens and penalized 12 million dollars.
The upside of these attacks is that when open borders groups with multi-million dollar budgets are resorting to such frivolous guilt by association attacks, we know we are making an impact.
Daily Express, May 25, 2011: US troops will be deployed in Pakistan if the nation’s nuclear installations come under threat from terrorists out to avenge the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Sunday Express can reveal.
The plan, which would be activated without President Asif Ali Zardari’s consent, provoked an angry reaction from Pakistan officials last night.
Barack Obama would order troops to parachute in to protect key nuclear missile sites.
These include the air force’s central Sargodha HQ, home base for nuclear-capable F-16 combat aircraft and at least 80 ballistic missiles.
A US source told the Sunday Express: “The plan is green lit and the President has already shown he is wiling to deploy troops in Pakistan if he feels it is important for national security.”
Attack on Karachi Air Base Suggests CIA’s Taliban Countergang Wrecking Pakistan’s Anti-Submarine Defenses; US Waging Irregular Warfare Below Nuclear Threshold
Britain's Ministry of Defense, Development, Concepts and Doctrine Center predicts that the "strategic context" facing Britain's armed forces within 30 years will include a brain chipped population, out-of-control immigration, class warfare and the use of neutron bombs and biological weapons to combat overpopulation.
Not content, apparently, to impoverish us through taxation, the bastards want to reduce us to robotic slavery before wiping us entirely from the face of the planet.
But what's with these people who want to wage war against humanity?
Has the environmental movement morphed into a campaign for global genocide? Do they love the snail darter and the smallpox bacillus more than they love people?
Or is it just that they'd rather kill off a whole bunch of people than give up the SUV?
Ted Turner thinks a total world population of about 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be "ideal".
After the most intense bombardment of Tripoli yet, we are now deploying ground attack helicopters to intensify the fighting in Libya. Whether all this is really going to achieve the illegal objective of regime change is open to question. What is in no doubt is that it is killing people, and it is very expensive. In April 2011, UK net public sector borrowing exceeded £10 billion for the month – compared to £7.2 billion in April 2010 and a forecast of £6.5 billion. We are closing libraries and care for the disabled. Yet we still squander billions on neo-imperial folly.
The problem is that there is no opposition. The British political system has become an uncomplicated instrument of power for a united neo-conservative class. The Liberal Democrats have been neutered by Clegg and New Labour still seeks to attack from the populist right. Our established political system is not fit for purpose – it no longer provides a forum for the airing of views very widely held by disparate groups in society, and for the fair and agreed resolution of courses of action. ...
It is good to see that Craig Murray has finally realized that what the great majority of the British public wants is precisely the British National Party (BNP) agenda: Out of Europe, out of NATO, out of Afghanistan, out of Libya, and an end to mass immigration which even the Labor Government’s own research demonstrated was harmful to the interests of British workers (on this, Murray supports the Corporate interest, not the popular view), an end to off-shoring of jobs and a national industrial policy that will rebuild British industry and restore British technical and engineering competence.
Unfortunately, Craig Murray has no suggestion as to how Britain's pseudodemocratic system of government might be transformed into a process that reflects the interests of the British people. What’s needed is to remove the malign influence of that Cambridge-trained, Masonicclown, Nick Griffin (an MI6 operative, surely) whose function as leader of the BNP is to associate every populist policy with thuggish, fascistic, racist antics so that the public dare not express their support either for the party or, more importantly, the policies that that party pretends to espouse.
How a populist program of government could be instituted in Britain is not easy to see. For one of the mainstream parties to adopt the nationalist agenda would make sense, except that the credibility of the mainstream parties is probably lower than Nick Griffin's. At least the public think Nick Griffin would actually do what he promises, dreadful though Griffin's antics and the media portrayal of the BNP make that seem. But no one believes that any of the mainstream parties will do in office what they promise on the campaign trail.
The reason the mainstream parties lack credibility is that they are subservient to the monied interests that fund their campaigns and pay off the leaders for services rendered when those leaders leave office. A useful initiative, therefore, would be a campaign to make all corporate and foreign donations to political parties illegal, and to provide public funding for election campaigns. A quid or two for every vote gained in the previous election, would provide the means for every party to put out its message. And the BBC could be required to provide a non-stop political channel during the election campaign which would broadcast material provided by the contending parties, time to be allocated according to the number of votes received in the previous election. This measure against treason would be declared treason by the monied interests, and explains why Stephen Harper intends to eliminate all public funding of national elections in Canada.
Cammas, Shooting stars and Pacific buttercups in Uplands Park
It was a beautiful morning in Victoria today: clear blue sky, low humidity, temperature just under 20 C. Too nice to spend time indoors blogging. I cleaned the gutters instead -- inside and out. Among the dead leaves, mold, moss and other gunge to be scooped out, I found three small trees sprouting happily.
Actually, spending the morning in semi-darkness in the basement composing a very long blog post would have been more fun. Aluminum gutters with a baked-on painted finish are rubbish. The painted surface provides the perfect substrate for algae and lichens while moss grows in the joints.
An architect I worked with in Britain, decades ago, maintained that cast iron was the only type of gutter one should use, because there is nothing else that has tested and found satisfactory for over a hundred years.
The American rite of passage to adulthood has become the Amerikan rite of passage to grovelling servitude.
And despite Daniel Goldhagen's anti-German contempt, Americans, it turns out, are no better able to resist the rise of totalitarianism than Germans were able to resist Nazism.
But surely no previous great civilization has declined into such grotesquery. Let us hope that the final collapse, disintegration and disappearance of this once great nation is not long delayed.
Islamabad, May 19, 2011: China today said the international community "must respect" Pakistan's sovereignty, tacitly confirming reports that it has asked the US not to violate Islamabad's territorial integrity, following the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Asked about reports that China has asked US during its recently concluded strategic dialogue with Washington to respect Pakistan's sovereignty as Islamabad came under heavy pressure after bin Laden's killing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Jiang Yu told media here that "sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan must be respected".
"We believe that Pakistan has made great contribution to international counter-terrorism efforts, as well as huge sacrifices. The international community should understand and support Pakistan's efforts to restore national stability and develop its economy," she said.
According to Pakistan's state run APP news agency, Gilani told Pakistan media here last night after his meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao that "China supported Pakistan's cause on its own".
Gilani said the Chinese conveyed a clear message to the US that "there should be no harm to the Pakistani sovereignty and the US should understand and appreciate concerns of Pakistan".
China asked the US to work with Pakistan in improving their bilateral relations in view of the present scenario, he said.
Chinese leadership conveyed to the US that Pakistan should be helped and its honour should be upheld keeping in view its sacrifices in war on terror, he said.
He quoted Wen as saying that Pakistan faced challenges in the wake of killing of bin Laden and Chinese leadership was categorical in supporting Pakistan's stance as well as its concerns over national honour and sovereignty.
China has "warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China", The News daily quoted diplomatic sources as saying.
The warning was formally conveyed by the Chinese foreign minister at last week's China-US strategic dialogue and economic talks in Washington, it said.
For his part, Gilani reiterated Pakistan's support for its policy of 'One China' and said his country fully supports China on the issues of Taiwan and Tibet.
During her briefing today, Jiang skirted questions about Pakistan-China signing new defence agreements. Asked about assertions by Pakistan's Ambassador to China Masood Khan before Gilani's arrival that new defence deals would be signed, she said the two sides signed agreements in economy, technology, finance and energy resources.
"As to specific cooperation, please refer to relevant companies," she said, adding that China is actively implementing pledges to help pro-disaster reconstruction and exerting utmost to help tide over difficulties."
Strategic Culture Foundation, May 15, 2011:The history of Europe is one of successive collapsed empires. Some, such as the Roman, Holy Roman, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires, simply overextended themselves and collapsed due to nationalist uprisings coupled with domestic political and economic inertia. Others, like the German Nazi, Soviet, Italian fascist, Napoleonic French, Spanish, and Portuguese empires collapsed as a result of their military aggression and incessant subterfuge from external forces.
The European Union appears to be suffering from the same symptoms as those experienced by the first category of failed European empires: over-extension, a stagnant and bloated bureaucracy, and economic collapse. As Europe strives to become a more unified and federal union, there has been a backlash from across its member states, with a North-South divide and economic turmoil now threatening to bring down the whole house of cards.
The rise of nationalist political parties in some of the EU’s heretofore staunchest pro-EU member nations and the collapse of some EU national economies due to predatory banking policies and America’s flooding of the global financial system with cheap dollars – a central bankers’ contrivance known as “quantitative easing” -- has created fault lines in Europe that not only threaten to bring down the euro and drive the European Central Bank into extinction but prompt some members to leave the EU altogether.
In 1918, the United States proved militarily decisive in the defeat of the Kaiser’s Germany and emerged as first power on earth.
World War II, ending in 1945, produced two truly victorious nations, the Soviet Union of Joseph Stalin and the America of Harry Truman.
Out of the Cold War that lasted from Truman to the disintegration of the Soviet Empire and breakup of the Soviet Union at the end of Ronald Reagan’s term came a lone victor: the last superpower, the United States.
Who emerged triumphant from the post-Cold War era, 1991-2011?
Indisputably, it is China, whose 10-12 percent annual growth vaulted her past Italy, France, Britain, Germany and Japan to become the world’s second largest economy and America’s lone rival for first manufacturing power.
If we use a metric called “purchasing power parity,” China overtakes America in 2016. Says the International Monetary Fund, the American era is over.
Strategically, too, the United States seems in retreat, nowhere more so than in that region that was the focus of George W. Bush’s “global democratic revolution.” And no nation reflects more the relative loss of U.S. power and influence than does Israel, whose isolation is today unprecedented. ...
METZ, FRANCE May 21, 2011. From this ancient fortress city, allow me, a former instructor of military history, to address three particularly misleading myths still lingering from World War II:
First: France’s army did not simply surrender or run away in 1940, as ignorant American conservatives claim.
The German blitzkrieg that smote France on May-June, 1940 was a major historical revolution in warfare. It combined rapidly-moving armor and mobile infantry, precision dive bombing, flexible logistical support, and new, high technologies in C3 – command, control and communications. In 1940, Germany led the world in technology: 75% of all technical books were then written in German.
France’s armies and generals, trained to re-fight World War I, were overwhelmed by lightning warfare. France was then still an agricultural society. Blitzkrieg was designed to strike an enemy’s brain rather than body, paralyzing his ability to manage large forces or fight. The Germans called it their `silver bullet.’
France still relied on couriers to deliver messages. French commander Gen. Gamelin, did not even have a telephone in his HQ outside Paris.
Britain’s well-trained expeditionary force in France was beaten just as quickly as the French, and saved itself only by fleeing across the Channel.
No army in the world at that time could have withstood Germany’s blitzkrieg, planned by the brilliant Erich von Manstein, and led by Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel: three of modern history’s greatest generals ...
And here's the deepest Madelbrot Set zoom ever, which reveals a curious optical illusion. If you stop the video just after four minutes, the image does not seem still, but shrinks, e.g., at 4:36. Does anyone know why?
President Barack Obama is endorsing the Palestinians' demand for their future state to be based on the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war, in a move that will likely infuriate Israel. Israel says the borders of a Palestinian state have to be determined through negotiations.
This sounds like a fundamental change in US ME policy. But more likely just one of those standard tricks of perceptual manipulation.
It involves a big promise, which serves to get the headlines, and which is then quietly followed by a trivialization of the promise to the point of insignificance, negation or complete inversion.
David Cameron, whose preparation for the UK premiership included a stint as a corporate PR flack, and who is turning out to be a better liar even than Tony Blair, routinely exploits this technique. Thus, for example, his election campaign assertion that the problem of mass immigration to Britain needed to be "gripped" was followed by the recent lame statement that this was merely an "aspiration, not policy." Then there was his promise the other day to pull British troops out of Afghanistan, which according to the media, prompted hand-wringing in Washington and anguish among British military brass. But within days, it turned out that during the next year Britain will pull out no more than about 400 troops of a total Afghanistan contingent of ten thousand -- a promise surely to be followed in a few months by the revelation that Britain has sent hundreds of advisers, trainers, civilian aids, mercenaries, whatever to Afghanistan and that the total numbers of Brits propping up the Karzai Kleptocracy is more, not less, than today.
So how will Obama bin Lyin's promise be turned to rat shit? Easily enough. Just a quiet statement when no one is paying much attention that the terms for the creation of a Palestinian state must be subject to full and free negotiation between the parties. And since a return to the 1967 borders is not a matter for negotiation so far as Israel is concerned, O'Bomber's demand that "Palestine must be based on the 1967 borders," becomes"non-operative", to quote Richard Nixon's late, great and perhaps even lamented spin-master, Ron Zeigler.
I could be wrong. But when we have come to understand that bombing is "humanitarian," that Bin Laden had nine lives of which he may not yet have expended the last, that Fukushima, the greatest man-made environmental catastrophe of all time, is to be hardly mentioned in the MSM and that we must live in ignorance of how much radio-active material we are eating and breathing, it would throw the entire World into confusion for Obama to to be scripted with anything other than the slickest and most brilliantly polished lies.
Wow, how brave O'Barmy looks, standing up to his paymasters. How long will he hold out? Forty-eight hours? A week? Two weeks? Perhaps he'll stick it out until Christmas. After all, what 'Barmy says won't alter the facts on the ground in the slightest.
But the word was scarcely uttered before it was taken back
In this report we see that Obama "called for a negotiated solution based on the borders that existed before the 1967 Six Day War." This embodies a blatant self contradiction, since we know that the 1967 border are not open to negotiation.
So now we know it: Obama lacks the balls to challenge Israeli dominance for more than a split second. Neverthelss, he'll have fooled a bunch of folks who may not experience the bitterness of disillusionment for months.
Jason Ditz, May 22, 2011: Speaking today at the AIPAC annual conference, President Barack Obama addressed the controversial suggestion he made that the peace process between Israel and a prospective Palestinian state start with the pre-1967 borders, before Israel occupied Palestine.
The only thing more furious than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the backpedalling done by Obama at the speech, where he was quick to insist simultaneously that the reference to 1967 wasn’t new and that he wasn’t really serious about it.
Rather Obama insisted that the “1967 lines” would need to be revised to account for what he referred to in the speech as “demographics changes” but what most people in the world refer to as the construction of settlements in the occupied territories. ...
Rahm Emanuel: A Return To 1967 Borders Does Not Mean a Return To 1967 Borders
U.S. President Barack Obama's former chief of staff and current Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, attempted to assuage Israeli fears that the U.S. administration expects Israel to return to 1967 borders, clarifying that this was never Obama's policy ...
Emanuel added that 1967 borders are the starting point and not the end point for negotiations.
"That statement does not mean a return to 1967 borders," Emanuel said, adding that "no workable solution envisions that. Land swaps offer the flexibility necessary to ensure secure and defensible borders and address the issue of settlements." ...
(Like, the West bank will continue to have the appearance of severely vacuolated Swiss cheese, but in addition to the totally barren and worthless areas we didn't steal, you can have some rubbish land in Israel, exchanged at a rate of, say, one square kilometer of barren desert for ten square kilometres of the better West Bank land we've already built on.)
It was surprising that bilateral relations with the U.S. did not play a more prominent role during the recent Canadian election considering that both countries are pursuing a trade and security agreement. In fact, the issue did not really surface until the dying days of the campaign. After winning a much coveted majority government, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are moving ahead quickly with perimeter security and regulatory harmonization negotiations. NAFTA and the defunct Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) both addressed issues such as regulatory cooperation. The goal of creating a single unified business-friendly regulatory regime for North America now continues on different fronts.
In the final week of the Canadian election campaign, consumer advocate and four-time candidate for President of the United States, Ralph Nader warned about Canada-U.S. deep integration. In an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he raised concerns over the lack of transparency regarding talks between the two countries on a trade and border security deal. Nader cautioned that a, “North American Security Perimeter Agreement will wrap many Canadian concerns — your Arctic, water, energy, anti-monopoly and foreign investment reviews — in a bi-national security blanket.” He added, “The corporatist lobbies and what President Eisenhower warned Americans about in his farewell address 50 years ago — ‘the military-industrial complex’ — will favour this lucrative and anti-democratic initiative.” Nader also explained in his letter to Harper, that, “Canada’s prudent bank regulation prevented a Wall Street style collapse of your economy.” North American deep integration is a corporate led agenda designed to foster privatization and deregulation.
With just days left before the election on May 2, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that a re-elected Conservative government would move forward on the Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness signed with U.S. President Barack Obama back in February of this year. ...
Read more
Foreign Forces Were on the Ground in Libya prior to any type of U.N. Approval
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 only passed, because Moscow and Beijing abstained. This was a tactical move meant to limit the war.
If the resolution had been vetoed by Russia and China, in all likelihood, the U.S., Britain, France, Italy (and the Western European members of NATO) would have resorted to “other means,” including an outright invasion. By abstaining and getting the NATO powers to vocally invest themselves to U.N. Resolution 1973 and to hide behind it, Moscow and Beijing managed to limit the options of the Pentagon and NATO.
The efforts of Moscow and Beijing, however, have not hindered Washington and its NATO allies from breaching international law or U.N. Resolution 1973. Washington has casually admitted that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was on the ground supporting rebel forces. According to Washington, the involvement of U.S. intelligence agents in Libya started as soon as the U.S. embassy in Tripoli was closed. [1] February 25, 2011, is the date that the U.S. embassy in Tripoli was reported as being closed. [2] ...
The Spirit of Rachel Corrie (officially known as FINCH) carrying a humanitarian cargo to Gaza was attacked by an Israeli naval patrol within the so-called Palestinian Security Zone on May 15, at 10.54pm EDT.
In the course of the last few hours, Global Research has communicated several times with the Rachel Corrie vessel en route to Gaza. What is provided below is a detailed update. An earlier article was posted at 12.30am EDT
The vessel left the Greek Port of Piraeus, on Wednesday, May 11. The humanitarian initiative is sponsored by the Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF), chaired by the former Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad.
The cargo ship The Spirit of Rachel Corrie (officially known as FINCH) is carrying 7.5 kilometers of UPVC (plastic) sewage pipes to help restore the devastated sewerage system in Gaza. The ship was named after the courageous American activist who was crushed and killed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003 while trying to prevent the demolition of another Palestinian home. She died at 23. ( Perdana's Second Press Release, Nakba and the Spirit of Rachel Corrie: Humanitarian Ship Attacked by Israel now within 1.5 nautical miles of Gazan Waters Global Research, May 16, 2011)
The Spirit of Rachel Corrie entered Gazan waters without being detected.
The Israeli navy with its radar equipment and advanced communications technology was unaware of the Spirit of Rachel Corrie Mission.
They were unprepared. They had received no prior information of the Rachel Corrie Mission, which had been planned for several months, scheduled to arrive off the coast of Gaza on the day of the "Nakba" commemoration.
Ironically, Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency was unaware of this mission. The Israeli navy vessels acted in an improvised fashion, without prior knowledge or intelligence. There was no indication that they had received precise instructions from the Israeli government.
At the time of the attack, the passengers on board were under the impression that the ship was still in international waters, when in fact is was one mile inside the "Palestinian Security zone", namely in Gaza territorial waters, within a short distance of the Gaza coastline. This was an important accomplishment.
Indicated below is the initial report sent to Global Research by text message:
At 10.54 pm Eastern Time (EDT), the Spirit of Rachel Corrie was intercepted by an Israeli ship and a Egyptian ship in international waters [correction: within Gaza Territorial waters]
10:54pm EDT, Gaza 5:54am: We have been intercepted by Israeli ship and Egyptian ship. We are disobeying the orders and sailing ahead to Gaza.
10:57pm EDT, Gaza 5:57am: One Israeli warship coming to us very fast! We are in international waters, therefore they have no right to attack us. We are still sailing ahead.
10:59pm EDT, Gaza 5:59am: They are opening fire across our ship! We are still sailing ahead.
11:09pm EDT, Gaza 6:09am: They are shooting all over the place. We can't continue ...
11:35pm EDT, Gaza 6:35am: They circled our ship twice and fired across our ship. Machine guns. No one was injured. One of the fishing nets caught the propeller, so we can't move now.
11:37pm EDT, Gaza 6:37am: The Israeli ship was coming from one end and the Egyptian ship was coming from another end. Firing. We are just stalled now. Everybody is okay. No one is injured.
Two Israeli naval vessels initially launched a "warning attack" on the Rachel Corrie, indicating that if the ship did not change course, they would shoot at the crew and the passengers. One of the passengers was almost killed as a result of the attacks. (See Bernama, May 16, 2011)
The following exchange took place between the Israeli navy and the ship as reported by the Free Malaysia Today journalist on board the Spirit of Rachel Corrie:
"Israeli army: This is a warning shot. Turn around.
Captain Jalil Mansor: We are unarmed civilians on a humanitarian mission to Gaza.
Israeli army: This is a closed military zone. It’s a violation. Turn around. Mansor: We will continue (the mission).
The Israelis then headed to the back of the aid vessel and released a second warning shot into the air. Graham: This is a violation (of international law). We are on a peaceful mission and unarmed. Israeli army: Turn around. We will fire again.
Graham: You are firing towards unarmed civilians. Israeli army: We didn’t fire towards unarmed civilians. Graham: Looks like firing towards us. Israeli army: We didn’t fire towards you. That is only a warning shot.
Following that conversation, the Israeli army fired two more shots and threatened: “Next time, we will land on your ship.”
Then the Egyptian navy was heard telling the Israelis on the radio: “Stop firing. They are in Egyptian waters.”
Upon realising the presence of Egyptian naval forces, the Israelis departed." (Free Malaysia Today, http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/05/16/israel-fires-warning-shots-at-msian-ship/ May 16, 2011)
