Friday
Sep042009

Chavez: 'The state of Israel has become a murderous lackey at the service of imperialism'

Source: JPost

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told the Israeli people not to support their government, which he described as "genocidal" on Friday, the second day of his trip to Syria.

Chavez is on an 11-day trip to Libya, Algeria, Syria, Iran, Belarus, Russia and Spain in what he is describing as a bid to build a multi-polar world and decrease US influence in the region.

The Venezuelan president has singled out Israel for criticism during his visit to Syria, slamming it for mistreating the Palestinians and being an agent of US imperialism.

"The state of Israel has become a murderous lackey at the service of imperialism," Chavez said. "It's a genocidal government. I condemn that Zionist government that persecutes the heroic Palestinian people."

Chavez, whose remarks were broadcast by state television in Venezuela, added that "the people of Israel shouldn't support a genocidal government."

Chavez spoke in front of about 10,000 people who gathered at a football stadium in the city of Sweida, some 110 kilometers south of Damascus, near the Jordanian border.

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Thursday
Sep032009

WHO Admits to Releasing Pandemic Virus into Population via 'Mock-Up' Vaccines 

The document on the WHO website linked below states that it is common procedure to release pandemic viruses into the population in order to get a jump ahead of the real pandemic, so as to fast track the vaccine for when it is needed.

In Europe, some manufacturers have conducted advance studies using a so-called "mock-up" vaccine. Mock-up vaccines contain an active ingredient for an influenza virus that has not circulated recently in human populations and thus mimics the novelty of a pandemic virus.

According to the website, “Such advance studies can greatly expedite regulatory approval.”

On June 11 the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its swine flu pandemic alert from a 5 to a 6. Phase 6 is the highest level alert, and reflects the speed with which a virus is spreading -- not its severity.

This classification also allows for a vaccine to qualify for a “fast-track” procedure for licensing and approval, and this process is now ongoing for the swine flu vaccine.

What you may not know, however, is that WHO, together with health officials, regulatory authorities and vaccine manufacturers, have been working since 2007 – long before this new “threat” of swine flu emerged – to “explore a broad range of issues surrounding the regulatory approval of pandemic vaccines.”

According to the WHO website:

Click to read more...

Thursday
Sep032009

Government extends work by Blackwater successor in Iraq

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department said on Wednesday it has asked the company formerly known as Blackwater to continue providing security services to U.S. diplomats in Iraq because the company hired to replace it was not ready to take over.

Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, earlier this year learned its State Department contract in Iraq would not be renewed after some of its guards were accused of killing Iraqi civilians while protecting U.S. diplomats in Baghdad.

In 2007, the company's guards opened fire in Baghdad traffic, killing at least 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in an incident that provoked outrage in Iraq and prompted its government to deny Blackwater a license.

The State Department said it had asked Blackwater to keep providing "aerial services" -- chiefly ferrying U.S. officials around on helicopters -- beyond Thursday, when this work was scheduled to end.

"We have arranged for a temporary extension of the contract," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters, saying it had done so after the planned successor, Dyncorp, said it needed more time to get ready.

Kelly said the main reason Dyncorp wanted additional time was because of equipment shortages but he provided no details.

Thursday
Sep032009

Afghanistan war escalation: The Nation seeks to “protect” the Obama administration from itself

By David Walsh

The war in Afghanistan is increasingly taking center stage in American political life. As the Obama administration, urged on by the Pentagon, prepares to deploy tens of thousands more US troops to the bloody conflict, popular opinion is turning against the involvement. A crisis of historic dimensions is shaping up. 

The American liberal “left,” the Nation magazine, the so-called anti-war movements, various publications and think tanks, all endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 election, claiming that his—in the words of Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel last November—would be a “Transformational Presidency.”

Far from acting to “end the endless wars” and initiating “a politics of sanity and justice and peace,” as vanden Heuvel encouraged people to believe Obama would do, the new administration has continued and even deepened the carnage in Central Asia. While attempting to maintain the fragile stability in Iraq, based on the mass killings of opponents to the foreign occupation and a savage “ethnic cleansing,” Washington is expanding the war into Afghanistan and Pakistan, threatening a much wider conflagration. The election of Barack Obama, for US ruling circles, was merely an opportunity to effect a change in tactics.

Popular expectations of the Obama government are fading; a mood of widespread disappointment and even bitterness is setting in. In this context, the American ex-left acts to promote illusions in the Democrats and shore up the two-party system, in the interests of US imperialism.

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Thursday
Sep032009

Afghanistan for Dummies

By Ray McGovern

I’m going to ask for my money back. I’ve seen this Afghanistan movie before. The first time, Vietnam was in the title.

As in an early scene from the Vietnam version, U.S. military officials are surprised to discover that the insurgents in Afghanistan are stronger than previously realized.

And our protagonist, Gen. Westmoreland — sorry, I mean McChrystal — sees the situation as serious but salvageable. As Westmoreland did with President Lyndon Johnson, McChrystal is preparing to tell President Barack Obama that thousands of more troops are needed to achieve the U.S. objective — whatever that happens to be.

As in Vietnam, uncertainty about objectives and how to measure success persist in Afghanistan. Never has this come through more clearly than in the fuzzy remarks of “Af-Pak” super-envoy Richard Holbrooke who has purview over Afghanistan and Pakistan.

On Aug. 12 at the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C., think tank, Holbrooke tried to clarify how the Obama administration would gauge success in Afghanistan.

John Podesta, the center’s president who was President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff and served as head of Obama’s transition team, waxed eloquent not only about his friend Holbrooke but Holbrooke’s team; really spectacular, impressive, multidisciplinary, interagency, truly exceptional were some of the bouquets thrown at team members.

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Thursday
Sep032009

Planet Cheney

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Chris Hayes, the Washington editor of The Nation, discusses Dick Cheney's continuing defense of torture policies with Rachel Maddow. Hayes explains his vision, explained in this week's cover story at The Nation, for a wide-ranging investigation of torture policies similar to the Church Committee of the 1970s.

Click to read more ...

Thursday
Sep032009

The Secret Government

By Christopher Hayes / The Nation

Though these words echo his famous endorsement of working "the dark side" in order to triumph in the "war on terror," they were not, in fact, written by Dick Cheney. They come from the Doolittle Report, which was commissioned by President Eisenhower in 1954 to craft an intelligence strategy for winning the cold war. From a strategic perspective, the threat posed by global communism, headquartered in a massive, nuclear-armed superpower with almost 6 million men under arms, and Al Qaeda, a networked, globally distributed group of thousands of nonstate actors, could not be more different. But the national security state's understanding of each as an existential threat was, and continues to be, nearly identical. The enemy is ingenious, relentless and unencumbered by the procedural and moral niceties that hamstring the bureaucrats of a liberal democracy. Victory--indeed, survival--requires us to become more like them.  

And so: the CIA contracted a Mafia boss to murder Fidel Castro, sent biotoxins to the Republic of Congo with orders to poison Patrice Lumumba and tested LSD on unsuspecting citizens (one of whom jumped out of a window to his death). It fomented coups and bloodshed against democratically elected governments, while the National Security Agency, in coordination with the major telegram companies, read every single telegram coming in or going out of the country for three decades. The FBI infiltrated peaceful antiwar groups, breaking up marriages of activists with forged evidence of infidelity, while surveilling civil rights leaders with an assortment of bugs and break-ins. It even attempted to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. into committing suicide, shipping him tapes of him midcoitus with a mistress and a note that said, "There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation."

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Wednesday
Sep022009

EU source implies Israel behind July hijacking of Arctic Sea

Admiral Tarmo Kouts, who heads European Union's piracy watch, tells Time Magazine Israel was most likely responsible for hijacking of Arctic Sea in an attempt to intercept Mideast bound missile delivery 

Ynet Published: 09.02.09, 08:46 / Israel News  

A European source claimed in a recent interview with Time Magazine, that Israel was responsible for the hijacking of Russian cargo ship the Arctic Sea since it was suspected of carrying an arms shipment to the Middle East, Ynet learned Wednesday. 

The Arctic Sea went missing in July while en route from Finland to Algeria. Its disappearance sparked reports of a first incident of piracy in European waters in modern times.

The Russian Navy has since located the ship, arrested the alleged hijackers and charged them with kidnapping and piracy, but Admiral Tarmo Kouts, the European Union's rapporteur on piracy, now claims the Arctic Sea was intercepted by Israel as it carried a secret cargo of weapons to the Middle East. 

Russia has adamantly denied the ship was carrying any kind of military supplies.

Click to read more...

Wednesday
Sep022009

9/11: Junk Science and Conspiracy – The Fairy tale narrative that goes down like Soma

By Jack Blood

Well … I guess I can turn in my “truther” membership card now. Watching the half baked “scientific” experiments performed on the National Geographic Channel last night, embedded with the Cheshire like Matt Taibbi, I was left thinking… Where’s the beef.

Nope, this highly promoted documentary intended to be the final debunking of the crazy 911 truther movement, and the science that drives it….Completely collapsed into it’s own foot print, and went down like over cooked mac n cheese.

Not that anyone who has done a modicum of research into the so called official story of 911 didn’t know what was coming… personally I expected more. In the war for hearts and minds, the generals of 911 debunking came at us with a wet thud from their expert pea shooters. In other words, the “docuganda” piece was highly predictable, and toothless.

The two hour hit piece of crap began by setting up the credibility of their experts, IE: Random controlled demo guys, and several men in hard hats with official sounding titles.. These geniuses would then set up a series of “gotcha” conclusions for a panel of 911 luminaries such as David Ray Griffin (PhD, theologian, author of A New Pearl Harbor etc…), Richard Gage (An Architect with years of experience designing steel framed buildings, architects and engineers for 911Truth) Steven Jones (PhD, and “retired” er Defrocked professor / Physicist) and Dylan Avery (writer, director of the famed Loose Change series).

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Tuesday
Sep012009

Canp Fema 


The new powerful film by William Lewis (Washington You're Fired & Life on The Edge of a Bubble) and Gary Franchi (Republic Magazine and Restore the Republic!) that Glenn Beck is afraid you will see. CAMP FEMA exposes the background legislation already in place for civilian internment camps in the US. Learn what is already on the books and from first hand sources of our countries history of imprisoning it's own citizens. CAMP FEMA features interviews from ALEX JONES, CATHERINE BLEISH, MICHAEL BADNARIK, & CHUCK BALDWIN This film is available at infowars.com and is bundled with NEW WORLD ORDER from IFC that features ALEX JONES. GET YOUR COPY TODAY.

Order Now!
Sunday
Aug302009

U.S. fears clock ticking on Afghanistan

LA Times

The Obama administration is racing to demonstrate visible headway in the faltering war in Afghanistan, convinced it has only until next summer to slow a hemorrhage in U.S. support and win more time for the military and diplomatic strategy it hopes can rescue the 8-year-old effort.

But the challenge in Afghanistan is becoming more difficult in the face of gains by the Taliban, rising U.S. casualties, a weak Afghan government widely viewed as corrupt, and a sense among U.S. commanders that they must start the military effort largely from scratch nearly eight years after it began.

A turnaround is crucial because military strategists believe they will not be able to get the additional troops they feel they need in coming months if they fail to show that their new approach is working, U.S. officials and advisors say.

"Over the next 12 to 15 months, among the things you absolutely, positively have to do is persuade a skeptical American public that this can work, that you have a plan and a strategy that is feasible," said Stephen Biddle, a military expert who advises the U.S.-led command in Afghanistan.

A similarly urgent view was voiced by military and diplomatic officials who described the administration's goals and self-imposed deadline during recent interviews in Afghanistan and Washington. Most spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to comment publicly.

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Sunday
Aug302009

Israel has Iran in its sights

LA Times

Unless Tehran responds to by late September to international proposals on its nuclear program, history strongly suggests the Israelis will act alone.

Iran has until late September to respond to the latest international proposal aimed at stopping the Islamic Republic from developing a nuclear weapon. Under the proposal, Iran would suspend its uranium enrichment program in exchange for a U.N. Security Council commitment to forgo a fourth round of economic and diplomatic sanctions.


But if diplomacy fails, the world should be prepared for an Israeli attack on Iran's suspected nuclear weapons facilities. As Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently acknowledged: "The window between a strike on Iran and their getting nuclear weapons is a pretty narrow window."

If Israel attempts such a high-risk and destabilizing strike against Iran, President Obama will probably learn of the operation from CNN rather than the CIA. History shows that although Washington seeks influence over Israel's military operations, Israel would rather explain later than ask for approval in advance of launching preventive or preemptive attacks. Those hoping that the Obama administration will be able to pressure Israel to stand down from attacking Iran as diplomatic efforts drag on are mistaken.

Click to read more...
Sunday
Aug302009

Closing In on the Torturers

By Ray McGovern

Do you think the wardens will let George Tenet wear his Presidential Medal of Freedom over the orange coverall?

Perhaps he and Donald Rumsfeld will end up doing time together in one of the prisons also slated to host what Rumsfeld called "the worst of the worst" from Guantanamo.

That would be poetic justice of a most ironic kind.  And if the two former leaders do end up in prison they can count themselves fortunate for having dodged execution for their roles in a slew of capital offenses.

You see, punishments for violations of the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. 2441), applicable in their case, include the death penalty-often the sentence of choice if detainees die in their custody.  And countless have.

Before you question my sanity, please know that I just completed the arduous task of reading the aging but devastating CIA Inspector General's report on torture.

Sickening

You can be forgiven for holding your nose while paging through the redacted version of the "CIA Inspector General's Special Review of Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities (September 2001 - October 2003)."  Although heavily sanitized, it is still nauseating.

Click to read more...

Saturday
Aug292009

9/11 was a failure for the New World Order

NATIONAL SECURITY ALERT - SENSITIVE INFORMATION from Citizen Investigation Team on Vimeo.

By Alicia Hope

9/11 was a failure. No one's buying their lies, anymore! People, all over the world, know it was an inside job. 9/11 woke up a lot of people that were asleep at the wheel. The evidence is now overwhelming (visit www.ae911truth.org). If we shirk our responsibilities (stopping these madmen), we invite challenges to our fundamental principals.

Click to read more ...

Saturday
Aug292009

Wake Up, America: Forced vaccinations, quarantine camps, health care interrogations and mandatory "decontaminations" 

(NaturalNews) The United States of America is devolving into medical fascism and Massachusetts is leading the way with the passage of a new bill, the "Pandemic Response Bill" 2028, reportedly just passed by the MA state Senate and now awaiting approval in the House. This bill suspends virtually all Constitutional rights of Massachusetts citizens and forces anyone "suspected" of being infected to submit to interrogations, "decontaminations" and vaccines.

It's also sets fines up to $1,000 per day for anyone who refuses to submit to quarantines, vaccinations, decontamination efforts or to follow any other verbal order by virtually any state-licensed law enforcement or medical personnel. You can read the text yourself here: http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/sen...

Here's some of the language contained in the bill:

(Violation of 4th Amendment: Illegal search and seizure)

During either type of declared emergency, a local public health authority... may exercise authority... to require the owner or occupier of premises to permit entry into and investigation of the premises; to close, direct, and compel the evacuation of, or to decontaminate or cause to be
decontaminated any building or facility; to destroy any material; to restrict or prohibit assemblages of persons;


Click to read more...

Friday
Aug282009

Fed urges secrecy on banks in bailout programs

(Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve asked a federal judge not to enforce her order that it reveal the names of the banks that have participated in its emergency lending programs and the sums they received, saying such disclosure would threaten the companies and the economy.

The central bank filed its request on Wednesday, two days after Chief Judge Loretta Preska of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled in favor of Bloomberg News, which had sought information under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

Preska said the Fed failed to show that revealing the names would stigmatize the banks and result in "imminent competitive harm." The Fed asked the judge not to require disclosure while it readies an appeal.

"Immediate release of these documents will cause irreparable harm to these institutions and to the board's ability to effectively manage the current, and any future, financial crisis," the central bank argued.

It added that the public interest favors a delay, citing a potential for "significant harms that could befall not only private companies, but the economy as a whole" if the information were disclosed.

Underlying this case and a similar one involving News Corp's (NWSA.O) Fox News Network LLC is a question of how much the public has a right to know about how the government is bailing out a financial system in a crisis.

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Friday
Aug282009

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

"I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness," said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. "It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill."

Representatives of other large Internet and telecommunications companies expressed concerns about the bill in a teleconference with Rockefeller's aides this week, but were not immediately available for interviews on Thursday.

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Friday
Aug282009

1/3 of nurses will refuse to have the swine flu jab

Up to a third of nurses will say no to the swine flu jab because of concerns over its safety, a poll has found.

NHS workers are first in line for the vaccine, but a survey of 1,500 nurses found many will reject it.

Last night a Government scientist condemned the results saying nurses who do not have the jab are putting patients at risk.

Nevertheless the poll, by Nursing Times magazine, will raise questions over the Government's planned mass vaccination programme.

Of 1,500 readers, 30 per cent would not say yes to the vaccine, while 33 per cent said maybe. Just 37 per cent said they would definitely have the jab.

Of those who said they would refuse the jab, 60 per cent said their main reason was concern about the safety of the vaccine.

A further 31 per cent said they did not consider the risks to their health from swine flu to be great enough, while 9 per cent thought they would not be able to take time off work to get immunised.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1207270/A-nurses-refuse-swine-flu-jab.html#ixzz0PUAtGFW0

 

Friday
Aug282009

Military Prepares Profiles on Reporters Visiting War Zones

The U.S. military in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere regularly assesses the content and tone of the work of individual reporters to prepare for trips and interviews by those reporters, according to defense and military officials.

But the officials denied that the analysis has been used to exclude journalists from embedding with U.S. military units in combat zones or to bar them from interviewing military personnel.

A controversy has arisen in recent days over media work performed for the U.S. military command in Afghanistan by the Rendon Group, a contractor that classifies the content of stories by reporters as positive, negative or neutral in relation to military objectives.

Rendon has disputed reports that its media analysis, under a 2009 contract to support the public affairs office of the U.S. command in Afghanistan, is based on ranking reporters or aimed at manipulating their coverage. Rendon's role in compiling background profiles on reporters for the military was first revealed this week in articles by the Stars and Stripes newspaper, which said the profiles were being used to screen reporters.

In a statement, Rendon said its analysis "is not provided as the basis for accepting or rejecting a specific journalist's inquiries" and is not developed by "ranking reporters."

The company has been investigated by the Defense Department after some members of Congress said it was hired to create an information campaign to sway the public to support the Iraq war, but the investigation did not support the allegations. Rendon was also involved in an effort to have Iraqi publications print articles written by military personnel.

Click to read more...

Friday
Aug282009

Bush's Search Policy For Travelers Is Kept

The Obama administration will largely preserve Bush-era procedures allowing the government to search -- without suspicion of wrongdoing -- the contents of a traveler's laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device, although officials said new policies would expand oversight of such inspections.

The policy, disclosed Thursday in a pair of Department of Homeland Security directives, describes more fully than did the Bush administration the procedures by which travelers' laptops, iPods, cameras and other digital devices can be searched and seized when they cross a U.S. border. And it sets time limits for completing searches.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano yesterday framed the new policy as an enhancement of oversight. "Keeping Americans safe in an increasingly digital world depends on our ability to lawfully screen materials entering the United States," she said in a statement.

But representatives of civil liberties and travelers groups say they see little substantive difference between the Bush-era policy, which prompted controversy, and this one.

"It's a disappointing ratification of the suspicionless search policy put in place by the Bush administration," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It provides a lot of procedural safeguards, but it doesn't deal with the fundamental problem, which is that under the policy, government officials are free to search people's laptops and cellphones for any reason whatsoever."

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